Chapter 96
Speed Force
Chapter 96 Speed Force
Shen You hovered in mid-air, slowly looking around.
Chaos was his first impression of the space he was in.
A scene of utter chaos, the sky filled with vibrant colors, the disordered landscape distorting reality, and upside-down pavilions standing in the air. Stone statues are misaligned, and buildings and mountains intertwine.
A rusty British Spitfire fighter plane was stuck in the middle of a towering mountain peak, while a dented Tiger tank lay overturned at its foot. Its body was covered in scratches and bullet holes, the origins of which were impossible to ascertain, or how long it had been forgotten in this time and space.
Time and space intertwine here, with chaotic clouds drifting through the colorful sky. Upside-down pavilions float in the air, and stone statues are scattered haphazardly on the ground, their shapes distorted and deformed, as if telling a chaotic history.
The abnormal spatial energy reaction of the time-space bracelet has never been so intense.
Shen You vaguely realized that this was the legendary "Speed Field," the energy source that propels the entire multiverse forward, and the source of the speed of the fastest person in the world.
Machines from the war era, stone statues, mountains, and ancient buildings from an unknown period.
The Speed Force's settings have been rebooted again and again, but this scene quickly reminded Shen You of a description in the Flash magazine that matched the current situation.
The Speed Force is like a giant sphere of energy existing in an independent spacetime. It propels every spacetime within the multiverse forward, but as it moves, its energy rapidly expands and accumulates until it exceeds a critical value and urgently needs to be released.
When energy accumulates excessively, it becomes violent, like a pressure cooker that could explode at any moment. Therefore, the shadow of the Speed Force begins to appear in many different dimensions. Sometimes it manifests as a bolt of lightning, sometimes as a fleeting spatial rift, and sometimes as a spacetime explosion.
Many things in history have mysteriously disappeared because of this. For example, some of the ruins of the Mayan civilization, and the stone statues, airplanes, and tanks that Shen You see before him now, whose origins are unknown. There are also some unfortunate souls from different eras who were inexplicably swept into the space of the Speed Force and are forever trapped here.
Many inexplicable mysteries in history are linked to the Speed Force. These include mysteriously disappeared planes and ships that have never been found, and even people who supposedly disappeared and reappeared decades later without having aged.
Like earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes, the Speed Force goes berserk; the probability of it happening is extremely low, but it is still a type of natural disaster.
The Speed Force is waiting for its decompression valve, namely, The Flash, Barry Allen.
At first, people thought Barry had simply connected to the Speed Force, but it was later discovered that he had actually created it. From the moment he was struck by lightning, the Speed Force was born and began to spread outward from that point in time to all dimensions and all spacetime, both in the past and the future, until it covered the origin and end of time.
At the same time, Barry acts as its pressure relief valve. The Flash's running stabilizes it, preventing the pressure cooker from exploding and the energy field from creating a wormhole that could affect reality.
The light in Shen You's eyes gradually faded. He closed his eyes, trying to sense the unique energy in this space.
Sure enough, he began to feel it.
In this spacetime, an invisible yet ceaselessly flowing energy called the "Speed Force" surges from the past to the future.
He even felt that this entire space-time was alive.
It's as if it has its own consciousness.
Shen You tried to extend his consciousness, attempting to communicate with this space, and even went further, trying to establish a connection.
Then I received feedback.
Ugly rejection.
This result is not surprising.
Those who gained the Speed Force, known as the "Speedsters," may seem to have gained their abilities from accidents, but according to the original work, they were all "chosen by lightning."
Only if the Speed Force allows can they access it, and then gain inexhaustible speed and the ability to traverse spacetime barriers.
This result was not unexpected, but Shen You was not discouraged.
You think you can't do anything if you refuse me?
Although only those who are granted permission can wield the Speed Force, there are quite a few people in the comics who, besides the legitimate speedsters, can use the principles of the Speed Force to achieve super speed.
Batman's armor has the ability to simulate the Speed Force energy to gain super speed. Amozzo, a Justice League villain who can replicate any superpower, can also replicate the Flash's speed. The supervillain Savage developed a drug called "Fast 9" that can give people temporary super speed, and so on.
Light, the driving energy source for the Ultra race, is practically omnipotent. Especially since the Heisei era, while everyone still uses light, each generation of Ultraman has always managed to forge a different path, unlocking various new forms and abilities. These range from small-scale power and speed enhancements, creating clones, teleporting, and purifying psychic energy, to large-scale space creation, time reversal, and even the creation of universes.
It can be said that as long as we scientifically study and find the right way to use it, light can do almost anything.
Therefore, what Shen You needs to do is simply to analyze and understand, to study with a scientific eye, and to use his own light to adapt to the special laws that already exist in the current universe.
He swayed, leaving a blurry afterimage as he suddenly rushed out.
Like a bolt of lightning piercing through space, in a fleeting moment almost negligible, he had already rushed more than ten miles away.
It was indeed very fast!
This move is also a common technique of the Ultra race: Mach Movement.
From the Heisei era street thug Dyna Miracle Type to the free-flowing Gauss in the theatrical version, super-speed skills have appeared more and more frequently with the advancement of special effects technology, until they have become a permanent skill of the race.
This was a skill that Shen You had mastered eight hundred years ago. However, after analyzing how the Speed Force operated, he gained some insight into the unique spacetime laws of the DC Universe and applied this insight to the way his own light energy was driven when he used "Mach Shift".
Sure enough, the speed increased dramatically in an instant.
Moreover, this was merely a superficial understanding he had gained from his first encounter with this unique spacetime law of DC. He could sense that this was just the tip of the iceberg; the Speed Force was something far more immense, containing knowledge far exceeding what was merely on the surface.
Yes, knowledge—that's what Shen You has always valued most. Only knowledge that he has fully learned, mastered, and can use freely is the only thing that truly makes him feel at ease.
The Land of Light already has a precedent of Sai Rabbit unlocking the Radiant Form and gaining the ability to reverse time through a power surge. Shen You believes that if he studies hard, he might also be able to comprehend some kind of "Lightning Radiance" form from the Speed Force and become the next time-manipulating overpowered being in the Land of Light.
In the Ultra Brothers, considering only flight speed, excluding the ability to travel faster than light during interstellar travel, the fastest in actual combat within the atmosphere should be Taro, with a flight speed of Mach 20.
Shen You felt that he was even faster than that now!
He was a recent graduate, a junior scientist, who could fly faster than the bigwigs of the security detail—something unimaginable in the past.
Shen You activated the bracelet's function again and scanned the area. The entire space was permeated with the energy of the Divine Speed Force, but there seemed to be varying degrees of intensity. The bracelet, like a radar, displayed the energy density of the surroundings, and through its display, Shen You quickly noticed that the energy density in a certain direction was increasing.
Shen You flew in that direction for a while, and soon a desolate palace appeared in the chaotic space-time before his eyes.
The grand hall was desolate, its walls a somber gray, weathered and cracked by time. Fragments of murals could be faintly seen in the colonnade, indistinct but vaguely depicting a story of an ancient tribe and lightning.
Energy readings converged at the center of the temple, at a golden stone crackling with lightning.
A mineral with some kind of super-speed power.
(End of this chapter)