Bab 661: Chapter 449: Dazzling Final Chapter (Middle)_1
Batman has lost control.
Perhaps because, in some sense, he just believed he had truly killed someone, or perhaps, the answer he gave to Shearer's question in his heart, consisted of something he wished to escape from.
Alternatively, it could be because forcibly halting the control of the black tide during the process subjected his psyche to an enormous strain, leaving him unable to control himself.
Nevertheless, Batman, alongside the black tide outside the mayor's mansion, had completely run rampant.
Clark, lying on the ground, had closed his eyes. Shearer's question had also severely jarred him, leaving his thoughts in chaos. Perhaps there were also feelings of avoidance hidden within him, unwilling to witness the sight of bodies flying about.
At that moment, the black tide about to destroy the mansion was suddenly blocked outside. A light screen descended, and the black tide was once again coalesced.
A figure appeared by the railing of the second floor atrium, it was Shearer, dressed in a black suit.
Strangely enough, he held a paintbrush in his hand, looking like he had just finished work. He tossed the paintbrush aside and dusted his hands, saying, "The testing of this room is almost complete, we…"
Just as Shearer had reached this point, a shadow suddenly leaped down from the second-floor atrium. Originally, he was mixed up with the crying crowd. But at this moment, that shadow rolled agilely around Joker Jack and arrived at Clark's side.
With a flick of his hand, the ropes restraining Clark were cut open. The man grabbed the piece of Kryptonite from Clark's chest and threw it away. As the Kryptonite hit the floor with a clank, Shearer, who was standing in the second-floor atrium, squinted his eyes.
"Merkel." said Shearer in a gloomy tone. The man who had just gone to Clark's aid was none other than his former butler, Merkel.
The now unbound Superman flew straight up, but Butler Merkel coughed weakly a couple of times. It seemed that contact with Kryptonite had injured him as well. He looked at Shearer and said, "I'm sorry, sir. I don't know what's going on, but I think I have to save him. He's a good man."
"Did you touch the bottle of liquor I had placed on the bookshelf?"
Although Shearer phrased it as a question, his tone was incredibly certain. The only possibility was that Merkel had come into contact with the Mad Liquor and had been pulled into a dream state.
"It seems, while I was not at the mansion, you finally remembered your mission."
Shearer lowered his eyes, displaying no signs of anger. However, Merkel's face gradually hardened. He spoke in a somewhat icy tone, "When did you find out?"
"Are you referring to the fact that you are a Soviet spy? That might have been earlier than you think," Shearer sighed and said, "You give food to the newspaper boy every day and take newspapers from him, haven't you noticed that this is a way to convey information?"
"One of my colleagues' students took over the forces of Gotham's 'King of Children' after he was taken down. He amalgamated all the newspaper boys, smoking boys, and street vendors in Gotham. There is no better watchful eye than these children."
"So, you knew when I just started working in your mansion?"
"Even earlier than that, you had been found out by the smoking boy as soon as you got off the train at the Gotham train station..."
While the two of them were in conversation, Clark, hovering in mid-air, began to tremble. Shearer looked up and saw his body starting to radiate light.
Shearer frowned as this was rather unexpected. Even more surprising events were yet to happen.
Clark spread his arms, his body flooded with radiant light. Moments later, he shot straight up into the sky.
Both the light screen that Shearer had just layed down and the relentless storm circling the mansion were immediately dispersed by Clark's flight.
The fierce wind and the near impenetrable snowstorm suddenly froze. For a moment, a hole was opened in the gloomy sky, a beam of radiant glow shone down onto Clark from above.
"Wait..." Shearer frowned, seemingly sensing something amiss, and immediately ordered, "Withdraw immediately! Get them out of there!"
But it was too late. When Clark punched a hole through the light screen, the black tide controlled by Batman took advantage of the situation, breaking the light screen at weak spots and the black tidal waves instantaneously decimated the mansion.
The anticipated scene of devouring everything didn't happen. A sun rose from the ground and formed a halo, protecting everyone present. Clark descended from the sun's glow, his eyes blazing with intensity.
At this moment, Batman also surfaced from the black tide, surrounded by endless giant ocean waves. The world's darkest shadow exploded from his eyes.
The two forces paused for a moment, then started moving at a speed invisible to the naked eye, and then collided with each other violently.
At the moment of the collision between light and darkness, everything was shattered.
Not only including the mayor's mansion and all the furniture and walls within the mansion, but also the shadows of distant buildings, the farther invisible walls, and then the whole Thought Palace.
