Upon witnessing Rashina's swift and decisive suicide by throat-cutting, Helen, Harley, and the Wanda in Harley's mind all spoke at the same time.
"This is big trouble..."
This time, Batman had indeed received an epic level boost, but it was a misguided one. Neither his strengths in scientific invention and detective reasoning, nor regular magic energy use were enhanced. It seemed that this young bat, not yet Batman, was wildly sprinting towards an unknown direction, leaving no chance for a return.
Suddenly, Little Bruce looked up at Helen.
The moment Helen saw Little Bruce's blue eyes, she found herself in a vast icy plain, hearing the distant call of a flute from behind a gigantic figure.
Helen took a deep breath and regained consciousness. But, she knew the real big trouble had just begun, because Little Bruce was beginning to levitate.
With dark energy surging like tides, lifting him up, the ground below Little Bruce turned into a dark sticky pit. More and more tendrils formed from dark energy started to crawl out from under his feet. Strings of cryptic symbols wrapped around the tendrils, and a lowly one nearby merely glanced at those patterns and immediately began to scream, tearing off his own face and clawing out his eyes.
Batman doesn't kill. People die out of their own deepest fear.
Little Bruce stood silently among the countless tendrils. More and more dark energy was eroding the upper ceiling and the lower floor. Half of the Starport Hall was filled with black tendrils covered in cryptic symbols.
"What the hell is that?!!" The guards on the lower floor retreated in shock, running towards the communications room in a flurry. They were trying to contact more guards as quickly as possible, but the black tendrils, spreading like roots basking in endless nutrients, had almost instantaneously occupied every passageway.
Helen gritted her teeth, tensing her body in an extremely vigilant defensive stance. The moment Little Bruce opened his mouth, Helen once again fell into an illusion.
This time she found herself in a damp seaside town. Boat after boat was setting sail from the dock, disappearing into the dark fog and thick clouds. Those sailors handling the ropes and clearing seaweed from anchors told her that the town was called Arkham.
Upon seeing Helen's expression, Harley quickly started flipping through the Necronomicon. As if to oblige her, the relevant information appeared on the book's page. She found that Arkham was indeed a town in the legends of Outer Gods. Confused, Harley furrowed her brows, mumbling to herself: "Why Arkham? Is this just a coincidence?"
After two seconds, Helen returned to reality and burst into hysterical laughter, and then said, "Dream on if you think I'll look for clues in the library! Batman, I will burn everything, I will blow up everything. Illusions won't work on me!"
The movements of Little Bruce's lips accelerated. The alien words he was uttering were filled with obscene knowledge of the Outer Gods. As Helen was once again pulled into the illusion, the black tendrils moved.
A thick black tendril harshly flung Helen away. She smashed heavily into the railing, her focused eyes showing her liberation from the illusion. Helen wiped the blood trickling down from her mouth, flashing a malicious smile.
Next second, her eyes went dull again. The black tendril charged straight for her face as expected. As the sharp tip of the tendril cut through the air causing ripples, Helen instantly snapped back into reality.
Laughing madly, she maneuvered through the densely arranged defensive tendrils at a speed too fast for anyone to follow. She stepped over the base of the thick tendrils, did a mid-air flip to avoid smaller tendrils, adjusted her position using a nearby waving tendril, and dodged the black energy missile.
One step, two steps, three steps. The moment her fist stops at Little Bruce's forehead, a thick layer of dark energy barrier withstands Helen's strength. Despite her unwillingness to back down, she snorted and quickly retreated to avoid the sharp tendril attacking from behind.
"Batman, let me remind you," Helen said with an insane laugh. "The same trick won't work on me the second time. Do you remember? The perfect evolution!"
Facing Helen, Little Bruce's expressionless face showed a slight frown, and he muttered, "Ugh, annoying."
In an instant, Helen's huge power collided again with the defense network formed by the dark tendrils. This time, they created shock waves that destroyed most of the facilities in the Starport Hall.
"What the hell? What are those two things?!!" The guard captain who had rushed over had his eyes wide open, looking up at the two monsters in mid-air. Retreating in fear, he yelled, "They'll destroy the Starport! Activate defense measures quickly!"
Soon, piercing mechanical noises resonated throughout the entire Starport: "Entering emergency status, entering emergency status, automatic safety defense measures have been activated, automatic safety defense measures have been activated. All employees and others, immediately evacuate the Starport through escape channels and go to the designated pier to evacuate by lifeboats. I repeat..."
Harley gasped for breath and turned to Spider-Man, "I think we should leave. These two entities have much more destructive powers than we imagined. The Starport may disintegrate directly rather than crash. We don't have time to escape."
Spider-Man grabbed Aisha and ran. Harley turned to look at the struggling Constantine and said, "Stop hiding. If you keep hiding you'll die. Do you really think a normal human can escape from here?"
Constantine staggered forward with gritted teeth. Suddenly a piece of ceiling fell next to him, smashing onto the ground.
