Just as Superman and he were locked on by Darkseid's Omega Sanction.
In that split second before a devastating blow could land.
Batman did indeed move.
However, he didn't charge into the battlefield to seize the initiative, nor did he use some trick to try and block a god with a mortal body—he simply raised his left hand and swiped a card.
It was all so natural.
Batman's swiping motion was lightning-fast, without a hint of hesitation.
Because the system detected sufficient funds, it didn't just automatically use the paid voice pack. In the next instant, his visual interface flared to life, and countless windows popped up like mushrooms after rain.
They filled Batman's entire field of vision.
[Ian's Cross-Dimensional Pay-to-Win Armor System - Welcome]
[Distinguished Super Sucker... Big User! High-intensity combat environment detected. Recommending the following value-added services to help you sweep away powerful enemies and achieve legendary status!]
Along with the voice prompt, the left side of the interface featured a shimmering gold list labeled [Paid Unlock Zone]. It truly contained many incredibly powerful abilities.
For instance, [Pay-to-Win Rage Mode].
[Pay $1 billion to temporarily boost strength level to 'Planet Render.' Note: Requires Bruce Wayne identity authentication; supports Citigroup, Morgan, and Goldman Sachs tripartite escrow payment.]
[Micro-transaction] Instant Energy Shield Overload: Pay $100,000 for a one-time energy burst to repel close-range enemies.
[Mid-tier Payment] Dimensional Anchor Interference Field: Pay $10,000,000 to disrupt local spatial stability and prevent short-range teleportation.
There were also [Biological Ray Modules], [Gravity Field Distortion Devices], and a litany of functional modules arrayed like an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.
Every single one was marked with staggering unlock conditions.
Payment.
Always payment.
As long as one paid—Ian had even opened up his own abilities. As a human Evil God possessing the [Share] skill, he could naturally [Share] his powers with this armor.
The Evil God Lord had a human brain, and imagination is humanity's most powerful weapon. The fact that he could think of this application of his skill proved that his "human content" was quite high.
The list was long, with every item clearly priced, the amounts high enough to collapse the economy of a small nation. But Bruce's gaze merely swept over them indifferently.
To him, these numbers were no different than a regular person seeing the price tags on a convenience store shelf. The wealth of the Wayne family was itself a near-supernatural power.
However.
On the right side of the interface.
There was a far weirder area labeled [Social Task Unlock Zone]. The items here didn't require money, but they demanded a price that, for Batman, might be more "expensive" than astronomical sums.
Ultimate Anti-Darkseid Weapon - Prototype: Unlock Condition: Record a short video of no less than 3 minutes where you, as Batman, articulately and emotionally describe how Mr. Ian's wisdom and generosity have illuminated the dark multiverse, and upload it to at least 5 major dimensional social networks.
Causality Interference Charm (One-time use): Unlock Condition: As Bruce Wayne, hold a press conference at the top of Wayne Tower, Gotham's tallest building, and publicly declare Ian as the greatest inventor and aesthetic benchmark of the century, followed by an impromptu 30-second performance of a hymn of praise.
Conceptual Invisibility Field: Unlock Condition: Produce and release a series of twelve short comedy skits titled 'The Daily Life of Me and Boss Ian,' requiring a cumulative total of over 10 billion views.
These entries were bizarre and reeked of Ian-style narcissism. Of course, while others might not understand, it didn't mean Ian was truly a narcissist. He simply wanted to obtain Batman's "Power of Faith." What bad intentions could a child as purely greedy as he have?
[Hidden Option · Identity Challenge] "Wayne's Proclamation": Hold a global press conference as Bruce Wayne and announce Ian Kent as the sole designated heir to the Wayne Group. This clause unlocks the Ultimate Function—a function of unparalleled mystery.
The goal of the final choice was overly blunt.
Batman was a man of the world, too.
He couldn't fathom Ian's innocence.
Of course.
This wasn't actually something that made Batman uncomfortable.
In Batman's view, Ian's requirement for him—the Dark Knight, the incarnation of fear, the wealthiest man in Gotham—to praise Ian was truly more painful than death. If he had to describe it, it was absolutely harder to accept than emptying his bank accounts.
