Chapter 3734

The agent's plan to fool Pride and Greed into floating up with him had no fancy purpose; it was just to borrow the two people's mental strength to open the hallucinatory vision. And opening the hallucinatory vision had no high-end reason either; it was purely because he couldn't see.

"The visibility of this broken city is less than two meters, with dark clouds, darkness, fog, and rain. If I don't use the hallucinatory talent that can accurately lock onto enemies, how am I supposed to aim at enemies from a distance?"

Pride and Greed were speechless.

They should have thought of it long ago; the agent was not here to discuss philosophical questions at all. He was a thorough pragmatist. The reason he didn't like hallucinations was because he felt they were unreliable, and the reason he wanted to use them now was because he had no other choice.

"I didn't need it before because no one in this city used guns. I have a gun, and even if the viewing distance is not enough, I can still occupy a certain advantage," the agent continued to explain. "But after my trial use of the nano-gear, I found that this set of gear also has night vision capabilities. If the enemy uses nano-gear, they will have a visual suppression advantage over me, and my advantage will be wiped out."

"Moreover, they don't use guns to deal with Batman. But now that I have a gun, they might use them too. If the gap in weapons is leveled, and vision is the opponent's advantage, then I might fall into an extremely disadvantageous situation. The success rate of the mission might drop significantly, which is not what I want."

"So you want to use our unique talents to level the gap in vision?" Greed asked. "But your bullets are limited, and the gap in weapons will sooner or later be leveled."

"They will soon find that the trick they used on Batman doesn't work well on me. They will change their methods, adopt more violent means, and might also use modern firearms for the sake of fairness. By then, I can get supplies from them."

"That's true," Pride said. "But you'd better not expect that they are really pursuing fairness. The hypocrisy of the mastermind far exceeds your imagination; he is a..."

"That doesn't matter," the agent interrupted. "The most shocking victory is a frontal victory. No one doesn't pursue defeating their opponent head-on. If he dared to face Batman directly and had the confidence to defeat him, he wouldn't be hiding behind the scenes. And he hasn't shown up until now, which proves he doesn't have such ability. Then the upper limit of his ability is Batman, but I am not."

"You are too confident," Greed said. "What if his upper limit is the Batman of the Arkham Knight universe? And a wicked version with no moral bottom line..."

"The problem is not something ethereal like morality," the agent seemed very impatient. "The Batman of the Arkham Knight universe is not hindered by his morality, but by his ability. Although his force is powerful, he has shortcomings in other aspects."

"For example?" Pride asked.

"Psychology."

"His psychology level is not low," Greed retorted.

"He is just obsessed with the authorities," the agent said coldly.

"Do you think the Batman of the Arkham Knight universe was stopped because of the enemy's sufficiently strong force?" the agent suddenly changed the subject.

"Probably not," Pride said. "This Batman's force has no upper limit. Even if the Batman Who Laughs led those few Batmen from the Dark Multiverse over, they might not be able to defeat him head-on."

"Since you know, the mastermind definitely knows too. He is afraid of the Batman of the Arkham Knight universe, so he didn't lead people to block him the moment he showed up, but set a trap instead. Then do you think he will be afraid of me?"

Pride and Greed both fell into thought. Their thinking logic is relatively complex, because they feel that it is highly probable that the Batman Who Laughs is making trouble behind the scenes. They will infer what he is going to do and how they should break the situation based on the Batman Who Laughs' mental tendencies and behavioral guidelines.

But the agent's way of thinking is very simple. The Batman Who Laughs didn't fight Arkham Batman with force, at least not entirely. The early stage was definitely relying on traps, which proves that the Batman Who Laughs didn't have that much confidence in his own force either, and didn't dare to face Arkham Batman head-on, but had to consume his physical strength with traps first.

Then did he dare to face Schiller head-on?

Back then, Schiller had to change his mask because of his notorious reputation; from alien invasions to trash cans being kicked over, it was all his doing. The Batman Who Laughs had personally contacted him several times. His preset of Schiller's force value might not be lower than Arkham Batman's, and Schiller might even be far higher than Arkham Batman.

Precisely because of this, he didn't jump out and fight Schiller head-on when Schiller first entered the dungeon, but also wanted to consume him like he consumed Arkham Batman.

Then the question arises: to what extent should he be consumed before it's good to take action head-on?

This is the same question as "when to press the nuclear bomb button." Should you press it when the opponent declares war? Should you press it when the opponent sends troops? Should you press it when the opponent's fleet is halfway there? Should you press it when the opponent hits the doorstep? Should you press it when half of the territory is occupied? Should you press it when the capital is about to be breached?

In fact, for most leaders, they won't press it at any of these times. Because the nuclear bomb is the final means, it must be used at the very end. But no matter when, the situation will not be worse than fighting a nuclear war, so they will never use it.

