American comics: You're asked to fish, but you catch a Superman template?

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Each sound has a different frequency, as if they were individually labeled. The human ear might not be able to distinguish them, but Xu Fu could, and he was certain that this sound was unique, special among the tens of thousands of sound waves on this great blue planet.

Xu Fu's gaze was naturally drawn to it. The sound came from Gotham City, a creepy steel mill hidden in dark, jagged, gargoyle-like buildings.

After a second of thought, Xu Fu's body roared and rushed in that direction. Flames generated by friction with the atmosphere enveloped his body, and he was like a meteorite hidden in the flames, bursting through the atmosphere with a "whoosh".

Upon entering downtown Gotham City, Xu Fu braked sharply, landing on the factory's open ground with a soft rustling sound. The factory had clearly been abandoned for a long time; the surroundings were pitch black, appearing exceptionally desolate even in a city like Gotham. Xu Fu listened intently, but his superhuman hearing could not detect any signs of life in the quiet room; he could only hear his own long, powerful breathing.

The factory's main gate bears the name "Wayne Technology," but some of the lettering has peeled off, indicating it's quite old.

Xu Fu tried to use his X-ray to see through it, but strangely, his vision was blocked by the lead structure. This was not surprising, since the words "Wayne Technology" were engraved on the door. It would have been strange if it wasn't filled with lead.

But observation under the microscope revealed something unexpected. A peculiar residual energy was dissipating in the air, and atoms in space were recovering from chaotic turbulence, like the surface of the sea after a torrential downpour.

Xu Fu recalled a similar hesitation. Just a week ago, outside the opera house, when the man in black used spatial jump to disappear, he seemed to have left a similar reaction.

Could it be that the guy deliberately left this reaction so that he could find this place? Or is this just another trap set by a cunning fox?

What awaits you inside?

It's ok.

Xu Fu pushed open the heavy, rusty iron door and stepped into the darkness of the steel workshop. With a sharp, low clang, the iron door, which had been almost stuck, reluctantly opened. Xu Fu went inside, cautiously looking around to make sure there might be traps waiting for him on either side.

Xu Fu was certain that he did not have any fatal flaws, but since his opponent knew the weaknesses of Shockwave, Green Lantern and Flash so well, he was sure that he knew his own weaknesses as well, so it was always a good idea to be as careful as possible.

The lead structure might obscure his vision, but the darkness did not. Xu Fu could clearly see that the long-abandoned steel workshop was filled with dust, a thick layer of cobwebs hung from the overhead beams, and the air was thick with the smell of mildew.

The faint humming sound emitted by the computer's central processing unit penetrated the ground and reached Xu Fu's ears, seemingly coming from underground.

With his feet together, Xu Fu spun rapidly in place, transforming into a whirlwind of red and blue light. Diffused dust particles were drawn in by the rapidly changing air pressure, and a thin layer of smoke swirled around him with the airflow, like a flower petal quietly blooming in the darkness.

The reinforced concrete floor was penetrated, and Xu Fu entered the space below without any hindrance. The room was small, less than thirty square meters, with three computer screens sitting against one wall, pale blue fluorescent lights illuminating the entire room, and their shared computer cases emitting a quiet hum.

Xu Fu looked around to make sure there were no other traps before approaching the three screens. Each screen had three to five different black windows, with large amounts of code flashing like a river, seemingly executing some extremely complex instructions.

Just as Xu Fu was about to examine the details, a strange creaking sound came from behind him.

He cautiously turned around and followed the sound to the opening he had made in the ceiling. Very faint footsteps approached in that direction, their breathing rhythmic, so suppressed that even he could barely hear it. The heartbeat was extremely weak, its frequency difficult to pinpoint; Xu Fu guessed it was the effect of some kind of shielding device.

Could it be that person? After all this, will they finally meet face to face?

Xu Fu held his breath and clenched his fists.

Proactive? Or...?

But he didn't need to think about it anymore, because the other person had already jumped down from the cave entrance. A purplish-black cloak billowed in the air. The huntress, supporting herself with one hand on the ground, half-squatted and looked up at Xu Fu, who was staring at her in surprise, coldly saying, "What are you looking at? It's me."

Her equipment also seemed to detect the energy fluctuations here, which makes sense: Gotham should have been her territory.

“Ah,...of course.” Xu Fu looked away. “You’re quite mysterious. I couldn’t identify you by listening to your pulse and breathing. If I hadn’t been paying special attention, I probably wouldn’t have noticed you approaching at all…Any new equipment?”

“I recently installed a physiological damping device on my uniform. It can shield my breathing and heartbeat to some extent, which is more conducive to covert operations.” Helena walked past him and stopped in front of the three screens.

So you feel more like a female vampire.

Subconsciously, he stole a glance at Helena's face. But even if Helena was a vampire, she must be as beautiful and noble as the Countess...

Sigh! His mind started wandering again! He quickly shook his head, trying to banish the thought.

While he was lost in thought, Helena leaned over and began studying the three screens. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, and countless lines of code and symbols that she couldn't understand flashed across the screen. He suddenly realized he should read some books about hacking in his spare time so he wouldn't be neglected.

