Chapter 4940: There Is No Batman Here (Forty-Five)

Bruce actually wanted to run at first. Because the task Batman assigned him was only to watch Brainiac and Doctor Manhattan; the game's outcome had nothing to do with him. But Brainiac announced his greedy lineage in one go, and Bruce became a bit unwilling.

Although, as a paper shredder, this thing was indeed a bit too lively. But why provoke it when you're not shredding paper? You got bitten yourself and still blame me — is that right?

Bruce was angry from all sides, and malice grew from desperation. Can't beat Xilei, so I still can't beat you, a paper shredder?

Bruce indeed wasn't weak; often he just didn't want to fight. He reached out, and dense dark energy surged forth, forming an airtight large net that directly enveloped the paper shredder.

The paper shredder struggled desperately, and that black shadow by the door followed close behind. Bruce ignored the final boss, simply grabbing the paper shredder with dark energy and smashing out the window, taking it out of the building directly.

Last time Bruce discovered that Xilei seemed unable to leave the Psychology Building. But that makes sense — if he could wander anywhere, how would players survive?

Bringing the paper shredder to the open ground outside, Bruce swung his greatsword in a combo of consecutive slashes, hacking the paper shredder until it shrieked. But unfortunately the one he wanted to summon simply couldn't come out.

"How to tame this thing?" Bruce asked Brainiac.

"Two ways. One is during the Psychology exam, write the paper shredder's forging method in your thesis. You could have taken that path originally, but now it's too late. The other way is to beat it into submission."

Hearing this, Bruce didn't stand on ceremony either, going up and giving it a fierce beating. The more he slashed, the angrier he got. When he looked for Diana back then, he had inscribed every combat rune he could, and used the best materials, so hacking at it now was especially troublesome — one moment a shield, the next a healing skill; fought for half a day and its health barely dropped.

Bruce thought for a bit; fighting like this wasn't a solution. So he flicked a wing, dragging the monster toward the other side of Gotham University.

His idea was to find another mini-boss and let the two monsters fight each other. After all, this paper shredder didn't look like it was allied with anyone, so it could fight any zone boss.

This move indeed worked. Passing the gymnasium, a zone boss in a football uniform rushed out. The two sides clashed; the football player charged and knocked the paper shredder to the ground, and Bruce seized the chance to rush in and hack wildly.

Unfortunately, the football player was still eaten by the paper shredder. Bruce could only drag it and keep running. Unknowingly, they left Gotham University. Bruce weighed it briefly and chose to go to the South District.

Small monsters on the road were simply no match for the paper shredder's iron jaws and copper teeth. Occasionally encountering zone bosses, they were basically all eaten too. But the damage these zone bosses inflicted all healed back because the escape took too long.

Bruce wasn't worried about this either, because his target was Wayne Tower.

Can't beat this thing myself, so let another me fight it. All learned from Xilei. The best way to spare yourself is to not spare yourself.

Arriving below Wayne Tower, Bruce subconsciously looked up, and sure enough, on the top floor of Wayne Tower, a dark figure stood there. Just as Bruce was thinking how to bring him down, the other party actually jumped down on his own.

When the two Batmen face each other, there's basically only a difference in special effects. Bruce has wings and holy light, while that Batman has an endless black tide behind him. Like one is a Light Batman, the other a Dark Batman.

The scene is quite grand and shocking; the only problem is that paper shredder next to them has a different art style, like it walked out of a Tom and Jerry set, making the whole atmosphere unable to be serious.

After dragging the monster over, Bruce withdrew having accomplished his goal. Sure enough, Batman and the paper shredder were absolutely not on the same side; the two monsters quickly started fighting. Who knows if the paper shredder targets Bruce specifically — just a mini-boss, yet it could actually fight the final boss evenly.

Truthfully, no one dislikes watching isotope jokes. But unfortunately Bruce's isotopes are all too strong; Batman rarely gets the short end of the stick. Especially when a group of Batmen gather, they're almost immune to encounters, so they look down on the entertainment even more.

Didn't expect Brainiac to give him this chance. Though the other side isn't a proper isotope, watching him get chased and bitten by the paper shredder is still quite entertaining. No wonder Arrogance knew the paper shredder bites but still didn't warn Greed. This thing is interesting.

Bruce was watching the spectacle with great relish when he heard a cry of surprise beside him:

"Holy shit, what happened?!"

Turned out to be the players staying at Viscount Manor, wanting to come to Wayne Manor to scout the final boss's intel, and they ran into the paper shredder's great battle with Batman. Tim was shocked too — what situation is this?

Bruce didn't show himself; he needed to appear as little as possible before people of this universe, otherwise he'd be recognized too easily.

"This seems to be..." Tim hesitated.

