Batman lured his enemy into a sealed room, then used a dark energy bomb to defeat him. He immediately rushed back toward the control room, aiming to take over the Kryptonian ship.
Flash, meanwhile, wore down his pursuers by trading shots, eventually knocking them unconscious.
Wonder Woman smashed her bracers together, unleashing waves of magic that left the Kryptonians helpless. As expected, magic was Kryptonians' greatest weakness.
The three had taken care of their enemies, and the others had already been knocked out by Kid. But this wasn't over yet.
When they regrouped, Batman said, "The remaining Kryptonians must have gone to guard the falling gravity converters. If that's the case, Superman might not be able to stop the machines."
Batman needed to locate the converters' landing sites. "One's in Cape Town, the other in South Africa. The converters will change Earth's magnetic field, altering gravity and destroying every city on the planet."
"Superman will stop them… right?" Flash asked, worried about his friends back in Central City.
Batman didn't answer. He kept searching. Sure enough, the other Kryptonians had gone to protect the converters. And Superman was probably still locked in combat with General Zod.
"I'll find a way to activate this ship's weapons. Then we can fire from space and destroy the converters. Just buy me some time."
But Batman quickly discovered the ship's power transmission system was damaged—wrecked during Liu A'dou's earlier fight with the old man.
"Flash, Wonder Woman, I need your help," Batman called. He needed them to find spare parts to repair the power transmission.
Meanwhile, on Kid's battlefield, he realized they couldn't keep fighting inside Earth's atmosphere. The temperature, pleasant at first, was rising dangerously fast. If the battle continued here, it could cause a permanent greenhouse effect, drastically heating the entire planet. Looking down, he saw people sweating buckets, plants wilting, rivers running low—temperatures were already at critical levels.
So Kid grabbed the Kryptonian elder's thick waist and rocketed back into space. At the same time, Ripple energy surged endlessly from Kid's body into his enemy.
The Kryptonian elder felt this strange power pouring into him. At first he thought it was just his imagination, but once they reached space, the force grew stronger and stronger. He had no idea what Kid was planning.
Kid was using Ripple to accelerate the elder's death, releasing every bit of his microcosmos' expanding force into the old Kryptonian. By the time the elder realized something was wrong, it was too late.
His skin began to shatter more and more, golden light bursting out uncontrollably. He tried to stop it, but the power had already exceeded his ability to contain it. He knew the Earthling was trying to kill him, but there was nothing he could do. He was about to explode.
'You want me dead?' The elder's eyes went cold. He grabbed Kid back in a death grip, determined to take him down too.
Light, blinding light, hotter than the sun's surface, erupted everywhere. Kid couldn't break free. The elder's will was ironclad—he was dead set on dragging Kid to the grave with him.
Liu A'dou felt his microcosmos start to shake uncontrollably. Scorch marks spread across his cloak, creeping from his sleeves to his pant legs. There was no oxygen or flame, just the heat carbonizing everything it touched.
The old man's determination stunned Kid. He understood why the Kryptonian refugees wanted to rebuild their world. But they refused to learn from Krypton's collapse, clinging to their belief in Krypton's superiority while ignoring the flaws in their genetic caste system. They hadn't changed or tried to fix their mistakes. That meant Earth could never be allowed to become a second Krypton. Kid wouldn't let it happen. He burned his microcosmos even hotter.
The old man felt all the power in his body trapped by an invisible shield, unable to escape. If this kept up, his self-destruction wouldn't kill the Earthling.
This was the Force—one of the fundamental fields of the universe, the same kind of force that holds stars together. Through his ultimate microcosmos, Liu A'dou now controlled Ripple and the Force on a cosmic scale. Ripple expanded the universe, while the Force compressed stars, forming galaxies—just like the real universe. As master of his ultimate microcosmos, Liu A'dou could mimic universal phenomena: use the Force to suppress a sun, use Ripple to split atoms, or even create black holes or wormholes, though he wasn't capable of those last two yet.
Right now, Liu A'dou was compressing his exploding enemy into a star.
The elder's body grew smaller and smaller. His limbs curled against his chest, his neck shrank. Liu A'dou carefully controlled the Force, slowly squeezing tighter.
The old man tried to struggle, but he'd lost all control of his power long ago. He couldn't fight the universe's fundamental laws. He couldn't move. All he could do was let himself be crushed.
The Force's barrier shrank further and further until it was the size of a ping-pong ball. Enclosed by the Force, the sphere would devour surrounding matter and start burning if the Force was released, growing larger and eventually becoming a new star. It might take ages, but stars didn't care about time.
At last, it was over. But Kid was in terrible shape. His white uniform was gone, his cape burned away, his top hat ripped to reveal his hair. His suit was full of blackened holes like he'd just walked out of a fire. This was a hard-won victory—if he hadn't mastered the ultimate microcosmos, he would've died. Drugged Kryptonians were nothing to mess with, especially with eyes that could see through all things. If Liu A'dou hadn't been a hardened transmigrator, he wouldn't have dared fight at all.
But he couldn't just leave this glowing sphere behind. He packed it away carefully.
Meanwhile on Earth, Superman was still fighting General Zod, and the gravity converters were ready to activate at any moment.
Kid returned to the ship and got a briefing from Batman. The situation was grim, but people on Earth knew the Justice League was fighting.
With all the chaos, it was impossible for anyone to miss what was happening.
"We need energy. The Kryptonian ship doesn't have enough power to fire through the atmosphere and destroy the fortified converters," Batman said. He had everything aimed and ready, but without power, it was useless. The patched-together ship barely had any energy left. That explained why Zod and his forces were stuck trying to conquer Earth—they had no fuel to flee to another world. Their desperation was clear, but that didn't excuse their actions.
"If it's energy you need, how about this?" Kid offered, holding out the compressed light sphere.
Batman nodded. "The ship has an energy converter. We can use it." In such a short time, Batman had already learned the Kryptonian ship inside out.
That settled it. Flash ran off, and within moments, he'd installed the sphere.
The energy readings spiked instantly. Everyone watched Batman's hands nervously—if this shot failed, they'd have no choice but to keep fighting.
"This is it. Fire!"
Rumble—bang!
The ship shook violently, alarms blared. Batman's eyes widened. "Someone's overloading the ship! It's leaving Earth's orbit, accelerating out of the solar system."
"What?!" If they flew away, they'd have no way to return to Earth. How could this happen?
"You foolish Earthlings. You'll never set foot on your planet again." They turned around and saw the Kryptonian elder—dead, yet somehow speaking. He'd done what Superman's father once did, uploading his consciousness into the ship's computer. He'd sabotaged the systems, sending the ship speeding into deep space, hoping to kill the entire Justice League by stranding them forever.