Chapter 4961

When several people went to the city center, they found Constantine doing a mission here. Tim asked: "Where is Shiler?"

"He went elsewhere." Constantine shook his head and said, "Are you ready to fight the final boss?"

Tim nodded, and he didn't even ask Constantine why this team hadn't shown up much. To be honest, it was better if Constantine didn't show up. Although the black-haired Constantine was different from the others, his reputation was still too great—just hearing it made one's heart tremble. Who knows if there might be some curse? It was better if he didn't show up.

Then they began searching the commercial street in the city center. This area had a whole street full of restaurants, right next to Grand Street.

This belonged to a declining old commercial district, developed far worse than the new commercial district by the docks. Basically, only old money occasionally came here to reminisce about the past. Young people preferred to go to the trendy restaurants by the docks.

Tim and Harley also didn't like coming here. The taste here was truly too old-money style, a bit too bland, as if they couldn't afford spices and salt. Moreover, although Gotham had plenty of fresh fish, here they only made tasteless fish fillets. It was said that it started with a group of English people, which wasn't surprising.

So they put in considerable effort before finally finding frozen broccoli in the kitchen of a restaurant. However, the quantity was not small—there was an entire large box.

"Will frozen broccoli work?" Tim asked a good question; neither of them knew. They only knew that during the broccoli disaster that swept through Gotham years ago, the broccoli that grew on the ground was all fresh. Frozen broccoli had indeed never been tried.

"If it doesn't work, we're doomed," Harley said, "Or we could try it on the professor?"

"You're really crazy," Tim paused, "but we really need to try. Otherwise, if we go there and it doesn't work, we're doomed."

"But if we test it in advance, the survival probability isn't that high either," Harley said, her gaze falling on the broccoli.

"Die early or die late, we still have to die," Tim said, "I choose to die early—the professor's methods won't be too cruel at least. That monster might not be so merciful."

"That makes sense," Harley nodded.

The arrogant one standing in the living room looked at the two and said: "You mean, because you don't know whether that monster will be allergic to frozen broccoli, you plan to test it on me first?"

Tim sighed: "I said I wanted to log off and sleep, and you probably don't believe me, Professor. But I'm really curious..."

"Or you could just tell us directly," Harley shrugged, "It's not like we have to gain true knowledge through practice."

"Why would you doubt it wouldn't work?" the arrogant one asked, not angry.

"Because if someone is allergic to something, it might not be purely physiological," Harley said, "And if it's psychological allergy, it could be due to color, shape, or even smell. In these aspects, frozen broccoli and fresh broccoli are indeed not exactly the same."

"You've thought this through quite thoroughly," the arrogant one sat down and said, "But I think you're overthinking. Brainiac couldn't possibly know why I'm allergic, nor could he set it up that precisely. It should just be broccoli in general."

"Besides, testing on me might not even work. After all, I'm a living person, while that monster is just a program written by Brainiac. Even if it works on me, if Brainiac doesn't give this weakness, it's useless."

"That's true," Harley said regretfully.

The arrogant one naturally didn't miss her regretful expression, he smiled and said: "You've been waiting for this day for a long time, haven't you?"

"Not being able to witness your allergy firsthand back then was truly regrettable," Harley said bluntly, without pretense, "Of course, we also didn't see anyone shoot broccoli with a gun. Being young is just a disadvantage."

The arrogant one laughed again: "If you want, I can shoot broccoli with a gun."

"No, without the right mood, it lacks the flavor," Tim waved his hand, "We'd better go fight the monster."

So Harley carried that box of broccoli toward Gotham University's Psychology Department, rather than this universe's people not knowing what they were doing—it could truly be described as utterly bewildering.

But Harley wasn't crazy for the first time. To be precise, the people in this universe weren't quite normal either; doing shocking things wasn't strange. Just assume broccoli had some special effect.

Before fighting the monster, they still arranged tactics. The locals were very familiar with the office terrain, although Brainiac had expanded it, the basic layout remained unchanged. There were many unbreakable covers inside, which they used for maneuvering space.

However, while arranging tactics, hearing that Harley planned to use broccoli to trap the boss inside, everyone was full of question marks. If you say this is some kind of formation, isn't this material too monotonous? And if this is a formation used to trap something, what was the first person who used this formation thinking? How did they think of using broccoli for a formation?

"Damian should come over," Red Robin said honestly, "He hates eating broccoli the most. This stuff could really trap him."

"Exactly," Harley said, snapping her fingers, "The professor is allergic to broccoli."

"This is a bit too far-fetched," Red Robin said, "You can't possibly expect the boss to suddenly order black pepper lamb ribs with broccoli on the battlefield. If he doesn't eat it, how can he be allergic?"

"No need to eat it," Harley said, "This is a psychological allergy—just seeing it is enough."

Red Robin still had some doubts, but he didn't say anything else. Anyway, trying it wouldn't hurt, and maybe it would work.