Constantine yelled in frustration while gritting his teeth, "You brought huge trouble! Do you understand?! How are you planning to deal with these two things?"
"That's for Darkseid to worry about! Run now!!!"
Constantine grit his teeth and quickly pulled a lighter from his pocket, tossing it to Harley who was running ahead of him. He said, "This is the beacon for my Ash Avatar. Hold onto it and call me when you reach a safe location!"
As he finished speaking, he was buried under the rubble falling from the ceiling behind him. Harley sniffed as she continued running, not detecting the scent of blood, indicating that Constantine had escaped successfully. Along with Spider Man, she hurriedly traversed through the collapsing corridor, crossed over the fractured floor, and burst out of the Starport Hall.
The Starport's dock had already been in an uproar. Spider Man and Harley, having made their escape, turned to see the Starport Hall trembling continuously. On one side, countless black tentacles had extended out from the hall, writhing ominously in the dark starry sky.
"Who is the villain anyway?" Spider Man shouted as he ran, "I'm going to tell Batman about all the mess you've created!!!"
"I told you; we need to run!!!"
Harley's crisis intuition was almost catching up with Spider-sense — the trembling Starport Hall finally broke free from the other supporting structures, and it began to take off.
It was clearly visible that the dark tentacles had replaced some power structures, acting like the fins of the Starport Hall as it swam in Universe Space. The entire Starport Hall resembled a coral sprouting black tentacles, hurtling toward the nearby star at an extremely high speed.
The Starport Hall plunged into the burning star like a fish relentlessly chasing its bait, or a moth drawn to a flame, disappearing into the vortex of particle eruption with an almost darkly romantic demeanor.
All the people in the Starport heaved a sigh of relief. Thankfully, it seemed that the two monsters were adversaries, and that one had dragged the other to their mutual destruction.
Looking up at the Starport Hall zooming over their heads, Spider Man and Harley both swallowed hard. But just then, both Spider Man's Spider-sense and Harley's roar went off in unison.
"No! Danger!! Run!!!"
In that moment, Harley remembered one of the Joker-Batman aggregation laws from the Necronomicon - the Joker's goal was to defeat Batman, not to kill him. He wouldn't let Batman drag him down to their mutual death, because death was the most boring end.
Spider Man and Harley, who were running at full speed, leaped over the pier framework just to feel a shadow appear on the bright light behind them. The shadow grew larger and the light grew dimmer.
After a deafening roar, Harley turned her head and saw a pair of eyes brighter than the star behind them. A beast larger than the star opened its toothy maw and bit down on the star. The overly scorching star storm, innocuous to any carbon-based lifeform, was no more than a sprinkling of sugar on a dessert to it.
With a "whoosh," countless black tentacles erupted from that point. Little Bruce remained quietly floating amongst the tentacles, looking at the massive monster-whose eyes alone were countless times bigger than him, he coldly said, "So this is your true form? It sure is large."
Instantly, the black tentacles grew rapidly, countless stars appeared out of thin air, and the once dark universe was suddenly filled with shimmering constellations. When the two collided again, the star and the entire First Star Port of the Apocalypse Star were completely obliterated.
Amidst the infinite explosion debris, a small spaceship tilted and slanted towards the core of the Apocalypse Star. Constantine used magic to steer the ship, while Harley stood by the window, looking back at where the two monsters had collided.
When the explosive dust and ripples dispersed, the monstrous beast covered in spikes and the evil god composed of countless dark tentacles intertwined and fell towards the surface of the Apocalypse Star.
Seeing the mushroom cloud caused by their collision on the vast surface, Harley's eyes widened in disbelief, she stepped back a few steps then roared, "Quickly, go to the Apocalypse Star Palace and summon His Majesty Darkseid!!!"
The Marvel group, in their meeting room, were left speechless. Reed was staring dumbfounded at the image of Doomsday left on the screen, tremblingly pointing his finger at Stark, he said, "You're telling me her mother is Loki???"
Even Bruce Banner was giving Stark a "real man" look, whereas the only thing going through Stark's mind was that he was probably going to face another angry woman.
After the slight sizzling sound of the portal, Loki's angry roar echoed in the conference room.
"Tony Stark!! What have you done to my daughter?!!!"
Meanwhile, in Wayne Manor, Jack was clapping his hands gleefully, saying, "An extra-large Joker and an extra-big Batman? It should be interesting; their final battle surely will be a spectacle."
"What concerns me more is what the master of this planet is thinking right now..." Constantine gently shook his head, looking at Shiller, he said, "You truly are despicably cunning."
So where was Darkseid at this time?
He was, of course, in his own home, the palace on Apocalypse Star. It's worth mentioning that the ancient gods he destroyed were born in the force field of Apocalypse Star. After absorbing their power, the force field of Apocalypse Star and Darkseid became one. He was Apocalypse Star, and Apocalypse Star was him.
Just as Darkseid had risen from his office chair, it felt as though a hammer had pounded him in the head. The thought that flashed in his mind can be summarized as - "What the heck was that noise?!"