A gigantic space fighter equipped with an autonomous AI, a hyperdrive capable of throwing you to the other side of the solar system in a fraction of a second, and enough weaponry to conquer a couple of third-world countries through sheer punitive force…
Yeah, it was definitely a badass piece of hardware.
Badass enough that you could fly practically anywhere in it and kick down every door in your path.
Especially if, while still airborne, you transformed the fifteen-meter monstrosity into a combat walker and gave the enemy’s air-defense system a collective heart attack.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t my goal right now.
So, standing on the armored nose of the Archangel’s cockpit while it hovered motionless about a kilometer above the bay, I could only sigh heavily.
The night wind tugged at the hood of my torn hoodie.
I crossed my arms over my chest in the most dramatic pose imaginable, simply because I could, and then, at exactly the right moment, recalled the flying leviathan into my spatial inventory.
My support vanished.
Gravity happily latched onto my body and dragged me downward.
Free fall.
Straight toward the architectural heart of Arkham Island.
Of course, it would have been fucking hilarious to crash down there inside the mech and show the local big shots who the real badass was.
But for now, I’d rather let Batman, Amanda Waller, the wealthy members of the Court of Owls, and every other interested observer remain blissfully unaware of the cards I had up my sleeve.
The mere fact that I’d exposed the existence of this engineering marvel on their radar, even for a few seconds, already irritated my paranoia.
The alternative would’ve been running across the bridge, pounding my chest, and smashing my way through everything while building up kinetic energy, I calculated coldly as the ground rushed toward me.
Not practical.
First, the bridge is long.
Second, while I’m cutting through the barricades, the people at Arkham, or Batman, will have more than enough time to shove the Joker into a lead-lined coffin and hide him in some secret bunker.
My current blitzkrieg from the sky relied entirely on the element of surprise.
And judging by the shocked expressions of the guards in heavy tactical armor bearing the psychiatric hospital’s insignia, who happened to be smoking in the courtyard, the effect had exceeded all expectations.
Barely ten seconds had passed since I summoned the Archangel, hovered above the clouds, and started falling.
Nobody in their right mind expected an attack to come straight down from above, and this quickly.
BOOM!
My boots slammed into the concrete slabs of the courtyard.
My kinetic ability completely swallowed the lethal momentum of the fall, converting it into pure energy humming beneath my skin.
The impact itself, however, blasted a fountain of concrete dust and debris into the air.
Still better than when I’d fallen thirty stories.
Without wasting even a fraction of a second, I redirected some of that energy into my legs.
A blurred burst forward.
The massive reinforced metal door to the central block didn’t even have time to understand what had killed it.
I smashed through it shoulder-first, ripping it from its hinges and crumpling it inward like a sheet of cheap foil.
The guards outside had only just started reaching for their radios.
I was already inside.
WEE-OO!
WEE-OO!
WEE-OO!
The moment I passed the first security checkpoint, an alarm screamed throughout the entire Gothic structure.
The corridors flooded with pulsing red emergency lights.
Feat Completed: Visit an iconic location, Arkham Asylum.
Reward: 1 Bronze Ticket.
Just as I thought, I mentally chuckled without slowing down.
Tourism isn’t just good for broadening your horizons.
It’s good for the System’s economy too!
Three guards came rushing around the corner, their tactical flashlights blazing.
They moved like a single machine, raising their weapons in perfect synchronization.
Except they weren’t holding assault rifles.
“Are those…
net guns?”
I genuinely raised an eyebrow at the strange, bulky weapons with wide barrels.
Three synchronized thuds answered me.
Compressed air blasted heavy Kevlar-reinforced nets toward me, weighted ends trailing behind them.
I didn’t even bother breaking stride.
I simply shifted my body lazily to the left, then ducked.
The nets whistled past me, tangled together, and slapped uselessly onto the floor behind me.
They weren’t bullets, after all.
Their projectiles were correspondingly slow, while my perception, accelerated by Breathing, the Serum, and my undead physiology, made their movements look almost comical.
But I hadn’t even taken two steps toward the trio when two more operatives emerged from behind them, taking positions in a staggered formation.
They were carrying canisters with thick nozzles that looked painfully similar to flamethrowers.
Hey, what the fuck?!
