Chapter 2192: Battle of the Two Cities! (Part 70)

Inside the palace of Darkseid on Apokolips, the supreme ruler of Apokolips, the almighty Emperor Darkseid, was frowning deeply. He repeatedly pressed the buttons on his communicator, listening to a transmission coming from the depths of the distant starry sky.

"Your Majesty, Your Majesty, this is Tivorens, your loyal subordinate... I don't know where I am. It is all darkness here, terrifying, terrifying..."

"I see four behemoths; they are hidden in the depths of the universe... They are plotting something... Your Majesty... They want to invade! They want to invade the universe!"

"He has discovered me! His eyes are looking this way! Your Majesty, please, you must... Ah!!!!!"

The scream came to an abrupt end. Darkseid's expression grew increasingly grave. At the end of the recording, there was a special sound wave that was difficult to capture; it sounded like some kind of whisper, but even Desaad, the wisest commander under his command, could not understand this language.

The sound wave had already been sent for decryption, but Darkseid was contemplating other information. From the recording sent back by Tivorens, it was clear that he had fallen into some kind of darkness and had seen four evil gods hidden within that darkness, plotting to invade the universe.

There were too many things in this world that wanted to invade the universe, and the vast majority were alarmist. Darkseid had never liked to worry unnecessarily, but the fact that he was sitting here thinking about this seriously could only mean he had sensed it long ago.

This had to start from when the three Batmen invaded Apokolips. Setting aside the other aspects of the confrontation, the most suspicious thing was the ability that completely changed the climate and atmosphere of Apokolips.

It had been said before that Apokolips was actually Darkseid's divine kingdom, not a true planet, but a complete dimension, comparable to Asgard, but Darkseid's authority on Apokolips was far higher than Odin's.

Within the confines of Apokolips, Darkseid was an omniscient and omnipotent god; nothing could be higher than him. Yet that day, when a dark atmosphere descended, it forcibly broke Darkseid's authority, which gave him a great sense of crisis.

Since then, he had been constantly studying the remaining video footage and even found the energy residue left on the buildings.

Darkseid was not human; his perspective on the world was different from most three-dimensional beings. He could see that this dark energy did not belong to this universe.

In layman's terms, although Darkseid was not a system administrator, when his authority within a certain file was higher than anything else, he could also glimpse the truth of the system's essence, thereby knowing which byte should not appear in his folder.

This range that should not appear included not only the dimension of Apokolips but even the entire universe. That is to say, this was energy from outside the universe, and if it appeared here, it proved that some existence outside the universe must have transmitted it here using some method.

The only suspect was Batman.

At that time, with the "three flowers gathering at the peak" on Apokolips, Darkseid had felt an inexplicable awkwardness, as if he had strength but couldn't use it, like punching cotton. Now it seemed it was entirely the interference of the dark energy brought by this Batman.

For the dimension of Apokolips, this dark energy was like a redundant file. Although it could not cause damage to the system, if there was too much of it, it would inevitably occupy operating memory, leading to slower calculation speeds. This was something Darkseid absolutely could not allow.

In the process of expelling the residual dark energy, Darkseid discovered that this thing was likely not some natural phenomenon, but a program carefully woven and constructed by some intelligent life.

This made it too suspicious. Batman was covered in this energy; could it be that he was an emissary of some evil god?

Although Darkseid had no affection for the three Bats who had broken into his home, and was even greedy for the half of the Anti-Life Equation in the hands of the main universe Batman, his wisdom, which was no less than Batman's, told him that Batman would not submit to an evil god.

Then there was only one possibility left: Batman was being used by some evil god, and he himself did not know it.

It was true that Darkseid wanted the equation in the hands of the main universe Batman, but this time he sought Batman, actually wanting to tell him that he might be trapped in a conspiracy woven by an evil god for many years.

This was not out of kindness. Darkseid was worthy of the title of the universe's number one emperor. He partially glimpsed Batman's uniqueness and knew that if he lost control, it would be no good for the entire universe. Moreover, dark energy was also very troublesome for him; if it flooded the universe, it would be a problem.

So, in fact, he sent his army to find Batman this time to talk about cooperation, not even to invite him over, just to give him a special communicator and invite him for a secret conversation.

The reason it had to be so troublesome was that Darkseid was still at war with the Green Lantern Corps, and the members of the Justice League were also involved. Darkseid knew that if he wanted to warn Batman, he couldn't let his two righteous partners know, otherwise they might think Batman and Apokolips were colluding.

By then, if the evil god came and the teammates had conflicts, and Batman was completely controlled by the evil god, things would be troublesome.

Who would have thought that in the process of his subordinates searching for Batman, they would accidentally enter the lair of the mastermind—it couldn't be confirmed if it was the mastermind, nor could it be confirmed if it was the lair, but Darkseid's astonishingly accurate intuition told him that what Tivorens saw was definitely not simple.

This emperor of the ages immediately made an extremely decisive decision—immediately cease fire with the Lantern Corps, cooperate with Batman, and drag the mastermind hiding behind the scenes out to be smashed to pieces.

Ceasing fire with the Lantern Corps was a prerequisite. Darkseid knew that only when the battlefield situation changed would Batman's two righteous partners notify him, and only those two could notify him.

