American comics: Today’s big news Chapter 051

Character name suggestions: Connor, Selina, Clark, Zod, Faora, Nam-Ek, Zatanna

Aboard the Kryptonian spaceship, which had already begun its hierarchical acceleration, Connor looked at the flight speed displayed on the screen in the cockpit and couldn’t help but exclaim,

“This is more than a thousand miles in a day; this damn thing must be ten thousand miles in a day!”

Selina, the Catwoman, didn’t care if it was a thousand or ten thousand miles; she was completely absorbed in the perfect fit.

She didn’t even need Connor to make a move; Selina was already pressing for more.

…

On Earth, after Connor flew away in the spaceship, Superman Clark, General Zod, his adjutant Faora, and Sergeant Nam-Ek (the tall one in the movie) were all stunned.

But General Zod mistakenly believed that Connor’s Human Straw substitute was truly a compatriot with a Kryptonian genetic core, while Superman thought Connor had died too easily.

So, after a brief, teeth-gritting stare-down, the two sides clashed again.

At this time, General Zod had not yet adapted to the Earth’s environment and was repeatedly suppressed by Superman Clark, fighting all the way from Kansas to Metropolis.

However, Zod’s heavy armor protected him from a lot of damage. He was also a character defined with a combat identity on Krypton, and Clark only wanted to subdue him, not kill him.

Back and forth, although the battle between the two caused considerable destruction, it was not easy to determine a winner in a short time.

The female adjutant Faora and Sergeant Nam-Ek, on the other hand, confronted the fighter jets in the air and the tanks on the ground. They were in a one-sided crushing situation, and human armaments did not prove to be of much use.

But even so, the other few Kryptonians who came down from the landing craft that Connor had plundered, due to their non-combat related professions, still suffered a certain degree of injury.

General Zod was in extreme pain at this moment, having to endure the changes in the Earth’s environment on one hand, and the angry fists of Superman Clark on the other. He was now utterly defenseless.

Adjutant Faora and Sergeant Nam-Ek, after dealing with the fighter jets, tanks, and numerous military soldiers, also quickly rushed to provide support.

Just then, untouched billboards on the street, a phone dropped by who-knows-who on the ground, and rustling sounds coming from everywhere made them stop in their tracks.

“Superman, Zod, don’t fight yet, wait for me.”

“If it’s really not working, go get some sleep first.”

Connor’s voice came from space, making Superman Clark, who had thought he was dead, a bit confused.

But Connor only said that the fight with General Zod would be later and did not mention the other Kryptonians.

Moreover, Adjutant Faora and Sergeant Nam-Ek were already walking side by side towards Superman Clark, leaving Clark no time to think. He abandoned the weakened General Zod, who had fallen to the side, and met the other compatriots.

…

Taking the landing craft to escape the Kryptonian pile driver spaceship, Connor manually set the ship’s flight speed to maximum.

That pile driver spaceship had already been set with its trajectory by Selina, the Catwoman, and would reach the sun in about half an hour.

—Kryptonian spaceships have “phantom drives” that can fly in a manner similar to teleportation.

But Connor didn’t dare to turn up the power, as, on a cosmic scale, Earth was simply too close to the sun.

After a final glance at the pile driver, Connor retracted his gaze and began piloting the landing craft to orbit Earth in the opposite direction of the sun.

His first plan in space was fully completed. Connor was now going to start exploiting a system bug:

Redefining the concept of “a day”!

A day has twenty-four hours, but the gossip system only records the gossip of the current day and has never had any countdown settings.

Although it involved a bit of trickery, Connor decided to take a gamble and see if the gossip system would also refresh if he flew around the Earth against the sun, artificially shortening his subjective “day.”

So, on this landing craft with its flight speed adjusted to maximum, Connor looked at the system with some anticipation.

The spaceship, meanwhile, orbited Earth in the direction of the sun, artificially “welcoming the sunrise and bidding farewell to the sunset.”

“Kryptonian spaceship technology is truly advanced,” Connor exclaimed again. Besides the seats not being very comfortable, unable to recline, and lacking beds, a pantry, a restroom, a private cinema, a bar…

Aside from all facilities for enjoyment, the spaceship’s performance was quite good; at least it flew fast and steadily.

It only took three hours to orbit the Earth once.

Along the way, to exploit the system bug to the maximum extent, Connor even used hypnosis on himself to forcefully hypnotize himself into believing that “a day is less than five hours.”

