Chapter 2314: Gotham Music Festival (62)

Batman believed they should split into two groups at this time.

Splitting forces is not a foolish decision at all times, especially when three out of the four possess superpowers, and they know almost nothing about the situation of the current universe, with a mountain of clues needing investigation.

The final decision for the groups was Clark and Batman in one, and Hal and Atlan in the other. In fact, Batman had originally intended to pair with Hal; the Green Lantern's abilities were more versatile and flexible, making it easier to put some of Batman's ideas into practice.

But Clark refused to let Batman go with anyone else, which made Batman feel somewhat helpless. This young Superman of this universe was clearly more opinionated and better at independent thinking than the one he knew, yet he was even clingier, wishing he could follow Batman without leaving his side for a single step.

In the end, Hal and Atlan went together to pursue the Sea Queen of Atlantis, hoping to stop them before they reached Gotham. Batman and Clark went together to investigate the anomalies occurring in the ocean while the Atlantis base camp was empty.

Atlan pointed out the location of Atlantis to Batman. In fact, Clark could have taken him around the entire Earth a few times without it taking much time, but if this former King of Atlantis was willing to cooperate, Batman didn't mind.

After the two teams set off, the group of Batman and Clark soon found Atlantis. It was a massive city located deep in the ocean; the city's architecture and cultural style could still faintly reveal its former glory.

The reason it was only "faintly" visible was that both Batman and Clark felt that the city before them now could in no way compare to the most glorious and magnificent civilization on land that Atlan had described.

The buildings on the outskirts of the city had basically collapsed, but due to the protection of mysterious forces, they had not been eroded by seawater into powder; they were just covered in algae, and within the cracks were some crustaceans that could live in the deep sea.

This place had basically become a paradise for ordinary marine life; there was no trace of any humanoid biological activity. Walking further in, Batman actually saw things similar to homeless tents.

Such a strange sight was rare in cities other than some developed cities in the United States, yet it appeared in Atlantis, which had a vast territory, a glorious civilization, and a small population; it was truly very unreasonable.

Walking further in, it was even stranger. What they saw were not magnificent palaces, sparkling magical devices, and strong Atlantean guards, but iron walls with huge barrel-type devices, weak and listless wanderers, half-dead giant algae, and sea fish mounts.

"Good heavens, their situation is just too terrible," Clark said, floating in mid-air and looking at the huge city. "Atlantis shouldn't be like this."

Batman remained silent, but he knew in his heart that Atlantis was indeed not like this—at least the Atlantis in his universe wasn't. Although Batman hadn't truly been there, judging from Arthur's description, although Atlantis's civilization wasn't necessarily very advanced after sinking to the bottom of the sea, they had a small population and could enjoy all the resources in the ocean, so they certainly wouldn't end up in such a state.

"Can you feel the abnormality of the seawater?" Batman asked.

Clark blinked and said, "The average water pressure here is higher than in the universe I'm from, and the seawater flows more slowly, but it's not because there are no ocean currents; it's as if it's thicker, and pushing it requires greater force."

"There is a mysterious force permeating the ocean," Batman sighed and said. "This force has polluting properties and will slowly erode everything here and the creatures here. We can't stay here for too long, or we might also be contaminated."

Batman's gaze turned back to the Atlantis beneath his feet, and he continued, "That wall should be some kind of seawater filtration device. They spent a lot of resources to build it, but they still couldn't completely isolate the pollution."

"Will this force make them weaker and weaker?"

"Perhaps more and more chaotic." Batman frowned. He could see from the traces of damage to some buildings that there seemed to have been more than one fight here.

"The entropy value here is much higher than in the universe we are in, and it must have surged in the recent period until the order that could originally be maintained completely collapsed, which forced the Atlanteans to go to land to seek a solution."

"Do they feel they are unaffected?" Clark expressed disapproval and said, "The ocean is no longer habitable, and they want to go to land, or even invade land. This decision might also have been made after they were contaminated."

"So we have to stop them." Batman pointed below and said, "Take me down. We need to see how this filtration system works to understand what that mysterious force is."

The two of them soon arrived in the city of Atlantis. It was already weak, and because troops had been mobilized, its defenses were empty; no one noticed them at all.

During the process of Batman inspecting the machines, Clark stayed by his side the entire time, not saying a word, as if he didn't exist. Batman was still amazed by how clingy this Superman was and how he could actually lower his own presence to such a degree.

Superman hadn't made a single comment about these machines or his method of investigating them, which already made Batman feel somewhat uncomfortable.

