I, the anti-superman, have hacked into the chat group.

Earth does not have such strong spider silk, nor does it have krypton that emits strange radiation.

Bronya herself was unaware that when she appeared at the Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, some of the Kryptonite smoke surrounding Superman adhered to her clothes.

Chapter Seventy-Five: The Life of the Eagle's Claw

Earth 3, Gotham City.

Carl discovered that Night Owl had not remained in the Eagle's Nest; only his assistant, Eagle Claw, was inside the base.

This guy's story is quite interesting. His entire family was killed by Night Owl, but he was the only one left alive. Their past wasn't pleasant, but now they're partners like brothers.

However, what impressed Carl most about Eagle Claw was its original fate.

He will be dismembered, and the perpetrator will be the Joker, not the well-known mad Joker, but the vigilante Joker unique to Earth-3.

He was a man who stood up against the Night Owl's dictatorial rule. He painted clown makeup on his face to pretend to be a madman, but apart from having a strong desire to kill, he was basically a normal person.

"Hey Eagle Claw, you look great. How have you been lately?" Carl greeted him.

Upon hearing this, Eagle Claw removed his blindfold, revealing two deep dark circles under his eyes. He said with a bitter face, "Superpower, don't you have X-ray vision? Tell me, how exactly have I managed to get by working on this space exploration tower every night?"

As the Cosmic Probe Tower progressed, locating the universe became easier, but precise positioning still required a significant amount of time. Night Owl was unwilling to wait for such a tedious process, so after completing the most difficult part, he handed the job over to Eagle Claw.

Carl laughed and said, "You're lucky that you have all your limbs intact, your head hasn't been moved, and you haven't been put into a gift box. You can still sit in a chair and work overtime."

“Even though what we do is dangerous, you don’t have to curse me like that,” Eagle Claw sighed.

“I’m telling the truth, I really think you’re doing a great job,” Carl said.

He was somewhat concerned about Eagle Claw's safety, because this was a signal.

In the original comics, the day Eagle Claw was killed by the Joker was also the day the Anti-Monitor arrived. After Eagle Claw's death, everyone on Earth noticed that the sky was covered by a blood-red light.

They then lost consciousness, as the universe had shattered, leaving only a handful of survivors.

Therefore, the timing of this event could change due to Karl's presence, but he was still somewhat uneasy.

So if Eagle Claw is killed by the Joker one day, then regardless of whether the Anti-Monitor comes or not, just to be on the safe side, Carl will initiate the plan to leave this universe in advance.

Eagle Claw put the blindfold back on and said, "Alright, Superman, let's not talk about me anymore. I still have to finish the work left by Night Owl. You came here to find him, right?"

“That’s right, I didn’t hear his voice in Gotham City. Where did he go?” Carl asked.

Eagle Claw replied, "He went to Fawcett City. One of the Ultimate Alliance members in charge there was murdered yesterday, and Night Owl went there to investigate the truth."

"The Ultimate Alliance has only been established for a short time, and yet someone dares to come and provoke us. Interesting. I'll go take a look too," Karl said.

"Keep up the good work, Eagle Claw. Locating the universe is very important. Goodbye."

After speaking, Carl transformed into a gust of wind and left Gotham City.

Fawcett City remains a unique city in the DC universe, but Carl hasn't visited it many times because there aren't any worthwhile supervillains there.

The people currently in charge of managing this city are just a few ordinary members of the Ultimate Alliance. Given their abilities, it's not surprising that Karl was killed by someone, but the fact that the murderer dared to act at the very moment the Alliance was established suggests that there must be something special about the killer.

With that in mind, Karl quickly arrived at the city center.

On the surface, the city seemed to be free of major unrest, except for a lack of sunshine. It was likely that the other members of the alliance had covered things up, and it seems they all remembered Karl's order to maintain stability and prevent the news from leaking out.

Carl focused his attention on his ears, searching for the part he needed amidst the city's cacophony of sounds, and soon he heard the owl's voice.

Carl followed the voice to a luxurious villa, which must have been the victim's home. The door was unlocked, so Carl went straight inside.

Inside the house, Night Owl was searching for clues with several Alliance members. The victim's body lay untouched on the floor. Judging from the appearance, he should have died from a severe blow to the head, as his entire head was flattened.

“Superb, you’re back. You were pretty quick this time. I thought it would take you at least half a month, but you finished in just three days,” Night Owl said as Carl entered.

