"I promised Nabu I'd help you two work things out, but I didn't expect such a violent reaction. I had no choice but to use this method to help you calm down. I'm not the bad guy here—neither is Nabu." Thea spread her hands innocently. It's not my fault I'm violent—you forced me into it!
When your fist is big enough, that is the truth. No matter how dissatisfied Khalid felt, he couldn't say anything. He could only indicate that his emotions had stabilized. Could she please dispel this divine ability?
The flow of time returned to normal around them, as if the world had been refilled with color. Khalid breathed a huge sigh of relief. Looking at the grinning Thea, he didn't dare throw another tantrum.
The young heiress straightened her expression, trying to appear more serious. "Steppenwolf is ravaging this universe. Limited by certain rules, I can only deal with Steppenwolf himself. The Earth villains surrounding him must be handled by you Earthlings. You can ask the old man beside me about this."
She pointed at Old Robert. The old man immediately nodded, confirming this was indeed the case.
"I know you're very dissatisfied with Nabu's methods, and you even have some negative thoughts about it. But I must say—if you can stay true to yourself, even if Nabu were an evil god, you should have the confidence to use that power for righteous purposes."
Her words were decisive and aligned perfectly with mainstream values. Khalid's expression improved slightly.
"I'm not from this world. I'm just a visitor here. In the future, this universe, this Earth, will need power to protect it. Mr. Khalid, the opportunity is right in front of you. You shouldn't hesitate, whether for Earth or for your loved one."
After speaking, Thea pointed at Hawkgirl. Though this world had no Hawkman, as Hawkgirl's partner, Khalid could be quite stubborn. She had to break down and thoroughly explain the reasoning.
As she expected, at the mention of his wife, Khalid's spirits finally recovered, though he still hadn't made his final decision.
Thea had forgotten who convinced him in the original timeline. All she could do was wait patiently for him to make up his mind.
Hawkgirl began comforting him, repeating variations of "whatever you choose, I won't blame you" and "no matter what, I support you."
Old Robert's attention turned to the crossbows inside the room, gesturing excitedly as he examined them.
Thea casually flipped through the books in the room, but after a while, lost interest. The legends of these two worlds were too different—not much to reference.
As she read, she found herself getting drowsy. Normally at this hour, she'd have already clocked out and gone home to spar with the Valkyrie.
But that wasn't an option now. She'd been busy all day, though technically less than a day had passed.
This morning she'd gone looking for Barry, then fought Steppenwolf at super-speed, watched acid clouds obliterate Star City, got scared into a cold sweat by that Spectre fellow, had to personally train several heroes, helped craft a ring, and now had to mediate their conflict.
The sheer variety and number of tasks today were annoying just thinking about it.
The young heiress covered her mouth and let out an absolutely beautiful yawn. Just as she was drowsily about to fall asleep, Khalid finally made his decision.
"I will inherit Nabu's helmet. This is my destiny! Hey... you, you didn't fall asleep, did you?" Khalid nearly burst into tears. Great! I'm making such a huge life decision, at such a crucial moment, and did you even hear me?
But Thea was a deity. In less than a tenth of a second, she regained her composure. Relying on her adamantium-drill-combined-with-Speed-Force-powered-electric-drill-couldn't-penetrate face, she smiled casually, indicating she'd been awake the whole time.
Khalid still didn't dare challenge her. "I abandoned that helmet. Now I don't even know where it went."
"It doesn't matter. The helmet is just a physical manifestation. It represents Nabu's spirit. Since Nabu is still inside you, the helmet hasn't been lost." Thea was actually exhausted, forcing herself to concentrate as she explained. She definitely needed to get some benefits from Nabu afterward—otherwise she'd have wasted all this effort!
Is that how it works? Khalid's face was full of question marks. Thea just wanted to go home and rest. The best approach was to cut through this mess quickly.
She extended her psychic power and had a brief conversation with the Nabu inside him, then withdrew.
"Mr. Khalid, that helmet has returned to Nabu's resting place. You must firm up your resolve to obtain Nabu's full power."
"All of Nabu's belongings are stored in a subspace. I'll take you there!" After speaking, without bothering to ask anyone's opinion, the young heiress enveloped the three of them in azure fluctuations and teleported them over.
Gray sky, rigid earth. Around them were either beast-shaped strange rocks or withered old trees that could scare children into crying. Faint wails echoed through the air.
Several people examined their surroundings. Even Thea couldn't help but focus her attention. The negative energy here was unexpectedly strong.
Did this Nabu trick me? Is he actually a necromancer?
In this territory, if you buried a hundred corpses, seventy or eighty skeleton soldiers would stand up the next day. The negative energy here was too intense!
However, she quickly abandoned that thought. Not far from her line of sight stood a tower reaching into the heavens.
That was the only bright spot in this world—the mage tower Nabu had described, the Tower of Fate. Dense order power circulated around the tower's body.
Using the mage tower to suppress this space? Does this subspace bury something extremely evil?
She pointed at the distant tower, indicating for them to follow.
Halfway there, Khalid suddenly tripped over nothing, causing the young heiress some alarm. The guy scrambled up, not caring about his disheveled state, and shouted loudly, "Enemy of the mage! Thousand-year destiny! Red doom is coming!"
Thea was stunned by his words. This guy seemed to have gained some prophetic ability. The one-quarter transformation made him increasingly neurotic. However, what he considered an irresistible enemy was utterly insignificant in the young heiress's eyes.
But after the previous incident with the Spectre, Thea had become much more cautious. Five fingers, pale as jade, moved swiftly and casually, spreading out a mysterious and indescribable magic formation.
This subspace and the outside world should have initially been one, only later artificially separated. All the rules applied here.
Thea continuously set up three protective formations and two spatial formations. This time, even the Spectre couldn't teleport her away silently. These formations could at least buy a few seconds—she had that confidence.
She concentrated and waited for several minutes. She was getting confused. She had no sense of warning in her heart. That meant only two possibilities: the enemy was far stronger than her, or the enemy was far weaker than her! This was embarrassing.
The young heiress felt she was mostly a startled bird. How many beings in the multiverse were stronger than her and had nothing better to do than stare at Earth-2 all day?
She couldn't divine her own fate, especially since she was also a powerful deity. In this dilemma, she could only wait.