Chapter 4414: Prelude to Darkness (Part 6)

Victor flew down, and Dr. Stone showed an expression of surprise, or rather, panic, the moment he saw him.

"What are you doing?" Victor asked, suppressing his anger. "What did you do to Mother?!"

"Victor, listen to me explain." Dr. Stone quickly calmed down and said, "But I need to know first, besides you, who else knows you came here."

Victor really wanted to curse out loud, but he maintained his last bit of sanity, gritted his teeth, and said, "Bruce helped me find you."

Dr. Stone instantly pursed his lips, seemingly very dissatisfied with this answer. He said, "Call him now and tell him I'm fine, that everything is a misunderstanding. Otherwise, I won't tell you anything."

Victor looked at him in disbelief. Dr. Stone stepped forward and said, "Listen, Victor. I haven't done anything out of line in my life, but they were the ones who started it. I'm just... I'm just reversing this mistake."

Victor vaguely felt something was wrong. He stared closely at Dr. Stone and said, "What exactly did you do?"

"You send a message to Bruce Wayne first."

Victor took two steps back and said, "It's not like this. Do you still remember you taught me not to lie?"

"Yes, I know. But this time is an exception." Dr. Stone spread his hands and said, "Your mother is always an exception, isn't she?"

Mentioning his mother, Victor finally couldn't hold it together. He punched a tree nearby, his whole body trembling.

"Victor, believe me. My love for her is absolutely no less than yours. All of this is for her..."

Victor looked at Dr. Stone, seeing his solemn expression and the look that didn't seem fake at all. He closed his eyes hard, took out his phone, and because he was worried his tone would give him away, he simply sent a message to Bruce.

He explained everything as his father missing his mother too much, which was why he had done such an extreme thing. Under his persuasion, everything was fine now.

After explaining, he continued to stare at Dr. Stone. Dr. Stone let out a long breath, his shoulders relaxed, and then he took Victor into the laboratory.

The moment the door opened, Victor was completely stunned. His mother was actually lying in a culture tank full of solution—not bones, not a projection, but his living mother.

"This... this..."

Victor was speechless for a moment. He said, "How is this possible?! Mom clearly..."

Because he had recalled the specific scene of the car accident earlier. He remembered that his mother, sitting in the driver's seat, had suffered a very severe impact, her body a mess, and it was only barely stitched together later by a mortuary cosmetologist. When viewing the remains, he hadn't dared to look at all.

But now, his mother soaking in the culture tank was very complete, with no stitched wounds on her body. Except for her eyes being closed, she looked very fresh. So much so that Victor walked over uncontrollably, placing his hand on the surface of the culture tank, seemingly wanting to touch his mother's face.

"What exactly is going on?" Victor asked. "How is it possible..."

He turned his head to look at Dr. Stone and said, "What did you do?"

Dr. Stone shook his head, also walked to the culture tank, and said, "You definitely won't believe it. It was your mother who asked me to save her."

"What?!"

"On Christmas Eve, I received a text message from her. She said it was very dark there, and she wanted to spend Christmas with us..."

Victor stared at his father, dumbfounded, as if he were a madman. Of course, he wouldn't believe such gibberish, but his mother was appearing here, complete and whole, so he couldn't help but believe it.

He looked up at the culture tank again. His mother's expression seemed to have changed slightly. Victor leaned in to look and discovered that the figure in the culture tank seemed to be breathing.

"I don't know what's going on either; perhaps it's a miracle. But your mother has been resurrected." Dr. Stone looked at Victor and said, "I don't want to know how she was resurrected; I just want her to come back to life. She must come back to life, do you understand?!"

Dr. Stone's emotions were clearly somewhat out of control. The bad premonition in Victor's heart had come true, but there was also a voice inside telling him that his father was doing the right thing.

His mother's death wasn't an accident, but a conspiracy woven by those damn bastards. Their family hadn't done anything wrong, yet they had borne the most tragic ending. It shouldn't be like this. All of this shouldn't have happened. This world owed them.

The voice grew stronger and stronger, and Victor was almost out of control. He stared straight at his mother's face, thinking, just this once. He just wanted to hear his mother say one more word, really, just this once.

Victor took a deep breath and said, "So what's going on now?"

"Your mother has indeed been resurrected. But now, the energy in her body isn't enough to support her movement. We need to replenish her nutrition, and then she will be able to communicate with us."

"How much energy is needed?"

"No, you can't use the Mother Box to transmit directly." Dr. Stone shook his head and said, "That would be too crude; she wouldn't be able to handle it. But you can charge the nutrient solution; that might be faster."

"However, you have a more important task." Dr. Stone looked at Victor and said, "Don't let the Justice League know about this; they won't agree."

"Why?"

"Resurrection from the dead is too shocking. Moreover, I think you should know that this can't be without a price. I swear I will clean everything up. Don't let anyone know."

