civilwarnovels Chapter 3881 The Nameless Bat (51)
Chapter 3881 The Nameless Bat (51)
Chapter 3881 The Nameless Bat (Fifty-One)
Schiller killed the game.
But Natasha couldn't dwell on why the Penguin could understand the Russian, and why, after understanding it, he realized the Eden Killer wouldn't target them.
In short, they successfully rejected the Penguin's offer, but were still required to stay and protect the Penguin and Barbara—after all, no one knew if any of the bodyguards had been turned. Natasha was currently the most physically capable person present.
Natasha thought this was for the best, at least she could keep track of the whole situation. If she went back inside, she would only be able to guess.
The penguin manager took the entire guest list and eliminated them one by one. There were more than 60 rooms and more than 120 people in total. After excluding rooms for same-sex couples and rooms for non-couples, only 13 rooms remained.
Of these 13 rooms, only 4 rooms contain couples who meet the criteria—that is, they have a bad relationship, each with their own weaknesses, and are likely to kill each other under manipulation.
The others are either people with whom the Eden Killer has a close relationship, or whose interests are so intertwined that turning against each other is impossible, or people who have tried to kill each other but failed. These are unlikely to be the targets of the Eden Killer.
Two of the four couples each had a child, but these two children behaved mediocrely. According to Schiller, they were not seduced and did not resemble the little boy who had previously killed his parents.
The fact that the child was not the killer's child obviously added more variables. The Eden Killer would very likely not have chosen either of these couples with children, as this could have caused one of the spouses to soften their stance, thus making the murder unsuccessful.
The last two couples without children were in similar situations, characterized by a love-hate relationship. Such marital relationships are easily sown apart.
However, since this was a setup, they couldn't just sit here and wait for the Eden Killer to come knocking. The Penguin's solution was for him to take action and kill all of the Eden Killer's potential targets.
Natasha immediately realized that this was the same line of thinking as the agent. Cyber lifeforms operate according to logic, and this particular cyber lifeform was exceptionally focused on achieving optimal goals—if it was going to do something, it would always designate specific people to do it. Before achieving its goal, it couldn't allow its designated people to die; it would find a way to protect them.
The fact that the Eden Killer has maintained a pattern of killing one man and one woman each time proves that he has no intention of changing it. Therefore, if the Penguin were to act first and kill all the man-and-woman pairs, the Eden Killer would definitely try to stop him.
Knowing that their actions might be monitored and eavesdropped on, this was an open plan: if you don't show yourself, I'll kill all your targets; you have to show up whether you want to or not.
Of course, if the Eden Killer doesn't intervene, the Penguin is digging his own grave—because he locked these people up to protect them and suppress the turbulent situation, and to kill them himself would be suicide.
But the Penguin couldn't care less. As a supervillain who had spent years in Gotham, he had encountered far too many psychopaths. The Eden Killer struck him as similar to those psychopaths he had encountered before—they wouldn't tolerate anyone interfering while they were creating their masterpieces. The Penguin's behavior was utterly rude and provocative; they were easily provoked and would then act recklessly.
Although Natasha and the Penguin analyzed things from different angles, they both came to the same conclusion: this tactic should be effective.
The Penguin didn't even bother having his bodyguards escort them; instead, he personally led Natasha and the couples to his room on the top floor. Everyone looked bewildered, but they weren't innocent.
Natasha knew this, of course—judging by the city's state of disrepair, these people hadn't done anything good. To die here without a trial was somewhat too lenient on them.
She didn't want to get involved—until she heard the penguin call the man in one of the couples "Mr. Wayne".
Natasha followed the penguin's gaze: a middle-aged man in a suit was standing against the wall, his face bearing a resemblance to Batman's, but the woman next to him had a mouth almost identical to Batman's.
"Wait!" Natasha yelled, "Who are they?!"
"You don't know them?" The Penguin looked at Natasha with some doubt. "Well, that makes sense. You're Batman's subordinate, not his lover. He doesn't really need to introduce his parents to you."
Natasha stepped forward and snatched the list from the Penguin's hand. She then saw that one of the two couples most likely to be chosen by the Eden Killer had the surname Wayne.
"Batman's parents don't get along?!" Natasha asked the Penguin.
"If you think that leading your respective families to fight each other in Gotham for three months and dropping missiles on each other's heads is a good way to strengthen your relationship, then our Mr. and Mrs. Wayne are clearly a model couple," the Penguin said sarcastically.
