Chapter 628: Pathological Crisis (End)

When Bruce rushed into the room, Schiller had already disappeared. This time, the darkness lasted exceptionally long, so much so that Bruce, without night-vision goggles, didn't see how Schiller had left at all.

This office had more than one door; such a long period of darkness was enough for Schiller to leave through any other door. Bruce knew this, so he didn't panic and chase, but instead began to check the situation inside the room.

In the darkness, Bruce held a micro-flashlight and began to check the scene, but in fact, there was nothing to investigate here. Bruce had already seen everything from the window; the only things of value here were that chair, that corpse, and the blood all over the floor.

There was simply too much blood here; the heavy smell of blood made Bruce feel a bit dizzy. Just then, he suddenly discovered a trail of footprints made of blood on the floor.

He walked over to look and found that they should be footprints left by men's leather shoes, which perfectly matched Schiller's size.

But Bruce felt that this was a trap because he knew that Schiller possessed special abilities far beyond ordinary people. He didn't need to walk to leave, so how could he leave footprints?

Perhaps this was another way for him to lead the gaze, but Bruce could only follow this clue because, besides the heart of justice to pursue the truth and bring the murderer to justice, Bruce had another impulse.

He had witnessed Schiller's criminal process with his own eyes. This was not like before, where he knew Schiller might have done something, but because of Schiller's overly covert methods and techniques of borrowing strength, he was completely unable to investigate.

He had seen with his own eyes exactly how Schiller killed a person. He used a cruel method to deprive others of their lives.

In other words, Schiller no longer had any excuse to excuse himself for the crimes he had committed.

Following the footprints, Bruce chased all the way out. He saw the row of bloody footprints go all the way up the stairs until they reached the top floor of the psychiatric hospital. And the further up he went, the more confused Bruce felt because, beside the bloody footprints, he saw even more bloodstains.

It didn't look like traces of dripping from clothes when killing someone, because the amount of bleeding was simply too large. It looked like Schiller had been bleeding the whole time.

This made Bruce feel absurd. How could Schiller possibly bleed? He was completely a mass of mist. Who could make a mass of mist bleed?

But when he chased to the top floor and opened the door at the very end, he was certain he wasn't hallucinating. Schiller in front of him was pale and covered in blood.

He stood by the windowsill. When the moonlight shone on his dark suit, Bruce saw that most of the suit had been dyed dark red, and the bloodstains on it hadn't just coagulated once, but layer upon layer.

At this moment, Schiller's complexion was very pale, and his lips had no blood color. It looked like he was on the verge of a coma due to excessive blood loss.

However, there was no pain or fragility in his eyes, but rather a kind of pathology that Bruce had never seen before. It was a kind of hysterical emotion that he couldn't understand.

And beside him, three chairs were arranged neatly. The previous three victims sat upright, facing Bruce, with their heads tilted, looking toward the top of the room.

Bruce didn't understand why they were in such an eerie posture; those hollow eyes seemed to be staring at something, but also seemed to be staring at nothing.

"You're here." When Schiller's voice rang out, Bruce felt it was very strange. He couldn't control himself from thinking that the person in front of him was not the professor he knew at all.

"I know you have always felt that the disease of dissociative identity disorder is just an excuse used by serial killers to escape punishment." Schiller's voice sounded very light, seemingly always floating on the surface, and even carried a bit of gentleness. It wasn't unpleasant, but it was completely different from his original self.

"Do you still think so now?" Schiller asked.

"Who are you?" Bruce walked in and stood opposite Schiller. There was only a distance of a few meters between them.

"Perhaps he didn't tell you that the many personalities you have seen cannot be counted as personalities..." Schiller's voice sounded a bit weak, seemingly never landing on solid ground. He said: "Every personality represents a trait. The Schiller you were most familiar with once represented arrogance."

"The Schiller you once chose was also originally arrogant, but after he was chosen by you, he became crazy."

"And I..." Schiller looked at Bruce and said: "I represent the 'pathology' in personality."

"Pathology..." Bruce's tone began to become low. He entered the state of Batman. He asked: "Why are you injured?"

"Why do you think I wouldn't be injured? Because you have witnessed some magical things?" Schiller suddenly revealed a disdainful smile. He said: "Your eyes tell me that you have envied this power, but it makes me feel disgusted."

Schiller slowly opened his arms, raised his tone, and said: "The most exciting part of a game is that the prey can also hurt you. There is danger at any time, and there is a possibility of bleeding and injury at any time. This is the meaning of hunting."

"Placing oneself in a completely safe situation and using overwhelming power to deal with prey is not murder, but slaughter."

"The greatest charm of intelligent creatures lies in their firm will, which makes them resist even when they reach a desperate situation. And the greatest charm of murdering intelligent creatures lies in the fact that their resistance might make me bleed and get injured, or even die."

"I might pay the same price as them at any time. This is like a gamble. Only when no one knows the outcome, at the moment of revelation, can one obtain the most intense pleasure."

"If I knew in advance that I would definitely win, then this gamble would become the most boring game in the world, boring enough to make one feel disgusted."

"So..." Schiller lowered his head, untied his tie, took off his suit jacket, revealing the shirt that had been completely dyed dark red. He reached out and threw the suit jacket aside, then said: "I gave up all power beyond ordinary people. All these you see..."

Schiller waved his hand, pointing to those corpses, and said: "... They are all my trophies. I won every gamble here."

"You are crazy." Batman had no other words to say. Even when facing the Joker, he could still reiterate words like public safety and justice, but facing such a Schiller, Batman had nothing to say. He was just crazy, crazy to the core.

