Judges and Ibis Priests

Sure enough, boys who loved to smile never had terribly bad luck.

After wandering around aimlessly, Allen actually found Bruce.

At the moment, Bruce lay weakly beside a spring pool, looking haggard and weathered, his spirits utterly drained.

"Batsy, you need to pull yourself together."

Allen stepped forward to comfort him. "Come on, work hard. You need to put some force into taking a dump. It's okay if you can't squeeze one out; at least let out a fart."

Bruce slowly woke up. He was too weak to even lift his eyelids and said with difficulty, "It's dangerous here. Leave, quickly."

"You rewarded yourself so many times these past few days that you ended up this weak."

With a look of disdain, Allen lectured him, "Jerking off too hard turns you to ashes. You can't force this kind of thing."

"..."

Bruce rolled his eyes upward, gloomily thinking that it would be better to just die quickly.

"You're rolling your eyes after only a few words." Allen rambled on. "Batsy, you really have quite the temper."

Uh...

Bruce fainted from anger on the spot, probably because he wanted to leave this world peacefully.

"Someone! Help call an ambulance! Batman's died from excessive indulgence!"

Allen looked around repeatedly. Seeing no response, he got up and looked at the spring pool, stroking his chin. "So he drank Amber Gold after all. In the end, the major event still couldn't be stopped."

The next second, a brilliant smile gradually bloomed across Allen's face.

"A female Batsy Drowned... just thinking about it is exciting."

Boom!

At that moment, a tunneling engineering armored vehicle burst through the wall.

Through the cockpit glass, Allen saw Tim at the wheel, with Stephanie and Damian along for the ride.

They had roughly determined the location through a tracking device, then brought in an engineering armored vehicle to clear the way.

Clearly, The Court of Owls' nest had signal-jamming equipment installed, forcing them to spend quite some effort finding the place.

"It's Master and Allen!"

After opening the door, Damian and Stephanie stepped forward to help Bruce up.

Once they were aboard, Tim immediately activated the signal booster.

After all, Dick and Jason were nowhere to be seen.

Two moving red dots immediately appeared on the dashboard. Tim swiftly drove the armored vehicle toward them.

Less than fifteen minutes later, they came across Dick and Jason wandering around like headless flies.

"Evacuate."

The tunneling engineering armored vehicle smashed through walls when it encountered walls and burrowed underground when it encountered roads. It had absolutely no need to follow any route.

"Being a superhero really costs a fortune."

Allen rolled down the window and said to everyone, "I'll head out first. Don't wait for me for dinner."

In an instant, Allen vanished into invisibility.

The Five Robins were focused on Bruce. As for Allen, they had no way of keeping him under control.

Inside a hidden surveillance room within The Court of Owls' nest.

A group of judges wearing owl masks watched as the surveillance feed showed the Bat-Family safely evacuating.

Naturally, they had no intention of stopping them. Otherwise, if the Talons had launched a collective attack, not one of them would have escaped.

"The first step of the ritual is complete. We must report the results to the great Master."

There was another group present, or rather, another kind of creature.

Beneath their black robes, one could vaguely make out savage, horrifying features. They resembled a humanoid race evolved from amphibians.

They were intelligent beings hidden deep underground, worshippers of The God of Bats, who called themselves the Ibis Priests.

"We'll take care of what comes next."

The First Judge nodded slightly.

The first step was only the beginning. From here on, they would guide Bruce step by step toward the ending they had prepared.

The reason they had not killed Bruce was that he was the key to the Dark Multiverse portal. If he died, all their previous efforts would be wasted, so they allowed The Five Robins to rescue him.

Naturally, all of this had been part of the plan.

"But a variable has already appeared. Can you control where this goes?"

The variable the Ibis Priests referred to was Allen, a character they had never anticipated.

There were countless superheroes in the world. For The Court of Owls, entrenched in Gotham City alone, to carry out their plan was wishful thinking. If Superman or Wonder Woman interfered, it would lead to entirely different outcomes.

That was why the higher organization, The Parliament of Owls, had been providing cover all along, deliberately creating numerous incidents to keep the superheroes too occupied to intervene.

The earlier incident in Akhenia had naturally been their handiwork. They had deliberately lured away the Justice League, giving them time to induce Bruce into drinking Amber Gold.

"Is the variable you're talking about me?"

At some point, Allen had already entered the surveillance room.

Instantly, the room fell silent.

Couldn't he act according to common sense?

The villains were having a meeting, creating some mystery, building up the plot in advance. What was he barging in here to mess up for?

The owl judges were dumbfounded.

The Ibis Priests were equally dumbfounded.

"Don't let him escape. Kill him immediately."

At the command, hundreds of Talons charged forward one after another.

If they let him get away and their secrets were exposed, everything they had done would become meaningless.

"Blade Killing Array, rise!"

In an instant, twelve sword phantoms spread out and blossomed in every direction.

The sudden special attack caught the foremost Talons off guard. They watched helplessly as the sword phantoms passed through their bodies. One second their bodies stood rigid; the next, they broke apart into chunks of flesh.

"I'm out of here."

Seeing that there were still hundreds of Talons, Allen decisively made a fierce threat. "You people have no martial virtue. You like ganging up on people, huh? I'll call the Justice League and the Avengers to deal with you."

He slipped into invisibility and vanished without a trace.

At that moment, the Talons gathered together to protect the owl judges and Ibis Priests, preventing him from returning for a sneak attack.

The judges and priests were merely flesh and blood as well. They had no ability to protect themselves.

"So you still weren't fooled."

Allen dropped his invisibility. He had not actually left, and could not help sighing. "People these days are hard to fool. Times have changed, and hearts have grown cold."

"You've overlooked one crucial point." Allen said seriously, "This official, Commander Zuo, isn't only good with a blade."

With that, he flung his cape, sending a dense barrage of darts flying out like a rain of pear blossoms.

Even with the wall of Talons, some darts still struck the judges and priests.

"Ah! My eye!"

"My mouth is hurt!"

"A piece of flesh is missing from my face!"

One scream followed another. Those who could still wail had only suffered light injuries; quite a few were already lying stiff and flat.

"Goodbye. No need to see me off."

This time, after Allen disappeared, everyone curled up behind the Talons and slowly moved toward the exit.

In the judges' hearts, they had originally been thinking about how to deal with this man, but now they felt that nothing would work.

This fellow's way of thinking differed from ordinary people's. Would he really walk right into the traps they had set?

The answer was like Quantum Mechanics, existing in a superposition of jumping in and not jumping in.

It took them a full two hours to activate their emergency plan and retreat through a secret passage. They even took whatever supplies they could carry, decisively abandoning the nest base.

Never try to challenge a madman's bottom line. They did not have one to begin with.

Especially an invisible madman. For all they knew, he might lurk around for an entire day and night just to put firecrackers in your toilet and scare you when you used it.

In truth, Allen had already run off. By now, he had reunited with everyone in the Batcave.