Thea didn't fully understand the principle behind creating fire from water—she could only explain it using the concept of yin-yang transformation from that indescribable country.
Poseidon didn't like flames, even if they were born in the ocean.
But Thea treasured what she'd obtained. Transformation from one extreme to another—this had serious research value.
The pale blue flames now dancing through the air were her initial research results. Originally, her silver fire could only burn objects with energy, but this new fire could burn anything. The moisture within a target's body would even intensify the flames.
Between the scattered firelight and countless whip strikes, the wind pressure caused by Zoom's tremendous momentum suddenly shifted. The air became unbearably hot and dry. Papers on desks began to crackle and emit thin wisps of smoke.
Zoom looked at the flames filling his vision. The others in the room were still frozen in place, their faces flushed red in the firelight. His instincts told him not to take this head-on. Even within the time-stop spell's range, he could maintain relatively high speed.
With his agile movements and still-swift velocity, he was confident he could take down Thea, then harvest that speedster from another timeline.
But he underestimated Thea—or rather, he trusted his eyes too much.
Deception was a characteristic of Thea's divine power that she'd discovered early on. She'd mixed quite a few illusions among the real flames in the air. Even Apollo had been fooled that day, let alone Zoom, who was essentially still mortal.
After running into three fire clouds in succession, Zoom finally realized something was wrong. The flames' initial temperature wasn't high, but they showed a tendency to burn hotter and hotter.
Neither swatting nor wind pressure had any effect on the flames. Instead, with his movements, the flames seemed to expand.
What the hell! While Zoom was stunned, Thea's whip tip had already reached his eyes.
This guy's combat experience was ten times richer than Barry's. He immediately turned and ran, covering over ten miles (16 km) in one breath.
Thea's spell coverage wasn't that extensive. Zoom quickly discovered he'd recovered his original super-speed.
Unfortunately, the flames on his body showed no signs of extinguishing. Zoom's eyes flickered as his body vibrated violently. A blue light flashed—running at high speed, he phased directly through the thick walls.
"Impressive!" Thea had to admire how this guy had taken the already-broken Speed Force and made it even more unstable!
Using his own vibration characteristics to achieve atomic-level resonance with the wall, then passing through it.
Her flames obviously couldn't vibrate along with him, so he'd left them on the wall. The principle wasn't difficult—it just required finding the wall's vibration frequency and matching his own resonance to it, which needed considerable experimental time.
Thea dispelled the time-stop and directly teleported everyone out of the basement. The cramped indoor environment limited him, but it also limited her.
"Caitlin!" she called. The now-experienced Killer Frost immediately activated her ultimate ability around the group. Within a hundred-meter (330-foot) radius, all heat was absorbed and the temperature plummeted. This move was both offensive and defensive—it had worked against Reverse-Flash that day, and today it would work equally well against Zoom.
The moment Caitlin unleashed her ultimate, Zoom had already run from miles away to stand right in front of them.
As soon as he entered the hundred-meter range, the heat in Zoom's body began draining rapidly, slowing his speed considerably. Unwilling to give up, he pulled back and charged from another angle.
The result was frustrating. Caitlin's technique was rather clumsy, but he really had no good way to break it. The freezing effect was too deadly for the Speed Force. Even with his world-class speed, he couldn't break through for the moment.
"Flash! Your speed is mine!" After several probing attempts, Zoom knew today would likely end in failure. Still sharp-tongued despite his physical struggles, he tried some trash talk.
Barry was about to respond when Thea stopped him. "Physics? Magic isn't resisted like that."
Five fingers spread, pointing remotely at Zoom. Thea softly uttered a syllable: "Implosion!"
So what if Zoom shook off her flames? Magic was controlled by mental power and had directionality. Temporarily changing atomic structure could shake off magic, but unless he maintained wall-vibration frequency forever, once he returned to normal, the magic would cling to him like a leech.
Some wizards' curses could persist through bloodlines for thousands of years. Thea's hasty spellcasting didn't need that kind of longevity, but lasting a few dozen minutes was no problem.
If Zoom ran off in a flash beyond her mental perception, there'd be nothing she could do. But this bastard stopped to try trash talk—how could she let him show off and escape?
Through her mental connection, she directly converted the water in Zoom's body that she'd imbued with her magic. A small cluster of new fire was born inside his body, then Thea detonated it.
Speedsters could be injured too. His internal organs weren't much more durable than an ordinary person's.
Sensing the abnormality in his chest and lungs, Zoom was shocked. No time to think—he turned and ran.
In less than one-thousandth of a second, an explosion occurred inside his body. Though he'd already run over ten miles (16 km), his liver, kidneys, and entire abdomen were still blown open into a bloody cavity.
The explosion came too suddenly, too bizarrely. Zoom had no mental preparation and suffered massive blood loss.
He could no longer maintain high speed. Stumbling and falling to his knees on the roadside, he coughed up blood in great mouthfuls. His chest and abdomen were a bloody mess. His special friction-resistant suit had been blown open, blood flowing freely from the wound and completely staining the ground red.
"Kill him quickly! He's Steppenwolf's accomplice!" Dr. Harrison Wells roared.
While Barry was still hesitating whether to kill, Thea nimbly flash-stepped forward. Strike while he's down—keeping this guy alive would definitely be a disaster.
As she charged, the soft whip in her hand didn't stop either. Massive flames attached to the whip tip—if it wrapped around Zoom, he'd definitely be burned to ash.
"Crack!" The distance between them closed rapidly. Thea's speed truly couldn't compare to Zoom's, but with one side stationary and one advancing, it took less than a tenth of a second.
Her arm swept up, the soft whip coiling toward the defenseless Zoom.
Her movement was lightning-fast to ordinary eyes, but very slow in Zoom's perception. He knew he had to dodge, but unfortunately the injury was too severe. Even with accelerated cell healing, this level of injury would take most of a day to recover.
Watching helplessly as the flame-wreathed whip traced a beautiful arc through the air toward his neck, his limbs were powerless. He barely managed to retreat half a step.
At the critical moment—"Bang!" An explosion sounded. A portal opened to his left, and three people jumped out. The white-haired woman leading them raised her hand without thinking and unleashed a fierce ice blast.
The whip tip was blocked for a moment. Its forward momentum lost and follow-up not yet generated, Thea could only flick her wrist and retract the whip. The other two quickly pulled Zoom back.