The Court of Owls Appears

Silence.

The door opened on its own.

No, not in a refined or gentle manner like unlocking a door.

Someone had grabbed the doorknob and used monstrous strength to force open the wooden door!

The lock let out a grating shriek as the metal core was ripped through the cheap particleboard door, stubbornly meeting the twisted and deformed metal frame.

A gust of wind blew in, bringing the chilling air of the underworld into the room.

Tap.

Thud.

Harley Quinn couldn't help but shiver. She regretted letting the skulls distract her, completely failing to notice someone approaching outside.

After countless days and nights in Arkham, her hearing should have been honed to its limit.

As dusk reached its end, the last rays of the setting sun streamed through the broken doorway, casting the room in a dim, eerie light. It was as if this faint illumination gave meaning to the darkness itself.

Then... it was extinguished.

Harley Quinn slowly picked up her handbag.

The tall figure stood in the doorway. The light suddenly dimmed, and dusk was about to end.

Harley Quinn let out a heavy sigh.

"You're a hard girl to find."

She heard Batman say.

Silence.

Harley Quinn watched the person walk in, and a smile slowly spread across her lips, a sudden urge to laugh welling up.

"Ah!!!" she let out a hysterical scream, "Oh my god, it's you again!!!"

She walked over to a nearby tree—a miniature dragon's blood tree that Poison Ivy had cultivated—and began banging her head against the trunk.

"Aaaahhh, damn it, God! Batman, always, able to find, Harley--Quinn!"

"I have some questions for you."

She heard Batman say in his familiar, deep voice:

"For example, where can I find your good friend Poison Ivy?"

Harley Quinn stopped banging her head.

She tilted her head.

"I need your help..."

"Save it, darling. In a way, I'm starting a new life."

Harley suddenly became completely normal, as if the previous outburst had never happened.

"Listen, Ivy is mixed up with some bad guys. She and the Plant Master are plotting to turn the whole Earth green. I need to stop them. They're a deadly combination, Harley.

Many people will get hurt, or... never mind, maybe I'm wasting my breath. You just need to know one more thing: Ivy could also get hurt, or killed."

She heard Batman say.

Harley had to admit, Batman knew her relationship with Poison Ivy well. When she heard that Ivy might get hurt, she did feel a flicker of impulse... but it was only an impulse.

"No. I don't want to get involved in your messes anymore," Harley replied. "I've said goodbye to capes, tights, and masks. I just want to live a quiet, normal life."

"Is that so? Too bad you're not."

Harley Quinn followed Batman's gaze and saw the four skeletons lying on the ground. She grabbed her pigtails and let out two more hysterical screams, her nerves frayed.

She turned and grabbed Frank, the man-eating plant in the flowerpot that looked like a real plant.

"You bastard, you bastard, you bastard, you bastard! You killed them—"

"Blaming your murders on a plant won't reduce your sentence, Harley Quinn."

Harley Quinn slapped the plant twice on either side.

"I advise you..."

Harley Quinn jumped around on the man-eating plant.

"Your emotional outburst..."

With a crash, Harley Quinn suddenly lunged towards the window, thinking if she could break through it, she could escape the room!

Harley had calculated the distance. Even Batman, unless his arms could stretch...

"!!!"

"Alright, I surrender."

Chen Tao retracted his arm and placed Harley on the ground. The enormous dinosaur arm retracted in an instant, collapsing like a sponge, returning to normal human size without even tearing his clothes.

Such a spectacle, directly defying the law of conservation of mass, would have shocked 90% of the world's scientists. But for the people of Gotham, anything Batman did was commonplace. No matter how Batman achieved victory, it was inevitable. Harley was used to it.

After all, Batman will always win, and will keep winning.

This is Bane's hideout.

People always thought that a master of conspiracy like him would have his lair on some mysterious submarine or a flying military base.

But neither was the case.

This is just a rather ordinary hotel in Gotham.

At this moment, Bane is sitting on the sofa in the room, his massive two-meter-fifteen frame filling the single-seater sofa completely.

"...This time, the city government's decision to mobilize the National Guard is entirely out of moral, just, and responsib..."

"Batman? I must say, a masked vigilante who breaks the law like this simply cannot be compared to a true hero..."

"Let us welcome our true hero, Mayor Carlo, and the officers of the National Guard, with warm applause and sincere gratitude..."

The experts on TV and those gluttonous officials were still chattering. After introducing the situation, he quickly began to viciously denigrate Batman and then brag about the city hall's actions.

The muscle-bound monster was thinking.

Frankly, if he hadn't planned to break Batman, he would have almost pitied him.

Batman was working himself to death for this city, but those in city hall and Gotham's upper crust were a bunch of utter idiots.

He could hardly believe that anyone would be stupid enough to broadcast their military movements on television for everyone to hear.

Batman? Not a single person took the most dangerous figure seriously.

The guys on TV right now, the well-dressed ones, they only cared about how much traffic they could get by slandering Batman and promoting themselves. They were more like vultures fighting over carrion than the lunatics in Arkham.

They mocked the Dent Act, belittled Jim Gordon, denied Batman's strength, and trashed everything Batman had done for this city over the past decade.

They said Batman's existence attracted those costumed maniacs. They described today's chaos and madness as a mutual attraction between lunatics. They claimed only the army could maintain order and only city hall could bring change.

But they never considered...

Why Harvey Dent lost faith in justice?

Why Edward Nygma descended into madness?

Why the once honest Arnold was arrested and imprisoned?

Gotham was rotten. Bane knew this better than many native Gothamites—he had discovered it on his very first day in the city.

"Batman and his so-called supervillains are all lunatics and perverts. This time, we will take this opportunity to completely eliminate them..."

Bane frowned. What the TV was saying was becoming increasingly disgusting.

Those people talking eloquently on TV, expressing their "profound insights," were greasy-faced and exuded a stench from head to toe. Even Bane found them repulsive.

So he gave up torturing his ears and turned down the TV volume.

Thump!

A muffled sound from above made him frown.

Thump!

He sighed.

"Enough, can you three hurry up and finish?"

As soon as he spoke, the next second, with a boom, the ceiling collapsed. His three subordinates, "Zombie," "Cave Dweller," and "Birdman," along with an enemy dressed like an owl, crashed through the wooden ceiling and tumbled down.

"Stop, Bane! City Hall has mobilized tens of thousands of National Guard troops to deal with you, and the Court of Owls intends to..."

Bane sighed.

"Who are you? Never mind—"