The days of being a spiritual mentor in Meiman.

Chapter 3748 The Perilous Situation of Dark City (1)

Chapter 3748 The Perilous Situation in Dark City (Part 11)

Schiller moved quietly down the dark corridor. Although the asylum was large, he knew his destination was underground. He walked into the courtyard and then into a building at the back of the asylum before finally finding the staircase leading underground.

Descend, and descend further. Two floors down the stairs. Here, there is no light. The colorful lines that create the illusion sway and flutter, like ribbons dancing in the wind and rain. And Schiller, chasing after the colors, is like a bird soaring on the wind.

The surroundings were so quiet you could hear a pin drop. The previous noises had vanished, and Schiller could only hear his own heartbeat. He counted the beats and walked forward with equally silent steps. His mind was almost completely integrated with the illusion; even the darkness didn't know if he truly existed, like a demon born of doubt.

There was a circular corridor on the second basement level. Schiller walked halfway down when he heard voices coming from a room on his right. The voices were low and intermittent.

"...The Angel of Death is dead. No one will ever know what happened back then... Haha..."

“The voice of the Broken Bat,” Schiller recognized it. “He really isn’t dead.” However, what surprised Schiller was that, with his brain completely shattered, he not only survived but also arrived here at lightning speed, speaking clearly and lucidly. Could this really be achieved by injecting the Joker virus?

Schiller saw a faint light coming through the crack in the door. Realizing there was light in the room, he quietly took two steps forward and peered inside through the observation window in the door.

There was only one person in the room.

It was a fairly robust man, quite young from behind, definitely not Batman's physique. With the dim light of some device, Schiller saw that the man was wearing the same jacket Toni wore. However, a large amount of blood seeping from his neck had stained half of the garment a dark red.

The man turned around. Schiller's expression froze.

Batman's head is on Tone's body.

The glass jar that had once contained his brain and artificial brain matter was gone. His head had returned to normal, and even the hair on the back of his head looked normal. If it weren't for the blood on his neck and the small section of black spine that was so conspicuous, no one would have guessed that his head and body were not from the same person.

What lay before him was even more horrifying—a water tank filled with an unknown solution, and inside the tank was a brain.

Behind the tank containing the brain was a very complex instrument. Schiller could only recognize that some of the data was monitoring brainwaves, which seemed to be translated into directly understandable information.

"Is Batman communicating with a brain?"

Schiller surveyed his surroundings but saw no traps or weapons. Batman wasn't carrying any weapons, and his head was swaying precariously, as if it might fall off at any moment.

Schiller pushed open the door and went inside.

Batman's eyes widened the moment he saw him; he seemed not to have expected Schiller to walk right in.

But Schiller hesitated for a moment, because as soon as he walked in, certain thoughts began to race through his mind. He blurted out, somewhat involuntarily, "You two swapped brains? The brain in your broken body was the Joker, and this brain in the water tank is Batman?"

Batman's expression and the data on the panel connected to his brain in the water tank both froze for a moment.

“No wonder the Angel of Death made a hole in your head,” Schiller said. “He put the Joker’s brain inside Batman’s body, then took Batman’s brain out and put it in a water tank. Why did he do that? Let me guess…”

"Wait a minute, stop guessing." Schiller interrupted himself. While Batman was still bewildered by this sudden turn of events, he punched Batman in the cheekbone.

boom!

Batman's head flew off, along with half of his black spine. Toni's body also collapsed. Schiller withdrew his hand and shook his fist, not because of pain, but because he deliberately held back his strength to avoid killing his opponent, resulting in some muscle soreness.

He turned to look at the brain in the tank, glanced at the data panel above, and said, "The Angel of Death wouldn't do a brain transplant for no reason, let alone replace Batman's brain. That's the most precious part of Batman's body. Even if he were to remove Batman's brain, there's no need to put the Joker's brain into Batman's body. Why would he do that?"

"The Angel of Death's feelings for Batman are complex. It's not just hatred between them. To be precise, rather than hatred, the Angel of Death Paul wants Batman's approval. And defeating and imprisoning him is the perfect way to prove his abilities."

"Things have been relatively normal up to this point. But I don't think the Angel of Death, Paul, would conduct research on Batman, because he has already fulfilled his wish—to prove that he is no less capable than Batman. In his relationship with Batman, he shouldn't have any more desires. Therefore, the experiments he conducted must have been at the behest of others."