As the perspective pulls back a towering peak, a small dot of light flickers at the tail of a giant snake coiled at the top of the tower.
The snake moved its head a bit and opened its eyes from sleep, looking bewilderedly at its tail.
Then, in an instant, it was blinded.
The tiny point of light, in a blink of an eye, burst into a dazzling radiance, like a sun falling on the top of the high tower.
Before Ye Meng Jia De could react, he was launched away like a spring by the blast of a mushroom cloud.
The dream space is always eerily quiet, but this time, an indescribable thunderous explosion erupted from the top of the tower, blowing not only Ye Meng Jia De and the two newly built rooms on him away but also reducing the top twenty-plus floors of the original high tower to dust.
When the halo of the mushroom cloud spread, everything quieted down, leaving only the suddenly shortened high tower, standing serenely in a vast white space.
Bruce sat up from the bed in a start. He closed his eyes for a moment in confusion, and when he opened them again, he found himself in a somewhat unfamiliar guest room. But it was certain that he was still inside the mayor's mansion.
Feeling his forehead, he found it heavy and his eyes a bit hard to open. His nose was a bit clogged, but when he rose from his bed, he found the room permeated with a strong wine aroma.
He saw a small table by his bed with a wine glass on it. However, there was no wine bottle, and the wine glass was empty. Bruce, frowning, walked over, picked up the wine glass, and squinted his eyes.
If it was indeed a dream, then when did he enter the dream?
To confirm this, he would need to know the current situation in the mansion.
He opened the door and found himself in a guest room on the second floor. Looking down the corridor, he noticed traces of a fight. Bruce remembered that was where they had clashed with the agents before.
So, he entered the dream after the fight with the agents, planning to rest and recover.
Bruce looked down again at the wine glass in his hand. As he was contemplating, he suddenly heard a noise from the end of the corridor and quickly closed the door.
If he entered the dream after the fight with the agents, then the agents could still be searching the mansion as they were only evaded but not defeated.
When his door was knocked, Bruce was sure the visitor was not an agent as the agents would not knock.
Sure enough, Clark was at the door, clutching his own head. His hair was in disarray and his eyes were half-closed, giving off an air of weariness and confusion.
"Oh, it's you. Just now, I heard some noise next door and came over to check. Somehow, I fainted next door and had a very strange dream..."
Bruce frowned, and he invited Clark into the room. Shortly after, Lex arrived too. He exchanged a glance with Bruce, both seeming to understand each other's confusion.
"Let's start from the beginning," as Lex sat down and knocked on the table before saying: "There's no doubt that we were pulled into a strange dream by Professor Shearer in some way."
"First question: what was the sequence in which we entered the dream?"
"You were the first to dream." Bruce said to Lex: "Do you remember what happened after we defeated the agents, in our dream recollection?"
"A group of agents burst into my room and knocked me out, then you saved me." Lex frowned as he said: "It seems that the ones who knocked me out may not have been the agents."
"Normally, you would be the easiest target. He didn't even need to use any special methods, just a hit with that umbrella would do."
"Wait, what are you guys talking about?" Clark held his forehead and said: "I know we dreamt something very similar, but what does it have to do with that professor? What are we speculating now?"
Bruce and Lex completely ignored Clark; they conversed back and forth, quickly speculating the truth of the matter.
For some reason, after Bruce, Clark, and Selina had a conflict with the agents, Shearer separately found Lex, Bruce and Clark, then somehow drew them into a dream.
As for what that 'somehow' was, both Bruce and Lex's gaze simultaneously fell on the water glass in Bruce's hand.
"This is not normal, I believe there is no ordinary wine in the world that, after being drank, leaves no trace in the glass. Unless it isn't wine but rather some drug," Lex continued.
"No, it was wine, just a special kind of wine." Obviously, Bruce thought back to the method Shearer used to incapacitate Constantine previously.
"So the only question is…" Lex stared at the wine glass and asked:
"Why would the professor do this?"
Bruce silently looked at the wine glass, then said, "If I'm not mistaken, he might have felt we disturbed his sleep."
The expressions of Lex and Clark hardened; they simultaneously, and silently, backed their chairs a bit, seemingly wanting to put some distance between themselves and Bruce.
Clark swallowed hard then said:
"I think what they said was correct..."
Lex fluently continued:
"All Gothamites are crazy."
Hadiah
-- Hadiah diterima Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone