OBS Chapter 3746 The Perilous Situation of Dark City (9)
Chapter 3746 The Perilous Situation of Dark City (9)
Chapter 3746 The Perilous Situation of Dark City (Part Nine)
Finally, the agent dragged Greed and Pride into the elevator. Unsurprisingly, no one stopped them. The elevator ascended smoothly to the top floor and then to the surface of consciousness.
They don't exhibit the dissociative identity disorder often portrayed, where they feel "this is me, that is not me," or fight over control of their bodies. They remain one person, with only one state of consciousness.
Currently, the agent's traits are dominant, but occasionally thoughts related to greed or arrogance may surface. It's like the multifaceted nature of a person's personality. For example, someone might be calm and rational most of the time, but when faced with something they enjoy, they might have some lively ideas.
The instant consciousness returned to his body, a sharp pain struck. Schiller's vision blurred, but just as his consciousness began to fade, more and more colorful lines appeared in his field of vision. The hallucination arrived as expected, and it also helped him understand his current situation.
Although the flow of time in the real world and within one's mind differs, their discussion still took up a considerable amount of time. Schiller is no longer in the city hall corridor. He has likely been apprehended; there are several patrol officers around.
Schiller lay on a bed, his body held in place by a machine. Closest to him was Ms. Shiva, who was doing something with her back to him.
"You're awake?" Mrs. Shiva turned around and sneered. "How are you feeling? Are you in excruciating pain?"
Schiller opened his mouth, but he couldn't adjust to the fact that half of his facial muscles were gone. He struggled to make a sound, which sounded extremely hoarse, almost like a low groan from hell.
"You...gave the Angel of Death the technology to turn Batman...like that? Why...do you...hate him so much?"
Then Schiller seemed to suddenly realize that he had said something he shouldn't have, and very quickly shut up.
“How did you know?” Mrs. Shiva squinted. “That damned idiot told you all this?”
"He just wanted... Batman's approval. He succeeded; he turned Batman... into someone like him. He could die without regrets..."
Although Schiller himself said it, he seemed to be reaching his limit. The intense pain caused him to unleash tremendous strength; with a sudden jerk of his right arm, the fixing chain snapped. He rolled to his right and punched Madam Shiva in the abdomen.
Then, with both hands, he forcefully broke the chain on his left hand, pulled off the restraints around his waist, and then removed the shackles from his feet. He did all this in just two seconds.
Ms. Shiva, who had just stood up clutching her stomach, looked as if she had seen a ghost. In fact, Schiller's appearance wasn't much better than a ghost—the skin on the left half of his face, from his left sternocleidomastoid muscle to his collarbone, and down to the greater trochanter of his right thigh, was almost completely gone. Some abdominal muscles remained, preventing his internal organs from falling out, but his shoulders and arms were bare bones, and even less tissue remained on his face, making him almost a skeleton.
Normally, the strength should also decrease due to the reduction in muscle mass, but because it hurts more when moving and the restrictions are lifted more completely, the strength has not decreased much.
As the saying goes, "Even the best kung fu master is afraid of a kitchen knife." In the original comics, Ms. Shiva is the world's number one fighter, even defeating Batman several times. While their weight classes are different, the difference isn't significant. However, Ms. Shiva's strength is considerably less than Schiller's current level.
Schiller didn't use any fancy techniques; just like before in the corridor, he slammed into her with force. Ms. Shiva was sent flying. Then, without using any weapon, he simply pounded her chest with his right hand, five or six times until his arm was cut by fragments of ribs. He then plunged his hand into her shattered chest and pulled out her heart.
Once he was sure the other person was dead, Schiller quickly pulled out a healing potion and injected himself. This state was powerful, but it was just too painful. Unlike the morbidly painful one, he wasn't suffering from pain, so it was best to end this quickly.
The healing potion took effect quickly. Although the injury appeared severe, it was actually just an external wound, and healed in seconds. Using this state, he managed to kill the strongest among them, Lady Shiva, which was quite a victory.
Only then did Schiller begin to survey the room. This was clearly the laboratory beneath the cathedral, but not the one where Batman was imprisoned; it was another room.
To Schiller's surprise, there were many liquid tanks on the far right of the room, each over two meters tall and connected to numerous pipes, presumably for preparing solutions. He approached to examine them and discovered that each tank was marked with a different serial number.
There was no information on the can. Schiller walked around the room and found a chemical formula document, but all the chemical materials were represented by numbers, making it impossible to discern their specific functions.
He left the room and looked outside. His hallucinatory vision hadn't completely faded, and he could roughly make out two patrolling groups in the corridor. Schiller seized the opportunity, followed one group, and quietly made his way to the next room.
This place looks like someone's residence. Judging from the religious patterns in the room and the crosses piled on the table, Schiller felt that this must be the residence of Paul, the Angel of Death.
