"He should put on this suit and fight Superman to the death." Red Robin took a deep breath.
Colt shook his head: "Even though this Batman tolerates Superman's killing, he still has his principle of not killing."
Red Robin turned to look at him.
Colt looked back: "I'm just reminding you, not arguing with you."
Red Robin pinched his mouth, squeezing it into a duck's beak.
Quack, quack, I don't speak with a beak," Colt intentionally made a duck sound. "Batman is always willing to give people a chance to redeem themselves. Even if they become enemies, even if he is killed, he still hopes his companions can return to how they were before.
Red Robin released his grip, soothingly rubbing the lips he had squeezed red, sighed deeply. "You're right. Even if he isn't my Batman, he is still Batman. Let's go. Leave the suit here; perhaps a new Batman will come to inherit it."
Chapter 62
The entrance from the Batcave to Wayne Manor had been sealed off, the area above had been turned into a museum. Without Alfred, there were few tourists, only a few employees were wiping down the collectibles on the display shelves. They did not converse and appeared expressionless; if it weren't for their heartbeats and pulses, they would have seemed like robots.
Timothy took Colt to the adjacent Drake manor and also visited Drake Industries. Jack and Janet here had also passed away long ago, the Drake manor had become an orphanage; the Counterpart didn't even have a single photograph of his parents.
They went to Oak Tree Manor again. Joseph and Alisa were already nearly sixty years old; they had no children, instead of keeping birds, they kept a dog. Joseph was just an ordinary university professor, Alisa was just an ordinary office clerk. They had only recently finished paying off their mortgage and student loans in recent years and were saving money for their retirement.
I sent a sum of money to Joseph. The funds came from Red Robin's secret account here; after all, he won't be needing it anyway.
Red Robin held a computer in his left hand, while his right hand moved so fast that his fingers left afterimages. Because he supported the resistance, Timothy Drake had his frontal lobe severed by Superman and was subsequently locked up in Arkham.
Arkham had become a real sanatorium.
To be precise, the entire Neither Island was a large sanatorium. They saw many familiar faces: Joker, Poison Ivy, Two-Face, Scarecrow, Mad Hatter, a young man wearing a name tag that read Timothy Drake. This Timothy was already over 30 years old, with a dull gaze, slow movements, a scar on his forehead.
To think that such a brilliant person has turned into an idiot, living in the same sanatorium as Super Villains.
“Let's take him back for treatment,” Colt said.
Don't pity him; this was his choice. He was prepared to face the consequences before he acted." Red Robin shook his head and controlled the Leap Mech to leave. "He follows in Batman's footsteps, others will follow in his, too. It is cruel, but it is a necessary sacrifice.
“Necessary sacrifice.” Colt did not like that phrasing.
"Just like how you chose to leave the chance for survival to your classmates and teachers back then," Red Robin said.
How is that the same? I only have one life, while Gotham Elementary has nearly a thousand teachers and students, not to mention the future Red Robin! Besides, if I don't die, I'll only bring more misfortune to the people around me in the future!
Colt deleted the content before the text-to-speech function could trigger.
To be compared to Red Robin, to have Red Robin say it himself, made Colt feel a sense of pride. Perhaps his arrogant, conceited, cowardly, boring self truly did possess the virtue of being "brave."
Necessary sacrifice.
Sacrifice, it sounds like a grand word.
Colt and Red Robin were hovering above Gotham.
The city was beautiful. No slums were visible; the East End and Crime Alley were lined with skyscrapers, the clean streets were free of homeless people and litter. Drivers followed traffic lights properly, there wasn't even a single person honking their horn.. The GCPD had been completely replaced; not a single familiar face could be seen. The police patrolled with expressionless faces, people recoiled wherever they went. People only dared to look at them with hatred behind their backs, muttering curses under their breath.
The two of them went to look for Barbara, Dick, Jason, Stephanie, Cassandra, Damian, others again. Most of their identities had been erased; some had died, while others had joined the rebellion and were now being wanted worldwide.
And Alfred, Alfred is also dead.
Red Robin left a coded message online, informing his siblings that he had left Kryptonite resources at a secret location, as well as the location and password for the supply depot copied from the interrogation records.