But he didn't need to read the code to realize things were bad. As the code scrolled across the screen, Helena's face darkened, as if horror was written all over her eyes.

"How is it?" Xu Fu asked.

“This guy… he hacked into our firewall.” Helena gritted her teeth.

"us?"

"Wayne Technologies." Another interface appeared on the screen: dense text surrounded a perspective view, with Dee's space station slowly rotating in the center.

"what's up?"

"The Wayne Enterprises Space Development Division's space station board thought it was just a routine space exploration project, but it's actually directly connected to our Alliance headquarters' servers, helping us receive and aggregate information about all emergencies on Earth. But now... it's landed on our heads."

Chapter 1801 Space Station

At this very moment, on the Earth's surface.

From a distance, it looked like a giant, burning fireball. Numerous metal fragments were engulfed by the flames, sweeping in a spherical shape towards the surface of the azure planet. High-temperature flames licked at the outer shell of the space alloy, the dented shell emitting a scorching red glow, as if it were gradually melting. The molten metal emboldened the burning demons; they became increasingly rampant, their coiled claws reaching deeper and deeper.

A few minutes ago, inside this fireball was an object belonging to the Wayne Corporation—a space station designed to support the new Justice League. It burned silently and violently in the vastness of space, the Wayne Corporation's logo and lettering consumed by the flames and vanished.

The small figure flew towards Earth, meeting the fireball head-on as it touched the atmosphere with magnificent flames. Xu Fu pressed his hand against the bottom of the space station; the heavy metal hull had long been deformed by the scorching heat. He felt his palm pressed tightly against a pool of molten iron, hot and sticky.

Under his influence, the space station began to slow down, but its decay only intensified. Every second, countless parts peeled off the metal shell, turning into sparks under atmospheric friction and being left far behind. As hot air tore through layers of steel plates, scraping off the hull with sharp whooshing sounds and turning to ashes in the flames, the entire space station looked like a decaying old man.

If it continues to fall in this direction, the space station will undoubtedly land in the center of Gotham City. According to Xu Fu's calculations, its speed is close to 100 miles per second. At that altitude and speed, if it lands in Gotham City, Gotham City will become... then, Gotham City will cease to exist altogether.

However, if you can deflect its falling direction by a few degrees, its trajectory can be slowed, allowing it to pass through densely populated areas and crash into the wilderness or the ocean.

This was exactly what Xu Fu was going to do. His left hand supported the surface of the space station, and his right hand slapped inward. The Iron Hulk slowly spun as it plummeted at high speed, deviating inch by inch from its original trajectory.

"Alright, let's begin." Xu Fu did some calculations. If it flew in that direction, it would probably land in an uninhabited mountain range. It might flatten one or two small hills upon landing, but I believe no one would mind.

He was about to turn and run when he heard Helena's voice coming through his earpiece: "New Superman? Can you hear me?"

Her voice was filled with concern; she believed this must be very important. Xu Fu replied, "Did you hear something wrong?"

"No matter what you do, you absolutely, positively cannot let that thing crash!" Helena retorted. "The space station you have is nuclear-powered. I just discovered that the guy who hacked into the system remotely removed all the cadmium rods from the nuclear power module, so the neutrons in the reactor can't be absorbed... In short, whatever you do, don't let the reactor overheat!"

"...Wait a moment

Xu Fu heard the yellow metal module of the burned-out rear section of the space station being torn from its supports, tumbling in the flames and rising upwards in the raging air currents. It rolled rapidly in the turbulent air currents, but thanks to his excellent eyesight, Xu Fu could still make out the black and yellow markings on the module—the symbol of nuclear power.

"The reactor you're talking about... looks like it just flew out..."

The situation was extremely critical. If luck truly had a life of its own, then it certainly wouldn't be on Xu Fu's side today.

In a split second, Xu Fu discarded the crashing space station and, like a spinning bullet, pierced through the burning outer shell, quickly chasing after it and grabbing the nuclear reactor that was soaring high into the air. He grabbed the edge of the reactor with one hand, then turned back and grabbed a protrusion on the space station's outer shell, lifting it up.

He carefully controlled the force to slow the space station down, because too much force could cause the already exhausted projectiles to detach, in which case he would have to find a new reference point.

At an altitude of 4,000 meters, the space station's speed had stabilized under Xu Fu's control, and a safe landing at this speed should not be a problem. However, the reactor malfunctioned again. Before it could cool down after re-entering the atmosphere, the internal reaction became increasingly violent, and the neutron density had risen to its limit.

Without much experience, Xu Fu realized that this thing was about to explode. Although the reactor was not designed as a nuclear bomb, if it did explode, its power was conservatively estimated to be equivalent to one million tons of explosives.

Think fast. Right now, you're the only person in the world with time to stop the reactor from turning into a burning mushroom cloud!

Xu Fu used his X-ray imaging technique to quickly study the internal structure of the nuclear reactor compartment and discovered that the metal compartment was not just a nuclear reactor. The reactor was connected to a series of circuits that led to the electrically powered propulsion system. If he managed to cut the circuits with X-rays, the reactor would stop working.

