Chapter Fifty-One: Then, the Dream Awoke.

The moment the name Simon Hathaway emerged from the dialogue, Galen immediately focused his attention. Perhaps limited by his age, he did not fully understand the operational laws of many things in this world, but he was familiar with comics and stories. In a competent story, there would never be a useless character, and within a clear protagonist-driven plotline, even interpersonal relationships were usually arranged around the main character.

Therefore, Sam Hathaway, who opened the gates of hell, would never mention his father without reason in a plot vetted by the "editorial department." Even if their father-son relationship was harmonious, and even if Sam's most important person was his father, as long as it did not involve the main plot, this setting would be meaningless to the "editorial department" and to the readers viewing this segment.

Conversely, once Simon Hathaway was mentioned here, he gained a sense of presence in the hearts of the "editorial department" and the "readers," and sooner or later, he would receive an "expanded description" as needed.

It took Galen less than a second to ponder these contents. He scanned ten lines at a glance, his gaze sweeping over the gates of hell standing in the rust-colored moonlight and the hideous, ugly demons heavily portrayed by the artist across a full page, as well as the corpses gradually piling up on the urban wasteland and the blood winding into the grass. These close-ups used to render a brutal grand scene failed to stir up too many ripples in his heart.

Galen turned the page with indifference. As his fingertips grazed the edge of the paper, he heard piercing cries coming from beyond the four high walls erected for him by the Lord of Dreams, as if he were in the midst of an overwhelming blizzard that human might could not rival. Yet inside the walls, it remained warm and stable, the soft lights illuminating the smooth colored glossy paper, reflecting the young face of "the 20-year-old Simon Hathaway" upon it.

The comic had actually introduced Simon Hathaway's past so quickly through a flashback.

Galen felt a slight surprise in his heart—this meant that Simon was an important character in this story and in the eyes of the "editorial department" constructing it. The flashback was elicited through the narration of his son, Sam:

[My father, Simon Hathaway, was born into a terrible family. My grandfather, my father's father, was a genuine madman. He was ignorant, anti-intellectual, and cruel, like a tumor parasitic on my father, constantly draining nutrients from him.]

In the comic, Simon, who was not yet twenty, appeared exceptionally thin. He looked like a tall, bent plant, with sunken cheeks, a mouth with deeply drooping corners, and protruding brownish-brown eyes flashing with some unsettling, neurotic light. His father, on the other hand, seemed like an aged behemoth, his body wrapped in an ancient, heavy overcoat, his face full of wrinkles and his expression gloomy. These two characters, who looked abnormal at first glance, occupied the left and right panels respectively, glaring at each other with hatred across a door panel.

[At the age of twenty, my father stole a book from his grandfather—the only book his grandfather kept in the house, The Book of Magdalene, which was the very proof of his sin and madness. My father's action infuriated my grandfather. He climbed out of bed, lifted the foul-smelling blanket, pulled a hunting rifle from beneath him, and aimed it at my father's head.

"Put that book down, and get the hell out of my house—" He hunched his waist, raised the gun, and roared hoarsely at his son, "Don't let me see you again, you ungrateful bastard, beast. I'm going to blow your brains out and send you little punk to hell to reflect on your mistakes!"

His fingers trembled, wanting to pull the trigger. Before my grandfather could fire, my father pushed open the door and fled in terror and disarray. He fled all the way to a nearby inn, asked the front desk for two bottles of whiskey, drank them in pain and resentment, and took a brief, pitch-black nap. When he opened his eyes again, it was precisely midnight. The effect of the alcohol had not yet dissipated, and a burning, fiery sensation spread from his stomach all the way to his chest.

Through the dark glass window, my father saw his own face. His two hollow eyes were like two roads leading to hell, and a rumbling sound came from the end of those roads, asking him: Will you continue to endure?

No. No.

My father did not intend to let that old man lord it over him anymore. He let out a loud burp, feeling courage and impulse surge together from within his body. He felt the small of his back, where a gun he had brought from home was tucked, containing three bullets... He could gift his father three deaths. He chuckled, because fate was always laughable, and fate was such bullshit...

He strode out of the inn, head held high, like a knight setting out on an expedition. At the corner of the inevitable route home, he encountered a figure draped in a robe, holding a silver-white book in his hands. Although his eyes were tightly closed, he turned his head straight as if sensing something and "looked" toward his father, asking:

"Do you know the consequences of what you are about to do?"]

The father said: "None of my damn business."

That was their only exchange... Then my father went home, fired three shots, and punched three holes in my grandfather. The latter died without resistance on that small single bed, still covered in the stinking, long-unwashed blanket.

The next day, my father left Gotham and embarked on a journey of exile. Three years later, he found me, and from then on, I became an outlaw, a serial killer, the son of an outstanding mage. He raised me conscientiously, taught me knowledge, and made me wiser and stronger than many, many peers. Forty years later, he saw a familiar figure draped in a robe and holding a silver-white book appear on the screen during a live broadcast from the White House.

