Sometimes, the phrase "大道至简" has a simpler explanation: a seemingly flashy process of magical battling, often turns out to be just because neither side can harm the other, and so they resort to remote attacks. If they can get close, the best method of attack is often a direct punch. As long as the intelligent creature has a brain, if the central core is attacked, it will be stunned for two seconds.
That's exactly what happened with Nightmare Darkseid. He never expected the Mechanical Overlord Iron Man to land a punch right at the start. It was a straightforward punch with tremendous force, so powerful that his nasal bone almost flew out the back of his skull.
Darkseid was indeed stunned for two seconds, and within these two seconds, the power of Divine Will massively invaded the Power of Nightmare, instantly calculating countless methods and started relentlessly building simulations to find a breakthrough.
In this world, every power has a concept of "computational power." For example, there is a constant value to the reality that a certain amount of the power of Scarlet can manifest at a specific moment, and not even the Scarlet Witch can surpass this constant; the dreams created by a unit of Dream Power are also finite and cannot expand indefinitely. This is a cosmic law.
Whether it's the power of Scarlet or Dream Power, when used against ordinary intelligent creatures, the limitation is almost nonexistent. No matter how many people come dreaming, it's impossible to exceed their computational power limit because the upper limit is too high. The same applies to the Power of Nightmare.
However, the fact that ordinary intelligent creatures cannot surpass their limits doesn't mean Divine Will can't. As previously mentioned, the Divine Will takes another path of electronic life, which is infinite expansion until reaching an almost infinity of threads.
With so many threads iterating indefinitely, it can almost instantly deplete the computational power of other forces. If using the power of Scarlet, the manifested reality is N, then Divine Will can always expand to N+1 threads, breaking the computational power of the opponent. This is the most formidable aspect of Divine Will, not even the strongest Venom is a match for it.
In the instant of confronting Divine Will, Darkseid felt it: every sub-body created by Divine Will was guiding the Power of Nightmare, creating endless nightmares. Even if there is a cooldown period for nightmares, their number is capped, but sub-bodies can repeatedly enter to refresh the cap, and the number of sub-bodies is almost infinite. The Power expended to weave these nightmares is terrifying, and not even the World Origin Power can withstand such consumption.
Nightmare Darkseid hurriedly drew power, knowing that without the protection of the Power of Nightmare, he would be unable to face the monsters of the Multiverse. Don't forget, besides Divine Will, there was also Adam waiting for him.
Importunely, being so preoccupied with guarding against the Multiverse level beings and being distracted by the ghosts brought in by Nick, believing that humans were still tirelessly exploring the Nightmare Dimension, he slackened his defense on that side.
At that moment, Thor made his move.
In the very center of the Nightmare Dimension, in a space completely dark, without any light, suddenly a point of light appeared, first collapsing inward, then suddenly exploding. In the midst of a singularity explosion reminiscent of the Big Bang, a primitive bolt of Thunder slashed through the darkness. In the most dazzling light, Thor's figure was seen raising the long spear high.
In this very narrow crack, a silver long spear suddenly pierced in, Gungnir from Odin flying in rapidly searching for the enemy's figure within the Nightmare Dimension.
The Power of Nightmare continuously entwined around it, seemingly interfering with Gungnir's attribute of hitting the target. If it were only Gungnir, its hitting attribute would be on par with the Power of Nightmare. However, before throwing this spear, they had already enhanced it.
One of Legion's personalities, the terrifying Big Spider "Weaver," possessing the power to modify probabilities, wound his own web around Gungnir's spearhead, further enhancing its attribute of hitting the target. This was also akin to a fusion of origin power. If it were just a fusion of two powers, it would merely be on par with the Power of Nightmare. However, there is more than one Superhero with the ability to modify probabilities, as the Iron Demon God can do so as well.
The Iron Demon God walks the third path of electronic life, but because its essence doesn't count as electronic life, other electronic lives cannot imitate it, and thus, it can't be considered a viable path. However, this doesn't undermine its strength in the slightest, that is: the extreme enhancement of emotional life logic until perceiving the essence of cosmic logic, then directly editing cosmic data like Universe administrators.
Although it hasn't reached the level of a Universe administrator, and the data they can edit is limited, a few tweaks at critical points can grant power not inferior to divine might. This time, the Iron Demon God directly modified Gungnir's data, equating to another enhancement of its hitting attribute.
With the triple 100% hit attributes stacked, Gungnir was already above the rank of the Power of Nightmare, piercing towards the owner of the Power of Nightmare, Nightmare Darkseid, with unstoppable momentum. Nothing could interfere with its speed, which was extremely fast.
