Alien invasion? Luckily, I'm Superman.

Su Mo floated in the core of the sun.

A torrent of plasma enveloped his body, slowly lowering him. Golden, orange, and red light surged around him, like a warm blanket enveloping him.

The light seeped into his skin, little by little, slowly.

Su Mo's consciousness floated in the darkness.

Am I dead? Wasn't I supposed to enter the sun and then take care of the fleet?

The thought surfaced from the depths of my mind, vague and indistinct, as if seen through a layer of mist.

Did it fail to save the Earth?

His eyes remained closed.

His body continued to sink. The light flickered outside his tightly closed eyelids, growing brighter and brighter.

So be it.

so tired.

"No."

A voice suddenly rang in his mind.

Su Mo's consciousness jolted. The voice was very clear, as if someone was speaking to him, yet it also seemed to come from deep within his own brain.

"Su Mo, you can't give up yet."

Su Mo was stunned for a moment. He tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids felt as heavy as lead.

"Didn't you, in your past life or this one, fantasize from childhood about the Earth being in crisis, and how you single-handedly saved it?"

The voice continued speaking.

This sentence triggered Su Mo's memories.

He remembered.

The heavy academic workload and the pain of his grandmother's death overshadowed his innocent childhood fantasies and awakenings.

But now, this voice has brought it back to the surface.

"The difficulties we're facing aren't nearly as great as you imagine," the voice said. "Are you just going to give up?"

Su Mo fell silent.

He wanted to argue.

"But that's just a fantasy," he murmured to himself, "it's never real."

The voice paused for a moment, then laughed.

"Oh my God," the voice said, its tone becoming exaggerated and dramatic, "that's obviously fake."

It paused for a moment.

"But isn't it possible for it to be true now?"

These words were like a needle, piercing a soft spot deep within Su Mo's consciousness.

"Think about it," the voice continued, its tone becoming more casual, "What do you get for saving the world? The whole crowd will cheer for you, everyone will call you a superhero."

It paused.

"And don't you want to see a wider world? Think about that portal, think about a more exciting life ahead."

Su Mo felt that the voice was "interrogating" him.

"Do you still want to give up?"

The voice laughed again.

"whee."

That "hehe" echoed in Su Mo's mind.

Su Mo remained silent for a long time.

The surrounding plasma was still churning, the light was still flickering, and his body was still sinking. But deep within his consciousness, something was changing.

Then he spoke.

"Forget it."

His voice was very low.

"I want to be a superhero, not for such trivial things. I just want to help injured neighbors, help happy families, and protect everyone who has ever helped me."

He paused, as if organizing his thoughts, or perhaps to confirm that every word he spoke was sincere.

"I may not have Superman's precious qualities. I am not the last son of Krypton. I did not have foster parents on a farm in Kansas who taught me to be a good person. I was not lucky enough to meet Lois. I am just an ordinary person."

His voice became calmer.

"But I have my grandmother who taught me to be the person I want to be, I have loving friends, kind neighbors, a good landlord, and so on."

Su Mo is not a superman like Superman. He has never been a perfect person, a saint, or a born hero, but he is willing to move towards the hero in his heart.

He didn't want such things to tarnish what he wanted to do; an imperfect hero is still a hero.

It's that simple.

The voice fell silent. Then it gave a soft "hmm." No more words, no praise, no evaluation. Then the voice vanished. As if it had never existed.

Su Mo reaffirmed his resolve once again, and at the same time, he could sense that something had been left behind.

for a long time.

Su Mo woke up from her dazed state.

His consciousness seemed to rise from deep water. Little by little, he felt the temperature around him, the sensation of plasma flowing on his skin, and the warm orange-red light as it pierced through his eyelids.

Then he felt his heartbeat, strong and slow, each beat like a drumbeat in his chest, and he felt the power flowing through his veins.

Su Mo opened her eyes.

He was surrounded by bright, scorching hot plasma. The sun's corona churned around him, golden, orange, and red light intertwining like a vast, flowing curtain.

The light no longer slowly seeped into his skin; it seemed to be attracted by something, actively surging into his body, with every cell greedily absorbing the energy.

He instinctively tried to figure out what had happened, but the voice in his head had disappeared.

The conversation just now felt like it had never happened, and he even began to wonder if it was a hallucination he had while he was in a near-death state.

But the changes in his body suggested otherwise. Su Mo had some clues. Perhaps that voice was his past self, and now he had made peace with himself.

Just like Superman in movies and comics, as long as you have enough faith, Superman's strength can be improved almost without limit. After just reconciling with himself, Su Mo's strength has been greatly improved. Now, when he faces the cruiser, the outcome will be reversed.

"How much time has passed?" Su Mo murmured. His voice couldn't travel in the vacuum, of course, but his lips still moved. "How is Earth?"

He came to his senses and realized he had "crashed." He glanced down at the bracelet on his left wrist.

A faint halo of light swirled across the surface of the bracelet, unlike before. On the side of the bracelet, a line of numbers was flashing. Su Mo stared at those numbers, her pupils slightly contracting.

An hour. He rested so intently for an hour? Su Mo's heart skipped a beat.

Oh no. Earth. He didn't have time to think. His body's instincts reacted faster than his consciousness; his legs curled up in the plasma, his back arched, and his whole body stretched like a fully drawn bow.

Then, he launched himself forward. Su Mo's body traced a straight trajectory through the sun's corona, his speed astonishing, as if the surrounding resistance did not exist.

The plasma was torn open around him, and golden light surged to both sides like water being cleaved by a speedboat. As his body passed through the plasma layer, it created ripples that spread across the surface of the sun, forming a huge, slowly dissipating bright wave.