"No, I said, I don't represent madness, because true madness doesn't need any pleasure to stimulate it; it represents complete chaos." Schiller shook his head and said: "But I, I represent pathology, the pathology of chasing excitement and pleasure..."

"Do you know how these wounds came about?" Schiller pointed to his shoulder with his finger, where there was the deepest wound. From Batman's angle, he could even see the bone under the wound.

Schiller tilted his head to the side, revealing the full picture of the wound. It was actually three wounds, the middle one of which was the deepest, deep enough to see the bone. He said: "Perhaps you have already guessed that the theme of this serial murder case is the Owl."

"The people sitting in front of you, they call themselves Owls, but they don't have the courage to become real Owls, so I provided them with some help."

"Superior vision, hearing, their favorite prey, and the ability to rotate their heads significantly. When I did all this, they were screaming constantly, feeling pain and sadness. But since they didn't want to become Owls, why did they give themselves such a name?"

"Of course, these hypocritical little birds also have some other weapons, and that is the Talons they cultivated. This wound..." Schiller turned his head to look at his shoulder. He even reached his hand into the wound to touch his own bone. He said: "It was left by their sharp claws."

"Sword Coming"

"I paid a not-so-small price to kill them, just like an ordinary person—designing traps, dodging and circling, using myself as bait. The final winner was still me."

Schiller took two steps forward, put his hand on the back of the first chair, and said: "Since you have already come here, I assume you have the patience to listen to me finish every story. Then, let's start with this bank president..."

"You killed him, dressed up as a cleaner, infiltrated the bank, and then threw the corpse off the roof." Batman told the whole story in very concise language, and then he continued: "The remaining few are the same—pretending to be employees, infiltrating, killing them, and then throwing the corpses off the building."

"It seems you are a good detective." Schiller's voice became a bit cold. He said: "The life-and-death game between me and them, in your mouth, is just a simple sentence. Every detective is like this; you will skip the most aesthetic parts and then emphasize those laws and justice that have no meaning at all."

"You missed too many details, to the point where you didn't discover how you actually came here. Perhaps, would you like to hear this story?" Schiller appeared very patient, but it made Batman feel creepy.

"Before, I came to this psychiatric hospital, earlier than any of you."

"When visiting any location, I always like to go to the madhouse there to see if every madhouse is the same as the one I lived in, or better than it."

"But obviously, the Anderson Madhouse is worse because this is not a madhouse at all; it has been transformed into an experimental base by someone. What you didn't notice is that the letter you saw had already been taken down once."

"I entered Isabelle's ward, learned the secret here, and heard the conversation of the person in charge. From his mouth, I learned that they were all Owls."

"The bank president, the boss of the Pailuo Company, the boss of the Snow Mountain Company, and the female person in charge of this laboratory—they are all members of the Court of Owls. They are using various projects to raise funds for the experiments here."

"I wanted to lead you here, so I killed the first person, the bank president, and through the exact same time, location, and method as the case in the Dream Cat City, I let you know that this case is related to the Owls. Knowing this, you would definitely come here."

"When I was doing the first case, I left many clues in the method, making you notice the relationship between the bank president and the boss of the Pailuo Company, and subsequently, making you query the transactions between the bank, the Pailuo Company, and the Snow Mountain Company."

"From this transaction, you would investigate that the Pailuo Company wanted to renovate this psychiatric hospital in the western suburbs, so you would definitely come here to investigate."

"Then, during the process of my investigation, you arranged two power outages, deliberately guiding my gaze, making me chase you here." Batman looked into Schiller's eyes and said.

He had to admit that the setting of this series of interlocking clues was like a delicate work of art.

"Batman, if I told you the truth in advance, would you still come here?" Schiller asked.

Batman was silent. Obviously, he was not satisfied with the answer in his heart, but Schiller appeared very satisfied. He said: "Each layer of clues gives you some truth, and all the truths piece together a complete puzzle. In this process, you felt incomparable pleasure. This is the disease you have, Batman."

"If you were really normal, when you discovered that I was deliberately guiding your gaze, you should have stopped, but you didn't."

Batman took a step forward, looked into Schiller's eyes, and said: "I will arrest you for the serial murder case you committed."

"I have exactly that intention." Schiller nodded, and he took two steps back, standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling window.

He took out a button and pressed it lightly. The entire floor-to-ceiling window shattered in response. The glass shards were like brilliant crystals, under the moonlight, like a rainstorm falling from the sky.

Schiller took another step back, standing in the night sky of Metropolis. The night wind kept blowing his hair and clothes. Batman took a step forward and said: "No, this is the tenth floor, you can't..."

"You had better worry about yourself first." Schiller's gaze crossed Batman and looked behind him. Batman hesitated for a moment but still turned his head back. Then, he saw a huge black monster.

A burst of noise suddenly came from behind the black monster. Batman heard what seemed to be loud Russian cursing, and dense stray bullets rang out. Batman instinctively rolled to the side.

Under the fire of the heavy machine gun, after the black monster shattered, bullets like falling fire rained down, all hitting Schiller's body.

Batman saw tiny sparks of fire flickering on Schiller's blood-covered body, gradually merging with the thousands of lights of Metropolis.

Schiller just like this, with his head tilted, looking upward, just like those corpses tied to the chairs, staring at a void, and then with the posture of opening his arms to embrace something, fell from the window.

Constantine and Kayla both rushed to the window. Only Angela froze in place. She stared blankly at the falling figure, and a few seconds later, shouted:

"Schiller... Schiller!"

"!" ===== CHAPTER 629 =====