Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics

The rain started again. There was no light in the city, only the spire windows of the distant cathedral emitted a dim glow that grew more blurred in the rain. The closer to the cathedral, the more corpses lined the streets. To many, the stench of decay signaled Death; to Shiller, it was like a beacon in the night.

The scent guiding his judgement of the time of death led him through streets and alleys. He walked through the dark streets, numerous hidden crises in the shadows reaching for his coat tails, but none could even touch his shadow. Shiller's steps were too resolute, as if the deliberately crafted dark ambiance couldn't faze him at all.

As he passed through an alley, he heard disordered footsteps and some unpleasant curses, followed by a barely detectable scent of blood.

Shiller sidestepped into the alley entrance. The light of torches came in succession, as a young man in a jacket rushed past him, followed by a group of sect members holding torches.

Shiller stood quietly at the street corner watching them rush past. After they left, he dusted off his coat as if nothing had happened, and continued towards his destination.

As he turned a corner and crossed another street, he suddenly heard subtle noises behind him. He turned around to see a slender yet agile woman staring at him from within the darkness.

"Who are you?" the woman asked.

"Shiller," Shiller responded.

"I meant whose people are you, and what are you doing here?"

"I'm my own, and I'm here to complete a mission. Any other questions?"

"Aren't you curious to know who I am?"

"Do you really think this is the time for such formalities?" Shiller took out the gun from his pocket and said, "You can talk or you can leave. You have three seconds."

"I'm Lady Siwa, from the Assassin's Union. I need to free this city from the grip of the Saints Order."

"Good." Shiller commented, then turned to leave.

Suddenly, he sensed a faint breeze by his ear. He dodged to the side, and the spikes of the Finger Tiger came within an inch of him.

Bam!

The woman dodged swiftly, but the bullet hit her shoulder. The impact pushed her back two steps.

Bam! Bam!

Two more shots, all hitting the chest. Realizing none entered the heart, Shiller glanced at her with disappointment. He decided to cut his losses and left quickly.

Two shadowy figures quietly appeared behind the fallen Lady Siwa. She twitched, barely propping herself up with one hand, cursed, then said, "Catch up to him! Don't let him easily enter the cathedral!"

After Shiller left that street, he didn't continue towards the cathedral but instead found a door in a nearby alley to slip into. It seemed this used to be a bakery, but he didn't bother to search it, heading straight to the second floor.

Upon stepping on the second floor, he saw a frightened face appear in the dark. An elderly man with graying hair was curled up in the corner of the corridor, watching the approaching Shiller in terror.

Shiller merely gave him a glance and turned to another room on the second floor. This appeared to be the living quarters of the shop owner. Pushing open the door, he saw a bed; the room was a bit messy, as if ransacked. Shiller didn't mind, threw the blanket aside, and lay down.

A few minutes later, a dull knocking sounded at the door. Shiller ignored it and turned over. After sleeping for about half an hour, when Shiller got up, it was already noon. Yet there was no sign of daylight; it remained as gloomy as night.

Shiller took out the bullets he had picked from a corpse the day before, carefully wiping them with a pillowcase until no trace of blood was left, then cautiously replaced them in the magazine. Next, he took out the Fist Blade found the previous day, thrusting it twice into the pillow, looking quite satisfied at the clean cuts.

After rechecking his equipment, he pushed open the door, finding the old man from yesterday now gone.

At that moment, noises suddenly came from downstairs. Shiller paused mid-step on his way down and turned back inside. He opened the window and jumped straight down. Landing from the second floor, he remained unscathed.

He didn't circle back to the bakery entrance but continued towards the cathedral. After crossing another couple of streets, he suddenly heard painful moans from a small alley to his side.

Shiller's steps paused for a moment, then he quickened his pace to swiftly cross the alley. After the quiet returned, he glanced at the surrounding corpses, some fresh blood was trickling through the cracks of the pavement to his feet.

He continued onward. With a thud, a shadow fell in front of him. Shiller's first reaction was to look up and saw a window sway. He bolted from the street at his fastest speed. At the turn, the cathedral was just around the corner.

Many sect members in red uniforms were patrolling. Shiller paused briefly, observing their patrol routes. Not seeing any obvious flaws, he sprinted directly at the cathedral's main entrance.

He moved so fast that many of the patrollers failed to react. Perhaps they never expected someone to charge openly, so there weren't many guards at the main door, allowing Shiller to burst through.

Upon charging into the hall, he ran towards the podium, crouched behind it, using the table before him as cover. Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!

Shiller fired five shots, taking down the first three pursuers who rushed in. As expected, the footsteps of those coming in behind faltered, tripping over the fallen bodies. Taking advantage of this opportunity, Shiller dashed towards the side door.

