Marvel: The Sole Player

Chapter 441 Batman Practicing Gun-Fighting

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Chapter 441: Chapter 441 Batman Practicing Gun-Fighting

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Following Frank, Blade also joined the Fear Corps.

At first, he was somewhat reluctant, but after truly experiencing the power of fear later on, he instantly changed his tune.

You must know that Vampires have a special constitution, and only weapons made of specific materials can truly kill them.

The problem was that the manufacturing costs of those materials were getting more expensive one after another. On the surface, Blade had been imposing all these years, but in reality, he completely relied on robbing other criminals just to barely maintain the daily expenses of his equipment. His days were tight, and sometimes he even had to save bullets and fire them one by one.

But with the Yellow Lantern Ring, he found that weapons condensed using the power of fear could likewise take down Vampires.

Now things were great; he no longer had to spend a lot of money to buy those expensive pieces of equipment.

Blade was practically moved to tears.

The only downside was that once he used the power of fear, his innate stealth ability would fail, and he would no longer be able to sneak around.

However, this little price was nothing to him at all. If worst came to worst, he could just go all-out and hack-and-slash; as long as he eliminated all witnesses, that could also be considered a successful stealth mission.

He even learned this trick from Darian.

Since Blade’s opponents were all Vampires, his efficiency in collecting fear emotions was vastly higher than Frank’s.

The people Frank faced were mostly fragile ordinary humans who couldn’t withstand too much torment.

But Vampires were different; these guys had ridiculously tenacious vitality and couldn’t die even if they were burned to cinders.

This meant that Blade could unleash his methods to his heart’s content, vigorously harvesting the other side’s fear emotions without worrying about them kicking the bucket midway.

Anyway, they were just Vampires, so there was no need to talk about humanitarianism; when he started, he had completely no psychological burden.

When it came to treating enemies, Blade and Frank’s thoughts could be said to be surprisingly consistent.

Under the hard work of those two model workers, Blade and Frank, Darian didn’t need to do anything at all. Every day, just by lying down, an endless stream of fear emotions would automatically be credited to him, which was utterly comfortable.

As for Sinestro, Darian made a special trip back to the server of the DC Universe, originally intending to make a connection through Hal.

But Sinestro was a close friend of Abin Sur, and he had always looked down on Hal as a successor, feeling that this sand sculpture was simply unworthy of that Green Lantern Ring, so he directly blocked Hal, embodying the idea of out of sight, out of mind. Therefore, Hal had no way to contact Sinestro either.

Darian secretly thought it was a pity.

He even wanted to have Sinestro shout out the Yellow Lantern Ring’s oath in person, especially the last sentence; just thinking about it felt exciting.

But right now, he couldn’t even contact the person, so this matter could only be temporarily shelved and discussed later when there was an opportunity.

With the continuous accumulation of fear energy, Darian unlocked a new ability.

Telepathy.

He could directly read other people’s minds, know what they were thinking in their heads, and even probe the memories deep within their minds.

Back then, after Hector was infected by Parallax’s power of fear, he had also acquired this ability.

However, Hector’s Telepathy could only take effect by touching others. Darian’s was much more convenient, as he could directly read other people’s thoughts remotely, requiring physical contact only when reading deep memories.

Of course, this ability was not without limitations.

If the opponent’s mental attribute was too high, his Telepathy would encounter obstacles; the stronger the mentality, the higher the difficulty.

But even so, it was enough.

With Telepathy, ordinary people could hide no secrets whatsoever in front of Darian, just like how other people faced Charles.

At first, Darian still found it quite novel, and whenever he had nothing to do, he would keep this ability active while wandering around everywhere to see what others were thinking in their heads.

But soon he regretted it.

Darian finally understood why Charles was unwilling to actively probe other people’s minds most of the time.

Moral factors certainly played a part, but that was only a portion of it.

The more important reason was because the things packed inside some people’s brains were simply too bizarre and grotesque.

The phrase ’the darkness of human nature’ was truly not something said casually.

Some people looked sunny and cheerful on the surface, acting like decent people, but the images in their minds felt like their brains were polluted even to a gamer like Darian who had seen all sorts of big scenes.

Compared to what was inside certain people’s heads, those so-called heretical books on the internet were considered mild-tasting.

At this moment, Darian finally experienced the feeling Gravik had back then.

Who was Gravik?

