Chapter 2308: Gotham Music Festival (56)

Batman had just spent ten minutes deciphering the mystery of the chains wrapped around the iceberg and projected a pattern in mid-air with his Bat-equipment.

"Hal, pour your Green Lantern energy into the chains, and then run it in the order of this pattern. Note that you must start from here, gather the energy into this node, and when walking toward this side, don't turn. You must pay attention to the stability of power input throughout the process..."

Batman originally thought Hal would ask two more questions, but who knew he didn't say anything, directly starting to operate according to what Batman said. While operating, he also looked at Batman and said: "You must want to ask why I am so obedient, but from your performance, you are sicker than the Bruce of our universe."

"And the most important point I learned from him and his Professor is that when a super-genius-like madman asks you to do something, you had better obey obediently, because this is both effective and can prevent him from going crazy."

Batman began to think about what kind of madness this master and apprentice had committed in front of them.

Once they started working together, Batman discovered that the young Justice League members in this universe were a bit too easy to communicate with and too obedient.

The excuses and explanations he had prepared for the members of the Justice League in the past were completely useless. Here, no one asked him to explain; they were all in an attitude of 'yes, yes, good, good, we will do it immediately'.

It was obvious that someone must have gone crazy, making them deeply understand the truth that genius wild thoughts don't need explanation.

Batman very rarely didn't get to the bottom of the reason, which made Hal a bit disappointed. He shrugged and said: "I was all prepared to tell you the outrageous stories of the two of them. Every time Clark was the first to tell, it should have been my turn."

"Now is not the time to tell stories," Batman said in a low tone: "This matter is not that simple. Don't forget, we still don't know what Shiler's response measures are."

Hal also fell silent. This was indeed a matter very worthy of worry. To tell the truth, he still wasn't very worried about Atlan and Orm until now, and didn't even put Atlantis in his eyes. The most worthy of worry in this universe was always that mad master and apprentice.

"Have they said anything to you before?" Batman used a declarative sentence again, roughly meaning "immediately and clearly tell me everything they said to you before."

Hal really recalled carefully, and then he said: "A long time ago, when I told Bruce about the Green Lantern headquarters, he expressed great interest and indicated that if there was a chance, he wanted to let his children visit the Green Lantern headquarters."

"Either he is too worried about the Green Lantern headquarters, or he is too at ease with his children," Batman evaluated.

Hal revealed an awkward expression, hearing that Batman was clearly mocking the destructive power of the few bear children in Bruce's family, but he still said: "Just recently, he brought this up again, asking if I could arrange for the children to participate in space study activities and let me lead them to turn around on some relatively famous planets in the universe."

"Actually, I'm quite willing. I have indeed seen many interesting planets during the time I've been a Green Lantern. For example, there is a planet, and on it, it's all like chocolate..."

Under Batman's death stare, Hal had to turn the topic back again and said: "I asked him if he wanted to go together, and he said he had to go on a long trip recently and it wasn't convenient to go over. I asked him where he was going, and he wouldn't say, but I think if it's going to other planets, it can't be called a long trip."

"Perhaps he wants to go to other universes," Batman said.

"Probably. Didn't he go once before?" Hal was referring to the time when Bruce, Clark, and Diana went to the Marvel universe to play.

Batman thought this matter wasn't that simple, but he didn't express it, just focusing on watching whether Hal was cracking the magic structure of the chains according to his requirements.

Only about a minute and a half passed, and the first chain was opened. At this rate, opening all nine chains would only take ten-plus minutes.

But just at this time, the communicator in Hal's hand suddenly rang, and Clark's voice came from inside.

"Hey, Hal, how are things on your side? Just now, an earthquake occurred here. I'm not sure if it's a natural phenomenon or if there's some change."

"Did you see Atlan?" Batman asked.

"Of course not. If there was, I would have beaten him up. However, I vaguely heard screams. I don't know if it was him who made them."

"Any other phenomena observed?"

"The seawater here seems to have turned a bit black, and it seems to be flowing in one direction. The weakening of my power has also lessened. I think there must have been some change, so I called you."

Batman said decisively: "Hal, send me back. Something big might happen outside."

When Batman woke up, the ground was shaking violently. Clark hurriedly supported Batman, who was swaying left and right, and said: "Don't worry. If there is any danger, I will take you out at the first time. I only need one second to fly from here to the sea surface."

Batman seemed somewhat unaccustomed to this kind of nanny-like care. He pulled his arm back from Clark and said: "I'm fine. See what happened over there. The vibration came from that side."

There was actually nothing mysterious at the bottom of the Mariana Trench; it was just a sea abyss that was deep enough and had high enough water pressure. However, there indeed existed submarine volcanoes nearby. When they first arrived here, Batman and Hal speculated that the place where Atlan slept might be under a submarine volcano.

