Chapter 1722: The Successor Is Now Popular, and the Inside Story

Blonsky’s ugly body contained an energy that could neutralize the Annihilation energy.

The “quality” of the Annihilation energy was high, but Blonsky had more “quantity.”

To cut a log one meter in diameter with a knife that was one centimeter long required numerous successive cuts in exchange for continuous damage.

Blonsky’s body wasn’t made of wood, and he had a strong self-healing ability.

Even if this resilience couldn’t swiftly offset the damage from the Annihilation energy, it was still a tug-of-war between the two energies.

While the Dark Knight was fighting Blonsky and drawing most people’s attention, Damon and Mindy found the Grayburn University lab where Blonsky had first appeared.

There, they found the unconscious Dr. Samuel Sterns and the leftover blood serum from Dr. Bruce Banner.

After asking Luke, they immediately took the scientist away from the scene, along with the laptop and the remaining tubes of blood.

That was how Luke knew that Blonsky’s origins weren’t simple. He simply stuffed him into his inventory and made him disappear.

He could still deal with Blonsky one-on-one, but this guy could definitely meet several of the other support-type members of the Bat Squad head-on.

If Blonsky’s situation could be replicated, the person behind the scenes only needed to control three to five monsters to become an overlord — at the very least, he would be on par with the Avengers and the Justice League.

Of course, Luke wouldn’t leave the “half-finished product” that was Blonsky to this ambitious person; it might boost their research progress.

If research really were to be carried out, he would be the one to do it. At the very least, Luke could guarantee that he wouldn’t kill innocent people, nor would he carry out reckless experiments and cause the same sort of tragedy that had happened on Park Avenue tonight.

After pulling a feint in the ocean, Luke immediately turned invisible and returned to New York.

Passing through Manhattan, he landed on Ellis Island next to the Statue of Liberty and collected the unconscious Dr. Samuel Sterns from Damon and Mindy.

This guy was also a sensitive figure, and Luke wouldn’t take him to the Bat Cave.

After Damon and Mindy left, Luke immediately put Dr. Sterns in Space 2, right next to Blonsky.

His clone then went back to the seaside villa.

In the CEO’s office in Nassau County, the CEO had just gotten to the best part of talking business, and had no idea what was going on in Manhattan.

Less than an hour after Luke caught Blonsky, Tony sent him a message telling him that the Department of Defense and the military wanted the Dark Knight to hand Blonsky over.

Naturally, Luke refused.

After a brief silence, Tony said, “Blonsky works for Thaddeus Ross. This General Ross is a military guy from the Department of Defense. Dr. Banner participated in the research project he was in charge of, and became the Hulk after an accident.”

Luke rolled his eyes. “So, are you warning me not to hand him over, or there might be a few more crazy Hulks slaughtering people in the city?”

Tony said, “Also, you guys will have to stay low-key for now. That old man Ross is very sly.”

Can he be worse than me? Luke chuckled inwardly, but he knew that the tycoon was just alerting him to the fact. “Got it. We’ll take a break for the time being.”

“That’s it, then. Bye.” Tony just gave Luke the information on the other party.

Whether or not the DoD could get Blonsky back was none of his business!

It would be best if they didn’t. If someone wanted to pester the Bat Squad through him, now that would be a problem.

…

The sun rose as usual the next day.

After more than a year of peace, another extraordinary incident happened in New York, and it naturally made headlines the next day.

Although it was cruel to say, the number of casualties from the tragedy on Park Avenue last night could only be an addendum.

When the Chitauri invaded, more than 10,000 people had died in New York.

More than 1,000 people had died in the attack by the original Experimentals.

Even elsewhere, thousands of people had died in Grand Rapids during the incident with the Enchantress.

Nobody could ask the people of New York, who had experienced many major events, to pay too much attention to tens of dead and a few hundred casualties.

Besides, the Stark Foundation and Batman’s rescue foundation would fork out money to help the families of the dead and injured.

Those who were willing to express their goodwill could donate to the Stark Foundation, or they could buy authorized superhero products.

There were many ways to help out.

Anybody who wanted to preach morality should first take out a donation certificate or a receipt of purchase from one of these foundations as proof of their virtue.

There was no need to talk about other foundations.

Everybody knew that these two foundations were the organizations that specialized in helping victims of extraordinary events.

Many other charity foundations were for the rich to move their assets and avoid taxes.

Batman and Iron Man? Of course this wasn’t an issue for them.

Batman didn’t pay taxes, so why would he need to avoid them?

Iron Man didn’t care about money at all.

The people of America were very tough nowadays.

Compared with mourning the dead, most people learned to adjust their emotions quickly and pay more attention to the bright side — like F2F, news headlines, videos of the Dark Knight in their group chats, articles, reports and so on.

The most popular video was of the Dark Knight knocking out the monster and dragging it away.

Only then did everybody realize that this successor was no weaker than his predecessor.

What everybody thought was “weak” about him mainly had to do with his aura, not his combat ability.

After all, no matter how strong an individual was, it was hard to compare with a Helicarrier with tens of thousands of cannons firing at the same time.

The Dark Knight was “weak” in the sense that he had never stood in the spotlight.

This time, the 2.67-meter-tall Blonsky was the best “prop.”

In the video of the finale, the Dark Knight held the unconscious Blonsky under one arm and punched him in the face as he walked. It was absolutely brutal.

The successor finally established his cold and ruthless, yet unperturbed and unhurried style.

The Dark Knight, whose presence had been growing steadily, finally exploded in popularity, and the number of casual and hardcore fans skyrocketed.

Previously, 100 to 200 points of faith value would trickle in every day.

By the time Luke had breakfast the next day, his faith value had skyrocketed to more than 5,000.

For Luke, this was a great gain.

On the other hand, stopping Blonsky and the fiery men from fighting on Park Avenue only gave him several thousand experience and credit points.

For one thing, Blonsky had become a super test subject in Space 2, and wouldn’t die for the time being.

For another, a big fish hadn’t appeared among the fiery man yet, so Luke hadn’t cleaned up the small fry yet.

He wasn’t in a hurry to reel in the net.

Speaking of which, most of the victims from the tragedy on Park Avenue last night could be blamed on the fiery men.

Although Blonsky had lost control of his emotions, he just wanted to leave New York and hadn’t been hellbent on massacring ordinary people.

It was the appearance of the fiery men that had turned Park Avenue into a battlefield.

They had also used ordinary people to distract Blonsky, which had resulted in hundreds of casualties.

They were clearly supervillains, so Luke naturally had his eye on them.

After all, Blonsky had disappeared from the face of the earth, so Luke had to be fair when it came to the fiery men.