“That makes perfect sense. Because the Angel of Death isn’t a scientist. Even an ordinary scientist wouldn’t have such incredible skills. He must have been taught those skills by someone else. I’m guessing that person is Ms. Shiva. Only the League of Assassins has such ambition and such skills.”

"For some reason, the Angel of Death cooperated with them. But he didn't really want to cooperate with them. He might torture Batman day after day while imprisoning him, trying to gain his approval. But he wouldn't turn Batman into some kind of human weapon. He would feel that would be an insult to Batman and an insult to his own victory."

"But for some reason, he didn't resist. Instead, he agreed to cooperate with the League of Assassins and conduct all sorts of experiments on Batman. But in reality, he was very worried that these painful experiments would drive Batman insane. That way, Batman would never be able to accept him. So he came up with a plan, which was to replace Batman's brain."

"All human experiences of pain originate from the brain. If the brain were replaced, Batman would not feel pain. So before the experiment began, he put the Joker's brain into Batman's body, and placed the real Batman's brain here."

"Batman's peculiar immortality is not due to injecting the Joker's blood, but rather because he possesses the Joker's brain—the organ with the highest concentration of the Joker virus in the Joker's body. That's why his head is indestructible; even if it's smashed to pieces, it can regenerate."

"I'm just curious, what kind of conditions did the Assassin's Guild offer that would make the Angel of Death secretly have her brain replaced rather than refuse outright? Or is this not a deal, but a complete threat?"

“I think none of those otherworldly visitors you’ve seen have ever been here. The Batman they rescued was actually the Joker. The real Batman is this brain in the water tank.”

“You’re wrong.” A line of text suddenly appeared on the screen above his head. Schiller looked up; the characters were still gradually appearing.

“A Batman in metal armor came here. He put my brain back into my body. But he still failed.”

“Of course he’ll fail,” Schiller said. “Your body has been injected with a solution containing the Joker’s genes. The Joker virus will contaminate your brain. He must have missed crucial information during the investigation.”

Schiller was referring to the possibility that Arkham Batman might not have gone to the archives beneath the cathedral to find the experimental logs. He was unaware that the final experiment conducted by the Angel of Death, Paul, involved injecting the Joker's genes into Batman's body.

Without knowing this, he might have simply swapped their brains back. However, Batman's brain, once returned to his body, was contaminated by his body, which already possessed the Joker's genes. In the end, it was the Joker who was saved, not Batman.

“He knew.” The words on the screen once again contradicted Schiller’s assumption. “He simply had no other choice.”

"No other choice?" Schiller suddenly sneered. "I'm always the one who leaves others with no other choice..."

Then he suddenly paused, covered his forehead, and said in a low voice, "Can you two just shut up for a second?"

After saying that, he stopped talking and went to pick up Batman's head. Batman clearly wanted to say something more, but Schiller had already started smashing the back of his head with his pistol.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Schiller's strength had indeed increased considerably; he smashed it open with just three blows. Brain matter spilled out, the white brain clearly visible. Schiller reached into the skull, trying to pull the brain out.

Even with the Joker's incredible healing abilities, if the brain and body are separated, it's impossible for him to grow a complete head from a single brain. And there just happens to be a water tank nearby large enough to hold the brain—isn't that perfect?

Schiller's actions were rough, and the brain wasn't completely intact after being removed. But he didn't seem to care, simply tossing it into the nearby water tank. Although the original brain in the tank was unlikely to have any expression, Schiller, with his hallucinatory vision activated, still saw a look of terror on it.

“Sorry, I’m in a hurry,” Schiller told him.

He was indeed in a hurry. Because if the original brain in the tank was Batman, it would be very difficult to bring him back.

Batman's body has been corrupted by the Joker's genes and is therefore unusable. To restore Batman's body, a new one needs to be found. Currently, the only usable body seems to be the corpse of the Angel of Death, Paul Walker.

Paul the Angel of Death hadn't been dead long; his body hadn't started to decompose yet, so he should still be usable. But putting his brain back in and bringing him back to life was completely outside Schiller's knowledge.

He knew that simply putting it back wouldn't work; he needed a "stitching agent" that defied common sense—something with technology far beyond what people imagined—to possibly bring it back to life. After much thought, he figured only nanotechnology could do it.

In other words, Schiller needs to take the real Batman's brain back to the cathedral's basement, retrieve the nanotech equipment from Ms. Shiva, then go to the city hall, dissect Paul's skull, insert Batman's brain, and then have Batman control the nanotech equipment to repair his body in order to possibly save Batman.