Treasures Belong to the Virtuous

Lynn left decisively, not because losing the chess game had put him in a bad mood or made him feel embarrassed.

Hadn't they tied?

It was only because, as the morning sun rose, one of Gordon's quiet remarks reminded Lynn of something else important.

When Gordon saw the sunlight break through the shadows and mist, he said, "Thank goodness light lives forever. It will never die, never!"

Some offhand remark~ unraveled my doubts~~

Just like when Conan solved a case, a bolt of horizontal lightning flashed through the back of Lynn's mind.

That's right!

Those Talons—those half-dead creatures that died, lived, lingered between life and death, then died and lived again—what gave them such a bugged ability?!

Because of the fucking Dionysus Factor!!

Deep within Gotham City's Underground Labyrinth, there was a Dionysus Springwater, the purest kind!

Unlike the cheap, beggar-version knockoffs the League of Assassins had built all over the world, those pirated goods only made people suffer through immortality. They prolonged life, but they didn't preserve youth.

But this one was the real deal!

Those idiots in the Court of Owls had used the Dionysus Springwater to create the Talon Assassins, letting them get back up after falling from a dozen stories onto stone and crack people's skulls open.

Wasn't this thing being in their hands a complete waste of a heavenly treasure?!

A supreme treasure like this could only realize its greatest value in the hands of a madman like Lynn.

According to Lynn's memories, it seemed that this spring had indeed eventually fallen into the hands of a madman.

He had green hair, wore a purple suit, had blood-red lips, and sharp white teeth.

They called him the Joker.

As Gotham City's unquestioned and well-deserved Crime King, the Joker had claimed that title in a Gotham City overflowing with talent and remarkable people. His madness and chaos were part of the reason. The Dionysus Factor's strange properties were another.

Batman was not the embodiment of justice. He was part of the darkness, representing Gotham's order.

Nor was the Joker absolutely evil. He didn't even possess a concept of evil. He did not commit evil because of its results, nor did he do evil for evil's sake. He was chaotic, contradictory, and disorderly.

He himself was chaos—the other side of Gotham.

And that was precisely why Batman, who had always tried to pull Gotham onto the right track and reshape its order, was regarded by the Joker as his sole enemy.

They had always been two sides of the same whole.

In his battles against Batman, an all-around master and Olympic champion in eight hundred events, the Dionysus Factor supported the Joker's combat ability in the most literal physical sense.

This was truly good stuff. Now that he had found a lead, Lynn would never give it up.

So, after leaving the Gotham Police Department, Lynn headed straight to the building materials market, bought a huge pile of empty barrels, and rushed to the entrance of Gotham's Underground Labyrinth.

After a simple inspection, Lynn confirmed that no one had come here after he left. It had only been one night, but caution was never a mistake.

Scattering all kinds of plant seeds as he went, Lynn continued exploring the entire Underground Labyrinth according to his memories.

He had to admit, those idiots from the Court of Owls were remarkably persistent.

Generation after generation, all those rich and powerful people could have done anything, yet they insisted on building a labyrinth. They kept at it for centuries, until the Underground Labyrinth nearly matched Gotham City's urban area in size.

It was only because Lynn had a few superpowers and could sow seeds so efficiently. Otherwise, if ordinary people came here looking for something, never mind whether they would get lost—the sheer size of the place would be enough to drive them mad.

Lynn passed the room where Batman had been trapped and looked at all those photos of Batman. He had to admit, the candid shots had quite an artistic flair.

He'd keep one as a souvenir. Maybe someday he could use it to embarrass old Batman.

He had a space bag, anyway. He wasn't worried about carrying it.

After taking one photo away, Lynn felt as though he had damaged some work of art, leaving the wall with a little less aesthetic appeal.

Wasn't that easy to fix?

Without even half a second's thought, Lynn took a selfie, made a frame on the spot, and hung it on the wall.

After looking it over a few times, he realized that among all these photos, his was the only face that wasn't twisted in terror.

Not very harmonious.

That was easy too.

Humming with his butt stuck out, Lynn found a sheet of white paper and quickly drew a portrait of Darkseid. He framed it the same way and hung it on the wall...

"Ee~ Beautiful, so beautiful! This fucking vicious look... is this fucking eight years old?!"

After finishing, Lynn clapped his hands and nodded in satisfaction as though he had completed a great masterpiece. "From now on, this place will be for hanging pictures of villains. Old Batman gets first place, I get second, and Eight-Year-Old gets third."

Only after admiring it for quite a while did Lynn leave, fully satisfied.

His vines had already explored quite a considerable distance. Guided by their instinctive search for soil and moisture, Lynn felt that he had found what he was looking for.

Deeper underground, after passing through a narrow, cramped stone passage formed naturally by the earth, Lynn found himself before a vast and open subterranean space.

A faint blue glow filled the underground cavern, its shimmering scales of light lending the originally dark space an unexpectedly magical air.

"That's it..."

Lynn couldn't care less about the light or its scales. At a glance, he spotted the clear spring not far away.

"This is the Dionysus Springwater!"

There were many wondrous metals in the Marvel universe, and DC had plenty too—not just one kind, with all sorts of different abilities.

Strictly speaking, the Dionysus Factor could also be considered a kind of "metal," though it appeared more often in the form of "water," like it did now.

Lynn wanted to collect all those metals, but apart from the Dionysus Factor before him, he only remembered that Hawkman had some Nth Metal—also called Nth Metal.

If the movie [Black Adam] hadn't come out early, he wouldn't even have known about that.

No need to say anything else. Fill them up!

With such good stuff right in front of him, how could he waste it?

This wasn't some heavenly treasure where he needed to preserve the roots, save the seeds, or leave behind a trace of hope.

If he left this stuff here, Gotham might end up producing a few more lunatics who sprayed laughing gas in people's faces.

"These days, it's hard enough to come up with a catchy title. We can't have a second madman."

First came the small water pump, then a dipper, and finally absorbent paper. Lynn made sure to leave no way back, determined to suck it completely dry.

"All right, that takes care of it!"

The effects of the Dionysus Springwater would certainly require Lynn's gradual research and development. Still, he figured that if even the League of Assassins' lousy knockoff could be so useful, there was no reason the genuine version on his side wouldn't work.

After checking once more, Lynn even used a shovel to dig through the soil at the bottom of the spring, now reduced to a small pit. Only after confirming that there were no issues did he leave with peace of mind.

All that remained was a massive pit, devastated beyond recognition.

Just saying: a lot of things, including the setting, may be changed. After all... artistic adaptation, you know →_→ DC changes things all the time too. Oh, they call that [reboot].

The characters who should appear will definitely still show up. Their timing and plot points may just be different, so don't worry.

Also... please vote! As for extra chapters, let me figure out a plan first.