Chapter 4933

Everyone understood that in the current situation, Batman had to plan for the worst-case scenario. If the multiverse was bound to fall into someone else's hands, or if someone could interfere with the multiverse more extensively than they could, then they would indeed prefer that person to be Brainiac, rather than Doctor Manhattan or Darkseid, let alone something like the Black Racer.

The reason was simple: Brainiac was the most orderly of these beings. He was born from logic, which destined him to absolutely never side with chaos. Even for the sake of maintaining his own existence, he had to keep the multiverse orderly.

All the other candidates had a basis for cooperating with the chaotic side. Darkseid himself carried a certain destructive attribute; although he wanted to rule, he was more inclined to rule only the places he wanted to rule, not caring about the rest at all — better if they died. In such a case, he might make certain compromises with those who wanted to destroy the multiverse, such as letting them destroy a few universes.

Doctor Manhattan's attitude was currently unclear, but from his actions it could be seen that he had already grown very distant from humanity. Moreover, there was a Manhattan Batman among the Batmen. Rather than letting Doctor Manhattan come, it would be better to let Manhattan Batman come. And if Manhattan Batman lost, Doctor Manhattan probably couldn't hold out either.

The Black Racer was the same — too close to the chaotic side, to the point of not caring about casualties at all. Even if the entire multiverse died until only a few Earths remained, they wouldn't care; that was absolutely unacceptable.

The remaining angels and devils wouldn't intervene directly, and interstellar civilizations like the Little Blue Men had checkered pasts and insufficient ability. If one absolutely had to pick the tallest among dwarfs, Brainiac's resume was still very impressive.

First, he rose to power from Shiler's universe. Under the interference of the Brainiac from Shiler's universe, many universes' Brainiacs — including those of the main universe and other important universes — did not launch invasions of Earth, nor did they collect planets and shove them into bottles as before.

In Little Brainiac's own words, it's normal to like playing marbles as a kid, but when you grow up you still have to consider the problem of putting food on the table.

This slightly erased his side as an evil AI. Batman was, after all, someone who judged by deeds not intentions; even if Brainiac wanted to do that, as long as he hadn't put it into practice, it didn't count.

Then, when he waged war with Earth, he placed great emphasis on the casualty ratio. But actually this wasn't voluntary — if the losses were too great, this 1999 wouldn't be survivable. He could only be forced to calculate carefully, using the most limited forces to repel the most enemies; his ability in this regard earned Batman's recognition.

Then came the later stage of ruling Earth. Although many initial decrees were too rigid, they were quickly corrected, and now a relatively balanced path has basically been explored; he plays the role of an omniscient, omnipotent philosopher-king quite well. Although this may also carry some forced elements — really, he was driven to it by these protected-zone animals leaving him no choice — as long as a solution can be found, that already counts as quite formidable.

Moreover, in the field of electronic life, someone has gone further than Brainiac: JARVIS from next door. This means there's someone to check Brainiac, able to pose a certain deterrent so he doesn't go too far.

Looked at this way, Brainiac is the best among the second-best choices. So Batman absolutely would not let Doctor Manhattan completely eliminate Brainiac. Doctor Manhattan probably knows this too, which is why he didn't use lethal force. Who in the entire multiverse isn't wary of Batman?

Understanding this, Tim felt slightly more at ease. Then he heard Batman say: "However, don't expect Batman to shoulder everything. If Brainiac can't prove he's strong enough, Batman won't forcibly protect him either."

"What about now?" Harley asked. "Do you think he passed?"

"He performed beyond expectations," Batman scanned the room, then said, "Or rather, you all performed beyond expectations."

The Agent was a bit speechless. Had he known he could help, he wouldn't have brought the gun over for them to study. Now it was good — a perfectly bad situation had turned good.

"Wait," Red Robin seemed to recall something. He said, "You said Doctor Manhattan is a quantum-state existence and an expert in that area. Then our research into the observer effect — isn't that showing off our slight skill before a real expert?"

Everyone also reacted one after another. They had caused a glitch in Brainiac's system by using the observer effect to remove protection against temporal paradoxes. This was clearly the domain of quantum mechanics — how did Doctor Manhattan instead trip over his own specialty?

"It's not just the gun's problem," Arrogance still chose to come clean. "Roughly at the same time you created the temporal paradox, or slightly later, I used the Anti-Life Equation."

"Hiss..." Several main-universe Robins exchanged glances. They were very familiar with this thing, because Batman often mentioned it — not because Batman wanted it, but because Darkseid wanted it.

Darkseid thought about the Anti-Life Equation day and night. Something Darkseid coveted so much had to be extremely powerful. Doctor Manhattan might not be able to figure it out either, or he might simply have been unprepared, suddenly hit by the Anti-Life Equation, and then didn't have time to reverse the situation.

