Eastside Cathedral

This was a peculiar and rare structure, a blend of marble and wooden architecture. The wooden section always maintained a comfortable temperature, though few people knew that this massive wooden chapel was actually formed from a single vine.

At 1:00 AM, Poison Ivy emerged from the dense vines. The ends of the vines shared the same color as the wooden chapel. Upon closer inspection, it was clear they originated from the same plant.

The vines suspended a figure dressed in black assassin gear, struggling.

Millie waited on the first floor. She smiled gratefully when she saw Ivy, while Catwoman stood beside her, glancing at a rat perched on the windowsill, staring outside like a human. She snorted softly.

Poison Ivy tossed over the assassin’s communicator. Helping to capture the intruder? Sure. Handling the aftermath? Not her problem.

She caressed the wooden structure as though communicating with it: “Alright, sweetheart… if you like—take good care of him.”

The latter part was clearly directed at Millie.

Ivy understood that to keep the “wooden house,” now rooted in the Eastside, happy—it was alive, after all, a living vine—both the cathedral and Millie, its caretaker, needed to remain unharmed.

Fine, she would overlook the fact that she had been dragged here from Bristol.

Since she was here, she might as well warn certain people not to mess with this cathedral unless they wanted a “true love’s kiss.”

After all, Gotham’s plants were under Poison Ivy’s protection.

---

Blackgate Prison, Sprang Bridge

For the guards stationed on the bridge, repairing and reinforcing it was undoubtedly a good thing. Although the escape rate at Blackgate Prison had dropped, there was no guarantee another super-criminal wouldn’t show up someday.

Snipers sent from the prison took turns guarding the watchtower, occasionally glancing at the bridge repair work.

Naturally, they wouldn’t share any details.

Tonight, however, the guards noticed something unusual—

The construction team included Mr. Shelk, the currently “paroled” criminal known as Penguin, and another individual who appeared frequently—a tall, slender man.

The guards weren’t sure if he was… a worker?

Sometimes he wore a hospital lab coat, rushing in and out. Beneath the coat, he donned what looked like custom cosplay attire, occasionally throwing a red cape over it. The cape billowed dramatically, giving him an air of authority.

Whenever this man appeared, the entire crew seemed delighted, as if he were some kind of reinforcement. Could he really do the work of an entire team on his own?

Oddly, every time he showed up, the guards’ binoculars would mysteriously blur, and surveillance cameras would fail to capture anything useful.

Across the Sprang Bridge, between two vans, Shelk cautiously wiped the blood off his forehead with a cloth and then glanced at Penguin across from him, offering the cloth.

Penguin grimaced. “…Thanks.” The blood wasn’t Shelk’s; it had splattered from Penguin’s own wounds.

“You’re welcome,” Shelk replied coldly. “Let’s hope you don’t cause any more trouble.”

Penguin: “…”

Above them, Doctor Strange hovered in mid-air, paying no mind to their bickering. He held one person, but what he truly gripped was their soul.

Doctor Strange wasn’t skilled in close combat, especially against an enemy with self-healing abilities. But pulling their soul from their body—especially when it was already unstable—wasn’t difficult.

“You’re a ghost of the last century,” he said calmly to the Talon assassin before him. “But clearly, you have no idea what it means to ‘live.’”

A life lived like a tool wasn’t truly a life at all.

---

Iceberg Construction Company

On the top floor, the seventh-floor glass had shattered during a fight.

The cold wind swept in, accompanied by a shadowy figure.

To Gotham’s citizens, this figure might have been a cat, a bat, or—more likely—a 260-pound adult white man. If it were the latter, it would indeed be an urban legend.

This intruder adeptly input the code to Violin’s private elevator, pressing “3” three times. The elevator descended to a nonexistent basement level, where Violin’s trusted “inner circle,” who had helped him establish his company in the Eastside, waited. The largest and strongest among them was a former chef.

Inside the female Talon’s body was a thermal liquid explosive, powerful enough to obliterate half the Eastside.

The “urban legend” greeted them—it was, of course, Batman.

Officially, he left the premises. Unofficially, his departure marked the completion of their agreed mission. Violin’s team left with a frozen mannequin, while the real assassin was delivered to the building’s lower levels.

The female Talon lay restrained, her limbs bound and her disguise removed. The most severe injury was at the back of her head. Beneath her mask was a young face.

After a brief examination, Batman and his team loaded her into the Batmobile.

This was a transaction. The deal represented a consensus between Batman and Vivi regarding Gotham’s protection. If an organization threatened to destroy the city, they would utterly crush its goals.

