The days of being a spiritual mentor in Meiman.

Chapter 3770 Rapid Pursuit (5)

Chapter 3770 Rapid Pursuit (Fifteen)

A cosmic spectacle has unfolded in the old town—two "Batmen" are being chased simultaneously.

To be precise, it's two Batmen who aren't actually Batman being chased together. The one running in front looks like the main universe Batman, but is actually Elliott; the one slightly behind looks like Batman, but is actually the Batman Who Laughs, a hybrid of Batman and the Joker.

The one chasing Elliot is the Joker from the main universe, while the one chasing the Laughing One is naturally Schiller.

Elliott had been running in the direction Laughing had pointed, and was just one step away from rejoining the security forces that were coming from that direction. But as he ran, he heard footsteps behind him again, and when he turned around, Laughing was running towards him too.

Elliott desperately wanted to ask him, "Why are you running?" But then he saw the clown who had been sent flying earlier chasing after him again. He didn't have time to ask; he just had to run. Whoever ran the slowest would be in the front row.

Fortunately, the main force had arrived. Elliott quickly ran past the bipedal robot, not caring whether the maniac had caught up, and pointed to the street he had come from, roaring, "Fire! Fire now!"

Countless robots, drones, and security forces began unleashing their firepower. But things were clearly not that simple; the pursuers were incredibly fast. Elliott had barely arrived when they were already in the thick of it.

Upon hearing Elliott's order to fire, Kuangxiao flew into a rage and yelled, "Don't you have any basic tactical awareness?! What are you doing, firing now?!"

Even Batman, watching the live stream from his office, couldn't help but shake his head—the person chasing you is no more than ten meters away, moving incredibly fast, basically in the same proximity as you. There are only two outcomes to ordering your troops to fire forward: either they miss, or they'll shoot you down too.

The key point is that the order to "fire forward" effectively distracted the soldiers. They were so focused on aiming and firing that they didn't even see what was rushing into their lines. That slight delay in reaction meant they couldn't stop the intruder.

By the time they put their guns away and frantically tried to pull Schiller and the Joker out of the formation, it was too late. Schiller, charging into the formation, didn't slow down and knocked away a soldier in front of him and the Laughing One who had just hidden behind the soldier.

The first line of defense of the support troops was sparsely populated; there weren't even three rows of soldiers. The Laughing Clown was rammed through the first line of defense, and Elliott was also forced out of the lines due to the Joker's frantic sword swings.

The second line of fire did raise their guns, but because the four were already locked in combat, they dared not fire. The large, cumbersome bipedal robots also dared not approach easily.

Elliott was stabbed again by the Joker, letting out a scream. With his last ounce of strength, he threw the Joker off the wall and staggered toward the outer perimeter of the defenses. The Joker continued to pursue him.

Just then, a lithe figure leaped down from the building—Talia arrived with the Assassin's Guild's bodyguards. Elliott was almost moved to tears; he stumbled and ran towards Talia.

Talia hesitated for a moment, then swung her arm forward. The warriors of the Assassin's Guild surrounded Elliot.

“I’m sorry.” Talia took a step back and opened her arms slightly. “Bruce Wayne is back. My father was right. He’s better than you.”

Elliott froze on the spot. He couldn't believe what he had just heard, staring blankly at Talia and saying, "...What did you say?!"

“I know it’s hard for you to believe, but Bruce truly escaped the predicament you put him in through his own efforts. Years of confinement in the asylum haven’t diminished his spirit in the slightest. He is the true master of Wayne Enterprises and Gotham, and the person the League of Assassins wants,” Talia said coldly. “Make your move.”

Elliott was completely stunned, but the assassins were closing in. The cold glint of their blades was almost within reach. Just as he was preparing for a desperate fight, another figure descended from the sky.

Elliott was suddenly knocked down, but felt his cloak being grabbed and then lifted into the air, quickly escaping the encirclement. He looked up and saw the young man wearing an owl eye patch holding a grappling hook in one hand, looking back at the situation on the ground with a frown.

The Laughing Maniac was hit again and sent flying. The good news was that Schiller was unarmed; the bad news was that Schiller seemed to have his eye on the Laughing Maniac's weapon.

He grabbed the chain from the laughing man's hand and pulled hard, pulling the laughing man back. Seeing Schiller so close, the laughing man shuddered and quickly released his grip. The chain then fell into Schiller's hands.

But Schiller's use of the chain was clearly beyond the Laughing Man's comprehension. Instead of using the chain as a ranged weapon to whip people like the Laughing Man did, he stepped forward, grabbed both sides of the chain with both hands as the Laughing Man got up, wrapped it around the Laughing Man's head, and slammed it into his neck.

"Uh……"

The maniacal laughter only managed a short syllable as he flailed his limbs and clawed at his neck until it was a bloody mess with his sharp nails, but he was no match for the immense force.

Laughter won't actually cause death by suffocation, but it can make you feel the pain of suffocation. Feeling intense pain in his lungs and waves of dizziness, he twitched and thrashed like a fish on a chopping board, utterly powerless to resist.

