After taking over the Suicide Squad, Darian immediately disbanded them and told them to go back and wait for instructions.
Amanda Waller received the news shortly after and learned that the Suicide Squad she had personally built had been intercepted by Darian. She was so angry that her face turned black.
As angry as she was, there was absolutely nothing she could do about Darian.
There was no other way; the strongest combatant in the Suicide Squad, El Diablo, had been taken out in an instant by Darian, and even the Enchantress, who had recovered to her peak state, was no match for him. What could she possibly use to cause trouble for Darian?
More importantly, the footage from the scene revealed information suggesting that Darian was very likely an Angel.
Putting aside what Amanda Waller was thinking, after this report was submitted, her superiors immediately sent an emergency notice, strictly forbidding Amanda Waller from provoking Darian.
Everyone knew that the power behind an Angel came from Heaven, and the greatest backer was the one on the cross.
Let alone people from their intelligence agency, even the President of America couldn't compare to a single hair on that one's leg; that was the true Heavenly family.
If they really offended the Heavenly family, not to mention the reaction from above, even the believers in their country could drown them with their spit alone.
Furthermore, A.R.G.U.S. bore direct responsibility for the crisis in Midway City, and her superiors demanded that Amanda Waller provide a reasonable explanation to the public.
The implication was clearly for Amanda Waller to take the fall.
Just as Amanda Waller was overwhelmed by a pile of messes, The Seven were basking in infinite glory.
This time, they had made their presence felt once again in Midway City, and they had appeared collectively as a team.
The one who stole the spotlight was undoubtedly Barry. In a short time, he had transferred a large number of citizens to a safe zone; that speed left everyone stunned.
Diana was no less impressive. While Barry was evacuating the crowd, she single-handedly held off the Incubus, showing her tough-girl style and harvesting a large wave of female fans who hailed her as their idol.
As for the big three of The Seven, no one knew the specifics of their battlefield, only that the fighting was extremely intense. One look told them that the enemy was very powerful, as even the big three working together couldn't take the other side down immediately.
Someone even managed to take a photo of Bruce from afar.
His armor was tattered, with a very clear footprint imprinted right in the center of his chest plate.
This picture alone was enough to imagine how tragic the battle was and how deep the enemy's malice toward Bruce was.
Clark: "I'm not, I didn't, stop talking nonsense."
Leveraging this popularity, the game under The Penguin's company quickly launched a new card pool, featuring a limited-time collection of The Flash from The Seven, with a drop rate as shockingly low as 0.05%.
For reference, the probability of an asteroid hitting Earth was only 0.037%.
The draw opportunities gifted by game events were thrown in without even making a splash.
Players were cursing incessantly.
"Isn't this clearly forcing people to spend money?"
But despite the cursing, a large number of players chose to spend money to draw cards, and some big spenders were even dumping 648 after 648 into the online game just to get the superhero, The Flash.
It wasn't long before many paying players and lucky ones successfully drew The Flash.
They tried out the character and discovered that compared to other characters, The Flash was like a supermodel existence; whether in PVP or PVE, he was almost crushing everything, completely worthy of this extremely low drop rate.
After owning The Flash, the gaming experience was on a completely different level from other players, making it feel like flying.
And that wasn't all.
Besides the classic original skin in the red and yellow suit, The Flash also had an event-exclusive limited skin, with golden lightning effects surrounding his body when moving, making him the most handsome guy wherever he went.
How could players resist such temptation? While complaining about the heartless planners, they continued to pour money into it.
Just on the first day of the event, the game's revenue broke historical records, far exceeding any other game in the same period, leaving many game companies shocked.
"Can games actually be run like this?"
They hurriedly had their own teams try to imitate this model, but all failed.
Not to mention that The Penguin's game production was excellent, not looking like a game from this era at all, but they also had the top IP of The Seven to support it, which other game companies simply couldn't imitate.
Darian was shocked when he learned of this news.
This The Penguin had truly learned the essence; he was truly worthy of being from The Penguin family.
Of course, there were also many players who couldn't draw The Flash and, in a fit of anger, ran to the game platform to give the game a bad review, wanting to make the game's reviews terrible.
