msmithbooks Chapter 152 I can't tell the difference, I really can't tell the difference!
Chapter 152 I can't tell the difference, I really can't tell the difference!
Chapter 152 I can't tell the difference, I really can't tell the difference!
Lex Luthor's face darkened.
He watched as the Batman in front of him collapsed, shrank, revealing a hollow core inside, and then turned into a small blob of brownish-yellow mud.
The other person jumped around on the ground like a dancing defense, and the nanobots formed a miniature black Batman suit on his body, turning him into a small-sized Mudface Batman.
That disgusting lump of brownish-yellow garbage bounced around in front of Luther, saying, "Yay, I fooled you! I fooled you! Luther, you bald, big idiot~ la la la la la la la~"
Luther realized that the other party seemed to have been affected in terms of intelligence due to the shrinking of his size, and had become emotional like a child.
Without Batman's control, he noticed that the nanobots belonging to Batman were intelligent enough to obey Clayface's commands. Where did Batman obtain these futuristic nanobots from?
"Hehehehe... That idiot Luther got totally fooled! Idiot~ Idiot~"
Luther took a deep breath.
"Completely fooled!"
Luther kicked Mudface, who was still jumping around on the ground, sending him flying backward. The opponent flailed his arms and legs like a lump of jelly, scattering on the ground and mixing with the dust.
As soon as Luther kicked out, he regretted it. Sure enough, Mudface used the opportunity to blend into the ground and slip away silently.
Only the words "Loser, you big idiot!" echoed slowly in the air.
"..."
A gust of wind blew by, leaving only Luther and his mech standing there, dumbfounded.
Luthor immediately raised his detection device. Mudface couldn't escape, nor could those Batman nanobots. Did they think they could get away with such a small trick in front of Lex Luthor?
Their struggles only prolong their capture a little longer and do nothing to change the outcome.
Luther swept the ground and quickly spotted Mudface.
Next, all you need to do is...
Luther put down the detector and the weapons that had already been deployed, and slowly exhaled.
"Don't be angry, don't be angry..."
After a brief moment of heightened excitement, he regained his senses in just a few seconds.
There are priorities. It would be great to capture Mudface, but it would be foolish to waste time trying to catch him if he escaped.
He wasted enough time arguing with the fake body Batman left behind.
Flames erupted from Luther's mech feet, carrying him toward the safe house he had prepared beforehand, which contained the fake Louis.
Luther pondered silently.
That alien is always a threat, and Earth absolutely cannot afford any unsafe factors before it is ready to face Brainiac.
He should hurry to the scene of Superman's murder and take a look. Once he confirms that Superman killed Black, he can use the "trump card" he prepared in advance to kill Superman in a logical way.
And then there's Batman; with his repeated misdeeds, his problems have become increasingly serious and cannot be ignored.
Even if he doesn't kill the other person, perhaps he should try to restrict their actions. Bane and his idea of breaking Batman's back are actually quite good.
Luther narrowed his eyes.
Once Superman dies and Batman can no longer interfere with him, he can allow the Superman clone he cultivated and controls to appear and replace Superman in protecting the planet.
He would deliberately let Brainiac arrive on Earth, but he would only deliberately hold back at first, and then Lex Luthor would make his grand entrance when people realized they were powerless to stop Brainiac's actions on Earth.
He will use "that trump card" to defeat Brainiac, and then he will become the savior of the world. Everyone will shout his name and sincerely acknowledge that he is the most powerful individual among mankind, not that cloaked freak or flying alien.
Yes, that's very "Lex Luthor" thinking, and it's also something that "Luthor" would do.
That was my original thought.
Yes, that's exactly what I thought.
Luther suddenly frowned.
and many more.
Murdering Superman? Was that really my original plan?
Is Blake's death really the scenario I had envisioned?
If Blake dies, wouldn't he be courting death? And what about his past...?
Luther shook his head. His expression hardened again.
Regardless, plans are always subject to change. From beginning to end, resolving the threat of Superman was something he had on his agenda, and as long as that was the case, that was enough.
If he truly proves this time that Superman is just an unstable mortal, and thus has a reason to kill him, then taking action directly is not out of the question.
