Chapter 3781: Dark City Crisis (7)

In Shiller's Tower of Thought, the atmosphere at the elevator door was not harmonious. Greed and Arrogance exchanged glances. The elevator doors had opened, yet neither of them took a step forward.

"Look at what you've done," Arrogance spoke.

"Clearly, he doesn't care for our body any more than you do."

"I mean you, lazily creating him back then."

"Isn't this digging up old scandals?"

The two stared at each other wide-eyed, unable to say anything. Arrogance sighed and tried to solve the problem. He said, "You saw what just happened, the nanobots took away at least 30% of the upper body's muscles before the pain nerves could react. Now, whichever of us goes up, there's a risk of losing control in agony. What are you planning to do?"

"His timing was impeccable!" Greed said through gritted teeth, "Either of us going up will inevitably suffer that pain. But that's the least of our worries. Do you think the behind-the-scenes manipulator who caused such a drastic change in this copy would simply watch an unprepared otherworldly visitor faint without doing anything?"

"That's the crux," Arrogance said, "If either of us goes up and loses control, we might unintentionally harm the mastermind. Even if we calm down afterward, we would probably lose the chance to negotiate."

"He's doing it on purpose," Greed crossed his arms, "knowing full well we are not hands-on people, yet destroys all chances of negotiation. Anyway, who do you think is behind this?"

"The Broken Bat isn't worth considering," Arrogance shook his head slightly, "If he were that skilled, he wouldn't have lost to the Death Angel; if his will was firm, he wouldn't resort to a wretched survival. Picking such a Batman as a teammate isn't a good idea unless they want to use him as bait to trap those sympathetic superheroes."

Greed understood what he meant. Originally, the plot of the Broken Bat's universe wasn't like this. Even the Batman of the Arkham Universe or Dick and his Robin Squad wouldn't have been completely wiped out. Therefore, the mastermind can't be from this universe's Broken Bat, or anyone else in this universe. It must be otherworldly visitors like themselves.

If that's the case, then the range of suspects is too vast. There are so many Evil Batmans in the dark multiverse, besides the most famous ones, there are many secondary characters, making it really hard to pinpoint a specific target.

"Do you feel something odd?" Greed asked, "The whole city has no firearms, not only are there no weapons of mass destruction, but not even small handguns. That's not how the original plot goes, right?"

Arrogance silently pondered. He remembered there were many war scenes in the original plot, with evident marks of firearms explosions. But in the city they were in, it was clear there were no firearms, and all corpses died from close combat. In the battles with agents, no one used guns or artillery. This indeed was odd.

"Fairness," Arrogance suddenly uttered a word, "the majority of Batmans and Robins do not use firearms. They refrain from using firearms for the sake of fairness."

"Isn't that ridiculous? Meticulously scheming, setting traps using others' sympathy, yet insist on pursuing some so-called fairness in the traps, seeking the thrill of spiritual victory. Doesn't this redundant behavior remind you of anyone?"

"Laughing bat..."

The two exchanged a glance and fell into silence. Clearly, realizing this made them even less willing to go up. After all, who would want to step onto a known pile of dog poop?

"There's another strange thing," Arrogance began, "the light in the city is very odd. Even if Gotham's weather is bad, it shouldn't be indistinguishable between day and night. But agents stayed in there for several hours, with no change in light intensity. This is quite unusual."

Greed frowned. He began to think rapidly, and then said, "If Laughing bat set this up, he might have anticipated some non-Batmans coming here. The various traps in the city to distract Batman might not work on everyone. So he must have a backup plan, and perhaps the peculiar darkness in the city is key to his comeback."

"This guy has always thought highly of himself, with no self-awareness, and loves to mentally batter opponents. So it's unlikely that the darkness is some sort of fatal curse. It's more likely akin to his strategy with the Broken Bat, making people believe they've won, only to have everything destroyed before dawn."

"Dick doesn't want to talk much about this, possibly because it dealt him a considerable blow," Arrogance sighed, "We should have contacted Batman from the Arkham Knight Universe before coming."

"It's too late to say that now. We have to find a way to resolve the current situation. I reckon the situation we face when we wake up won't be good, unable to negotiate, and given our combat ability, reversing the situation seems unlikely. I don't think we should go up."

"So what do you plan to do?"

"The agent must have thought of this in advance, otherwise, he wouldn't have brought cure potions and morphine. You know, if the morbid ones went up, they wouldn't need healing or pain relief, severe injuries are when they thrive. If we go up, we'd lose control due to the pain, making those things useless. Only he can use the potion right before the pain arrives to turn the situation around. This proves he already thought that he would have to go up in the end."