Carl replied casually, "Because we have different things to do. As for the Alliance, what happened during the few days I was away?"

Night Owl said, "As you can see, someone attacked one of our members right in his own house."

Night Owl pointed at the corpse and continued, "The deceased was Patrick O'Brien, codenamed Rubber Man. His ability was to stretch his body at will, giving him rubber-like properties. Ordinary attacks would be automatically deflected by his body."

"But he looks like he was punched to death," Carl said, noting that the rubber man still had a fist mark on his face.

“That’s right, we checked. He only has this one wound, which means he was killed with a single blow. The killer’s strength clearly exceeded his limits,” Night Owl said.

Karl waved his hand and said, "How he died is not important. What's important is whether you've found the killer? You should know the nature of this matter for the Alliance."

Night Owl sighed. He felt the limitations of ordinary people. He had top-notch reconnaissance skills, but the final result of his analysis was that the other party had left by flying. After that, all that was left was to conduct a brute-force search.

In order to continue tracking the other party, he used several satellites and the power of the Ringmaster to explore the energy trail left by the other party, but in the end he lost the other party's trace over a certain sea area.

"That's the situation. I've already informed Aquaman to keep an eye out, but I don't have high hopes."

Aquaman is only nominally the ruler of the seven seas and cannot truly understand every sea area. It should be noted that the ocean is much larger than the land, and the small number of Atlanteans simply cannot manage it all.

Night Owl said somewhat dissatisfiedly, "Our reconnaissance methods are still too weak. We should establish a reconnaissance system that can monitor the entire Earth at any time to facilitate our actions."

He needs intelligence, but the existing system is too slow. It used to be barely enough, but now there are suddenly more unexpected events. It was the case with the Super Queen, and it's the same this time. He knows too little, and each time he can only wait for the other party to make a mistake.

Chapter 76 The New Origins of the Grid

Night Owl wants a device that can monitor the entire globe to expand his intelligence network.

For some peculiar reason, Night Owl has never allowed himself to gain superpowers, even though there are countless ways to gain abilities in this world, and if he wanted to, he could definitely become a powerful superhuman.

But he simply didn't do that. Instead, he went to great lengths to arm himself with various technologies, hoping to qualify himself to stand on the battlefield of superpowered individuals.

However, tools are ultimately not as convenient as abilities. His stamina and reaction speed cannot keep up with the opponent, so if he wants to unleash the power of tools, he still has to rely on intelligence.

Karl had never considered monitoring the entire world before, because he had no need for it and didn't intend to keep an eye on everyone—that would be too much trouble. He also needed to prepare for his space travel and had neither the time nor the interest to manage things in such detail.

As long as the general direction is correct, that's fine, and his super hearing is more than capable of handling that.

However, Night Owl's suggestion also makes sense. After all, things are different now than before. He has to leave often, and others cannot collect intelligence as efficiently as he can. Therefore, in order to deal with danger in a timely manner, a device that can monitor the world at any time is very necessary.

The only problem is whether the surveillance equipment could be misused. With a little modification, it could become a targeting system that can lock onto anyone, which is indeed very risky.

But after some consideration, Carl still felt that the benefits outweighed the risks.

Because the next few years before the arrival of the anti-surveillance agents may be the most chaotic time for Earth-3. Once these years are over, everything else will be easier to manage.

"You mean this wasn't a spur-of-the-moment idea? Did you have a plan in mind?" Carl asked Night Owl.

Night Owl nodded in agreement: "As long as we make a slight modification to the tower in the base, we can complete the monitoring task. I've also almost finished writing the operating system, and I plan to use artificial intelligence to assist in management."

“Artificial intelligence, huh?” Karl repeated inexplicably.

It sounds incredibly unreliable. The chances of AI going wrong in various worlds are far too high. From being created to help humanity to ultimately deciding to destroy humanity, there are countless examples of AI like this.

Especially since he is currently in the perilous DC multiverse, it would be strange if the artificial intelligence didn't malfunction under such circumstances.

“Don’t you like artificial intelligence? Or do you think it’s unreliable?” Night Owl said. “But you have to trust my technology. Once it’s finished, the Grid will definitely satisfy you.”

“Grid?” Carl noticed the keyword and asked in return.

Night Owl explained, "It's the name I gave to the artificial intelligence. After all, you can't just call it artificial intelligence directly. Of course, you can change it if you don't like it."

Carl is very familiar with this name because Grid was also a member of the original Crime Syndicate, and his counterpart is Cyborg in the main universe.