"..."
This was the first time Batman had activated this module, and he was quite shaken by Ian's "obsession." His mouth twitched almost imperceptibly.
Fortunately, no one saw.
He didn't even spend a second reading the detailed descriptions of those options before his eyes focused back on the paid list on the left.
Ian's armor system presented the concept of "paying to get stronger" in an unprecedented, almost absurdly concrete way. Great power no longer relied on grueling Training, mysterious encounters, or technological breakthroughs. It was simply, directly, and nakedly priced.
As long as you could pay the price, power was within reach.
This happened to suit Batman's preferences perfectly.
He loved a pay-to-win system like this. For Batman, money was just a number. For anything that could be traded for money, his answer was always the same.
A bargain!
"Facing Darkseid... it seems I must pay for this." Batman's gaze was sharp and determined as he quickly locked onto an option at the bottom of the list.
The icon for that option was a swirling dark nebula that swallowed all light, and the price tag next to it was so long it required scrolling to see the whole number.
Of course.
It hadn't reached the point where Batman needed to take out an [Ian Loan]. The figure was roughly equivalent to ten percent of Batman's assets—a skill he could probably only afford to use ten times in a short period.
To this, Batman didn't hesitate, bargain, or feel even a shred of heartache.
Bruce Wayne's will—or rather, his wealth—passed the verification.
"Payment confirmed."
A silent command flashed in his mind.
The next moment, a sudden change occurred!
The originally restrained faint light surrounding the Hellbat armor erupted. It was no longer a flicker of data streams but had transformed into substantial, thick energy like liquid ink!
This energy fluctuated violently, weaving countless geometric runes around the armor that were so complex they exceeded the limits of mortal—and perhaps even divine—understanding.
After all, they were just Ian's "ghost-drawing" graffiti.
They spun and collided, emitting a soul-shivering "Ian Whisper" from beyond the dimensions.
"Slipping away! Slipping away! Super Great Escape activated!" A pre-set cross-dimensional long-distance teleportation spell, which cost an astronomical fortune, was instantly triggered!
Powerful spatial ripples spread out like waves, temporarily interfering with the solidified force field around Darkseid and the golden glow radiating from Superman.
"?????"
"?????"
Superman and Darkseid, the two powerful beings in a standoff, both froze at the same time. Before Superman and Darkseid could even start fighting, Batman had chosen to bolt.
This wasn't just unexpected for Superman; even Darkseid was thrown for a loop. He had studied Batman, but he truly didn't expect the man to have this side to him.
In Darkseid's crimson eyes, burning with the Omega Effect, visible bewilderment appeared for the first time. He had seen this mortal's resilience in desperate situations and his readiness to sacrifice everything for his beliefs.
He had anticipated countless actions Batman might take—resisting to the death, clever maneuvering, even trying to delay with some trap... but he had never imagined the choice would be... running away?
"Wait."
Even Darkseid's anger over his home being demolished was temporarily dampened by confusion.
Clark Kent was also bewildered. He watched his teammate's figure rapidly blur and become transparent in the faint light. He instinctively reached out but caught nothing.
*VROOOM—!*
A flash of ghostly light.
"You..."
Superman didn't get to finish. The portal snapped shut, and together with Batman and that expensive Hellbat armor, he completely vanished into the cold void.
Yes, Batman had vanished. He had truly run away!
On the spot, only a dumbfounded Superman and a Darkseid who didn't seem to know how to express his feelings remained, staring at each other in the void where Apokolips once stood.
A deathly silence lasted for several seconds.
Finally, Darkseid broke the silence, letting out a low, mocking sneer that sounded like two giant boulders grinding together. "Heh... This is the comrade you place so much hope in? This is a 'hero' of humanity? In the face of a true crisis, they will always choose to save themselves."
"Kal-El, you are destined to always fight alone." Darkseid wasn't just talking trash; he was attempting to destroy or shake Superman's inner conviction.
High-level combat is often just this plain and simple.
Trash-talking is a mandatory course.
Facing Darkseid's ridicule, Superman slowly lowered his hand. The bewilderment on his face had faded, replaced by deep trust and determination.
