Chapter 3730

In the dim and lusterless city, a light, drizzling rain fell incessantly; the air throughout the entire city was as damp as if one had plummeted into the abyss of the sea. Schiller stood before the window of the hotel room, looking down; the light of the torches grew brighter and brighter. Squad after squad of cult members roared past on the street, their shouts of slaughter growing louder and increasingly urgent.

Schiller, however, merely stood before the window, watching quietly. While he was watching the scenery, Batman was also watching him. At this moment, there was an evident quality of violence about Schiller—silent, cold, and stern, filled with a kind of arrogance that transcended social rules, as if he had condensed all the traits of the enforcers of every violent institution into one body.

"I have said it before, he is a quite difficult opponent to deal with," Owlman's voice echoed in the dim room. "Although both are enforcers, he is completely different from Batman. Most Batmen stand on the side of justice, using violent means to maintain rules and order, which is why he is the Dark Knight. But Schiller is not; he is a perfect blade without a mind—cold, focused, and merciless."

"Trying to bind his footsteps with justice and kindness, as one might with Batman, will have no effect at all. I advise you to change your course early; otherwise, when he kills his way here, I will not care about you."

"An agent who only focuses on completing missions?" that ethereal voice rang out. "Perhaps we can observe a little longer; if that is truly the case, there will naturally be other ways to keep him here."

"I am just very curious, that idiot only has his head left, how can he still change the current situation? Could it be that he is going to weep bitterly?" The Batman Who Laughs said, his fingers crossed and resting under his chin. "It seems our good agent has no intention of listening to him at all."

"Paul and I are not enemies. On the contrary, for a very long time, I was his teacher. I guided him in many things, yet he did not use these abilities to bring a better life to the people of Gotham, but instead completely destroyed this city."

"After he imprisoned me, he often came to see me. He showed me his masterpieces; he thought I would find his violent acts beautiful. He hoped I would approve of him, but I only felt endless despair..."

Batman's hoarse voice echoed in the hotel room. Schiller still stood quietly by the window, observing the movement on the street below. Batman spoke alone for a long time, but Schiller never responded. So he had to say: "Hey, are you listening?"

"I am not interested in the love history between you two," Schiller turned his head and said. "I see what that group of warriors is searching for here; I guess that Lady Shiva is looking for me. But right now, he is not the most pressing problem; I have to go find that boy."

Batman's lips pressed tight. Schiller, however, suddenly picked up the head connected to the spine, looked at it from front to back and left to right, checking his condition. After putting it down, he pried two wooden pieces from the surface of the somewhat dilapidated wardrobe and held them up against the bridge of his nose to measure.

"I have to fix your nose first, to avoid secondary injury from choking on blood, which would lead to you being unable to speak. If I find that boy named Tone, you help me persuade him, and I will send him out of the city."

"Tone? Who is that?"

"The leader of the resistance. He should have been captured by the cult. I will save him first, and then you persuade him to leave here."

"Why do this?"

"Because I think he might also be Batman."

"How could he..."

"It is not because of your surname that you are Batman, but because you did what Batman did that you are Batman. As of now, Tone should be the one most like Batman. I must ensure his safety."

After finishing, Schiller fixed Batman's nasal bridge with the wooden pieces, used strips torn from a bedsheet as bandages for a simple dressing, grabbed his spine to lift the head, and said: "Earlier I saw that you had tubes for transporting nutrient solution on your body; now that there is no nutrient solution, how much longer can you live?"

"Are you threatening me?"

"Yes. You help me persuade that boy, and I will find a way to look for nutrient solution. If you don't speak, I will take it as your agreement."

"But he is not Batman," Batman said. "And if he is the leader of the resistance, he will not easily leave this city; otherwise, he would have left when the chaos began."

"Of course, otherwise I wouldn't need you to help me persuade him."

Batman was speechless and could only remain silent. Schiller held a gun in one hand and the head in the other, walked out of the hotel door, looked left and right, and then chose a direction and walked quickly away.

Just after turning the corner, he saw a group of cult members wearing red cloaks gathered at the corner of the wall, not knowing what they were doing. Through the gaps in their figures, one could vaguely see a woman wearing somewhat tattered but still sturdy-looking clothes. She seemed to have been injured, so she was slumped on the ground, and the cult members seemed to be discussing how to dispose of her.

Schiller stood behind the wall at the corner and leaned out to look. He saw a tattoo on the woman's arm—the same one that was on the bodies of the two people wearing cult member uniforms he had seen at the cathedral earlier. "The resistance tattoo? Those two unlucky fellows must have wanted to pretend to be cult members to sneak in, but were discovered."

Schiller did not walk in that direction. He turned and returned to the street from before, identified the direction, and walked toward another fork in the road.

