Chapter 1908: U: Beyond the Great Event (34)

The moment he sees through the truth of this game, Batman jumps onto the cage, lets the little boy's head squeeze through the gap in the cage, then grabs him by the armpits and pulls him out, jumps down again, and places the boy back on the ground.

Seeing Natasha also jumps down, covered in stains. She pats the dust off her hands, looks at Batman, and says, "So, great detective, reveal the answer now."

Bruce, sitting in the spectator area, stares at the scene on the screen and asks, "What do you think the original way to play this game should have been? What do you think? Arthur?"

Bruce turns to look at Joker Arthur. Arthur's eyes are still deeply sunken in their sockets, his gaze too dim to show any emotion, but he still shifts his body in the chair, supports his high cheekbones with one finger, and says, "You should ask me, if this game really went according to that idiot's planning, how boring it would be?"

He coughs twice, as if choked by smoke, covers his mouth with the back of his hand, and continues, "I think your professor has considerable artistic performance talent and a sense of humor. He made this originally boring game worth watching."

"So what is going on?" Spider-Man asks, a bit confused. "Is that man in the suit a murderer? Who did he kill?"

"He's not just a murderer." Bruce blinks lightly and says, "He's a serial killer."

"Many places in Europe have prostitute killers." Constantine blows a smoke ring and says, "They specifically target women who work in the slums, or frequent red-light districts, using money and the appearance of an elite to trick prostitutes into the wilderness and kill them."

"Many of them aren't entirely for money. How should I put it? Sexual sadists? Or a special sexual fetish. They like to kill the other party during sex. Prostitutes are the easiest targets; they are helpless and have no ability to resist."

"And that woman." Constantine points at Seeing Natasha on the screen with the two fingers holding his cigarette and says, "She is the same type as them. I can tell. She is a highly poisonous spider who kills every man she sleeps with."

"We always find it easier to identify our own kind." Constantine smiles, tilts his head slightly to look at Bruce, and says, "For example, you and that guy are the same kind, and not like me."

Spider-Man frowns deeply. He also realizes that the rules of this game are far from as simple as the Gem Man said. He thinks for a moment and asks, "Why is it answering questions?"

"That is the key point." Bruce speaks up, "Think carefully about the questions he asked."

"Assuming the game proceeds according to the normal flow, what questions will he ask next?" Bruce thinks and says, "Have you killed anyone? How many people have you killed? How many people of the opposite sex have you slept with? Did you kill them after sleeping with them?"

"Why ask these questions?" Spider-Man asks, a bit puzzled.

"Because the people standing on the ground now are saviors, while those in the cage are lambs waiting to be saved. But are they really pure lambs? Or are they just another kind of demon?"

Suddenly, Spider-Man shows an expression of sudden realization.

"The rules of the game are like this." Batman in the arena says, "In the first half of the game, you make us answer questions."

"As time passes, the questions you ask each person will lean closer to the unbearable secrets in their hearts, until we are unwilling to reveal the answers to certain questions."

"The cage will be pulled higher and higher, and the people in the cage will become more and more panicked. They will start to blame us for why we won't answer the questions, why we are just watching them fall to their deaths."

"You want us to feel guilty, to be tormented by morality, and perhaps even blame us for why we aren't willing to open our mouths to say an answer to save lives."

"But this is only half the game." Batman's voice grows lower and lower. He says, "You ask everyone who comes here how they view human nature. Perhaps only we gave an answer that exceeded your expectations."

"Perhaps others engaged in a fierce debate with you, and just as you said, you want us to see it with our own eyes."

"When the iron cage rises to the highest point, you will switch the target of your questioning, from asking us to asking them."

"You will start asking the people in the cage about the unbearable secrets in their hearts in the same way. If they are willing to answer, the cage can descend, and if they are unwilling, the cage won't move."

"From common sense, how could anyone not want the cage to fall? As long as they answer every question, they can land safely. Isn't this the best chance for self-rescue?"

"But unfortunately, the vast majority of people in the cage are not ordinary people, or rather, the secrets they find unbearable to reveal are more offensive to the bottom line of morality and law than those of ordinary people. They are murderers."

"The cage rises, they will fall to their deaths, and if they reveal their secrets, the cage will descend, and they will face sanctions. How will they choose?"

Batman is adept at turning every question into a statement, but this time his tone indeed carries a trace of a faint question, but soon he answers himself, "The fear of legal sanctions cannot be greater than the fear of death. Under your coercion, they will say one by one the evil deeds they have committed—murder, dismemberment, rape, abuse, framing... This will make all our efforts to save them look like a joke."

Batman's tone has sunk to the bottom, but it carries a faint memory. He says, as if immersed in a scene from his memory, "Then you will make us make a choice."

"Release the iron chain and let them fall to their deaths, or lower the iron chain and save them."

"But this choice has no correct answer, because you have long since buried a trap." Batman looks up slightly at the people in the cage and says, "They are not all good people, nor are they all bad people."

"Among them, there are indeed naturally cruel murderers who have done all kinds of evil."

