Blood and flesh splattered through the air in a grotesque spray. The heroines kept their distance from the horrifying scene, and even the male heroes looked uncomfortable. With thoughts of getting back to Catwoman's bed, they unanimously chose ranged attacks.
Batman hurled two batarangs that exploded against the massive mantis creature on the left, sending putrid fluids and pus everywhere. Deadshot followed with suppressing fire, though his legendary marksmanship proved useless—these things had no vital organs to target.
Their group was the weakest, but fortunately Killer Croc served as their tank, absorbing the brunt of the damage. The three fought the mantis creature to a tense stalemate.
In the center, Animal Man and Swamp Thing tag-teamed the worm creature. The Rot's corruption was equally severe here—they could barely muster thirty percent of their full strength, making it a desperate fight.
On the right, Superman dominated completely. Heat vision and freeze breath pummeled the entrail creature mercilessly. But these abominations had somehow found a backdoor into the Red—whenever frozen or melted flesh fell away, fresh tissue regenerated. Their overwhelming healing factor kept Superman tied down.
The remaining A.R.G.U.S. male agents distributed their firepower across all three monsters.
"Let's go after Anton!" The women had been standing back watching. After a while, they noticed Anton Arcane using the three massive creatures as cover while fleeing toward the rear.
Thea felt partially responsible for this ecological disaster. She couldn't just watch the mastermind escape. After telling Lyla, she cast a teleportation spell to bypass the three blocking monsters, leading the heroines, villainesses, and female agents in pursuit.
They didn't even need super-vision—just follow the stench.
"Anton Arcane, you monster!" Miss Abby ran surprisingly fast. When she spotted Anton around a corner, she fired immediately.
He didn't slow down—in fact, he ran faster.
"Watch for ambushes," Thea warned, slowing her pace. Anton knew this facility's layout and kept losing them at turns. Thea's magic had hit him several times with minimal effect. This psychopath had incredibly high resistance to abnormal status effects and was nearly immune to mind-affecting spells. He had who-knows-how-many layers of skin providing substantial elemental resistance. The indoor environment wasn't good for flight either, which was why Thea hadn't caught him yet.
Following his winding path, they reached the entrance to a basement area. Anton Arcane stopped.
Without even looking at Thea and the others, he asked Miss Abby with apparent interest, "My dear niece, behind this door lies the Rot itself. I spent thirty years establishing communication with that true realm. Do you—and all of you—dare to follow?"
He laughed with typical villain flair, though his voice came out high and shrill—hardly pleasant.
"Thank you for leading us here. I'd prepared several backup plans." Thea dropped her exhausted act. As Anton stared in confusion, she bound him with a rope of magical force.
Thea's desperate pursuit had all been an act. Anton staying here confidently instead of hiding somewhere—eliminating the "villains are idiots" conclusion—left only one possibility: he still held a trump card. The three hunters had been mere muscle, nowhere near his final play.
During the chase, Thea had pieced together the connections. Anton could use the Rot to escape, even exploit the different time flows between realms to ambush pursuers. Not hard to predict. That's why she'd feigned helplessness all along.
Anton's resistances were genuinely high, but that didn't mean he was immune to magic. Magic's infinite versatility meant even Thea couldn't claim complete mastery, let alone this lunatic.
Thea turned to Miss Abby. "Is the Rot behind that door?"
She'd been acting, but Abby—an ordinary human—was genuinely winded from the intense chase. She took a while to catch her breath before answering, "Should be."
"You can't stop the Rot. Only I or my niece can enter and resolve everything. Hehe, if my niece won't go in, you'll have to release me! Let me enter!" Bound by Thea's spell, Anton spoke smugly. These lines had obviously been rehearsed—his logic flowed perfectly.
If Miss Abby refused to enter herself, releasing him would be the only option to stop the Rot's spread.
Thea gave the A.R.G.U.S. agents a reassuring look, indicating she'd prepared for this. Miss Abby's expression showed relief.
Using super-vision to locate the boxed Rot avatar outside, Thea channeled her earth-displacement technique. A flash of green light, and she teleported the container directly over.
When they opened the box revealing the Rot avatar inside, the A.R.G.U.S. personnel felt an inexplicable wrongness. Anton Arcane's face filled with shock.
Thea ignored his muttered denials—endless variations of "impossible" and "how could this be." She blasted the door open with a fireball. Instead of a basement, a deep, dark void stretched before them.
Miss Abby began communing with the avatar. It wobbled forward unsteadily, eventually vanishing into the void.
Thea watched Miss Abby with some tension. She was confident in her plan, but you never know. If the Rot rejected this counterfeit, she'd have no choice but to invade herself.
Fortunately, after a tense ten minutes, Miss Abby finally emerged from her daze.
"I'm free! It inherited the Rot. It... I'm finally released from my destiny." Miss Abby spoke incoherently.
"Stop the Rot's spread immediately. Withdraw the power from those civilians outside," Thea commanded. Wasn't that the whole point of this elaborate scheme?
Thankfully, nothing went wrong. Miss Abby reconnected, and her avatar apparently issued commands from the other side.
Those present felt nothing. The clearest changes affected Poison Ivy and Anton Arcane. Ivy, who'd been stuck without plant control, suddenly summoned vegetation again. Anton, previously built like a strongman, visibly deflated.
His towering frame shrank rapidly. Great masses of rotting flesh flowed from his body like melting butter. Anton Arcane quickly transformed from a two-meter-tall giant into a withered, lifeless old man.
"What should we do with him?" Lyla asked. Drag him before an international tribunal and claim one man caused this global disaster with no organization behind it? Nobody would believe that. Plus, he looked ready to drop dead any second.