A Test Attack on the Owls' Assets!

The president's office at Chaos Direction.

Link stood before the enormous floor-to-ceiling window, looking down at the ceaseless flow of Gotham City below.

The city was like a vast, dark swamp.

Batman was an ascetic trying to pull people out of it.

The Court of Owls was an ancient crocodile lurking in its depths, surviving by devouring everything.

Link had no desire to be an ascetic, much less the crocodile's next meal.

He intended to drain the swamp, burn it dry, and build his own kingdom on the land beneath it.

"Sweetie, you've been staring at that feather for almost an hour."

Harley Quinn's voice came from behind him, tinged with laziness.

"Keep it up, and I'm going to get jealous of a bird."

Link turned and casually set the white feather on the desk.

"Harley, if I wanted to deal with a bunch of old fossils who've hidden in the shadows for centuries, what do you think would be the best way?"

"Find them, then use my Baseball Bat to knock them around like golf balls, one by one!"

Harley swung her arm in a home-run pose, her eyes bright with excitement.

"Too crude."

Link shook his head, a cold smile curling at his lips.

"Against ancient families who think they're nobility, violence is the lowest form of attack. It would only make them feel like martyrs."

He walked to his computer and sat down.

"To deal with them, you have to take the thing they're proudest of and use it to humiliate them."

"And what's that?" Harley leaned closer, curious.

Link tapped a key.

The screen displayed the vast network he had mapped out yesterday, with the owl emblem at its center.

"Money."

Link's voice was quiet, but it carried unquestionable authority.

"They've spent generations amassing wealth and weaving a web of interests across all of Gotham. Like spiders, they think their web can't be broken."

"And I'm going to tear it to shreds right in front of them."

With that, his fingers became a blur, flying across the keyboard.

A silent war, fought entirely in the digital world, began in earnest.

Link's target was the perfect one he had picked from that network.

The Gotham Heritage Trust Fund.

On the surface, it was a respected, century-old institution that managed numerous cultural properties and real estate holdings tied to nearly a hundred years of Gotham City's history.

In truth, it was one of the Court of Owls' most important fronts, a central node for laundering dirty money and controlling the city's real estate.

Link did not use a shred of Hacking Technology.

Through the Infinite Black Card, he instantly registered over a thousand untraceable Ghost Investment Companies across more than a hundred financial centers worldwide.

The next second, those companies descended like a plague of locusts, buying up the Gotham Heritage Trust Fund's publicly traded shares at a furious pace, regardless of cost.

New York, Wall Street.

At the Gotham Heritage Trust Fund's trading desk, every trader was losing their mind.

"God! Another buy order for ten million shares! Who's buying like this?!"

"The price is up thirty percent already! This isn't normal!"

"We can't trace the source! Every buyer is a newly registered offshore company, and every funding trail is broken!"

Sweat pouring down his face, the head trader picked up the red phone and dialed a number he never wanted to call during the day.

"We... we're under a hostile financial attack! Their funds... they seem endless!"

An old, icy voice came from the other end. "Hold the share price. Whatever it takes."

A high-stakes contest of wealth had begun.

The Court of Owls tapped its hidden reserves and began dumping shares, trying to drive the price down.

But every share they sold was swallowed without hesitation by the ghost buyers Link controlled.

It was like trying to empty the ocean with a cup.

Despair began to spread among the traders.

In Link's office.

He reclined in his chair. On the screen before him, red and green lines writhed like struggling earthworms.

"Boring."

He murmured the word, then pressed Enter one last time.

An offer to buy out every shareholder of the Gotham Heritage Trust Fund at a two-hundred-percent premium was sent from a newly established investment company to every shareholder's inbox.

No capitalist could refuse a price like that.

Half an hour later.

A simple notification appeared on Link's computer screen.

[Acquisition complete.]

With Harley watching, he logged into the Gotham Heritage Trust Fund's administrative system and changed its name to "Chaos Direction First Subsidiary Cultural Development Company."

Then he issued his first order as its new owner:

[Immediately liquidate and sell all historical properties and cultural assets connected to the Wayne family, the Kobble family, the Elliot family... Donate all proceeds to the Gotham City Police Orphans Fund.]

Once it was done, Link shut down the computer, stood, and returned to the window.

He picked up the white feather and gave it a gentle puff.

The feather drifted out the window, spiraling through Gotham's night wind as it slowly fell into the darkness below.

"The stone's in the water."

"Now we wait for whatever's down there to surface."