Chapter 4775: Killing Intent on a Rainy Night (I)

Just as the difficulty was selected, the elevator doors on the side of the hall opened. The robots guided the two of them into two separate elevators. As Arkham Batman entered the elevator, he was still thinking that this opening wasn't bad, quite immersive even, much better than the Fighting Realm's method of just walking through a portal.

But he soon felt something was off, because the waiting time in this elevator was far too long. Although he hadn't held much hope for this kind of small workshop, a loading time of a few minutes would be understandable. But Arkham Batman had waited over ten minutes in the elevator, and it was still descending continuously, with no intention of opening its doors.

Arkham Batman began to suspect whether the elevator was broken, or if the level had already started and required him to solve some puzzles to leave the elevator. But perhaps to avoid this very misunderstanding, there was nothing inside the elevator — no buttons, switches, or wall decorations, just empty space.

Arkham Batman could only continue waiting. He recalled that Doctor Manhattan had said earlier they needed to balance attributes and turn their abilities into skills. That would certainly take some time, and might even require Doctor Manhattan to manually operate, so slowness was normal.

After waiting a few more minutes, a full twenty minutes of loading later, the elevator doors finally opened, but to Arkham Batman's surprise, the game still hadn't started. He appeared in an almost pitch-black space.

He sat on a chair, his wrists, ankles, and neck locked in restraints. At the same time, there were four other people beside him, but the space seemed to have a blur effect applied, and the lighting was dim, making it impossible to see clearly who they were.

And in front of the five of them, a beam of light shone down. A figure stood in the light, and although it was only a back view, Arkham Batman still recognized him — it was Shiler.

For some reason, Arkham Batman actually breathed a sigh of relief, because fortunately Shiler had his back to them, not them with their backs to Shiler. Otherwise there would truly be a spectacle to watch.

Suddenly, the ground beneath everyone's feet vanished all at once. Everyone fell downward, and the chairs disappeared as well. Arkham Batman tried hard to maintain his body balance in midair, but it was actually useless, because this was yet another loading segment.

During the fall, they vaguely saw the spires of a castle below growing larger and larger. Simultaneously, a voice rang in their ears: "Valais Castle, a dark land cursed by the devil, never knowing peace generation after generation. Every stormy night of thunder and lightning, the eldest son of the Valais family suffers devil possession. And tonight he seems exceptionally out of control. Exorcists gathered from all over the world can only try every means to seal the devil, or, ultimately be devoured by the devil..."

The instant the lines finished, Arkham Batman found himself fallen into a bush. But it didn't hurt at all, obviously not a real fall. He didn't rush to get up, because lying in the bush could conceal his figure well, and he needed to sort out the plot and this game's mechanics a bit.

Without a doubt, this was an asymmetrical game. There were several exorcists, but only one devil. And the difficulty of this game lay in the fact that both exorcists and devil were played by players. This meant their opponents had no predetermined action patterns, and would be extremely cunning and powerful.

The loading screen before arriving at the castle was, of course, not to waste time, but precisely to let the few of them know roughly what the gameplay was, and who their opponent would be. And the most terrifying thing was that Shiler had randomly drawn the devil.

Just as they had predicted before, although they could duo queue, they couldn't form a team — only ensure both were in the same game, but couldn't ensure they wouldn't be enemies. Arkham Batman somewhat regretted duo queuing with Shiler, and he shouldn't have agreed to Greedy's substitution request; this one swap brought in the most troublesome one.

However, precisely because it was this mode, it instead ignited Arkham Batman's desire for challenge. He knew that in asymmetrical competitive modes, the side with fewer players would certainly receive massive buffs, otherwise a one-versus-many would be impossible. And in such an environment, facing Shiler's pursuit — wasn't that exactly the difficulty he wanted?

So, Arkham Batman didn't have many complaints. He began thinking about the background story again. The opening didn't give much information, but one could still tell it was that same old trope of an ancient family harassed by a devil. And these unlucky exorcists were basically just there to deliver food.

But the background plot mentioned they could seal the devil, which proved there was still a true good ending of completely defeating the devil. This ending was the goal Arkham Batman would strive for, though currently he still didn't know how to seal the devil.

Just as he stood up, Arkham Batman suddenly noticed there were some icons in his field of vision that didn't obstruct sight. Common video game elements like health and stamina were absent, but in the bottom right corner there was a row of things resembling skills. Arkham Batman checked his skills.

He had two passives. One was a racial passive; his race was "Human," and this passive's effect was "Chance to cleanse negative states when conversing with players or characters who are also Human." Arkham Batman understood — this likely emphasized humans' social nature, emphasizing they could gain mental support through interaction with companions.

