newbobooks Chapter 567 The Batman Who Laughs and Batman's First Collaboration?
Chapter 567 The Batman Who Laughs and Batman's First Collaboration?
Chapter 567 The Batman Who Laughs and Batman's First Collaboration? The Batman Who Laughs: At Eighteen, I Stand Like an Ant
In the melting pot of the world.
At this moment, the place was a complete mess.
The rampage of Superman Supreme and Parallax Morhal almost turned the World Forge, Barbatos's carefully cultivated lair, into ruins. If the World Forge hadn't been the workbench for forging the universe, it would have been demolished.
At this moment, Barbatos, who had finally managed to banish Parallax Mohal and Superman Supreme, lay prostrate in the inner layer of the furnace, panting heavily in the rock layer above the magma that was still churning due to the aftershocks of the battle.
Beneath him, countless Dark Multiverse Legions, pulverized into dust, were slowly recovering.
A Cheetah version of Wonder Woman... and a Giant Woman version, a Minotaur version... a certain version of Green Lantern Hal with a mouthful of sharp teeth, and Bane with his head and mask fused together and a gaping maw... a certain crimson Flash with protruding fangs fused with his suit...
Of course, the most numerous are the clown dragons swaying beside Barbatos.
These legions from the Dark Multiverse were temporarily summoned by Barbatos from their respective Dark Multiverses. Each of them was weaker than a member of the Dark Knights, but their power was not to be underestimated.
They all destroyed their own universes, and were monsters born from the essence of an entire dark multiverse. For example, the leopard Wonder Woman, in the main storyline of Dark Nights: Metal, was even able to briefly confront the Wonder Woman of the main universe. And Barbatos had a whole bunch of such monsters.
Barbatos summons them to enhance his power to fight Parallax Morhal and Superman Supreme, and they are also able to be resurrected by Barbatos' power after the creatures of the Dark Multiverse are destroyed.
In a sense, they have become one with Barbatos. They have accepted Barbatos' power and are deeply bound to it. They are an extension of Barbatos' power and will. As long as Barbatos is alive, even monsters as powerful as Superman Supreme and Parallax Morhal, who are almost able to shake the flow of time, cannot completely kill them. At most, they can only be temporarily dispelled.
Beneath Barbatos' feet, the members of the Dark Knights were also recovering from their devastation. Their strength surpassed that of ordinary Legion members like Cheetah and Wonder Woman, so their recovery was naturally slower—but if Barbatos had wanted to speed things up, they could have recovered instantly. However, it was clear that Barbatos had no time for such things.
The Anti-Monitor Dragon was the slowest to recover. He was stronger than the Dark Knights and was mainly responsible for stopping Superman Supreme. As a result, he was almost blown up. This is not an exaggeration. The Anti-Monitor Dragon was repairing the fist mark on his body that Superman Supreme had punched him. Around the fist mark was a ring of shattered flesh.
However, because his physical form was more intact than that of the Dark Knights, the repair process was completed slightly faster than that of the Dark Knights.
The anti-monitor dragon looked grim. He wanted to hurl insults at Barbatos, but he couldn't utter a single word.
Barbatos merely beckoned with his finger, and the Anti-Monitor Dragon was forced to obediently swim down to the lower levels of the World Forge.
Barbatos was panting heavily. In order to send the two monsters that Batman had brought to his side back to where they belonged, he had mobilized all the forces at his disposal and had also taken a good beating.
Although he did not suffer any particularly serious injuries, this level of energy consumption would inevitably affect his plan to accumulate power, and thus affect his dream of invading the main universe.
Although Barbatos didn't show it, he was already thinking about how to take revenge on Batman, or at least make up for his losses as much as possible.
Barbatos's train of thought was interrupted by something he sensed. He looked up and saw a deep blue portal open not far away, from which the Bat of Laughter strode out.
He held a brain sealed within a strange, transparent device, which resembled a light bulb suspended in mid-air. Countless red veins, resembling both meridians and lightning bolts, extended from the brain, hovering in mid-air.
Indeed, the Anti-Monitor's asteroid brain, the reward the Anti-Monitor had promised Barbatos, was well worth it. Barbatos had suspended the Batman Laugh's mission and temporarily dispatched him to retrieve this thing as quickly as possible.
"Oh, great master, great Lord Barbatos! I have retrieved the Anti-Monitor's stellar brain for you with the highest respect and admiration! Moreover, I have confirmed the Monitor's exact location in the area that the Anti-Monitor gave us. As long as you make your move to capture it, everything will be within your grasp."
