Chapter 4939

"In the sewers?" Arkham Knight said, somewhat surprised, "With Gotham's humidity, what's the difference between putting the car in the sewers and just throwing it in the river?"

"There's still a bit of a difference," Harley said, "Don't underestimate Gotham's fish—if they were easy to deal with, the seagulls wouldn't need to go to the docks for fries."

"Should we go down and take a look?" Polaris clenched his fists and rubbed his palms, "There are definitely plenty of monsters down in the sewers, and the terrain is perfect for me to shine—this time I can really let loose."

"Let's go," Harley said, not delaying any further, "Whether the car works or not, we'll see when we find it. I don't think Brainiac would just sit around doing nothing—giving so many grandiose metaphors to a broken car. He must be getting a lot of sentimental points."

The few of them didn't go down through the entrance at the Rolldown Gang's base. One reason was that the sewers are all connected, so you can always get through; the other was that it's too dangerous on the surface—crossing the street outright isn't advisable.

After going down into the sewers, there were indeed quite a few wandering monsters. Polaris fired one electromagnetic blast and cleared them all out. If we kept going like this, we'd get there soon. But as we walked, Harley began to feel something was off.

She first stood at an intersection looking back, then turned and looked the other way. After gesturing to measure the distance, she said to Arkham Knight: "Don't you feel something's wrong here?"

Arkham Knight wasn't just talking nonsense either. He walked around these few intersections, then said: "The angle of this turn seems off. If you wanted to connect to that side, turning like this is too strange. It feels like there's something in the middle."

"Won't there be a treasure vault or something?!" Polaris said, getting excited again, "I'll smash the wall?"

"Wait a minute," Harley said after thinking, "There are too many secrets underground in Gotham—we can't just charge in blindly. What if, later, something comes bursting out of the wall..."

Before she could finish, several black shadows swished into the sewer. Arkham Knight immediately recognized them: "Claws?!"

Harley also took two steps back in shock: "The Court of Owls?!?"

"Indeed," Arkham Knight said, his expression suddenly enlightened, "Such a classic enemy—how could they not show up?"

"But..." Harley opened her mouth to say, "Our universe doesn't have a Court of Owls."

"What?"

"Brainiac," Harley asked, "You've run out of memories to recycle, so now you're just making things up, right?"

"I haven't," Brainiac said, "You'll find out soon enough."

Now wasn't the time to talk. The Claws were incredibly fast and numerous, lunging at them. Polaris swung his hand and blasted two away, then fired an electromagnetic pulse, clearing all monsters in one direction.

But strangely, after these monsters died, they left no corpses. Polaris frowned, and Arkham Knight said: "They can resurrect. Don't get tangled with them—let's go."

Polaris covered their retreat as they withdrew all the way toward their target. After winding through seven turns and eight bends for a long time, they finally reached that dead end. And the moment Harley saw the car, she couldn't help but laugh in exasperation.

Unlike the real-world dilapidated truck, this one truly deserved to be called Noah's Ark. Harley couldn't help but ask: "Brainiac, do you think every car Batman's ever driven is a Batmobile? What the hell is this thing?!?"

What appeared before them was indeed a Bat-truck. And it was packed with every element to the max—extremely stereotypical, even looking somewhat like the Arkham Batman's Batmobile in style, a super-truck. The whole thing was painted a pitch-black, ink-like shade, with jagged horns. The truck's cargo bed bore a bat emblem.

"If Bruce had driven this thing into the northern district back then, how many gangsters would've survived the night?" Harley complained, but still climbed in quickly.

Arkham Knight took the passenger seat, while Polaris went into the cargo bed. Harley slammed the accelerator, the truck roared to life, and it surged forward through the sewers. After knocking monsters aside, Polaris opened the truck's cargo door and used his magnetic cannon to clear hostiles.

This truck wasn't slow—even the Claws couldn't catch up. But after shaking off all the monsters, Harley said with a headache: "How the hell do we get this big thing up there? I can't dismantle a car."

"Once deployment authorization is granted, it can be deployed anytime," Brainiac said, "This is a basic function of the Batmobile."

"I get the feeling you haven't seen many Batmobiles," Harley said.

"Especially since you seem to fixate on just one," Arkham Knight added.

They were obviously referring to Arkham Batman's Batmobile—huge, ferocious in style, capable of running, jumping, climbing walls, and deployable anytime, anywhere. No other universe's Batmobile is this fantastical.

And after deploying the truck on the surface, Arkham Knight also noticed that Brainiac's learning ability was indeed strong. He had actually replicated the awful handling of Arkham Batman's Batmobile.

Aside from himself, nobody likes to drive Arkham Batman's Batmobile—because it's genuinely hard to drive. The mainstream Batman borrowed the car to rush somewhere, drove halfway, gave up, and just ran the rest of the way on foot. Agents have driven it too—he didn't quit, but afterward evaluated it as: "Eldritch mount"—nothing without eight or ten tentacles is suited to drive this thing.

