Batman upstairs was counting the time and was about to end his meaningless argument with the Joker when he saw a sly smile in the Joker's eyes.
Batman's heart sank, but he had actually been mentally prepared for it. He was the one who knew the Joker better than Schiller. If the Joker dared to face him with confidence, he must have someone to rely on.
Usually this situation only occurs when the Joker has successfully completed his big prank, Gotham is in danger, and Batman wants to kill the culprit in front of him. He also has to rush to save the city and cannot waste half a minute on him.
time.
Although we often encounter situations like this, this time the Joker miscalculated. Batman really wants to save the world, but there are many people here who don't want to let him go.
Batman turned to Bruce and said, "You watch this guy here, I'll go downstairs and take a look."
After saying that, he didn't even look at the clown and walked directly downstairs. The clown turned to look at Batman, and the next second he got kicked on the butt. Bruce, who had endured it for a long time, kicked the clown down the stairs.
Batman stepped over the Joker who was lying on the ground. Before the Joker could get up, he was directly lifted up from the ground by Bruce. Bruce looked up at the Pale Knight and said, "Are you bleeding?"
The pale knight shook his head, then made a gesture of invitation, nodding his head in an elegant manner as if he was attending a celebrity banquet.
"Where did you hide the electric shock device you made earlier?" Bruce's voice gradually disappeared at the end of the corridor.
As expected, Batman who went downstairs quickly guessed from the water stains what Teller had done. When he saw the footprints spreading to the door, Batman guessed that he had gone to the village.
But Batman had a different idea than him. Since there might be a problem at the dock, he had to go to the dock. Even if there was something he couldn't deal with now, he had to know what it was.
So Batman also picked up his equipment and went out in the direction of the dock. It was not dark yet, and heavy snow obscured his vision.
As soon as Batman got close to the dock, he noticed something was wrong. Logically speaking, there would be no fog in snowy weather, but it was extremely humid here, and the thick fog limited his field of vision to only about two meters.
Batman first hid in a hut near the dock and looked at the situation outside through the window. He just found some water stains on the ground, but they were obviously not human footprints, more like some webbed feet.
left behind by living things.
Batman had read the "Necronomicon" from Pride and had a certain understanding of the Cthulhu mythology system. He immediately connected the abundant fish in the underground river with the current clues.
Legend has it that there lives a huge half-man, half-fish monster deep under the sea, named Dagon. Legend has it that people who believe in Dagon can catch abundant fish.
Batman had noticed before that there were an abnormal number of fish in the underground river. They were not at all the number of fish that should naturally occur in a river. It was said that the team boss, Siltek, ordered people to go out to sea and salvage them.
.
Are the Siltecs followers of Dagon?
This is not mentioned in Greed's backstory, but Batman also knows that if the Beyonder wants to connect all the backstories together, it will inevitably expand on some details.
Maybe Old Siltek really had such an experience, so he wanted to do something, and the clown might have been hired by him to do all this.
When Batman was thinking, he heard a rustling sound. He quickly lowered his body and held his breath.
He clicked on the listening skill before, and now chose to activate the skill. Listening 23>15, the skill check was successful.
But Batman felt like he had been punched in the brain. Although his firm willpower kept him silent, the dizziness still did not ease.
He heard a whisper. He remembered the syllables, but could not understand the meaning. He felt that he might not have the relevant skills. After meeting Schiller later, he might try to decipher it.
But at this moment, he heard the footsteps getting closer and closer.
Could these monsters be able to locate people by breathing, right? Batman felt that there was some trouble. His current ability should not be enough to deal with these monsters. The Joker is indeed good at poking such big holes.
Suddenly, a pair of swollen, protruding, cloudy eyeballs appeared on the window of the house where he was squatting. The eyeballs turned, and then stared down at the corner where Batman was hiding.
Batman was looking up at this time. The moment he saw those eyes, his brain buzzed, and he felt that his brain was being shaken to pieces, and he was almost unable to resist at all.
With a swish sound, a wet and dirty trident was inserted through the window, directly into Batman's shoulder blade. Batman was unable to dodge, and bright red blood remained along the shoulder.
The moment he smelled the smell of blood, he knew something was wrong. Sure enough, the door was knocked open the next second, and a terrifying black figure rushed in.
Batman has learned to be smart. He no longer looks up to see anything, but looks at the opponent's shadow. Judging from the shape of the shadow, it is a hunchbacked monster with a fish head and scales on its back.
.
The sticky, moist and putrid smell poured into his nose. Batman felt that his mental health was still declining. He half-knelt on the ground to cover the wound. The wound was painful and unusual. What made him feel even worse was that that kind of
The moist breath was invading his blood along the wound, causing his health to drop rapidly.
With no other option, Batman rushed toward the door. Dexterity was 25 < 50, and the test failed.
