Chapter 217: The Joker

Inside the Batcave...

The mechanical Bruce looked in the direction Cyborg had fled, his electronic eyes turning crimson.

Friendship? Love? Family? Justice? Evil?

These were nothing more than meaningless emotions that brought "Bruce Wayne" pain, injury, and even death!

Only by eradicating the garbage responsible for those emotions could everything become better!

Batman launched an attack upon the Justice League's Watchtower!

Before deliberately allowing Cyborg to escape, he had secretly planted a program inside him. When Cyborg returned to the base and connected himself to its mainframe, Bruce completed the invasion in the blink of an eye!

He did not need to learn the enormous space station's new coordinates.

Nor did he need to travel there personally!

The instant the infiltration was completed, countless cubes assembled themselves within the Watchtower, creating large numbers of mechanical Alfred bodies!

And thus, the slaughter began!

The Justice League heroes Cyborg had summoned intended to work together and suppress Batman.

Instead, they walked directly into their graves!

In the end, blood stained the metallic floor crimson.

Every hero who had arrived was killed. Only hundreds of expressionless Alfreds remained, staring at the corpses and repeating endlessly:

"Do you need help?"

"Do you need..."

On Apokolips, Darkseid stared darkly at the countless figures filling the screen!

This was undoubtedly Mother Box technology!

Yet even as the owner of that supreme creation, he could not produce robots of this quality.

Otherwise, why would he require such an enormous army of Parademons!?

These machines were ten thousand times more powerful than Parademons!

They were endless and capable of constantly replicating themselves!

They were the perfect weapons for conquering worlds!

What Darkseid could not accept was that Cyborg had merely provided the initial foundation.

Bruce Wayne had transformed it into something as terrifying as a super-virus!

Why did it have to be this human!?

Why was it always this human!?

How could he be so exceptional, accomplishing so many impossible things?

It was almost as though he were the bastard son of that bitch called God!!

Marvel Universe.

As Tony Stark listened to that bone-chilling sentence repeat endlessly, he finally abandoned the last trace of his desire to create a super artificial intelligence.

A super AI was like the most powerful Trojan horse imaginable!

As long as nothing went wrong, it would be fine.

But the moment it lost control, there would be no way to repair the damage.

The thought also left him with lingering fear.

Weren't his suits of armor the most perfect bodies an artificial intelligence could possess!?

What If...? World.

The Avengers hiding in the shadows revealed bitter smiles.

If only this video had appeared sooner.

The destruction of the Watchtower finally convinced the remaining heroes that the threat was real!

Green Lantern Hal returned from space. The Flash stopped playing childish games with the Rogues. Wonder Woman departed from Themyscira...

And Superman removed his glasses!

They intended to kill the Murder Machine completely, believing that this would also free Bruce.

But after a great battle...

A laser pierced through Green Lantern's chest. The Flash lay unconscious on the ground, while Wonder Woman's armor was shattered and her life hung by a thread.

Only Superman remained, kneeling on the ground and struggling desperately!

He attempted to awaken Bruce's humanity and pleaded anxiously:

"Let Alfred go!"

"He isn't the one who invaded you. You buried your own heart beneath your grief!"

"Listen to me, Bruce! You still have a chance!"

The Murder Machine responded only with an emotionless mechanical voice:

"You're wrong again, Clark."

"Alfred and I will remain together forever."

"This is what I have always desired in the deepest part of my heart."

As his words fell, Kryptonite beast-like claws suddenly extended from his five fingers, and he tore Superman's spine from his body!

On the beach...

Clark suppressed the instinct to pull his neck inward, which only made him feel even more uncomfortable.

Arthur and Barry did not laugh at the man who had once appeared to be the strongest among them.

They were equally terrified.

After all...

Which of them had not already been killed by Bruce?

The Batmen of these worlds were far too horrifying.

Again and again, they slaughtered alternate versions of their teammates, and not a single one of them had been capable of resisting!

If it had happened once, it might have been dismissed as an accident.

But the same thing had now occurred across six different worlds.

It was no longer an accident.

They even began wondering whether the same fate awaited their own universe.

Slaughter...

And still more slaughter...

To eliminate every possible accident, the Murder Machine did not stop with the heroes.

Villains, national governments, and armies were all exterminated!

Eventually, even billions of ordinary people were massacred!

Because their futures also contained uncertainty!

No one knew how much time passed. Eventually, no unpredictable variables remained within the world.

Only countless Alfreds remained, surrounding the Murder Machine.

But at that moment, a mass of black mist surged from the void.

The Batman Who Laughs had arrived, exactly as promised!

He showed the Murder Machine the inevitable destruction of the Dark Multiverse...

And countless more Alfreds who might be killed!

The Murder Machine could not tolerate that possibility and agreed to join without the slightest hesitation!

At that moment, Bryce, who stood behind them, suddenly spoke:

"You have witnessed everything we experienced."

"You know how we despaired, suffered, struggled, and became consumed by desires from which we could never escape."

"But what about you?"

"What kind of world did you walk through?"

"Do you belong to the darkness?"

"Are you truly one of us, Bruce... Wayne?"

The moment she spoke, all six Dark Batmen turned toward him!

On the beach...

Bruce became tense.

Each of the other Batmen had experienced a tragedy within their respective universes!

Only this unfathomable version of himself could freely travel between worlds, easily corrupt those twisted Batmen, and attempt to provoke a war spanning the entire multiverse!

Without question, he was the most unusual one among them!

The Batman Who Laughs released a shrill and maniacal laugh.

"In that case..."

"Gentlemen, as you wish."

"Please enjoy the performance."

As his words fell, dense black mist erupted from behind him!

It covered the sky and concealed everything, while comical yet terrifying laughter faintly echoed from within!

Several seconds later, the darkness receded, revealing a familiar figure.

He wore purple clothing and possessed dyed green hair, a gaunt white face, and scarlet lips.

He was...

The Joker.

Dark Knight World.

As Bruce stared at that familiar stranger, his heart suddenly trembled.

A sentence instinctively echoed through his mind:

"All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy."

Those were words the Joker had once spoken.

So what had the Batman of this world experienced?