This truck is the same—operating it is extremely difficult. The steering wheel feels like it has lag, especially unresponsive. Plus, driving a truck is inherently different from driving a regular sedan—the truck is big and heavy, and without some skill, you really can't figure it out.

"Oh my God," Harley yelled, jerking the steering wheel, "I'm never mocking Bruce for not being able to drive a truck past the Joker again. This is way too hard!"

"For the Joker, being a truck driver is practically a perfect job," Arkham Batman said, "You can haul explosives with the truck, and do strength training. Good thing this universe doesn't have a Batman, or else we might really get overturned by a Joker truck driver."

Harley didn't answer that question—probably because she didn't hear it. Her thoughts had drifted again, wondering what she was thinking about. In a daze, the truck arrived near the lighthouse.

"Holy cow," Shout said, having just returned from clearing monsters, "What the hell did Batman do to the truck again?"

The Robins had already started screaming. No denying it—the Bat-truck really is more violent and cooler than the Bat sports car. Turning a truck into this shape is clearly a war machine. Compared to that, the sports car is still too sentimental.

Each of them tried it out, and sure enough, they were all driven off by that awful feel. They eagerly climbed into the cargo bed, ready to take on the roles of machine gunner and main gunner—but no one wanted to be the driver.

"Why not go find Batman?" Harley mused, "Probably only he can figure out how to drive this thing."

Harley turned to look at Charles in the corner. Charles just shook his head and said: "Batman's busy conquering Gotham University."

"He really wants to go head-to-head with the professor, huh?" Harley shook her head.

"He's not going after the final boss," Charles said, "Gotham University really does have a lot worth exploring—there should be some rare items inside. Batman seems to have gotten a clue before heading there."

Batman—or rather, Bruce—was indeed inside Gotham University at that moment, and more specifically, in the psychology department teaching building. Only this time, he hadn't entered the professor's office.

Bruce had indeed followed the mission clue here. The mission log showed there was still a regional boss in the psychology department teaching building. Of course, it wasn't the trapped Scarecrow, but rather a minor boss originally designed for this building. However, the mission description noted that this minor boss could be tamed.

Bruce felt a bit curious. Because he indeed hadn't heard of anyone notable in Gotham University's psychology department. If it weren't for Shiler being the only notable professor who could carry the weight there, the national professional ranking wouldn't be so low.

As it turned out, when he pushed the door open, it wasn't a talented person—but no one could deny its status in the psychology department—this was clearly the paper shredder Bruce had made for Shiler.

As they say, this world is just a giant boomerang. The grass-snake-gray-line from years ago has finally come back to bite him in the form of karmic retribution. After solving years of Bruce's academic trash, the shredder has finally come to deal with Bruce himself.

Even more bizarrely, the shredder's name should actually be "Diana's Blessing," since Bruce commissioned Diana and the gods of Olympus to produce it. From this, we can see Diana isn't mentally unwell or emotionally unstable—she just built that tank main gun. Her weapons are all in this style.

The only small issue is that the shredder, originally barely taller than a person's shin, now comes up to Bruce's shin. It looks like Shiler's resentment incarnate—intending to go from eliminating academic trash to becoming the very producer of academic trash. So it could also be named "Shiler's Wish."

But since we're here, Bruce can only fight it. As for the taming mentioned in the mission description, Bruce didn't even bother to look. In this world, anyone can tame this shredder—except him. The shredder has probably already eaten him and found him tasty.

The massive shredder lunged forward and bit—Bruce dodged by flapping his wing. He was about to turn and counterattack when a paper ball spat out and hit him, slamming him into the wall.

When the paper ball scattered, Bruce saw—hey, isn't this that little paper he wrote during the exam? Bruce sighed. If he'd known earlier that bosses had synergies, he should've written a god-awful paper back then, fed it to the shredder to make it vomit, and then talked.

All kinds of wild ideas came too late to act on—Bruce just charged forward and slashed the shredder with his sword. It flinched in pain, jumped in place, then bared its mouth full of sharp teeth and bit again. Bruce kicked it in the jaw, then immediately followed up with another sword strike.

The shredder began vomiting paper—nothing but the one Bruce had written. Bruce felt annoyed—though he knew he hadn't written it well, he didn't need to...

Just as he thought that, he heard the shredder emit a sharp cry. Bruce sensed something off, instinctively ran toward the window, turned back, and saw a black-mist-shrouded figure appear outside the door.

"Brainiac!" Bruce cursed again, "Who taught you to design monsters like this?!"

"Wasn't this monster designed by you?" Brainiac retorted with a bite—his ability to talk back is now refined to perfection, "When I asked the Olympian gods to forge the shredder, I thought I'd already graduated, so it wouldn't bite me, right?"

"Wait a second," Bruce realized something was off, "Who let you do this so...? Won't it be..."

"Greed sends its regards," Brainiac said, "I didn't want to either, but he really gave too much."