Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics

"Calm down, Bruce," the pale knight said. "Since the situation has come to this, we must make the most advantageous choice. I suggest we save Greed, the supplies and equipment in his laboratory are the most useful things we can find in this village, and it also serves as a perfect shelter. With this, we can hold out against the Joker."

"No," Greed spoke up. "Old Sirteck is not dead; he's just hiding. As long as we find him, you can enter the laboratory too, but we absolutely need Batman to deal with the Joker."

His words muddled what was initially a somewhat clear situation, forcing the pale knight to ask, "Where is Old Sirteck?"

"To be honest, I don't know, but I think the Joker has already gone to find him," Greed's voice fluctuated as he spoke. "As long as we can capture Old Sirteck, we will have the capital to confront you."

"But it won't be that easy," he continued. "When I designed the story, I knew someone would target him, so I left some little surprises. If he dares to go there, he will definitely suffer a big loss."

The pale knight was stunned for a moment, then tentatively asked, "Mrs. Sirteck?"

"Yes, do you remember the bizarre incident that I mentioned happened at the university graduation ball? That was a spirit captured by Old Sirteck, now residing within his wife. Once triggered, the Joker is undoubtedly doomed."

The pale knight felt a chill down his spine. This guy had probably calculated everything in advance. When he heard the stories of the Sirteck family, he naturally thought of Old Sirteck, who still presides over the family. Perhaps by finding him, they could obtain richer resources than his son.

But unexpectedly, Greed had already considered this when designing the story; he had set a time bomb beside Old Sirteck.

Monsters can indeed be contained, but rash contact without knowing the specific constraints can easily release the monster. All of them, mere mortals, facing a monster head-on would have little chance of survival.

"So, the Sirteck family has captured two monsters?" The pale knight remembered; Greed had mentioned capturing a monster.

"I never said it was definitely a Wandering," Greed said. "The Wandering was captured by me after the game started."

The pale knight's eyes widened slightly, then he recalled seeing Doug's corpse in the water tank in the laboratory. They had first seen it in the cabin before it was moved to the water tank. If the Wandering was inside this corpse, it must indeed have been captured after the game started.

"How was it captured?" he couldn't help but ask.

"I had just landed when I saw someone running away," said Greed, somewhat helplessly. "It was Doug, Madeline; they were being chased by a spirit-possessed corpse."

"That corpse in the kitchen?"

"Yes, by that time they had already run towards Reed."

"You saved them?"

"I stopped the corpse, severed its limbs, and observed the monster's pattern."

"What is it?"

"Blood transmission; you can think of it as only being able to move within the blood," Greed explained. "And I happened to have a way to sever a person's limbs without contacting the blood, thus confining its movements. So, it failed to possess me and got stuck in the dismembered corpse."

"How did it then get to Doug?"

"Because I encountered Batman; he can control bodies. A fully-limbed corpse can better transfer the monster to the laboratory."

"So you killed him for that?"

"Of course not; he just happened to come knocking."

"Why didn't the Wandering inside Doug's body chase after us?"

"Because it was confined. Do you remember how Doug died?"

The pale knight certainly recalled the appearance of that corpse, then somewhat understood and said, "The Wandering needs a certain amount of blood to move, and you caused Doug to lose a lot of blood quickly, so it couldn't move?"

"It could still move; didn't you all get hit?"

"…That was its attack method?!"

"What else would it be, jump up and bite you?"

The pale knight suddenly realized; such an intangible monster indeed seemed more logically addressed with this kind of magical approach than if it were a zombie siege. People might not be so helpless in that case.

No wonder there were no reports of the human race using massive bombardments to deal with monsters; these creatures were likely not physically harmful, but instead directly attacked the spirit, and were even a group attack, hitting everyone who saw them.

The pale knight probably figured out what was going on; actually, Greed had arrived early, right at the second after the introduction ended, just when the detective was about to die from the monster's chase.

His skill was Wind Blade; he directly went up and chopped off the attacker's limbs, immobilizing him, and inadvertently discovered the monster's pattern of movement.

Originally, he might not have planned to capture this monster, but then he encountered Batman, who has the skill to control corpses. So, the two of them thought to transfer the Wandering to another corpse, confine it, and then use the skill to control corpses to seal away the corpse with the Wandering inside.

The monster couldn't be eliminated, but as long as it could be sealed away, the crisis was essentially resolved.

