Superman: Starting with Witrum

Chapter 3 Another Time Travel

Isaac looked up at the unfathomable void of space, his mind filled with only one thought: get out of this hellhole as quickly as possible. But he was stuck—he couldn't find his way back to Earth.

No matter which remote parallel universe in DC Comics we've fallen into, Earth will always be the eye of the storm.

This meant that in the vast sea of ​​stars, there must be a landmark called the Solar System waiting for him. These past five years had been incredibly frustrating for him.

Without internet or WiFi, there's nothing decent to do. All you can do is endlessly devour those incredibly boring, hegemonic "knowledge manuals" on the spaceship, which can drive you crazy.

Isaac sighed heavily. Passing the time? He was just barely hanging on by learning the knowledge and combat skills of the Vikings.

Thinking back to his past life, three years of high school and a year of preparing for graduate school entrance exams were tough enough. Who could have imagined that one day, Isaac would actually treat studying as a pastime? Who in modern times could endure such a life?

The civilization of the planet Vis was at least several thousand years more advanced than Earth, yet they seemed to have no "entertainment"-related tertiary industries at all, having poured all their wealth into war technology.

How have the aliens, who have lived for thousands of years, managed to survive? Could it be that the entire population suffers from severe depression?

No wonder they're all so eager to leave their home planet and wreak havoc on other planets. Anyone who lived in this environment for thousands of years would develop a mental disorder.

If he were on Earth, with his current abilities, money? It would be something he could easily obtain, and he could definitely live a comfortable life.

I don't mean to emulate some people who abuse their privileges, but at least I can be a "patriot" with principles, doing whatever I want and living a carefree life.

Disheartened, he turned away, letting gravity pull him toward the ground.

With a muffled "boom," his feet slammed into the desolate ground, creating a deep crater.

Well, I guess I'll have to keep up with that battle-crazed AI and keep digging for rocks here.

"Check the star map again," Isaac ordered impatiently.

"The navigation components are damaged, Your Majesty. There are no spare components for repair. I'm afraid... we'll have to contact Imperial Headquarters for a manual replacement." The ship's AI's voice was completely flat.

Isaac lay sprawled at the bottom of the pit, rubbing his face helplessly. Even just being able to contact the Vixing Empire would be helpful! He seriously suspected the Vixing people had long forgotten about him, their so-called "crown prince."

Or rather, how many people actually knew that the previous emperor had secretly put him into the escape ship?

He speculated with the mindset of an Earthling: The emperor's throne? Isn't that just something like "the emperor is whoever has the strongest army and the most powerful horses!"

With the old emperor gone, have the rebel armies already established a new dynasty? Or has the era of warlordism ended, and some warlord leader ascended the throne as emperor?

Once they actually find him, they might just declare him a "remnant of the previous dynasty" and chop him up with a single stroke... Could it be that the Weixing people are expanding all over the galaxy, like Zheng He's voyages to the West to find Emperor Jianwen, but actually they are looking for this "good grandson"?

Isaac quickly shook off this jumble of wild ideas. The most practical thing now was to find a way to Earth, then become a rich, carefree millionaire and enjoy life.

Earth is a land of boundless joy; who would still yearn for that wretched place on Planet Void! (The joy here is beyond words.)

Just then, a low, buzzing vibration suddenly came to my ears.

Isaac jolted awake, sitting bolt upright. He noticed something shimmering faintly in the crack at the bottom of the crater he had created. His eyes narrowed, he clenched his fist, and slammed it into the crack!

"Whoosh—Boom!"

The bottom of the pit collapsed with a thud, revealing a huge, bottomless black hole. Fine pieces of soil and rocks slid down from all sides, as if being swallowed by a suddenly opened maw of an abyss.

With his extraordinary eyesight, Isaac could clearly see some shimmering blue lights floating deep at the bottom of the cave. He stopped at the entrance and did not rush in.

Although that punch was powerful, it couldn't have created such a deep hole. The hole was already there; it was probably created by the impact of my landing.

Fly straight in? That's too reckless. If we accidentally capsize in the gutter, we'll suffer a huge loss.

