Chapter 1696: Bruce Wayne and the Prisoner of the Batcave (14)

"So, you've tracked down the source of the darkness in Cat Getan?" Constantine asked, swirling the wine in his glass.

Schiller skipped over the process of how he had found the scale, simply stating that he had sensed the same power as Cat Getan's darkness within it. No one else in the room pressed for the specific principles behind it; after all, there was no need to get too bogged down in the mechanics of magic.

"What is it?" Bruce leaned forward and asked.

"Barbatos, the Dark Dragon. He lives in the abyss beneath the earth. He is the god of destruction and darkness, lurking in the shadows of the universe for a long time, peering at this world."

"That's the pair of eyes we saw," Bruce said in a low voice, then looked up at Schiller again. "What's his background?"

Schiller shook his head slightly. In truth, he knew the backstory of Barbatos, but he couldn't exactly cite a reliable source. He couldn't just say he guessed it.

Besides, the origin of Barbatos wasn't that important. To put it simply, he was a pet dog that had eaten its master. At the dawn of the DC Universe, there were two brothers and a third party—the World Forger, who lived in the World Forge, which was now the Dark Multiverse.

He would hammer out universes there; the good ones were placed on a platter, and the bad ones were fed to the dog. Barbatos was that dog, but after eating too much, he thought he was quite capable, so he ate the Forger. The dark universes that were supposed to be discarded then formed the Dark Multiverse.

It was useless to talk about this now. Judging by the timeline, the unfortunate World Forger had likely already been eaten; otherwise, the space little Bruce had entered couldn't have been entirely dark, which meant Barbatos had long since mastered the Dark Multiverse.

"The young Bruce mentioned a 'door' and a 'key.' What does that mean?" Strange frowned, watching everything from the perspective of an outsider. He speculated, "He dripped his blood onto the metal, they had a strange reaction, and then his soul flew to the space where Barbatos resides. This proves that both his blood and Cat Getan's metal are problematic."

He then looked up at Schiller and said, "Since you have a hand in this, you should explain your full plan."

"This actually starts with you." Schiller, contrary to his usual behavior, looked at Strange. Strange was taken aback, not understanding what this had to do with him.

He looked around the room and realized everyone was staring at him. He said in surprise, "Why are you all looking at me? I'm the only outsider here."

"Have you never wondered why you came here?"

"Of course, it's because you're petty!" Strange glared at Schiller. "You opened a hole between two universes just because I cut off my own arm, and then you kicked me in. How can you have the nerve to ask me why I'm here?!"

Schiller shook his head and said with a smile, sipping his wine, "Forgive me for expressing regret at your aggressive phrasing, but it's not entirely because of that."

"The Ancient One." Schiller uttered the name, showing no sign of betrayal toward his accomplice, and began to explain on his own.

"Just as I was studying that scale and guessing its true owner, the Ancient One came to find me, bringing news of a serial murder case spanning the multiverse."

"At first, I was surprised. Who could travel the multiverse to murder people? Later, as the Ancient One recounted her experiences during this time, I finally understood what was going on."

As Schiller spoke, the people in the room began to catch a glimpse of the tip of yet another massive plan.

After retiring, the Ancient One began to wander the universe, but eventually, a single universe wasn't enough to satisfy her, so she began traveling between different universes, naturally with the help of Eternity's power.

However, the Eternity of this universe was rather unfortunate to have ended up with someone like Schiller. He preferred working overtime in the Great World to returning, and whenever he had the chance, he would go on business trips, preferring to leave the mess of managing the universe to his colleagues rather than take a second look at it.

Consequently, the Ancient One often went on these trips with Eternity. Whenever Adam, the Living Tribunal of the Great World, held a meeting, he would summon all the Eternities from every multiverse, and many Eternities would bring along the retired Ancient One from their respective universes.

In this way, the Ancient Ones began to communicate with each other, or rather, the Ancient One from Schiller's universe finally joined the group chat.

At first, they just exchanged insights on magic and spiritual cultivation, shared adventure stories, and discussed fresh news from the universe, especially their experiences in beating up demon gods.

But it didn't last long. Before long, many Ancient Ones began complaining in the group that their chosen successors, the Doctor Stranges, had died mysteriously not long after becoming Sorcerer Supreme. They looked as if they had died in their sleep.

Once the Ancient Ones compared notes, they realized this wasn't an isolated incident, nor was it an accident. There was a mysterious serial killer hunting down Doctor Stranges.

Once this strange occurrence came to light, the Ancient One of Schiller's universe immediately became vigilant, as she realized that the victimized Stranges were relatively young and had been killed shortly after becoming Sorcerer Supreme.

Comparing the averages, the Ancient One realized that the Strange of her own universe was also relatively young and possessed very powerful abilities, making him a likely target for the killer.