It is the same for the Batman Who Laughs. He treats his own action and swinging fists at the opponent as the final means, so until the moment before the mission is completed, he will not use this means. Because there is no result that can be worse than swinging fists and not winning, and being defeated head-on by the opponent.

The most inspiring victory is a frontal victory, so the most humiliating and frustrating thing is a frontal failure. Once the Batman Who Laughs takes action himself, he has to face the risk of frontal failure, so he will only treat taking action himself as the final means that will never be used, just like a nuclear button that will never be pressed.

So although he envisioned consuming first and then defeating the opponent head-on, what he did was always consume, consume, and consume.

Arkham Batman couldn't have been defeated head-on either, otherwise, he would have boasted about it to the whole universe long ago. Since there is no movement at all, then Arkham Batman and all other players participating in this dungeon died in the war of attrition.

That's why the agent is fearless. The opponent will only keep sending minions to consume him, and the possibility of taking action himself is very low. Then what the agent needs to do is actually not let himself be consumed, and he can naturally complete the mission. He has always been doing this.

And players like Arkham Batman or Superman who might have participated in the dungeon might have failed because of moral kidnapping, but the root cause is that they did not clearly realize the harm brought by phased goals.

When people do something, they mostly set a total goal and phased goals. In the plan, the total goal is put first, and the phased goal is put second, but when they actually do it, it is completely reversed.

For example, if you paint a picture with watercolors, then completing this picture is the total goal. And in order to complete this picture, washing the color palette clean is a phased goal.

But when washing the color palette, people will think: washing the color palette clean is a prerequisite for painting well; if I don't wash the color palette clean, how can I paint well? So they try their best to wash the color palette clean.

Arkham Batman might also think this way: if I can't even save these few victims, how can I save this city? Anyway, in the end, to reorganize Cat Getan's order, I definitely have to save people; saving people is a part of reorganizing order, so it's worth wasting more energy.

But in fact, the physical strength and energy consumed in the process of washing the color palette, the expectation for completing the painting consumed by trivial repetitive work, and the anxiety and frustration brought by the lack of progress in phased goals, are very likely to be greater than the damage caused to the final product by not washing the color palette well.

People pay too much attention to losses at the realistic level and forget the important role of will and spirit in driving human development, letting themselves be consumed mentally in many small things, eventually leading to double losses at the realistic level and the spiritual level.

Arkham Batman might think that saving people is just consuming some physical strength, but the Batman Who Laughs won't make the process of saving people so easy; there must be many tricks. Saving the Broken Bat has a backstabbing plot, and before saving those innocent victims, I'm afraid there are more tricks. All players will be mentally consumed unknowingly in these phased goals, and because there is a goal of reorganizing Cat Getan's order, in the later stage of long-term operations, they will definitely be caught by the opponent because of mental fatigue, leading to mission failure.

If people like Arkham Batman can figure out this problem, then even if they have compassion for innocent victims, they will still go to save people, at least they will make early warnings at the psychological level, try their best not to pay attention to those messy tricks, and keep their spirit from being consumed, so the probability of clearing the level will be much higher.

Strong people like Arkham Batman who have almost no weaknesses are the least likely to realize this problem, because they are too strong, feel that their physical strength and energy are unlimited, feel that their will will never be worn down, and feel that they can multitask and speed-run, so they fall into the trap step by step.

But then again, Arkham Batman has few weaknesses, and even if he reveals flaws in the later stage, he is not so easy to defeat.

"He must have a decisive means," the agent continued. "Not some small trouble, but a means to make the player's mission fail in one fell swoop by seizing the opponent's tiny flaws. Otherwise, it wouldn't be so easy to make a Batman like the Arkham Knight universe fail."

Pride and Greed both thought about it, but the clues are indeed few, and they can't think of how the Batman Who Laughs can make a strong person like Arkham Batman fail in one fell swoop without taking action head-on.

"Let's not discuss this for now; this universe has another tricky problem," Greed said. "The mission asks you to save Batman, but who is Batman?"

"No, regarding this question, it's not us who should be anxious," the agent shook his head and said. "Since the mission goal says to save Batman, there must be a Batman. But the targets who could become Batman have all been killed by me; they must create a new Batman. No matter how powerful the mastermind is, they cannot completely control the Battleworld system, and they cannot control who will be the next Batman. So in terms of plot control, the gap between us is leveled."

"Is this the reason why you killed the Broken Bat, Azrael, and Tone?" Pride asked.

"Yes, these people should all be under the control of the mastermind; it would be troublesome to let them become Batman. And if a new Batman is added, the new Batman might not cooperate with the mastermind, which is beneficial to me."