Chapter 3170

Crawling out of the narrow cave, Schiller found after landing that this was a spacious hall, and there were many caves in all directions on the wall. This underground cave was much larger than they had imagined.

Schiller guessed that this might be the main reason why Silteke chose this small village as a stronghold. This place was simply uniquely endowed by nature for avoiding searches. Unless it was a local who had been active here for many years, no one could find the hiding place of the laboratory.

"Which passage should we choose?" Schiller asked.

Bruce seemed to want to suggest looking for Batman's traces, but if he didn't take this small path, he might not have passed through these passages, and naturally, he might not have left any traces.

Schiller walked to the side of these passages and looked. Inside, it was pitch black, and it wasn't very clear what was going on.

"I have a proposal," Bruce said. "I have stayed in this kind of cave for a period of time before. Generally speaking, we can judge which road is the exit through the wind direction, but I didn't feel any wind here. Maybe we can rely on listening to the sound."

"Listen to the sound?"

"The reverberation of sound in this kind of structure has rules. We shout at every road, and listening to the echo can roughly judge the size of the space inside."

"Are you a bat spirit?" Greed said half-jokingly, but he actually knew that the Battleworld Batman's stronghold was also this kind of cave. Bruce had indeed lived there for a period of time, and it was normal to have experience.

Before they could try this method, a peculiar tremor came from the top of their heads. They heard a "hum—" roaring sound.

This sound was really too loud and too obvious, so that it could be felt without much distinction. It seemed to come from the direction of the road they came from.

Besides this, this sound was also very similar to the humming sound emitted by the lighthouse.

Most practical lighthouses also emit sound when the light is on, used to attract the attention of ships. In order to make this sound travel farther, the frequency and wavelength are required, so it sounds very unique and generally won't be mistaken.

"Someone started the lighthouse?" Schiller said while frowning.

Logically speaking, there should be no living people in the lighthouse now.

No, wait!

Schiller and Greed looked at each other.

They were played!

Batman didn't return to the underground cave through the cave in the room at all. He just hid in other rooms of the lighthouse. After they left the lighthouse, he could return to the top floor of the lighthouse to start the lighthouse. This was his purpose!

After realizing this, Schiller immediately understood that this was Batman deliberately guiding them to do so. He might have even anticipated this scene when he invented the story.

Because the most important clue that made him feel that Batman must have left along the underground cave was that letter—that is, the letter that Silteke had a secret laboratory.

Because this was very logical. If the fish were actually brought by Silteke to develop vaccines, then the secret laboratory couldn't be too far from the fish, and this kind of thing must be done behind people's backs. It couldn't be built in the village, so only the underground cave was left as a choice.

The main universe Batman made them think through that last letter that he pretended to be seriously injured just to let everyone explore the lighthouse, so that he could go to the underground cave to find the laboratory, get evidence, and expose Silteke.

But in fact, his purpose was to get everyone into the underground cave and stay in the lighthouse alone to start the lighthouse.

Schiller remembered Jeff's corpse he saw being moved. That was the trace Batman deliberately left behind, in order to let himself think about how he defeated the reeds. This could better prove that he went down the cave, thereby making their group chase him over.

"Go back quickly!" the Pale Knight said. "Starting the lighthouse is probably not a good omen. We must go back quickly."

"No," Schiller shook his head and refused. "How do you know he started the lighthouse not to lure us back? If we keep following his train of thought, we will always be led by the nose by him."

Bruce also nodded and said, "That's right. That cunning hunter must have mastered some secrets we don't know. I don't want to be played by him all the time."

"It's already this time, and you still don't intend to say it?" Schiller stared at Greed. He and Batman were definitely the ones who put the most effort into the story-inventing session.

"Everything I should say has already been said..."

"Is that so? Including the goat hoof prints made of wood ash?"

The gazes of the other two fell on Greed's face.

Schiller gently twisted his fingertips and said, "Don't tell me the traces left by the devil just happen to be the same color as the ash left after the wood in the fireplace is burned."

Greed's eyes flashed. He said, "What do you mean? Do you think the Prowler footprints we saw are fake?"

"If it wasn't for the fact that after I burned the house, I got some ash on my hands when I went to check the ruins, I wouldn't have been able to figure out how those footprints appeared."

"What do you think?"

"Those footprints were drawn by you, Mr. Photographer," Schiller stared at him, his gaze cold. "You deliberately threw away what Madeline wanted, led her to spin around in the snow, let her leave footprints to interfere with our judgment, and let us push everything onto supernatural events."

