DC: Chapter 122/123

Chapter 122
Fifth Avenue remained bustling, the black SUV moving steadily through the endless stream of vehicles. The pace wasn't fast, cars of different colors passed by or were overtaken, some speeding ahead, others lagging behind.

The streetlights on both sides illuminated the night, pedestrians laughed and chatted, and towering skyscrapers stretched endlessly into the sky. Neon signs flashed in vibrant colors, advertisements glowed along storefronts, and the entire city shimmered with the brilliance befitting one of the world's greatest metropolises.

Inside the car.

No one outside knew how casually the decision to save the world had just been made.

To Bardi, it was almost laughable.

He had never wanted to be a hero, never had the slightest intention of saving the world. Yet now, for his own sake, he had no choice but to play that role, risking life and death to seal the projection of a demon lord.

Just because he had an unshakable will and an anomalous soul, maybe he could do it. Maybe. But who could say for certain?

The thought filled him with frustration at his own weakness. At the same time, an insatiable hunger for strength burned within him, a desire to grow, to become powerful enough that nothing could ever threaten him again.

Danger had always followed him. From the moment he left Krypton, it had never changed.

Every time he felt powerless, helpless, something inside him twisted into madness. The fury at his own weakness pushed him beyond his limits, forced him to defy the constraints of his genes and evolve.

Just as he had transformed on Krypton, no one could ever understand the suffering Bardi endured for the sake of his survival. The sheer willpower that drove him was terrifying.

He had never complained—not about fate, not about the universe, not even about the gods who seemed to dictate his path. This life was something he had chosen, and even as it tortured him, drove him to the brink of insanity, he would never stop. He would use everything at his disposal, sacrifice anything, and climb toward the highest throne of power.

He would rather die than stop.

He wanted to grasp the stars in his palm, to dominate the universe, to place everything beneath his feet.

Never again would he allow anyone to dictate his fate.

And yet, in just a week's time, Trigon's projection would descend and in that moment, his fate would be out of his control once more. The thought sent a violent fury surging through him.

Once again, someone was threatening his life.

That realization filled him with an unwillingness so deep it felt suffocating.

Anyone would lose their mind in a situation like this.

Knowing that an existence far beyond their power could crush them at any moment, people would either break under fear, succumb to despair, or burn with defiance.

The cold night wind rushed through the open car window, tousling his dark hair. He turned his gaze outward, watching the neon signs flicker past. The flashing city lights cast alternating shadows and brilliance across his face, making him seem even more resolute, fearless.

Seated beside him, Raven turned slightly to observe him.

She had a unique sensitivity to emotions. She could even absorb them, using them as power.

What she sensed in Bardi made her pause.

There was no doubt, he was tormenting himself.

He inflicted this suffering upon himself, driving himself forward with unwavering determination.

Raven could feel it. If Bardi ever chose to stop, he could be happy. Truly happy. If he let go, he could bask in the warmth of life, bring hope to others, lead them forward. He had the potential to be a beacon, a guiding light.

But he wouldn't stop.

His will was like stone, carved with pain and purpose.

Raven's heart tightened. She hadn't expected to feel this way, but in this moment, she realized, Bardi carried an immense, hidden pain. A pain no one else knew.

She hesitated, her dark purple lips parting slightly, as if she wanted to speak.

She wanted to talk to him to discuss strategy, to plan, to understand the limits of his power.

But more than that, she wanted to understand him.

Because she had felt something familiar in him.

She, too, carried pain.

Her mother, her masters, the entire Azarath Sanctuary, they had all perished because of her. Because of her father.

That grief had shaped her existence.

But she wasn't even allowed to grieve.

Her emotions were a prison, too strong, too dangerous. If she let herself feel too deeply, the seal would break. And if the seal broke, Trigon would come.

She lived with that weight every second of every day.

Looking at Bardi, she suddenly felt... at peace.

Like they shared something unspoken.

She was about to speak—

Then suddenly—

A low gurgling sound broke the silence.

The noise came from her lower abdomen.

The wind blowing through the open window had been the only sound in the car, making the sudden rumbling of her stomach stand out even more.

Raven froze.

She instinctively placed a hand over her stomach.

A moment ago, she had been contemplating Bardi's emotional turmoil. Now, all she could think about was the very human, very inconvenient noise her body had just made.

The gurgling sound snapped Bardi out of his thoughts.

Even Mike, who had been driving silently, was caught off guard. His mind wandered to absurd places. Do demons even get hungry? And if so... what do they eat?

Humans?

Mike shuddered at the thought but said nothing.

