“And yet…
how the fuck did he pull it off?”
That question had lodged itself in my cold, dead brain like a poisonous splinter, and it had been bothering me for the last several minutes.
How the hell had the Joker managed to disappear without a trace from the most heavily guarded cell in Arkham in barely three hours, leaving a booby-trapped pinata in his place?
Even considering the circumstances…
The psycho had lost his right eye and left hand.
He’d been bleeding heavily and was in shock from the pain.
On top of that, there was absolutely no way Batman, Thomas…
or rather, his all-seeing AI Alfred, hadn’t been monitoring him.
I’d seen the surveillance camera myself.
The little red indicator beneath the ceiling of the cell had been blinking the entire time.
“Even by the standards of this world’s comic-book logic, that’s too much.
It’s completely broken…”
Which meant there had to be hidden variables.
At first glance, the most logical and obvious explanation was an accomplice.
Someone outside had organized the entire thing flawlessly and managed to fool both Arkham’s security and Batman himself.
That meant the accomplice had to be extremely competent, with access to the facility’s architecture and security protocols.
There were an astronomical number of factors that needed to be taken into account.
And judging by everything I’d seen, both the Joker and his mysterious savior had been expecting me to show up.
“Yeah, thanks, Captain Obvious,” I muttered darkly at myself.
“The talking pinata literally said, ‘I was waiting for you.'”
Who could this mysterious accomplice be?
Only one reasonable answer came to mind.
Well, technically two.
But the possibility that the battered Thomas Wayne had orchestrated this entire elaborate scheme just for entertainment was maybe a fraction of a percent.
That left only one option.
The Riddler.
Edward Nygma.
Genius.
Billionaire.
Playboy.
Schizophrenic.
“I absolutely have to make that bastard solve my conceptual ‘Heavy Rock That Cannot Be Lifted’ riddle.”
“If he can’t solve it, I’ll kill him.”
I paused.
“Actually, I’ll kill him either way.”
I continued stomping through the corridors with absolutely no bloodlust whatsoever.
Ahead of me, a faded green sign finally appeared on the battered concrete wall.
B Block.
Nothing particularly serious had happened on the way.
Batman hadn’t shown up.
There was no sign of ARGUS’s heavily armored operatives.
I hadn’t even spotted some random Talon from the Court of Owls hiding in the ceiling.
Just Arkham’s miserable, stressed-out guards, whom I methodically and mercilessly disoriented with my pulsing Aura of Terror.
And…
My incredible appearance.
My naked rampage immediately after the explosion had apparently made quite an impression.
Fortunately, that problem had already been solved.
Somewhere in a utility room, a poor bastard wearing a patrol badge marked B-17 was peacefully sleeping after donating his uniform to me.
Baggy security pants and a jacket.
Good enough.
“Okay.
Cell number two.”
This section didn’t have any long buffer zones or complicated airlocks.
There was simply one massive reinforced metal door embedded directly into the rock.
Naturally, it didn’t survive a direct kick enhanced by a charge of my Epic ability.
The kinetic energy I’d absorbed from the C-4 explosion was still generously surging through my muscles.
Inside was supposed to be Killer Croc.
A character whose death I didn’t hesitate over for even a second.
Because seriously, even by DC standards, when the word Killer is literally part of your name, that says quite a lot.
On top of that, in the overwhelming majority of universes, this scaly monster was also a cannibal.
I wasn’t interested in holding a tribunal to determine the finer details of his traumatic childhood.
It was enough for me that he was a cannibal and that the System would give me a Gold Ticket for eliminating him.
“It’s pretty damn damp in here…
and dark.”
I grimaced as I stepped over the mangled threshold.
The place smelled of stagnant water, rot, and raw meat.
Croc’s cell looked more like a flooded section of sewer than a medical isolation room.
My enhanced vision, courtesy of my Higher Undead physiology, instantly adapted to the darkness and picked out a massive three-meter shadow in the corner.
The shadow suddenly moved.
With surprising speed for something that large, it pushed off the walls, sending water spraying everywhere, and charged straight at me.
Two yellow, unblinking eyes.
A gaping mouth filled with teeth as sharp as razors.
I didn’t even move.
My right hand slipped into my inventory in one smooth, practiced motion.
Space tore open.
CHWAK.
The disgusting, wet sound of flesh being cleaved apart and thick, scaled bones snapping rang through the chamber.
It was practically balm for my soul.
Dragon Slayer, that enormous mass of blue-black steel, had appeared in my hands.
The massive body of the metahuman bastard, who hadn’t even managed to close his jaws around my neck, hung lifelessly in the air.
I’d cut him cleanly from his left shoulder to his right hip.
“Killer Croc…”
I looked at the corpse thoughtfully.
“He’s a crocodile.”
I paused.
