Chapter 3739

"You... are you okay?"

Batman's slightly complex tone pulled Schiller back to reality. This resulted in the agent not being able to kick Pride and Greed out of the surface consciousness for the first time. He had to take over the body again, barely showing a smile to Batman and saying: "I'm fine. How do you feel?"

"I can't say I'm very adapted to this body," Batman shook his head lightly, "but with the assistance of the nano-gear, I think I will adapt soon. Can you tell me about the situation in the city now?"

"Of course," Schiller nodded and said, "There are three forces in the city now: the Order of St. Dumas led by Azrael Paul, the League of Assassins led by Lady Shiva, and the resistance led by Tone. So far, the leaders of these three forces are all dead, but the bottom-level members are still fighting in the city."

Speaking of this, Schiller seemed to think of something again and said: "However, a fourth force is still hiding behind the scenes."

"I know," Batman said. "The Batman who came to save me and I were defeated by them."

Schiller's eyes lit up, and he said: "Do you know who they are?"

"That Batman seems to know, but he didn't tell me," Batman shook his head. "I can only tell you that they possess many magical powers. And the stronger you are, the stronger they are."

"Can you tell me in detail what happened when you and that Batman fought side by side? Maybe I can analyze some useful information."

"Not long ago, he came here to save me. Like you, he gave me the nano-gear and told me that he defeated a crazy Batman and took it from him. I told him that wasn't Batman, but a monster with Batman's body and Joker's brain. He seemed to suddenly realize."

"In other words, he had already defeated Nano-Batman when he came to you?" Schiller muttered to himself, unable to help but sigh, "He is really a bit too strong."

"Exactly. Compared to him, I really can't be called a Dark Knight." Batman shook his head, showing frustration and helplessness. Schiller looked up at him; although he was using Azrael's body, from his expression, tone, and movements, it could be seen that he was not a very mature person, which was really far from Arkham Batman.

"Don't belittle yourself," Schiller said. "I don't know if he talked to you about the difference between the Light Multiverse and the Dark Multiverse. You were just unlucky to be born in a dark universe that was too complex. And the mastermind targeting you is not without a reason."

"He did tell me that," Batman said. "He said he guessed the mastermind might be using my terrible situation to trick those kind-hearted Batmen and Robins, to cause mental damage to them. I don't want such things to happen, but I am really powerless."

Schiller opened his mouth, just wanted to say something, and then stopped. Damn, the topic ran off again! Now is not the time for psychological treatment!

"First tell me what kind of enemies you and that Batman encountered," Schiller looked into Batman's eyes and said.

"In fact, I don't know."

"What?"

"I know this is absurd, but I didn't know what the enemy looked like from beginning to end. I can only tell you that when he found me and put me back into that broken body, he was seriously injured. When I asked him who hurt him like this, he said 'It's this city'."

Batman paused, seemingly thinking about the deep meaning of this sentence again, but obviously didn't think of anything. He continued: "After he and I left from underground, the city changed completely. Outside, it became pitch black, and things kept attacking us in the darkness..."

"What things?"

"Can't tell," Batman said. "Because it was too dark, and we didn't have night vision gear. But I feel that it wasn't cult members, and even less likely to be ordinary people like the resistance who hadn't received much training. I feel it might be... ghosts."

"Ghosts?" Schiller did not hide the surprise in his tone. He really didn't expect that one day he would hear rumors of ghosts from Batman's mouth.

"That Batman was the one hurt like that by these monsters," Batman continued. "They were mysterious and unpredictable, and almost all modern weapons had no effect on them. We just spent about a day like this, and he became increasingly silent, then told me that his mission failed and he was going to leave. Before he could crack the secret behind it, he wouldn't come back again."

"He left?"

"Yes. Then I was also attacked by them and lost consciousness. When I woke up, I was back in the water tank. It was then that I realized he was right; this is a trap carefully laid by someone, just to let one rescuer after another like him fall here. It's just that I really don't understand what those monsters in the shadows are all about. I think what he wanted to figure out was this matter."

Schiller understood completely. It seems those monsters that attacked them both at the last moment were the Batman Who Laughs' trump card. Arkham Batman realized at that time that simple force might not be able to solve this matter. To be precise, he fell into the trap of being obsessed with the authorities—the opponent used tricks, so if he continued to fight in the dungeon, there wouldn't be any good results, so he chose to end the mission and leave the dungeon.

