Chapter 3158: The Detective Shall Die (20)

"What's wrong with you?" Owlman was the first to look up, frowning as he looked at Bruce with some confusion.

Bruce's scream just now had been truly miserable, but now it seemed he hadn't suffered any injuries, and there didn't seem to be anything here that could attack him mentally.

But at this moment, Jeff spoke up: "It must be him, it must be him who was possessed by the Prowler! Those who are possessed always let out such screams when they are about to be killed! Hurry up and find a way to tie him up!"

Owlman still suppressed Jeff tightly, not letting him move, but he was also suspicious. Only Bruce suddenly turned his head, his eyes blank.

Shiler and Greed thought of the same thing at the same time. Shiler was taking out his bullet and couldn't get away, so Greed had to walk to Bruce's side, reach out, and press his shoulder: "Did you see something?"

"You should ask me what I can still see," Bruce muttered to himself. "I can't see anything clearly now. What is all this?!!"

"Tell me what you saw; maybe I can help you analyze it."

"I can't describe it," Bruce shook his head. "I can't see the room or the objects, and I can't see people. There's only a bunch of messy lines and color blocks."

Greed and Shiler exchanged a look. Greed chuckled and said, "When did this situation start?"

"Just now," Bruce hinted. Greed knew he must have leveled the Psychoanalysis skill to Level 3.

"Your mental state might indeed have some problems," Greed said. "I think you'll be fine after a rest."

Bruce walked to the side with a blank expression and bumped into the Joker, who was leaning in the corner eating. He could only say sorry and then sat down next to the Joker.

Seeing his reaction, it was clear he couldn't see anything.

Just then, Shiler felt a gust of wind graze his ear. *Squelch! * Jeff's head and chest, who was about to roar, were split in two, and Owlman, who was pinning him down, lost half an arm.

Everything happened too suddenly. Owlman hadn't had time to dodge. He gasped, then staggered back a few steps, looking at his right arm, which now had only half remaining, his face gloomy.

Well, that's great. Three Batmen in total: one dying, one blind, one crippled.

Despite this, Shiler hurriedly brought bandages to help Owlman stop the bleeding. The amputation was perfect, the cut quite smooth, which facilitated bandaging. Before excessive blood loss occurred, the bleeding had stopped.

The right arm was still there, but in the current situation, reattaching it wasn't realistic, so it had to stay like that.

Judging by Owlman's previous habits, he was right-handed. Now that his right arm had been sliced off, his mobility would be greatly reduced.

Shiler couldn't help but recall the timing of the wind blades. If this was really the Prowler's doing, then this monster was much more cunning than he had imagined.

Jeff died very cleanly. Because he didn't know if his corpse would also start moving, Shiler simply dragged his corpse out of the lighthouse through the main door.

Through the main door, one could see the snow-covered village in the distance, but because of the distance, it was impossible to see if anyone was active. It just revealed a dead, desolate silence in the ice and snow.

Everyone decided to make some hot food to replenish their stamina. Although there were no normal pots, tin cans could serve as pots; boiling something wasn't a problem.

While eating, Shiler began to organize the clues he had obtained and thought about what was going on.

As the game progressed to this point, Shiler realized a problem: not everyone was like Pride, who only cared about bickering with the Beyonder during the opening period.

Of course, it wasn't to say that the questions Pride asked were useless, but most were about the basic gameplay, not involving much of the world's worldview.

Shiler was clear that the Batmen would be more interested in the latter.

First, Pride hadn't participated in many Battleworld games. Most of the time he spent in the Battleworld was using the spacious and bright room to grade papers, treating this place as an office he could enter and leave at will.

So his gaming experience was relatively low, and this was his first time participating in such a game.

But the Batmen were different. Since the Battleworld opened, most Batmen had focused on dungeon games. With their sleepless, tireless dedication, they had basically encountered every type of game.

In other words, this game format might be relatively unfamiliar to Pride, but it was very familiar to Batman. He didn't need to waste time understanding the basic rules; he could completely ask more meaningful questions based on past experience.

For example, what was going on with this world, or what was going on with himself.

Shiler remembered the Beyonder's requirement at the time: they could write a background story for themselves. Pride's background story was quite conservative, but others might not be.

