American comics: What kind of evil intentions could Batman have?

Chapter 341 The Rise of the Mastermind

Chapter 341 The Rise and Fall of the Mastermind (Back to the Main Story!)

Death Valley, California.

"Power doesn't corrupt, fear does. Perhaps it's the fear of losing power..."

Clang.

A leather boot stepped onto the openwork iron mesh steps, the sound particularly noticeable in the empty corridor.

This is Berelf Prison, the headquarters of the Sky Eye Society. Before and after the villains such as Cheetah, Steelbeam, Shrapnel, and Giant Woman were all imprisoned here.

As one of the superhuman prisons controlled by the government, Amanda Waller has devoted a great deal of effort to this prison. Not only has she deployed defenses strong enough to deal with superhuman attacks, but she also specially invited Batman to reinforce it with Brainiac's technology to prevent prisoners from escaping.

She knew that even if Batman didn't get involved, he would still take action, so she figured it was better to keep Batman's actions under her control.

In short, caught between Batman's Justice League and the government, Amanda Waller found his own balance.

A small portion of the prison belongs to Batman and the Justice League, although Batman has never housed any of his prisoners there; another portion belongs to government personnel, such as various shady government organizations that Amanda Waller has no authority over, aside from the Sky Eye, like the Shogi Club; and even a portion is open to colleagues whom Amanda Waller deems sufficiently threatening, such as the Shadow Agents, with whom Amanda Waller has met the Old Man of Time, who looks like a little girl in elementary school, and her Bio-Assault Team.

Frankly speaking, anyone who hears this design for the first time will think that such a prison design is simply idiotic. If you just want to build a prison, how can so many forces plant their own power in the prison? Isn't this a sieve?

That only shows that people who think like that don't understand politics. For some people in the government, it's absolutely impossible for them to allow Amanda Waler to have a prison that they have no control over.

These people hold high positions of power. If Amanda Waller cannot resist such people, it would be better to voluntarily give up a portion in exchange for retaining most of the control over the prison.

She voluntarily abandoned the useless or dispensable parts of the prison, in exchange for an absolute fortress under her control.

She carefully selected each guard to ensure that there were no spies from any other faction or that they had been bribed. She even found a plot of land in a wealthy neighborhood of New York specifically for the soldiers' families to live in.

Since its establishment, this prison has been her stronghold; no one has ever been able to infiltrate it, and no prisoner has ever escaped. However, recent escape attempts by Cheetah and Black Manta have cast a shadow over the prison's reputation for being impenetrable.

Amanda Waller has tripled security measures to ensure there are no problems. The escape of villains like Cheetah and Black Manta had already caused Amanda Waller considerable embarrassment, and with Batman and Wonder Woman having recaptured them, he couldn't allow his men to escape again. Therefore, Berelf Prison was currently under full martial law.

To be honest, it's very strange. Black Manta and Cheetah weren't imprisoned in this jail for the first time, so why have they been escaping so frequently lately, as if they were coming home whenever they wanted?

Clang!

The boots descended the suspended wire steps one by one, and soon arrived at a tightly closed iron door.

Plop, plop.

The boots walked toward the two guards in front of the iron gate.

Good morning, gentlemen.

The owner of the boots spoke. The voice sounded very gentle, polite, and full of masculine intellect. Even without seeing his face, one would immediately sense that the owner of the voice was a refined and cultured gentleman.

"No entry without permission, sir," the guard said. "Please stop. This is a restricted area declared by Ms. Waller."

The guard carefully examined the newcomer's name tag, his tone softening slightly and becoming more polite: "Sir, you must stop here. We have been strictly instructed that, due to the previous prison break, everyone must—"

"There's no need to do that," the guard said in a gentle voice, seeing the man in leather boots.

"It's really unnecessary."

The guard took a deep breath and repeated, "Sir—"

However, at that moment, he heard the owner of the boots say:

"You would rather kill each other."

"What? What...?"

Bang bang bang bang!

Gunfire erupted in front of the iron gate, but strangely, all the alarms that were originally installed on the gate went silent, as if they didn't exist.

Bullets tore through flesh, shrapnel severed arteries. The two guards, riddled with bullets, lay on the ground, gasping for breath with their last breaths, yet still stubbornly trying to pull the triggers of their submachine guns, which were already empty of magazines.

Thank you.

The owner of the boots said that he carefully stepped over the two corpses on the ground, and stepped through the pool of blood with his shiny boots. The blood stained the boots as if he had coated them with a nice layer of olive oil.

"After passing through here... this area is what Amanda Waller calls the 'Crypt'... the world's most prestigious secret prison, used to house a handful of dangerous criminals."

The owner of the boots walked down the corridor and soon entered a huge hall.

His shadow was stretched long under the corridor lights, projecting onto a lab technician in a white lab coat inside the room. Half of his face was hidden in shadow due to the backlighting, making it difficult to discern his features.

"What are you doing here?!"

The lab technician in the white coat exclaimed, "You don't have permission to be here!"

"Release the prisoners, Doctor."

"No!" the doctor in the white coat refused him firmly. "You have no idea what we've been through to detain them. Do you even know who they are? They don't belong in this world!"

"I know. Now, release them."

"That's what the shadow said."

The owner of the boots didn't threaten him; he simply gave the order in a normal manner.

But the doctor's whole body started to tremble.

"Why...why did you do this?"

The doctor in the white coat was trying to buy as much time as possible. He could already hear countless footsteps approaching him from not far down the corridor.

But he couldn't control his body. He kept manipulating something on the computer console next to him, releasing what the boot owner wanted him to release against his own will. He tried to refuse, but he was powerless to do so.

"Because I believe in a second chance," he heard the boot owner say. "Sometimes it feels like the end of the world has come and gone..."