The Penguin didn't care at all; they were thriving anyway.
However, to avoid damaging the public image of The Seven, The Penguin's company quickly issued an official statement, stating that a portion of the proceeds from The Seven-related skins would be directly settled and given to the heroes themselves.
And all members of The Seven had jointly decided that this income would be fully invested in a charity fund, specifically used to help victims of various disasters.
With this buff stacked, both players and passersby had their favorability toward The Seven significantly increased.
Players were also spending money with justification; they weren't just spending money on the game, but doing charity.
During this period, The Penguin was having an incredibly comfortable life.
Back when he was a gang boss, he had to scheme against a group of lunatics every day and get beaten up by that Batman freak every few days; those days were miserable.
Now, it was great; he only needed to sit in his office in the city center skyscraper, blowing air conditioning while looking at reports, without even needing to step out the door, and the numbers in his account would just keep rising.
The daily revenue alone was even more than what he earned after working hard for more than half a month in the past, and it was all clean, legal income.
Now he was a high-ranking taxpayer in Gotham; even the mayor had to be polite when seeing him. This kind of treatment was unimaginable in the past.
The Penguin only regretted that he had drifted for half his life before meeting such a wise master as Darian.
And the first step to going ashore was to forget his roots.
The Penguin decisively cut ties with his past at lightning speed. He ruthlessly liquidated all the black and gray industries under his control, and even discarded the name "The Penguin," which carried a heavy underworld mark.
Now he only went by his real name, Oswald Cobblepot, the CEO of Penguin Game Technology Company. At the same time, he paid out of his own pocket to invest in charity, just to thoroughly whitewash himself and build a good image in front of the public. At a recent business banquet in Gotham, local dignitaries were all present.
The Penguin became the focus of the whole venue. Many business celebrities took the initiative to step forward to hand over business cards and chat, wanting to get on his game express and talk about cooperation.
Even the chairman of Wayne Enterprises, Bruce Wayne, took the initiative to come over and get to know him.
"Mr. Cobblepot, I've heard of your previous experiences. I didn't expect such a big change. It's a pity... Ahem, it's really surprising."
Bruce almost blurted out his true thoughts.
Now that The Penguin had washed his hands of his past and was a compliant taxpayer, he didn't even have an excuse to go over and beat him up.
Without The Penguin as Batman's exclusive intelligence department, his superhero career had been significantly affected.
The Penguin laughed heartily, not minding Bruce's rudeness, and replied: "This is all thanks to the guidance of Omni-Man. He is the greatest superhero. In my mind, he is hundreds of times stronger than that psychopathic Batman."
Bruce: "..."
Don't think that just because you've washed your past clean, I won't dare to beat you up.
To celebrate the successful completion of the first joint operation of The Seven, Darian proposed holding a party at Wayne Manor in the group chat.
With a vote of five in favor and one against, the party was successfully held.
Only Bruce, who cast the dissenting vote, had black lines on his forehead.
Forget about the others, how could Arthur, who didn't even come, still cast a vote?
This time it wasn't a barbecue; there was no need for Darian to do it himself. The entire meal was handled by the butler, Alfred.
Alfred was worthy of the title of "Butler-Man." He easily handled everyone's food by himself, and even found time to brew hot tea for everyone, making people suspect whether he also had some kind of superpower.
Just as Darian was sipping the tea brewed by Alfred on the sofa, Bruce suddenly walked up and asked straight to the point.
"Who is Darkseid?"
Apparently, he had also heard the words the Enchantress shouted before she died.
Darian rolled his eyes: "Do you really think I'm an encyclopedia? Why do you come to ask me every question?"
He didn't know since when Bruce had defaulted to him knowing everything, but whenever he encountered something beyond Earth's common sense, his first reaction was to come to him for answers.
"So you do know about Darkseid."
Bruce automatically filtered out Darian's complaints and grabbed the point.
"I know a thing or two."
Darian sank into the sofa, crossed his legs, and said casually: "Darkseid, the ruler of Apokolips, nicknamed the Dark Monarch. He has countless minions under his command, and the number of Planets he has conquered is countless. He is the most powerful force in the Universe."