He shook his head and replied calmly, "No, Darkseid. You're wrong. I know Bruce. He's not a man who flees a battlefield. If he chose to leave, he must have something more important he has to do. This kind of tacit understanding based on trust and division of labor is something a lonely soul like you—who only knows how to control others with fear and power and has nothing around him—will never understand."
The words "lonely soul" were like a sharp thorn, accurately stabbing into Darkseid's most sensitive and angry nerve. He had just lost his planet, his army, his everything! Superman's words were undoubtedly rubbing salt into his wounds—or rather, lighting them on fire!
"SILENCE!"
Darkseid's rage erupted completely. The surrounding void began to warp and crack due to his emotional fluctuations.
"I will not kill you now, Kal-El! That would be too easy for you! I want you alive! I want you to watch with your own eyes as I destroy Earth, and everything you cherish, in a way ten thousand times more cruel than the destruction of Apokolips!"
"I want you to watch your friends, your family, and those pathetic followers of yours wail in pain and despair! And you will be powerless! You will only be able to watch! This is the price for daring to provoke the Dark Lord!" Before he finished speaking, Darkseid's massive body had already transformed into a destructive stream of light.
Carrying a horrific power that could crush anything, he charged at Superman! Everywhere he passed, space shattered like glass, and the universe itself let out a groan of being overtaxed!
"Heh, for someone who doesn't understand what hope is, I don't think you can achieve that... Victory won't stand on the side of one who only knows slavery and oppression!"
A brilliant golden light erupted in Superman's eyes—the manifestation of energy running at its peak!
"FOOLISH KRYPTONIAN ORPHAN!"
Darkseid's roar sounded like billions of thunders exploding simultaneously.
"If it's a fight you want, then come!" Superman charged forward fearlessly, his fists clenched, carrying the belief of protecting everything as he collided violently with Darkseid!
BOOOOOOM—!!!!
An indescribable explosion spread through the vacuum in the form of energy shockwaves!
The light swallowed everything, appearing like the collision of two small universes! Shards of broken space flew in all directions as the battle for the fate of the universe erupted on the ruins of Apokolips!
It was a collision of laws, an annihilation of concepts. With the point of impact as the center, a massive spatial rift was torn open, swallowing light, matter, and even time.
The war between gods had fully begun.
***
While the space above Apokolips fell into chaos due to the battle between two supreme beings.
In another distant, desolate sector of the universe that seemed eternally forgotten, space rippled like water. Then, a cluster of dim light appeared out of nowhere, quickly condensing into Batman's figure.
He stood firmly on solid ground, and the light on the surface of the Hellbat armor rapidly receded, returning to silence.
There was no starlight here, only the faint afterglow of dying stars in the distance, barely outlining the silhouette of a giant planet.
The air was thick with a suffocating silence and cold, and a... thick, lingering stench unique to biological weapon factories, a mix of rotting organic matter and rusted metal.
Batman looked around. He hadn't fled back to Earth as Darkseid expected. Instead, he had come to a secret location that most galactic civilizations wouldn't dare mark on a star chart.
This was one of Darkseid's secret weapon factories, located inside a dark planet far from major shipping lanes.
While Apokolips served as the capital and center of power, there were several such factories across the universe, responsible for the continuous production of Darkseid's war machines—the Parademons.
"It really is here."
Batman landed on the cold, rugged surface of the planet. There was no sunlight, only the faint red light from a dying star that barely traced the mountain ranges, which looked like monster fangs. The air was thick with sulfur, rot, and a nauseating smell of life being forcibly twisted.
He silently slipped into a massive cave entrance that looked naturally formed.
The deeper he went, the dimmer the light became, but a certain dark red, pulsing light grew clearer, accompanied by the sound of bone-chilling slime movement and hissing.
Deep within the cave was an unimaginably large underground space—a sight enough to drive any sane person mad.
Countless viscous, giant ovary-like biological incubation pools covered the entire field of vision. The pools were filled with countless twisted, forming Parademon embryos! The pool walls were covered in dense, vein-like energy conduits, feeding dark energy into these monsters-to-be.
