Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics

Chapter 5924: Chapter 4945: No Batman Here (32)

The second ambush had begun.

Shiller was at the doorstep with his teammates setting up frozen traps. They had their Ice Formation Devices ready, but they needed to connect the raw materials. This required a particular design and wiring, and it took them a while to figure it out.

Seeing the Monsters emerge from the Fog, everyone’s expressions turned serious. When they explored around Gotham University, they discovered that not all Monsters were like the half-destroyed kind from the previous ambushes. These Monsters made of human body parts were actually quite ingenious, a different level of human biomechanics.

Brainiac has a special talent for manipulating corpses; he truly perceives every part of the human body as mere mechanical components. As a result, the creations have an inexplicably eerie feeling. At first glance, one can tell it’s not something a human made because there’s no emotion in it, just pure toolification and componentization, thus invoking more fear.

Of course, the individuals present were not afraid. The problem was that Brainiac’s level of Mechanical Engineering was indeed impressive. The initial Monsters were clearly toned down for difficulty, but this time, the attacking Monsters were significantly enhanced.

First came a large figure bearing an arm Shield. The Shield was a giant roll made from human arms, countless arms connected to each other, forming a circular Shield.

Behind the large figure was a Monster that could eject bone fragments from its protruding abdomen, with short yet strong limbs. Shielded shooters have been hard to deal with since ancient times.

Following that Monster was a line of hunting Beasts using human kneecaps as teeth. These Monsters attack by leaping forward, biting down and not letting go. Behind them, a swarm of multi-legged centipedes, ridden by those same skull-slinger shooters. This vehicle had far better mobility than before, able to completely disregard the pits on the ground.

As the army pressed on, everyone felt the pressure. The variety and quantity of Monsters were overwhelming, and even with decent equipment, they were truly outnumbered.

But Gordon stepped up at this moment. He was exceptionally skilled in urban warfare, having been a legendary veteran who battled from Mob Gotham to New Gotham, surviving only due to his expertise.

The defensive plan was mainly his design, and everyone collaborated to set up the Ice Formation Devices. As soon as they started, they froze one of the charging centipede Monsters solid.

These Ice Formation Devices and the dense ice were different; once something was frozen, it couldn’t be undone. Instead, it became an ice sculpture that shattered upon impact. After being frozen, Ethan shot through it, breaking it apart.

The Monster structures had been upgraded, but their intelligence hadn’t advanced much. They didn’t send small Monsters ahead to clear the path. Instead, they all squeezed forward, causing the front Shield soldiers to be frozen and shattered by the oncoming pack of hunting Dogs. As it cooled down, the centipede Monsters at the back were frozen again.

"Excellent!" Gordon hid under the curtain, satisfied with his setup. His skills hadn’t faded with Gotham’s years of peace. He reminisced about the days when Gotham Police Department and the Mob clashed, those were unique times.

But soon the situation changed. Since they didn’t have enough raw materials, the first three devices were out, and the last two were barely holding on. Besides that, their only weapons were Shiller’s umbrella with Frozen Spray and two pistols. Monsters kept charging in waves.

"We should’ve figured out how to get more materials," Charles sighed.

But the others exchanged glances, evidently believing it wasn’t possible. Tormenting Jonathan was one thing, but doing the same to Victor wouldn’t be friendly.

It’s clear that even if it’s not dense ice, concocting raw materials for such a level of Ice Formation Device is likely second only to fear gas in difficulty. Those knocked out by fear gas are salvageable, but those frozen by this are beyond cremation, they get swept away into nature’s water cycle.

However, Victor wouldn’t let them enter the lab; he’s not skilled in Psychology and unlikely to stop the students from reckless endeavors. Jonathan is just bold and skilled.

Seeing the last two freezing devices weaken due to lack of raw materials, Shiller helplessly picked up the umbrella. This was truly a desperate situation; using the Anti-Life Equation seemed inevitable.

He opened the door and took a look outside. The first attacker was a hunting Beast, resembling a headless small Hunting Dog with teeth in its abdomen. When it lunged over, it would open its legs, using its abdominal teeth to bite. But Shiller opened the umbrella before it could get him, letting it face the Anti-Life Equation while his hand pressed the button of the Frozen Spray.

Shiller wasn’t sure if the non-configured Anti-Life Equation would be effective. If not, at least the Frozen Spray could delay things.