"And his own strength is even more outrageous. In his normal state, he can easily crush Clark. He also has a skill called the Omega Beam, which can hit the target 100% and has extremely strong lethality. He also controls the Anti-Life Equation, which can directly manipulate the will of living beings..."
Darian rattled on, spilling all the general information about Darkseid to Bruce.
After listening to Darian's narration, Bruce's eyelids twitched.
You call this knowing a thing or two?
This was just short of telling what color underwear Darkseid wore in private.
Sure enough, it was right to go to Darian when there was a problem.
But the more detailed he understood Darkseid, the heavier the sense of crisis in Bruce's heart became.
The opponent was far trickier than he had anticipated.
Not only did his forces span the Universe, but his own strength was also outrageously strong, far beyond Clark.
This level of threat had completely exceeded the scope of Earth's existing combat power to deal with.
"Darkseid, I have also heard this name."
Diana spoke up from the side, her expression solemn: "My mother once said that in ancient times, a giant fleet descended on Earth. Any race that dared to resist would be destroyed. The leader of these invaders was Darkseid."
"They had a weapon called the mother box. As long as three mother boxes were combined, they could erupt with the Unity Force to reshape the Planet with fire, transforming it into Apokolips. Survivors would be enslaved by Darkseid and turned into Parademons, which are the monsters we saw in Midway City that day."
Diana's words undoubtedly verified Darian's information.
Several people in the hall stopped what they were doing, their brows slightly furrowed.
This method sounded similar to General Zod's idea of transforming Earth, but it was even more cruel than General Zod; the goal was not to rebuild a home, but pure conquest and enslavement.
"And then?"
Barry couldn't help but ask while eating dessert after the meal.
Diana continued: "To stop the invasion, the Guardians of Earth formed a coalition army and fought head-on with Darkseid's army."
"The coalition included humans, Atlanteans, and Guardians from the stars. Even the Old Gods participated in the battle. Zeus, the King of Gods, Ares, the God of War, and Artemis, the Goddess of the Hunt, were all among them."
"That battle was extremely tragic. In the end, relying on the concerted efforts of all living beings and gods, they finally managed to severely injure Darkseid, drive his army back to the stars, and save Earth."
"After the war, the three mother boxes were left on Earth, separately entrusted to humans, Amazons, and Atlantis for safekeeping."
Hearing this, Barry swallowed hard.
Just the names of Zeus, the King of Gods, and Ares, the God of War, were enough to show how high-end that battle was.
And this further confirmed how terrifying Darkseid really was.
So many top combat powers combined only managed to severely injure Darkseid, not even being able to kill him, and finally let the opponent escape.
Seeing the atmosphere becoming increasingly heavy, Clark spoke up to comfort them: "At least it's good news, it means Darkseid is not invincible."
Diana's mouth twitched, her tone complex: "But the problem is, Darkseid was still very young at that time. Converted to human age, he was probably only eight years old back then."
Everyone: "..."
"This is eight years old!?"
They originally thought Darkseid was truly awesome, that under the combined force of so many people, he only suffered severe injuries and escaped.
As a result, they now realized that Earth was truly awesome, actually being able to beat Darkseid away.
At this moment, everyone was speechless.
All the top combat powers on Earth combined, plus extraterrestrial support, only managed to severely injure the young Darkseid.
Now that so much time has passed, how strong would the adult Darkseid have developed to be?
It was simply unimaginable!
Barry said dryly: "Fortunately, we stopped the Enchantress's plan in time and didn't let her send the signal, otherwise Earth would be in trouble."
Darian shook his head: "That's not necessarily true."
Although the commotion caused by the Enchantress this time was loud, it didn't amount to a real major crisis; the progress bar of the dungeon mission had remained unmoved from beginning to end.
This only proved one thing: no matter how this incident turned out, it could not change the ultimate major trend.
In other words, whether the Enchantress succeeded in sending a signal to Apokolips or not, Darkseid would eventually find Earth's coordinates.
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