The blade formed from red energy cleanly and precisely pierced Wonder Woman's body, and the immense divine power contained within it instantly inflicted severe injuries on Diana.
"Diana!"
Things happened too quickly. Even Superman, Clark, did not react in time. By the time they came to their senses, this was the scene before their eyes.
Ethan held Diana's neck with his left hand, his movement gentle, as if he were lightly stroking her black hair. His right hand held the long blade condensed from red energy, which had pierced Diana's body. Wonder Woman's armor offered no protection at all.
As the energy blade condensed in Ethan's hand disappeared, the unobstructed wound began to gush blood faintly glowing with white light.
Diana felt her strength gradually fading. She wanted to say something, but just as she was about to open her mouth, a rush of hot blood surged up her throat, forcing her to swallow the words she wanted to say.
Covering the wound on her chest with both hands, she could not stop the blood from gushing out. She could no longer stand and slowly collapsed, but Ethan gently supported her, preventing her from falling directly to the ground.
"Sleep well for a while. It will be over soon."
Ethan's voice was very gentle, giving Diana a strange feeling. This really did not sound like the tone someone who had just severely injured, or rather killed, her should use.
Unfortunately, she did not have the strength to think about why. After being gently laid down on the ground, she completely lost consciousness.
"No!"
Among the superheroes, only Bruce Wayne was relatively familiar with Diana, and he was the most agitated one. However, as a mere mortal, Batman could not charge forward even if he wanted to. He had only taken two steps when he was bound like a mummy by ropes transformed from red energy.
Superman was actually faster. He had already assumed his iconic flying pose, intending to rush to Diana's side to provide emergency aid. However, as if frozen, he remained suspended in the air in that posture, appearing to be flying at high speed, yet in everyone's eyes, he stayed rooted to the spot, not moving an inch.
It was not until Diana completely lost all signs of life that Superman finally "stopped," hovering in midair and staring intently at Ethan.
Cyborg had become a normal person. Even if he had any ideas, he could not act on them. Besides, he was not much of a superhero to begin with. At this moment, his mind was in chaos.
The Flash's abilities were still there, but he could not be considered a superhero right now. He was just a rookie who had recently started out. Facing this sudden change, he had no idea what to do and stood there dumbfounded.
Arthur and Mera were trained warriors, but the disparity in strength was too obvious now. They also did not know what to do, seemingly left with only the option of fighting the opponent to the death.
"Why did you do this?"
Bound and lying on the ground like a mummy, Batman lifted his head and stared at Ethan. Although his eyes showed obvious anger, he remained very calm, still trying hard to figure out a countermeasure.
Ethan did not answer. Looking at Diana's "corpse" before him, he extended his hands. The prayer beads on his left wrist emitted a brilliant, colorful light. As the energy released by Ethan enveloped Diana's "corpse," everyone noticed that Diana seemed to have split into two.
"What's going on?"
Ethan's outstretched hands made a slight separating motion, and finally, a beam of orange-yellow light illuminated the entire world, as if turning the whole world a dusky yellow.
After blinking, they found that nothing had changed. Everything that had just happened seemed like an illusion.
But there were indeed two Dianas lying on the ground ahead. What exactly was going on?
Just as Bruce was still trying to figure out what was happening, he found that he had regained his mobility. Batman leaped up immediately and noticed that another person had performed the same action as him.
Diana leaped up from the ground, looking around with a bewildered expression. Then she lowered her head and kept examining herself. The spot where a large hole should have been was now perfectly intact, showing no signs of injury whatsoever. Even her armor had returned to its original state.
"What is going on?"
Turning her head, she saw the other version of herself on the ground. This one did not look so good. Not only did she have terrifying wounds on her body, but Diana could also feel a very powerful energy within that body, about to surge out of it.
She looked at Ethan, believing that this person could definitely give her an answer.
Ethan had no intention of explaining now. He continued directing his hands toward the "Diana" on the ground. As the white light in his palms gradually became dazzling, the Diana on the ground also transformed into a ball of white light.
"That is..."
Diana felt this power was both familiar and strange. She tried to exert some strength and found that her forearms, wearing the bracelets, also flashed with white light, but it was completely incomparable to the ball of energy before her.