But Arkham Batman wouldn't give up so easily. He was the super Batman who used the Batmobile to repeatedly crush all villains in one night and could also find all Riddler trophies along the way. Having suffered such a big loss at the hands of the mastermind this time, there is absolutely no way he would have no reaction at all. He must be thinking about ways to break the situation from the outside and is starting to implement them as soon as possible. And judging by his usual efficiency, the arrival of the revenge action won't be far away.

Schiller felt relieved and said to Batman: "What I need to tell you is that the mastermind follows a principle of quite hypocritical fairness. Simply put, the stronger the people who resist him, the stronger the traps he sets. The Batman who came to save you might have been caught off guard by this and raised the battle difficulty to hell level."

"So that's how it is," Batman said suddenly. "No wonder after I left with him, he said those monsters became stronger. What should we do now? Make ourselves as weak as possible?"

Schiller shook his head and said: "I said, what the mastermind provides is not real fairness, but hypocritical fairness—seemingly equal conditions, but actually still favorable to him. He still pursues victory, not fairness. So if you shrink back and stop moving forward just to not increase the difficulty, he won't show mercy for this, but will push further and then mock your cowardice."

At this time, Schiller's movements froze. He sighed and said: "No time to analyze. We must act quickly. If nothing goes wrong, now that I'm taking you away, the situation in the city will be different."

Although Schiller said so, he didn't hesitate. He took Batman, who was using Azrael's body, and walked out at the fastest speed. After leaving the municipal hall, it was pitch black outside.

What was even more terrifying was that the original shouts of slaughter and explosions were also gone. The city was terrifyingly quiet, filled with thick darkness everywhere. In the hallucinatory vision, almost no colors could be seen. This meant Cat Getan had become a dead city.

Batman behind Schiller took a slight breath. He heard Batman say: "That's it. When the other Batman and I left from underground, the city became like this."

"Because you thought I had a helper, so you increased the difficulty?" Schiller narrowed his eyes, pulled out the pistol from his bosom, but put it back after thinking about it. Batman said that thermal weapons were useless against monsters, which should be true. He smelled a trace of unusual meaning from this dead silence of darkness.

"Give me three seconds," Schiller said. "I'm going to have a meeting."

Batman didn't understand what he was talking about, but the agent had already taken Pride and Greed and descended from the surface consciousness. Returning to the tower, the agent said: "The situation is wrong. There is a problem with this city."

"Obviously," Pride said.

"It turned from a war movie to a horror movie all of a sudden," Greed hugged his arms and said, "It must be the Batman Who Laughs making trouble again. It's just that it's temporarily unclear what he is doing. This is a bit troublesome."

"I have a way," the agent said. "Let's go find 'Inspiration'."

Pride and Greed looked at him in unison.

Batman looked at Schiller, who was stunned for three seconds, and then his expression returned to normal. But he couldn't help but ask again: "Are you okay?"

Schiller smiled at him and said: "I'm fine. I've basically figured out what's going on. Let's talk while we walk."

Batman instinctively felt something was strange, as if the Schiller talking to him now was different from before, but his expression and behavior didn't show any major abnormalities. He didn't know how to describe it either.

"You're right, there are indeed ghosts in this city. But this is not Cat Getan."

"What?"

"I mean, this is not your Cat Getan, nor is it the Cat Getan where I have to complete the mission. Someone has swapped the city."

"Swapped?!" Batman could no longer hide his doubt and shock, and said, "What do you mean by swapping the city?"

"You can understand it as the mastermind having a backup city in his hands. The way this city exists is very peculiar, just like the legendary ghost ship. When this ghost city descends on a city, it can replace the original city. Everything here is controlled by the ghost city, and those monsters that attacked you were also released by him, with the purpose of consuming your strength, and also to deceive you—even if you spend all your efforts to save this place, it won't have any effect."

"There is actually such a thing," Batman said. Then he was shocked and said: "Now that you mention it, I remember. The Batman who came to save me said 'Everything might be wrong' before leaving. At the time, I didn't understand what he meant; I thought he was saying his own plan was wrong."

"No, his meaning was probably that this city is wrong," Schiller spread his hands and said, "I said long ago that this is a hypocritical fairness. It seems as if because you became my helper, the city became dangerous, but in fact, in order to prevent me from making more progress, the mastermind played a trick of swapping the city. If the goal is wrong, then the plan to save the city will never succeed."

"Damn it," Batman cursed and then said, "Then what should we do now? How to escape this fake city?"

"Don't worry, let's go and fight him for two rounds first." Schiller laughed again. Batman saw this smile was completely different from before; it was neither gentle comfort nor the pride of victory. In the complete darkness, it looked exceptionally pale, as if releasing a dangerous signal that was about to pull people out of this real world and throw them into another chaotic and inverted world.