Chapter 2187: Battle of the Two Cities! (Part 65)

Nick was as angry as a bull, pacing back and forth in front of the table. Standing opposite him were Coulson, Hill, and even Grant Ward. The last one had become one of their own because he had just experienced an incomparably terrible battle.

It wasn't that Hydra had no ideals, although most of them were just looking for a job, but if there was an opportunity to get rich through their own efforts, who wouldn't want it?

But the cold reality gave them a heavy blow. Fighting the Court of Owls was eating meat, but fighting the Parademon army of Apokolips meant they had to bleed.

They hadn't reacted yet, and the more ambitious Hydra leaders from Europe had sent them to the battlefield. They suddenly discovered that they were still cannon fodder, but it was already too late.

But at this time, they could at least convince themselves that the city was blocked and they couldn't run out anyway, so fighting was also for themselves. After all, these monsters wouldn't give them a chance to surrender.

But the so-called "an incompetent general exhausts a thousand troops." If those Germans knew how to fight, how could their leader have died so miserably?

The German-affiliated Hydra, including Red Skull and others, were the leader's personal guards, more like the Gestapo than an army, and had no quality for fighting a frontal war at all.

Just the fact that they could get a bunch of German equipment, use S. H. I. E. L. D.'s official name, and take the initiative, yet still fight back and forth with a private armed force in a city—the Court of Owls—was enough to show how low their war literacy was.

A person can be bad or stupid, but not both bad and stupid. After the alien army descended, if they knew they couldn't win, then announcing a retreat or returning to the identity of S. H. I. E. L. D. would be a good choice.

But they were greedy for the aliens' equipment and weapons, feeling that perhaps the place they came from would have a broader world, so they started sending Hydra to die—in the name of loyalty to Hydra.

Grant Ward was one of them, because he was the very typical kind of Hydra who was loyal to the doctrine after being brainwashed and would spontaneously supervise others to maintain their loyalty.

They were sent to the battlefield like this, not even knowing who their enemies were. Very unfortunately, loyalty and fanaticism were useless in this kind of war. Parademons were different from human soldiers; they were ugly, terrifying, and endless, making people feel that all the sacrifices made were completely meaningless.

After facing such a tragic reality, it was impossible for anyone to maintain any loyalty. The first thing Ward did after surviving was to find Nick Fury.

Things developed to this step, and it couldn't be without the connivance of the S. H. I. E. L. D. director. Ward didn't hold any hope for the fact that Nick wasn't Hydra; he just felt that Nick shouldn't be in the same group as those Germans, and this S. H. I. E. L. D. director should be much better than that group of bad and stupid NAZI remnants.

Nick was indeed very angry now. He did acquiesce to the arrival of the snake heads, because in his view, grabbing the whole cake first and then talking about how to divide it was a wiser choice. But he didn't expect a bigger cake to fall from the sky, directly smashing everyone into a daze.

Despite this, the terrible performance of this group of stupid Germans still exceeded his expectations. Fighting back and forth with the Court of Owls was fine; at that time, they had enough time to bite off every piece of meat from this fat chicken. But if the alien army joined, it wouldn't be like this.

The snake heads who came from afar had already squandered most of the strategic opportunities because of their stupidity and selfishness. Now what was left for Nick was another pile of messes.

Queens had completely turned into a mess of war, but fortunately, they didn't have complete control over the area across the river. Nick supported his hands on the table, pointed to a point on the map and said: "Deploy defenses in the Bronx first. Forget about the stupid Court of Owls. We must go all out to block the aliens on the other side of the river, otherwise, we will lose all strategic space."

Hill frowned at the dense red dots on the map. She shook her head and said: "I think this alien invasion is different from the past. They have a purpose."

"They are looking for something. What could it be?" Nick pondered.

Behind them, outside the huge floor-to-ceiling windows of the conference hall, a thick black smoke column suddenly rose on the skyline, then turned into a huge black whirlwind, until it dyed the nearby sky pitch black.

Nick turned his head suddenly. Several people rushed to the floor-to-ceiling windows together. Nick widened his eyes and looked at the darkness spreading rapidly in shock.

"What the fuck is that?!!!"

"Nick! Nick!" Natasha's loud roar came from the communicator: "Do you see that?! What the fuck is that?!!!"

Nick squeezed the communicator hard, staring at the distance without blinking and said: "I don't know, but we have to find out. Hopefully, it's not another group of aliens."

