Chapter 4290: Steel Body (Part 2)

"How is it going, Schiller?" A low voice came from the headset.

Schiller pressed the headset lightly and said: "Not bad."

"How far has it progressed? Did you find anything abnormal?"

"No. However, I successfully fooled a fool into looking for a treasure that doesn't exist at all, and then fooled another fool into buying it."

"What?" The Adventure Batman on the other end of the phone simply doubted he had heard it wrong. He said: "You have been in that universe for two days. What have you done?"

"I have already told you. I don't want to repeat it again."

"Alright. I just want to remind you that as the investigation team in this operation, we need to be more efficient. You must pay attention to every detail, and if you find any abnormality that might be caused by the erosion of dark power, you must report it in time."

"Don't worry. I know my duty."

"You'd better."

Hanging up the communication, the Adventure Batman sighed. Main Universe Batman turned to look at him. The Adventure Batman shook his head and said: "I don't think we should have found this Schiller. He doesn't look serious enough, as if he doesn't understand the seriousness of the situation."

"But he is all we have." Main Universe Batman said, "Believe that he will give us a surprise."

"Why are you so optimistic?" The Adventure Batman said with some surprise. "There aren't many universes infiltrated by eerie dark forces, and every one of them is an important sample, with this one being the most typical. You just send someone so unreliable, and you actually think he'll give us a surprise?"

Main Universe Batman didn't speak. He recalled what happened before. After the duel competition ended, he returned to his universe and continued the construction of the magic defense network. And just at this time, the energy detection device he had mounted on the magic defense network a few months ago reported an abnormality.

Weird energy readings showed that a special dark power was permeating the universe. That was a dead and silent power, but even Constantine didn't know what it was.

Main Universe Batman gathered Batmen from other universes and asked them to take away a detection device to detect energy fluctuations in each universe. And as expected, darkness was awakening, and this weird power had spread to every universe.

But perhaps it was too early, these powers were temporarily not climate-forming. However, peace would not last forever. In some universes, he had already revealed his fox tail. And in order to continue researching and cracking the mystery of this power, Main Universe Batman didn't choose to investigate himself, but found an agent.

But unexpectedly, the agent didn't take this job, but recommended another personality trait to Main Universe Batman. That was a Schiller who was the same age as the agent, but had half-long hair.

This personality trait was very mysterious. Clearly looking very ordinary, and his speech was nothing special, but Main Universe Batman's danger radar was always ringing. This made him think that no matter what this dark power was, the owner of this power might fall into his hands.

This was a confidence without origin, but Main Universe Batman decided to trust his intuition. Because besides this, there was no other good way. The universe where the dark energy was most active had a slightly special situation, and Batmen from other universes wouldn't be welcomed there, and might even be resisted and excluded as soon as they appeared. The others in the Bat family were about the same. So let Schiller go. No matter how tough the superheroes there were, Schiller always had a way.

Coming back to his senses, Main Universe Batman said: "You don't need to stare at him too closely. Our investigation methods don't apply to him. What did he just tell you he did?"

The Adventure Batman repeated what he had just heard. Main Universe Batman sighed. He knew his intuition was right. But he had a premonition that besides the mastermind behind the scenes, some locals in that universe might also be in trouble.

Clark returned to the apartment he rented. He looked at the sky outside. The snow gradually stopped, but the sunset was still shrouded in a piece of gray, making people feel inexplicably depressed.

He sat in front of the computer desk and started searching for everything about Wei En. However, the reports on the private life of this top tycoon were lackluster. In his youth, he had a period of dissolute years, but no one stood up to accuse him. And I don't know when, he was like an outdated star, and even the gossip tabloids didn't care about him. Younger Lex Luthor or some other tycoon was the main target of that group of paparazzi.

Clark sat in front of the bed, never so clearly realizing that he and Bruce Wei En were two generations. Although he had worked at the newspaper for a long time, he was still young; but Bruce Wei En was already a middle-aged man.