……
……
……
Bane carefully manipulated Black, who had become a living zombie, and used his telepathic abilities to scan the group of villains he had brought with him.
Red Hood, live wires, Shiva, Atom Skull...
He couldn't believe that Blake possessed such terrifying power.
The intangible and invisible telepathic ability penetrated the brain of the atomic skeleton, turning the pages of his memories like flipping through a comic book, stripping the skeleton of his entire life bare.
Hmm... He briefly skimmed through Mr. Skeleton's memories from the past two days.
Aside from eating and sleeping, all I do is fight. What a boring life.
But even in the most boring life, these memories are laid bare before him.
Bain could even read what color Mr. Skeleton's underwear was the day before.
Next……
He then turned his reading ability to live wires.
Yes, like most villains. A terrible childhood, orphaned, an accident. He went out to commit robbery—
next.
A bombshell...
It felt amazing; everyone was laid bare before him, like naked bodies.
Bane then turned his gaze to Batman, eager to delve into Batman's inner world.
He will thoroughly understand Batman and figure out what kind of person Batman is.
With his ability, Blake would transform metaphors like "mutual understanding" and "heart-to-heart connection" into adjectives.
Telepathy... there's no better way to understand others.
Chen Tao coldly watched Bain's attempt. At such close range, the mud face attached to him could transmit the news that the other mud faces had been invaded by mental energy to him, so that he could know at any time which guy's "mind" Bain had seen with his new toy.
We must thank the energetic Mudface here; even if it's a fabricated memory, it's still a real life that never existed.
Lucius had previously encountered difficulties in weaving together specific events from his memories, but Clayface, with a flair for theatrics, quickly filled in all those memories on his own.
Bane, who was constantly spying on other people's memories, soon turned his attention to Chen Tao.
Unfortunately, his manipulation of Black's mental abilities only resulted in hitting a block of cold steel.
"What?"
Bain tried twice more.
"roar--"
"I want Batman! Hack in, Black!"
"roar--"
The zombie Blake's voice even carried a hint of grievance—well, that was Chen Tao's feeling; Blake, now a zombie, had no reason to have his own emotions.
I'm being quite polite to you; I usually just put on a wild, unrestrained circus act like Brainiac.
Chen Tao thought to himself silently.
Black, who was possessed by Brainiac, would most likely not have survived even without Bane's corrupting blackness.
Even within the entire DC universe, Black is one of Superman's main villains and a renowned and powerful telepath, so it's no wonder that he caught Brainiac's attention.
To prevent Blake from threatening his collection plans, he simply spent some time killing him. The green, bald alien is quite indifferent to things he doesn't want to collect.
But perhaps Brainiac never imagined that there would be a magic like the Rotten Black that could utilize the dead. This was a forceful reversal of science by magic, which stubbornly saved the purple-haired telepath in front of Brainiac.
Although his once flowing purple hair has now completely fallen out, leaving him bald like Brainiac—
A bald, dead body.
However, his abilities were not significantly affected by Bane's manipulation.
So Chen Tao was waiting. He had painstakingly used Bane's Corruption Black to preserve Black's telepathic abilities. If he were to fight Bane head-on and accidentally damage Black's corpse, all his previous efforts would be for nothing.
Bane finally finished carefully identifying each of his supervillains.
Bain was not without his doubts; after all, it was indeed strange that there wasn't a single mud face.
The problem is that he controls the Black zombie, and he can read the minds of every villain, including Red Hood.
No matter who it is, when faced with stark reality, no matter how much disbelief they had before, or how many doubts they harbored, they could never ignore reality.
Based on the memories retrieved, all of Bane's subordinates were normal, living people; there were no mud-faced individuals among them.
Bain breathed a sigh of relief.
Perhaps he is indeed being a bit paranoid. Thinking about it, that makes sense; no one knows exactly how much he's sacrificed to protect himself from Mudface.
Countless trials and preparations have led to this final confirmation, achieved through telepathy.
He meant that—
Clayface isn't omnipotent, is he? Clayface can't exist everywhere. In the end, he's just a villain controlled by Batman; he's not a god.