It was indeed not another group of aliens, because this spreading black whirlwind soon revealed its true face. It was one pitch-black owl after another, spreading huge wings to sweep over the sky of the stars, extending sharp claws to tear apart every living thing they saw.

More claws accompanied the dark owls out in full force. They were almost endless, as if all the killers created by the Court of Owls in the past three centuries had come back to life, and with a fearless stance, rushed into the city. The sky and the earth were surging with darkness, and in terms of momentum, they could even rival the Parademon army of Apokolips.

The Apokolips army soon noticed this point, but for the interrogator who was still dealing with the Joker, this wasn't good news, because this lunatic started to become even crazier.

"It's them, it's them..." the Joker muttered to himself. He widened his eyes, simply as if he wanted to spit his eyeballs out of his eye sockets, constantly struggling in the interrogation chair, stomping his feet and leaning his body forward, wanting to use his head to hit the table board in front of him.

Mechanical soldiers immediately came over wanting to pin him down, but no one knew where he got such great strength, and he even knocked over the chair under the restraint of two mechanical soldiers.

"This isn't reasonable." The Apokolips doctor standing in the other compartment said: "In the pre-preparation stage of brainwave access, we have already adjusted his brainwaves to the calmest level. He shouldn't have such an intense excited reaction."

"You only need to say the solution." The interrogator had already lost his patience.

"I'm afraid he needs some sedatives."

The doctor immediately walked out and started to operate. They brought a syringe, injected the unique medicine into it, and injected it into the Joker's body. But it took a full three injections for this lunatic to finally calm down a little.

The interrogator could finally prepare to explore his brain. When the brainwave access device was connected, he only saw a piece of void darkness.

His consciousness was no longer in his body. The interrogator immediately realized this, and then he sank into the Joker's subconscious and found a hole there.

The interrogator had no choice. He guessed whether the Joker had gone to find Batman. Darkseid had revealed that there was a strange connection between them, and they always gathered together.

Their great king seemed to believe this very much, even more than caring about the search situation in the new city, he cared more about the interrogation situation of the Joker. This also put great pressure on the interrogator, making him link all the Joker's actions to Batman.

If he could find Batman by following the Joker's tracks, that would be the best. Even if he couldn't, he could withdraw at any time and think of other ways.

The interrogator chose to jump down.

He had never had such an experience. After experiencing a long state of unconsciousness, he found that he had come to a new world. Of course, he didn't know it was called the dream world at this time, but he could see that this lunatic ran very urgently and had no time to clean up the traces left behind.

The interrogator tracked the Joker through special equipment, running in this illusory and mysterious world, until he found an exit above where the traces disappeared. The Joker looked like he had run out from there.

Would it be Batman above? The interrogator didn't know, but he decided to go up and take a look.

So where did the Joker run to?

The answer was still the owls. The exit above was the spiritual world of the Pelican priests. The Joker found the owls.

But in fact, what he found wasn't the owls, but the dark energy summoned by the owls that descended upon them.

The Joker came to the new city to investigate one thing, which was about his own confusion.

In the long period before, the Joker could always feel that some of his memories weren't reliable, as if some people were manipulating all of this, constantly dialing the pointer back to the same position.

And from his own problems, the Joker realized that Batman might also be facing the same problem. They were always like this, one body and two sides, just like looking in a mirror.

Compared to what happened to himself, the Joker cared more about what happened to Batman. After previous investigations, he guessed that a mysterious dark force was inducing Batman to fall. If his connection with Batman was so close, then this force might also be changing himself at the same time.

Owls, that's right, it was the owls. The Joker had long known about the existence of the Court of Owls. This wave of war was just shoveling them out from underground, but the Joker's genius inspiration told him that the owls weren't enough to manipulate Batman; they were just the strings holding the puppet.

So where did the hand holding the strings come from? Who was holding the salt shaker, turning the Gotham Batman and the Joker into what they were now?

After the dark power in the city erupted, the Joker immediately realized that the manipulator behind the scenes had shown his feet, so he immediately acted excited and crazy, used the sedative injected by the interrogator to enter the dream world, and found the owls through the dream world.

The moment he came into the spiritual world of the owls, he felt that something had descended. In the spiritual world of the Pelican priests, a channel was opened, and something vast paid attention to this.

This vast darkness just took a look here, but the Joker jumped into the door without thinking.

Then, in the boundless darkness, he saw the giant dragon lurking in the darkness. ===== CHAPTER 2188 =====

Then, in the midst of the boundless darkness, he saw a giant dragon lurking within.