novelonline Chapter 3744 The Perilous Situation of Dark City (7)
Chapter 3744 The Perilous Situation of Dark City (7)
Chapter 3744 The Crisis in Dark City (Part 7)
Inside Schiller's mental tower, the atmosphere at the elevator entrance was far from harmonious. Greed and Pride stared at each other. The elevator doors were open, but neither of them stepped forward.
"Look what you've done," said arrogantly.
"It's clear that he doesn't cherish our bodies just like you do."
"I mean you created it to be lazy."
"Isn't this bringing up old grievances a bit too far?"
The two stared at each other, neither able to utter a word. Arrogance sighed, trying to resolve the situation. He said, "You saw what just happened. The nanobot took away at least 30% of the muscles in the upper body. And it finished its shift before the pain receptors could register it. Now, whoever goes up there could easily lose control in excruciating pain. What do you plan to do?"
"His timing was pretty precise!" Greed said through gritted teeth. "Neither of us would escape getting hurt if we went up there. But that's the least of our worries. Do you think the mastermind behind this massive change in the instance would just sit by and watch the otherworldly visitor pass out unprepared and do nothing?"
“That’s the crux of the matter,” Arrogance said. “If either of us goes up there and loses control, we might accidentally hurt the mastermind. Even if we calm down later, we might lose the opportunity to negotiate with them.”
"He did it on purpose," Greed said, arms crossed. "Knowing that neither of us likes to fight, he still went out of his way to ruin any possibility of negotiation. But speaking of which, who do you think did it?"
"Broken Bat is nothing to worry about." Arrogance shook his head slightly and said, "If he were skilled enough, he wouldn't have lost to the Angel of Death; if he were determined, he wouldn't have chosen to live a life of ignominy. Choosing a Batman like that as a teammate is not a good idea, unless they just want to use him to wipe out all the compassionate superheroes."
Greed understood his meaning. The original storyline of the Broken Bat universe wasn't like this. Even if it weren't for Batman from the Arkham universe, or even Dick and his Robin team, they wouldn't have been so easily defeated. Therefore, the mastermind couldn't be the Broken Bat of this universe, or even anyone else from this universe; it must be someone from another world like them.
If that's the case, the range of suspects is too broad. There are too many evil Batmen in the Dark Multiverse; besides the most famous ones, there are countless second-tier characters, making it extremely difficult to pinpoint a specific target.
"Don't you think there's something strange about this place?" Greed asked. "The entire city has no firearms, not only no weapons of mass destruction, but not even a small handgun. It wasn't like this in the original story, was it?"
Arrogance fell silent, deep in thought. He remembered that the original story depicted numerous war scenes, clearly showing traces of firearms explosions. However, the city they were in clearly lacked firearms; all the corpses had died in close combat. Furthermore, no one had used guns or artillery during the agents' fight with them. This was indeed strange.
“Fairness,” Arrogance suddenly uttered a single word. “The vast majority of Batmen and Robins don’t use firearms. They don’t use firearms for the sake of fairness.”
"Isn't this ridiculous? They meticulously plot and scheme, exploiting others' sympathy to set traps, yet they insist on pursuing some so-called fairness and the thrill of a spiritual victory within those traps. Does this pointless behavior remind you of anyone?"
"Laughter..."
The two exchanged a glance and fell silent. Clearly, realizing this fact made them even less inclined to go up. Who would knowingly step in a pile of dog poop on the road ahead?
“There’s another strange place,” Arrogance began. “The lighting in the city is odd. Even if the weather in Gotham is bad, it shouldn’t be so bad that you can’t distinguish between day and night. But the agents have been in there for hours, and the light intensity hasn’t changed at all. That’s unusual.”
Greed frowned. He began to think rapidly, then said, "If it was the Batman Who Laughs's doing, he might have anticipated that some people who weren't Batman would come here. The various traps he set up in the city to distract Batman might not be enough to deal with everyone. So he must have a backup plan, and the strange darkness in the city might be the key to his comeback."
"He has always been arrogant and lacks self-awareness, and he really enjoys mentally attacking his opponents. So we can rule out the idea that darkness is some kind of death curse. It's more likely that his strategy for setting up the Broken Bat is the same as his plan: he wants people to think they've won, only to have everything destroyed before dawn."
“Dick is reluctant to talk about this, perhaps because it was a significant blow to him,” Arrogance sighed. “We should have contacted Batman from the Arkham Knight universe before we came.”
"It's too late to talk about this now. We need to figure out how to deal with the current situation. I estimate that when we wake up, the situation we'll face won't be good. We can't negotiate, and with the two of us fighting, it's unlikely we can turn the tide. I don't think we should go up there."
"What are you going to do?"
"The agent must have planned this all along, otherwise he wouldn't have brought healing agents and morphine. You see, if the sick ones go up there, they won't need healing or painkillers; their severe injuries are exactly what they need to perform. If the two of us went up there, we'd be too overwhelmed by the pain and lose control, so we wouldn't be able to use these things. Only he was able to use the agents to reverse the situation just before the pain hit. This proves that he had thought about it all along, and in the end, he still had to go up there himself."