No, to be precise, he is Steel Bones.

In the main universe, Cyborg is a cyborg. As a human, he was originally a football player, but he was seriously injured and lost most of his body in an accident.

In this situation, his scientist father managed to keep Cyborg alive using the equipment in the laboratory and tried every possible way to treat his son.

Ultimately, Cyborg merged with the technology from Apokolips, and he was successfully reborn, but a part of his body was forever turned into machinery.

Returning to the Mesh, the Mesh is the mechanical part of Cyborg's body, a product born when the villains invaded the main universe after Earth-3 was destroyed.

They implanted an electronic virus into Cyborg, successfully separating his mechanical parts. These mechanical parts then became accomplices of the criminal syndicate, controlling global networks and communications to facilitate the villains' actions.

Carl didn't plan to go to the main universe because that would only be a temporary solution; the crisis in the DC universe would never end. Under these circumstances, Carl thought the Grid would never reappear, but unexpectedly, it was created by Night Owl in the form of artificial intelligence.

This is perhaps one of the characteristics of DC: the origins may change easily, but the characters always manage to appear.

Perhaps at different times, in different places, and even with different origin figures, the characters themselves will still be born as if by destiny.

After learning that artificial intelligence was the Grid, Carl suddenly felt much more at ease. His previous thoughts had overlooked a very important point: although artificial intelligence could easily become villainous, what if it was villainous from the very beginning?

Although Carl ran a criminal organization, he neither saw himself as a villain nor a hero. Regarding his own identity, Carl always considered himself an ordinary person who just wanted to live a peaceful life and had no desire to save or rule the world.

But others are different. Even if Night Owl is willing to establish order, he is still a pure villain, so the artificial intelligence he creates will naturally not be a nice guy. However, in this way, the possibility of problems is relatively small.

Carl said, "Grid is a good name, let's go with that. I've thought about it, and the existence of a surveillance system is indeed very necessary. It will also help in catching the murderer, so let's build one as you said."

Carl agreed to Night Owl's proposal, and with a surveillance system, he wouldn't have to conduct a global, exhaustive search, which would have been very troublesome and not necessarily fruitful.

Assuming the other party knows his specific abilities, then using technological means to investigate might be more appropriate. While super hearing is powerful, it is by no means omnipotent.

There are ways to avoid the Kryptonians' terrifying perception.

Firstly, super vision cannot see through lead, so one can use lead to conceal their body shape, for example, by finding a lead mine cave.

Secondly, there is super hearing, an ability that ignores the speed of sound propagation and can be received the moment a sound appears, making it an unreasonable, medium-free hearing ability.

However, this hearing ability still has its drawbacks. Since Kryptonians hear all the sounds in the world at the same time, it is difficult to identify the useful parts. Therefore, by not speaking in a voice familiar to Kryptonians and being careful not to use keywords, one can effectively avoid the super hearing.

Alternatively, they could use magical means directly, since Kryptonians' superpowers have nothing to do with magic, and even if Karl is magic immune, he is still not good at magic.

Night Owl instructed the surrounding Alliance members, "There are no more clues here. You can collect the Rubber Man's body now. We'll head back first. As for how you'll maintain stability in the city without the Rubber Man, you'll have to figure that out yourselves."

Carl and Night Owl left the scene to return to Gotham and manufacture surveillance equipment.

Chapter Seventy-Seven Alexander Luther

Night Owl piloted his aircraft to a secret base outside Gotham, then drove out in a sports car and, after several detours, returned to the Eagle's Nest beneath Wayne Manor, where Carl had been waiting for a long time.

Although he could bring Night Owl back directly, neither of them liked the idea, and since the situation wasn't too urgent, it was more comfortable for them to go their separate ways.

"Night Owl, Superpower, you're back. Did you catch the murderer?" Eagle Claw asked as he stood up.

"Not yet, but soon. Just focus on your work; that person won't escape," Night Owl said.

He let Eagle Claw continue working, while he led Carl to the computer and pulled up the grid data.

Most of this data has been completed. It's clear that Night Owl started researching this project a long time ago, and the core framework is basically complete. He's truly a fantastic programmer.

Carl reviewed the programs and said, "You've done a great job. The grid is indeed sufficient to handle global image data."

After confirming that everything was in order, Carl began to help process the remaining data. If Owl had done it himself, it might have taken several months to complete. However, Carl had super speed and instantly became a blur as he typed away at the computer.