However, since it was a deal, Batman had to honor certain terms—

They would dismantle this organization, but he wouldn’t dig deeper into its origins. The subsequent investigation would be left to the police.

In the Batmobile, Bruce knew Vivi wanted to keep secrets, but he agreed.

“I figured,” Bruce said to Alfred on the other end of the communicator. “The owl motif… we all know the nursery rhyme.”

Growing up in Gotham, how could Bruce not know the nursery rhyme tied to the Court of Owls?

He had investigated it once—after his parents’ death. He looked into every possible suspect, including the “Court,” which was rumored to be nothing more than an urban legend. Yet, he found nothing.

As he grew older, Bruce buried that part of his past. But now, they had resurfaced, like a shadow that had always lingered in Gotham.

Returning to the Batcave, Bruce began a proper investigation into the assassin.

The female assassin carried the bomb in a way reminiscent of how Venom-heads forced their “flesh couriers” to smuggle drugs—only worse. Since her body could heal, conventional bombs weren’t sufficient. After subduing her, her body had to be cut open to remove the bomb fused to her organs.

Her internal organs hadn’t yet fully healed, and her blood had left a trail along the Batmobile’s undercarriage, pooling into a small puddle.

Batman discovered that the blood of these “immortal” assassins contained a type of metal. This metal could be activated by electromagnetic pulses to regenerate their bodies.

This metal was the secret to their apparent immortality, but it had one weakness: extreme cold. Low temperatures could put the assassins into “hibernation.”

While Batman busied himself with this case, Tim was tasked with monitoring Gotham.

For now, however, Bruce had convinced Tim to rest—there was a long fight ahead.

---

Gotham University, Opposite the Batman Statue

Daniel strolled out of the school, hands in his pockets.

He and his companions were members of the Four Horsemen of Apocalypse, all renowned magicians—or frauds, depending on who you asked. It didn’t matter. They had come to Gotham to unravel the mystery of Mr. C’s magic, tasked by Eye to investigate him. But just yesterday—

Eye sent word: “Mr. C” was trustworthy. Their next task wasn’t to investigate but to assist.

Could Mr. C be tied to Eye?

Trusting their organization, the group awaited the right opportunity to make contact with Mr. C.

It was said that Mr. C would perform a magic show on June 3rd, Children’s Day. Through their network, they had only learned that Mr. C had a female assistant but hadn’t seen any preparations for the most crucial part of a magic act—props.

Until the early hours of June 3rd, when a girl claiming to represent “Mr. C” contacted them, asking these seasoned magicians what kind of magic act would be most suitable.

Daniel: “?”

“What’s a grand, flashy magic act that will capture everyone’s attention?”

“Dissection?” Daniel had suggested. “All magic is essentially a visual illusion, and the act that left the deepest impression on me was cutting a person in half.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” the girl replied. “If I were to be placed on stage and cut into pieces in front of everyone, where they’d think it was just a trick but I actually died, wouldn’t that be hilarious?”

Daniel nearly jumped out of his seat and immediately said, “Hey, hey! That’s not magic—that’s a magic accident. What are you trying to pull? If you want attention, don’t overthink things. Life is wonderful—”

The girl laughed. “No, no. I was just guessing that the enemy might do something like that.”

“Magician sir, and your companions, I’d like to hire you as magic consultants. Someone intends to use magic to destroy me and this city. This is a battle.”

Daniel let out a “Hah!” and glanced at his companions, who were either playing cards, gaming, or flirting. He said, “Magic isn’t a tool for harm—”

Locking eyes with their leader, Dylan, he continued, “For us ‘Horsemen,’ it’s a means of delivering justice.”

Thanks to that conversation, Daniel was now wandering Gotham University alone in the early hours, while his companions made preparations elsewhere.

If the enemy intended to use magic, then they would fight back with magic.

Daniel mentally calculated whether his props were sufficient.

Unbeknownst to him, just after he left, a man wearing a red hood emerged from a sewer grate.

He was almost entirely covered in blood, like a soldier fresh off the battlefield, radiating a fierce and terrifying aura.

It was Jason, who had gone underground with Vivi.

During the fight, Jason noticed that the assassins’ primary target was the girl; dealing with him was secondary.

Amid the chaos, despite eliminating several assassins, the underground arena was not their turf. Outnumbered, Jason and Vivi were separated, and her figure gradually vanished into the fray.

Later, after shaking off his pursuers and exhausting his ammunition, Jason waited for a long time. There was no sign of anyone—no calls, no messages.

“I promised to take care of these assassins for you,” he muttered, briefly resting before shoving the grate aside and re-entering the underground. “Gotham won’t allow any owls to nest here… damn it, don’t you dare die.”