ヾ(⌐■_■)ノ♪
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Atkins tightly clenched the Wishing Stone in her hand, and David recognized the appearance of the stone in her hand and heard her wish. His expression changed as he immediately realized what this was.
"Wishing Stone?"
After making her wish in a low tone,
Atkins felt her whole body heating up as if she had turned into a super volcano, with boundless power surging within her. Her eyes flickered with pink light, and she seemed like a miniature sun. Her face was full of excitement.
"Now I'm ten times more powerful than before!"
"All of you will bow down at my feet!"
The sky changed colors, and a god-like pressure enveloped the surroundings. She shouted loudly, stomped on the ground, her fists tearing through the air, and in an instant, she was right in front of Clark.
Crack!
Clark's chest was in intense pain as if hit by a rocket. He was sent flying for hundreds of meters, crashing into the thick forest. Trees snapped like dry grass in a hurricane, shattered uncontrollably by his impact. From above, it looked as if the chariot of a sun god had passed by, leaving behind a long deep trench.
Seeing Clark being thrown back, David's heart skipped a beat.
"Your turn now."
Atkins's gaze swept over, exuding a compelling authority. She seemed like a female war god, throwing a punch.
"You have no idea what you're playing with!"
David resolutely counterattacked, erupting with a tide-like surge of cosmic energy. Their fists collided, generating a tremendous gust that lifted the ground and caused massive spiderweb-like cracks to extend dozens of meters, as if a ton of explosives had been dropped, sending waves of soil flying.
The ground, which was as hard as steel, was compressed under the violent impact.
David stood firm like an immovable mountain, his gaze cold as a knife. His tall and powerful body showed no signs of injury, radiating a majestic aura that made it hard to breathe.
Under the violent impact, her arms ached painfully. Atkins took a step back, her arm turned red, skin curling and peeling off as if scalded by lava. Her expression was suspicious, but she raised her fist again and attacked.
"Impossible!"
Why did her power increase so much, yet she couldn't defeat this guy?
"How can you still resist my power?"
[Template assimilation at 54%]
With enhanced energy manipulation abilities, he easily received her attack. David threw a punch, his strength increasing several times more than before, enough to shake mountains and split the earth.
Boom!
A dense white shockwave burst forth, sending Atkins flying. Before she could catch her breath, David's killing intent swept over. He moved like lightning, leaping forward and throwing a punch.
Atkins raised both arms to block as if a mountain was crashing down on her. She couldn't withstand the even more furious power and knelt on one knee. The ground cracked beneath her feet like a spiderweb, extending tens of meters. Blood oozed from the corner of her mouth.
"No, why is this happening? I haven't really gained ten times the power."
The false sense of power surge had blinded her; she hadn't gained that much increase in strength.
"You overestimated the person who made this stone."
He raised his fist again, releasing the absorbed violent kinetic energy in one go. It was like the bombardment of thousands of tons of missiles. Atkins was blasted into the depths of the earth, her form crumbling.
"Moreover, your strength is weakening."
A crater several meters in diameter marred the ground's surface. David jumped in, and beside the shattered body of Atkins, he slowly picked up the dropped Wishing Stone.
"Hah... hah..."
Atkins's hair turned gray; her face aged. She coughed up blood uncontrollably, her eyes glaring with extreme unwillingness. She extended her skinny hand, as if trying to grasp the Wishing Stone from afar, a desperate attempt to hold onto the last straw of salvation. But it was futile, doomed to be in vain.
Picking up the stone, David played with it for a moment and shook his head.
"Even if your strength increases several times over and your wishes are lowered, it will still come at the cost of your life."
"This stone is not a good thing. Making a wish to it is no different than making a deal with the devil."
Now he understood where Atkins' formidable power came from.
"Please... I beg you, save me."
In a short while, the power of life was drained, and Atkins, who was thin as a skeleton, pleaded, struggling to speak as she desperately activated her abilities, exhaling a sweet breath from her mouth.
As if smelling cheap perfume, David waved his hand in front of his nose.
"You're about to die, so don't attempt your ridiculous charming ability in front of me."
With her life thoroughly drained, Atkins' eyes dim and lifeless, like two cloudy glass spheres; her whole body ceased to breathe.
"She... she's dead?"
Clark rushed back, clutching his hurt chest, with a shocked expression.