Looking at the test value of 50, Batman knew that his hope of successfully escaping was slim, but the monster in front of him didn't seem to intend to kill him, so Batman had no choice but to wait and see what would happen.
The trident blocked his way. The monster grunted a few times, seeming to think that Batman had no ability to resist. He took out a long chain, pierced Batman's shoulder with a nail, and dragged him outside.
Walk.
Batman pretended to be fainted, but he was still able to secretly open his eyes to look at the situation on the road. He found that the dock was full of such monsters, and they seemed to be capturing humans.
He had to figure out where these things came from, otherwise the disaster would spread out of control.
Schiller walked for more than an hour until it was almost dark before he reached the village. As expected, the village was so quiet that there seemed to be no one left.
Schiller believed that if they followed the normal procedure and headed to the village from the beginning, they should still be able to find a few living people, but it might be difficult now.
It is known that when Greed came to the ground, Doggett and Madeline were being hunted, and it was the Prowler who was chasing them. So where were they before they escaped into the cave?
If they were in the village, the best way would be to run out of the village. The worst option would be to run to the dock to look for a boat. However, they chose to enter the underground cave, which proves that they should not be able to escape from the village.
of.
But it is more likely to prove that the prowler can move freely in the village, while the prowler can only move in blood, which means that the village should be full of blood.
Schiller followed a path into the village and climbed over half of the low stone wall to the backyard of a family. There were some debris piled here and a dilapidated dog house. Schiller found the dog's body on the side of the dog house.
, the death was very miserable.
When I opened the back door of the house, even though a long time had passed, the strong smell of blood still did not dissipate. The whole family was dead.
Check out the correct version one by one!
It can be roughly judged from the crime scene that this family also killed each other. The youngest daughter among them was probably possessed. He hacked his mother to death while she was cooking with a kitchen knife. The father wanted to stop him, but he stopped him.
When he went to stop his daughter, the prowler had already transferred to his mother and killed his father.
One of the family members must have run away. Judging from the footprints, it must have been a child. Sure enough, Schiller saw the body of a little boy not far from the front yard.
The streets were littered with miserable corpses.
A monster that can move through blood is simply not something that ordinary people can fight against. The more they want to kill the monster, the more blood they will produce, and the easier it will be to become possessed.
From the clues on the street, Schiller could tell that a group of people had organized resistance, and Schiller suspected that it was Madeleine and the others.
After all, Madeleine is an expert in this field, and the detective is said to be extremely capable, so he must be somewhat capable in this area. However, their resistance failed in the end, so they had to escape.
However, Schiller felt that there were more than just the two of them in the resistance organization. Since the Prowler was taken away by them, there might be other survivors left.
But it is difficult enough to deal with this group of people. After all, he is an outsider and a church member. It would be terrible if they think he is here to silence him.
Schiller opened the door and walked into a residential house again, and found several more corpses, nothing unusual.
Schiller just checked one by one. This village is actually not big. Even if he uses exhaustive methods, he should be able to find some clues.
Finally, Schiller discovered fresh traces of activity in the store in the southeast of the village. Someone had raided the store about an hour ago, which meant that there were indeed survivors.
But unfortunately, the heavy snow covered almost all traces, and Schiller couldn't tell where he came from and where he was going.
Schiller speculated that these people were not hiding on the ground, but might be hiding in intricate underground caves, emerging from a certain cave entrance and coming to a store to obtain supplies.
In this case, he would not dare to go down rashly, because the other party was a local and was much more familiar with the environment in the underground cave than he was. If he went down by himself, he would be falling into a trap.
There were so many houses here, and he couldn't believe that these people had taken away all the supplies. As long as they could find weapons, especially powerful firearms, they were no longer a threat.
Schiller felt that there should be a gun shop in this village, because the more remote the village, the more places you can use guns, and this village also has a profession like a hunter, so there should at least be a place to sell hunting supplies. If there are no guns
, a powerful compound bow will also work.
Schiller also took some food from the store and returned to the street to search the weapons store.
On the other side, Batman was thrown into a dark room. He found that there were still living people in the room, all with wounds on their bodies. They were all trembling and hiding in the corner, and some of them had begun to talk crazy nonsense.
.
But Batman has no time to worry about them for the time being, because the wounds on his body have begun to worsen. Obviously, the injuries are not serious, but his current state is worse than the previous injuries, even worse than having a kitchen knife inserted into the heart.
It's even more dangerous every time.
The key is that the clear thinking he was most proud of began to become chaotic. The syllables he had written down continued to circle in his brain, cutting his thinking into fragments one after another.
Batman finally understood the Joker's sinister intentions.
No matter how serious the physical injury is, it is impossible to defeat Batman, but this kind of mental attack can directly disrupt his thinking. Once there is a problem with his mind, he is only one step away from death.
Happy New Year!!! 2025 will definitely be very good to everyone!!