Of course, he didn’t forget to have Catwoman remind him to reverse the hypnosis afterward.

And after the spaceship orbited the Earth once, the gossip system indeed reacted.

[Today’s Big Gossip: Kryptonian Remnants]

[Gossip Reward: Healing Magic]

[Healing Magic: Achieves healing by absorbing the other person’s pain into oneself, bearing an equivalent illness, but capable of self-recovery in a short period.]

The bug exploit was successful!

Although this ability sounded not very friendly, did it mean that if he used this ability to save people, he would first have to endure the same pain?

He would not use this ability unless absolutely necessary… Connor secretly swore.

Although it seemed a bit useless, Connor didn’t dislike it, after all, strictly speaking, this ability, obtained by exploiting a system bug, was essentially free.

How could he dislike something free? Even if it wasn’t free, Connor wouldn’t consider an extra ability a burden; there was no such saying.

Take today’s plan of flying into space and sending the pile driver spaceship into the sun, for example; “Human Straw,” “Human Limit,” “Driving Master,” “Lockpicking Master,” and “Little Trick” were all indispensable.

Moreover, he already had an idea of how to make this healing ability shine.

At Catwoman Selina’s reminder, Connor re-hypnotized himself with the concept of “twenty-four hours in a day” before piloting the landing craft, which was almost out of fuel, towards Metropolis.

This landing craft had no communication equipment, so Connor couldn’t use it to locate the Superman vs. Zod battle.

But that didn’t matter; he just needed to use Metropolis as a center and find the most severely damaged area.

This place wasn’t hard to find, and when Connor arrived, he even had a surprising discovery:

The battle between Superman and Adjutant Faora and Sergeant Nam-Ek was still ongoing!

At this point, Faora was panting, and Nam-Ek’s armor was more than half broken. Superman, on the other hand, was fine except for being covered in dirt from who knows where.

“Are you going to join their battle too?” Selina asked with some concern, looking at the street below, which had almost become a ruin.

“No rush, I’m going to find Zatanna first,” Connor said, then directed the spaceship towards Gotham.

Gotham news reported Zatanna’s ruined magic show, and Selina knew this magician, but she didn’t understand why Connor would seek Zatanna for this matter.

…

In Gotham, Zatanna practiced all the magic she knew over and over again, even mastering many spells she hadn’t known before, such as telekinesis, teleportation, and reverse casting.

But the spatial magic she needed most at the moment could still only open a small gap, not enough for her to pass through.

She wanted to go to Metropolis, which had become a ruin due to the Superman vs. Zod battle, and the subsequent battles with Adjutant Faora and Sergeant Nam-Ek.

On TV news, the military could broadcast the images worldwide but was powerless to launch rescue efforts.

Although Zatanna felt she couldn’t intervene in a battle of that level, she believed her magic should be useful for simply rescuing people.

Just as Zatanna was anxious but helpless about this matter, the sound of an engine came from above her apartment, and then the flowers in her room began to grow strangely.

The engine sound gradually receded, then returned again, finally stopping in front of Zatanna’s apartment building.

“This is…?” Zatanna was puzzled, but the spaceship’s shape made her recognize it as a Kryptonian product, as related footage had been broadcast on TV not long ago.

Just as she picked up her magic wand and rushed downstairs to meet the Kryptonians, Connor walked out of the spaceship with Selina, the Catwoman.

“???” Zatanna suspected she had seen wrong, and the magic she was about to cast was withdrawn.

“Zatanna, I want to learn from you how to cast magic in reverse,” Connor said straightforwardly. He remembered Zatanna performing it a few times in the comics.

“I… I just learned that magic, how do you know…” Zatanna stammered.

She wasn’t afraid of Connor, but the moment she saw his face, the scenes of her two previous peeks at him through spatial magic, where he was always working diligently, naturally popped into her mind.

“It’s good that you can…” Connor breathed a sigh of relief and took the initiative to say, “Shall we make a deal?”

“I’ll help you find your father, and you teach me reverse magic, how about that?”

Zatanna breathed a sigh of relief, clearing the explicit images from her mind.

The moment she heard the word “deal,” she almost thought Connor was looking for her for something illicit in broad daylight. Fortunately, it seemed to be a misunderstanding.

“Okay, but we need to add one more thing: you have to take me to Metropolis.” Zatanna composed herself, her tone gentle but firm. “I want to save people.”