novelhk Chapter 387 Deathstroke's Understanding of Rune
Chapter 387 Deathstroke's Understanding of Rune
Chapter 387 Deathstroke's Understanding of Rune
With the help of Rune's amazing tools, the super-—well, anyway, Gotham villain counterparts—took over the city quite quickly. In just half a month, they had already taken over a quarter of the United States.
The Crime Syndicate, having lost Superpower, Night Owl, Johnny Quick, and Atom Girl, suffered a series of defeats.
Ultimately, the Crime Syndicate is not a justice league. The relationships among these core members are built more on fear, self-interest, and mutual exploitation than on trust or shared ideals. They use their money or power to control and oppress the people of Earth Three, enjoying the thrill of power.
The members of this organization are almost all extremely selfish, and they often fight amongst themselves.
Even in the original storyline, as soon as the Crime Syndicate appeared in the Three-Body War, Sea King collapsed to the ground and died a violent death.
They all appear to be incredibly powerful, but the stability of their organization is absurdly poor. It's not even comparable to the Justice League, let alone the hastily assembled team by John Connor.
Although Connor likes to shirk responsibility, everyone knows that he will definitely turn the tide at the last moment. Otherwise, do you really think Swamp Thing likes being betrayed by Connor?
Therefore, when the crime syndicate faces enemies like the Anti-Monitors or Runes that they simply cannot contend with, their first reaction is not to protect their world, but to run away.
Supergirl knew her own limitations. Her superpowers were basically the same as Superman's. Although she was Wonder Woman's counterpart, she also had Cyclops' ability. She understood that she couldn't even compete with Superman, let alone defeat Rune.
The Divine Ring went into hiding out of fear, and the current de facto ruler, Queen Super, did not inquire about it. She held no hope for this man who embodied greed, cowardice, and timidity.
Sea King claimed he was going to continue protecting his Atlantis. But everyone knew he was afraid. Sea King was always like this, a loner, and the entire Crime Syndicate looked down on this fool to some extent.
This guy thought he was hiding his contempt for so-called land people very well.
For now, the grid can only serve as an AI for managing information security on the network. Night Owl did have the idea of giving it a body, but unfortunately, with his death, this idea was forced to be shelved.
As for the death storm—
That crazy scientist, the Super Queen had no idea what he was doing.
Rune, at least on the surface, was a good leader.
During this period, he imposed almost no restrictions on the counterparts of these villains, except for requiring them to return regularly to maintain the alchemical products and to help each other.
"See, I told you so!" Harley Quinn said to the clown beside her. "He's a good man! We can do whatever we want, and he doesn't interfere with us—"
The clown heard Harley Quinn's words but said nothing. However, Deathstroke, who was sitting next to him, shook his head.
"It's not so much that he doesn't interfere, but that he doesn't care," Deathstroke said while eating potato chips. Although he was a soldier and had eaten rice and insects on the battlefield in Vietnam, he did not resist junk food.
In fact, the high calories of junk food provide the backing energy for his healing ability. Deathstroke's healing ability, like the Flash's Speed Force, requires a lot of energy.
Harley Quinn pouted, "I think Rune people are pretty nice."
"Of course." Deathstroke didn't argue further, but continued stuffing potato chips into his mouth. "For our world, Rune is a good person."
Although they didn't spend much time together, Deathstroke could sense what kind of person Rune was. Rather than saying he was a good person who saved the world, it would be more accurate to say he was a god among mortals.
Rune was willing to give them a great deal of freedom of action, not caring whether they would seek personal gain from it, and was even willing to heal Mr. Freeze's wife's injuries without any compensation.
He seemed like a good person, but Deathstroke was able to keenly sense the ruthlessness in Rune's eyes.
Yes, he did provide the team with magical resources and reduced casualties, but he never inquired about the extent of casualties among ordinary people.
Yes, he did cure Mr. Freeze's wife, but Rune's attitude towards Mr. Freeze's loyalty was very casual. He only visited Mr. Freeze's wife once, for the sake of curing her illness, and never took the initiative to see her again.
Taking any one of these points at once proves nothing, but when all of them are laid out before Deathstroke, he can glean some clues from these subtle details.
However, Deathstroke could never understand why Rune would show kindness to him, or even to the clown and others, when his personality was more like that of a god who descended to earth with almost no desires.
"Hey, hey! You still haven't answered my question!"
Deathstroke finally snapped out of his daze at Harley Quinn's scream. "What?"
"You idiot, I really don't know how someone with such a big heart could survive on the battlefield!" Harley Quinn was very dissatisfied. She frowned, but this did not affect her beauty.
Deathstroke shook his head and glanced at the clown. Perhaps only the clown or Rune could accept such a crazy woman.
Moreover, Deathstroke was able to ascertain that the Joker could also discern Rune's character. Despite lacking any formal education, the Joker was always able to see into the darkest depths of the human psyche, a skill that even Deathstroke himself could not match.
It is because of the existence of clowns that Deathstroke believes that modern scientific research on human psychology is a pile of dog shit.
"Hey, why didn't Little Red come with us?" Harley Quinn finally asked the question she'd raised earlier, seeing that Deathstroke wasn't responding.
"Because the West Coast is more suitable for Poison Ivy," Deathstroke said simply, adding at the end, "The forest coverage there is extremely high."
While the West Coast is often associated with hip-hop culture, it also boasts a remarkably high forest cover. The East and West Coasts have the highest forest density in the United States, but the East Coast is currently the heart of the crime syndicate and therefore off-limits. This is why Poison Ivy is generally active on the West Coast.
But Harley Quinn was unwilling to accept this fact; she missed her best friend.
Where there's Harley Quinn, there's bound to be screaming; where there's a clown, there's bound to be laughter. But this dinner didn't end amidst laughter and merriment.
"Shh!" Deathstroke suddenly put his finger to his lips.
He heard something strange, like a wild beast?
Harley Quinn and the Joker both fell silent, knowing the gravity of the situation. Deathstroke gestured that he would go check it out, and then he quietly crept toward the source of the sound.
The thing that made the sound made his eyes widen.
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