The Ancient One wanted to warn Strange to be vigilant, but she realized that there was no such thing as a thousand-day defense against a thief. The Ancient One wasn't the defensive type; she preferred to take the initiative, so she sought out Schiller.

At the time, a certain plan had been hovering in Schiller's mind, but its structure wasn't clear enough. When the Ancient One approached him, he immediately had a new idea.

As everyone knew, after the Gray Mist devoured Knull and gained his memories, learning his true identity, the Cthulhu Mythos became an unavoidable hurdle.

Cthulhu was more of a style than a specific subject, which meant that the shadows of these entities occasionally appeared in many Western literary and cinematic works. Previously, Schiller couldn't be certain whether the Marvel Universe truly only contained Shuma-Gorath and the few Cthulhu-style characters mentioned, or if the complete Outer God system had been hiding behind the stars all along.

Now that the Nameless Mist had appeared, there was a definitive answer: at least this world had Outer Gods, and they were part of the pantheon surrounding Azathoth.

Since that was the case, other well-known Outer Gods should also exist. But even Greed understood that the value of Outer Gods wasn't actually that high. They weren't cosmic rule-deities, nor were they energy entities; they were more like natural phenomena with polluting properties. Their "wool" wasn't easy to shear.

In fact, Schiller should have been satisfied after shearing the Nameless Mist, but his name was Greed. As mentioned before, he was an expert at squeezing every ounce of value out of everything—he could squeeze oil out of a rock, let alone an Outer God.

Dealing with an Outer God directly wasn't realistic, because the essence of the Cthulhu Mythos was madness and chaos. But precisely because of that, they had a perfect use: serving as a giant alarm clock.

As everyone knew, Schiller was an expert at customizing alarm clocks. His creed was that a business deal might fail, but you couldn't ignore his phone calls. If you couldn't hear the phone, it meant the ringtone wasn't loud enough.

After deducing the true owner of that scale, Schiller naturally wanted to make a call to see if Barbatos's "wool" had grown back, just as the original Schiller had claimed.

But calling this "devouring dog" was a technical challenge. If he rashly opened a door to the Dark Multiverse, what if something else—something even more disgusting—came through instead of Barbatos? Wouldn't that be asking for trouble?

So, Schiller decided to find a way to throw a microphone at Barbatos. The call quality didn't matter; what mattered was not getting any "filth" on himself.

This was a technical job. First, Schiller needed to create a cultist of an Outer God. That required an Outer God. The Nameless Mist could have sufficed, but Schiller thought about it—the Nameless Mist wasn't aggressive enough. After weighing his options, Schiller finally decided on Nyarlathotep.

On one hand, it was the resonance between two tricksters; on the other, Nyarlathotep was always wandering the human world, causing trouble. Keeping him busy might save a few lives.

Once the ringtone was set, the next step was to determine the material for the microphone. Naturally, Batman was the only choice. Barbatos had gone to such great lengths just to get Batman to open the door, so Schiller would simply give him Batman.

Schiller's original plan was to find an evil Batman from an evil universe, guide Nyarlathotep to imprint his sign on this Batman—essentially coating the "mop" in filth—and then throw him in front of Barbatos to test if his wool had grown back.

However, Bruce had the sudden idea of bringing little Bruce over to prove he wasn't the least skilled in psychology among all the Batmen. While he wasn't the best candidate, he would have to do.

Thus, Pride played the role of the magic professor on this side, directing the whole "Bruce Wayne and the Sorcerer's Stone" show. He had originally intended to tamper with the stone and send little Bruce through the channel Strange had used to get to Marvel, but Bruce had beaten him to it, using the rumors he spread in Heaven to have Lucifer build an exclusive channel to send little Bruce over.

In the plan between Schiller and the Ancient One, the Ancient One went to report the multiverse Strange-murder case to Eternity, then joined other Ancient Ones to investigate. This would inevitably put pressure on the killer. If the killer didn't want to be caught, they would be eager to obtain power or find an escape route, which would accelerate their arrival in Schiller's universe, thereby taking the bait.

While the Ancient One was away from Earth, Greed had the Gray Mist remotely control the *Necronomicon* to appear in the Ancient One's study. Greed had intended for little Bruce to find the book and learn how to summon Nyarlathotep through the knowledge within, but Helen had beaten him to it, and the book ended up in Harley's hands.

Luring Nyarlathotep was also simple. As an Outer God who could understand humans, his method of luring them was more refined than the forced knowledge-dumping of other Outer Gods. He was more of a liar.

Any liar knew that if their secrets were written down in black and white and broadcast to the world, it would be difficult to trick anyone in the future.

Thus, when Nyarlathotep learned that there was a *Necronomicon* containing all knowledge regarding the Outer Gods, he was desperate to destroy it.