"Are you saying he wants to negotiate with us?" Arrogance leaned against the railing and said, "What do you think we have to bargain with? Even if he puts his foot down now, there's not much we can do."

"He wouldn't put his foot down. You must know, he's a merciless machine dedicated to completing tasks, everything he does during the mission is aimed at achieving the goal, not giving up. If he intended to quit, he wouldn't have agreed in the first place."

"You mean the terms he wants to discuss with us are to assist in completing this mission? But we've already said we would help him, why doesn't he just state his requirements directly?"

"Perhaps he thinks that even if he told us directly, we wouldn't agree," Greed thought for a moment and said, "but I can't think of any request he is sure we wouldn't accept."

"Why are you two still here?" The agent walked over from another elevator, obviously just returning from the surface of consciousness.

Greed opened his mouth, momentarily unsure of what to ask. Arrogance spoke up, "The two of us can't go up. Just say what you want to do."

"I told you to go to work." The agent rarely smiled.

"Let's skip the 'you don't know what will happen if either of us goes up, and then we explain the process to you' part. It's obvious that only you can turn the tide in the current situation. Name your conditions, then go back and fix the mess."

"That's not necessarily so." The agent shook his head and said, "Have you considered going up together?"

Greed and Arrogance fell silent for a moment, seemingly shocked by his proposal. Greed looked at him and said, "Only one personality trait can control the body at the same time, the second one can't enter the elevator. I thought you knew that."

"Then how does the morbid side do it?"

Arrogance and Greed were momentarily speechless. The connection on the morbid side is relatively tight, and many times they are not distinct, independent personality traits, with vague boundaries between many traits. When they go up to control the body, even the superego cannot completely distinguish which ones went up, so they are collectively referred to as morbid.

The rule of "only one personality trait can control the body at the same time" is only for the normal side. When the superego says no, it's no, and they haven't researched why not.

"Why don't we give it a try?" Greed glanced around and said, "Although the superego says no, it's the self that's managing the elevator, he probably won't stop us?"

"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 this." Greed thought it made more sense the more he considered it, and said, "Besides, our skills are all universal, which means the separation between personality traits has weakened. Maybe we can blend together like the morbid side?"

Arrogance seemed a bit hesitant. He said, "It's not that simple. I always feel like something will go wrong."

"We don't actually have dissociative identity disorder." Greed continued, "There won't be situations like a personality seizing control of the body. Isn't the morbid side fine? They've also not had issues of being unable to control the body."

"But even if the two of us go up together, what benefit does it have in resolving the current situation?"

"Increased mental strength will enhance mental stability, so pain won't make you lose control." The agent said, "The morbid side can endure more pain while staying awake because their mental strength is strong enough."

"Makes sense." Arrogance said, "But even if we don't lose control, we probably can't break through by force. And in the current situation, obviously, strong negotiation skills are useless."

"So the three of us go up together." The agent said, "I need you two to enhance my mental strength. When pain reaches the threshold, we can, like the morbid side, use the stimulation of the pain to awaken our talents, and then solve this crisis with my force."

Greed and Arrogance exchanged a look, seemingly understanding the agent's meaning. In most cases, the normal side finds it difficult to activate the illusion vision, akin to magic, like the morbid side, or they can only activate it for a short period, because each independent personality trait does not have high enough mental strength, and their pain tolerance threshold is not high enough. If it's too painful, the brain will still forcibly shut down for self-protection, just like ordinary people.

The morbid side can continuously activate that illusion vision, which seems like a superpower because they are not independent personality traits, so their mental strength is naturally high, their pain tolerance is stronger, and they almost never go into shock due to severe pain. This allows them to remain awake under extremely unfavorable conditions and become even stronger.

It's like Arrogance and Greed have a mental strength of 3, which might be stronger than other normal side personalities, but the traits that go up together from the morbid side add up to 10, so the strength is naturally much higher.

Although the agent is at odds with most of Shiller's personality traits, he is, after all, a member of the normal side, with not so high mental strength, which means if he doesn't use drugs to assist, excessive pain might also prevent him from continuing activity.

Now he brings Arrogance and Greed along, if one person's strength is 3, then together they have 9. This allows him to activate his talents freely.

When Shiller is not in a good state, it's not just that the illusion-like spiritual analysis vision will be activated, but also muscle restrictions will be further lifted, and reaction abilities in all aspects will be enhanced. And all these enhancements are based on his spirit, not reliant on external things, uninfluenced, making it a powerful tool for a comeback.

"But don't you hate those illusions the most?" Greed considered himself relatively familiar with the agent, and said, "If it weren't for that, you wouldn't have studied the behavioral analysis method. Why suddenly think of using this talent now?"

"I can't see."

"What?"

"It's too dark in the city! I can't see!"