Chapter 169: Flashpoint
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked... When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
~ Khalil Gibran
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Barry blankly looked at the ruins. Although he had successfully saved the world and completely defeated Zoom, he had even preserved Joe and everyone on the team.
Yet for some reason, looking at everything in reality, there was not the slightest joy in his heart from defeating a powerful enemy, and instead, a sense of emptiness came over him.
No one could comprehend his pain.
His mother died in the past, and his father died right before his eyes a few days ago. Although Zoom received retribution, his deceased close relatives would never come back.
Looking at Barry’s struggling gaze, Hillel roughly understood as well.
As a spacetime traveler, Barry’s mindset was losing balance, and the pain within his heart would force him to make a choice tonight. That was to forcibly change the fixed point in time... and save his mother!!
This action would create a Flashpoint.
Flashpoint was one of the major events that DC comic fans talked about with relish, and it was also a rather famous major event.
As far as the versions of Flashpoint known to Hillel were concerned, there were at least three. One was the movie version, where Barry traveled to the past and met the heroic Supergirl, as well as Batman’s father.
The villainous boss was Zod, who descended upon Earth.
In Henry-Superman’s world, Zod could be pinned down and hammered by Henry-Superman, but because Supergirl had been locked up for years and hadn’t absorbed enough sunlight in her body, her strength couldn’t keep up, and she was killed by Zod in various ways.
The animated version was pretty much the same, except the villainous boss became the Professor, who was the Reverse-Flash.
Only the television version had a relatively large difference.
It implicitly brought out the third-season boss of the Flash TV series, the faster and stronger God of Speed, which was Savitar.
(In reality, Savitar was imprisoned in the Speed Force, his appearing state was unstable, and he would always fight twice and then run into the Speed Force to carry out spatial jumping, making Barry and the team think he was fast beyond measure.)
Of course, Savitar’s normal speed was still faster than Barry.
Hillel did not plan to intervene in this part.
Anyway, no matter how the world line converged, Barry would always defeat powerful enemies. He only needed to watch this grand drama from the sidelines, pursue Caitlin, get himself some small perks, and should any accidents happen, System would cover it anyway.
On the night the final battle ended, to celebrate surviving a disaster, everyone held a small celebration party.
At Joe’s home, Cisco and Joe were drinking beer, while Iris was comforting the depressed Barry on the second floor.
Holding a cup of Dr. Pepper, Hillel was blowing the evening breeze outside the door.
Tap, tap, tap!
A burst of soft footsteps came from behind.
Hillel did not turn back, but only slightly tilted his head. Caitlin, wearing a slim-fit windbreaker, walked to his side, placed both hands on the cold railing, and looked at the neon high-rises of Central City.
"Why aren’t you inside celebrating with them?" Caitlin turned her head, the evening breeze blowing her light golden long hair into a mess.
"The joys and sorrows of people are not interconnected. I only feel that they are noisy!"
Hillel threw out a line.
Caitlin: "..."
Fine, fine, fine, putting on a literary act, huh!
This lady is a science girl!!
"Drug research must step up its schedule next. You can publish countless papers and achieve fame and success, but I only need the finished product medication. This can be considered a fair exchange, right?" Hillel said.
Caitlin smoothed her hair. "This afternoon, I did a portion of molecular sequencing. Inside it lies an unprecedented bio-engineering technology. It even involves the targeted modification of human recessive gene fragments in certain segments!"
"Do you know what this means?"
"This tube of medication of yours will change the genetic lineage. In the future, there might be countless naturally produced meta-human babies."
Hillel nodded. Of course he knew.
In the universe of The Boys, Ryan was a naturally produced meta-human, except that Compound V played a role inside his body, rather than directly changing gene fragments.
Otherwise, his abilities wouldn’t have been wiped out by Kimiko’s chest cannon.
"Honestly speaking, if I can thoroughly understand the cell stabilization formula inside this, just the few derived papers would be enough for me to get several Nobel Prize nominations in biology, or even directly become the most cutting-edge pioneer figure in the field of genetic biology."
Caitlin was somewhat excited.
She worked at S.T.A.R. Labs, and was originally disliked by her mother, who thought she was wasting her talent.
Now she could achieve some results!
"Baby, are you in a big rush to leave?" Caitlin suddenly asked.
"It’s alright."
Hillel said, "It’s not like I’m not coming back. In the future, I still have to go to other major worlds. As my transit station, I will definitely come back to check often."
Caitlin let out a sigh of relief.
"That’s good."
"In addition, you can also inject Compound V and become a meta-human. At least your abilities will become controllable!"
Facing Hillel’s proposal, Caitlin showed a look of repulsion. "I just want to be a scientist who is beautiful on her own, and I don’t want to be any kind of meta-human. Having you, Barry, Cisco, and the others is enough!"
Tsk!
Another human of The Boys type.
Not a shred of interest in super abilities.
"It can maintain eternal youth." Hillel said once more.
Caitlin suddenly raised her head, her eyes lighting up.
But very quickly, she suppressed this impulse again.
"Don’t tempt me. I will never become a meta-human!"
"Alright."
Hillel knew what Caitlin was afraid of. She was afraid of turning into Killer Frost, just like Caitlin’s doppelganger on Earth-2, killing people like hemp and losing her humanity.
"However... you seem to be very good to us?" Caitlin casually mentioned.
"Is that so?"
Hillel raised an eyebrow.
Perhaps he had killed too much in the earlier part, and seeing a true saint and true good people, he felt somewhat admired.
Saints were everywhere, but true saints were extremely rare.
A true saint was someone truly willing to sacrifice themselves for others, rather than using moral kidnapping to make others sacrifice themselves.
The two had a world of difference.
Another important reason was that it carried somewhat of a filter from his youth. After all, The Flash TV series was his enlightenment work, and there was a special sentiment in it.
However, this would not affect his judgment.
When it was time for intimacy, he still had to go for it.
The intimacy could not stop!
"You are a good person. Although your methods occasionally resemble Green Arrow, like him, deep down your heart has never been blinded by slaughter and power. You are a true Guardian."
Caitlin said.
Hillel was somewhat dazed. Was this the power of talk? He actually felt a kind of positive emotion driving himself forward!
As for why Hillel would not be blinded in his mind.
That was because most Poles had a clear understanding of themselves. If they could beat the whole world, then they would act as Odin or Zeus.
If they couldn’t beat some people, then they would act as Superman. If they couldn’t beat anyone at all, then they would hunker down and act as a normal person.
No one would be as stupid as the villains of Central City or Metropolis after gaining super abilities, going head-to-head with the Flash and Superman.
"Don’t put too heavy a filter on me. I am not a pure good person. Every superhero has their own origin story. If we must trace back my origin... it is probably having witnessed my own race’s bloodlust and penchant for slaughter, making one feel weary and sick!"
"Viltrumite?"
"Similar to Supergirl of Parallel Earth, it’s an alien race, except our race is more violent. They colonise planets across interstellar space, occasionally implement genocide, and carry out the Great Purge internally!"
Hillel spoke as if telling someone else’s story. "We carried out killings that lasted for over a century. Billions of people lost half their population in the Great Purge, and then we were attacked by a virus, leaving only tens of thousands of people."
"I led other manpower, broke away from the Viltrum Empire, and rebuilt the Interstellar Alliance, aiming to support the growth of different weak civilisations."
"The other faction is headed by the Regent of Viltrum, consisting of only dozens of people, yet they still execute the original violent plan of conquest, plundering, slaughter..."
Caitlin listened until her blood froze.
"Oh, also telling you, every Viltrumite possesses the ability to cross the universe with their physical body. Due to a Spartan-like growth style, their individual combat capability far exceeds the level of many planets."
Hillel never stopped until his words were shocking.
Caitlin broke out in a cold sweat behind her back. "Fortunately, your clansmen are all in parallel major worlds and cannot cross parallel Earths, otherwise we would definitely be done for!"
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Damn, what’s happening to this site and its images and cover arts lol? I thought it’s just me but I spoke to different people in discord from different countries.Man, the gif situation just got resolved last month and now this..
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