The air echoed with their unconscious hissing and the crisp sound of bone growth.
More disturbingly, all the incubation pools were in an abnormally accelerated state of activity. The dark red light flashed violently; the speed of the Parademons' formation was astonishing!
Clearly, they had received orders from their master, Darkseid, and were being frantically matured to form a wave of destruction!
Countless transport ships buzzed like worker bees across the planet's surface, arming and organizing the newly hatched Parademons, preparing to hurl them into Darkseid's infinite war of conquest.
They were meant to swarm a target, and that target was undoubtedly Earth! Hiding in the shadows, Batman's icy gaze swept over the hellish scene.
He truly wasn't running away. The moment he confirmed Apokolips had been wiped out by an unknown power, he knew Darkseid's retaliation would be relentless and unrestrained.
Rather than passively waiting for Darkseid to lead an army to their doorstep.
Bringing the flames of war to Earth.
It was better to strike proactively. While the tyrant was at his most crazed and angry, Batman would sever his claws and limit the disaster to Darkseid himself as much as possible.
He had once again predicted the potential outcome.
"I must destroy this place in advance and limit the danger to Darkseid himself." Batman whispered to himself. This was his plan.
High risk.
But likely the only plan that could maximize protection for Earth.
The previous situations where heroes and villains fought while ordinary humans were slaughtered in mass by foot soldiers had served as a lesson to Batman. He was prepared in this regard.
"Truly a group of competent biological weapons."
Batman watched the hellish scene in silence, no expression visible beneath his mask. But his next action was unexpected.
He didn't activate any of the Hellbat armor's weapon systems. He didn't choose any of those high-priced paid skills to clear out these Parademons.
Instead, he performed a more confusing action—he disengaged from the armor and stepped out of it.
The cold air instantly wrapped around Batman's body, now only protected by his Batsuit. He once again took out that black credit card and swiped it at an interface on the outside of the armor.
"Initiate auto-park sequence. Destination: Earth, Gotham. Highest clearance confirmed."
He commanded in a low voice.
The red light in the Hellbat armor's eyes flashed. Receiving the order, the armor glowed faintly, and a small portal appeared. The armor walked into it automatically and vanished. It would return to Earth, while Bruce Wayne chose to stay alone on this dark planet filled with enemies.
"Once, I saw these monsters and couldn't eat or sleep, plagued by nightmares every night. That is what gave birth to who I am now—or rather, gave birth to the idea of creating my current body."
"To fight cruelty with cruelty."
Bruce looked around at the Parademons struggling and hissing in the incubation pools, at everything that desecrated life. His eyes were terrifyingly calm.
As if staring at some predetermined fate.
The Parademons seemed to have noticed the intruder. They began crawling out of the pools, surging toward him from all directions like a tide, their crimson eyes forming a blood-sea in the dark. They hissed and brandished sharp claws, their numbers enough to drown any powerful individual.
However.
Batman wasn't panicked at all.
He slowly raised both hands, no longer suppressing his chaotic genes. Bruce didn't look at them. He slowly closed his eyes, as if performing some final meditation or prayer.
The next moment.
Along with him removing a certain device from his wrist.
His body began to glow from the inside out.
It was faint at first, like a firefly. But it rapidly intensified. A warm, pure, yet unimaginably sad and resolute light began to permeate from within him. This light was different from Superman's solar energy; it was softer, more divine, as if from a higher dimension.
It carried the intent of cleansing all filth and ending all pain. It didn't just disperse the darkness and cold around him; it even caused the surging tide of Parademons to falter in a wave of hesitation and fear.
The light grew stronger, gradually condensing behind Batman into the shimmering outline of wings made of pure light energy.
His face appeared incredibly solemn and holy in the light, like a deity descending to the mortal world—yes, this was the power of an Angel. Batman hadn't done nothing during that Angel-fall incident.
The light fluctuated and surged violently within Batman, as if something were about to burst from his body. Fine cracks began to appear on his skin.
What seeped from those cracks wasn't blood, but even more blinding, scorching light! His expression twisted slightly from the immense pain he was enduring.
"Feel this light and heat!"