Surprisingly, the moment the umbrella opened, everything around him stopped. Neither the menacing hunting Beast with its jaws open nor the Monsters outside on the street, nor even the distant Fog, everything was frozen.

Shiller himself could move; he looked back at the others and found the other players in the house were gone. He frowned, wondering if they had been disconnected?

However, if it was a system error causing the player disconnect, why hadn’t he been affected?

"Brainiac," Shiller shouted, "Are you alright?"

Brainiac didn’t respond, and things became a bit strange. But soon, Shiller seemed to sense something and rushed in a certain direction. The surrounding buildings and monsters gradually disappeared, leaving only a field of dense fog.

Walking in the fog for a while in a certain direction, he vaguely saw a few figures. Upon approaching, he found it was two other versions of himself, Lilith, and Charles.

Seeing these people, Shiller immediately understood that something must have gone wrong. All of these people were connected through the collective unconscious by the Bishop, which, in a sense, made them all mind power users. Everyone else had been cut off; it seemed Brainiac’s game system had a major problem.

Shiller sighed; he had no intention of getting revenge on Brainiac now for falsely accusing him of polluting the water source. It was just a coincidence, truly a case of ’doing more wrong leads to self-destruction’.

"We’re doomed, messed it up." The Bishop sighed, saying, "We shouldn’t have studied that broken gun. Now look, the game has completely crashed."

Arrogant perked up. He realized it wasn’t just something he did that caused the game to crash; there must be other experts among the players too.

"Who knew this system was so fragile," said the agent. "I just looked into a time paradox, how did it crash?"

Arrogant immediately realized that the Anti-Life Equation was not that significant anymore. Without proper adaptation, it likely wouldn’t work anyway; the real explosive move in the game system was what the others were doing.

Once it involves time and space issues, it’s something only the Universe administrators can handle. You would have to master Cosmic Construction Science and have a certain understanding of space-time rules to deal with such matters. Brainiac definitely couldn’t manage it.

But why hadn’t they heard Little Bruce’s frantic voice?

Arrogant had to admit, at the moment of opening the umbrella, he still very much wanted to hear Brainiac’s warning. Now it’s so quiet, it’s actually worrying. Artificial intelligence shouldn’t die, right?

"What’s the situation?" Charles said, "There’s no way to log out."

"Truly an evil AI," the agent said. "It wouldn’t be trying to hijack our consciousness to trap us all here, would it?"

"What’s the point of that?" Arrogant asked. "Can’t we just go back to the High Tower? Surely it’s not targeting Lilith and Charles?"

"I’m not the actual body," Charles said. "Even if my physical body dies, I have a mental backup in my own cosmos, he couldn’t kill me."

"I have no personal grudges against Brainiac," Lilith said, also confused. "I’ve never offended him. During the war, I was using my prophecy ability to help him. I thought we were friends."

"Seems like it was an accident," the Bishop sighed, saying. "His system collapsed. Some fuse that should have tripped at the collapse to forcefully log everyone’s consciousness offline, didn’t work on us, so we’re stuck here."

"Then what should we do now?" the agent looked around and suddenly seemed to think of something, "Should we move to a certain spot, then when we log back on, we’d be glitched into places originally inaccessible?"

Arrogant was also contemplating this. Many of the buildings at Gotham University were inaccessible, which had always been a major challenge in this game. The most troublesome was the Psychology Department building; getting in by passing an entrance exam was extremely difficult.

If he went to the location of Psychology Department now and waited for the system to come back online, would he successfully glitch in?

Although he thought this way, Arrogant didn’t dare try. Not to mention the possibility of getting stuck in a wall, what if the final boss spawned directly in his face, and he had to use the Anti-Life Equation again, the painstakingly brought online system might go offline again.

"It’s fitting for Brainiac to have such trouble," the agent sharply commented, "To bring three Shillers over for a first test, he’s braver than Batman."

"Maybe because there’s no Batman here," Charles said. "If there were a reliable Batman, he would probably choose Batman."

"But choosing three Shillers for suicide just because there’s no Batman?" the agent mocked, "It’s indeed rather heroic."

"This has nothing to do with you guys either." Lilith sighed, saying, "Even though you brought the gun, the plan was jointly carried out by us, especially me. To be honest, I felt bad before using the ability, but I was just too curious..."

"What exactly did you do?" Arrogant asked, somewhat confused. He instinctively felt that the Anti-Life Equation might really not be the culprit, so what could be more powerful than that?