Bardi rolled up the car window and turned to look at Raven.

She sat with perfect posture, her pale face composed. Despite her thin frame, she carried herself with the dignified grace of a noblewoman.

"I sealed most of my energy responses," she said evenly, her voice serious. "With my energy suppressed, my body no longer draws from it. That means I require food to sustain myself."

She spoke with such formality, as if explaining a scientific principle rather than addressing the very simple fact that she was, in fact, hungry.

Then, as if to emphasize her words, her stomach growled again.

Raven's expression grew even more serious. She pressed her hands firmly against her stomach, the fabric of her cloak sinking inward. Her dark purple lips tightened into a thin line, her gaze steely with determination.

She even gritted her teeth slightly.

For a young girl, this situation was beyond embarrassing.

The urge to release her seal and let her energy sustain her, just to stop the humiliating noises was almost unbearable.

Bardi smirked slightly, amusement flashing in his eyes. He hadn't expected that even a half-demon like Raven could get hungry.

The wild, simmering rage he'd felt toward Trigon just moments ago faded, replaced by unexpected calm.

"Mike, go get some food," Bardi ordered.

Mike hesitated for a moment. "Eating in the car?" he asked uncertainly.

"Yeah," Bardi replied indifferently.

Mike fell silent, then nodded. He reached into the storage compartment under the dashboard, pulled out a pair of sunglasses, and slipped them on. Finding a parking space by the side of the road, he parked the SUV, stepped out, and walked off in search of food for Raven.

Inside the car, Raven remained composed, showing no sign of embarrassment. However, beneath her cloak, her fingers dug deep into her stomach.

Now that Mike was gone, only she and Bardi remained in the car, and the silence between them felt suffocating.

Then—

Grrrgl.

Her stomach growled again.

Twice.

Raven wanted to disappear.

Her face remained as serious as ever, her eyes fixed straight ahead, deliberately avoiding Bardi's gaze.

This was mortifying.

Then, Bardi did something he would regret for decades, something that, in the end, forged a connection between him and Raven, one that would never be broken.

He reached into the storage box, took out a small cube of chocolate wrapped in gold foil, and placed it lightly on Raven's lap.

In doing so, his fingers accidentally brushed against her thigh. Her skin, cold as leather sent a faint shiver through his fingertips.

Bardi barely noticed.

But Raven did.

A small, involuntary tremor ran through her body.

"Eat some chocolate first," Bardi said. His tone was casual, without any particular meaning behind it. It was simply an act of kindness.

Because in that moment, he saw her not just as a half-demon, but as a girl—one who still had human emotions, even if she tried to suppress them.

Raven gave a small nod. Without hesitation, she unwrapped the gold foil, bit into the chocolate, and chewed. Her dark purple lips parted slightly, revealing sharp white teeth as she took a bite.

The chocolate melted on her tongue, its warmth spreading down her throat.

At that moment, she realized, she had never tasted anything like this before.

Sweet, yet slightly bitter. Warm. Comforting.

A flavor she would never forget.

"Thank you. It's… sweet," she said softly.

The rigid expression on her face softened slightly. She no longer pressed her hands against her stomach, instead savoring the lingering taste of the chocolate.

Silence filled the car once again.

But Raven felt strangely overwhelmed.

Then—

The car door swung open.

Raven let out a breath of relief, only to be stunned a second later.

Mike had returned.

And he wasn't alone.

He hauled a blonde woman, heavily made-up and scantily clad into the SUV and unceremoniously dropped her onto Raven's lap.

Then, without a word, he slammed the door shut, turned his back to the vehicle, pulled a Cuban cigar from his suit pocket, lit it, and took a deep drag.

"I didn't expect the boss to have a thing for watching demons eat," Mike muttered to himself, exhaling a puff of smoke as he gazed up at the starry sky.

Apparently, his boss not only liked standing under the sun, obsessed with its light, but also had an interest in witnessing demons feast.

Inside the car.

Raven sat frozen, utterly bewildered.

She glanced down at the unconscious blonde sprawled across her lap. The scent of cheap perfume filled the air, clinging to the woman's skin.

It was overwhelmingly unpleasant.

She blinked in confusion.

What… is happening?

Her puzzled gaze met Bardi's equally perplexed expression.

Clearly, neither of them had any idea what was going on.

"Mike," Bardi called out, his voice sharp.

Mike, still facing away, sighed and took another slow drag of his cigar.

"Mike, what the hell is this?" Bardi asked.

Mike finally turned around, frowning slightly. "Food."