He quickly returned to the spaceship and asked the AI, "Münster, is there any detection equipment on the spaceship?"

"We can try using a probe robot," the AI ​​responded. The hatch slid open, and a small robot with a square head and two legs resembling WALL-E emerged.

"I upload my mental model to it, and then I can remotely control and receive signals," the War Maniac AI explained.

Isaac sat in the cockpit, and the images transmitted by the robot were displayed on the screen.

The little robot nimbly slid down the deep pit and slowly probed into the dark bottom of the cave. The journey was unusually calm, without a single sound.

The robot's visual sensors firmly locked onto the object emitting a faint blue light at the bottom of the cave—in the image, it looked like a hazy, gaseous sphere.

"Scan results... show that this area is empty." The AI ​​examined the transmitted data stream, its voice tinged with a rare hint of confusion. "Theoretically, there shouldn't be anything there."

Isaac frowned. "What about the energy field? Are there any abnormal readings? Is there any record of something similar in the knowledge base?"

"No, Your Majesty. There are no unusual energy signals. No object of similar form has ever been found in the historical records of the Visor Empire."

Isaac tapped lightly on the spaceship's control panel with his index finger.

Five years have passed, and life has been as monotonous as a stagnant pool. He's had enough! Moreover, the Dimensional Empire has expanded for so many years, sweeping across the galaxy, yet there are very few things that can truly pose a threat.

He refused to believe that this one in a billion chance threat would just happen to be waiting for him on this godforsaken random planet.

Having made up his mind, Isaac returned to the cave entrance, descending slowly and steadily until he landed firmly on the solid ground at the bottom of the cave.

The little robot jumped onto his shoulder, and the voice of the War Maniac AI came from it: "Your Majesty, please be careful. I still cannot detect any valid data."

A cloud of blue gas that is constantly emitting light without any energy dissipation.

The energy index and spatial fluctuations are both zero, but visually it clearly tells you what's there.

In Isaac's eyes, the "sphere" reminded him of the aerogel described in his high school physics textbook. The swirling mist stretched out its tendrils like living things, quietly wrapping around him.

Driven by intense curiosity, Isaac, almost without thinking, extended a finger and gently touched one of the wisps of mist.

"Warning! Warning! Abnormal radiation detected! Unknown interference!..."

The war-monster AI's alarm instantly became shrill and piercing!

The moment Isaac was touched, the surrounding space shattered like glass, and the structure of reality completely collapsed!

He felt as if he had fallen into an infinitely folded, distorted, multi-dimensional space, where the universe and stars were frantically flipping, dislocating, and rearranging, and the direction of gravity was constantly changing.

Isaac travels through weightlessness, experiencing surreal scenes such as time reversal, cell division, and the birth of a nebula, with the scene bursting with vibrant colors.

Highly saturated geometric fragments swirl around the viewer like a vortex, creating a psychedelic landscape resembling a combination of abstract oil painting and fractal mathematics.

After an unknown amount of time, the terrifying dizziness suddenly stopped.

Isaac snapped back to reality.

A familiar, azure planet floated clearly before his eyes! And behind it, a blazing yellow star continuously showered light and heat upon itself!

His entire body's cells seemed to be receiving rain after a long drought, frantically absorbing this familiar stellar energy. His body instantly became scalding hot, and his body temperature soared in an instant.

The dam of the senses has completely collapsed!

The wailing alarm in the laboratory, the sirens of ambulances on the other side of the city, the blinding glare from the flashing neon signs, the distorted face of a security guard yawning in the surveillance camera...

Billions of sounds, images, smells, and sensations, like fragments of an exploding galaxy, swept into the depths of his consciousness, carrying with them the dust of time and space.

Information was no longer a trickle, but a colossal wave carrying the weight of the entire planet, constantly crashing against and eroding the dam of his nerves.

"Earth... Earth..." Isaac closed his eyes tightly, using all his strength to barely control his almost out-of-control mind.

The robot on the shoulder also fell into a brief silence, as if it had been so shocked by this sudden change that it lost its language module function.

"This...is..." The AI's voice was filled with unprecedented shock and bewilderment.