That person had no facial features; only within his open eyes did there seem to be contained the infinite universe and starlight. Standing opposite him was Superman—he asked Superman, who had broken into the presidential mansion and wanted to pierce the skull of the then-President Lex Luthor with his heat vision:

"Do you know the consequences of what you are about to do?"

At that moment, a flash of inspiration struck my father. He suddenly realized that the "person" he had seen back then was the Lord of Fate. His eyes reflected thousands of lines of fate, and billions of creatures sank and struggled under his gaze, falling into a sea of bitterness due to a momentary deviation. However, the Lord of Fate never favored anyone; he kept his eyes closed, walking blindly through the sufferings unrelated to him, until one day...

He opened his eyes and looked at the mortal world.

Looked at Superman.

My father was engulfed by a huge disappointment and sense of loss. He believed that fate was biased, but before he could seek out the Lord of Fate and personally ask him why he had asked that question at the street corner on his way home all those years ago, he was caught in a severe car crash in a daze. "Death" ultimately took him away, and "Fate" left him with only an unanswered question, while I knew deeply that he also wanted to ask "Fate"—

Why did fate treat me this way?

Why do we encounter all this in the world?

Therefore, I, Sam Hathaway, am determined to fulfill the last dying wish of my nurturer and teacher for him. If there truly is a Lord of Fate in this world, he ought to answer us why we, insignificant as we are, live... and why we are born.]

The story of Simon Hathaway in the comic ended here.

Galen did not know what the Lord of Dreams wanted him to see, or whether the act of "reading comics" itself had any purpose. He could only try his best to firmly imprint every line of text and every detail of the artwork in the comic into his mind. When he was immersed in the story, the wind outside the wall was already as violent as the roar of a giant dragon, and the entire wall was shaking amidst the continuous attacks of invisible forces, but they successfully persisted until Galen finished reading the last word of this volume of the comic.

The wall did not collapse.

Meaning there was still time.

Galen pressed against the desk and took a deep breath. Countless questions arose in his mind, such as:

What was the actual relationship between the comic's storyline and reality? Was it Eria... the Eria Esposito Galen knew who caused the differences between the two? Apart from understanding these plots that differed vastly from reality, what was the point of "reading comics"?

And in the comic's plot, were the closed eyes and open eyes metaphors of the comic, or did they genuinely represent something? Did the former represent the "Lord of Fate" as a bystander, while the latter became Eria Esposito, who had become a member of the storyline?

In addition, there was another detail in the comic that left a deep impression on Galen.

—The Lord of Fate stopped Superman, who had broken into the presidential mansion and wanted to kill Luthor.

Galen did not know the deeper meaning of this detail, but by some intuition, he believed it was definitely an extremely significant special event. The "editorial department" considered it worthy of attention, so they spent a whole page depicting it. However, this content had no explanation either before or after the plot, and Galen could only guess that it was a piece of foreshadowing, with a probability of being expanded upon in subsequent plots.

Or there was another terrible possibility: this plot was a "crossover," which meant Galen would not be able to see all the relevant plots in the main publication of Lord of Fate. It was even possible that it was a very representative, universally known "plot twist" among Superman and Superman spin-offs, to the extent that the editorial department determined that if Eria participated, readers would understand what happened without detailed explanation.

This last scenario was the worst, after all, Galen was not a true high-dimensional reader in the real sense.

He could only place his hopes on forums or comment sections to give him some hints in the future.

And at this moment, he still had one thing to do.

The wall had not collapsed, the dream had not ended, and he could watch another episode of the animation. Although Galen's mind was already occupied by a tangle of thoughts, he forced himself to stop thinking and tried his best to seriously watch the dozen-minute episode of The Family of "Fate."

Then he was slapped hard to the ground by the animation's plot.

The animation said: Is this your brain? What use is a brain? Throw it away for me!

Compared to the comic, the animation simply went to another extreme. This episode was about Simon Hathaway and his father having a huge argument forty-two years ago because they disagreed on the flavor of McDonald's new burgers. Simon ran away from home out of his pursuit of delicious food; forty-two years later, Arkham villains were overly active, causing McDonald's branches in Gotham to close one after another. Simon's adopted son Sam thought of his late father's hobby and could not help but feel grief rising from his heart, summoning a group of hell demons who also liked fast food with the intention of wiping out Arkham's mental patients in one fell swoop...

When Eria and his next-door colleague Captain America were traveling in Gotham, they coincidentally stumbled upon Sam's plan. After a series of (not at all) tense and exciting investigations, the great Lord of Fate understood the ins and outs of the matter, and used a spell where he stuttered three times per sentence to make McDonald's open all over the streets and alleys of Gotham. Humans, hell demons, and Simon, who had turned into a demon, sat in the fast-food restaurant feasting heartily and clearing up old grudges, happy ending.