I realized what the hell those things were.
We’re in DC, not Worm!
PSSSSSSHHHH!
My complaints remained internal, naturally.
Two thick streams of rapidly expanding white foam blasted into the corridor, hardening almost instantly and cutting off my path.
Seriously?
I understand that the commandment “THOU SHALT NOT KILL THE PSYCHO!” has practically been elevated to absolute law in this universe, but you people should really use normal firearms.
Bullets are easier!
Sticky foam was a problem.
Getting trapped in it meant losing my mobility, and I needed to move fast.
I urgently activated another portion of my stored kinetic charge.
The muscles in my legs compressed like springs.
I literally launched myself upward and forward, diving beneath the ceiling of the corridor.
The churning white mass of restraining foam rushed beneath me, barely missing the soles of my sneakers.
Time seemed to slow while I was airborne.
The guards below were already frantically raising their heavy foam cannons, trying to track me through the air.
Perfect.
Time for magic.
I focused my gaze on the long, distorted shadows cast by the operatives’ bodies beneath the flashing red lights.
A short mental impulse.
Shadow Mark.
It felt as though I’d grabbed an invisible, heavy carpet beneath all of them and violently yanked it toward myself.
The shadows shot forward.
And, obeying the laws of System physics, their owners flew forward with them.
The guards cried out as they lost their balance.
Their foam cannons jerked sideways, spraying the walls and ceiling with white garbage.
A second later, all five of them crashed together in a spectacular heap of armor, curses, limbs, and tangled weapon straps.
“Down.
Ten push-ups.”
I snorted dryly as I landed silently in front of the struggling pile.
I was still mentally pinning them to the floor using their own shadows.
They could thrash all they wanted, but they couldn’t get up.
“Now be good little boys and tell me which cell the Joker is currently resting in.”
I tilted my head.
“Answer quickly and honestly, and maybe I won’t break your spines.”
For emphasis, I activated Aura of Terror locally.
I turned the dial to roughly fifty percent power and directed a concentrated stream of grave-like dread straight at them.
The temperature in the corridor seemed to drop below freezing.
The guards froze.
Their eyes widened so far that I could see the whites even through their helmet visors.
Yeah…
fifty percent was probably a little excessive.
My enhanced sense of smell immediately caught the sharp odor of fresh urine.
I genuinely hadn’t planned on killing any of them.
The mantra “I’m a sick bastard, but I’m a sick bastard with principles!” was one of the fragile supports still allowing me to preserve some excitement and scraps of humanity during each new run.
“G-go…
f-fuck…
yourself, m-monster!”
One of the guards, lying on top of the pile, spat the words out through trembling lips.
He stared up at me with such a wild, animal mixture of primal terror and desperate hatred that you’d think I’d just butchered his entire family in front of him.
“Well, that’s impressive.”
I genuinely raised an eyebrow.
“Do they pay you guys that much extra for bravery in this madhouse, or is the stupidity hereditary?”
I extended my right hand and opened my palm.
A quick command to the inventory.
Space trembled.
With a low, vibrating hum, Dragon Slayer materialized in my hand.
A massive, crude chunk of deep-blue-black astral steel, larger than a grown man.
At the same time, I gave another pulse of Aura of Terror, lowering its intensity to thirty percent.
Enough to reinforce the effect without completely driving them insane.
Then I casually lowered the sword.
The massive blunt blade crashed through the steel floor with a deafening screech, stopping exactly one centimeter from the nearest guard’s nose.
The concrete beneath the metal groaned.
Apparently, the idiots finally understood.
And I couldn’t call them anything else.
Seriously.
You work at Arkham.
Standing in front of you is a ridiculously pale, towering man without ears, his skin covered in pulsing green veins from an overdose of Bane’s serum.
He moves like a bullet.
He pins people to the floor with their own shadows.
He radiates a grave-cold aura that makes hair turn gray.
And he pulls swords the size of streetlights out of thin air.
You only get one life, guys.
Fortunately for everyone involved, the talkative hero finally understood that.
“B-block…
C-C…”
The man’s gaze beneath his tactical helmet remained glued to the black metal of my sword.
God, I’m fucking awesome.
The smug thought was clearly caused by my Middle Schooler Syndrome.
