Chapter 3752

Batman is walking briskly up the hospital stairs, internally contemplating the new pattern he has just discovered regarding Schiller.

He remembers that Schiller would lock onto whoever had their back to him, and would not change targets until that person was dead. But just a moment ago, this rule was overturned because the Joker was not dead, yet Schiller abandoned his pursuit of him to attack the Batman Who Laughs directly.

Batman has actually also discovered that the current Schiller is a bit different from the one he encountered before: his temperament seems more normal, and although he follows the previous patterns at times, things have changed now. This gives Batman a massive headache.

Originally, the "back-facing target locking" mechanism was already difficult enough to deal with, and now this mechanism has changed. Fortunately, the "the heavier the injury, the greater the strength" rule hasn't changed... wait, shouldn't it be better if that had changed?

Batman follows the bloodstains to the ward where the Joker and Jason are. This is a surgical operating room. Jason has already fainted from excessive blood loss, and the Joker is wearing surgical scrubs, rubbing his hands together, seemingly intending to perform an arm reattachment surgery on Jason.

"Go stay outside," Batman says, "Don't touch him, I'll perform the surgery on him."

"Are you mistaken? The lunatic outside is chasing me! And you're going to kick me out just to perform surgery on a foster son you've never met and who doesn't even know you?"

The Joker wears an expression that says, "You've changed; you're no longer the saintly Batman I knew."

As the opponent who understands Batman best, the Joker knows very clearly: Batman will not abandon anyone; if he is going to save them, he saves them all. Even if the person to be saved is the Joker, Batman would still unhesitatingly disregard his own life. Otherwise, he wouldn't have stayed behind to cover the retreat just now.

The Joker was just moved by Batman's actions for a second, but then Batman was about to break character; how could he endure that?

"He probably won't chase you anymore," Batman says, "I don't know what went wrong either, but he changed his target to the Batman Who Laughs."

"That guy really is here." The Joker twirls the scalpel in his hand and says, "He kidnapped that idiot named Elliott, probably to ask where the real Batman is. Do you think he'll gain anything?"

"I'm more inclined to think he'll find a way to fabricate a Batman." Batman begins his pre-surgery preparations and says, "He has always been like this: when encountering difficulties, he chooses to give up, but he's unwilling to accept it, so he starts fabricating. The result is still failure, then he gets angry from embarrassment, prepares to retaliate, and in the end, it doesn't succeed either, so he chooses spiritual victory."

"You understand him quite well." The Joker pouts and says.

"Because he is easy to understand." Batman stops paying attention to the Joker and begins to focus on performing the arm reattachment surgery on Jason. Although the Joker doesn't leave the operating room, he doesn't interfere with him either.

"What exactly is going on with that guy?" The Joker asks aloud again.

"Your evil is chaos within order; its strength comes from order within chaos." Batman speaks up, "Your actions are always jumping out of some framework, just to make something unexpected. No one can guess what you are going to do, so naturally, they will think you are crazy."

"But Schiller is the exact opposite of you. He follows certain patterns like a compulsive disorder, such as using backs to lock onto enemies, not easily changing targets, and the heavier the injury, the stronger the power, etc. All of his actions have potential patterns; this is another kind of madness."

"Which kind do you prefer?"

"From the perspective of artistic creation, breaking the framework as one pleases, and seeking the best results within the constraints of the framework, can be said to each have their own beauty. But if it were two lunatics, I would rather choose you."

The Joker is a bit unhappy again, and he says: "What do you mean by 'rather'? Do you think his threat is higher than mine?"

"I'm just talking about two modes." Batman says, "You need to create surprises because you aren't that strong yourself. If you don't find another way, you might mess things up. If you could beat me head-on, you wouldn't need to play those tricks at all. So dealing with you only requires exposing your conspiracies."

"And for Schiller, precisely because he is strong enough, he is subject to certain limitations—otherwise, there wouldn't be many living people left in this world. In the process of dealing with him, we must always be walking on thin ice; besides racking our brains, we also have to face the pressure of brute force, which is also a physical chore for me."

"Then what about the Batman Who Laughs? Which kind do you think he belongs to?"

"He doesn't belong to either. Because he has neither powerful brute force nor fresh creativity. If I must give an evaluation, I would say he is the kind of criminal that 'if I catch him, I will send him to the Gotham Police Department instead of Arkham Asylum'."

"Then where would you send Schiller?"

"Mars."

When the Batman Who Laughs saw Schiller at the hospital entrance, he really looked like he had seen a ghost. And upon discovering that Schiller had turned his head to stare at him, he felt that seeing a ghost was better than seeing this guy.

The Batman Who Laughs rolls his eyes, immediately takes a step back, and gives his position to Elliott, who is walking up, clearly wanting to use this guy as a scapegoat. But Schiller clearly isn't that easy to change targets. In an instant, he has already crossed Elliott, who was blocking the front, and charged straight toward the Batman Who Laughs.

"So why did Pathological change targets?" In the theater of the High Tower, Greed asks with his arms crossed, "It doesn't look like the style of Hunting; did other traits stop him?"