Barbatos was not in high spirits. For this dragon dwelling in the dark multiverse, all the benefits he had already swallowed were his due, and all that he had lost was an unbearable humiliation.
He will never be happy about what he has already gained, but will always be angry about what he should have had but lost.
He accepted the astral brain that the Batman Who Laughs offered him, and then unceremoniously ordered his servants to leave.
"Prepare everything necessary for my descent of power, The Bat Who Laughs. Once you are ready, you will take action against the Watcher."
Generally speaking, when Barbatos is in a good mood or urgently needs the Batman Who Laughs to do something, he will call the Batman Who Laughs "my favorite knight".
(Note: This cheesy nickname that makes Barbatos sound like a little princess is indeed Barbatos's original wording from Volume 6 of "Metal".)
But what if I'm in a bad mood like I am now?
That means calling them by their first name directly.
Barbatos thought for a moment, then added:
"Take your Dark Knights with you. I'll assign you some members of the Dark Multiverse Legion. This needs to be done quickly; don't give the Monitors time to react and escape. I think you should..."
He stopped abruptly halfway through his sentence to the Batman Who Laughs. Then he waved to the Batman Who Laughs.
"In short, you should start preparing with your people. Don't stay in the World Forge. I'll contact you later to explain the important points. As long as you can extend my power there, everything will be over."
Before the Batman Who Laughs could say anything else, he waved his hand, and the Batman Who Laughs, along with all the members of the Dark Knights and the Dark Multiverse Legion, were teleported away from the World Forge without uttering a single word, like a chamber pot that was used and then discarded.
Then Barbatos turned and poked his head out into the void: "And what kind of freak are you?"
"Oh, Lord Barbatos, your words truly break my heart."
Immediately afterwards, Barbatos heard a voice coming from the void, a voice somewhat similar to that of the Laughing Bat, equally perverse, twisted, and insane. Barbatos was familiar with this kind of madman.
"Let me introduce myself. I'm the Emperor Joker. I've just discovered time travel and this fascinating reality, and I'm so happy about it! Hahaha, hahaha, hahahahahaha!"
"If you can't control your awful laughter, then I don't think there's any point in us continuing this conversation," Barbatos said.
In truth, he didn't care about the Emperor Joker's laughter. No matter how the other laughed, Barbatos, who was used to the Batman Who Laughs, wouldn't find it offensive. However, he only tried to suppress the other during their first meeting in an attempt to take the lead in the subsequent conversation. Unfortunately, this subconscious technique was completely useless in front of the Batman Who Laughs.
Barbatos had originally intended to give it a try, but he quickly realized it was pointless.
"Oh dear, please calm down, Lord Barbatos. I have come with genuine sincerity, hoping to negotiate a perfect deal that is acceptable to both of us."
Barbatos heard the Emperor Joker say, "Think about it, we can give them a whole new hybrid headache, strike them hard at the crucial moment, and give these naive fools a real cosmic crisis."
"Just thinking about these things is enough to give me an orgasm."
“You can’t get anything from me with empty words,” Barbatos said. “There’s a line between madness and stupidity, and you’re crossing it. I know what you’re trying to do. You want to trade a promise you can’t possibly keep for my enormous help in getting you into the real timeline. But I’m telling you, that’s wishful thinking, unless you can say something else…”
"What? I need something from you? Oh no, of course not. I wouldn't be that direct, like sex without foreplay."
Then Barbatos heard the Emperor Clown say, "I don't know if you understand what I mean... I'm not like those unfortunate guys who need your help; I'm fundamentally different from them."
Barbatos realized what the other person was saying.
Indeed, that's right.
The Anti-Monitor is a demon king who devours billions of positive matter universes upstream in the hypertimeline, but in the current timeline, he is merely a stellar brain.
Parallax Malfurion was so powerful during "Zero Hour" that he could manipulate the timeline, but the Green Lantern Malfurion in the current timeline is just a powerful Green Lantern.
Superman Supreme has also declined in the current timeline. After "Final Crisis: Legion of the Three Realms", he returned to the Origin Universe. His energy was much weaker than before due to his travel through the multiverse. During "Darkest Night", he even fought back and forth with several Black Lantern Corpses that invaded the Origin Universe. After returning to the main world, he was even more humiliatingly sealed on the Origin Wall by Supergirl and Superboy working together.
The Superman Supreme who single-handedly beat up all the heroes on Earth under the sunlight no longer exists in the current timeline.
