Multiverse: Deathstroke

Chapter 119: Ch.118 Pitfall Within Pitfall

At first glance, it seemed like a powerful offer, but beneath that human facade was a demon, and this kind of deal was filled with traps.

Satan might claim he\'d resolve Su Ming\'s crisis, but there was no way he\'d directly confront Barbatos. Satan\'s "solution" might involve transporting Su Ming to Hell for refuge, turning him into a statue or some other inanimate object, or even creating an illusion to deceive him.

In some twisted way, these actions could be considered as resolving Su Ming\'s crisis, but afterward, his soul would be Satan\'s for free.

Su Ming wasn\'t about to fall for that. But with Satan present, if Su Ming didn\'t strike a deal with him, Satan might just turn around and offer a contract to someone else. And among the enemies outside, there were plenty of lunatics. That would be real trouble.

Just then, Su Ming noticed The Devastator outside the wall of fire, eagerly looking like he was about to jump into the fiery circle.

An idea struck him.

*Cough, cough* "Of course, I\'m willing to sign a contract with Your Majesty, and it would be a very simple task for you."

"Then speak. After all, you were introduced by Constantine, and he\'s an old friend of mine. *Haha*," Satan said, but the way he gritted his teeth at Constantine\'s name was anything but friendly.

Su Ming pointed at the bouncing figure of The Devastator outside the fire wall and said to Satan, "The idiot jumping around behind you is called The Devastator. If you can truly kill him, my soul will be yours. How about it?"

Satan turned to look. Indeed, there was a massive figure there, and compared to the creature, this human seemed much weaker. The offer seemed reasonable.

The name "The Devastator" sounded unfamiliar, though... but who cares? Monsters like that are just cannon fodder to a Hell Lord.

"Alright, I accept. Let\'s sign the contract."

Satan was practically drooling. For beings like him, the dirtier the soul, the more valuable it was. The soul of The Devastator was brimming with rage and darkness, and the soul of the man before him was worth twice as much. Both were tempting.

He pulled a piece of parchment from his suit pocket, held it with one finger, and chanted a few words in a low voice.

The parchment floated toward Su Ming, spreading out before him, and a pen appeared in mid-air, indicating where he should sign in the bottom right corner.

It was a standard demon contract.

The text did indeed outline the terms they had just discussed, but surrounding the text was a complex border filled with twisted patterns that hid demonic scripts, traps, and hidden clauses.

"I\'m not signing this contract. I\'m not that naive," Su Ming didn\'t even reach for the pen. Instead, he pulled out his own paper and pen from his bag and drafted a clean contract himself.

As a mercenary, being familiar with contracts and carrying paper and pen for signatures was just standard procedure.

Satan raised an eyebrow but didn\'t mind. He was just used to tricking people, and if he couldn\'t, so be it.

He took the contract and reviewed it—no issues.

As long as he truly killed The Devastator, Su Ming\'s soul would belong to him. Until the contract was fulfilled, Satan couldn\'t harm Su Ming or the Justice League. If Satan personally couldn\'t kill The Devastator, he would have to take him back to the Hell dimension to continue trying.

Simple and straightforward.

Satan signed his name with his own pen, and flames began to consume the contract.

Su Ming felt a strange energy latch onto his soul—the contract was sealed.

Say what you will, Satan\'s service attitude wasn\'t bad. After signing the contract, he let Su Ming rest inside the pentagram for a bit, perhaps to write a will or something. The Devastator outside was now his problem.

However, it didn\'t take long for Satan to realize he\'d been duped.

The creature called The Devastator in front of him couldn\'t be truly killed and kept getting stronger.

Each time Satan killed him, the method that worked before became ineffective after The Devastator resurrected.

Hellfire, dark magic, demonic powers—Satan tried them all, yet The Devastator kept rising again, even if reduced to ashes or torn apart. Each resurrection was faster than the last.

Satan\'s heart filled with a sense of humiliation at being deceived once again. His gaze at Su Ming grew increasingly hateful; in his eyes, Su Ming\'s level of hatred was rapidly approaching that of Constantine.

Cough, cough "Satan, don\'t look at me like that. I\'m a mercenary, and integrity is important. You can take him back to Hell and keep trying. When you eventually kill him, just let me know. I can wait."

Su Ming stifled his laughter and spoke to Satan with a sincere tone. If he weren\'t sitting there with his legs crossed, watching the spectacle, his words might have seemed genuinely earnest.

"I\'ll remember you, mortal. You\'re quite something."

With a wave of black smoke, a crack appeared in the ground, and both The Devastator and Satan disappeared from the battlefield.

Su Ming breathed a sigh of relief. Despite being tricked by Constantine, Su Ming had managed to turn the tables on Satan by leveraging his knowledge of the multiverse.

Though Satan would undoubtedly hold a grudge, and demons might trouble him in the future, at least he had passed this hurdle for now.

The protective circle of fire around him vanished as well. Su Ming bent down to dodge a slashing weapon, then stabbed the assailant behind him, continuing his search for the Murder Machine in the crowd.

Compared to The Devastator\'s massive size, the Murder Machine was harder to spot. But one just needed to look for a group of well-dressed butlers in the sea of people.

The Murder Machine was a Batman from Earth -44. His butler, Alfred, had been killed by Bane. At Alfred\'s funeral, Bruce had asked Cyborg to help him create an AI butler to keep him company.

To Bruce, Alfred wasn\'t just a butler; he also played the role of a father.

The Cyborg of Earth -44, seeing how devastated Batman was, couldn\'t refuse his request, so he programmed an AI called the Alfred Protocol.

At first, it was just a simple program in the computer, controlling things like the coffee machine at Wayne Manor or chatting with Bruce.

But Bruce wanted Alfred to "live" again and have a body.

So, with Wayne Enterprises\' vast resources, he created a type of nanobot that could merge to form Alfred\'s likeness, just as he had been when alive.

But a problem arose. The Alfred Protocol was originally just a butler program, so its core directive was simple—protect Bruce Wayne.

Thus, Earth -44 experienced an AI uprising. The nanobots endlessly replicated themselves, forming an army of robot butlers in Alfred\'s image. To "protect" Batman, they slaughtered Gotham.

Anyone who had ever harmed Batman had to be killed.

Next was the Justice League. Superman had once fought Batman, injuring Bruce, so he had to be killed.

Wonder Woman might try to take Bruce away from them, so she had to be killed too.

Aquaman had once looked down on Bruce for not having superpowers, so he had to be killed.

Everyone in the world who had ever caused Bruce stress had to be killed.

But Alfred\'s power wasn\'t enough; it was just a program. It needed to merge with Bruce.

In the end, Bruce relented after Alfred\'s pleading. He rejected Cyborg\'s suggestion to destroy the program and allowed the Alfred Protocol to transform him.

He became the Murder Machine, a Batman made entirely of nanobots, with no flesh left.

He gained immortality and would never be separated from Alfred again.

Together, they destroyed the Justice League and everyone on Earth. The Murder Machine would never be hurt again.

But then a smiling man told them that dangers still existed beyond their universe and that the Murder Machine wasn\'t completely safe.

To live peacefully with Alfred, they needed to go to another universe and wipe out everyone there.

To protect Bruce Wayne, the Alfred Protocol would stop at nothing.