"But you all saw it; I didn't have the action of bending down to draw footprints."

"That's because those footprints weren't drawn on your feet, but on Madeline's hands," Schiller said. "Madeline's corpse was walking on her hands. We also saw a black hoof print appear there after she moved a step."

"And from beginning to end, only you have touched the gun Madeline was holding," Schiller said. "You going to pick up the gun wasn't an accident, because if there was a pattern drawn with ash on Madeline's hand, the gun would definitely have traces on it. You were afraid that others would discover this, so you kept holding that gun."

"Otherwise, we are not related, you just throw the gun to one of the people, can't you avoid the monster's pursuit? Or just throw it on the ground, does the monster's life and death have anything to do with you?"

The Pale Knight's eyelids lifted. Now looking back, Greed's behavior at that time was indeed a bit strange. The weirdest thing was his action of picking up the gun but throwing it downstairs.

"But I have always been under your noses. Where did I get the time to draw any pattern on Madeline's hand?"

"You can kill someone in advance and move the corpse. Is it difficult to draw a pattern with the ash of the wood in the fireplace?"

"But Madeline is a living person. How could she sit there obediently and let me draw?"

"This shows that she didn't have full mobility at that time," Schiller's tone was very firm. He said, "When we saw Madeline, her state was very abnormal, no different from being crazy."

"Are you saying I drove her crazy? I'm just a photographer. How could I have such ability?"

Schiller heard that Greed was actually saying that although he was a psychologist in reality and could hypnotize, he was just a photographer in the game and couldn't use such skills.

There were no wounds on Madeline's important parts, so she shouldn't have been knocked unconscious either. Looking at the strength of some of her actions before her death, it didn't look like she was anesthetized. Greed must have used some other method to subdue her.

Schiller suddenly thought of "He is coming" that Madeline kept shouting.

He narrowed his eyes and stared at Greed, speculating on his motives. From the beginning, Greed seemed to have been leading them to think in the direction of the Prowler. Once the footprints appeared, it further confirmed their speculation, making their train of thought go back and forth on the path of the Prowler's characteristics.

In the game, their thinking was actually restricted, just like what the main universe Batman said at the beginning, as if they could only think about one thing at a time.

They were busy reasoning about the characteristics of the Prowler, naturally ignoring many things. Schiller understood a bit why the Joker wanted to return to the cabin; he might have wanted to find the lost clues.

"Should we continue to explore the cave? Or return to find Batman?" the Pale Knight asked.

Schiller was very clear that if they continued to explore the cave now, they could see from the number of cave roads that it would be impossible to have a clue without spending a few days. They underestimated the complexity of the cave and didn't bring too many supplies. If they turned around like this, it would be troublesome if they got lost.

So this was not a choice. What Schiller was hesitating about was whether to go upstream of the river or return to the lighthouse.

Just at this time, a sound came vaguely from the road they crawled in. "Are you still there? I found something. Do you want to come over and see..."

That was Owlman's voice. Schiller didn't delay any longer, but crawled back into that cave and returned to the place where they separated from Owlman.

The light of the flashlight flashed. Owlman said, "I walked upstream of the river and found a big door there. I think we can go over and see."

There was no time to lose. Several people walked upstream together. After walking for about 20 or 30 minutes and turning a few corners, they arrived at the big door Owlman mentioned. This was also the source of the river.

Schiller saw that the river was not naturally generated at all, but flowed out from dozens of water pipes embedded in the cave wall. The fish also jumped out from there. This place was indeed a fish farm.

Schiller went to look at that door again. This was a very tall security door with a logo of three circles intertwined and cut by a cross. Underneath, it was written in English letters: "Silteke Biology."

Good guy, this was really afraid that the agents would go to the wrong door when they came to find them.

However, being so fearless also explained this guy's strength. Schiller thought, it was just that he didn't know what was inside this laboratory.

Just as Schiller was thinking about how to open the door, shockingly, a tremor sound of gears meshing came, and the big door slowly opened.

Appearing behind the door was a row of automatic machine guns, all turning their muzzles, aiming at the people at the door.

The only thing Schiller could be sure of was that their group should not have the ability to instantly run out of the shooting range.

And at this time, a figure walked out from behind him.

Greed stood in the center of the big door. The light from inside the door shone on his back, as if to cut him out of this world, and he just stood there and smiled and said.

"Welcome home."