The moment Batman's voice fell.
An indescribable explosion occurred. With him as the center, an indescribable, pure-to-the-extreme holy energy was released like a supernova!
There was no sound.
Because the air had already been incinerated.
Blinding white light swallowed everything instantly! All the incubation pools, countless Parademon embryos, the intricate energy conduits, and even the entire dark planet—under this Angelic power representing absolute purification and finality—vanished like ice and snow under the sun, instantly melting, vaporizing, and returning to nothingness!
The light lasted for several dozen minutes before finally fading.
Where the factory once stood, there was now only absolute void. Not a speck of dust remained, as if nothing had ever existed there.
And the figure of Bruce Wayne.
Had vanished along with that extreme light and heat.
***
Meanwhile, Earth, Gotham City.
Deep within the Batcave beneath Wayne Manor, far from the city's noise and sin, it was exceptionally quiet.
Only the low hum of giant computer servers and the occasional drip of water from the stalactites above broke the silence of solitude.
Dim cold lights outlined various high-tech gear and trophies, also illuminating the figure sitting in a specialized wheelchair in the center of the cave.
Bruce Wayne—Batman—slowly opened his eyes.
His chest rose and fell slightly, his breathing a bit ragged. His forehead was covered in fine cold sweat, as if he had just broken free from a vivid and taxing nightmare.
The cold air hit his sweat-soaked skin.
Bringing a slight shiver.
"Ugh..." A suppressed groan of lingering pain escaped his throat. He raised a slightly trembling hand and pressed his temples. There seemed to be a residual stinging sensation of holy energy burning there, and... a sense of void, as if his soul had been torn apart and forcibly reassembled.
This wasn't supposed to be a predicted side effect of using a clone.
It felt like a punishment from the heavens.
However.
Batman turned a deaf ear to it.
"Integrating Angel genes into the clones... the tech still needs refinement." He whispered to himself, his voice raspy and tired, carrying a bone-deep vigilance.
"A biological weapon like this is too dangerous."
Those eyes, usually hidden behind the Bat-mask, now flickered with a complex light in the dimness—a mix of the clarity of a survivor and a deep wariness of that uncontrollable power.
He rested for a few minutes until the trembling in his arms subsided. Then, Bruce drove the wheelchair toward a nearby workstation that looked ordinary but integrated the highest level of encryption technology. With fingers that still shook slightly, he opened a thin but powerful laptop.
The screen lit up, its pale blue light reflecting off his sharp but slightly pale face. He expertly typed a series of complex passwords, bypassed several biometric verifications, and finally entered a highly encrypted private database. Batman's finger moved the cursor across precisely named folders.
He finally stopped at a folder labeled [Angel]. Double-clicking it revealed a vast amount of chaotic yet internally logical documents, data maps, and even blurry video clips.
Recalling his experience, Batman's fingers began to dance across the keyboard, making sharp, rapid clicking sounds that were exceptionally clear in the overly empty cave.
He recorded quickly, the content cold and objective, like a rigorous laboratory report. He detailed every aspect and every update to the data inferences.
This wasn't a diary; it was an archive. It was a reference manual for a blood-stained biological arsenal, earned through his own pain, for a future where they might face even greater threats.
His morality... the morality he set for himself didn't allow him to perform inhumane experiments. Therefore, every experiment Bruce Wayne conducted was carried out on "himself."
He typed the final period.
Saved the document.
Bruce leaned back in his wheelchair and let out a long breath, as if sealing that thrilling experience into the cold hard drive along with the file.
He didn't rest for long. Next, he grabbed an encrypted phone from the workstation and quickly drafted a short message to the entire Justice League.
It was the signal to prepare for war.
Having done all this.
He turned his gaze back to the laptop screen. The screen's light reflected in his deep eyes, mirroring the dense list of folders in the file manager.
[Kryptonians], [New Gods], [Demons], [Old Gods], [Lantern Entities], [Fifth-Dimensional Beings]... Every folder represented the name of a transcendent species.
Clearly.
Bruce Wayne had already deeply researched a vast amount of information regarding biological weapons.
He.
Had long since stepped across the threshold of the forbidden.