American Comics: Something's Wrong with This Superhero World

Chapter 127 Azu's Psychological Trauma

As Xiao Xian crushed Pennywise's heart, three constantly rotating points of light spiraled upwards and flew into the sky.

These three points of light are Pennywise's true form—the Death Ray. Crushing Pennywise's heart can only kill Pennywise while he is possessed by the Death Ray. The Death Ray itself is a higher-level cosmic evil god and will not be harmed by Pennywise's death.

Just like when humans play computer games, if a character in the game is killed, it doesn't necessarily mean that the person controlling the character will die or be injured. Of course, whether or not there is psychological harm is another matter.

Watching the three points of light fly higher and higher, Xiao Xian made no attempt to stop them. As the saying goes, don't pursue a desperate enemy. Know when to stop. It's good enough that he knocked the Death Ray offline. It wouldn't be good if he provoked the other party and caused them to create another account to fight him.

With Pennywise's death, Xiao Xian also heard the notification sound indicating the mission was complete, but he did not feel any change in himself.

"That shouldn't be the case. It's impossible that no one is afraid of me. Could it be that the Death Ray level is too high and the system is not working properly?" Xiao Xian looked at his palm in confusion, then closed his eyes and felt it again. There was no change at all. Even when Xiao Xian fired his heat vision, it felt no different from before.

"What's going on?" Xiao Xianfei emerged from the cave. The towers that had been floating moments before, along with Pennywise's death, lost their eerie buoyancy and began to fall. The stone golem looked around in bewilderment, and upon seeing Xiao Xianfei, it called out uncertainly.

"Xiao Xian?"

"The stone man." Just as Xiao Xian was about to say something, he suddenly felt a faint fear emanating from the stone man. With a thought, Xiao Xian absorbed the fear emanating from the stone man into his body and stored it. Xiao Xian felt that he could consume this power of fear to provide himself with energy.

It seems that unlike Tomie's absorption of hatred, Pennywise's absorption of fear has a distance requirement. In this respect, it feels inferior to Tomie's absorption of hatred. However, Pennywise's absorption of fear can be stored, which Xiao Xian finds very nice.

Moreover, after absorbing the stone golem's fear, Xiao Xian seemed to see a blurry scene. He vaguely saw that he used his heat vision to break through the stone golem's defense and kill it. It seemed that the stone golem was afraid that he would break through its defense and burn it to death.

As expected, Pennywise's ability is not as simple as just fear absorption as it is stated on the surface. Xiao Xian also inherited Pennywise's ability to see the fear of others. However, the image is blurry, so it is unknown whether it can be improved after the other party's level of fear increases or the total amount of fear absorbed by Xiao Xian increases.

Of course, it's also possible that an upgrade is needed. Tomie's Super Regeneration and Super Charisma can be upgraded, so there's no reason why Pennywise's abilities can't be upgraded as well.

"Where's Pennywise? How did you find your way here?" The stone man pulled a coat out of a pile of trash and put it on, looking at Xiao Xian in the sky as he asked.

"Dead. I killed him." Xiao Xian looked at the stone man and said, "Pennywise said you slept with quite a few girls and even tried to steal Mr. Fantastic's girl? You're pretty brave, aren't you?"

"No, you wouldn't believe such weird talk, would you? I'm a superhero." The Thing shook his head hurriedly, but he was panicking inside. If Pennywise was really framing him, he wouldn't be so flustered.

The Thing had been defeated by Pennywise long ago and had no idea that Superman would later be defeated by Pennywise, so he didn't react much to Xiao Xian's victory over Pennywise.

After all, in the Stone Man's eyes, Xiao Xian's abilities could barely be described as a miniature Superman, so defeating the monster was quite reasonable.

"Is that so?" Xiao Xian noticed that the pattern contained in the Stone Man's new fear had changed from his laser eyes attacking the Stone Man to the Stone Man being imprisoned and surrounded by reporters. It seemed that the Stone Man was now afraid that Xiao Xian would expose the matter.

"Of course," the Stone Man said seriously. Although he was confident that he had done everything perfectly and had destroyed all the evidence, Pennywise was an oddity, and oddities cannot be judged by common sense.

"Alright then." Xiao revealed a meaningful smile, which made Stone Man feel uneasy.

"Breaking news! It's incredible! Superhero Xiao Xian didn't die! He faked his death, fooled Pennywise, and seized the opportunity to exploit the Joker's weakness and kill him! He avenged himself and his best friend Superman!" the female reporter shouted into the camera.

"What?!" Superman, holding a bottle of milk, looked at the news on TV with a puzzled expression. He hadn't taken the part about Xiao Xian killing him in the illusion too seriously since he thought Xiao Xian was dead, but now that Xiao Xian was not only alive but had also killed Pennywise, Superman felt very uneasy.

Reason tells Superman that Xiao Xian is no match for him, but Xiao Xian could even kill Pennywise, so who knows? Right?

Furthermore, Superman heard from Wayne Enterprises' intelligence personnel that Xiao Xian demonstrated heat vision capabilities at the S.H.I.E.L.D. base.

"Aaaaaah~!!!! Xiao Xian, you're amazing! You're the strongest superhero! The guardian of New York! Superman and Hulk aren't even worthy of carrying my idol's shoes. They were completely controlled by that weirdo. If Xiao Xian hadn't killed Pennywise, I don't even want to think what would have happened to New York. You truly are my idol, waaaaah~~"

On the television screen, a female fan was being interviewed, her face beaming with a happy smile. Superman suspected that she might not even be this happy if her father had come back to life.

Seeing the female fan on the TV screen, Superman crushed the baby bottle in his hand! A red light flashed in his eyes, and then his gaze, burning hot, destroyed the TV in front of him.

On the other side, Xiao Xian, who was studying a jigsaw puzzle on his balcony at home, suddenly stopped and turned around to look behind him. Superman was behind him, with his hands behind his back and a kind and friendly smile on his face.

Xiao Xian sensed Superman's arrival for a simple reason: he sensed Superman's fear. Although it was faint, it was of very high quality, far surpassing that of the Thing. Through Superman's fear, Xiao Xian vaguely saw someone kill Superman with heat vision. If Xiao Xian wasn't mistaken, the person who killed Superman in that blurry image seemed to be himself.

"I heard you killed Pennywise?" Superman walked up to Xiao Xian like an old friend, looking at him kindly and saying, "Now everyone online is saying very good things about you."

"It's alright. Killing Pennywise wasn't all good. I also picked up some bad things."

Xiao Xian pointed to the puzzle symbols in his hand and said that since S.H.I.E.L.D. had mentioned Jigsaw's name to Pennywise, Xiao Xian simply said that he had contracted the Jigsaw Anomaly because he killed Pennywise, so that he could get information about the Jigsaw Anomaly from S.H.I.E.L.D. and get some benefits from it. After all, this thing could be considered a work injury no matter what.

"What's this? Your tattoo?" Superman scoffed, following Xiao Xian's gaze, and looked at the jigsaw puzzle marks on Xiao Xian's body with disdain.

"A strange mark, a highly contagious anomaly. S.H.I.E.L.D. used it against Pennywise, and I ended up getting infected while fighting Pennywise." Xiao Xian shrugged, looking helpless. "By the way, what brings you here?"

"???!!!!" Weird? And contagious?! Superman's smile froze instantly, his face already traumatized by the two weirdos, Sadako and Pennywise.

(End of this chapter)