Chapter 201: Knowledge

Metropolis.

Emperor Building.

It is now 14:00, the peak of the sun's intensity. The building's glass exterior, arranged like fish scales, reflects a variety of psychedelic color spectra, forming a giant parabolic chromatic rainbow that lights up the sky above Metropolis, bringing a dreamlike panorama to the city.

As time passes and the sun's position shifts, the refraction changes, casting a uniquely colored sky every moment, stunningly beautiful and mesmerizing.

The Emperor Building stands 2,000 meters tall with 390 floors. Although not many floors, each one is five meters high and spacious. From this height, clouds are visible, and the vivid sky of Metropolis offers a spectacular visual impact and unparalleled grandeur.

From the 380th floor upward, ordinary people are strictly forbidden from entering.

The 381st floor houses Raven's Magic Academy. Although it is called an academy, the number of students is pitifully small. Not everyone is qualified to become a magician.

On average, only one in 300,000 people turns out to be a subpar magician. After 10 years of training, such a person might only be able to cast a light spell or a fireball spell, and such magic users are less effective than a handgun. For this reason, Bardi's magician army, suffering from a lack of qualified magicians, was dissolved early on. Though it is still called a magic academy, in reality, it only consists of Raven and a dozen magicians from the magical world who have defected to Bardi. This floor, as the magic circle's control center, connects to all coordinate points around the world and can teleport to any location on Earth.

The 382nd floor is Pamela's Plant Kingdom Control Center. It manages all the plants within the Emperor Building. She also researches Kryptonian plants, demonic flora, Azarath plants, ancient Earth vegetation, and more. She collaborates with demon gods from the Magic Academy to cultivate many plants with magical properties.

As for the upper floors, others may reside there in the future.

At the very top, the 390th floor, is Bardi's private residence, where he eats, lives, and sleeps with Raven and Pamela every night.

The 380th floor is the highest office, belonging solely to Bardi. It also acts as the cutoff point—anyone below cannot pass. From the floor-to-ceiling windows here, one can see the entire skyline of Metropolis, shrouded in radiant light and mesmerizing illusions.

"Master, Constantine, who was pursuing Bruce, has gone missing. The satellite finally detected Barry Allen leaving Tescoviller Island in Indonesia at Mach 278, passing over Irian Island, and disappearing in Papua New Guinea. No further trace has been found."

Hera pushed open the door. Dressed in a professional suit, thin black stockings accentuating her pale calves, she stepped inside. Her complexion was fair, her skin delicate, and with a graceful flick of her fingers, a massive projected map appeared. In the ocean, Barry could be seen moving at super speed, with two blurry shadows flanking him and white waves trailing behind at high altitude.

Bardi poured himself a glass of special flame vodka. The red, flame-like liquid swirled in the transparent glass. He sipped it lightly, enhancing and amplifying his sense of taste and smell.

Yet even so, this special flame vodka, with a searing 340-degree burn sensation, felt no different to Bardi than drinking warm water with chili added.

Upon hearing of Constantine's disappearance, Bardi's expression remained unchanged. He simply nodded slightly, confirming the report.

As someone personally trained at the Magic Academy, Bardi held very little emotional attachment to Constantine.

In fact, for all the heroes and villains Bardi had captured, he never placed much hope in them. He merely used them as combat tools.

They were completely under his control, used to exhaust and probe the world's power.

Success or failure was irrelevant. Some of these once-famous heroes had even been maimed by him. Yet they were still not as reliable as operatives like Mike, Leon, and others whom Bardi had cultivated personally.

Since the early days, he had no interest in meddling with those pesky fly-like heroes. After fully integrating the Codex of Life into his cells and gradually activating his genes, Bardi's focus had shifted to Earth-level experimentation and enhancing himself using Doomsday Cells.

Expecting him to focus on a few "Reservoir Dogs"-type heroes would be a waste of effort.

That said, the fact that Batman could still evade surveillance under such tight monitoring impressed Bardi. As clever as he was in the comics.

His gaze turned to Barry, focusing on the blurred figure on the projection.

From the outset, Barry was moving at Mach 278. The name "The Flash" was well-deserved. That speed was astonishing.

No wonder he could travel through time and dash across eras.

Among all potential threats, Bardi believed that speedsters like Barry posed the greatest danger. They could travel to the past at will, leading to the creation of alternate futures.

Even worse, any attempt by a speedster to restore the timeline could trigger chain reactions, making it impossible to return to the original future.

He must be caught.

The Speed Force—Bardi needed it too.

Bardi took another sip of flame vodka, moved his gaze away from Barry, and downed the vivid red liquid.

"How's the latest test?"

"The 78,000th experiment. The Destruction Spore was subjected to temperatures exceeding 3 million degrees. It failed to evolve and the experiment ended in failure." Hera, sharp-featured and poised, replied calmly, "Master, I think we're heading in the wrong direction."

Bardi paused in thought, discussing the Doomsday experiment with Hera. However, no conclusion was reached.

In the end, Bardi said, "Transfer Lex Luthor into the Doomsday Plan."

After assigning Lex Luthor to the Doomsday Plan, Bardi selected two additional special operations teams specialized in countering high-speed enemies. They immediately deployed to support Mike in confronting Ocean Master Orm.

Bardi trusted in his own strategies, and he was certain that even if Bruce figured them out, there would be no way to stop him.

At this point, his power and influence were far beyond what Bruce or The Flash could resist.

If any accident were to occur, Bardi could easily correct it with his own hands.

And after all this was arranged.

Antiope was brought to the Emperor Building by Lex Luthor.

Antiope, sister of Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, symbolized the arrival of Themyscira into the human world.

She was also Diana Prince—Wonder Woman's—aunt.

(To be continued.)

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