"About that fish…"

"The fish isn't part of my story," Greed closed his eyes and lay on the ground, speaking, "I guess it might be the Joker's, a Transcendent stitched into my story, so I simply tried to see if this fish had something special, but so far, I have found nothing."

This completely exceeded the pale knight's expectations, so those who ate the fish were not experimental subjects of Silter Medical Company, but something else? Could this have something to do with the Joker's fallback?

The Joker had a fallback, Greed had a fallback, Batman also had a fallback; it was supposed to be a peak showdown, but now the scene was quite awkward. It was originally a tripartite stand, but now it was a battle at the summit of the Forbidden City.

"You better choose Batman," Greed said. "I'm not sure I can handle the Joker."

"I am sorry," Batman's voice came from inside the room, and Shiller turned his head to look at him. He heard Batman say, "I swear I didn't mean to bait you; I was just curious, so I asked. If this offended you, then I apologize."

"It's too late," Shiller said. "30 seconds have already passed."

Batman said nothing more, his Greed fuming with rage. Despite his weakness, he still said, "He stabbed you, and you apologized to him?! He shattered our plans!"

"Do you know why he apologized to me?"

Shiller's voice came from the darkness, and suddenly, Greed had a bad premonition. The next second, there was a loud bang, and Night Owl fell.

The Pale Knight went to check on Night Owl. He felt the airflow from Night Owl's movements, which suggested he tried to dodge, but probably due to the loss of an arm, his balance was affected. He didn't manage to dodge. The bullet didn't hit his heart, but entered his lung from the side, leading directly to a hemothorax. Death was only a matter of time.

"I still have four bullets," Shiller said.

While the Pale Knight was checking on Night Owl, he saw a hand reach for the Pale Knight's waist and took the handgun.

"No! Bruce!" the Pale Knight shouted. "We can't keep killing each other like this!"

Bang!

The bullet reflected a strange light in the dark, and two dice were thrown at the same time, one to determine shooting accuracy and the other for the dodge probability.

Bruce's handgun shooting, education 32>25, check successful.

Shiller dodging, dexterity 28>25, check successful.

Everyone was shocked.

It wasn't just that Bruce had fired the gun, but the determinant for Bruce's handgun shooting was actually education.

"Sorry," Bruce said. "I'm an agent too."

Greed serenely closed his eyes.

But he was serene a bit too early.

Bang!

Shiller's handgun shooting, key item "night vision goggles," no check needed.

Bruce dodged, dexterity 30>25, check successful.

Bang!

Bruce's handgun shooting, education 29>25, check successful.

Shiller dodged, dexterity 26>25, check successful.

"Enough!" Batman shouted. "This is a pointless waste of resources! If Joker finds this place, we are all dead! Stop this immediately!"

Bang!

Bang!

Yet another round where all checks were successful, and neither could best the other. Bruce was clearly too engaged, and the Pale Knight, trying to stop him, nearly got shot as well.

Just as Bruce was about to shoot again, the Pale Knight suddenly saw a shadow flash by one side of the corridor.

"Bruce, watch out!"

Clang!

The gun barrel just blocked the sharp edge of a door sign, and Bruce dodged to the side, but a step too late; the door sign slammed into his shoulder. Although it wasn't as sharp as a kitchen knife, it hit with much more force, and Bruce immediately felt dizzy.

Sometime unknown, Shiller had already moved closer, and with two people on this side, he had still come over!

"Damn it!" Bruce cursed.

Actually, after the first shot was fired, the next round had already started, and Batman was the only one among those fallen who had spoken. This meant Bruce had already made his choice.

He wasn't out of his senses; rather, he intended to use the gunfire to confuse Shiller's vision, allowing Batman to silently rise and deal Shiller a fatal blow.

No one could handle Batman's sneak attack.

But clearly, Batman had no intention of attacking Shiller; he even shouted out to let Shiller know he had recovered.

"What indecision!" Bruce cursed inwardly.

Batman's figure appeared on the other side of the corridor. He seemed unable to stand the situation any longer and directly said, "Shiller, killing a player doesn't count as real murder, which means I can attack you without reserve. You better think this through…"

"I've thought it through very clearly," Shiller hit Bruce once more without lingering and quickly moved towards the stairwell, disappearing swiftly up the stairs.

Bruce was about to say something when he heard another set of footsteps slowly approaching from downstairs, heavy and sinister.

The light from torches pierced through the staircase level by level, illuminating a horrifying smiling face.

"Joker…"