He gestured toward the unconscious woman.

"Don't demons drink blood? Eat organs? Or, you know, devour souls or something?" he asked, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Bardi stared at him, utterly dumbfounded.

Mike seemed genuinely confused by his boss's reaction wasn't this normal? Weren't demons supposed to eat people?

He had walked two streets before finally finding a lonely street girl, knocked her out, and brought her back, thinking he was doing his job well.

Raven's face darkened.

"I don't eat people," she said coldly.

Mike froze.

For a moment, he processed what she had said.

Then it finally hit him.

He had made a massive mistake.

His eyes widened, and panic flashed across his face. Without hesitation, he scrambled to fix the situation, grabbing the unconscious woman and hauling her back out of the car.

"I—I'll get real food!" he stammered, practically sprinting down the street.

Bardi watched him go, then exhaled slowly.

For a moment, he seriously considered whether Mike's superpowers had fried his brain.

Has his IQ dropped since getting his abilities?

Why does he seem so… stupid?

A few minutes later, Mike returned, arms full of pizza, burgers, and a few neatly packed steak meals.

But as he walked toward the parking space where he had left the SUV.

He froze.

The spot was empty.

The car was gone.

Mike's eyes widened in alarm.

"...Where the hell did the car go?"

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Chapter 123
Only three or four minutes after Mike left.

Inside the SUV, Bardi felt something strange. His entire body reacted instinctively, resisting an external force—magic. His blood surged wildly through his veins, his body rejecting the intrusion with an almost violent intensity.

His skin, smooth and pale like polished jade, was suddenly marred by bulging blue veins, twisting like coiled serpents beneath the surface. His fists clenched, his expression sharpened into something fierce, and every muscle in his body tensed, brimming with raw, unrestrained power.

But then, a suffocating sensation overtook him.

He felt as if he were submerged in deep water, surrounded by magic pressing against him from all sides, making it hard to breathe.

His sharp gaze shifted to Raven, his eyes glinting coldly.

"Someone is using magic—teleportation magic," Raven said calmly.

She wasn't surprised by the spell's effects. To her, this level of magic was unimpressive, far weaker than her own. She could teleport across entire star systems if necessary, distances measured in light-years rather than miles.

Then, before Bardi's eyes, a black vortex materialized in front of the car.

It spun violently, rippling the air around it, distorting space with its gravitational pull. The vortex led somewhere unknown, its swirling darkness revealing glimpses of a distant landscape, a barren stretch of land, a lonely forest standing beneath the night sky.

A portal.

Without warning, the SUV lifted off the ground, suspended in midair as if caught by invisible hands, and was pulled toward the vortex.

Bardi reacted instantly.

Without hesitation, he moved to grab Raven, intending to break through the car door and escape. His arm wrapped around her waist, muscles tensing.

But before he could act, Raven stopped him.

"No need," she said, her tone calm, though her expression was slightly unnatural.

Bardi was too close.

In that split second, he had nearly carried her out of the car entirely. She could feel his solid, powerful chest pressing against her, the warmth of his body radiating through his clothes. The scent of him—clean, sunlit, and strong—momentarily filled her senses.

It was unexpected.

Almost immediately, Bardi hesitated.

His eyes flickered with thought, then he nodded and released her.

Raven was more knowledgeable about magic than he was. If she wasn't alarmed, then this situation was something she could handle.

Still, the fact that his body instinctively resisted magic so violently troubled him.

A thought formed in his mind.

If possible, he needed to learn magic, at least enough to counteract its effects on him.

The SUV, still wrapped in magical energy, hurtled into the black vortex. Space twisted, rippling around them as the swirling portal rapidly shrank, collapsing into a single point before vanishing entirely. The air shimmered faintly in its wake, like heat distortion rising from pavement, before settling into silence.

And just like that.

The car was gone.

Strangely, the few pedestrians nearby gave no reaction to the event.

Not a single person noticed that an entire vehicle had just vanished into thin air.

They continued walking as if nothing had happened, oblivious to the anomaly.

Inside the car, Bardi relaxed slightly, though his body remained primed for action.

"Your enemy?" he asked, his voice level.

The tension in his muscles eased, and the veins that had bulged across his jade-like skin gradually receded. But his energy remained coiled, ready to explode into action at any moment.

Raven frowned slightly, her dark purple lips parting as she hesitated.

She wasn't entirely sure.

If this was Trigon's doing, it was weak—too weak.

Finally, she said, "My enemies… shouldn't be this weak."

Bardi remained silent.

Weak? Perhaps by her standards.