He was that Skrull who watched the cats memory, and after watching it, he directly didn’t want to live anymore.

Ever since then, Darian learned to behave and stopped using Telepathy indiscriminately.

Even when using it, he had to convert it into text mode to avoid accidentally seeing any bizarre content.

For some time afterward, Darian recovered his leisurely rhythm.

As for the daily missions on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s side, the X-Squad completed them for him, and so far he hadn’t encountered any truly tricky missions.

Even if an enemy with slightly higher difficulty occasionally popped up, Peter and Harry working together could resolve it.

For those that truly couldn’t be resolved, he would let Skye, the logistics personnel, warm up, and then with a single shockwave blast, the enemy would basically lie flat directly.

On Sokovia’s side, they were currently focusing on the grand plan of exploring the Universe, shipping batches of resources to the lunar Base, and then transferring them through portals to Apokolips to establish a new Base.

Kamar-Taj was even more worry-free; a group of mages shared worries and solved problems for Darian, all scrambling to take on missions.

In addition, another batch of mages formed a Kamar-Taj study group, staying in Kunlun for further studies.

After a period of time, their magic level hadn’t grown much, but their hand-to-hand combat skills had indeed become a lot more formidable.

Especially Strange; his physique grew sturdier day by day.

It was said that he was now able to shatter stones with a single punch, finally having a bit of a mage’s demeanor.

As for the servers of the X-Men and DC, there were temporarily no storylines either.

Darian would occasionally go over to show his face, farm some presence, and then sneak back to the main server to continue idling.

Now Darian’s daily routine was reading comics and playing games, sometimes single-player clearance mode, sometimes two-player battle mode, with his opponent being Secretary Wanda who came over to handle work.

However, Wanda’s skills were truly too poor, basically collapsing in one round and leaving Darian unsatisfied.

Thus, he teleported to the X-Men’s server and found Emma to start the second round.

As a result, Emma also collapsed midway, so Darian had no choice but to return to the main server, just as Wanda’s break had ended over here.

Wanda: "..."

I have to admit that cross-server teleportation is definitely the greatest feature in this game’s design, bar none.

Just as Darian was earnestly studying time management skills, a system prompt suddenly rang in his mind.

[Player please note, a new instance has officially opened]

[Enter the instance immediately: Yes / No]

There’s a new instance again.

Darian’s eyes lit up, and his whole person instantly became spirited.

Creatures like players are inherently unable to stay idle; only constantly emerging new things can hook their expectations.

After preparing slightly, he directly chose to enter.

The next moment, the scene before his eyes suddenly changed.

Darian blinked, finding himself standing in a restroom surrounded by white tile walls, the air permeated with the scent of cheap cleaning agent.

"This start is finally a bit normal."

Darian felt a rare wave of relief.

Recalling those previous instances, it was either high-altitude skydiving without a parachute or police-robber gunfights; they always got him so stimulated right off the bat, not even giving him time to mentally prepare.

This time, at least nothing happened; in his view, that was already a huge improvement.

Thinking thus, Darian pushed the door open and walked out of the restroom.

As soon as he opened the door, he saw the door opposite him being pushed open at the same time, and a man walked out from inside.

The two of them locked eyes, the other party’s expression instantly freezing, his mouth slightly agape, and the gaze staring at Darian carried an indescribable strangeness.

Darian was somewhat puzzled, his gaze subconsciously sweeping toward the other party’s side.

On the door behind that man, a men’s restroom sign hung conspicuously.

Darian: "..."

Let me just ask, is there any possibility that a place has two men’s restrooms?

He slowly turned his head back and glanced at the door he had just walked out of; the door was impressively printed with the symbol of a little figure wearing a skirt.

At this moment, Darian’s hanging heart finally died.

But the more it was this kind of time, the less he could show a guilty conscience.

Seeing that the man was still looking at him, Darian resolutely glared back, his tone righteous and confident: "What are you looking at, haven’t you ever seen someone biologically male with a psychological female identity? Are you discriminating against minority groups!?"

Man: "..."

This punch was a bit strong; lacking the correct buff on his body, he didn’t dare to take it head-on at all.

Taking advantage of the fact that the other party hadn’t reacted yet, Darian maintained an expressionless face and strode out of this place.

The moment he stepped outside, a damp and chilly wind blew toward his face.

The sky above the street was grayish, just like having a dark filter added to it, with the sunlight blocked tightly, enveloping the entire city in a dull and oppressive atmosphere.