Bane demonized Clayface beforehand, so everyone appeared to him as Clayface. But in reality? No one could escape his meticulous testing; he had been testing every villain from the very beginning of their recruitment to see if they were Clayface, and he still was.
And his efforts were rewarded.
There wasn't a single mud face.
So... it's now one-to-many.
Bane decided to act quickly and take down Batman before Superman returned. After such a long wait, such a long chase, such a long journey, finally, at this moment, it was about to bear fruit.
He will achieve his first victory in a battle against Batman!
"I won, Batman."
"Bane, Shiva said we were just cooperating to deal with the bats..."
"Bane, we're only helping you this once, there won't be a next time..."
Bane heard each of the villains saying different things, some with disdain, others with high fighting spirit, which further confirmed that they were all real, living people.
Bain felt his blood boiling.
He used Blake's telekinesis to lift himself up, levitating him as he landed on the ground.
Behind him were numerous supervillains, who surrounded Batman, the little white rabbit, like a pack of greedy wolves.
"It's finally over, Batman. I have more men than you, and I'm stronger than you."
Bain said:
"Our grievances and our long-cherished wishes will come to a conclusion today."
"Between you and me, one of us will fall today. And that person will be Batman, you—"
puff-
Bain turned his head and stared blankly as Red Hood inserted a vial of medicine into his back.
"You...you...what exactly happened...?"
"You didn't find this vial of medicine during the scan because it was hidden directly inside Mudface's body."
Red Hood told him:
"And unfortunately... I am just mud."
The next second, he wiped his face with his hand, and in Bain's bloodshot gaze, his head instantly turned into a red mahjong tile.
"You...you...you..."
Bain felt the decaying blackness within him stirring, roaring and baring its fangs at the green of all things.
Bain slurred his words, feeling his body already being affected.
"All of you, all of you, arrest Red Hood! He's a traitor, he's Mudface, arrest him!"
*Pfft p ...
But before he could finish speaking, he saw his men, on whom he had placed so much hope, each pull out a vial of medicine from somewhere and silently insert it into his back.
In an instant, his back was riddled with holes like a hornet's nest, countless syringes of medicine piercing his body, making him look like a hedgehog.
"You, you, damn it..."
With a whoosh, Bane spat out a mouthful of black blood onto the ground.
That was a sign of the backlash from the decaying darkness, he pointed with a trembling finger at each of his rebelling subordinates.
"You...you are all...?"
Everyone remained silent.
Then Bain saw Ms. Shiva step forward. Her face was full of guilt.
"Bane, I didn't want this either," she said. "You know we had our reasons."
"What are your reasons? You've betrayed us like this—"
Despite his outburst of curses, Bain inexplicably felt a sense of relief. He himself didn't know why he had such a feeling.
He preferred to accept that his men had betrayed him for some reason rather than the fact that they were all imposters with mud faces.
At least... he can accept this outcome.
He saw Ms. Shiva wiping away tears, and even burly men like Living Electric Wire, Atomic Skull, and Heavy Bomb joined in, with some villains even looking guilty and sobbing uncontrollably.
"We have our reasons!"
Bain felt a chill run down his spine.
His men were all crying, like a bunch of big babies crying in a kindergarten:
Our predicament is—our predicament is—
In Bain's despairing gaze, he saw all his men wipe their faces in unison, and then rows of mahjong tiles appeared in front of Bain.
The crowds were enormous, like a dye vat with seven colors in full bloom.
They erupted in a cacophony of laughter, some bursting into giggles, others wailing as if their parents had died, some clapping and laughing, and others kneeling and wailing in despair.
A chaotic dance of demons, grotesque and monstrous, filled the air. Even in Bane's deepest dreams, he had never encountered such a terrifying scene. Dozens of voices mingled together, a cacophony of malevolent sounds assaulting his ears; he felt himself going mad.
Immediately afterwards, he heard everyone sing in unison:
"That's right, that's right, we have our reasons—"
"The problem is—we're all just clay figures!"
puff!
Bane spat out another mouthful of black blood. He forcefully manipulated the zombie Black, scanning each of his men once again.
Memory, no problem.
There's absolutely no problem; the result is exactly the same as what he got before!
Why?! Why on earth?!
(End of this chapter)