(Note: Superman's power was not restored until the Death Metal era, when he delivered that earth-shattering punch to the Black Knight, who was transformed from the Batman Who Laughs!)
But the Emperor Joker is different.
"My power was stolen from a troublemaker in the fifth dimension. But in the current timeline..."
"The troublemaker still retains the powerful abilities of a fifth-dimensional being. Therefore, you can project more power from upstream into the current timeline through the connection of the trans-temporal stream."
Barbatos said, "But do you think that will sway me? Even if every one of you old things from history still exists in the present reality, you cannot defy the limitations of the trans-time flow and timeline to bring the power of the past into the present without any scruples."
He said, "Bluster. The troublemaker has already regained his power. Across the timeline, you can have a greater impact on reality than Parallax Morhal and the others, but the impact is still limited."
"Oh, that's true, but it's enough for me to recruit sufficiently powerful followers on my own." Then he heard the Emperor Joker say, "Guess who I recruited? The three Jokers from the Batman universe that you hate the most, the three versions of myself from a parallel universe!"
"I gave them a tiny bit of power to alter reality. It's not strong, but it's enough for me to do a lot of things. Including allowing me to come into reality without your help. What do you think? Oh, darling, you don't really need me to actually appear in front of you before you're willing to discuss cooperation with me, do you? I thought we could solidify our relationship sooner."
"...How should I cooperate with you?" Barbatos asked.
"It's simple. You want to invade the main universe, right? That's easy. I'll help you with that," said the Emperor Joker.
Barbatos didn't trust the man. Such unprovoked help was mostly a trap, but then he heard the Emperor's Jester say something else:
"Of course, in return, after you've completely conquered the entire multiverse, you'll have to give me fresh universes to play with for free! Everyone says the Joker has no purpose, but my purpose has always been the same: to have fun and enjoy myself! You have to provide me with fresh universes regularly for my amusement; that's the basis of our deal!"
This suited the Joker's playful nature, and this request put Barbatos at ease. The other party had a need; this was the foundation for any cooperation.
This is the Joker's goal.
He was thinking to himself.
This is a case of remembering the good but not the bad.
In short, Barbatos has now accepted the seemingly logical reason of the Emperor Clown, and the foundation for their cooperation has been established under the Emperor Clown's guidance.
"But all of this will only work if you can actually achieve a situation where you don't need my help," Barbatos warned the Emperor Joker. "If you can't even do that, then everything is off the table."
Despite saying that, Barbatos knew that if he were to inject his energy into the Emperor Joker at a crucial moment in order to control and dominate him, it would be something he would do without hesitation.
However, neither the Emperor Joker nor Barbatos has actually made a move yet, so the two of them seem to be quite close.
temporary.
Oh, by the way, Barbatos has another clown secret that no one knows:
The longer the Joker wields the power of the troublemaker, the more adept he becomes at using it.
Before the chaos caused by Batman in that Dark Multiverse that shook the entire multiverse, the Emperor Joker was like an iron bar stuck in a concrete road; his future and fate were already welded to and solidified. Therefore, at some point, he would lose the power of the Mischief and be unable to continue learning the changes that power brought him.
But now the roads are being renovated and repaired, and the Emperor and the Clown... have briefly gained a breather from the timeline before they left.
……
……
……
The Batman Who Laughs expressionlessly removed the headset he had used to eavesdrop on Barbatos and the Emperor Jester's conversation.
The exchange has ended, and the situation is not optimistic.
Only heaven knows how much he sacrificed to be able to investigate this conversation.
For such a long time, he remained hidden right under Barbatos's nose.
Then the Laughing Bat let out a long breath and stopped laughing.
He glanced with disgust at the other Dark Multiverse Batmen and the Dark Multiverse Legion around him.
More important to him now than the task assigned to him by Barbatos was something else...
This disrupts the Emperor Joker's journey to reality.
Barbatos regarded him as an ant, and the Emperor Joker returned from the time-travel with his complete tacit approval.
Barbatos hadn't considered his Laughing Bat at all, so only the Laughing Bat himself had.
He absolutely could not bear to see that disgusting, repulsive, and awful thing reappear before him; it would drive him mad... Hahaha, hahaha...
So to avoid getting a bigger pile of shit in his face, he may now have to work with a pile of shit that's already smeared there.
The Batman Who Laughs decides to try to connect with the Batman of the Dark Multiverse who previously thwarted Barbatos.
(End of this chapter)