They soon entered the battlefield. According to the earlier tactical setup, Cassandra, the most agile and skilled, went to grab the boss, while Harley took the opportunity to sprinkle broccoli on the ground to restrict the boss's movement.

As soon as they entered, that black-mist-shrouded figure flashed over instantly. Cassandra reacted extremely fast, bent to dodge, then lifted her leg to kick. Seeing the boss prepare to stab with an umbrella, she instantly changed her move, twisted her body to dodge, then pulled the boss toward another direction.

Harley hurriedly sprinkled broccoli on the ground, time was tight, she didn't have time to form any formation, just scattered it evenly—this way the boss wouldn't come here, and then she could gradually compress his movement space.

The idea was good, but the boss made a lunge, directly charging to where the broccoli was, with no intention of avoiding it at all.

"How is that possible!" Harley shouted in shock, "Brainiac, you're being too unrigorous!"

Coincidentally, Brainiac had no response at this moment. Harley felt some confusion, but she had to deal with the situation at hand first, because this guy was charging at her to kill.

Harley's skills were not weak either—she had trained in gymnastics and martial arts, so she dropped to the ground to dodge the thrust, then rolled to dodge the downward stab. When she got up, she looked a bit embarrassed, but Red Robin fired a shot from afar, slightly pushing the boss back, and Harley still dodged the attack.

Harley had just breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the boss charging toward Red Robin again. She also quickly raised her hand to aim her gun, but unlike Red Robin, she held a shotgun. Bang! A shot, and the boss's figure swayed.

Harley felt some confusion again—this boss didn't seem as strong as imagined. Although she also knew that Professor Shiler's martial arts weren't actually strong, his strongest point was mental attack. But mental attacks still need some form of attack, right? How come after half a minute at the door, there was no movement?

The doubts in her heart grew heavier, and her movements became more cautious. She always felt something was off, even starting to slowly move toward the room's edge. Not because she wanted to swim, but because she needed to prepare for possible sudden situations.

The battle in the field was intense, Cassandra and the boss were fighting head-on, while the others flanked from the sides, and both sides could actually fight back and forth.

Suddenly, Harley felt that everything around her had stopped—this was a very strange feeling, like a program sensing system lag.

This moment lasted only about zero point something seconds; the people busy fighting didn't notice, only Harley, whose attention wasn't on the battlefield, felt it. She felt more and more that something was wrong, so she simply stopped shooting and hid in the corner to observe.

Then another one. This time the duration was slightly longer than before, so it looked like a dropped frame. Then another one, and this one was quite noticeable.

Immediately after, there were frequent extremely short lags, as if due to some reason memory was overwhelmed, causing frame rate to drop drastically. Originally it was at least 144 frames, now it was probably only around 60 frames.

Harley's mental alarm bells rang loudly—she quickly sent a message to the arrogant one, but got no reply. Then she started broadcasting, but the communication system seemed to have stopped working, and then the terminal shut down as well.

Suddenly, Charles looked at her, his eyes flashing with light, and the next second Harley found herself in Charles's mental world, along with all the players present.

They all felt a bit dazed, but soon through Charles's eyes they saw a virtual shadow surrounded by blue light descend onto the battlefield.

"Doctor Manhattan!" Harley exclaimed in shock, "How could he..."

But soon she reacted. Doctor Manhattan had previously attacked Brainiac, aiming to destroy Brainiac's game system. But Brainiac hadn't been destroyed, the game system had no problems at all—this was clearly not what Doctor Manhattan wanted to see. He absolutely could not let this game proceed smoothly.

There were four bosses in total, three had already been killed, and this last one looked like it was about to die too—if he didn't act now, this test would be completed successfully. And judging from the entire game process performance, though not universally praised, it was quite good. Doctor Manhattan would not allow this to happen. Simply put, he was anxious.

The earlier system lag should have been Doctor Manhattan trying to hack in, consuming too much memory.

But why did Charles seem to have anticipated this, even directly protecting their mental forms?

The next second, Harley had the answer. Because that figure which looked dazed from system lag, standing still foolishly, modeled after Shiler, suddenly lifted its head.

The black mist dispersed, and Harley immediately realized: this was not a game boss created by Brainiac. This was a real Shiler!

What a brilliant move of hiding the sky and stealing the beam! Harley bared her teeth. Was Brainiac planning to use this Shiler to deal with Doctor Manhattan? But what ability did he have that could threaten a quantum being?

But the following scene was strange. That Shiler merely lifted his eyes slightly, with no movement and no sign of any attack. Doctor Manhattan suddenly froze, as if he had seen something unbelievable.

The next second, everyone returned to reality. Charles's voice appeared in Bruce's mind.

"Success. The entire game system containing pollution was written backward into Doctor Manhattan's body through the collective unconscious—he had no choice."