"What do you think?" Batman took the initiative to ask.

"Think about what?"

"These filtration devices."

"They're fine," Clark replied with a shrug. Then, looking at Batman's expression, he said, "Do you want me to express some opinion on this? You're quite unique, then; all the Batmen I've met don't want me to make any comments on their investigation process."

"So you just don't say anything." Batman had originally only said this in his heart, but he might have truly felt some discomfort, so he spoke it aloud.

When these words landed, Batman knew it was bad; this was completely the prelude to an argument.

Batman was thinking about another matter at this moment: in the past, this kind of situation would absolutely never happen. In fact, his level of tolerance for Superman was unimaginably high. For an alien whose ability, quality, and moral integrity all exceeded 99.9% of humans, what higher demands could Batman have for him?

Moreover, there is a priority to all things; no matter how special the Clark in front of him was, he couldn't be more special than the current situation of this universe. Batman could rationally judge what was more important.

Yet he just couldn't help but pay attention to Clark's situation, testing him again and again, until a trace of imperceptible loss of control appeared at a small node.

But it was just a sentence, after all; many people would think this way, but Batman wouldn't be so rash. He anticipated the worst-case scenario: what if Clark really got angry because of this sentence? What if he left and abandoned him here alone? Or even worse, what if the two of them had a huge argument here, not only accomplishing nothing but also being discovered and expelled?

His actions were causing things to develop in a worse direction, which was something Batman absolutely could not accept.

But now that things had reached this point, Batman could only make up for it in the most efficient way. He said to Clark, "From now on, I won't speak, and you don't ask me any questions."

"One last question, are you okay?" Clark said.

Batman nodded. Clark really didn't say anything more, and Batman began to bury his head in inspecting the filtration devices.

He discovered that these devices had a common characteristic: they did not possess chemical filtration functions. They were completely different systems from the filtration devices researched by humans, which further confirmed Batman's conjecture that this mysterious power was some kind of magical energy.

Next, they needed some more definitive evidence, so Batman gestured to Clark, signaling for them to go to a place deeper inside.

Clark didn't say anything, taking him further into the depths until they arrived in front of a most magnificent palace. Batman guessed this might be the Sea Queen's palace.

The guards here were indeed stronger than those outside, and there were some magical weapons that could be activated, but Clark led Batman through the whole way without obstruction, triggering no alarms and hurting no one else, successfully sneaking into the Queen's bedchamber.

Batman found the Queen's diary here. He believed this was a major clue, so he found a place and began to read it.

However, as he read, Batman discovered that this Sea Queen's diary could be described as dry and boring, basically all just a running account recording the unchanging status quo of Atlantis.

Then Batman denied some of his previous speculations, because the diary showed that Atlantis had never been peaceful; it wasn't that pollution suddenly appeared at certain times, followed by a sudden outbreak of chaos, that led the Sea Queen to head to the surface.

The diary mentioned that Atlanteans had always been combative, cruel, and chaotic by nature. Even after sinking to the bottom of the sea, they were still engaged in endless fighting, and several Atlantean monarchs had even died in office because of it.

The attitude the Sea Queen displayed in the diary was also quite passive. The various measures she had taken since taking office were not to save the desperate situation, but rather seemed more like dragging things out one day at a time.

So what to do if she couldn't drag it out anymore? Batman didn't find the answer in the diary, but he already had a guess. He immediately turned his head and said to Clark, "Go find Hal; the situation on their side isn't right."

When Clark and Batman found Hal, a fight had already broken out there. Atlan was manipulating the seawater to form violent torrents, sweeping toward the Sea Queen and the Atlantean army, and Hal was also planning to use Green Lantern energy to suppress the Atlanteans charging forward bravely.

"Clark, stop them," Batman shouted.

Clark descended to the center of the battlefield in an instant, took a deep breath, and a point of brilliant ice crystals erupted from his mouth. Within a fraction of a second, an ice storm swept through everything.

Everything was frozen. The ice shards stopped just before Batman. The confronting Atlan and the Sea Queen became little people in a crystal ball, maintaining their previous postures, but except for their eyeballs being able to move slightly, they couldn't move any other part of their bodies.

And what made Batman strange was that the Green Lantern couldn't move either, though he was better off than the others, still able to use an anxious expression to signal Clark.

Clark flew out of the ice and said, "I learned a trick from Victor. Although there's no way yet to turn the ice created by ice breath into dense ice that isolates all energy exchange, the nature is already about the same."

Batman gave him a thumbs-up in his heart.