If he remembered correctly, the captive Batman should be held underground. After rushing into the corridor, Shiller ran all the way towards the back. The church's rear garden, after a night's rain, was inconveniently damp. There were also two bodies here, but dressed in red uniforms, seemingly their own people.

Shiller scanned the rear garden with his gaze, and upon seeing the cellar door, sprinted towards it. But suddenly, a strong figure clad in a red cloak descended from the sky.

The opponent landed and rolled, and before they could stabilize themselves on one leg, Shiller fired three shots in that direction. Two shots hit the legs, and one shot hit the abdomen. The opponent's movement to get up paused. Taking this chance, Shiller bypassed him directly, arriving at the top of the cellar door. As expected, he saw a lock.

Finding no immediate way in, Shiller turned again, continuing to shoot towards where the strong figure was. The opponent had to roll into the bushes to dodge. Only then did Shiller have a moment to glance at the lock on the cellar door.

It wasn't anything high-tech, just a simple big lock. Shiller pulled out a piece of wire, poked it into the keyhole. Unsurprisingly, the lock was quickly picked open.

Opening the cellar door, Shiller tossed a flare down first. Seeing nothing unusual below, he jumped down, picked up the flare, and held it aloft as he walked inside.

The inside of the cellar was completely transformed, as if the technology of the whole city had gathered here. Various panels and pipelines, indecipherable devices, and iron racks of varying heights, clearly a high-tech secret laboratory.

Shiller paid no attention to the equipment, just holding up the flare as he walked further in. After a few turns, he came to a relatively large space. Here, several sect members in red quickly spotted Shiller holding the flare.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Three more shots, the three people in front fell down, and those behind stumbled over the bodies. Shiller seized the chance to dash forward, using the Fist Blade he had found earlier to stab through the one in front, and with a gun in the other hand, he took down the one behind.

After digging out a few more bullets, Shiller was in no rush to wipe them, casually pulling a piece of cloth, wrapping the bloody bullets, and putting them into his pocket, he continued walking deeper.

It grew brighter ahead, so Shiller tossed the flare to one side. Moving further forward, in a room slightly smaller than the previous hall, a human figure of peculiar shape hung on a tall iron rack.

The body was reduced to only a torso, with arms and legs completely missing. Strangely, the head wasn't attached to the torso, but was about half a meter above, connected by a ghastly black spine to the torso.

The head was also incomplete, with the rear part of the skull sliced away, replaced by a backward-protruding glass cover. From the side, the brain could be clearly seen.

The man's body was covered with scars, but the features still vaguely retained traces of once being handsome, and resembled Bruce Wayne in most aspects.

"Tsk tsk." Shiller looked him up and down, saying, "To end up in such a miserable state is not easy, no wonder you're called the most miserable Batman."

Upon hearing the voice, the man opened his eyes. They were a pair of somewhat cloudy blue eyes, bloodshot whites revealing fatigue and numbness. He opened his mouth and asked, "Who are you?"

"Shiller," Shiller replied.

The man seemed not to have expected Shiller to give a name directly. He obviously hadn't heard of this name and didn't know how to respond.

"Where's Paul? Did you kill him?" the man continued to ask.

"Hard to say. He was shot three times, probably not fatal, but he's not getting up anytime soon. Are you Batman?"

"I used to be. But I was defeated by Death Angel Paul, captured and held here by him. He restored my limbs and muscles, but cruelly cut them off again..."

"I don't have time to listen to your flirting. Answer my question, are you not Batman now?"

"I don't know," the man said. "How is the city?"

Shiller didn't answer his question, just stood there pondering. Throughout his journey, he had been considering why other rescuers failed.

Other rescuers did not understand the plot like he did, but most would still come to the cathedral because this building was too conspicuous. They would encounter Death Angel Paul here, fight him, and then find the tortured Batman underground.

So far, there's been no difficulty. Shiller estimated that even with some setbacks on the way, with Arkham Batman's strength, resolving this in an hour would be considered slow. Yet he still failed.

There are two possibilities: either the "rebuilding Gotham's order" task wasn't completed, or he didn't actually rescue Batman.

Others didn't know, but Shiller knew well that this Broken Bat had gone mad long ago in 30 years of captivity, wreaking havoc upon release. Can such a person still really be called Batman?

The tasks in Battleworld didn't have progress indicators, only completed and uncompleted states. Rescuing Batman counted as halfway complete, but since the other half wasn't done, it was tough to determine if this half was successfully done.

Shiller pondered for a long time, thinking his conjecture was correct. This guy in front of him probably wasn't Batman, and rescuing him didn't count as completing the mission. So even if the subsequent task of rebuilding Gotham was done, valuable time was wasted, possibly leading to the real Batman not being saved, thus causing mission failure.

Then where is the real Batman?