But it disappeared just as quickly, replaced by cold calculation.
I needed more precise coordinates.
“Cell.”
My voice remained calm and even as I effortlessly pulled the sword free from the floor and rested it across my shoulder.
“F-four…
C Block, cell four…”
The guard forced the words out.
“Ah.
C-4, then.”
I nodded with satisfaction, as though we were discussing a hotel reservation.
“One last question, and I guarantee you walk out of here alive.”
I was still holding their shadows against the floor.
For good measure, I hit them with another pulse of Aura of Terror.
The operatives flinched in unison, whimpering.
“Which other named metacriminals are currently staying at Arkham?”
“Killer Croc and Scarecrow!”
Another guard screamed hysterically.
He was also the one whose pants had suspiciously darkened around the crotch.
“No one else in this wing!
I swear!”
Those two are already a fucking jackpot.
I smiled hungrily.
With my missing ears and pale skin, it probably looked more like the grin of a vampire.
“You forgot something, buddy.”
I casually spun Dragon Slayer.
It slammed back into the concrete with a heavy THUD.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed movement farther down the corridor.
Another rapid-response team.
My broad back conveniently blocked the approaching reinforcements from the guards on the floor.
Besides, the poor bastard was so completely paralyzed by fear that he probably wouldn’t have noticed them even if they started tap dancing.
“B-2 and D-7!”
He blurted it out in a single breath, immediately realizing that I needed their cell numbers.
“Pleasure doing business with professionals.”
I chuckled, dematerialized the sword, and released their shadows.
I didn’t waste any more time on pointless conversation.
I sprinted down the corridors, now illuminated by pulsing red emergency lights.
Of course, I couldn’t avoid security teams at practically every other corner.
Batons.
Shock weapons.
Net guns.
Foam cannons.
They threw everything they had at me.
But now that I’d gotten all the information I needed, I’d decided to stop playing ninja.
I simply turned Aura of Terror up to a steady fifty percent and expanded its effective radius to the maximum twenty meters.
The effect was spectacular.
I didn’t even have to hit anyone.
I simply ran.
Armed men who entered the radius of my invisible sphere dropped their weapons, clutched their heads, screamed, collapsed into piles, or slid down the walls, paralyzed by a primal nightmare that froze their blood.
I flew past them as a pale blur, like a high-speed train tearing through a flock of pigeons.
“Finally, fuck!”
I exhaled in relief.
After dozens of intersections, identical sterile hallways, staircases, and even one completely dead-end corridor, whose existence suggested that Arkham’s layout had been designed by an architect suffering from delirium tremens, I finally reached C Block.
Along the way, I’d repeatedly had to check the evacuation maps hanging on the walls, nearly tearing them off at my speed.
Even though I was moving at a fast, forced run, and locked metal doors and terrified guards were hardly serious obstacles for me, the entire marathon still took almost five minutes.
Five minutes.
Far too much time to move the fucking clown somewhere else.
All I can do is hope I’m not too late.
And if I am, I’ll catch the idiots transporting him.
I frowned and sharply pivoted on my heels, diving into the left-hand, even-numbered wing of C Block’s isolation ward.
Surprisingly, it was completely silent.
No sirens.
No flashing lights.
Not a single guard.
That immediately spawned several unpleasant theories in my mind.
But a massive steel door marked with a stenciled 4 stood directly ahead.
And it was locked. Get faster updates on g.com.
I smashed through it with a kinetic kick.
Beyond it was a ten-meter-long concrete passage leading to an even more imposing blast door, the kind you’d expect to find protecting a bank vault.
Again, nobody.
I still had plenty of kinetic energy stored from the doors I’d destroyed along the way.
I transferred the charge into my legs and right shoulder, then slammed into the barrier like a living, or rather undead, battering ram.
The metal screamed.
The blast door tore free and crashed inward, flying directly into the cell.
Somewhere deep inside, I actually hoped that the several-ton slab of steel would conveniently crush the fragile Joker against the opposite wall and turn him into a bloody smear.
But no System notification announcing the death of a named character appeared.
So I had to step inside.
Okay.
Bed on the left, not in the center…
My eyes immediately found a medical bed bolted to the left wall.