The two did not cause any commotion and quietly returned to the Justice Lords.
Batman and Wonder Woman have already reached a conclusion through their discussion.
The Superman and other Justice Lords who invaded the parallel universe will be sent back to the Lord World to serve a sentence of one hundred years of exile in the Phantom Space. All bounties on the resistance will be canceled, the Lord's Manor needs to disband the Imperial Guard, undergo reforms, gradually return power to humanity..
The Justice League will keep a long-term watch on the situation in the Lord World and supervise their actions.
After returning from the Lord World, Red Robin needed to stay at the Watchtower for quarantine inspection, while Colt returned to Earth to bring Birdie home from Wayne Manor.
Red Robin raised an elephant, which was usually kept at the Gotham Zoo. The invasion by the Justice Lords damaged the zoo, so Alfred brought the elephant back to the manor to be raised, intending to send it back once the zoo was repaired.
Damian adorned the elephant with silk and flowers, then rode the elephant with a bird on his shoulder, a cat in his arms, a dog running ahead of him; the way he paraded around the manor made it seem as if he had already ascended the throne as a king.
Colt waved, Birdie nuzzled Damian's face before taking flight and rushing toward Colt.
The bird was still as chubby as ever, yet it was a nimble chubby bird, it even wore a tiny Robin Cape with a black face and yellow background.
Colt stroked Birdie's little cape and praised the bird for being beautiful.
On the way home, Birdie pecked a thief's nose like a bolt of lightning, saving a passerby's wallet. Colt wanted to warn the bird that such behavior was dangerous, but facing those black, bean-like eyes seeking praise, his silent warning turned into wiping the bird's beak and nuzzling Birdie with his face.
Fine, let him be a little fierce then.
Dad is away for long periods, if Timothy is left unsupervised, he could spend the entire day drinking nothing but coffee and energy drinks, unable to even take care of himself. Once the countdown hits zero, Birdie can be entrusted to Damian.
No, entrusting Birdie to someone else would be the worst-case scenario. If the plan succeeds, even if he is gone, Mom will be able to come back, Dad definitely won't be away on long business trips anymore. They will take good care of Birdie.
..
Night fell, Red Robin went out on his night patrol.
Two-Face escaped from Arkham, claiming he would celebrate Bruce's Baby's birthday with fireworks, leaving Batman and Robin on high alert.
Colt sat before the Quantum Superbrain once again, watching the Virtual Earth rotate quietly.
The rotation speed of the Virtual Earth became extremely slow. Originally, one rotation took about 237 seconds, but now the speed was similar to the Earth's rotation, taking an entire day for one rotation. From the moment Colt entered the Lord World, the time flow within the Virtual Earth became the same as reality.
Without a doubt, Virtual Earth 1735 is Earth 50, the Lord World from the comics. Those live-action movies he saw in his dreams were not movies, but history that had actually occurred on the Virtual Earth.
Colt opened the core settings of the Earth Simulator to check the source code, where he saw a massive data cluster that was somewhat similar to his own data form, but countless times larger.
To be precise, it was the Ghost that was similar to it.
The data cluster was merely its external form; it had no physical body, but was instead a mass of energy that both existed and did not exist—the immense power gathered by Colt from the grievances of billions of Readers.
Joseph thought it was a quantum chip, used it as the core to create the Quantum Superbrain, which is why Colt could transform into a Ghost to travel through the network.
Five years ago, Edwin was almost swallowed by a strange power from the world's origin. In his panic, Colt swallowed that power instead, gaining the authority to manage this world. The concept of "mine" was merely a restriction he imposed upon himself; what he could achieve was far more than what he can do now.
I am not fighting alone.
Colt muttered to himself, his heart free of fear or panic, calmly and rationally questioning and answering himself.
'What is the purpose of the plan? What will happen if the plan succeeds? What will happen if the plan fails?'
The purpose of the plan is to seize the world's editing rights from the Edit, creating a new world where Mom can return and superheroes can also find happiness.
If the plan succeeds, Arkham will be purified, the DEBUFF settings for Gotham and even the entire world will be corrected. Once his power is exhausted, Colt will die, he will be forgotten even more thoroughly. Du Zhe will return home with all the knowledge, remembering everything that happened in this world.. once he has earned enough money, he can go and acquire Warner.