“Almost a dragon, right?”
“Okay, technically, the two species definitely have something in common.”
I watched with mild melancholy as the two halves of the monster collapsed into the filthy water with a heavy, wet slap.
With a mental command, I dematerialized the sword and sent it back into my inventory.
A notification immediately flashed across my vision.
Feat Completed:
Eliminate Named Character: Waylon Jones / Killer Croc.
Reward: 1 Gold Ticket.
“And Arkham tried so hard…”
I shook my head reproachfully as I stepped over the spreading pool of blood and left the dead man’s cell.
Seriously.
The asylum administration had created an entire custom climate for this creature.
They probably spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars every year maintaining the humidity, feeding him, and operating the filtration system.
And I had simply walked in, pulled out my sword, and erased all their grand efforts in a single swing.
I had devalued the noble, Sisyphean labor of containing a bloodthirsty monster.
“Have some respect for other people’s work, Charles.
Some respect!”
I sarcastically scolded myself.
First, my spectacular arrival had indirectly caused part of the facility to explode.
Now I’d reduced one of their elite patients to zero.
What next?
Go scare Scarecrow?
“Hmm…
actually, that’s not a bad idea.”
I slowed at the next corner.
“With Doctor Crane, I should crank Aura of Terror all the way to one hundred percent and compress it.”
“Showing the Master of Fear what a genuine chthonic nightmare looks like might count as a separate, rather interesting feat.”
Satisfied with my idea, I headed toward Block D.
On the way, I found a relatively quiet intersection without blinking cameras or curious, trembling guards.
It cracked between my fingers as usual.
Name: Exorcist’s Light
Type: Ability
Rarity: Uncommon
Description:
You are now capable of generating and directing purifying light.
This energy is completely harmless and useless against ordinary creatures, objects, and people, but deals catastrophic, incinerating damage to any dark, demonic, or unholy creatures.
“Yeah…
not exactly an ideal pull for my current build.”
I grimly reread the description.
Considering that I was currently a Higher Undead, this ability would almost certainly inflict an enormous backlash on me every time I tried to use it.
I’d experienced that kind of masochistic bullshit during a couple of my previous runs.
There was absolutely nothing pleasant about it.
At minimum, it caused paralyzing agony.
At worst, it resulted in the spontaneous annihilation of my own flesh at the point where the light was being emitted.
“But I’m not getting rid of it.”
More accurately, I didn’t want to.
First, I hadn’t reached the System’s maximum number of Ability slots yet.
I didn’t even know what the limit was.
Three?
Five?
Ten?
Second, in this particular DC world, a universe absolutely overflowing with mysticism, a purifying burst of light could prove critically important.
There were plenty of Trigons, Etrigans, Nerons, Lucifers, and other infernal kings suffering from god complexes.
Every single one of them fit perfectly into the category of “dark and unholy.”
And that wasn’t even counting the weaker demons crawling around Gotham and its surrounding areas.
Then there were the undead.
Black Lanterns.
An uncontrolled Solomon Grundy.
A rotting Anton Arcane.
Even Darkseid’s biomechanical Parademons from Apokolips might, according to the logic of the Gacha, qualify for that classification.
“And considering the enormous potential for future Synergies with other abilities involving Light, Holiness, Exorcism, or Spirit, I simply can’t ignore this.”
“I’ll keep it for later.”
I mentally confirmed my acceptance of the ability.
Immediately, I clenched my teeth.
A nasty wave of burning cold traveled through my dead body, from my fingertips all the way to the back of my skull.
The counter-energy integrated itself into my body’s matrix.
I would only be able to use it without risking suicide after disabling the Nightmare Knight Trait and returning to my normal human form.
But to do that without dying in agony, I first needed to get rid of the undigested Joker acid still sitting inside me.
My super-durable undead physiology, reinforced by dark magic, could withstand the chemical garbage.
But it was still sitting inside my stomach like a ticking time bomb.
And unfortunately, I had no regeneration.
If I did, I’d have simply cut open my stomach, removed the acid, and healed the wound.
A perfect vicious cycle.
Lost in these depressing thoughts about the problems of my undead build, the System’s limitations, and purple poison sloshing around in my intestines, I barely noticed that I’d reached the correct cell in Block D.
The cell belonging to Jonathan Crane.
Scarecrow.
Correction.
The completely clean and EMPTY cell belonging to Scarecrow.
The massive door stood wide open.
There was no Doctor Crane.
No burlap mask.
No booby-trapped pinatas.
Only an empty hospital bed and the smell of dust.
My plan to compete with the Master of Fear in the art of terrifying people had just gone straight to hell.
“Two possibilities.”
I looked around the empty room with growing irritation.
“And damn it, I really hope old Scarecrow is still somewhere inside this place.”
