"What?"
In an instant, Darkseid felt a flicker of threat. This was incredibly unusual for him, almost unbelievable. No one knew better than he the current state of Lothar; after all, he had orchestrated everything from behind the Apokoliptian portal.
Lothar's body should have been completely spent by now. So why could he still unleash such power? Darkseid narrowed his eyes, benefiting from his height advantage, and scrutinized Lothar's waist-length hair from above.
"No!"
"Your Highness!"
"You'll die!"
Woz, the robotic cat, squirming in the ruins, panicked. On its data panel, Lothar's model had rapidly turned red. This meant Lothar was at risk of exploding at any moment!
"Hear that? You'll die. Your subordinate personally warned you."
"Die?"
"It won't be me who dies. It will only be you."
Lothar grinned, and Darkseid subtly began to gather energy. With a flick of a finger, the battle erupted!
BOOM!!!
Lothar, a walking unstable energy source, completely disregarded his injured body and recklessly embraced Darkseid's waist.
"What?" Darkseid, completely unprepared for this move from Lothar, frowned. Then, he saw the mocking smile on Lothar's lips.
No good!
Darkseid's pupils constricted sharply. The rapidly expanding energy within Lothar's body made him realize what Lothar intended to do.
However...
"Too late, Darkseid."
His long hair billowed, the dazzling golden light reflecting Lothar's blood-stained smile.
"Now, die!!!!"
The energy within Lothar's body instantly surged to its peak!
RUMBLE!!!!
An earth-shattering explosion, a mushroom cloud rising thousands of miles high!
With Darkseid and Lothar at the epicenter, dozens of nearby cities in Gotham that had been untouched were instantly swept into ruins by the unleashed energy!
"No!!! Your Highness!!!!"
"Your Highness!!!!"
Woz, after painstakingly re-collecting and re-inserting its scattered components, had just stood up on its broken limbs when the shockwave of the explosion knocked it to the ground again. It tumbled for a dozen rotations, its freshly installed parts scattering once more, some completely lost in the deafening aftershock.
Whoosh!
Thud!
Barry Allen, the Flash, having finished off the Parademon army, returned to the battlefield carrying a bloodied Mera, only to witness the ground sunken by an unknown number of feet... The next second, he stumbled over Woz's severed arm, falling to the ground with the injured Mera.
"How could this be...?"
Mera struggled to her feet, looking around, but couldn't see the familiar figure.
"Lothar!"
"Lothar!!"
"Lothar!!!"
"Woz! Woz, where's Lothar?!!!" Mera spotted the robotic cat, its gaze blank, not far away. She ran to its side, shaking its broken body repeatedly.
"Woz?"
"Woz!!"
No matter how Mera pushed and prodded, Woz remained blank-eyed, seemingly frozen due to data corruption, not responding for a long time.
"Mera... I think... I know where Lothar is..."
Beside her, Barry Allen's trembling voice made Mera stop her attempts to rouse Woz, who seemed to be in a data-corrupted shutdown. Following the direction he pointed, a tall, imposing figure slowly floated out of the bottomless crater. In his hand, he held a figure with golden, waist-length hair.
Darkseid's appearance seemed somewhat disheveled. His head, his hands, and even his torso, which should have been impervious to damage on this Earth, had sustained varying degrees of injury. In the thick blood, there was Lothar's and his own.
"Lothar..."
Mera tightened her grip on the Golden Trident, and a surging torrent of water condensed into a pillar, instantly erupting from the ground!
Sizzle!
Darkseid raised his head, and Omega Beams blasted from his eyes, directly aimed at Mera's face!
"Danger!"
The Flash's reflexes were instantaneous; he pushed Mera away.
BOOM!!!!
The ground instantly fractured! A bottomless canyon now marked the landscape of Gotham...
"I must admit,"
"I misjudged you."
After using his actions to silence those two pests, Darkseid finally turned his gaze to Lothar, whose throat he held constricted in his hand. If not for his quick reaction at the last moment, Darkseid would likely have returned to his true form by now. The self-destruction of Super Saiyan 3 was something he, in his current state, could not withstand head-on.
"Cough, cough..."
"You... you're afraid..." Lothar's condition was terrible as he coughed up blood, yet a mocking smile, deeply loathed by Darkseid, still clung to his face.
"You have successfully enraged me, outsider."
Darkseid's gaze was utterly cold. Clearly, he had now abandoned any other thoughts he might have had about Lothar.
"Cough, cough..."
Lothar spat out a mouthful of blood, landing on Darkseid's thick arm.
"You... are bleeding..."
"You are afraid."
These intermittent affirmations were met with Darkseid's fatal blow to Lothar! The scorching Omega Beam instantly pierced Lothar's heart!
The mockery on Lothar's face abruptly ceased.
Thud...
Darkseid flung Lothar away like garbage, tossing him at Mera's feet.
"Atlantean, I can offer you a chance to live."
"Kill him."
Darkseid's expression was utterly indifferent.
"Cough, cough, cough!!!"
The virtual reality time ended. Although Lothar, who completed the transition in a thousandth of a second, wasn't completely dead, the Omega Beam had left a fatal wound in his heart.
"Dream on!"
Mera scoffed, thrusting her trident mercilessly!
Thwack!
Darkseid, whose body's protective measures had been shattered by Lothar, neither dodged nor evaded, allowing Mera to plunge the trident into his chest.
Thump!
A force like a meteor impact slammed entirely into Mera. She didn't even have time to pull out the Golden Trident to block.
"You shouldn't have come back."
Darkseid reached out and pressed down on Mera's head. He pulled out the Golden Trident with one hand, leaned down to her ear, and whispered.
Squelch!
The weapon, which should have belonged to the King of the Seas, pierced through Mera's abdomen...
"Ugh..."
Mera's eyes widened, and she weakly fell to her knees.
Lothar, still coughing up blood, stopped squirming. Barry Allen, the Flash, didn't even have a chance to intervene. Both of them watched the figure kneeling helplessly before Darkseid's tall form.
"Me... Mera...?"
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