Chapter 3782: Dark City Crisis (8)

The agent persuaded Arrogance and Greed to go along with the plan to rise up together. There was no elaborate purpose, it was simply to use the mental strength of the two to activate the illusion vision. And the reason for activating the illusion vision wasn't anything grand—it was simply because he couldn't see.

"The visibility in this broken city is less than two meters. There's Wuyun, darkness, fog, and rain. How am I supposed to aim at the enemy from afar if I don't use the illusion ability that can precisely target them?"

Arrogance and Greed had no response.

They should have realized sooner that the agent wasn't here to discuss philosophical issues. He was a thorough pragmatist. The reason he disliked illusions was that he found them unreliable, and now he needed to use them because he had no other choice.

"Before, I didn't need it because no one in this city used guns. I had a gun, and even if the visibility range wasn't sufficient, I could maintain a certain advantage," the agent continued to explain, "But after trying out the nano-equipment, I found that it also has night vision ability. If the enemy uses nano-equipment, it would suppress my visibility, and my advantage would completely disappear."

"Moreover, they don't use guns against Batman. But now that I have a gun, they might use one too. If the gap in weapons is leveled and the visibility is their advantage, I could be in an extremely disadvantageous situation. The success rate of the mission could drastically decrease, which is not what I want."

"So you want to use our unique abilities to level the visibility difference?" Greed asked, "But your bullets are limited, and the weapon gap will eventually be leveled."

"They'll soon realize that the tricks they use against Batman won't work on me. They'll change tactics, adopt more violent methods, and might even use modern firearms to pursue fairness. By then, I can take supplies from them."

"That's true," Arrogance said, "But you'd better not count on them genuinely pursuing fairness. The hypocrisy of the behind-the-scenes manipulator far exceeds your imagination, he's a..."

"That's not important," the agent interrupted, "The most shocking victory is a face-to-face victory. No one doesn't pursue defeating their opponent head-on. If he dared to face Batman openly and had confidence in defeating him, he wouldn't be skulking behind the scenes. And since he hasn't shown himself until now, it proves he doesn't have that capability. So, his ability ceiling is Batman, but I'm not."

"You're too confident," Greed said, "What if his ceiling is Batman from the Arkham Knight Universe? And a completely immoral version at that..."

"The issue doesn't lie with such nebulous things as morals," the agent responded impatiently, "Batman from the Arkham Knight Universe isn't restrained by his morals, but by his abilities. Although his combat power is strong, he has shortcomings in other aspects."

"Like what?" Arrogance asked.

"Psychology."

"His level of psychology isn't low," Greed countered.

"He's just too involved to have perspective," the agent said coldly.

"Do you think Batman of the Arkham Knight Universe was stopped because the enemy's combat power was strong enough?" the agent abruptly shifted the topic.

"Probably not," Arrogance said, "This Batman's combat power has no upper limit. Even if Laughing Bat leads those Batmen from the Dark Multiverse, they might not be able to defeat him head-on."

"Since you know this, the behind-the-scenes manipulator surely knows it too. He's afraid of Batman from the Arkham Knight Universe, so when that Batman appeared, he didn't directly confront him but set up a trap instead. So do you think he'd be afraid of me?"

Arrogance and Greed fell into thought. Their thought processes were relatively complex, as they likely believed Laughing Bat was orchestrating things from behind the scenes. They'd infer what Laughing Bat intended based on his psychological tendencies and behavioral norms and figure out how to break the situation.

But the agent's way of thinking was very simple. Laughing Bat didn't rely on sheer combat power against Arkham Batman—at least not fully. Initially, it was definitely through traps, proving Laughing Bat wasn't very confident in his combat power either, not daring to face Arkham Batman directly, but instead using traps to deplete his physical strength.

So would he dare to face Shiller head-on?

Originally, Shiller, infamous and formidable, had to change his identity because of it. Everything from alien invasions to trash cans being kicked over was attributed to him. Laughing Bat had personally interacted with him several times. His estimation of Shiller's combat power might not be lower than Arkham Batman's and Shiller might even far surpass Arkham Batman.

That's precisely why he didn't leap out to face Shiller head-on when he first entered the dungeon, but also wanted to deplete him like he did with Arkham Batman.

So the question arises: to what extent should he be depleted before striking directly?

This is like the question of "When to press the nuclear button." Should you press it when the opponent declares war? Press it when the opponent deploys troops? Press it when the enemy fleet is halfway across the sea? Press it when they reach your doorstep? Press it when half of your territory is taken? Press it when the capital is about to fall?

In fact, for most leaders, they wouldn't press it at any of those times. Because a nuclear weapon is the final measure, it must be used at the very final moment. But no matter what, the situation will never be worse than going to nuclear war, so they end up never using it.