The first possibility was the one I wanted to believe.
Scarecrow had simply been moved somewhere else.
Perhaps Batman had issued a direct evacuation order after deciding to relocate the most dangerous or valuable patients away from the epicenter of my rampage.
In that case, Crane was either sitting in some secret isolation chamber somewhere on the lower levels, or he was already shaking inside an armored transport headed for Blackgate.
That was a good, workable possibility.
But there was another one.
And it couldn’t be much worse.
Scarecrow had escaped alongside the Joker.
More specifically, the Joker had pulled off his pinata trick and disappearance, then taken the doctor with him.
Why would an insane clown, who already had more than enough problems of his own, need a brilliant chemist capable of synthesizing industrial quantities of substances that caused acute psychosis, mass hallucinations, and panic attacks?
That was purely rhetorical.
You couldn’t forget for even a second what universe I was in and what the local “geniuses” were capable of when you gave them enough test tubes and enough time.
A mixture of Scarecrow’s fear toxin and the Joker’s laughing gas?
Spraying that shit over Gotham’s water reservoir?
“They’re capable of anything, for fuck’s sake.”
“Any depraved bullshit imaginable.”
“But apparently not of making this world even slightly better.”
Not that I was some devoted advocate of world peace or champion of justice.
My track record and methods clearly suggested otherwise.
But I’d seen entire worlds die because of the ambitions of a couple of psychopaths.
Ahem.
I’d gotten distracted by global strategy.
Time to test the theory.
I turned around and headed down the corridor at a brisk pace, looking for a victim.
“Where’s Scarecrow?”
Aura of Terror, cranked to roughly sixty percent power, slammed into a random guard in a narrow cone.
The poor bastard had the misfortune of stepping around a corner directly into my path.
He went pale as if all the blood had been drained from his body at once.
His knees buckled, and he collapsed onto the concrete with a dull thud, dropping his baton.
“I don’t like repeating myself, but I’ll make an exception for you.”
My voice was calm, completely devoid of emotion.
“Where.
The.
Fucking.
Scarecrow?”
My voice was the voice of a dead man.
There was no threat in my tone.
Only the cold fact that his life was currently worth less than a penny.
“D-D-D…
D-Seven!”
The guard trembled with primal terror.
“Block D, cell seven!”
I stared into his dilated pupils.
He wasn’t lying.
He genuinely believed the information he was giving me.
Which meant that, as far as Arkham’s ordinary personnel were concerned, Doctor Crane was still in his cell.
I continued through the administrative wings of the psychiatric hospital, checking several observation rooms and guard stations along the way.
My strategy was simple.
Kick down doors.
Flood the room with Aura of Terror.
Interrogate anyone who might theoretically know about patient logistics or where and when they had been transferred.
The result was disappointing.
I was forced to finally accept that the shitty scenario had become reality.
Nobody had ordered an evacuation.
“Although, technically, I should clarify something.”
I cynically corrected myself. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
“This is a bad outcome for Gotham and its residents.”
“Not for me.”
I mentally arranged the coming developments like pieces on a chessboard.
On one side, a trio of the city’s most dangerous bastards was beginning to form:
Joker, the former Batman with a completely broken mind.
Scarecrow, master of chemical terrorism.
And Riddler, the brains and logistics expert behind their escape.
I was almost certain he was involved.
They obviously hadn’t united because life was treating them well, nor because they wanted to build some wholesome male friendship.
Their goal was to show me, the arrogant newcomer, what genuine Gotham insanity looked like.
What would their feverish imaginations produce when combined with each other’s resources?
Hell if I knew.
It probably wouldn’t be something harmless like taking over a television tower.
More likely, we’d be looking at some kind of modified zombie virus transmitted through subliminal riddles hidden inside television broadcasts.
Or perhaps released into the subway system.
“And that’s just the most basic idea possible in this madhouse proudly called a comic-book universe.”
On the other side of the board was Batman-Thomas, along with his all-seeing AI eye, Alfred, who almost certainly hadn’t taken his attention off me for even a second.
Actually…
Especially now.
The old man was probably sitting in his cave, nursing the ribs I’d broken, grinding his teeth, and analyzing my every move.
He was studying me.
My undead physiology.
My resistance to kinetic damage.
My trump cards, such as summoning the Archangel.
And since I wasn’t likely to experience any massive increase in power during the next few hours, who knew what kind of nasty surprise the older Wayne would throw at me?
He could surprise me.
I had no doubt about that.
Batman with preparation time was a meme that had become a terrifying reality.
“And that’s exactly why I need to be prepared for anything instead of sitting around waiting for something to happen.”
I nodded at my own thoughts as I stepped back through the doors I’d destroyed earlier and returned to Arkham’s inner courtyard.
I stopped in the middle of the wrecked concrete.
