With everyone unified in purpose, the rest was simple. Just a bunch of ordinary people, after all. The hundreds of blocking civilians were quickly subdued one by one. Poison Ivy produced numerous vines and bound them all. Only then did the main force advance deeper into the castle.
Thea didn't intervene. As a proud New God, she wouldn't strike ordinary humans—that was divine pride. Her role was more about coordinating both sides' relationship.
Along the way, she asked Batman about his investigation. Abby occasionally added details. Thea finally pieced together the general plot of this Rotworld incident.
Abby's uncle, Anton Arcane—actually, by modern medical classification, this man was mentally ill too. He had severe necrophilic tendencies. When Abby was a child, this deranged uncle discovered the power in his niece's blood and began tireless research.
His imagination ran wild. To fully experience that force of decay, he sewed dead people's skin onto his own body. He constantly fed Abby sleeping pills to facilitate blood extraction. Abby's current head of silver hair—beautiful and striking—was actually induced by her unscrupulous uncle force-feeding her sleeping pills. If the Rot hadn't continuously granted her power, she would have died long ago from overdose.
Wearing rotting human skin, drinking his niece's blood, this Anton Arcane somehow managed to gain a trace of the Rot's power through sheer coincidence.
Like Poison Ivy—an unauthorized user of the Green—and Beast Boy—unauthorized in the Red—he'd used inexplicable methods to become an unauthorized user of the Rot.
Hearing this, Thea felt these natural forces were far too lax. Each had loopholes. This wasn't some primordial system with one missing rule and loopholes everywhere. Couldn't you all patch your systems properly instead of leaving so many holes, seemingly by design, one for each force!
This incident wasn't complicated at its core. Abby's uncle, seeking legitimacy, expended tremendous effort. First, he couldn't kill his niece. Killing Abby would automatically transfer the Rot to its rightful avatar, wasting his decade-plus of work.
Anton Arcane, this psychopath, was rather clever. He fed his niece a steady stream of motivational talk about how vast the world was and how she should go see it, successfully tricking the fated Rot avatar into going far away.
Even when Abby was initially awakened by constant nightmares, it was his idea that she leave the city and specifically head for remote wilderness areas! In his view, sending the Rot's avatar into the Green's territory would get her eliminated immediately. The Green would surely have methods to trap her soul.
He never expected Abby had known the lovesick Dr. Holland previously. The two reunited in the wilderness, sparks flew, and they became an item.
The Parliament of Trees repeatedly ordered Dr. Holland to kill this woman, but he stubbornly refused, causing the Parliament to turn hostile and directly revoke his powers. The two sides had been in a cold war until Thea returned to Earth and resolved the matter.
Having sent his niece away, Anton Arcane one day saw someone's Pacific Rim project on television. Secretly delighted, he waited for humanity to drive out the Green, then, as an opportunist, he'd trigger the Rot to invade the human world. That was his entire plan.
The Storm God Set, who'd been torn apart earlier, had been sweet-talked by Anton and lured out from the Rot to take the fall.
The plan was crude and simplistic to the point of barely existing, yet this simple plan had caused devastating disaster to the world.
Everyone fell silent, not delving too deeply into the implications. Those who could fly rushed toward the town's interior, while the rest charged in at a dead run.
When Superman kicked open a wooden door, the ultimate mastermind finally revealed himself. Anton Arcane—or rather, what had once been Anton Arcane—now barely maintained a humanoid form, standing in place with a mocking smile as he watched the heroes.
Thea couldn't describe this being's grotesqueness in words. Like the blocking civilians, from a biological standpoint he was still a living person. It's just that this bastard had made himself half a corpse.
His body was draped in layer upon layer of human skin and animal hide, the skins crudely stitched together. Some had already fused with his body. Countless rot-worms burrowed in and out.
Behind him stood three massive monsters, bearing no human resemblance whatsoever—complete monsters. The left one resembled a skinned giant mantis. The center one appeared to be a giant worm. The right one was some unidentifiable object made of piled internal organs.
"Ew! That's disgusting." Thea looked once and didn't want a second glance. This creature was definitely a natural enemy of anyone with a stomach.
Not only did she feel sick, but as the other heroes and A.R.G.U.S. female agents arrived, not one found the sight pleasant.
Even Harley Quinn, mentally ill as she was, pursed her lips with an ugly expression, gripping her baseball bat tighter. Zatanna and Lyla Michaels were even worse off.
All the women, led by Goddess Thea, covered their noses and retreated to the second rank. At such a solemn moment, better let the male comrades take point.
"Anton Arcane, you madman! You must face justice today!" Batman spoke first.
"You fundamentally don't understand the mysteries of cosmic operation. You're nothing but trash. Let me introduce you grandly to my new friends—the Hunters Three!" With so much rotting flesh on his face, Anton's emotions were unreadable, but judging by his tone, he was definitely smug.
The monsters behind him stepped forward simultaneously.
"We are the rot that invaded the Red."
"We are flesh twisted by disease."
"We are the final enemy of all living things. We are the Hunters Three!"
The three monsters emitted dull sounds from organ-like apertures, declaring themselves with impressive gravitas as they blocked the path between the heroes and Anton Arcane.
"You are enemies of the Red!" Animal Man, who'd been largely ineffective until now, saw these enemies of the Red and without another word, flew forward. Channeling dinosaur strength, he punched at the giant worm in the center.
Several tons of force drove his fist directly into the worm's head. The punch was like striking water's surface. Unlike water splashing, this was rotting flesh splattering.
Decayed animal flesh sprayed in all directions like rain. The female heroes, led by Goddess Thea, whooshed away to a safe distance.
Even the male heroes who weren't afraid of hardship showed some alarm. Batman, with his unparalleled evasion skills, ducked behind the door without thinking. Superman used heat vision to vaporize all the rotting flesh flying toward him. Deadshot also found cover to hide. The only one who didn't dodge and actually seemed to enjoy it was Killer Croc...