Chapter 2193: Battle of the Two Cities! (Part 71)

The Court of Owls in the universe where Bruce was located was gone, but that couldn't stop him from organizing a new Court of Owls. And from a legal standpoint, it made perfect sense; after all, Alberto himself was created by the Court of Owls to destroy the Falcone family. The orthodoxy of the Owls was with the Godfather.

Even if Bruce was no longer Batman, he was still a big shot who had received elite modern education, had no shortcomings in any subject except psychology, and was excellent at both academics and socializing. Naturally, there was no need for more flowery words regarding his organizational and leadership abilities.

Look at the leaders of the Court of Owls in other universes; they were either old guys with one foot in the grave, or brainwashed fanatics. The better ones were just excellent heirs cultivated by families. What kind of stinky fish or rotten shrimp dared to compare with Batman?

Moreover, in the universe where Bruce was, everyone supported his work. Whether it was Luo Yi, Falcone, the mafia families, or corporate groups, they all gave the green light to his Owl plan. It could be said that they were of one mind and united.

But other Courts of Owls were still stuck at the primary level of American-style democracy. To do anything, they had to find a dark conference room first, sit around a long table and mutter for half a day, spending half an hour recalling past glories and half an hour looking forward to a beautiful tomorrow.

This resulted in the efficiency of the two sides being incomparable. Don't look at how Bruce's budget reports were written in a flowery way; he was really doing it!

In less than half a year, he had used the dark energy he had plucked from Barbatos to reinforce all the underground cold storage facilities, while planning a near-perfect new subway route, which had already started construction from the docks.

Don't worry about whether this was beneficial to Cat Getan's development; just ask how deeply his dark energy had penetrated.

Barbatos indicated that this was too deep. Most Courts of Owls used dark energy to penetrate Cat Getan while still stuck in the era of mixing impurities into buildings; they wouldn't start from the perspective of water sources and geology at all. It belonged to being dimensionality-reduced and struck by Batman using professional knowledge.

Capable and good at bragging, with a group of professionals behind him helping to polish things, Bruce quickly became the number one favorite in front of Barbatos.

Barbatos knew Bruce was Batman, but as a dog that had once crouched at the feet of the World Forger, he knew even better that "a hundred kinds of rice feed a hundred kinds of people," and a hundred kinds of universes have a hundred kinds of Batmen. Not every Batman was a righteous partner.

In Barbatos's view, he hadn't waited in vain for so many years. The solid, stable, and flawless bright universe had finally shown a crack. A crazy Batman was born, and he would definitely be the key shot for his counterattack against the bright universe.

After years of hitting walls, he finally saw a glimmer of light today. Bruce could now be called Barbatos's heart's treasure. If he didn't know that planting a chess piece in the bright universe wasn't easy, he would have sung a song of "This bow, the spring breeze is proud to meet a soulmate."

Although Bruce acted like he was working for free with loyalty, Batman was already sufficient to gain an advantage based on intelligence alone, and Bruce was extremely good at finding loopholes. After communicating with Barbatos of the Dark Source several times, he had obtained many numbers of the Court of Owls.

And as long as he entered the dreams of the priests through the dream world, he could change the dialing numbers at will, forwarding the calls to Barbatos to himself. That was how he fed that large mass of dark energy to the Owls of New City.

Now that Barbatos had blocked them, it was even more convenient for Bruce to act. He directly and blatantly changed the phone numbers dialed by the Owl priests to his own.

That's right, he was an Archangel, and one of the privileges of an Archangel was having a unique number for believers to pray to.

With this "replacing the peach with the plum" trick, the Owls became praying directly to Bruce, and Bruce could also return power to them like a true angel.

But Bruce the Archangel had the status but no power. Even if he had the holy power possessed by an angel, it was completely the opposite of Barbatos's dark power. No matter how he disguised it, it would be seen through, so the dark energy Bruce bestowed upon the Court of Owls was still Barbatos's dark energy.

But in fact, the dark energy he possessed had been used up in the first free gift, so where did the later ones come from?

A few minutes ago, Peter was called over by the mysterious black sun.

The reason it was said he was called over was that he didn't enter the Fog Realm by actively concentrating his attention like before, but found himself standing in the thick fog in a daze.

"Is there something?" Peter asked.

There was no sound, but Peter suddenly discovered that his soul had gained a large mass of energy.

This was a very wonderful visual, which Peter had never had before, because he didn't know magic before, so he couldn't experience what it felt like for soul energy to be full. But this time, he experienced it.

Then the black sun kicked him out again.

At this time, Bruce was tugging at his shoulder from behind. Peter turned to look at him, and Bruce lowered his voice and said to him: "Do you believe in the existence of angels?"

"Uh, I..."

"Believe it or not, come, I'll teach you a method. Pray to the angel. Put your hand on this page of the Bible. Yes, just this page. Don't look at it, it's about Gabriel."