Natasha stared at the couple in front of her in shock.
“That’s all in the past, Mr. Cobblestone,” Martha said with her hands folded over her lower abdomen, very reservedly. “We still believe that the Wayne and Kane families can create a better future together. In fact, we get along quite well now.”
Thomas nodded and said, "Yes, we were separated for a while, but we're back together now. I haven't asked you why you called us over yet."
“Of course I’m going to kill you all,” the Penguin said. “Once I’ve eliminated all of Eden Killer’s targets, he’ll definitely react.”
“You’ve probably lost your mind,” Martha said calmly. “If the Killer of Eden knew it was this easy to drive you insane, he’d be very happy.”
"Enough with the nonsense." The Penguin took a gun from one of his subordinates.
Just as Thomas was about to make a move, Schiller shook his head at him. Thomas frowned and looked at him.
The Penguin raised his gun and aimed it at Thomas's head. The instant he pulled the trigger, Thomas instinctively lunged to the side, but there was only a faint "click"—the bullet jammed.
The penguin ejected the bullet, reloaded it, and aimed at Martha again. Thomas tried to push Martha away, but she frowned and didn't move, as if she had thought of something.
"Click"—another sound, the bullet jammed again.
The penguin, as if refusing to believe it, grabbed guns from the other bodyguards, but either the parts were broken or the bullets wouldn't fire. Finally, he roared furiously, "So this is the kind of junk you use to protect me?!"
"Excuse my bluntness, but you also buy weapons from arms dealers, don't you?" Natasha looked at him and said, "How do you know the suppliers aren't being manipulated?"
The Penguin slammed his guns to the ground, cursing angrily. He then drew his umbrella knife, preparing to end the fight with melee weapons. Natasha, of course, wouldn't let him kill Batman's parents, so she shot his umbrella.
"Damn it! Our plan!"
"Sorry, plans have changed."
With a wave of his hand, the Penguin sent bodyguards swarming towards Natasha, who effortlessly outmaneuvered them all. The room descended into chaos, like several action movies compressed together.
Because the room was small, no matter how much Natasha maneuvered, she still couldn't protect Wayne and his wife on her own. The bodyguard's knife nearly sliced off a strand of Martha's hair.
Just then, the screen in front of Barbara, who was sitting in the corner of the room quietly operating her computer, lit up—a series of data tracking Martha Wayne's cell phone signal suddenly began to change rapidly.
In another universe, Batman from Arkham sits in the center of a room filled with countless floating magical screens. He manipulates magical dots as if they were computer keyboards, while intently watching the information on the largest screen in front of him.
The magical network connected to the external internet in the same way as the magic academy, and just like then—the fundamental difference in energy form gave the magical network an excellent one-way firewall against the external internet, like a one-way mirror: those inside can see out, but those outside cannot see in.
Batman Arkham is using this power to track all signals related to Arkham Knight Jason Todd.
Half a day ago, the indictment documents concerning Schiller were submitted to the federal prosecutor's office, and all witness testimonies were complete. However, Jason Todd had not yet submitted his victim testimony due to the severity of his injuries—this would be the key evidence in determining whether Schiller would be charged with a crime.
After the Arkham Knight was drugged, countless people manipulated by the mastermind attempted to approach the operating room, but they were all stopped by Nightwing and Robin and arrested by Gordon.
Knowing this method was useless, the mastermind was left with only one option: to contact Jason Todd himself and persuade him. The Arkham Knights, however, had always used the "Prophet" system from Barbara Gordon.
Barbara was sitting next to Arkham Batman. She saw him connect to his Oracle System via a magical network. Although Barbara didn't understand magic very well, she was extremely familiar with the system she had created.
Under the guidance of Batman from Arkham, Barbara began to explore her own system by manipulating magical powers, using the advantages of a one-way firewall to dismantle the code she had written bit by bit, leaving no stone unturned.
A thread of magical light suddenly trembled slightly. Barbara's gaze instantly turned serious. She tapped the point of light in the air as she said, "He's trying to hack into the Prophet System and directly access Jason's personal terminal... He's here."
At the same moment in two universes, in the identical pupils of two nearly identical red-haired women, the light emanating from cold data transformed them into continuous mountain peaks. The same string of data was like the same rain falling at opposite ends of the world.
Amidst the mechanical clicks of the keyboard and the hum of magic, two Barbara Gordon voices rang out simultaneously:
"caught you."
Here I come!