He rummaged around and found a photograph in a drawer. By the light of the torches held up by the Order members passing by outside, Schiller saw that the person in the photograph was Bain.
Schiller narrowed his eyes slightly. He remembered that in the original comics, it was the Angel of Death who killed Bane. But if he had already killed him, why keep this photograph?
Schiller opened the drawer below and found even more photos: Two-Face, the Riddler, the Scarecrow, the Mad Hatter, Killer Croc... all of Gotham's infamous supervillains.
Deep inside the drawer, Schiller found a picture of the clown.
Looking at the stack of photos in his hand, Schiller began to think. The original comics only said that the Angel of Death defeated Batman and imprisoned him, but they didn't say what happened to the supervillains.
Normally, supervillains wouldn't allow anyone to touch their beloved Batman, let alone imprison him like a display piece. Even the Joker, for example, would never allow anyone to do that to Batman. But these guys never appeared in the original comics.
Although the comic book storyline of this universe picks up after Knightfall, it's not the main universe, so the events that happened before Knightfall may not have occurred in this universe, and the villains' situations cannot be generalized. Where did these supervillains go?
With the photos in hand, Schiller continued to quietly follow the patrol team, checking the rooms on this floor during their breaks, but found nothing useful. He then walked down the corridor to the place where Batman had been imprisoned, which was still a mess and hadn't been cleaned up.
Continuing forward from here, at the end there was a room that looked different from the others. Schiller quietly crept to the door of this room. They seemed confident in their defenses; the door wasn't locked, allowing Schiller to slip inside.
This place looked like an archive, containing a wealth of documents. Schiller went through them one by one, reading by the light from the doorway, and then discovered an astonishing secret hidden behind this dark universe.
The Angel of Death didn't do that to torture Batman—he was conducting an experiment.
To be precise, it was the Order of the Saints, led by the Angel of Death, and the League of Assassins, led by Ms. Shiva, who were experimenting on Batman. They wanted to fuse the powerful genes of all supervillains into one Batman.
The Scarecrow's terrifying gas, the Mad Hatter's hypnotic abilities, Bane's immense strength, Killer Croc's primal abilities, the Joker's immortality...
They extracted the powerful genes from these criminals and have been trying to transplant them into Batman. Batman, however, retains his most important asset: his intelligent mind.
The solution Schiller saw in the room earlier was the solution used to cultivate the genes of supervillains. This entire base was built specifically for this insane experiment. Batman wasn't entirely driven mad by torture; it's more likely he received too many transplants of supervillain's insane genes, leading to his insanity.
Schiller then reviewed the experiment log. He discovered that the experiment had been ongoing since the Cult of Saints ruled Gotham 15 years ago, but it had never succeeded, or at least partially succeeded, but never fully succeeded.
These supervillains have conflicting genes, which in turn conflict with Batman's own genes, resulting in numerous physical mutations and instances of them going out of control. That's why the Angel of Death made Batman into that state—a disabled state where he can't do anything—to ensure that even if he went out of control, he wouldn't cause too much chaos.
The experimental log shows that the genes of several supervillains were successfully transplanted, but only separately. This means that if one gene was transplanted, another could not be transplanted. If a new gene was to be obtained, the previous one had to be removed.
A recent successful supervillain is named Joker.
Schiller's gaze locked onto the Joker's name. He now understood why Batman could survive so long even with his spine broken and only his head remaining. This wasn't some kind of alien technology; it was purely the Joker's immortality at work.
"Could the Broken Bat still be alive?"
Schiller's expression darkened. He hadn't expected such a hidden story. If the Broken Bat wasn't surviving on the nutrient solution's energy, but rather knew perfectly well that it was immortal, then he shouldn't have rushed to summon the Order, shouldn't have walked into his own trap—unless, of course, it was part of his plan. What was he planning?
Schiller wasn't sure if the Broken Bat was Batman or the Joker. But there was no doubt that he wasn't as stupid as he appeared; he had his own plans.
If he deliberately walked into the trap, then what was his purpose? Schiller thought about it and realized that regardless of whether he went to find these people later, Broken Bat would probably die. Even if he wasn't killed by these people, he could pretend to die from exhaustion due to insufficient nutrient solution and depletion of energy.
In other words, he wants to die, and he wants to die in front of these people, so that everyone will think he's dead. But if he possessed the Joker's immortality, then even if his head were smashed, he might still survive. Is he trying to fake his death to escape?
This is getting a bit complicated. Schiller thought, if he's the Joker, then he can decide who the new Batman is; if he's still Batman, then Schiller's mission wasn't a failure because he's still alive, and Schiller still has to go and save him.
Schiller devised a way to determine whether the other person was Batman or the Joker: find the Joker whose genes had been extracted. If the original Joker was still alive, then the other person was Batman; if that Joker was dead, then congratulations, Gotham—the laughing madman who belonged solely to this dark city has returned.
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