After being thrown aside by the massively empowered Atkins, he experienced unprecedented pain, even suspecting his ribs were broken. Feeling worried about David, he hurriedly dragged his injured body back.
But he arrived to find out that Atkins was already dead.
"It wasn't me this time."
David said.
"She was too greedy; her wish led to her own death."
Greed is one of humanity's original sins.
"Wish? This stone can grant wishes?"
Before jumping down the pit, and after only a short exposure to sunlight, Clark felt his injuries recovering substantially. He moved his body around and then jumped into the pit, marveling at the stone in David's hand.
Since childhood, he had heard many fairy tales about treasures that could grant wishes.
But he never thought he would see one in reality.
"Just now, Atkins did really gain much more strength after making a wish." He recalled the scene just now.
"Don't look at it; it's not a good thing."
David put the stone away, tucking it into his jacket pocket.
This stone should be the one Wonder Woman used to bring her little boyfriend back to life, which also then led to the creation of Cheetah.
But undoubtedly, that storyline never played out in reality.
"Otherwise, given the global chaos that would have resulted at that time, even if Mom and Dad knew about Clark being an alien, they wouldn't have been surprised."
By the way, why didn't that storyline occur?
He hadn't been born yet during that time, and the butterfly effect shouldn't have influenced events before his birth.
A trace of puzzlement flickered in David's eyes.
He suddenly recalled a hypothesis.
'Time is like a river. When someone throws a stone into it, the ripples created not only affect the water below but also extend to the water above.'
In comic books, there were more than a few examples of this.
'Like the Flashpoint event, where Barry Allen traveled back before his mother's death, as a result, also affecting a time period when he hadn't been born yet.'
'The Wayne Family walked out of the movie theater and was robbed at gunpoint. At that time, it was the young Bruce Wayne who died in the alley. This also resulted in Thomas Wayne taking his place as Batman, whereas his mother, Martha, couldn't accept that event and went crazy and became the Joker…'
"David?"
Seeing his younger brother suddenly standing still, lost in thought, Clark called out in confusion.
"This stone can grant wishes, but it comes at a price. Most wishers end up regretting it."
Being called back to awareness by Clark, Davie's thoughts were interrupted. Seeing that Clark hadn't given up his curiosity about the stone, Davie explained again.
"So, it's because of this that Atkins turned out like this?"
Looking at the skeletal remains of Atkins, Clark felt a shiver down his spine, and the rosy filter of the fairytale treasure's beauty vanished instantly.
"This thing seems quite evil. Maybe we should bury it."
The more he looked at the pitiful corpse, the scarier it seemed. After a moment of contemplation, he suggested with a frown.
"That's not necessary. If we find ourselves in an extremely critical moment, this stone could come in handy."
Davie thought about it for a moment and then shook his head in refusal. Although he possessed powerful strength, there were also many things he couldn't do.
"Some people can punch through mountains with a single blow but can't bring an insignificant pea back to life. Our abilities always have their limitations. This stone could serve as a last resort."
Even though his mother, Martha, had taken the Dionysian Factor yesterday afternoon due to the hot weather, envying their father's continued vigor and vitality.
'But the immortality of the Dionysian Factor isn't absolute.'
For instance, if the physical body was destroyed.
If something irreversible happened, he would rather summon the devil named god, trade with it, and bring his parents back. If the devil wanted a price, it could come after him.
Reviving a person might be difficult for him, but killing a god wasn't a challenging task.
Clark struggled to speak; he instinctively hated this kind of unpredictable and evil things.
"By the way, the school..."
Suddenly, his face changed as if he had encountered the end of the world, recalling something.
Due to the urgent situation at the time, their special abilities had been revealed.
"I used our abilities in front of our classmates. Now that they're waking up, what will they think of us? Could they have already called the police out of fear?"
Clark didn't want their peaceful family life to be disrupted.
"Let's go back first and see."
David spoke as his face changed from a calm expression.
Although he didn't care much about exposing his abilities, it would be a lot sentimental and reluctant for his parents to move out of here.
'If that doesn't work, maybe I can find a death row inmate to make a wish and bear the cost.'
A thought flashed through Davie's mind, wondering if this kind of using bugs in the game would work.
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ヾ(⌐■_■)ノ♪Don't forget to send your power-stonesヾ(⌐■_■)ノ♪