"Why do you all think that Hunting's participation is required for the pursuit?" Pride suddenly speaks up, "In this situation where the hallucinatory vision is fully open, it doesn't seem to make any difference whether you look at the back or not, right?"

Everyone is stunned for a moment, but soon they suddenly realize.

Hunting's target-locking mechanism actually sacrifices the scope of the hallucinatory vision while maintaining precision and target-locking time.

Schiller's hallucinatory vision doesn't exist all the time either; if there is no external stimulation, it can't be kept open for too long. Although Pathological is more sensitive than the normal state, most of them can't keep it open all the time. Even if he concentrates his attention to the extreme, he can probably only keep it open for a short while.

If Hunting wants to hunt down an enemy, he naturally has to lock onto the enemy first, but the hallucinatory vision can't be kept open all the time, so once the hallucinatory vision is turned off, the target will be lost.

In order not to lose the target, he will lock onto enemies through other people's backs, first turn on the hallucinatory vision, then lock onto the target, and after that, it will always be in a partially open state, which means he can only see the hallucinatory lines brought by the prey's spirit, and he can't see anyone else's.

It is equivalent to concentrating all energy on one point, so that he can hunt for a long time.

But now, because of the high-potency stimulant from the Batman Who Laughs, the few bullets shot into his body, and various kinds of injuries, the hallucinatory vision can already be called full-map perspective. At least before the drug effect wears off, there is no need to sacrifice any aspect. That is to say, the "back-facing target locking" mechanism no longer exists; Schiller can kill whoever he wants.

"Wasn't that already reflected before?" Pride continues, "Pathological could clearly have killed the Batman Who Laughs, but he let him go. This proves that he doesn't need to lock onto the target. In the previous fights, he kept staring at the Joker, nothing more than wanting to make Batman think this mechanism is still useful."

"But he switched targets in front of Batman again; isn't that equivalent to telling Batman that this rule is useless?"

"No. Out of cognitive inertia, Batman probably won't think that Schiller has no limitations at this moment. He will only think that the rule still exists, just that it has changed. He is probably wondering what the new rule is, right?"

"Haha, Batman must be racking his brains."

Batman is indeed thinking, because when the Batman Who Laughs appeared, he saw the wound on the chest of the Batman Who Laughs.

Although the Joker was slashed several times, the Joker's self-healing ability is very heaven-defying; after hiding behind Batman for a while, those slashes were almost healed. Although Jason is missing an arm, after all, it is not a vital part like the heart or brain. Dick and Batman were injured even more lightly. That is to say, the person injured the most on the scene is the Batman Who Laughs.

Could it be that the current Schiller will attack the person who is injured the most?

This is not good news. Because if it were "back-facing", it could be avoided by not turning around; but if it is through the severity of the injury, then that is a bit troublesome.

If the person who is injured the most is being chased, then he will only be injured even more heavily, so wouldn't he still be chased until he dies?

Batman sighs in his heart. Just as he is thinking of a countermeasure, Jason slowly wakes up, and then looks at him with a terrified gaze.

"I have helped you reattach your arm; it is currently being fixed. Don't move around, otherwise, I can't guarantee it will recover as before." Facing the Jason from another universe, Batman is still quite patient.

"What the hell is going on here?" Jason can't help but curse, "Who exactly is that lunatic slashing around with a knife? What does he want? Where did Elliott go?"

"I clearly have more questions about you than you do about me." Batman says, "In the control system of your headset, it is connected to more than 600 drones, intelligent defensive weapons, and exoskeleton control systems, and there are also many hacker programs. What are you using them for?"

"What does this have to do with you?" Jason slowly sits up from the bed. His arm still has no sensation, but he can't care about that much, he says: "I have to find Elliott back, 'Red Line' cannot lose such a big client."

"Very entrepreneurial." Batman evaluates, "But you have to tell me, why is the helmsman of the Wei En Group surnamed Elliott?"

Jason looks at him very strangely and says: "Of course, it's because the Waynes are all dead."

"Bruce Wei En is dead?"

"Staying in a mental hospital for so many years, it's about the same as being dead, right?" Jason curls his lips in disdain and says, "As his guardians, the Elliotts inheriting the Wei En Group's legacy is very normal. It's a pity they also died too early, so naturally, it fell to Thomas Elliott."

Batman smells the scent of conspiracy from it, and the Joker says even more unceremoniously: "First kill the Waynes, then send their only son to a mental hospital, then kill your own parents—doesn't that make you the richest man?"

Jason, however, seems very shocked, and he says: "You mean all of this was done by Elliott? How is this possible? When Bruce Wei En was diagnosed as a mental patient, he was just a child."

"When you made me into a mental patient, I was also just a child." The Joker says, "What kind of messy metaphor am I making? Forget it, as long as you can understand what I mean."

Then he secretly looks at Batman again, wanting to know if his hellish joke-like statement has made him furious. It's a pity that Batman is still expressionless.

"It seems everything can find an answer at Arkham Asylum." Batman says, "I must go there to take a look."