The other was a class passive. Very unsurprisingly, his class was "Batman." This passive's effect was "Nearly immune to all weather and environmental states, unaffected by ground effects." This skill could also be understood as Batman having strong environmental tolerance and being extremely cautious, watching his step, not easily falling for ground traps.

There were only these two passive skills, and Arkham Batman was somewhat disappointed. He felt he should at least have been given a President-like class passive too, otherwise wasn't his presidency for nothing?

But he could also understand — after all, judging by this castle's era, there probably wasn't a president yet. As for driving skills or mechanical engineering and such, they might also be useless due to the era, so Doctor Manhattan didn't give them.

A pity this was a medieval exorcism background instance; if set in modern times, he might have had more room to shine. Arkham Batman thought. But perhaps it was precisely because he told Doctor Manhattan he wanted a more difficult challenge that Doctor Manhattan deliberately threw him here — quite understanding, really.

Next were active skills. Arkham Batman was still a bit expectant, and these three active skills didn't disappoint him. Perhaps to compensate for his insufficient passives, the three actives were given very generously.

The first skill was "Bat Focus." After use, increases the speed of all channeled sealing or exorcism actions by 30%. When the devil is within 50 yards, the effect increases to 70%.

Arkham Batman thought this should be speeding up cast times. He liked this skill very much, because he hated channeling, and his patience had already been nearly exhausted by the loading time; making him wait there slowly would only make him more impatient.

The second skill was "Puzzle Master." After active use, highlights important clues within 200 yards, and can make clues within 50 yards fly directly into hand.

Arkham Batman didn't like this skill much, because he himself was very good at puzzles; clues could be found slowly, and only the flying-directly-to-hand part had some use, could save a bit of time.

The third was a combat skill "Cape Stun." Use this skill to swing cape, stunning the devil in front, deflecting one devil attack and stunning the target for two seconds. And this skill can stack charges, up to three total, but each use has a two-second interval.

This was the skill Arkham Batman liked most — those two seconds of knocking the enemy airborne and stunned were enough for him to land a twelve-hit combo. Pity that ground takedown and weapon disarm abilities weren't given. But thinking about it, that makes sense — letting him disarm the devil's weapon would be too broken, the devil wouldn't be playable at all.

And Arkham Batman could feel that his physical stats hadn't been lowered much, and reaction speed was about the same. Although this was better for him, it wasn't entirely good news — it meant other players and his enemies also hadn't been nerfed. Especially Shiler — he might have even stronger skills while retaining his physical stats.

The only thing Arkham Batman could know for certain now was that Shiler definitely had a backstab-type skill — meaning damage bonus or tracking against enemies with their backs to him. And he would certainly have a passive where the more injured he is, the higher all his stats become. As for the rest, Arkham Batman couldn't be sure.

But based on the fact that stats weren't nerfed, Arkham Batman could also determine that the game participants should all be people with physical stats similar to his. At least no one should be much weaker than them, otherwise for balance the overall values would have been lowered across the board.

After checking his skills, Arkham Batman crouched in the bush, scanning his surroundings. He should have landed in the castle's garden — not good news, because if someone looked out from the castle's upper floors, they might spot him. He hoped Shiler wasn't on the balcony right now.

Arkham Batman turned around, facing the castle, and slowly backed away. He saw a pavilion behind him and wanted to retreat there to see if more clues could be found. As for the castle, he had no intention of entering now — who knew what monsters lurked inside.

But just as he was retreating, he saw a figure actually climbing on the castle wall. Arkham Batman had to stop and look closely; unfortunately, with the rain now, he couldn't see the specific face, but judging from the wall-climbing movements and proficiency, this might be a Spider-Man. That climbing posture was very spider-like.

There's actually a Spider-Man, Arkham Batman continued retreating and thought. He should have retained Spider-Man's climbing ability, meaning he'd have very strong mobility. But probably not unlimited climbing, otherwise he'd just squat on the highest roof and who could find him?

Sure enough, this Spider-Man climbed about one floor, then jumped onto a balcony — probably waiting for cooldown. In Arkham Batman's view, this was completely suicidal behavior; in a moment Shiler might poke his head out and give him a slash, now that would be interesting.

Arkham Batman believed Shiler should have a map-reveal skill, or be able to see their positions within a certain range. Otherwise, with such a huge castle plus garden, he couldn't find people and would easily be kited to death — that wouldn't be very balanced. But this Spider-Man probably hadn't thought of that.

But just as Arkham Batman was praying for Spider-Man, that Spider-Man actually looked over in his direction, and suddenly pointed at him. Arkham Batman almost instantly understood his meaning — he whipped his head around, and through the misty rain behind him, a black figure stood solitary and alone.