The Owl (Please Bookmark and Recommend)

The two of them took the lead, while the three people with no combat ability followed behind. Barbara held her Laptop, Vicki clutched a microphone, and Pete, pale-faced, carried the camera at the rear.

His steps were unsteady and his expression vacant. In the rainy night, he looked like a zombie.

Su Ming felt that this was a bad omen, as though it foretold that the moment they opened the underground laboratory, a horde of flesh-eating monsters would pour out.

He drew his twin blades and slashed twice at the wire fence. Sparks flashed and vanished in the rain, carving out an X. Then he bent the wires apart, creating a hole wide enough for a Wheelchair to pass through, and moved Barbara across first.

Barbara gave him a nervous smile before turning her attention back to the pitch-black surroundings.

The wrecked cars were empty shells. Their engines, spark plugs, batteries, and anything else valuable had been stripped away before they were piled here like discarded corpses, forming little mountains.

In the darkness, the shadows cast by those black hills filled every direction around them. No matter which way they looked, the distance appeared exactly the same.

Neither Barbara, Vicki, nor Pete had ever come to such a remote place in the middle of the night.

Every Gothamite knew what lurked in the darkness. Some actively sought it out, while others avoided it like the plague.

Su Ming keenly sensed someone watching him. Looking up, he spotted a Nomad among the wrecked cars nearby. She was observing them from inside an empty driver's seat, through a window that no longer existed.

He did not think much of it at first, until the woman began making strange noises.

"Hoo. Hoo."

Bang!

Su Ming immediately raised his hand and fired. Barbara and the others were stunned. Was this sudden, unprovoked killing the true face of a Mercenary on a mission?

Yet the shot they had thought certain to hit was dodged by the strange woman in an unbelievable posture. Like a boneless creature, she sharply tucked her neck downward, as if her head had retracted into her body, and the bullet passed over the top of her head.

When she emerged from the wrecked car again, her appearance as a Nomad had changed into that of a masked figure wearing round glasses.

With a flash, she rose from the wrecked car onto its roof. She wore a black leather uniform adorned with golden patterns and strangely outdated lace trim, resembling the formal hunting attire worn by medieval nobles.

The round glasses on her head resembled an owl's eyes as she looked down at Su Ming's group from above.

"Protect them."

Leaving those words behind, he drew his twin blades and leaped onto a wrecked car beside him, silently facing off against the odd figure.

"I always thought their existence was just a legend." Cindy also drew her weapon and stood in front of the others. "It seems Su was right. Gotham hides far too many secrets."

Naturally, Vicki would not give up such an opportunity. She immediately instructed Pete to use his raincoat to shield a small patch of sky for her, then pulled out her notebook and prepared to record everything by the camera's light.

"Miss Cindy, you seem to know the masked person over there. Can you explain her identity to us?"

Cindy glanced at her. She knew that the people Su Ming had brought were probably no ordinary figures in the Parallel Universe, but here, Vicki was just an ordinary person. Excessive curiosity would inevitably get her killed.

"You only need to know that they are assassins of a very ancient force in Gotham. If you learn too much, you really will lose your life."

"It's all right. As a reporter, I've long been prepared for that. Please tell me. Tell the citizens the truth!"

Unexpectedly, the threat of death seemed to flip a switch in Vicki. Her face immediately flushed as she pressed the question excitedly, pursing her lips tightly. Her eyes were wide open, her pupils brimming with excitement.

Cindy shook her head, whether in agreement or for some other reason, then began reciting a nursery rhyme widely spread throughout Gotham. It was said that decades ago, every child playing in the streets had recited it.

"Beware the Court of Owls, that watches all your comings and goings. It watches Gotham from the shadows, hidden atop low walls and attic eaves. It is with you in your home, and follows you beneath your bed. Never speak its name, or Talon will tear out your neck."

Vicki froze for a moment, but a reporter's keen instincts made her memorize the words. If she had the chance, she intended to research Gotham's history. Perhaps she would discover something.

Su Ming had been the first to react. As a transmigrator, in Gotham, the city of bats, hearing an owl hoot in the middle of such a storm immediately told him something was wrong.

This woman disguised as a Nomad was an assassin of the Court of Owls: a Talon.

Until the time Su Ming had transmigrated, DC Comics had still never clearly explained the details of the mysterious organization known as the Court of Owls. He only knew that it was an alliance formed by Gotham's oldest families, one that had influenced Gotham through various means all along.

No one knew their identities. Every member wore a white Owlman mask and carried a unique ring as a token.

Talons were assassins they had trained to eliminate those in the city with opposing political views.

Before the gangs came to power, and after the era of the four great families, Gotham had actually experienced a brief period of rule by the Court of Owls. However, internal conflict over power had erupted among them, leaving them severely weakened.

Gang bosses like Falcone seized the opportunity to rise to power and drove the owls back into the darkness to hide.

Perhaps Batman or Falcone would know intelligence of that level, but Su Ming knew even more from another world.

Their origins went back even further, all the way to humanity's Stone Age. The Bird Tribe, Wolf Tribe, Bear Tribe, and Batman Tribe were regarded as the origins of European civilization in the DC Universe.

Batwoman was a descendant of the Batman Tribe, while the Court of Owls came from the Bird Tribe.

Most crucially, every member of the Court of Owls had been brainwashed and controlled by their Chihu priests. In their dreams, they had all sworn unconditional loyalty to Barbatos, the God of Darkness, becoming his dark minions.

From a certain perspective, Barbatos was the god of bats in the Dark Multiverse, the dark dragon, the one true god. They had not chosen the wrong being to worship.

Unfortunately, that god only wanted to get his hands on the Light Universe to play with and did not pay much attention to his followers. He merely treated them as disposable tools.

But that was no excuse for Su Ming to relax. The appearance of a Talon here meant that the Court would soon know, and Barbatos would soon know as well!

When that happened, the danger would rise at a terrifying speed.

He had to keep this Talon here as long as possible and delay the Court of Owls from learning of this.