Clark took Batman and flew out of the trench, discovering that the ground on the seabed in the distance was cracking, and very abnormally, the seabed, which originally had no light at all, was faintly emitting golden light.

"Is he coming out?" Clark appeared somewhat nervous.

At this time, Hal and Orm woke up together. Batman looked at Hal somewhat surprisingly. Hal looked at Orm and said: "This guy's willpower is very strong. I just opened three chains, and he thought of a way to break free himself."

"Listen, no matter who you are." Orm immediately discovered that Batman was the leader among them, so he walked to Batman, grabbed his arm, and said: "You should have already been attacked by Atlan. This mad king has an evil plan, and we must stop him."

Before Batman could say anything, Clark first patted Orm on the back and said: "How do you feel? Buddy, the taste of having your brain invaded by others must be bad. Do you need a rest?"

Orm was clearly somewhat moved, but he still acted tough and said: "Atlanteans aren't such softies. Besides, the current situation doesn't allow us to rest."

"Tell us what's going on first," Batman said.

"Atlan possesses extremely powerful power, even capable of sinking Atlantis at that time with one blow. Don't think that Atlantis at that time was an ordinary classical kingdom. We have always been a magic civilization; otherwise, it would be impossible to become sea people after sinking into the seabed."

"Atlan was the most powerful king of Atlantis and accumulated a lot of power in the process of ruling Atlantis. After Atlantis fell, he fell into a deep sleep, but this doesn't mean he lost his power."

"In the process of him invading my brain and manipulating my spirit, I discovered that he was unimaginably powerful, but he also had weaknesses. About a few decades ago, I'm not sure about the specific time, because some of his thoughts were too vague."

"In short, for Atlanteans, it was not long ago. My mother, the Queen of Atlantis, Atlanna, took some effective restrictive measures against him, making him unable to frequently harass the people of Atlantis anymore."

"As far as I know, a lander participated in this plan. The specific content was roughly that the Queen found a way to steal half of Atlan's power and let this lander take it away."

"But at that time, the Queen had reservations about this plan. What she didn't tell this lander was that Atlan's control over his power was completely different from lander mages, and even different from many magical creatures. His power could still retain its own attributes after experiencing several transformations, reconstructions, and refinements, which made the curse possible."

"After discovering that his power was stolen, Atlan would definitely use his power to curse this lander. It seems this was also part of the Queen's plan. She might have thought that this lander was too powerful and also needed to be weakened, so she came up with such a plan to kill two birds with one stone."

"But this also had a loophole, which was that the Queen didn't anticipate that Atlan would wake up early. He discovered that his power had been stolen, and because the time interval wasn't long, Atlan soon figured out what was going on."

"This completely enraged him, making him furious. He believed that we were descendants of traitors to begin with, and yet we still wanted to steal more from him, so he launched his own revenge action."

"Before I was born, he manipulated my father, constantly beating and trying to kill the Queen, but unfortunately, he didn't succeed. After I was born, he tried to manipulate me step by step and finally found an opportunity, using my body to assassinate the Queen of Atlantis."

Orm revealed a sad expression and said: "But this wasn't the end. He had been investigating who the lander who took away half of his power was."

"For a long time, he gained nothing, because his power couldn't radiate to the continent, until one day I got a thought—he came."

"The curse Atlan imposed on this lander took effect, which meant that this lander had arrived within the range of the ocean, but it seemed that this curse couldn't kill him immediately, only making him feel uncomfortable within the range of the ocean."

"Atlan observed this lander for a long time through the ocean and the power of the curse. He believed that this lander wasn't simple. If he wanted revenge, he must have a meticulous plan."

"Regarding his specific plan, I don't know much. I only know that after discovering the appearance of the revenge target, Atlan got a ship and began to constantly attract landers to come on board to gamble."

"Wait." Hal interrupted Orm's narrative. He recalled while saying: "When did the Da Xizhou start to become famous?"

As a reporter, Clark had a deep impression of this. He said: "Seven or eight years ago, perhaps it could also be nine years ago. Someone witnessed this ship for the first time. It seems the wind of the rumors at the beginning was that it was a ghost ship, and only later did it become a gambling ship founded by some mysterious rich man."

"But later, what has always been talked about is that this ship couldn't be caught by the law enforcement forces of the United States. This ability to come without a shadow and go without a trace made it famous."

"Of course they couldn't catch it." Orm's expression didn't have half a point of pride, only full of solemnity. He said: "He controlled me to stay on the ship all the time, and I could manipulate the ocean like the Queen. This is a kind of magical power that humans cannot understand. You have no matter how powerful weapons, it's useless. You can't detect us, so naturally, you can't catch anything." ===== CHAPTER 2309 =====