If it were just a group of madmen taking over Gotham City, the U.S. government wouldn't have entertained the thought of using a nuke. Even if a nuclear fusion reactor exploded in Gotham, the government couldn't afford the political backlash of detonating a hydrogen bomb within its own borders to clean up the radiation.
But when the leader of the uprising turned into a zombie capable of spreading a virus, the risk level changed immediately.
tactical nuke was deployed by bomber.
At that moment, Tony and Bruce were both urgently shouting over the comms, "Wait! The portal isn't open!"
Atreus shouted back, "No! It will open! I got the 'key.'"
"Okay! I trust you!"
"Alright."
In an oddly coordinated fashion, both Iron Man and Batman chose to trust him.
Well, that was... peculiar.
For safety, the military opted for both remote and timed detonation. Only when the remote lost connection with the base would the countdown begin.
*Whoosh!* Just as Bane continued to be blinded by the "Sun God" (aka the high beams), the nuke was finally launched.
"Launch" might not be entirely accurate, though. After the missile was fired, its speed noticeably decreased. Tony, piloting Iron Man, quickly caught up with the nuke and began escorting it, circling the portal at a distance of about five kilometers.
Everything now depended on Atreus.
"Die!" Beside Atreus, several female heroes unleashed their fury, with Catwoman's Batmobile leading the charge as they fought their way to the portal.
Atreus placed a hand on the portal's frame and immediately felt a mysterious, sinister energy emanating from it.
Suddenly, a powerful sense of falling overwhelmed him. Atreus felt as though his spirit was rapidly being torn from his heavy physical body. It seemed as if his soul was being pulled by an immense force, dragged through an unfathomable abyss. Everything on this side of the portal — the two Batmobiles rigged as "Sun Gods," the chaotic battlefield — all quickly vanished from his sight. In the next second, he felt utterly weightless.
It was as if he were falling endlessly, or perhaps rising in reverse gravity.
He couldn't tell up from down, east from west.
His soul expanded like a balloon, growing larger and larger without stopping.
At that moment, if he hadn't summoned his system to observe the world through its data template, he might've gone insane.
He suddenly understood why only the most powerful wizards dared to meddle with space-time teleportation.
This was beyond the realm of normal human comprehension.
Atreus still couldn't feel any tactile sensation or reality, but he knew the version of himself still standing by the portal had snapped his eyes open, gasping for breath, with his heart racing at 200 beats per minute.
He was just a hair's breadth from breaking — whether in body or soul.
But in the most critical moment, he locked his sights on a target.
A planet!
A planet almost identical to Earth.
The only difference was that this Earth was shrouded in darkness. Except for the side bathed in sunlight, the rest of the planet was pitch black.
There was no light at all.
It looked like Earth in prehistoric times when humans were still primitive, surviving off raw meat and wild fruits, without even the ability to make fire.
This pitch-black Earth was imprinted vividly in his mind.
The next moment, as if by instinct, a blue dotted line appeared between the Earth he was on and the dark Earth, connecting the two across space.
"It worked!" Atreus felt his soul and body, now located in different places, shout out the same words.
In response to his declaration, several people saw ripples suddenly appear in the previously empty portal.
It was as if a stone had been thrown into a lake, causing waves to ripple through the vertical portal. In the next instant, the terrifying scene on the other side became visible through the gateway.
Several heroes gasped in shock.
The first thing they saw was a massive zombie army, swarming like ants. Looking beyond that, you could catch a glimpse of Liberty Island in New York Harbor.
However, the world-famous Statue of Liberty had been horribly defaced: her face had been smashed and re-sculpted into a terrifying skull from head to chest.
"Damn it! There's an entire zombie battalion over there!" Tony said, using Iron Man's optical zoom to take in the scene.
"Be careful. They might rush through," Batman warned coldly.
Atreus shouted over the comms, "They won't! The portal is one-way for now! But that might change any moment."
Tony didn't hesitate any longer. He grabbed the nuke and changed its trajectory, charging toward the portal.
"Not so fast!" Bane, realizing Iron Man's objective, furiously hurled a dozen massive boulders.
The nuke alone would have been intercepted by Bane's attack.
But Iron Man's maneuverability far exceeded any plane. Tony, gripping the missile, made a series of rapid zigzag evasions, effortlessly dodging Bane's counterattack.
Bane had no time for another move, as Batman and Ghost-Spider had re-engaged him.
Under Bane's bloodshot gaze, Iron Man swiftly plunged into the portal, which wasn't all that large.
For a brief moment, Tony felt as if he had been flushed down a toilet.
The nausea from space-time travel almost broke his resolve.
But he held on.
When he finally recovered, he found himself staring at the zombie-filled wasteland of New York. He even saw another version of himself.
Tony was dumbfounded.
"Kill Iron Man!" the other Tony shouted with a distorted voice.
In the next moment, the zombie horde surged, aiming to overwhelm him.
"Goodbye! And never again!" Tony quipped playfully as he tossed the nuke at the biggest zombie brute and turned to leave.
Wait! Where's the portal I came through?
For a split second, Tony thought he'd been handed a one-way ticket.
Though impulsive and emotional, Tony always acted on instinct in the face of danger.
It was only now that he realized the danger wasn't just for his enemies.
Just when things seemed dire, a massive, ethereal bald head suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Its blue-purple hand reached out, grabbing Tony and pulling him through a newly opened portal.
Almost the instant Iron Man vanished from sight, a blinding flash filled the vision of every undead creature in the area.
It was the symbol of nuclear peace.
(End of Chapter)