In this situation, the only option he could think of was to play dead.

He pretended to be unconscious and suffocated, thinking that Schiller would loosen the chain around his neck. And that's exactly what happened—he suddenly felt the chain around his neck loosen, as if it were pulling away to one side.

Kuangxiao didn't move. He planned to launch a counterattack only after Schiller had completely removed the chains. But suddenly, he felt the chains pull back, or rather, move in another direction.

The chain was initially pulling away to the left, but soon began to move to the right, then back to the left, then back to the right.

A terrifying thought began to surface in his mind, amidst his maniacal laughter. He had no choice but to abandon his plan to feign death and begin struggling desperately once more.

He felt a kick to the center of his back, which sent him sprawling to the ground. Then a foot stepped on his back. The chain was pulled upwards again, then began to rub back and forth, this time with even greater force.

The rough iron chain itself was angular, not much different from a saw. Schiller held the two ends of the chain and sawed back and forth, sawing off the laughing head bit by bit.

The Joker from the main universe, who had been chasing after Elliott in the direction he was rescued, only saw Schiller's back. He hesitated for a moment, then turned to leave, but Schiller had already turned back—holding the laughing head in his arms.

The clown took off running.

“How could I forget?” said Pride. “If the morbidity all goes out, the id probably goes out too. He loves playing ball.”

"Do you think The Laughing Maniac is still alive?" Greed was clearly more curious about more practical questions. He said, "But if the broken bat, with only a brain left, could survive, he should be able to too, right?"

“He won’t die that easily,” Arrogance said confidently. “Even if he only has a brain, let alone a whole head, he can still survive.”

"That's really freakish." Greed clicked his tongue and said, "But I don't think he's that strong. He doesn't seem as godlike as he's portrayed in the comics."

"Of course. He was originally just a Batman infected with the Joker virus, but Batman plus Joker is a weakened version. Apart from the predictive ability given by the original setting, the later abilities were given to him by other beings. If those beings didn't give them to him, then naturally he wouldn't have them."

Arrogance thought for a moment and said, "Initially, Barbatos gave the Batman Who Laughs the ability to alter reality in order to open a portal to the universe of light—that is, to gather various metals. But now that he doesn't have this ability, it proves that Barbatos never gave it to him in the first place."

“Of course, because Bruce is now the Pope of Barbatos.” Greed laughed and said, “And now Barbatos is trapped by Uriel, and his control over the Dark Universe is very weak. He can no longer find the dragon.”

"Later, he took over Doctor Manhattan's body," the arrogance continued. "He was able to take over Batman's body, who was capable of becoming Doctor Manhattan, through scheming and his own powerful dark forces. Without such strong support, he wouldn't even have been able to see Batman, let alone take his body."

"Then there's the idea of ​​modifying the Möbius Chair and stealing the power of crisis to become the Dark Knight. But right now, the goddess is nowhere to be found, so stealing her power is out of the question. One wrong step leads to another."

"If he had the ability to foresee things, how come he didn't foresee that Bruce would become the Pope of Barbatos?" Greed asked. "If he had foreseen it, he should have taken precautions to prevent this situation from happening now."

“He probably didn’t not want to foresee it, but he couldn’t,” Arrogance said. “He probably had no way of predicting Bruce’s actions.”

"why?"

“Anatole,” he arrogantly uttered a name, “He went to that universe and sent me there, how could he not have made any preparations?”

Greed suddenly realized: "So Anatoly created a Batman who was outside the Batman Who Laughs's prediction range."

“I’m not here either,” said Arrogance. “To be precise, Schiller isn’t here. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been chased so desperately by the morbidity.”

"But why? Isn't Schiller a native of DC? Logically, he should be within the expected range."

"God sent me to a very distant real universe for Lucifer's sake. He must have removed me from my original universe and changed my place of origin to this real universe. Only in this way could he completely break Lucifer's fate and set his stubborn son free."

“That’s certainly possible,” Greed nodded. “Since our names aren’t in the Book of Fate, the Batman Who Laughs can’t accurately predict our fate…”

Arrogance suddenly had a flash of inspiration: "I think I know why I became the Joker. My name is not in the Book of Fate and cannot be predicted. If I am the Joker, then the name of Batman, who is also anchored to me, may also be removed from the Book of Fate, and the Batman Who Laughs will naturally be unable to predict Bruce's actions."

“I see,” Greed said. “No wonder your return was at such a convenient time. It seems Anatoly was already on guard against the Laughter.”

“I was just thinking,” Arrogance continued, “that since Anatoly isn’t dead, and he’s very likely here, he’ll definitely come back to verify his plan. When did he return, and how did he verify it?”

“He may be closer to us than we think,” Greed said. “You can tell from that letter that he has a way to contact us.”

“I think I know,” Arrogance suddenly said. “It’s the answer to a question that was never answered long ago.”

Let's guess!