"Why do I feel this monster shouldn't appear here?" Lilith asked. "Their art styles don't match at all. Brainiac, did your system glitch again?"

"Not that." Brainiac said.

"Batman wouldn't still want to retrieve his thesis from the paper shredder, would he?" Tim said in astonishment. "Is that really necessary?"

Seeing it was one thing, but neither of them planned to join. After all, they only came to gather intel. Tim observed Batman's movements, shook his head and said: "This Batman's strength is too low."

Indeed, this Batman's attack methods are the same old Batman routine — grappling hooks, batarangs, that sort of thing. The black tide around him has some corrosiveness, but his skill execution is very rigid.

But this is normal. Batman's greatest strength is his wisdom. If Brainiac could simulate Batman's wisdom, he wouldn't need to go around in so many circles.

Moreover, monsters are designed without much intelligence. Losing his greatest advantage, Batman only has disadvantages left. On one hand he's human with no special powers; on the other, Brainiac doesn't dare modify Batman too powerfully. If some petty Batman found out, he'd get flipped too.

"I said we should kill this boss first." Tim said. "Think about it and you know — a Batman without plans or tactics can't be stronger than those few others."

"Or call them back?" Lilith said. "I think we can sneak attack while these two monsters fight each other..."

"No need to call them," Tim thought and said. "We should be enough. Go back and prepare some explosives and gear; maybe we can kill two monsters at once. If not, taking out that mini-boss works too — it looks like it could drop good gear."

Tim went back to prepare — actually nothing special to prepare, mainly explosives, explosives, and more explosives. And rehearse the aggro-pulling process with Cassandra.

Not that Tim didn't want to go himself, but he knew clearly he didn't have those skills. While these two monsters fight each other, he'd need to successfully draw both their attention and lure them to a spot. This job probably only Cassandra can do — she reacts fast and is agile. Anyone else would easily get killed by these two monsters.

Arriving at Wayne Tower, Tim buried the explosives first. He wasn't sure if this yield could kill both monsters in one go, but it was the highest price he was willing to pay; if it didn't kill them, so be it.

Then Cassandra went to pull aggro, Lilith monitoring her heart-voice at all times. Not long after, Lilith shouted: "They're coming!"

Tim focused, ready to detonate the explosives. Two monsters rushed in one after another; Cassandra used her grappling hook to fly away. Boom— a small mushroom cloud rose in front of Wayne Tower.

Tim grinned through gritted teeth. Your Uncle Jack is truly gifted in this area — looks like ordinary commercial explosives, but who knows how he mixes them, the blast power is far greater than the yield should allow. And the more detonated at once, the greater the power; this one nearly brought down Wayne Tower.

Tim felt it should have succeeded, but there was no mission success prompt. Tim looked around — the paper shredder was indeed gone, a few pieces of gear dropped on the ground. But Batman's figure had vanished, no corpse, no gear.

"What's going on?" Tim asked. "Brainiac, you wouldn't want to swallow..."

"Boss has a special skill," Brainiac replied. "Confirmed death gives a prompt; no prompt means not killed."

Tim sighed. Could Batman be fighting his way out of the Underworld right now?

But he didn't think too much, just walked over to pick up the gear. This paper shredder that could fight Batman evenly was indeed formidable; the dropped gear wasn't ordinary either. And among them, what left Tim most speechless was that the paper shredder dropped eight fragments.

Normally, only legendary-grade gear has fragments. But actually these eight fragments are Bruce's thesis; the item name is "Bruce Wayne's Thesis".

They can be assembled into a complete item, and if Tim guessed right, it should be exactly what counters the final boss modeled after Professor Xilei.

But the biggest problem is, this thing has to be assembled by yourself, and Tim doesn't know how to assemble it. This thing Bruce wrote gives him a headache just looking at it.

Not saying Tim thinks it's badly written from an expert's angle. If he were an expert, he could roughly see Bruce's train of thought. The problem is his own psychoanalytic theory level is also half-baked — like a bad student teaching a bad student, explaining back and forth until both are dizzy.

Tim had no choice but to take the fragments back, see if he could get Professor Xilei or Batman to assemble them. The former understands the terminology, the latter understands Bruce's thinking — there's always a way to assemble it.

Though Tim felt that asking Professor Xilei to assemble this, he might prefer letting the whole game be lost. Asking Batman to assemble it, letting Bruce's masterpiece spread through the entire Batman community — that might not be a matter of game victory or defeat anymore.

"Consider whether to just assemble it for me directly," Tim thought he was kindly reminding. "Brainiac, playing with shit has a price. You'd better have some means to subdue Professor Xilei."

"I don't, so don't ask him to assemble it." Brainiac was equally righteous. "Study a bit, review materials were given to you."

Tim flipped over in anger. So that purple textbook that dropped before was for this?