But to him, anyone capable of using teleportation magic wasn't to be underestimated.

Even scientifically, teleportation of this nature was equivalent to opening a controlled wormhole, something Earth's technology was centuries, if not millennia, away from achieving.

Magic… it truly was something beyond reason.

A different system of power altogether, separate from science yet equally profound.

The SUV passed through the vortex and landed hard, shaking upon impact.

But neither Bardi nor Raven was affected. They remained seated, unmoved by the turbulence.

Bardi reached for the door handle and stepped out.

His boots sank slightly into the soft, damp earth.

Looking up, he saw an open landscape, rolling plains stretching far and wide.

Tall trees stood in the distance, lined in neat rows beneath a breathtaking night sky. The air was fresh and crisp, untouched by industrial pollution. The scent of earth and plant life filled his lungs, carried by the wind.

It was beautiful.

The grass beneath his feet, the wide-open wilderness, the vast expanse of stars glittering overhead, it was a place of untouched nature, pure and unspoiled.

Something about it eased his mind, even if only for a moment.

Bardi tilted his head upward, his sharp gaze scanning the constellations.

There—Ursa Major.

Like a massive spoon hanging in the sky.

Following the two bright stars at its edge, he traced a path outward, five times their distance until his eyes landed on the North Star.

Polaris. The guiding light of the northern hemisphere.

From there, he identified other constellations, using their positions to calculate their current location.

His mind worked rapidly, analyzing angles, distances.

Then, he had his answer.

They were on a small, uncharted island in the Atlantic Ocean.

More than 3,500 kilometers from Manhattan.

The nearest landmass? The Azores—500 kilometers away.

Bardi exhaled slowly.

In an instant, they had traveled 3,500 kilometers.

Magic constantly redefined his understanding of the world. This was essentially wormhole transportation, a feat that defied conventional physics.

Raven opened the car door, preparing to step out. Just as she lifted herself from the seat, she hesitated for a moment, then turned back. Opening the SUV's storage compartment, she took out every piece of chocolate inside, stuffing them into her cloak.

Then, she immediately unwrapped a long chocolate bar, took a bite, and chewed it slowly as she stepped out of the car, coming to stand beside Bardi.

With her hood pulled over her head and her face partially obscured, only her delicate chin was visible beneath the shadows. If not for the fact that she was holding chocolate in both hands, chewing away, she would have looked like a mysterious sorceress.

Instead, she looked like a hamster, nibbling with serious concentration, her dark purple lips pressing against the chocolate, taking small bites, savoring the taste.

"We were teleported to an unknown island 3,500 kilometers away."

Bardi glanced at Raven, his expression slightly puzzled.

He had never known she liked chocolate. Had she ever mentioned it?

Raven simply nodded, continuing to chew, the rich aroma of chocolate lingering between her words.

"The entire island is covered by a magical formation," she said between bites. "It's a sealed space, reinforced by a strong, bright flame effect. A containment ward."

The moment Raven stepped onto the grass, she could feel it, the intricate structure of the magical formation woven into the land itself.

Bardi scanned the area.

Activating his enhanced vision, he tried to pierce through the barrier, but his sight was blocked. The island was entirely enclosed within the magic circle.

The surroundings were eerily quiet. The only disturbance was the salty sea breeze bending the tall grass under the night sky. Beyond that, nothing stood out just an endless expanse of stars.

He couldn't see the magic circle's structure.

But he could feel it.

A constant pressure, subtly restricting his body's natural responses.

It put him on edge.

Raven paused mid-bite, observing Bardi's stance.

"Very weak," she said plainly.

To her, the magic here was laughably simple. Even with most of her power sealed, she could easily break through this kind of barrier.

Bardi remained silent, his expression unreadable.

But he didn't lower his guard.

Weak or not, he never underestimated an enemy.

To him, every battle was all or nothing, either he killed his opponent first, or he was killed. That was the only way to fight.

Then—

A thick gray mist suddenly swirled in the distance.

It gathered rapidly, coalescing into a massive form.

Within seconds, a giant humanoid figure loomed in the sky, composed entirely of mist, stretching across half the horizon.

The figure's upper body solidified, taking on a defined shape.

A bowtie at the neck. Sharp facial features, clearly visible through the haze.

Bardi's eyes narrowed.

A cold glint flashed in his gaze.

Zatara.

The legendary magician.

Zatanna's father.

Towering in the sky, Zatara's massive mist-formed face looked down at them, his presence oppressive and commanding.

"Devil," his voice echoed, rumbling like distant thunder.

"Trying to escape?"