, Section 14: The End of the World?

Chapter 247, Section 14: The End of the World?

"Holy crap, what are these guys trying to do?"

Pushing open the door to the basement plumbing and electrical room, the scene that greeted Thomas was astonishing.

The room was stuffy and hot. A huge pit had been dug into the ground. Looking down into the pit, the massive pipes that supplied water to all the residents of Star City were exposed.

On the cave wall, a machine about the height of a building was operating with a roar.

The abnormally high temperature inside was emanating from it. Dozens of flexible hoses extending from the machine center were inserted into the broken water pipes, pouring an unknown yellowish-brown liquid into the water.

The live stream continued, and when the truth about the abandoned hospital was revealed, many local viewers vomited.

"Oliver was right. Those bastards in Star City tampered with the drinking water. No wonder the cancer rate in Star City is so high."

Night Owl muttered to himself, then suddenly realized that Wei behind him hadn't said a word.

He turned his head and happened to see Qin Wei squatting on the ground vomiting violently.

"How are you?"

"You—I can tolerate that you can't see me, but can't you really smell me?"

"What do you smell?"

"This room is filled with the stench of this monster, I'm suffocating!" Wei wiped the stomach acid from the corner of his mouth, his bloodshot eyes staring fiercely at Night Owl.

From his perspective, there was no machinery in the room at all; there was only a huge gray tumor whose body and tentacles almost filled the entire pit.

The nauseating stench alone was enough to confirm to him that this thing was the same one found in Gotham's Tower of Venn.

However, after the timeline changed, Thomas, who had worked with him to eliminate the Venta sarcoma, lost that memory.

According to Black Arrow, they were hypnotized.

"Forget it! There's no point in saying all this. Whatever this thing is, we just need to destroy it!" Wei carried the oxygen cylinder to his side and patted it.

"We'll throw it over there together, and then you figure out how to blow it up."

"It's an easy task, but I have a question: why do you think fire can damage machinery?"

"We'll know if it works or not once we try."

The two of them went around the deep pit and came to the top of the tumor. Qin Wei held up the steel cylinder and pulled it to the edge of the cliff.

Are you ready?

'

"Let the countdown begin!"

"three!

'

'

two!

""

"—!"

""

With his left hand, Night Owl pulled out three projectiles, and with his right hand, he held a miniature bomb. Just as the cylinder was about to make contact with the machine, he threw the projectiles at top speed.

The violent explosion shook the entire room, and to Thomas's horrified gaze, the steel machine actually began to burn fiercely.

It might even tremble and struggle.

Night Owl rubbed his eyes in disbelief.

The moment he lowered his hand, the scene before him changed completely.

"What the hell is this thing?!"

"You already said that in Wayne Tower!" Wei patted Night Owl on the shoulder, signaling him to calm down.

The tumor's hypnotic power is formidable; it can even deceive Superman, but its effects are also easily countered. A simple fire attack will reveal its true form.

It seems the lab tests and dissections can be skipped; simply showing this to Superman will suffice.

However, this step can actually be omitted, since the hypnotic effect of the tumor was already dispelled when it twisted its body, and the millions of viewers in the live broadcast room witnessed its true form without any hindrance.

This breaking news is sure to spread throughout North America within just a few hours.

But don't forget that Star City sarcoma is nearly mature. Compared to the cocoon-like mass in Gotham, it possesses more pronounced biological characteristics, including the ability to react to external stimuli—

It will also fight back.

The ground began to tremble, and a spiderweb-like pattern cracked in the ceiling with a chilling creak.

The underground space began to collapse.

Although the two brothers chose to flee immediately, the house collapsed much faster than they could walk.

No, perhaps the word "collapse" is not quite right. It would be more accurate to say that the tumor finally revealed its true form in anger.

Remember when Black Arrow mentioned another tumor in the center of Star City Spire? Actually, that thing and the one in the basement share the same body—they are one.

In reality, the entire Star City had been completely eroded by this thing, and what the two saw was merely a drop in the ocean exposed to the elements.

The ground swayed and shook like waves, and huge root-like tumors tore through the ground, like the Kraken, the giant sea monster that roared to the sky in a storm.

This single sarcoma has destroyed the entire hospital.

Oliver, who was battling Mr. Freeze, was the first to notice something was wrong. At the moment the ceiling collapsed, he fired a pressure arrow and pulled Dr. Nora from the clutches of death.

"This place is about to collapse, is there any point in us fighting anymore?"

Upon hearing this, Mr. Freeze also put away his pulse weapon, and the two of them ran wildly out of the hospital.

However, it was not safe outside the hospital either. As the sarcoma caused more and more noise, the entire slum seemed to be experiencing an earthquake of magnitude 8.

From the rooftop, Malcolm looked out and saw thunder rumbling in the hazy distance. Towering roots rose from the ground, creating a scene reminiscent of the apocalypse in the Star City slums filled with cries and screams.

"What the hell is hidden underground?!"

Malcolm was so stunned by the apocalyptic scene that he forgot to move away from the collapsing building beneath his feet.

If Roy hadn't rushed over and pushed him away, he would have been buried alive in the rubble.

Meanwhile, the upper floors of Xingcheng were experiencing the same scene, with buildings cracking and collapsing amidst the tremors.

The ground shook and undulated, and falling glass shards rained down like a storm. Countless flying devices in the sky spun and crashed to the ground due to the sudden disappearance of the magnetic field, turning into a cluster of sparks amidst screams.

As the turmoil intensified, the tendrils and vines buried in the concrete and steel shook off the dust, revealing themselves for the first and most complete time to the bewildered citizens.

In a world without a pharaoh to create tragedies, this is perhaps the closest thing to an apocalyptic scenario that humanity can directly experience.

Is the sky about to fall?

Of course not, since Superman, who was far away in the West Bank, but had been closely following Qin Wei's itinerary through social media, learned of the news immediately.

The good news is that Louis's press corps has just arrived at their base and is not in immediate danger, giving Superman ample time to deal with the turmoil in Star City.

Meanwhile, superheroes scattered across the United States were also drawn to the disaster. If things had gone according to the normal timeline, some of them might never have crossed paths with V-Editor in their entire lives.

The camera pans back to the basement of the abandoned hospital. The two brothers have successfully escaped from the basement, but to their despair, they are still trapped in the clutches of the sarcoma. They are stumbling and running on a tentacle.

Feeling like he was walking on thin ice on the sticky tentacles, the owl accidentally slipped and fell.

A gaping maw opened in the dark depths of the earth, but what devoured Thomas was not sharp teeth and a scarlet tongue, but rather a dark blue light, like a magical portal.

The feeling of weightlessness as you fall becomes increasingly urgent, as if there is no end in sight.

Thomas opened his eyes in a daze. A huge black shadow hovered above his head, while below him was a vast expanse of stars and nebulae.

"universe?"

He clearly remembered being swallowed by the tumor, so why did he suddenly feel like he was in the universe?

Before Thomas could think any further, he was already falling into the depths of the crimson starlight.

Then a series of dazzling scenes flashed before his eyes like film reels.

He saw the starlit North American landscape, Gotham City ablaze in the night, and a dark figure standing on a rooftop, a cloak billowing in the wind, carrying a shotgun.

With a thud, Thomas fell into a dark alley in the dead of night.

His mind was in complete chaos at that moment, and everything he saw in those few dozen seconds far exceeded his comprehension.

Clutching his throbbing head, on the verge of fainting, he was jolted awake by two gunshots from a distant alley.

boom!

Then another shot was fired, interspersed with a high-pitched male voice that sounded like a dying wail.