"Don't let him escape!" The commotion that had been building up in the hallway finally reached the room.

With a loud bang, in an instant, a large number of guards, clad in protective suits, wearing white iron masks, and armed to the teeth with all sorts of weapons, rushed out of the door behind them: "Grab him!"

The owner of the boots turned around: "But I still have hope."

brush!

A figure appeared behind him with lightning speed, and a flaming blade, as if alive, severed the soldier's head, the movement as easy as plucking a tomato from a roadside tomato tree.

The owner of the boots slightly raised his head, then closed his eyes.

"I hope I can encourage everyone to do better."

A beam of green light pierced through the unfortunate soldiers. Despite wearing heavy bulletproof armor, these mortal soldiers were reduced to ashes by the light.

"All I need are some brave souls who can bear the weight of the world..."

The paving stones beneath the soldiers' feet cracked, and steel bars, like snakes, pierced the ground, constricting the soldiers. Some soldiers' lower bodies were pierced by the steel bars, a truly horrifying sight.

The soldiers' helpless screams blended together, creating a terrifying atmosphere in the house.

"And they have the will to give their entire lives to save others."

*Pfft!* A splatter of blood landed on the professor's face. He trembled and collapsed to the ground, the blood gushing out as if from a squeezed bag.

The raised butcher's knife was reflected in his pupils.

"I love this world..."

The doctor in the white coat was breathing heavily, feeling his lungs groaning and spewing blood and foam. He realized that the other person had deliberately not killed him, just to satisfy their desire to watch him slowly die.

So he could only convulse and gasp for air, then watch in despair as they leaked through his severed trachea, unable to get a single breath into his lungs.

As he lay dying, he heard the murderer who had broken into Berelf prison say, "But something has changed... something must be changed."

"It seems I am the only one who realizes that humanity is falling apart, while those who have the power to set things right are helpless."

The owner of the boots stood before the many shadows that had been released, and then he snapped his fingers.

"We can gain the upper hand from this, so I released you from prison."

He stared fearlessly at the hideous monsters, a sneer on his lips mirroring theirs.

"You have long been forgotten, betrayed by those you once trusted. You represent the government's darkest secrets and sordid past. But united, we can accomplish the cause we started long ago."

He slowly paced around the released monsters.

"If you help me find what I need, I will also help you fulfill your long-cherished wish. All of you."

He promised, "I will help you kill Amanda Waller."

"Hey, you talk a good game."

The owner of the boots then heard a strange laugh, a hoarse sound like the cry of a vulture before it pecks at carrion, making one feel uneasy.

"So what is your purpose? And what benefits do you expect to gain?"

The owner of the boots looked up and saw five men sitting imposingly in front of him.

The space mercenary, Wolf, used a corpse as a seat, resting one foot on the severed skull and twisting it with the sole of his shoe. His name was Rob, a Zanian. Born on the planet Czarnia, he slaughtered his entire race at the age of 17. As an interstellar bounty hunter, he possessed spiky black hair, red eyes, pale skin, and an immortal body.

Standing behind him was Dr. Polaris, a master of manipulating magnetism, who stood with his arms crossed, a soft purple light emanating from the back of his forehead.

He is the world's greatest master of magnetism, capable of easily lifting and moving heavy objects using magnetism, controlling iron particles in the air, and even altering the Earth's magnetic field. He can also use magnetism to achieve flight, control any natural or artificial electromagnetic field, or create an impenetrable electromagnetic field that can defend against any mental, energy, or physical attack.

(Note: This person is one of the sources of inspiration for Magneto in Marvel.)

The Emerald Queen stood to his right, dressed in green, with a massive eye hovering above her forehead. That was the Emerald Eye of Ekron, an incredibly dangerous and deadly weapon.

Standing beside the three of them was Johnny Solo, the Agent of Death, an enemy of the Justice Society, whose head was a floating mask.

Luxam stood at the back; he was a burly man in a cloak, holding a burning flaming knife in his hand.

"I?"

The owner of the boots hesitated for a moment.

He gently pinched his nose with his right hand and then flicked away a few drops of blood that had flowed out.

"You see, Batman has no time to care what we're doing right now. The son I helped, Damian, hacked into his database, and he's probably fretting over how his son accidentally defeated the teammate he assigned to the enemy."

"I created an earthquake, instigated a war, and successfully dispersed all the Justice League members. They were running around in circles. I stole Cheetah's power, then returned some of it to her at the right time, and just now I let her go again."

"Batman, who is already stretched thin, will have to hunt her down himself, and after that, he'll have to go back to deal with Damian. This will further delay his schedule."

"And all of this will bring me an opportunity, an opportunity to come before you all, everyone—"

"I'm telling you all this so you can know just how much I've sacrificed to see you."

The owner of the boots gently bent down and wiped away the blood flowing from his nose:

"Let's get to know each other formally—"

"My name is Maxwell Lord, and I come from the Shogi Association."

"I can save the world."

(Note: Maxwell Lord, Wonder Woman's villain, is a telepathic user, and one of the strongest. His most famous feat is that in the comics, he mind-controlled Superman to attack Batman and Wonder Woman, plotting to threaten the safety of the entire world. To stop him, Wonder Woman was forced to break his neck, but Lord foresaw his own death and broadcast the image of Wonder Woman killing him to the world, successfully ruining Wonder Woman's reputation. This incident, along with Jason Todd (the second Robin) being beaten to death by the Joker in "Death in the Family," and Hal Jordan's transformation into Parallax in "Emerald Twilight" (where 700 million people died in Beach City), became one of the three pieces of evidence that Superman Supreme believes the world is beyond redemption.)

(End of this chapter)