If the plan fails, nothing in this world will change; only Colt and Du Zhe will die a death that completely erases their very existence. His father, Tim, Batman—they will all completely forget him. However, the knowledge Colt has learned will return home in Du Zhe's stead, becoming a sudden flash of inspiration for those scientists in his homeland.
'Can I bear the price of failure?'
Colt's eyes gradually blurred, his expression overflowing with pain.
I can do it. Even if I fail, the world won't get any worse. If no one remembers, no one gets hurt, our hometown gets a batch of super technology because of it—do we really need to hesitate about such a good thing?
..
There are 56 days left until Final Judgment.
Colt didn't want to just wait around, so he tried to do something.
Colt found the source code for World 1735 within the Earth Simulator, located Timothy Drake, then deleted the negative status caused by the other's missing frontal lobe.
The projection of the Virtual Earth zoomed in on a specific area, clearly showing the slight trembling of human eyelashes. The young Timothy's dull eyes suddenly saw his pupils contract as they regained focus, in the next second, his muscles tensed as his body entered a state of alert. He caught a glimpse of the omnipresent surveillance cameras within the sanatorium out of the corner of his eye, shortly after, Timothy relaxed his limbs again, returning to a dull expression, wandering aimlessly like a fool toward a blind spot in the surveillance..
Colt did not sense any depletion of Spiritual Power. He looked at the high-IQ Timothy in the projection and attempted to add a segment of code.
As soon as the code was confirmed to be inserted and running, a smart watch with an embedded microcomputer appeared under the young Timothy's sleeve. The young Timothy's first reaction was not joy, but suspicion that he had fallen into a hallucination, he hurriedly began performing a self-cognitive spiritual power assessment.
This is very much Red Robin's style.
After adding a new line of code to create an item out of thin air, the consumption of spiritual power remained negligible.
Whispers echoed in Colt's heart:
This is your power, it is that High-dimensional Pen. Hold it, you will be the Creator God. Changing one person won't test anything; go change the world. Treat it as a mock exam before the grand plan, see how far you can go.
Colt was unsure whether the whispers came from within his own heart or were formed from the resentment of countless Readers. His breathing was rapid, but his hands were incredibly steady as he pinpointed the time to the period when Batman died.
No, this point in time was still too late.
Colt moved the time back even further, to before Luthor became President.
No, even earlier, before Luthor ran for President.
Colt fixed the time point and then deleted all the code following that point on the timeline. He thought about it, felt it wasn't safe enough, once again reserved the future memories for Batman.
His heart pounded wildly, reminding Colt that this action was very dangerous.
Of course there would be danger.
This is a rehearsal for the Final Judgment; as long as the confirmation button is pressed, the time of a world will be reverted to the past, it is impossible that there will be no cost.
Intuition only warns of danger; it does not issue a death warning.
Colt had to do it.
He must know the limits of his own power to determine whether he can achieve more within the Grand Plan.
I hope you know that no matter what happens, I am still by your side.
Timothy's voice echoed in Colt's mind.
Colt paused his actions and sent a message to Red Robin: 【Tim, I want to try something, but I'm not sure what the consequences will be. I really want to do it, I really do. 】
Then go do it. No matter what the consequences are, I will face them with you.
Red Robin's answer was timely and, as always, warm.
What if the consequences are terrible?
Terrible things happen in Gotham every single day. Red Robin's mission is to make those terrible things not so terrible.
Thank you, Tim, I love you." Colt paused for a second, "Notify Batman to temporarily close the spatial channel to the Lord World to avoid being affected by the temporal turbulence.
"Wait, you want to reverse time just like ten years ago? Closing the spatial channel to the Lord World.. You want to reverse the time of the Lord World?" Red Robin guessed Colt's thoughts in a single second.
Yes, but this time the time reversal will be much longer. I'm not sure if the fluctuations will exceed the limits of space-time self-repair.
How long do you intend to reverse it?" Red Robin was no longer calm. "Before the Justice Lords invaded? Or before the Justice Lords were even born? If it's the latter, your Spiritual Power won't be able to withstand such a massive load!