Batman's gaze falls on the corpse of the man in the suit, and then sweeps over the little boy's mother.

He sees the old bruises on the thin neck exposed by this woman and the blood on her hairpin.

"There are also accidental murderers who have been persecuted and rose up to resist."

Immediately after, his gaze falls on the teacher, and he sees a bit of bloodstain on the back of her staff ID card.

"Or vigilante killers who witnessed evil and upheld justice."

His gaze repeatedly scans the crowd in the cage—the elderly, women, couples, couriers, religious workers...

Countless pieces of information enter his mind, like an emotionless broadcasting machine, spilling out from his mouth.

"For money, for love, for faith, crime, bystander, cover-up... If they receive equal death, isn't that also a kind of inequality?"

Batman sighs lightly and continues, "No superhero will watch them fall to their deaths, and if we choose to save them, no one will want to let someone who knows their crimes leave here alive. What awaits us will be a killing feast."

"Not only will they kill each other, they will inevitably attack us. That will make us feel angry, humiliated, and sad."

Batman's tone gradually levels out. He looks up at the Gem Man's giant eyes and says, "Then, tell me, where is the punchline?"

The Gem Man is dumbfounded.

"Where is the humorous part of this drama?" Batman asks, a bit puzzled, "I think the existing elements are completely insufficient to constitute a humorous ending. Do you have any other arrangements?"

"What arrangements?" The Gem Man says in disbelief, "Isn't this exciting enough?! If you let them all fall to their deaths, I will tell you the true experience of each of them. If you let them all out, they will hunt you down."

Batman just stares straight at him and says, "Yes, I guessed this part. I am asking what you plan to do next."

"You won't watch them fall to their deaths. You will let this pack of evil dogs out of the cage, be chased by them, covered in wounds, and then either you kill them all, or they kill you all. This round of the game ends!"

The Gem Man sees a quite impolite expression on Batman's face. He roars like a madman, "What is that look?! This is a game I designed myself!"

"Either let them all fall to their deaths and then learn that some of them were forced to, or let them out, but in order to save your own lives, kill them all again. No matter what, you will feel guilty!"

Batman's expression becomes even more impolite.

Just as the Gem Man is about to continue roaring, Batman suddenly holds up a finger and says, "I only ask one question: are they vertebrates?"

"Uh, does that even need to be asked?"

"Then I can completely break their spines."

The Gem Man looks a bit scared. He stares at Batman with wide eyes and says, "What did you say?! What are you going to do?!!!"

Batman looks again at the impact injuries on the foreheads of the people in the cage and says, "Or knock them into a concussion and unconsciousness, remove their limbs, break their ankles. This way they won't die, and they won't have the ability to resist."

"That's why I asked if you have any follow-up arrangements. If things really develop like this, do I have to stand among them and wait for you to call the police?"

Joker Arthur in the spectator area bursts into laughter, seemingly understanding the punchline of this sentence. He wipes the tears of laughter from the corners of his eyes with the back of his hand and says, "He would be a comedy master. I'm sure of it. His reaction elevated this boring farce into a real comedy performance."

"Perhaps he knows some real comedy master." Bruce speaks up, "When he has seen too many master-level art performances, I'm afraid it's hard to adapt to this headless and tailless farce."

"Then what about you?" Arthur widens his eyes, looks at Bruce, and asks, "Do you know such a comedy master? Have you seen his art performance?"

"Perhaps we will see it soon."

The battle on the back of the Gem Man's hand finally reaches its conclusion. Actually, it took no more than a few minutes. The flesh-to-flesh battle between Schiller and Bat-Bane is nearing its end.

Bat-Bane, having changed the battlefield, still can't gain any advantage, but his plan was never to win against Schiller head-on. He has already used his tactical movements to lead Schiller to the edge of the Gem Man's hand.

Schiller pounces toward Bat-Bane again, but this time Bat-Bane doesn't dodge. He just turns slightly, grabs Schiller's arm, and falls backward, using the force of his forward lunge. The two entangle and fall down.

In the moment of sudden weightlessness, the human body will instinctively tense up, and without a place to borrow force, the strength gap will be significantly weakened.

Bat-Bane can clearly feel Schiller tense his body the moment he falls, and he takes advantage of this moment to adjust their positions, turning Schiller to the top, and then punches him in the temple.

Immediately followed by another punch, blood spills from Schiller's mouth, but Bat-Bane doesn't hold back. He must knock Schiller unconscious as soon as possible, otherwise, he will still go crazy after landing.

With the last punch, Schiller finally loses consciousness. Bat-Bane adjusts his posture again, ensuring that the back armor of the bat-suit bears most of the impact force upon landing.

Most of it, not all, because this set of armor was not originally a buffer armor, and the falling height is very high. He will be injured, and his ribs might break, but Batman has never been afraid of injury.

But suddenly Bat-Bane sees Schiller, who should have been unconscious, suddenly open his eyes and show him a malicious smile.

The next second, the world spins.

"Bang!"

Upon landing, Bat-Bane is on top. ===== CHAPTER 1909 =====