She had thought that was the power hidden within her body, but after testing it, she found that her own power was still there. So what exactly was this ball of energy?
Not to mention Diana, who could not figure it out, the others were even more confused. They were all in a state of bewilderment, just standing there foolishly and watching Ethan's performance.
As Ethan allowed the ball of energy to envelop him and then slowly merge into his body, he finally descended from midair back to the ground, standing there quietly for a while before opening his eyes again.
He let out a breath. No matter what, he had finally completed this annoying key task.
Actually, completing this task did not need to be so troublesome. After collecting the three Mother Boxes, he only needed to kill Diana, extract the "key" that was "stored" within this world's Diana, and he could leave directly.
Also, when collecting the Mother Boxes, he did not need to specifically heal Cyborg, Victor.
But he could not get past his own conscience.
Ethan never considered himself a good person, but when it came to being a villain, he found that he simply could not bring himself to be cruel, let alone when facing Diana.
"However... if it were me before these two missions, I probably wouldn't even have been able to stab her."
His thoughts were very clear, and he processed information very quickly, but his emotions were almost completely flat. Even though killing Diana was something he strongly resisted, there was no feeling of discomfort in his "body."
"Hmph!"
Of course, he knew why. Anyway, he would go find that guy and resolve everything sooner or later, so Ethan stopped dwelling on the matter.
He glanced at the superheroes. They were still bewildered. Ethan could have left directly. After all, he would not have any further interaction with these people.
However, he decided to take a moment and chat with them. It would not hurt.
With a gentle wave of his hand, a red light swept across, and the superheroes found that their surroundings had changed dramatically. They were sitting in a coffee shop, all seated in a booth.
Because Ethan had displayed countless miraculous abilities before, they were not surprised by this. Bruce immediately asked the crucial question.
"What exactly happened just now?"
"Simply put, some guy with a sick sense of humor locked the front door to my home and threw the key into this world."
"..."
Everyone remained silent, listening quietly to Ethan's explanation.
Ethan did not explain the entire sequence of events, only telling them what they could know.
For instance, someone had tampered with the Mother Boxes, and he had to find all three Mother Boxes first to learn the location of the real key.
Cyborg became so agitated upon seeing him because the Mother Box had been "tampered with" and would do its utmost to prevent him from obtaining the Mother Box and completing this "task."
"You said the real key. Could it be..."
Not only Batman thought of it, everyone guessed it. Ethan nodded directly.
"That's right. The key to my home was placed inside Diana by that guy. I have to kill Diana to get it out."
At this moment, all the heroes were furious. They did not know who would do such a thing, but none of them doubted that Ethan was telling the truth.
The Flash then pressed on, "Why did Diana come back to life after you killed her? And it looks completely different from Victor's situation."
Victor's recovery seemed somewhat like time reversal. And Batman, Bruce Wayne, noticed that the energy Ethan used came in different colors. Through analysis, he had figured out that blue was related to space and green seemed to be time. In addition, there were red, purple, and orange-yellow, but he had not yet analyzed what those powers were.
"I took a portion of reality and distorted it, creating two Dianas at the same time. One was killed by me, and the other was not. I didn't split Diana's soul during the distortion, so it wasn't like splitting her into two people."
The key thrown by that guy was only one and would not be divided by Ethan's distortion of "reality." Even if it were divided, it would not matter. Ethan only needed one of them.
Ethan's explanation left everyone stunned. They had not expected "someone" could do such a thing.
"Who exactly are you?"
Ethan thought for a moment and used his most common identity.
"Just consider me a god from another universe."
That was an acceptable answer. As Ethan explained, the heroes gradually ran out of questions, only for Diana to suddenly press on.
"You could have just killed me and taken the key. Why didn't you do that?"
To this god, they were complete strangers, and there was no need to care whether they lived or died. Although one could think of the other party as a benevolent god, Diana instinctively felt that was not the reason.
"Well... because I don't want to be lectured by my wife when I get home."
With that sentence, Ethan's figure slowly disappeared. The superheroes found themselves back in the real world, sitting in the same coffee shop where Ethan had been earlier.
(To be continued.)