If the Beyonder could make the stories they wrote come true, then Batman could completely use the stories he made up to influence the entire world's landscape.

For example, they only needed to fabricate what they had done in a certain war, and that war would truly appear in the world's history. As long as the scale of the war was large enough, it could completely change the world's landscape.

In other words, this was a game of imagination. The bolder you were, the more you could achieve. As long as you dared to make it up, there was nothing that couldn't become reality.

Pride wasn't very good at writing stories. At that time, his understanding of the whole game was still relatively shallow. Hearing the profession of a member of the clergy, he wrote a background story that was relatively consistent with the character's profession, basically something no one could find flaws in.

But the key was that the written background story would be directly written into the world background. In other words, no matter how absurd it was, it was true. There was no need to hold back at all. Even if the level was high enough, it could provide infinite advantages in the game.

Shiler wasn't sure if Batman was that good at writing stories, but he was very certain that Greed was.

The stories he wrote were not only absurd and bizarre but also self-consistent. No matter how many restrictions there were on writing background stories, he would definitely challenge the upper limit of this function.

Shiler suspected that Greed was secretly cultivating immortality, and he had evidence.

Starting from the beginning, first, these people gathered in a small cabin; there was clearly a story there.

It seemed like the beginning of a game where the protagonist appeared in a world for no apparent reason, but in the presence of a plot, games usually set a reason for the protagonist to come here.

Either they were prisoners dropped in, or travelers passing by, or at worst, a mercenary ranger passing by.

Generally speaking, the protagonist's intention for coming to a place was either introduced to the protagonist through an opening animation—a first-person narration was the simplest—or it could be reflected through subsequent dialogue.

But the opening animation was too short to see anything, and no one told him why he came here. When introducing himself, he could only make up an ambiguous reason.

Just because he was like that didn't mean others were. Some people might have already written their intentions into their background stories, and the ambiguity in their self-introductions was just to avoid exposing too much information.

For example, Greed's self-introduction was too vague, and he quickly shifted the topic to being a rich second-generation heir. But in fact, a character with his image was the least likely to appear in this remote small village. To make this story round, it would definitely require many bizarre and tortuous processes.

If that was the case, his identity definitely wouldn't be simple, and a person with a complex identity participating in this matter would definitely have a complex goal.

Shiler thought, how could this game be won? Kill the Prowler, save the village, or simply save the whole world from the shadow of the strangeness?

The Beyonder didn't say, and he hadn't thought about it before, feeling it was probably the same as previous dungeons: finish the main plot and survive, getting some resources would be the end.

Still, in a game where you could set your own background story and make it come true, imagination was everything; there was no fixed main plot to speak of.

When you're out and about, your identity and purpose are all given by yourself.

From this perspective, Greed's goal was likely different from theirs, or rather, everyone's goal here was different.

Moreover, they weren't necessarily all good people.

Without knowing how others were writing, the identities and goals they set for themselves were likely to conflict.

For example, Owlman was a policeman, and his set goal was to save the village. But the Pale Knight was a lawyer; he might be working for some big shot, and his goal was to ensure that no one who witnessed this strange event could leave the village.

In this case, they might help each other in extreme environments to explore the mystery of the whole thing, but it was more likely that after discovering the other's identity and stance, they would kill the other first to complete their own goal.

And assuming things were indeed like this, then all the misfortunes they were encountering now might not be difficulties set by the Beyonder, but more likely some people working in the dark.

Shiler first suspected Greed.

He was truly very suspicious, having put the team in danger several times.

And the most important evidence Shiler had was that the wind blade just now had flown from Greed's direction.

Thinking of this, a bold conjecture popped into Shiler's mind—was everything abnormal they encountered really caused by the Prowler?

The abnormality was definitely real. After all, a wind blade that could split a person in two couldn't be made by a blower; it had to be at least a magic skill or something. Corpses standing up couldn't be done by props either; it had to involve some superpowers.

But if all these superpowers belonged to the Prowler, why would this monster choose such a remote village to plague?

Possess a living person, then release wind blades to kill, then control the corpse to possess other living people—this set of smooth combos would be too much for even the Lighthouse Nation, let alone the Lighthouse Village.

If we're talking from a gaming perspective, that's like throwing a monster you shouldn't be fighting at this stage into the starter village—are you cosplaying as the Tree Sentinel here?