The experience of the last cult town instance didn't make him realize this. Because Bruce was well-maintained, he was strong, quick-thinking, and the word "aging" would be absurd if used on him.

However, for some reason, after returning to their universe, after they had a long talk, Clark increasingly realized that this monster feared by everyone in Gotham, this man he once couldn't understand and still felt like an unsolved mystery today, was old as if he was moving toward death.

Clark couldn't find any news about Bruce Wei En's dead child on the Internet, so much so that he even started to hate the gossip tabloids for not having sensitive news.

Then he started to hate himself a bit. Knowing that a crisis might be coming, he was still studying Batman here. What kind of magic did he have to take root in his brain?

The burning fireplace, the warm blanket, the incredibly soft sofa, and the moonlight like glass fragments cut by the Gothic window frames, that long talk that night was always tossing and turning in Clark's mind.

"When I die, how do you feel?" He heard Bruce Wei En ask again.

"I feel incredible. Batman, you shouldn't be so fragile, you should stand up and defeat them. But I understand, you are just so fragile, and I didn't protect you well. This is entirely my fault." Clark heard himself say. Listening to it again, he also thought this was his sincere words.

"My fragility is not your fault. This is not your responsibility."

"No, I should have realized you were fragile, so I could have guarded against it in advance. You wouldn't have been killed by the monster."

"Why didn't you realize it?"

"Because you performed very powerfully. I thought you were very smart, very powerful. I thought you didn't need me to protect you. But facts proved I was wrong. My understanding of you was problematic. Perhaps I should have understood you more deeply, so everything wouldn't have happened."

"We didn't give each other such a chance." Bruce Wei En said, "We disliked each other from the first time we saw each other. But it's a pity we couldn't maintain it until the end."

"You think this is a pity?" Clark heard his voice a bit angry, "Our prejudice against each other made us waste too much time. If we had understood each other more before participating in this instance, we would definitely have performed better."

"I'm sorry." Bruce Wei En said, "Your positive view of our relationship is perhaps a good thing."

"What are you regretting? I'm not the kind of evil super-powered person you imagined who does whatever he wants because of having powerful strength and then should be defeated by you as a matter of course? Do you prefer it this way? Does this make you feel like a hero, a defender of humanity?"

Clark couldn't help covering his face. He knew he was too sharp; he attributed this to the occupational disease of a reporter.

"What I want to say is, people sometimes need to believe in their first feeling. At the very beginning, we didn't like each other, which is a bad sign. This proves that we might be the kind of people we dislike."

"But we are not. We proved in fighting side by side that we can become the best comrades-in-arms like Batman and Superman in other universes. We don't have such a big gap between us. Or is it that my performance error still makes you have concerns?"

"It's not your error that makes me have concerns, it's precisely that you performed too well. To be specific, you treat my safety as your responsibility."

"Isn't this what should be? You are my teammate. Being killed by a monster in front of me, I have to take at least more than half the responsibility, or all of it."

"This is the problem. You take too many things as your responsibility. And I think this is not a correct way of doing things."

"I don't understand what you mean. You'd better not be saying I'm meddling, Batman. Even if you won't really die in the game, the process of death is painful. And I just want to save you. I really don't know what's wrong with this."

"I know you have the ability to save everyone in this world, but this doesn't mean you have to take them all as your responsibility."

"Why? Why can't I do it when I have the ability?"

"When you want to carry everyone on your shoulders, you will move further and further away from them. This urgent mood of wanting to be responsible for them will make you lose your mind and eventually backfire. The more urgent you are, the faster the loss will come."

"I still maintain my point of view, I don't think there's anything wrong with this. If a person with the ability to help others doesn't do it, but stands in place and watches the tragedy happen, this world is finished."

In Batman's sigh, Clark woke up suddenly. He looked at the computer screen that was still lit and the sky that had completely turned black, feeling as if he had had another dream.

That sigh echoed in his mind. Clark heard a deep sadness from it that he had never noticed before. At this moment, he realized that these words Batman said to him were heartfelt words from personal experience.