Of course, if Superman were here, all of this would be much easier, but Xu Fu wasn't good at controlling his superpowers, and this was his first time trying something like this. He stared at the still-functioning circuit through the layers of metal and circuit boards for a while, but it remained motionless. The current flowed merrily through the circuit like a thin, slicing stream, and Xu Fu heard a distinct sound.

My goodness, he's so fast! Maybe he's just not strong enough, in that case...

A pale blue light flickered in his pupils, and a beam of light tuned to gamma rays shot from his eyes like a precise scalpel, relentlessly slicing through layers of barriers and severing the device's circuitry. The engine idled a few times before stopping, the lights in the nuclear power plant dimmed, the cadmium rods were automatically inserted back into the reactor, and the awakened monster fell back into slumber.

So close... but at least he'd done it, and Xu Fu felt he deserved encouragement. He'd never tried this before, but it was common for Kryptonians to develop more abilities under the yellow sun, and there would certainly be more in the future.

The bat's black wings swept across the Gotham night sky without a sound; its body almost blended into the deep darkness, silent and unnoticed, as if it didn't exist.

Helena Wayne sat in the cockpit of the Batplane, flying over the dark Gotham City, heading straight for the city center.

The signal source beneath the steel mill was merely a decoy; if the other side wanted them to discover the crashed satellite for only one reason. Moreover, in Helena's view, the other side had even deliberately given enough time for the new Superman to seize it.

But the code on the screen still revealed some information. The steel mill was merely a data relay station, not the source of the intrusion. Helena traced the intrusion's path, and the IP addresses pointed her to the enemy's most likely hiding place...

Wayne's house

The black skyscrapers pointed straight to the sky, their tops flashing red lights intermittently. Around the skyscrapers, brightly lit offices behind glass windows stood guard, while the dripping streams around them seemed like hellish watchdogs, baring their teeth and showing no mercy to any visitor.

Helena heard that the family ancestor who built Wayne Manor was a rather superstitious person.

He remembered the family customs, especially those concerning omens. Many people considered "one" an unlucky number, and there was even a saying that if thirteen people sat at the table, someone would die at midnight.

Therefore, when building the building, the ancestor simply made a stroke with his hand to remove the number "thirteen". He left the space between the twelfth and fourteenth floors and carved the unlucky number "1" there. After the building was completed, this floor was completely sealed off, becoming an isolated space that no one could enter.

If someone wanted to establish a base in Wayne's building, which has the defenses of a military fortress with guards patrolling all passages every half hour, then this isolated location would be an excellent (and not so good) starting point.

"Activate the voice recognition system, enter code b-57, temporarily disarm the security measures on the 14th floor of the building." Just as Helena spoke, the fighter jet tilted past the edge of the building, the cockpit opened, and the gusts of wind generated by the engine violently blew her hair and cloak.

"Verification confirmed, command valid, welcome back, Ms. Wayne," an electronic female voice came from the fighter jet's embedded computer. "Security system has been shut down and will automatically restart in three minutes."

Helena placed her hand on the fuselage of the fighter jet, leaped, and landed on the 14th-floor windowsill. She pushed open the window leading to the storage room on the 14th floor, took out a laser emitter, used the high-temperature laser to draw a circular crack in the floor, and then leaped down the crack.

There was no musty smell, the kind one would expect from a room that had been sealed off for years; the air was just slightly stuffy. Helena landed crouching down and jumped into a space bathed in blue light.

The person they had been searching for for so many days stood before her, unarmed, dressed only in what Helena considered a rather cheap suit, looking at her without a trace of surprise in his features.

"Alright, the game of hide-and-seek is over." The man spread his hands. "You found me." (Yu)

Chapter 1802 Don’t Worry Too Much

Calm down, Helena, calm down... don't worry too much.

The man she had searched for a week without a trace, the man on the invisible chessboard who had lost everything, stood right before her. She repeated these instructions to herself over and over in her mind; only in this way could she remain calm when analyzing the situation and contemplating the problem.

From the moment Helena entered, the enemy barely reacted; clearly, she had anticipated her hiding place being exposed. Helena cautiously observed her opponent—one of the key lessons her father had taught her: observe and study your opponent as carefully as possible before making a move. Everyone bears countless subtle traces, like a business card, faithfully reflecting the owner's personal information. These subtle traces often appear from time to time, some of which often play a crucial role in the ensuing battle.

The man appeared to be in his forties, with black hair and eyes, and regular, handsome features. His chin was clean-shaven, and dressed in a suit, he stood straight and strong. He spoke without exaggeration, but Helena had no doubt about the strength he possessed.

That's all she noticed, and that's what made Elena nervous.

This person was utterly unremarkable; as she looked around, she felt her interlocutor was a complete mystery from head to toe. This was rare, because Helena had been trained by the world's best detective, 093, to be able to accurately describe almost anyone's profession, personality, and habits within seconds of meeting them, sometimes even more, like the legendary Sherlock Holmes. But this person—Helena felt he was shrouded in mystery; every detail about him was ambiguous, leaving her unable to draw any conclusions.