Then I redirected the remaining kinetic energy I’d absorbed into my legs.
I took a deep, slow breath.
Jump!
The concrete beneath my boots exploded into fragments.
I was literally fired into the night sky, swallowed by heavy lead-colored clouds.
At the highest point of my trajectory, suspended in the air for a brief moment as gravity temporarily lost the argument, I mentally reached into my inventory.
Then I summoned the Archangel.
The massive, angular hull of the Dominion military fighter materialized silently beneath my feet.
My boots struck the ribbed surface of the cockpit.
The machine activated its anti-gravity systems and stabilized itself in midair.
“Wayne Tower.”
I spoke calmly over the roar of the engines.
I knew perfectly well that the ship’s autonomous AI would hear me, instantly hack into the primitive local internet by Dominion standards, compare Gotham’s topography, and deliver me to my destination before I had time to blink.
My primary macro-objective was now finding a disguised psychopath in a massive, multi-level metropolis of ten million people.
Ideally, I’d find him before he put his insane plan into action, whatever that plan happened to be.
But I didn’t yet have the ability to track him.
No aura radar.
No supernatural search ability.
Nothing that would let me point at a map and say, “He’s here.”
And Scavenger didn’t count.
Therefore…
“I need to level up, farm Tickets, and collect useful abilities.”
That was the only logical conclusion in my situation.
Gotham was packed with interesting, conceptually significant locations, at least according to my extensive meta-knowledge.
The Lazarus Pit, hidden beneath the buried Wonder City, was one of the most obvious and valuable examples.
Ideally, I’d also visit the Batcave.
But it was too early to enter Batman’s lair.
Let Thomas spend his resources preparing a deadly surprise for me.
The roar of the hyperdrive lasted for a fraction of a second.
The space around me blurred.
Feat Completed: Visit an Iconic Location, Wayne Tower.
Reward: 1 Bronze Ticket.
The Archangel silently hovered over the monumental spire of the skyscraper, which combined high-tech architecture with dark Gothic elements.
The Gacha interface obediently produced another notification.
“Gotham City Police Department.”
I paused.
“The one where Jim Gordon works.”
I gave the next destination without even jumping onto the corporation’s roof.
Another blurred burst.
We were suddenly hovering above the squat, fortified GCPD building surrounded by patrol cars.
It was deep into the night, so I seriously doubted that the mustached commissioner was currently standing on the roof smoking a pipe.
But the System apparently cared only about the fact that I’d arrived at another significant location.
Feat Completed: Visit an Iconic Location, Gotham City Police Department.
Reward: 1 Bronze Ticket.
“Hmm.”
I nodded with satisfaction.
“That makes ten.”
I mentally totaled my balance.
I had ten Bronze Tickets.
It was finally time to test the Burning mechanic.
I focused and mentally confirmed the command.
Burn.
Inside my imaginary inventory, the ten bronze rectangles flashed with a dim light.
They fused together, burning themselves away completely.
In their place, a single cold, gleaming Silver Ticket materialized.
The seventh Silver Ticket in my inventory.
A pretty damn awful exchange rate, obviously.
But at least there was no risk of getting a Curse from activating garbage-tier loot.
I stored the Archangel back inside my inventory to avoid attracting unnecessary attention and jumped onto the empty roof of the Department.
My eyes immediately caught on a monumental, rust-covered structure.
A gigantic spotlight.
The Bat-Signal.
A bat silhouette had been cut into its glass.
Seeing that piece of comic-book holy ground, I simply couldn’t resist the childish urge to walk over and flip the switch.
“Of course it isn’t turned on with a lever mounted directly onto the damn thing.”
I sighed irritably after quickly inspecting the heavy base of the spotlight and failing to find the sacred ON/OFF button.
I could have broken through the armored rooftop door, gone downstairs, tossed aside the night shift, and activated the signal manually.
But…
Causing trouble for ordinary cops, who already did the most miserable and thankless job in this cursed city, went against my, admittedly flexible, moral principles.
A worthless Bronze Ticket for turning on a flashlight wasn’t worth violating my rule:
Don’t bother the NPCs unless necessary.
So I left the Bat-Signal alone.
I walked to the edge of the police station roof.
Below me stretched Gotham.
A sick and filthy labyrinth pulsing with neon, breathing steam through sewer grates.
I redirected the remaining energy into my legs, easily jumped across the street onto the roof of a neighboring apartment building, then stepped off the edge and dropped into a dark alley that smelled of rotten vegetables.
My destination was the nearest subway station.
“Time for some archaeology.”
I grinned.
“Let’s find the Lazarus Pit.”
“Scavenger might actually be useful for that.”
“And the Joker…”
I glanced toward the distant skyline.
“He’ll find me himself once he’s finished preparing his stage.”
“They always do.”