The army Darkseid sent over seemed large, but searching for someone in a city on a planet for so long was entirely because Darkseid hadn't put his heart into it. Otherwise, if he directly spawned troops, the army of Parademons could even fill Apokolips, which was much larger than the solar system; a mere Earth would be nothing.

Darkseid knew that if Batman deliberately wanted to hide, no one would be able to find him. Searching for him before was just like "beating a child on a rainy day"—he was idle anyway. If he found him, he would talk about cooperation and see if he could get a share of the war between Batman and the evil god; if he couldn't find him, he would focus on fighting the Lantern Corps and get the immediate benefits first.

But today was different from the past. This information sent back by Tivorens gave Darkseid a very, very bad premonition. He hadn't had this feeling of hair standing on end for many years. He knew how many times this keen intuition had saved him, so this time he still decided to follow his instincts.

Drop everything and find Batman first.

The Apokolips army was still mired in the war in New City, and it was becoming increasingly absurd. After the National Guard landed, heavy firepower was no longer a human weakness; even with the blessing of the federal government, humans were completely overpowered, to the point where there was a massive amount of weaponry waiting for people.

At this time, Stark stood out. The Stark Industries production lines were fully open, replacing the humans fighting on the battlefield with an army of mechs, combined with the endless heavy firepower provided by various countries. This was truly enough to make Parademons ask who the real devil was.

With the two Starks joining forces, the power they could unleash was unimaginable. The White Tank had no morality at all; the only thing that could make him show a little humanity was Pepper. Now that Pepper's safety was threatened, he had completely stopped caring about anything.

The only way to cure the fear of insufficient firepower was to spawn troops, spawn troops, and spawn troops faster. Soon, the mech army became as overwhelming as the Parademons.

After finally letting go, the electronic life Stark also finally walked the path that the Iron Demon God had once walked—endless mechanical self-proliferation, until the machines filled every corner of the universe.

The White Tank actually always had a trump card he hadn't used, or rather, if it weren't for Pepper's safety being threatened, he could have kept this trump card until the end of time. Don't forget, the Stark Group under the leadership of the White Tank had developed an artificial sun even earlier than Otto.

After the White Tank revealed part of his trump card, Natasha also understood that this guy was playing the "mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind" game, preparing to play the pig to eat the tiger, and jump out to settle the matter once everyone had fought until they were bleeding and unable to fight anymore.

Having solved the energy problem, the endless mechanical army became the main enemy of the Parademons. The battle between the two sides was like a whirlwind, and the meat-grinder-like scene was enough to make anyone shudder.

But in this situation, someone couldn't sit still, and that was the Court of Owls, who had just obtained powerful dark energy.

Who lost the most in the war in New City?

Some thought it was the public, some thought it was the government, some thought it was the world's richest man, and some thought it was the law enforcement agencies.

But in fact, one only needed to look at the degree of destruction the war caused to each side to get the answer. Bruce had evacuated most of the public before executing his plan. Those who remained were either bad guys or lunatics. Even if there were stubborn ones, seeing the posture of the war, they would have long since carried their luggage and run away overnight.

The New Jersey State Legislature seemed to have lost everything, but they had obtained a large amount of military support through this incident, and could also cry for injustice to Congress through this tragic war, increasing the garrison quota of the National Guard.

The world's richest man would lose even less. Where did the supported weaponry come from? Wasn't it produced by them? This was entirely the left hand passing to the right hand, a domestic cycle.

Law enforcement agencies were also divided into many types. The FBI was a small loss, but they had always been the type to pick up whatever they found on the road. S. H. I. E. L. D. could be considered to have shown great power. Although the situation had deteriorated to this point, it had to be admitted that they were the tough guys who persisted to the end in the tragic war. Even other countries couldn't find fault with this.

So, what was destroyed the most in this war was neither people, nor money, nor reputation.

The answer was surprisingly simple—the most damaged were the buildings.

Buildings in New York were worthless; they were swept by aliens three times a day on average. Buildings and people were like leeks, cut one batch and another grows, and everyone was used to it.

But the buildings in Cat Getan were built by the Court of Owls over generations, painstakingly smelting materials, mixing metals, and secretly changing structures.

With this war going on, it couldn't be said to be thriving; it could only be said that there was nothing left.

The basic foundation that the Court of Owls had painstakingly managed in Cat Getan for many years was completely wasted. How could they not be angry?

Besides anger, they knew that since the results of their previous management had vanished, they could only rely on this war to turn things around, otherwise there would be no place for them in the future.

The increasingly crazy and extreme Court of Owls began to pray frantically to Barbatos, praying for more powerful dark energy.

But as mentioned before, because the Joker had run into Barbatos's home along their telephone line, and Barbatos was being annoyed by those three unlucky things, he had directly blocked the Court of Owls of this universe.

So theoretically, no matter how the priests prayed, Barbatos would not respond, because he couldn't hear them at all.

The call to Barbatos indeed didn't get through, but without the Court of Owls knowing, the phone number had been call-forwarded.

Who was it forwarded to?

Naturally, it was Barbatos's Pope.

So who was Barbatos's Pope?

That's right, it was the winner of the previous quarter's Outstanding Court of Owls Organization Award, the Labor Model of the Dark Source District, the Outstanding Individual for Invasion of the Main Universe Projects, and the Gold Award winner of the First "Owl Cup" Literary and Writing Improvement Activity—Bruce Wayne! ===== CHAPTER 2193 =====