"They seem to want to do something to her; don't you plan to help her?" Batman spoke up.

"Everyone is the primary person responsible for their own life safety. The person who let her fall into that situation is herself, not me; I have no obligation to save her," Schiller said while walking. "Especially since this city has been in chaos for 15 years, and she is still wandering around while the cult is searching. If she dies, it is not a tragedy worth mourning, but the most ordinary survival of the fittest. If I save her, humanity will sooner or later have to pay the price for my interfering with the laws of natural evolution."

"But she is also a victim. It is Azrael who turned this city into this; she should not have had to encounter these things."

"You are right, Azrael's brutal rule is the culprit. But stopping and punishing him is not my responsibility either. You should go find the police and the Dark Knight, or ordinary people who treat this place as their home. I am not any of those; I am just an ordinary passerby."

"But humans should have the most basic compassion; how can you watch others suffer?"

"I cannot, so I choose to leave."

Batman was silent again. Schiller listened to the woman's screams coming from the streets and alleys behind him, still moving forward, searching for his target. Until he found a fresh corpse at the entrance of this street.

He turned the corpse over, breathed a sigh of relief after seeing it was a middle-aged man, and then observed his wounds, discovering his throat had been slit—still the fatal wound caused by the brass knuckles used by the cult—and there was also a resistance tattoo on his arm.

Schiller looked left and right, seeing a very narrow alley on the left side, basically only allowing one person to pass through; an adult could not even fully extend their arms inside. After he walked over, he took a look and found it was a dead end. Schiller looked up.

At about the height of more than one person, he saw some mud marks that should not have appeared on the wall. These marks appeared about every half meter, spreading all the way to the roof.

Schiller left the alley, turned left, and walked into the house on the left. This seemed to be an ordinary residential building; after arriving at the roof, the rooftop door was locked, but Schiller only rammed it twice before knocking it open.

He walked to the rooftop, arrived at the location of the narrow alley, and saw a bit of blood on the edge of the rooftop; it looked quite fresh, basically consistent with the time the boy escaped.

Schiller took a few steps back, sprinted, and jumped to the building opposite, discovering the same bloodstains here as well. The rooftop door here had been opened, and it seemed someone had walked through.

"He climbed up by kicking the walls on both sides, and then entered from here?" Batman said.

Schiller looked down at him and said: "Your dozen or so years in prison were not served in vain."

"What?"

"God always gives the most straightforward punishment to fools."

Schiller walked to the door and glanced inside, but did not go in. He stood up again, looked left and right on the roof, and then jumped back to the building on the left, entering the rooftop door he had knocked open.

He lightened his footsteps as much as possible and walked down the stairs. This building only had three floors in total; Schiller entered the corridor of the third floor, arched his body, gripped his pistol, and while gently feeling the ground with his fingers, moved forward slowly.

Finally, he felt a trace of dampness at the entrance of a room. He turned to face the door, took a step back, pressed his body completely against the wall, and after confirming there was no gap between his waist/back and the wall behind him, Schiller lifted one leg, bent his knee, and then straightened it. The distance from the wall to the door made it impossible for him to fully straighten his leg.

He adjusted the way his back fit against the wall again, then supported the ground with one foot, exerted force with the other, and kicked hard toward the middle of the door.

"Boom!!!"

The door was kicked open directly. Schiller flashed inside at lightning speed, aimed at the figure by the window, and then lowered the muzzle.

"Bang!"

"Uh..." a cry of pain rang out.

Waiting for the other party to cover their leg and fall to the ground, Schiller put away his pistol and looked over. With the help of the extremely weak natural light, he could see it was a young man wearing a jacket.

"Hello, I am Schiller," Schiller took the initiative to introduce himself. "Don't be nervous, I am not a cult member; I am here to save you."

The young man instinctively looked at the gunshot wound on his lower leg. Schiller saw that his right arm had been bandaged; from the state of the dried blood left on the sleeve, it could be seen that he should have been injured in the arm earlier.

"I cannot explain too much to you; you can also understand it as being for the sake of mission confidentiality. In short, now I need you to leave this city; do you know which city nearby is safe?"

The young man was obviously stunned for a moment: "Why should I leave?"

"Because I need to ensure your safety."

The young man looked at the wound on his leg again.

"Life safety," Schiller added. "You must stay alive, rather than die in the cult's pursuit or some strange accidental incident."

"I cannot leave," the young man said. "I am the leader of the resistance; I need to save this city. Before that, I cannot abandon the people and leave."

Schiller did not feel surprised at all. He just placed Batman's head in front of the young man. The other party let out a terrified scream the moment he saw Batman's head connected to the spine, struggling to retreat to the corner of the room.

Schiller, who was observing his reaction without moving, lifted his eyelids slightly. He could be certain that Tone's reaction was not normal.