"Then read this sentence out. Read this sentence here three times, and then start chanting 'Grace returned and bestowed, offered to my Lord...'"

Peter hadn't reacted yet when he was led by Bruce to finish the prayer. Instantly, he felt his originally heavy and full soul lighten, and some power disappeared.

"You two don't just stand there either." Bruce beckoned to the Joker and Clark next to him and said: "I went to such great lengths to get you down here, not for you to watch the scenery. Come, Joker, hold his hand, you read this sentence."

"Clark? Clark?... What? You don't believe in God? It doesn't matter, you don't need to believe, just close your eyes and chant."

The Joker stared at Bruce with one eye big and one eye small, not understanding what this crazy Bat wanted to do again.

His eyeballs rolled around, and he retracted his hand with a "whoosh," hugged his arms, coughed twice, and said: "I am a firm atheist, I decline to spread cults, unless you tell me what cult you are spreading."

"I swear this is not a cult. God, God, do you understand?"

"I see you didn't intend to go through God."

"You even saw that."

The two stared at each other for more than a minute. Finally, Bruce lost. He stretched out his hands and waved them in front of him, saying: "It's too troublesome to explain in detail, I'll give you an analogy."

He picked up a branch, drew a circle on the ground full of shell dust, and then pointed to the circle and said: "This is a lake full of water."

Then he drew a small circle inside that circle and said: "This is a water pump pipe extending into the lake, but a water pump pipe is just a water pump pipe. No matter how thick it is, the water flow that can pass through is limited."

Then he drew a small square next to the circle and said: "This is the water pump connected to the pipe. Also, because of the limitations of hardware conditions, the power cannot be turned on too high, otherwise it will burn out, and the loss will outweigh the gain."

"Behind the water pump is the same water pipe, and the end of the water pipe is connected to a water storage bin. Also, because of technical conditions and other limitations, the capacity is not large enough, and the freshness-locking technology is not good either. The water stored inside will evaporate and deteriorate at an extremely fast speed."

The Joker looked up at him and said: "Then what do you intend to do?"

"We'll open a river channel." Bruce drew two vertical lines above the circle, about a palm's width apart, more than ten times wider than the small circle he drew earlier representing the water pump pipe.

Then he let the river channel make a turn, and drew another circle at the end of the river channel, slightly smaller than the circle representing the lake earlier, but still very large.

"Using the water level difference, we can let the water of this lake flow along the river channel we dug into another lake we prepared—more natural, primitive, suitable for water storage, and completely under our control."

"What do you want to do with the water?" the Joker asked.

Who would have thought that Bruce immediately made an "you don't understand" expression, shook a finger, and said: "We don't necessarily have to use the water, we just want that lake to have no water."

"Oh, he's calling me," Peter shouted. Instantly, the Joker grabbed Peter's arm.

A few seconds later, both of them came to their senses. The Joker screamed as if his tail had been stepped on: "You motherf***er call this lake water?!! Batman, what the hell are you doing?!!!!"

The Joker's hair stood on end, because he knew better than anyone else what kind of dark energy was now existing in the depths of his soul—that was Batman, that was the Joker, that was Cat Getan, that was the source of it all.

It was also the mastermind he had been investigating.

No wonder you kid kept telling Batman it was fine. I was discussing with Batman whether gas stations should ban smoking, and you kid were here stealing oil with a bamboo tube?!

You stealing a bucket or two would be fine, but you steal a whole truck, and after stealing it, you don't forget to light a cigarette triumphantly. You are like an Owl repairing a septic tank—dying clearly and understandingly!

"I know you're in a hurry, but don't be in a hurry yet." Bruce shook his head and said: "Wait for me to finish being in a hurry, then you can be in a hurry. Hurry up and chant the prayer, or the water will leak out later."

The Joker stared at Bruce, took a deep breath, felt the dark energy constantly surging in his body, and turned to look at Peter and Clark next to him.

Both of them obviously accepted the dark energy in their bodies now, but they were both blank and innocent.

Now the Joker knew why it was the three of them—one lunatic and two idiots.

The components in this dark energy that could corrode a person's soul and lead people to darkness were like scratching an itch for the extremely good and the extremely evil.

No wonder Bruce let himself do psychological counseling for Clark first. He was patching it up, right?

The Joker looked down at the Bible. He had never expected the existence of God so devoutly and sincerely in his life as he did now.

If there really is a God in this world, whether I am doing well or not, let the "killing joke" or whatever aside for a moment, can you make the unlucky thing opposite me stop laughing?!

Feeling the Joker's death stare, Bruce wiped his face hard, wiped away the high-raised corners of his mouth, and said "woo-woo-ah-ah": "Sorry, I usually don't laugh, but do you know who you looked like just now?"

"If you dare to say Batman..."

"It's him! And I just took a picture of your expression and sent it to him, hahahahahaha!" ===== CHAPTER 2194 =====