Victor's ominous premonition grew stronger, but he really couldn't resist the temptation of seeing his mother one more time. So he nodded and said, "I will try my best to keep it secret, but I'm not sure if I can hide it from Bruce. He is just too..."

"Try to see him less." Dr. Stone said, "We'll just stay here and wait for your mother to wake up. It won't be long now."

After Victor left, Bruce had been tracking his signal. But soon the signal disappeared, and he realized the other party might have entered the Red Room base.

Not long after, he received a text message from Victor. But after reading it, Bruce frowned. He knew things definitely weren't that simple. But just at this moment, J'onn sent a communication request.

"Bruce, don't you want to learn more about Martian culture? I remember there is an underground library in the east of the city; that's the archive of the Martian city. Do you want to go with me?"

"No, J'onn, you go yourself. I have some things to attend to here."

Hanging up the phone, Bruce felt something was wrong again. J'onn had said before that his home was in the east of the city. Previously, J'onn had always resisted entering the Martian city; although he had gotten a little better later, he still didn't want to go to the east of the city, as every blade of grass and tree there would stir up his memories.

But this time, he had actually taken the initiative to mention going to the east of the city to check. Although he was going to the underground library, which might not be in the same place as his home, it was still not very normal.

Through the work log sent back by the Martian spaceship, Bruce discovered that J'onn had gone immediately after hanging up the phone, and unlike before, he hadn't locked his landing point in the center of the city but had landed directly in the east of the city. It was truly getting stranger and stranger.

Bruce sighed. He left the Batcave, went upstairs, sat on the sofa, and began to ponder. Perhaps things were just as he and Schiller had deduced, but it had still come too fast, somewhat caught off guard.

He took out his phone and sent a message. Schiller soon pushed open the manor's door, looked at Bruce, and said, "It really came, right?"

"Yes, and it should have come while Steppenwolf was invading. It's just that this is indeed a bit eerie. I can't be sure..."

"Wait and see," Schiller said. "He won't only have this much ability. You made such a big splash in the Steppenwolf incident; he will definitely come for you."

"That's exactly what I'm worried about. Perhaps..."

The phone rang violently, and even Bruce was startled. He turned his head abruptly to look at the landline phone placed at the entrance of the stairs; after the popularization of mobile phones, there was almost no one who would call this phone.

Bruce stood up and walked toward the phone. But he didn't answer it immediately; instead, he reached out and pulled the phone line out directly.

This stunned Schiller. Bruce was exactly the kind of person that ghosts in horror movies were most afraid of encountering. Before, in that cultist dungeon, he hadn't even thought about exerting himself; otherwise, whether those cultists could have lasted until the main storyline finished was questionable.

However, this method was indeed very useful. Because after pulling out the phone line, the phone was still ringing. This meant this incoming call was destined to be extraordinary. Bruce went directly back to the Batcave, put on the Hellbat armor, then took a cover made of some unknown material to cover the phone, and brought it into the Batcave.

Then, he placed the phone inside the cover onto an instrument. The readings began to change. Schiller looked at the readings above and said, "Seems a bit familiar."

He opened the interface of the World of Dou, found the monitoring data regarding dark energy sent to him by the main universe Batman, and looked at the identical numbers above. Schiller revealed a smile: "Caught you."

Until all the readings were recorded, Bruce carefully took the phone to the laboratory bench nearby, took away the cover, picked up the receiver, and said in a low voice to the other side: "Hello?"

"Hello? Bruce?"

Schiller saw Bruce's movements pause significantly, so he walked to Bruce's side. He heard a somewhat childish voice coming from the phone receiver.

"It's me. Are you okay? Which Christmas is this that you've spent since I died?"

"Damian." Bruce called out his name. "Where are you?"

"You know. Come find me."

Then the phone was hung up. Schiller looked at Bruce somewhat worriedly and said, "You should know this is a conspiracy, right?"

"Yes, I know." Bruce said. "But I still have to go over there."

"You..." Schiller said somewhat hesitantly, "I know you are very confident, feeling that you will absolutely not be bewitched. But things might not be that simple. Human control over emotions is often not as strong as one imagines..."

"Since he has already found me, then if I don't show up, he will absolutely not give up. Moreover, we also have to go see what exactly this so-called resurrection has resurrected."

"Since he dared to do this, he has full confidence; it should not just be manipulating a corpse or something. If the other party really inherited Damian's memories and emotions, what are you going to do?"

Bruce, who was walking out, looked back at Schiller and said, "You know better than me, don't you?"

Schiller just watched Bruce's back disappear. He didn't continue to block him, because he knew that no matter what the returning Damian wanted to do, he had returned too late—Batman had already returned from the darkness, and this world had a new sun. ===== CHAPTER 4415 =====