Strapped to it, tightly wrapped in a straightjacket and additionally secured with thick leather restraints, sat…
Well, anything except the Joker.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
I grimaced irritably as I slowly approached the thing.
“Seriously?”
“A pinata?!”
A doll sat on the bed.
An ugly papier-mâché figure made from old newspapers and cheap paint, its face deliberately designed to resemble the Clown Prince of Crime.
How the hell did he pull this off?
When did he do it?
Was that even him?
Was I being deliberately led here from the beginning?
Is this Thomas Wayne’s backup plan?
Dozens of questions and theories flashed through my mind faster than I could blink.
Then the pinata’s painted eyes clicked open.
Red LEDs began blinking inside the paper head.
“I.
Was.
Waiting.
For.
You.”
A distorted, recorded voice came from a cheap speaker hidden inside the doll’s chest.
The Joker’s voice.
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
So it really was the Joker…
That was the only coherent thought I managed to form.
Then the world around me disappeared beneath a roaring sea of orange flame.
Honestly, I’d been expecting something like this.
For all those long seconds while I stood directly in front of the pinata, I had been standing at the very center of the trap.
The explosion hit my chest with the force of a freight train.
My Epic passive activated flawlessly.
The monstrous kinetic energy of the detonation was sucked into my body, instantly filling my internal reserves.
I didn’t even move.
I absorbed the entire explosive force of the C-4 hidden inside C-4.
But an explosion wasn’t just pure kinetic energy.
It was also expanding gas.
And, most importantly, thermal energy.
Fire.
An infernal furnace licked at me from every direction.
When the smoke, dust, and chunks of concrete finally began settling, I was still standing motionless in the middle of the destroyed cell.
The physiology of a Higher Undead, combined with Bane’s Serum circulating through my veins, had protected my internal organs from being cooked.
But externally…
“C-c-c…
Fuck.”
I spat out ash and rubbed the bridge of my nose, or rather the charred area where it was supposed to be.
My hair was completely gone.
My eyebrows had gone with it.
The skin covering my entire body had been burned to the point of looking like an overcooked steak, exposing blackened muscle in places.
Right now, I probably looked like Deadpool after falling asleep in a tanning bed.
The clothing I’d acquired, civilian as it was, my hoodie, jeans, and sneakers, had been reduced to pathetic, smoldering scraps of ash that fell onto the floor.
“And I’m naked, too.”
I looked myself over with irritation.
“Perfect.
The pinnacle of undead evolution.”
My mood was rapidly heading straight down.
I had no idea how exactly the Joker had pulled off the switch.
The logistics of it made no sense.
Superman had delivered him here less than three hours ago as a bloody, one-eyed stump.
And now I had absolutely no idea where the green-haired cockroach had gone.
The Gacha interface cheerfully flashed, interrupting my suffering.
Feat Completed: Fall into one of the Joker’s classic death traps and survive.
Reward: 1 Silver Ticket.
“Well, at least there’s that.”
I gave a crooked grin with my burned lips.
My mood improved slightly despite the humiliating nature of the feat itself.
My current balance was now:
Eight Bronze Tickets.
Six Silver Tickets.
All right.
Stop sulking.
What the hell am I even complaining about?
I slapped my burned thigh, knocking off a few sparks.
I didn’t manage to kill the plot’s favorite character for the second time.
Fine.
I’ll get him on the third try.
Gotham isn’t going anywhere.
And right here, right now, I have two other targets in neighboring blocks.
I could take my frustration out on Killer Croc and Scarecrow.
At minimum, I’d be guaranteed a Gold Ticket for each member of the classic rogues’ gallery.
And Jonathan Crane, with his fear toxins?
If I handled the encounter properly, I might even score a Platinum.
Think, brain.
B-2 is Croc.
D-7 is Scarecrow.
The oversized lizard is objectively closer.
I quickly reconstructed a mental map of Arkham’s corridors, no longer paying attention to the still-screaming alarm.
The deafening noise actually helped me concentrate.
I stepped over the smoking remains of the metal bed and walked back into the corridor.
I’m going to have to knock out and strip one of the guards along the way.
Walking through the halls with my ass hanging out is a privilege reserved for lesser undead like skeletons and ghouls.
The Nightmare Knight needs at least a minimal dress code.