louisehourcade Chapter 451 Preparations for Time Travel, Batman's Worst-Case Plan
Chapter 451 Preparations for Time Travel, Batman's Worst-Case Plan
Chapter 451 Preparations for Time Travel, Batman's Worst-Case Plan
late at night.
Chen Tao appeared in the interstellar laboratory in the central city.
This is essentially Barry Allen's territory, and also a prison for superpowered criminals with security levels comparable to Arkham Asylum. In the past, the Flash would usually lock up all the criminals he caught in Iron Mountain Prison, but as he faced more and more superpowered criminals, Iron Mountain Prison gradually became like Gotham's Blackgate Prison—that prison simply couldn't hold superpowered criminals; only Starlab was a place to control these guys.
Besides this, the interstellar laboratory also contains a very important item: the cosmic treadmill left behind by Reverse Lightning.
Using his privileges, Chen Tao navigated through a maze of turns and arrived directly at the door of the room where the cosmic treadmill was stored.
The room had massive, multi-layered hardened steel doors, each secured by a combination lock. This lock incorporated elements of Brainiac's technological advancements, employing not only scientific identity verification methods like biometric data collection but also magical multi-factor authentication to prevent shapeshifters like Mudface or Snakeskin from entering.
Hmm. In addition to needing authorization to enter this room, a password that changes daily is also required. Chen Tao hadn't asked Barry what the password was for today, but he had other ways to open the direct door.
He pressed the microphone button on the combination lock, then leaned closer and said:
"Jingle bells, snorting bats, Robin busy laying eggs. Batmobile, whirring, laughing bats run away."
It's hard to imagine Batman singing a nursery rhyme like this, but then the door opens.
Chen Tao always leaves backdoors in the things he handles, just to facilitate situations like today, where he wants to let his teammates know about things that are not suitable for them to know.
As Chen Tao thought this, he reached out to close the iron gate, but just then, a communication interrupted his actions.
"I am Nightwing, I am Nightwing, Nightwing calling Batman."
Chen Tao answered the call.
"How is it?"
Chen Tao turned around expressionlessly and closed the heavy iron door.
Then he walked to the corner: "Dick, how's things going on your end?"
On the other side of the screen, Dick Grayson was wearing a sharp suit. Dick was already a handsome man, and this suit made him look even more dashing.
Chen Tao was certain that Night Owl treated the other party like a Barbie doll, raising her with excessive care.
However, at this moment, Dick's furrowed brows slightly ruined the scene.
"Batman, I've discovered a problem. Owl no longer reveals his true form to me, and he no longer comes to see me. I still don't know his exact location; he's completely isolated on this spaceship."
Dick said, "Night Owl is wary of me. He's just keeping me as a pretty vase now. All the other ways I used to get intelligence have been cut off."
He said, "I have no other way to connect with you. If it weren't for the metallic spirit power you left in my body, I would have completely lost contact with the outside world."
"So what should I do now?" he asked. "Should I try to get out of here?"
"You stay put for now," Chen Tao said. "I'll give you the opportunity to act when needed."
"By the way, did you get any intelligence from Night Owl?"
"Most of the content is unremarkable," Nightwing told Chen Tao. "But there's one point that I think is quite important."
"What is it?"
"Night Owl told me that the power of a single universe alone cannot defeat the Anti-Monitor."
"A single universe?"
"I don't know, Night Owl didn't say anything more," Nightwing said on the other end of the screen. "He also refused to explain what he meant. He just used those words to convince me that I would eventually fail, and then made me his Robin."
Nightwing asked, "Do you understand what he's saying?"
"I think I understand..." Chen Tao said.
His mood darkened slightly: "I'll call you again when I have the chance, Dick."
He hung up the call and walked to the space treadmill.
For a long period before that, the Flash had been trying to replicate Reverse-Flash using the Cosmic Treadmill—the method by which the original Flash, Alberd Swann, reversed time and ran from the 25th century to their own era, as believed by outsiders.
That's right, Barry has been trying to practice the Flash's most standard skill: time travel.
For The Flash, traveling through time should be as easy as eating and drinking; many of their abilities are based on time travel.
For example, time remnants allow those from the future to travel back two minutes to help their present selves, until those future selves are erased from the timeline itself due to a time paradox.
As for Barry, he had gradually learned this skill after Reverse-Flash left.
In the previous battle against Eclipse, The Flash even used his time travel ability to create a bug where "Schrödinger's state was controlled by Eclipse." Back then, Barry was already very familiar with the techniques of time travel.
However, even so, Barry can only travel through time in minutes at most, and he can't even go back an hour.
