Chapter 76: Stop Looking, It's Nothing Good
Agnes clutched the Wishing Stone tightly in her palm. David saw the appearance of the stone in her hand and heard her wish, his expression changed, and he immediately remembered what it was.
"The Wishing Stone?"
After a low, whispered wish.
Agnes felt her entire body burning, as if she had become a super volcano. Endless power surged within her, her eyes flashed with pink light, and she seemed to transform into a small sun. Excitement appeared on her face.
"I'm ten times stronger now than before!"
"You will all have to bow at my feet!"
The clouds in the sky changed, and a divine pressure enveloped the surroundings like a physical entity. She shouted, her feet cracking the earth, her fist tearing through the sky, and she instantly killed her way to Clark.
Crack!
Clark felt a sharp pain in his chest, as if he had been hit by a rocket. He was sent flying back hundreds of meters, crashing into the towering forest. Tree after tree was crushed like withered grass in a hurricane, breaking uncontrollably. From the sky, it looked as if the sun god's chariot had galloped past, leaving a long, deep gully.
Clark was sent flying, and David's heart skipped a beat.
"Now it's your turn."
Agnes's eyes swept over him with imposing majesty, like a goddess of war, and she attacked with a punch.
"You have no idea what you're playing with!"
David punched fiercely, and tidal waves of cosmic energy erupted. Their fists collided, and the immense gust of wind blew away the topsoil. Giant spiderweb-like cracks spread for dozens of meters, as if ten thousand tons of bombs had been dropped, and the earth surged like a tide.
On the ground, whose hardness was close to steel due to the raging pressure.
David stood firm like an unshakeable mountain, his gaze as cold as a knife. His slender, powerful body showed no signs of injury, and the majestic presence made it difficult to breathe.
Under the violent impact, Agnes felt a burning pain in her arm. She staggered back, her arm red, her skin shriveling and peeling off, as if scalded by lava. Her face was filled with disbelief, and she raised her fist again to attack.
"Impossible!"
Why was her strength greatly increased, yet she still couldn't defeat this guy?
"How can you still withstand my power!"
[Template Fusion Progress: 54%]
His ability to manipulate energy had greatly improved, and he steadily blocked her attack. David threw a punch, his power increasing by several tenths compared to the previous one, enough to shake mountains and split the earth.
Boom!
A white, thick wave of energy exploded, sending Agnes flying backward. Before she could catch her breath, David's chilling killing intent filled him, and he leaped forward like lightning, swinging his fist down.
Agnes crossed her arms to block, as if a mountain was smashing down on her. She couldn't withstand the even more violent power and knelt on one knee. The ground beneath her cracked, with web-like fissures spreading for dozens of meters. Blood seeped from the corner of her mouth.
"No, why is this happening? My strength didn't increase tenfold at all."
She had been deceived by the false feeling of her strength soaring, but in reality, it hadn't increased that much.
"You think too highly of the person who made this stone."
He raised his fist and smashed down again, releasing the absorbed violent kinetic energy all at once, like a ten-thousand-ton missile bombardment. Agnes was ruthlessly blasted into the ground.
"Moreover, your power is weakening."
David leaped into the deep pit, dozens of meters in diameter, like a scar on the earth. Beside Agnes, whose bones were shattered by the impact, he slowly picked up the Wishing Stone she had dropped.
"Haa... Haa..."
Agnes's hair had turned gray, her face was aged, and she coughed up blood uncontrollably. Her eyes widened with extreme unwillingness. She stretched out her skinny, twig-like hand, trying to grab the Wishing Stone from a distance, wanting to grasp the last straw, but it was destined to be useless.
Picking up the stone, David played with it for a moment and shook his head.
"Even if your strength only increased a few times, and the wish was greatly compromised, it was at the cost of your life."
"This stone is not a good thing. Wishing upon it is no different from making a deal with the devil."
Now he understood where Agnes's formidable strength came from.
"Please... please save me."
In just a short while, her life force was drained dry. Agnes, thin as a skeleton, begged. As she spoke, she used all her strength to activate her ability, exhaling a sweet scent from her mouth.
As if smelling cheap perfume, David waved his hand in front of his nose.
"You're dying, so don't try your pathetic seductive ability on me."
