U.S. Highway 50, one of the most desolate highways in the United States, crosses the express horse delivery area and is sparsely populated. The famous Death Valley is also located along this road.
Death Valley.
The hottest and driest region in North America.
It is full of wind and sand, barren and inhospitable. The yellow sand dunes undulate endlessly, the roots of dry old trees dig into the sand, the cliffs are weathered and jagged, and the terrain is perilous. It is the lowest and driest place on the continent.
The scorching air shimmered. The asphalt pavement baked under the sun, the heat waves rolling and distorting the air.
Above the highway, the air suddenly rippled.
The time-space tunnel vortex appeared.
The Flash, covered in yellow electric arcs, his legs blurred in a phantom-like state, ran out from the time-space tunnel.
He paused briefly, standing barefoot on Route 50 in Death Valley, the searing asphalt scalding the soles of his feet.
The yellow arcs on his body weakened, flickering sluggishly across his skin, trying to retreat back into his cells and shrink into his pores.
Instantly, countless streams of information surged through his mind. Memories of the changes across the past ten years flashed chaotically. From the future, silently and invisibly, another will—his own from another timeline—merged into him.
Without warning, without defense, the Flash was no longer the same person.
His pupils contracted sharply in shock.
Yet there was no time to process the flood of memories. The Flash immediately turned his gaze back.
From the time-space tunnel, a tall figure, like a demon rising from the abyss, emerged. Its oppressive presence made the Flash's skin crawl, sending a chill down his spine, filling him with unspeakable dread.
In an instant, a stronger surge of yellow Speed Force erupted from within him. Holding his breath, the Flash turned his head sharply, and in the next moment, he shot forward, leaving behind only a blurry phantom as he sprinted towards the horizon, where heaven and earth met, tearing across the scorched road and leaving a scorched black trail and crystallized fine sand in his wake.
Behind him, in the time-space tunnel,
Bardi leapt out, his body tall, his white windbreaker whipping wildly in the turbulence. His magnetic field slammed down upon the world, twisting the air, howling and wailing, like a furious devil bursting from the darkness into the world of light, bringing destruction.
Boom.
The asphalt of Route 50 immediately shattered. A giant crater two hundred meters wide cracked open, the surface webbed with fissures, and yellow sand surged into the sky. A violent shockwave blasted outward, making the entire Death Valley ripple like an ocean, the dunes retreating in fear from Bardi's presence.
He stomped onto the scorched road, stabilizing his posture after exiting the time-space tunnel. Red veins flared around his eyes, burning hot, violently distorting the surrounding air.
Bardi's body floated upward, the hem of his coat flapping wildly, as if even his clothes were trembling from his rage.
He looked up.
Crimson eyes burst forth with a heat vision as thick as a tree trunk, blasting into the air, wrinkling and squeezing the atmosphere, causing explosive booms.
The scorching heat vision lashed out towards the Flash's position. The fiery rays, hotter than the surface of the sun, consumed the Flash's afterimage, melting the ground into a massive lava pit, with countless crystals forming along the molten edges.
Sensing that the Flash had evaded his initial strike, the red and blue veins branded around Bardi's eyelids grew even more hideous.
The searing heat vision swept forward along the highway, tracking the fleeing yellow lightning arc.
The heat vision became like a cataclysmic flood, leaving a molten ditch in the center of Route 50. The asphalt sizzled and melted into a flowing stream of lava, crystallizing at the edges as it cooled.
Relentlessly, the beam chased the Flash.
In an instant, Bardi's heat vision had swept across three hundred kilometers. In Bardi's sight, the Flash, glowing with yellow arcs, was getting farther and farther away, already reaching the meeting point between sky and earth.
The path of Route 50 behind them had been utterly obliterated. A flaming river of molten rock stretched across the landscape, the searing heat turning the yellow desert sands into shimmering crystals.
As the Flash vanished over the horizon, Bardi's heat vision shot upward, splitting the sky with a vertical scarlet beam.
This entire scene unfolded hundreds of times faster than an ordinary person's blink. The Flash had escaped in an instant. Behind him, Route 50 was left looking like a scorched and molten ditch. The air reeked of burnt asphalt.
The surrounding desert sands had been scorched into glass-like crystals.
Finally, the burning crimson beam narrowed and was retracted.
Bardi closed his eyes. The burning veins around his eyelids faded and dissipated. Opening them again, his gaze, cold as death, locked onto the horizon where earth and sky met.
Something unfamiliar yet familiar was creeping into his mind, memories of a decade rewritten.
...
The Flash, having crossed several states in a flash, dashed across the ocean, finally stopping on the African savannah.
His sudden appearance startled a group of cheetahs and water antelopes, who scattered in terror.
The Flash panted heavily, leaning against the trunk of a bare tree. His pupils were contracted with fear, his body drenched in sweat.
The light of death had been chasing him, the searing beam trailing him, nearly ending his life.
Fear chilled his spine.
At the same time, he slowly processed the memories that had rushed into his mind.
Just because he had visited his mother's grave, just because he had been overwhelmed by sorrow and decided to run back to change history and bring her back...
Due to the instability of the Speed Force caused by Bardi's existence, the Flash who had originally escaped from the Flashpoint—a version from more than ten years later—was pulled ahead of schedule into this timeline.
Only now did the Flash truly review his memories.
Terror stiffened his body, and disbelief filled his face. Covering his head in horror, he let out a silent scream.
"The Justice League... no longer exists!"
"Superman died as a child!"
"Victor never became Cyborg!"
"Aquaman was impaled by Barmulodi's trident!"
"Hal Jordan died in space!"
"Diana was captured!"
"Batman abandoned his body and infiltrated the enemy lines!"
"Luthor, Captain Cold, Shazam, Constantine... countless heroes and villains had their fates changed!"
"The island of New Guinea was sunk by Barmulodi, killing fifty million people!"
"Barmulodi is about to rule the world... Who is this? Why does such a character exist?"
(To be continued.)
***
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