Barry looked at Su Ming with a somewhat resentful gaze.
"You could have just mentioned your location, you know."
After The Flash arrived, even if they couldn't deal with the opponent, they could at least retreat. Su Ming, a bit more relaxed, responded to Barry's question.
"First, this is a chaotic magic space, so you have to find it yourself. Secondly, as long as we're still on Earth and I haven't purposely hidden my tracks, Batman is definitely watching me at all times. Lastly, letting him handle my phone was part of my plan all along."
"So I had to repair the ground collapse caused by the Lizardmen in Atlanta, then return to the Washington Hall of Justice to find your location, rush to Massachusetts, use the Divine Speed to pierce through illusions, and find you from among tens of thousands of alternate spaces?"
Barry complained, feeling exhausted, both physically aching and mentally drained.
Su Ming squinted his eyes: "And you also managed to take a shower, change clothes, eat a few slices of pizza, and have a meeting with Batman using the Bullet Time Domain at the Hall of Justice?"
"Uh... How did you know that?" Barry scratched his head awkwardly. He had indeed done all that, and he even had time to use the bathroom and return to Midtown for new gear.
He always knew that Deathstroke was a master strategist, but it felt as if he had witnessed these things firsthand, and Barry was still amazed.
Su Ming anticipated this because Barry never seemed rushed. He habitually used the Divine Speed, and doing all the above probably took him less than 0.1 seconds.
Time, to Barry, always seemed ample. Trying to make him feel urgent was indeed a challenge.
"Because there's roasted rosemary leaf stuck in your teeth, you smell of bath gel and uniform cleaner, and your complaints to me are baseless unless Batman said something to you."
Barry's eyes widened, and he drew a sharp breath: "Are you a devil? You deduced even that?"
"It's just basic logic, the real deduction comes later."
Su Ming pointed with the great sword in his hand at someone curiously observing The Flash on the side, the Inverted Man seemed very interested in the user of Divine Speed, tilting its head and scrutinizing Barry.
"Ugh, what is that thing? It looks slimy and covered in scales."
Barry grimaced with some disdain; he hadn't looked closely at it earlier when he rushed over, and now seeing it directly, he realized how gross it was.
"What you're seeing now is the dark side of magic in this world, and it wants to eliminate everyone," Diana explained to Barry, still fending off the tentacles surrounding them.
"Why?" Barry asked Su Ming in a low voice, cautiously eyeing the huge hanging Lizardman.
He had encountered the dark manifestations of the Divine Speed, like Black Lightning, which wanted to kill him to maintain the balance of the Divine Speed—but it never said it wanted everyone dead.
"Because the warlocks... No, everything in this world owes it, debts unpaid for tens of thousands of years," Su Ming explained in layman's terms.
"Uh..." Barry blinked, feeling a bit guilty, his posture slumping slightly: "Sounds like we're not really on the right side..."
"Like Batman said, it's time to pursue deeper justice," Su Ming patted Barry's shoulder, offering him some encouragement: "After all, it's planning a massacre, so you decide what to do."
Barry sighed and steeled his gaze, slowly inhaling and exhaling: "I've always known the Mage Association would stir up trouble; such powerful forces never come without a price."
Batman was aware too, which is why he had Diana, the Justice League's expert on mystical matters, organize the Dark Justice League.
Unfortunately, it was a bit late, as the mystical group hadn't formed yet, and the creditor had already arrived.
"Even something you understand, the warlocks naturally also understand; they're merely deluding themselves," Su Ming chuckled coldly, assigning a strategy to Barry: "Run, Barry, start a small Divine Speed Storm, and Diana and I will find a way to deal with it."
The Divine Speed Storm would extract the time concept of life and objects within, accelerating them into dust, but since the opponent was the concept of magic, such a tactic should be futile.
However, the Divine Speed Storm had another subtle trait: anything trapped within without Divine Speed couldn't escape on its own.
Su Ming's plan at the moment was to enclose this Inverted Man in a small space with the storm, then find a way to eject him from the world.
"This might harm you and Diana, as the Divine Speed will draw out your life and time."
Barry seriously warned the two, noting that the Divine Speed Storm was typically used by villain speedsters.
As their opponent, Barry often found himself running in reverse to halt a storm, so he understood the principle but never deployed it.
"No worries, I have X Metal, the Divine Speed can't drain us," Su Ming said, removing a drop of X Metal from the great sword and placing it in Diana's shield-wielding hand, cleaning up around her.
Barry had previously seen X Metal restore Batman and Superman's youth; if it worked on ordinary beings like Batman, it would surely work on Diana and Deathstroke.
Thus, he hesitated no longer, immediately starting his steps, as the Divine Speed Storm required not high velocity but the application of Divine Speed to tug at the surroundings while running.
It tightened the connection between the Divine Speed Plane and the world, even allowing energy to be drawn in.
Barry's speed remained impressively quick; in barely a moment, Su Ming, Diana, and the Inverted Man were trapped within a red storm filled with lightning.
The formidable Divine Speed acted directly on the two; unlike the empowering feel when Barry previously carried them, it now extracted something from within them.
This sensation was abstract, hard to describe, but Su Ming felt themselves growing weaker, Diana undergoing a similar experience.
What was being extracted was time, an abstract concept at that.
Su Ming contemplated, activating his X Metal skeleton, restoring his weathered skin to its original state.
Similarly, aware of her aging, Diana gripped her metallic droplet tightly.
The tentacles emerging from the portal entered a peculiar cycle, with one side turning to ash and withering, while an unending stream emerged from the gateway.
Now, however, there was no need to expend energy fending them off.
As for the Inverted Man, it appeared unfazed, intrigued by their countermeasures.
The world within the walls was still novel to them.