Her life force was completely drained. Agnes's eyes lost their luster, like two cloudy glass balls. She stopped breathing.
"She... she's dead?"
Clark returned, clutching his chest, his expression bewildered.
After being sent flying by the rampaging Agnes, he felt unprecedented pain, even suspecting his ribs were broken. Fearing for David's safety, he rushed back despite his injuries.
To his surprise, he saw that Agnes was already dead.
"This time, it wasn't me who did it."
David said.
"She was too greedy. She wished herself to death."
Greed, one of humanity's original sins.
"A wish?
This stone can grant wishes?"
After jumping out of the deep pit and basking in the sunlight for a short while, Clark felt his injuries were mostly healed. He stretched his body and then jumped into the deep pit, marveling at the stone in David's hand.
Ever since he was young, he had heard fairy tales about treasures that could grant wishes.
He never expected to see one in reality.
"Agnes's strength did increase several times after she made a wish just now," he recalled the scene.
"Stop looking, it's not a good thing."
David put the stone away and tucked it into his shirt pocket.
This stone should be the one Wonder Woman used to wish her young boyfriend back to life, which also led to the birth of Cheetah.
However, that particular plotline clearly hadn't played out in reality.
"Otherwise, given the global chaos and widespread impact at the time, even my parents wouldn't have been overly surprised by Clark, an alien."
Speaking of which, why didn't this plotline happen?
He himself hadn't been born yet at that time, so the butterfly effect he caused shouldn't have affected the period before his birth.
A flicker of confusion crossed David's eyes.
He suddenly remembered a hypothesis.
"Time is like a river. When someone throws a pebble in, the ripples not only affect the water downstream but also upstream."
In comics, there were more than a few examples of this.
Take the Flashpoint event, for instance. Barry Allen traveled back to before his mother's death, and consequently, the time period before his own birth was also affected by him.
"The Wayne family walks out of the cinema and encounters an armed robbery. The young Batman, Bruce Wayne, dies in that dark alley. Thomas Wayne takes his place, becoming Batman, fighting crime violently. Batman's mother, Martha, unable to bear it, goes mad and becomes the Joker..."
"David?"
His younger brother suddenly stood still, lost in thought. Clark called out in confusion.
"This stone can grant wishes, but it takes a price. Wishers usually end up regretting it."
Called back by Clark, his thoughts interrupted, David saw Clark's continued curiosity about the stone and explained further.
"So, that's why Agnes turned out like this?"
Looking at Agnes's skeletal corpse, Clark felt a chill down his spine. The idealized image of fairy tale treasures instantly vanished.
"This thing seems evil.
How about we just bury it?"
The more he looked at the corpse with its gruesome death, the more frightened he became. He thought for a moment and suggested with a frown.
"That's not necessary.
If we reach an extremely critical moment, this stone could be useful."
David pondered for a moment and shook his head, refusing.
Although he was powerful, there were still many things he couldn't do.
"Some people can shatter mountains with a single punch but cannot revitalize a tiny pea. Our abilities both have their limitations, and this stone can serve as a last resort."
Even his mother, Martha, had taken the Dionysus Factor yesterday afternoon after envying his father's constant vitality and clear mind due to the hot weather.
"But the immortality of the Dionysus Factor isn't absolute."
For example, if the physical body is completely destroyed.
If something truly irreversible happened, he would rather summon a devil disguised as a god and make a deal to bring his parents back. If the devil wanted a price, then let him come after him.
Resurrecting someone might be difficult for him, but slaying a god would not be.
Clark wanted to say something but stopped. He instinctively disliked such an evil and unpredictable thing.
"Oh right, school..."
Suddenly, his expression changed drastically, as if he had encountered the end of the world. He remembered something.
Due to the emergency situation at the time, their special abilities had been discovered.
"You and I used our powers in front of our classmates. Now that they've recovered, how will they see us? Will they be scared and have already called the police?"
Clark didn't want their peaceful family life to be disrupted.
"Let's go back and see first."
David's expression shifted, and he said, "Let's go back and see first."
Although he didn't particularly care about his powers being exposed, if he had to move his parents away from here, they would surely feel sad and reluctant.
"If that doesn't work, maybe we can find a death row inmate to make a wish and bear the price."
A thought flashed through David's mind, wondering if this kind of exploit would work.
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