It's the same for the Laughing bat. He regards getting involved personally and trading blows with the opponent as a last resort, so until the moment just before completing his mission, he won't use this method. Because no result could be worse than getting defeated by the opponent before even trading blows.

The most exhilarating victory is a direct victory, while the most humiliating and frustrating is a direct defeat. Once the Laughing bat steps in personally, he must face the risk of direct defeat; therefore, he considers stepping in personally as a last-ditch measure that he would never use, just like a nuclear button that would never be pressed.

Therefore, although he planned to deplete the opponent first and then defeat them head-on, what he actually does is keep depleting, depleting, and depleting.

Arkham Batman couldn't have been defeated head-on by him, otherwise, his boasting would have been known throughout the cosmos. Since there is no movement, then Arkham Batman and all other players participating in this scenario died in the war of attrition.

That's why the agent is so fearless. The opponent will keep sending minions to deplete him, and the likelihood of stepping in personally is very low. Therefore, what the agent needs to do is not let himself be depleted, and naturally, he can complete the mission. This is something he has always done.

As for players like Arkham Batman or Superman who might have participated in the scenario, their direct cause of failure might be moral shackles, but the root cause is they did not clearly realize the harm caused by being depleted through stage targets.

When people do something, they often set a total goal and stage goals. In the plan, they put the total goal first and stage goals second, but when it comes to actual execution, it's completely reversed.

For example, if you are painting with watercolors, finishing the painting is the total goal. But to complete the painting, you need to clean the palette used for mixing colors, which is a stage goal.

But while washing the palette, people tend to think: cleaning the palette is a prerequisite for painting well; if I don't clean it properly, how can I paint well? So, they desperately try to clean the palette thoroughly.

Arkham Batman might have thought the same: If I can't even save these few victims, how can I save the entire city? After all, restoring Gotham's order ultimately involves saving people, which is an integral part of restoring order; spending more effort is worthwhile.

But in fact, the physical and mental strength consumed during the palette cleaning process, the repeated mundane work diminishing the excitement for completing the work, the anxiety and frustration from no progress in short-term goals damaging the final product, is likely greater than the harm done by painting with a dirty palette.

People excessively focus on tangible losses and forget the crucial role of will and spirit in driving human advancement, allowing themselves to get mentally drained by many minor matters, leading to double losses both on the tangible and spiritual levels.

Arkham Batman might think saving people is just a physical drain, but the Laughing bat won't let saving people be so easy, there would certainly be many tricks involved. Rescuing the Broken Bat already had backstabbing plotlines; I fear there are even more tricks with those innocent victims. All players will unknowingly succumb to mental exhaustion in these stage goals, and because of the goal to restore Gotham order, in the later stages of a long battle, they will surely get mentally fatigued, and the opponent will seize the flaw, leading to mission failure.

If someone like Arkham Batman can understand this issue, then even if they have sympathy for innocent victims, they would still go save people, at least mentally alert in advance, minimizing focus on the messy tricks, keeping their minds from getting drained, and greatly increasing their chance of clearing the game.

Arkham Batman, being almost flawless in strength, ironically finds it the hardest to be aware of such problems because they are so strong, believing their physical and mental strength are limitless, thinking their will can never be worn out, believing they can handle multiple tasks simultaneously with ease, hence gradually falling into traps.

Then again, Arkham Batman is almost without weakness, even if later exposed flaws, it's not easy to defeat him.

"He must have another decisive trick." The agent continued, "Not some minor things, but a tactic that seizes a small flaw in the opponent, decisively causing player mission failure. Otherwise, it wouldn't be that easy to make the Batman from the Arkham Knight Universe fail."

Pride and Greed thought about it, but the current clues are really scarce, and they couldn't think of how the Laughing bat would cause someone as strong as Arkham Batman to fail without stepping in directly.

"Let's not discuss this for now; there's still a tricky issue in this universe." Greed said, "The mission tells you to save Batman, but who is Batman?"

"No, this shouldn't worry us." The agent shook his head, "Since the mission goal says to save Batman, there must be a Batman. But all potential candidates who could become Batman have been killed by me, they must produce a new Batman. No matter how powerful the behind-the-scenes manipulator is, they can't completely control the Doujie System, they can't decide who the next Batman will be. So regarding plot control, our gap is leveled."

"Is this why you killed the Broken Bat, the Death Angel, and Tone?" Pride asked.

"Yes, these people were probably under the control of the manipulator. It would be troublesome if they became Batman. But if a new Batman arises, the New Batman may not cooperate with the manipulator, which is advantageous for me."