Only one person could match its speed, and that was Barry, who could traverse through the Power of Nightmare unimpeded with the Power of Darkness within Divine Speed. He followed behind Gungnir, continuously using his unique Divine Speed to slice through space, which not only further lowered the stability of the Nightmare Dimension but also created a "vacuum tunnel" within the Power of Nightmare.
This action is equivalent to: trying to thread a piece of string through a block of clay without changing the shape of the clay. Both are soft, so the string struggles to pass through and is easily stuck in the clay; but if a needle is tied at the front, threading the needle through the clay and then pulling the string along becomes much easier.
Gungnir is that needle, and the vacuum pipeline Barry created is akin to that string. By utilizing Gungnir's attribute of never missing, the needle is thrust to the target point, and Barry then shoots a power conduit from outside the dimension to the target location. This way, the collective power can directly hit Darkseid.
And in the void of the cosmos, a temporary base was set up, but not to house superheroes. Instead, it was for Reed's new invention—the anti-matter cannon.
This cannon incorporates a series of super-spec weapons like the ultra-large caliber electromagnetic main gun from a human starship, the high-speed particle collider used in Reed's laboratory, and the sun cannon designed by Anatoli for communication. The material used for construction is an alloy made of molten steel, vibranium, and N metal, which is immune to magic. Its caliber is about the size of the moon.
The propulsion force uses magic energy compressed by Arkham Batman's magic gem compression technology. The projectile is an M'Kraan Crystal wrapped in antimatter energy, adopting a combination of energy and solid ammunition.
No sooner said than done. Just when Nightmare Darkseid was busy diverting power to contend with the Divine Will, a long spear, carrying unmatched might, flashed and disappeared from afar. The next second, it plunged straight toward Darkseid's chest.
Darkseid sensed danger at the last second and gathered the power of nightmares to defend his chest. The almost tangible nightmare power dissipated Gungnir's final kinetic energy, and only the spear tip penetrated Nightmare Darkseid's chest.
The damage to the New Gods' body was negligible. But then Barry followed up. He did not directly attack Nightmare Darkseid but instead used his last strength to utterly shatter the space around Darkseid. This also meant that the energy pipeline was completely opened.
"Fire!!!!"
Reed Richards roared, and the cannon's mouth suddenly lit up. The crystal, adjusted to the appropriate size using Pym particles, was launched by magic power at an extremely high initial speed, and the dense antimatter energy protected the crystal from corrosion by the power of nightmares, crashing straight toward Darkseid's face.
Being hit by a moon-sized, antimatter energy-filled indestructible planet originating from the dawn of creation was like running into a streak of good fortune for Darkseid. Obviously, life wasn't going to let him off this time. Just like that, the supremely solid nightmare power shield he'd constructed shattered suddenly.
But it wasn't over. The crystal's primary function was to open a passage, and the moment the crystal landed, a transmission channel was opened. The Scarlet Witch, Franklin, the Legion, Manhattan Batman, Evil God Batman, and Super Body, these cosmic origin power-wielding entities appeared in front of Nightmare Darkseid and simultaneously attacked him.
In a split second, red, green, yellow, and blue colors erupted all at one point, intertwining with the black power of nightmares like an overturned paint palette. Amidst this collision, many similar powers began to fuse, transforming into a much stronger force.
The computational power of nightmare power had already been significantly consumed by the Divine Will, and due to the overdrawn energy, the Nightmare Dimension also began to become fragile. These expanding chaotic forces were tearing the Nightmare Dimension apart from within.
The demise of one dimension might be silent, or perhaps earth-shattering. From an observer's perspective, it was merely an endless collapsing black hole added to the universe. However, the frenzied energy within the shattered dimension shredded everything, including the superheroes who exhausted all their power in full-strength attacks. In an instant, several white lights flashed, and everyone returned to Battleworld at the same time.
Nightmare Darkseid's physical body naturally couldn't survive. Yet, just like those superheroes who had lost their bodies in previous wars but retained their spirit bodies, Darkseid's spirit body survived using the special attributes of nightmare power.
The Nightmare Dimension was already shattered, but the power of nightmares possessed some of the Power of Dreams. This allowed Nightmare Darkseid to enter the Dream Dimension. At the moment his physical body shattered, he used nightmare power to connect to the Power of Dreams, bringing his spirit body into the Dream Dimension.
Of course, he knew that Dream Power Doctor Strange resided in the dreams, but the latter had previously siphoned almost all the Power of Dreams in the Dream Dimension into him and might not have fully recovered. Therefore, Darkseid only needed to find a place to hide quickly, and the other party couldn't possibly search for him throughout the entire Dream Dimension.
Just as Darkseid was fleeing in panic, a familiar figure descended before him. It was Prince Jade, Hal.