"That's why I said you performed beyond expectations," Batman lowered his eyelids and said. "If there was no advance planning, it only shows Manhattan was even unluckier than you."

"That's pretty unlucky," Ted said. "This really wasn't our plan, pure coincidence..."

"No, not necessarily," Harley suddenly spoke up. "Don't forget, what made us use these moves."

The atmosphere in the room went quiet for an instant. It wasn't that they only realized it now; it was just genuinely hard to notice. They went to study that gun because the Drowner monster was hard to deal with and happened to fear sound and light, and that gun happened to be able to produce extremely loud noise.

The gun wasn't made by Brainiac, but the game participants were chosen by him, and the monster was created by him.

Arrogance's side was the same. That umbrella wasn't brought by Brainiac, but he knew about it. The intensity of the second ambush was also controlled by him.

The entire Gotham University was restricted so tightly that almost all locks couldn't be opened and all buildings couldn't be entered — all designed by Brainiac. Precisely because of this, Arrogance's squad ran out of ammunition and supplies so easily.

In other words, seemingly Brainiac was defenseless and knocked flying by Doctor Manhattan's elbow, but in reality, his survival wasn't a coincidence — it was all guided by his design of the game process.

Using research on the blessing on Diana, he stuck himself on Mount Olympus, making Doctor Manhattan hesitate to act. At the same time, to prevent this process from being interfered with, he had Arrogance pull out the Anti-Life Equation, giving Doctor Manhattan a complete surprise.

But thinking about it, regarding Arrogance wanting to use the Anti-Life Equation, Brainiac only gave a verbal warning once. Even earlier when Arrogance brought the boss to the exam site, doing something as obvious as ordering fried rice in a tavern, he merely complained once.

Although he couldn't do anything to Shiler before, he could at least give a sharper alert tone; this time he couldn't even be bothered to beep twice — this clearly looks like deliberate indulgence.

"Little Bu is pretty impressive." Pamela praised.

"He might be even more impressive than you think," Batman said again. "He isn't trying to defend and counterattack — he wants to take the initiative to attack."

"Fear toxin?" Charles thought of it. "But it should be ineffective against Doctor Manhattan, right?"

"It is indeed ineffective against Doctor Manhattan, but it's effective against Watchmen members," Batman paused. "And it's effective against Nite Owl too."

Tim actually had many more questions — why Doctor Manhattan valued Nite Owl, why he saved him repeatedly? Why Brainiac also had to strike from him?

But he realized this might relate to Batman's internal situation, so he wisely didn't ask. Red Hood clearly wanted to ask, but was stopped by Red Robin. Some things really don't need to be asked so clearly — it would only add unnecessary worry.

If Doctor Manhattan supports Nite Owl, letting him return to the Batman group as a stirrer of trouble, the main-universe Batman's situation would only become more difficult — truly caught between enemies on all sides. Among the Robins, only Tim Drake could see some clues, but they would all wisely not point it out. It wasn't that they didn't care about Batman; it was just that there was no need to be so pessimistic as to prepare to fight for the cowl now — who would end up with it was still unknown.

"What can we do?" Nightwing asked.

"Play the game well," Batman said. "Explore the system limits as much as possible, make some records, and truthfully report Brainiac's level to the multiverse."

"That's simple," Damian said. "Not that it needs saying, but this game is actually pretty well-made. An online game lagging and disconnecting is normal; he didn't make us wait too long. I can give him a good review."

Damian was the pickiest among these people; since he said that, the other Robins naturally had no objections. Then they started researching how to fight that Outer God again. Although they couldn't study the gun this time, the basic process was already worked out.

So the Robins swarmed out. Both squads from Wayne Manor and Viscount Manor, plus the Agent and Deathstroke, basically all went. Now, only Arrogance and Batman remained in Viscount Manor.

Arrogance sat back on the sofa, let out a long sigh, rarely showing a trace of worry. Batman still stood in the shadows. Arrogance seemed to hesitate for a long time before finally speaking.

"Where's your base?"

"The West District." Batman answered.

Arrogance looked away, sighed softly: "Why didn't Doctor Manhattan just kill Brainiac?"

Brainiac had ample reason to play dead — asked about it, he'd just say he was hit by a heavy punch and hasn't recovered yet; he stayed completely silent.

"You'd better not be thinking of going to fight the final boss," Arrogance looked at Batman and said. "You've tortured me for so many years — don't go torture another me."

Batman finally walked over. He turned his head left and right, took off the Batman cowl, revealing the familiar face of Bruce Wayne. But when he smiled, no one wouldn't know which Bruce Wayne he was.

"Professor." He said.

Arrogance extended a hand, making a stopping gesture: "Don't use that voice, I have a headache."

"Cough cough," Bruce cleared his throat. "Don't be afraid, Professor. There's no Batman here."