This feeling is somewhat familiar.

Darian raised an eyebrow, his gaze sweeping across the surrounding buildings, quickly locking onto the most conspicuous one in the distance.

That was a towering black building embedded with a huge letter W logo at the top, and its outline looked just like a bat with folded wings.

It was precisely the famous Wayne Tower.

Darian was slightly stunned, then realized: "This is Gotham?"

He subconsciously glanced at the game map; the markers for teleportation activation points did not light up on it.

This indicated that this was not the DC server he was familiar with, but a completely unfamiliar parallel Universe.

Darian stroked his chin: "So, this instance is still in the DC Universe?"

Having had previous experiences, he wasn’t too surprised this time; instead, he grew a bit interested.

"Since this is Gotham, is there also a Batman here?"

Darian’s eyes lit up, the corners of his mouth slowly curling up.

Anyway, since he was already here, no matter what, he had to go visit this Universe’s Batman, see what this Universe’s Batman looked like, and incidentally see if he could snap some embarrassing photos of Batman so that he could thoroughly mock Bruce when he went back.

Having made up his mind, Darian’s figure concealed itself within the darkness, sneaking all the way along the direction of Wayne Manor in his impression.

Fortunately, although this city had changed Universes, Wayne Manor’s coordinates hadn’t changed, and it didn’t take long for him to find the place.

However, when he stood in front of the manor’s main gate, he couldn’t help but be stunned.

The Wayne Manor before his eyes looked like it had been abandoned for several years; the iron gate at the entrance was casually open, the garden was overgrown with weeds, and it was obviously unmanaged for a long time, completely different from the Wayne Manor in the other server.

Darian stood at the entrance looking around for a few seconds, frowning and muttering: "What’s the situation, has this World’s butler retired?"

He didn’t linger long, directly stepping across the courtyard, pushing open the main residence’s unlocked door, and walking inside.

The light in the hall was dim, the air was permeated with a damp musty smell, dust was everywhere, and there were some cobwebs in the corners, not looking like a place where someone lived long-term.

Darian took a circle around the main residence and didn’t discover the figure of anyone.

Thus, he checked the game map. Located directly below the main residence, indeed a huge underground space was still hidden.

"Fortunately, there is still the Batcave."

Darian breathed a sigh of relief.

Batman was the big daddy of the DC Universe. If this World didn’t have the existence of Batman, it would mean that this World’s problems were extremely severe, and not necessarily something Darian could resolve.

He pulled out his diamond pickaxe and directly dug downward, in the blink of an eye excavating a straight downward passage, jumped down from the ceiling, and landed inside the Batcave hidden deep underground.

Different from that Batcave filled with high-tech equipment and trophies, the Batcave before him was extremely monotonous.

Aside from some weapon equipment, there was only a lonely table with a photo frame placed on it.

The glass surface of the photo frame was wiped very clean, obviously being touched frequently by someone.

Darian stepped closer by two steps and saw clearly the content inside the photo; it was a group photo of a family of three.

Needless to say, this was definitely the Wayne family without a doubt.

The boy in the middle smiling like a sand sculpture was Bruce Wayne when he was young.

It was just a pity that later his Gotham fans grew more and more numerous, and he developed an idol burden, putting on an indifferent face every day.

Before Darian could take a few more detailed looks, a cold and hoarse voice suddenly came from behind.

"Who are you?"

Darian turned around and saw a Batman with blood-red eyes standing behind, launching a bat-style Death stare right at him.

But these were not the main points.

The main point was that this Batman was holding a handgun in his hand, with the pitch-black muzzle pointing directly at him.

Darian: "???"

Since when did Batman start playing Gun-Fighting?

You must know that Batman had a no-killing rule, and aside from dealing with beings of Superman’s level, he almost never touched any firearms.

In Bruce’s cognition, a gun was the thing that took away his parents and was the symbol of this city’s corruption. He would rather face an entire armed gang empty-handed than hold a gun in his hand.

But the Batman before him was not only holding a gun, but also brimming with killing intent, completely acting like he would really fire.

[NPC: Thomas Wayne]

[Codename: Batman]

[Favorability: -20]

[Evaluation: The old master, Bruce Wayne’s biological father, my wife is the Joker, a Batman good at Gun-Fighting]

Darian’s eyelids twitched.

This Batman turned out to be Bruce’s biological father, Thomas?

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