"You mean he wants to negotiate with us?" Arrogantly leaning against the railing behind him, he said, "What bargaining chips do you think we have? Even if he quits now, there's nothing we can do about it."
"He's not going to back down. You see, he's a ruthless mission-completion machine. Everything he does during a mission is to achieve the objective, not to abandon it. If he were going to abandon it, he wouldn't have agreed to go in the first place."
"So, the conditions he wants to discuss with the two of us are things that will help him complete this mission? But we've already said we'd help him, so why doesn't he just state his demands directly?"
“Perhaps he thinks that even if he says it directly, neither of us will agree,” Greed said after thinking for a moment. “But I can’t think of any specific request he’s making that he’s certain we won’t agree to.”
"What are you two still doing here?" The agent stepped down from another elevator, clearly having just returned from the surface of consciousness.
Greed opened his mouth, momentarily at a loss for words. Arrogance spoke first: "Neither of us can go up. Just tell me what you want to do."
"I told you, you're going to work." The agent smiled, a rare occurrence for him.
“Let’s skip the ‘you don’t know what would happen if either of us went up there, and then we’ll explain the process to you’ll see.’ Right now, it’s clear that only you can turn the tide, state your terms, and then go back and resolve the problem.”
"That's not necessarily true," the agent said, shaking his head. "Have you considered going up together?"
Greed and Pride were both silent for a moment, seemingly taken aback by his suggestion. Greed looked at him and said, "Only one personality trait can control the body at a time. A second one can't get into the elevator. I thought you knew that."
"How did they manage to achieve that on the pathological side?"
Arrogance and greed were momentarily speechless. The pathological side is relatively closely connected, and often doesn't even consist of separate, independent personality traits; the boundaries between many traits are blurred. When they take control of the body, even the Superego can't fully distinguish which traits are involved, so they are collectively referred to as pathological.
The rule that "only one personality trait can control the body at a time" only applies to the normal state. Superman says it's impossible, and that's it; they haven't even bothered to research why.
"How about the two of us give it a try?" Greed looked around and said, "Although I said it's not okay, Self is in charge of the elevator, so he shouldn't stop us, right?"
"Are you crazy? What if something really goes wrong? Do you want the tower to collapse again?"
“But the tower didn’t collapse because of that.” Greed found it increasingly plausible. “Besides, our skills are now interchangeable, which means the barriers between personality traits are weakening. Maybe they can even blend together, like the pathological side?”
Arrogance seemed hesitant. He said, "It's not that simple. I have a feeling something will go wrong."
“We don’t actually have dissociative identity disorder,” Greed continued. “There won’t be any issues like the personality taking over control of the body. Isn’t being pathological just fine? They haven’t experienced anything like losing control of their bodies.”
"But even if the two of us went up at the same time, what good would it do to resolve the current situation?"
“Increased mental strength leads to increased mental stability, so pain won’t cause you to lose control,” the agent said. “The reason the pathological side can withstand more pain and remain conscious is because their mental strength is strong enough.”
“That makes sense,” Arrogance said. “But even if we don’t lose control, we probably won’t be able to break out by force. And in the current situation, it’s obvious that even the best negotiation skills are useless.”
“So the three of us will go up together,” the agent said. “I need the two of you to boost my mental strength. Once the pain reaches a threshold, you need to be able to use the stimulation from the pain to unleash our talents, just like the pathological side, and then combine that with my strength to resolve this crisis.”
Greed and Pride exchanged a glance, seemingly understanding the agent's meaning. In most cases, the normal side rarely experiences the magical, hallucinatory visual experiences of the pathological side, or rather, they can only maintain them for a very short time. This is because the mental strength of each individual personality trait is insufficient, and their pain tolerance threshold is not high enough. If the pain becomes too intense, the brain will forcibly shut down as a self-protective mechanism, making them no different from ordinary people.
The reason the pathological side can maintain those superpower-like hallucinatory visions is because they are not independent personality traits; their mental strength is naturally very high, and their pain tolerance is much greater, almost never going into shock due to excruciating pain. This is what gives them the ability to not only remain conscious but also become stronger under extremely adverse conditions.
It's like the mental strength of arrogance and greed is 3, which may be stronger than other normal personality traits. However, the total strength of the pathological traits is 10 each time they are added up, so the strength is naturally much higher.
Although the agent's personality traits are incompatible with most of Schiller's, he is still a member of the normal side and his mental strength is not that high. This means that if he does not use medication, the excessive pain may make it impossible for him to continue moving.
He now adds Pride and Greed, and if each of them has a strength of 3, then the total is 9. This allows him to move freely when his talents are activated.
When Schiller is not in a good state, it's not just that he experiences hallucinatory psychoanalytic visions; his muscle limitations are further relieved, and his reaction abilities in all aspects are enhanced. Moreover, these enhancements are based on his mental state, not dependent on any external factors, and are undisturbed, making them a powerful tool for turning the tide in desperate situations.
“But didn’t you hate those hallucinations the most?” Greed, who thought he knew the agent quite well, said, “Otherwise, you wouldn’t have gone to study behavioral analysis. Why are you suddenly thinking of using that talent now?”
"I can't see."
"what?"
"It's too dark in the city! I can't see!"