Barry never understood why... but Chen Tao did.
Just like in the Flashpoint comic, where the Flash himself explains why he couldn't immediately correct the completely wrong history the moment he regained his powers.
His exact words are as follows:
"Generally speaking, if my energy is at its maximum, I can indeed travel through time."
In other words, time travel requires a significant amount of Speed Force, which Barry clearly lacks.
This means that while he can use time-travel abilities like Time Residual, he can't actually travel through time like Reverse-Flash.
But what is the reason for this insufficiency?
The speed force began to flash around Chen Tao's body.
Chen Tao used too much Speed Force to connect his batteries. Even though the Flash, Barry Allen, was like an oil well that kept producing Speed Force, the amount he produced couldn't keep up with the speed at which Chen Tao used it.
Chen Tao was like a thief stealing the Speed Force, constantly drawing speed from Barry, preventing him from becoming faster.
On the other hand, when Chen Tao synchronized with the Red Death, as a speedster, he also permanently occupied a place in the Speed Force of this universe, which further robbed the Flash of his speed.
Another person has done these things before, namely, reverse lightning.
In the Flashpoint event, The Flash, Barry Allen, went back in time and created the hellish Flashpoint timeline. After regaining his Speed Force, he found himself unable to travel through time to correct everything because Reverse-Flash, Swann, was constantly draining his Speed Force, preventing Barry from going fast enough to reverse time.
When Reverse-Flash was pierced through the heart by Thomas Wayne, Bruce Wayne's father, Barry's speed was fast enough that the Flashpoint timeline was repaired.
therefore……
Chen Tao stood on the cosmic treadmill.
Metropolitan, Bat Cave Base Branch Cave.
The gorilla Grodd and the turtle man lived in their own battery compartment, each of them snoring loudly.
As time goes by and technological breakthroughs occur, their housing is gradually being upgraded. Initially, they were completely confined to a battery compartment the size of a coffin. When driven, they were like two batteries inserted into the compartment. Not only did they need to be tied up, but eating, drinking, and relieving themselves were also extremely inconvenient.
But now they live in transparent cages, which have replaced the original small battery compartment.
Now they can both move around a little in the cage, even going to the toilet is much easier, and they even have their own desks and beds.
However, at this moment, they were both lying in bed.
It's late at night, after all, and even slaves need to sleep. Moreover, they are constantly being dragged out for torture, frequently in a state of severe injury, and every day they are either injured, going to be injured, or on their way to recover. They need sleep even more.
"Snoring~ Snoring~"
Then, the next second, they were jolted awake by the pressure suddenly imposed on them. Golden speed force flowed from a nearby conduit, carrying an indescribable, immense strength, instantly waking the two sleeping slaves.
The loud snoring stopped abruptly, and the gorilla Grud and the turtle man jumped out of bed and immediately began to stand up and moan.
"Awoooo ...
"Does Batman never get any sleep?!" Groud the gorilla roared. "I'm about to die!!!"
"Who isn't who—"
The turtle-man joined in, singing, "Aaaaaaaahh ...
In short, with the help of the two, silvery-white particles enveloped Chen Tao's body, and soon the Red Death Demon, entangled with black and red speed force, became a blur on the cosmic treadmill.
One minute, two minutes, Chen Tao kept trying to go back in time, but in the end it was all in vain, like something you could reach out and touch but could never grasp.
In the end, he gave up. Chen Tao frowned and got off the cosmic treadmill.
Like Barry Allen, he also cannot travel through time. He took away too much of Barry Allen's Speed Force, but wasn't Barry also taking a share?
Both of them possess the Speed Force, but—not enough to reverse time.
Although he had told Barry that "it doesn't matter, he has other plans," for Chen Tao...
That feeling of something stuck in my throat lingered.
Given enough time... he could do even better, whether it's with Parallax and Ion Shark, or with Superman Supreme.
But it's too late now; the counter-surveillance agents are right in front of him. Chen Tao has made ample preparations in the limited time he has, but none of them can give him a sense of security.
He claimed to everyone that this time facing the anti-surveillance was no different from when he faced Brainiac or Darkseid, but deep down he knew...
Chen Tao shook his head.
Not necessarily. Both Superman Supreme and Darkseid should be able to fight the Anti-Monitor, and the preparations he made for time travel using the Speed Force are most likely to be completely unnecessary.
Highly likely.
Moreover, time travel is now an unattainable fallacy for him, isn't it?
This is just a worst-case scenario, and the worst-case scenario doesn't always come true, right?
(End of this chapter)