The aliens who were picked up by Superman at the beginning

For a fleeting moment, Li Zhen almost blurted out her thoughts.

Fortunately, he maintained his telepathic connection with Rachel, so he quickly suppressed the impulse caused by the illusion.

As Li Zhen calmly reflected, he recalled his experience of being guided back to the Invincible Young Hero universe by higher-dimensional beings in the time-travel.

At that time, he had asked some gifts from higher-dimensional beings, and the higher-dimensional beings who were friendly to the native creatures of the Invincible Young Hero universe granted his request.

And afterwards, he warned Li Zhen about something.

That means not trying to use technology or magic to return to the universe of the Invincible Young Hero.

The higher-dimensional beings could certainly see that Li Zhen was still determined; in fact, at that time, all he could think about was wanting to humiliate the Regent Prince once again in reality.

High-Dimensional Biotechnology's response was not merely to prohibit Li Zhen from interfering with the normal course of history.

"Whether it's technology or magic, they can't do something that spans the entire universe. Limited by diverse factors such as their perspective, they can only make you go around in circles in their different universes."

At that time, Li Zhen was naturally full of doubts about this.

"But you can do it."

"Yes... When you meet someone in that universe who can do the same thing, you'll recognize them immediately." After that, Lee Jung was sent back into the hypertime stream and, with the help of a directional channel constructed by higher-dimensional beings, returned to her own DC world.

During that time, Li Zhen also had some guesses about the identity of the person mentioned by the high-dimensional beings who "knew what the other party could do just by looking at them".

Generally speaking, considering the blue light emanating from the bodies of higher-dimensional beings, Li Zhen can be fairly certain that the person in the DC universe who could do this is Dr. Manhattan.

A guy who didn't belong to the DC universe but achieved quantum godhood through quantum ascension.

Dr. Manhattan also has blue light characteristics, and is not much different from the high-dimensional beings of the Invincible Young Hero. However, due to his habit of being human, he likes to maintain a human form.

The emotional surge brought on by the illusion was still intense. Under the temptation of Nero, the current lord of hell, Li Zhen almost agreed to his trade request.

At this moment, Li Zhen desperately wanted to return to her true hometown.

However, Nero does not fit the characteristics of "seeing and knowing" mentioned by higher-dimensional beings.

So he forced himself to calm down.

"I'm afraid you don't have the ability to fulfill my wish."

Li Zhen had assumed that Nero would react with anger or shout to demonstrate his power after hearing the questioning.

But Nero remained surprisingly calm. "Is that so? That's a pity. However, your doubts are also valid. I am not omnipotent at this moment, but I think there might be a lack of trust among the reasons you reject me."

"Exchanges are equivalent."

Nero suddenly blurted out this sentence out of the blue.

"In the previous world, I also made deals with quite a few interesting guys, but most of them were very smart. Only one or two fools greedily demanded a reward from me that was enough to exchange their souls."

Nero, who was controlling Mongo's body, raised his hand and pointed to the farthest Joker.

"The Joker and a man named Luther from that world only asked me for a small amount of money in exchange for the position of ruler of Hell."

Nero then pointed to the two Lanterns.

"He rejected me and even attacked me."

Nero withdrew his arm, gently touched his cheek, shook his head, and then looked at Jason.

"I once held his soul in my hands, using it as a bargaining chip in a deal with Batman. At that time, Batman's strongest desire was to resurrect him, but in the end, Batman still refused me."

"I have no idea what Batman is thinking." "This infuriated me, so I woke up his soul and made him witness Batman refusing to make a deal with me, which made his resentment towards Batman even stronger."

At first, Li Zhen didn't quite understand Nero's actions, until Nero finished turning around and turned his gaze to him again.

Li Zhen sensed something was amiss, and was subsequently greatly shocked.

Nero, that move you just made wasn't a threat... no, it wasn't a threat at all, just a small demonstration, or even a bit childish.

As expected, Nero spoke to Li Zhen again.

"Are you really going to completely refuse to do business with me? You are the most valuable trading unit around here, and I really don't want to miss this opportunity."

Lee Jung's lips twitched, but she was no longer as wary of Nero as she had been at the beginning.

I don't know if it's just my imagination, but even though I've never really met many characters from Hell, neither the Fallen Ones nor Nero are nearly as terrifying as the Hell Lords described in my past life's literary works.

On the contrary, they were all surprisingly sincere, and communicating with them was far less difficult than Li Zhen had imagined.

Li Zhen still dared not be complacent, fearing that these guys, who were essentially demons from hell, might set traps somewhere.

He asked Rachel for confirmation.

Rachel's answer greatly shocked Li Zhen, because Rachel thought it was perfectly normal.

"Demons are often evil, but you always seem to associate evil with cunning. In reality, it is humans who take cunning to its extreme."

"I didn't understand much."

Rachel was somewhat helpless.

"The reason why a demon is a demon is because God instilled that name with His aversion."

"It's like a lot of Americans hate Illinois, and then an Illinoisan comes into your life as a Witrum person, and eventually you become extremely wary of him because he's from Illinois, always thinking that he'll hurt you."

Lee Jung: "Thank you so much for using such a simple and easy-to-understand analogy."

"You're welcome."

Li Zhen returned to Nero's presence, whose face lit up with expectant joy.

Li Zhen raised her hands and made a cross shape with her hands over her chest.

"A transaction that doesn't involve the soul?"

"Unless you ask for an excessively high reward, I cannot weigh your soul. What I value is only the quality of the transaction partner and the transaction process itself." Nero spread his hands.

"Not every demon likes souls; it's just code etched into our very being, like how humans like money, but I can gain power directly from the process of trading."

Nero raised his finger.

"In the previous world, I successfully made deals with about ten people. The rewards varied, but the improvements they brought to me were all roughly the same."

"Even the Joker, who only asked me for a box of Cuban cigars, made me instantly have the same power as Superman through this seemingly simple transaction."

Li Zhen seemed to be deep in thought, and then came up with a rather clever question.

"If I want to know the real reason for the Green Lantern Corps' destruction, what price would I need to pay?"

God knows whether Nero ultimately intended to let Mongo live. If Mongo died, then this entire space journey would have been a complete waste.

He's just asking a shop owner for a price right now; it's not enough to trigger a transaction.

Nero frowned and looked down at Mongo's thick, orange-skinned fingers.

"An answer that's obvious? This deal isn't even worth a box of Cuban cigars, and in our previous conversations, I've already given you almost the whole answer to this question, if you can just piece together the key parts."

Li Zhen was stunned. Was the answer to this question that had so troubled him and Jason actually so simple?

"Could it be because of the cosmic patch again?"

Nero did not react.

But this doesn't necessarily mean a denial.

Li Zhen carefully considered everything Nero had just said.

"My God, could Hal Jordan have inherited Parallax Demon Hal's memories through a cosmic patch?"

Nero looked up and gave an approving smile.

"You've almost found all the answers."