mousepad-d2 Chapter 578 Why can't we team up with the Joker?
Chapter 578 Why can't we team up with the Joker?
Chapter 578 Why can't we team up with the Joker?
"The Black Death Emperor needs three conditions to descend upon a universe."
"That's what the Bat of Laughter said."
He manipulated the image of himself he had conjured from stone. The stone half-figure chose to lift its upper body up from the chest and abdomen, while its lower body turned back into rubble and fell to the ground: "Sorry, this might save me some power."
A complete lie, utter nonsense.
They are just using the excuse of lack of strength to change their image. Humans are visual creatures. No one is afraid of a disabled beggar on the street, but anyone will have a basic psychological defense against a tall and strong man.
Therefore, a half-human floating in the air looks far less harmful than a 1.8-meter-tall stone giant standing in front of you.
A maniacal laugh constantly lowers the guard of others, even in the most trivial details.
He floated slowly past Chen Tao, then hovered above the unconscious magician Faust on the ground.
Zatana, who was standing next to Chen Tao, whispered, "Don't tell me you didn't suspect anything at all."
The Bat Who Laughs clearly heard Zatana's words, but he seemed completely unconcerned.
He controlled the stone bust to float in front of Zatana and said, "Hey hey hey. Don't think I can't hear your whispers."
He circled Zatana twice, like a little elf floating in the air.
"In fact, I completely understand that you have doubts about me, a stranger you've just met. But my purpose is simply to tell you the facts and help you analyze the situation; ultimately, the decision is yours."
Laughing wildly and feigning nonchalance, Chen Tao noticed that Zatana visibly relaxed slightly. Her guard had crumbled somewhat, without even Zatana herself realizing it.
Chen Tao coldly watched the maniacal performance and Zatana's relaxation.
Zatana was captivated by the maniacal laughter, which was good; it would make the maniacal laughter arrogant and make him mistakenly believe that he was also manipulating Chen the Bat.
The laughing bat floated back above Faust's head.
"First, the first condition. A spokesperson, the original Blacklight Corpse, to unveil the prelude to the darkest night."
The Batman Who Laughs gave examples: "Like William Hand from the main universe, and Faust lying here now. But Faust is finished now, and the Emperor Joker will provide the Black Death Emperor with another one: the Joker from your world."
"Hehehe..."
The Batman Who Laughs was only halfway through his sentence when Faust, below him, let out a gasp as if he were about to suffocate. The Batman Who Laughs, feigning a startled gasp, quickly floated away.
"Faust is tightly bound!"
Zatana took the initiative and the half-dead Faust was accidentally strangled by the reinforced translucent white tentacles on his body, almost causing him to stick out his tongue.
Chen Tao stopped Zatana from taking further actions that would have nearly killed Faust, because he was kind.
Okay, no. The main reason is that if we kill Faust here, he'll just borrow the Black Death Emperor's magic and then fight them again.
Looking at Faust, Chen Tao even had some ideas. If he imprisoned him at the highest level and then killed him, turning him into a Black Lantern Corpse, then Faust would become the Black Death Emperor's representative in the current universe, triggering the Darkest Night, but he was trapped.
So, could he just exploit this bug and indefinitely delay the darkest night until...
Chen Tao chuckled. The Black Death Emperor wasn't stupid; he knew Faust had been captured, yet he still chose him as his representative. The other guy was captured? Of course, they'd just replace him with someone else!
Moreover, this kind of spokesperson is not a divinely ordained wise minister like William Hand. Once the Black Death Emperor discovers that the other party is trapped, he can simply withdraw his power and find a new one.
They're not William Hand, so it wouldn't matter who's in their shoes. It's just a matter of strength. But even being weaker is better than being trapped, right?
"Although the Emperor Joker is still trapped in the trans-time flow, he is special and can interfere with reality more than those trapped timeline powerhouses."
(Note: The specific reasons were mentioned in previous chapters; the troublemaker still exists in the current timeline.)
"Therefore, never doubt his ability to control your universe's clown," the Batman Who Laughs said. "If he gives that clown as a gift to the Black Death Emperor, then the latter will receive a Black Lantern Corpse capable of altering reality. The reality-manipulating abilities that the Emperor Joker bestowed upon your world's clown are his welcoming gift to the Black Death Emperor."
"Well then, I think I need to put my value to use and provide you with information that you didn't know before."
The Batman Who Laughs said, "The Emperor Joker manipulating three clowns back into your world to cause trouble isn't just a common game of fun between Bruce and the Joker; it also contains a plan to hasten the arrival of the Black Death."
Kuangxiao paused briefly after saying this, then looked at Chen Tao.
Zatana was completely unaware.
Chen Tao glanced at him out of the corner of his eye.
He deliberately swallowed the answer that was about to come out, and then let Chen Bat, who was standing next to him, say the answer he was about to say, giving the other party the illusion that "this is the result I came up with after thinking about it", which would make it easier to manipulate him later?
Oh right, there's also a natural straight man who can't think of anything to say, which makes the effect even better.
"The descent of the Black Death Emperor requires the Darkest Night, and the occurrence of the Darkest Night requires an internal war among the Seven Light Groups, shaking the emotional spectrum of the universe through the attacks between different colored lights."
Chen Tao said, "Now, in the clusters of lights created by the seven-color emotional spectrum, the purple light cluster is me, the green and yellow light clusters suppress the order of the entire universe on OA planet, the red light led by Atositas is hiding on their planet and sector, and the merciful Zamalen people are accompanied by the blue light. All the colors have been lit, but there is one exception."
"Blue Lantern. The blue of hope has not yet been forged; there has never been a Blue Lantern Ring in the entire universe. Rings forged from this color of light are currently something that does not yet exist in our universe."
The Bat Who Laughs said, "That's why he keeps sending clowns to their deaths, only to have them repeatedly captured by your Justice League. In the end, your universe is a defective product. Your universe should have gathered the essence of the entire Dark Multiverse to nurture a powerful entity before self-destructing, but you... you ended that fate. But that doesn't mean your Justice League is any stronger."
"I'd venture a guess: most of the time, your Justice League is only good for assisting you. They are neither able to join forces with you to fight your enemies and help you win, nor are they strong enough to fight alongside you."
And the enemies you're facing have, in a short time, gone from demonic flesh-and-blood monsters that overturn tanks to Barbatos, a dragon that has absorbed most of the power of the world's forgers. You're involved in multiverse-level events, and your Justice League is completely outmatched. Oh, right, they're not those idealistic warriors from the main universe. They're imposters, they're mortals.
"You'd better not be so rude," Zatana said from the side. "They're all my friends!"
"That's why your Justice League is trying to prove themselves; they're trying to catch up with you."
He laughed wildly and said, "They have never seen any hope of success, but today, the Black Death Emperor will bring them a glimmer of blue hope."
He said, "I know what you're thinking right now. You're thinking that if you hadn't let your Justice League go out and solve the problem alone, but instead worked with them, would you have been able to solve the current problem? But unfortunately..."
"Whether you are with them or not, your Justice League's desire to prove itself to you is real and burning, and this desire will inevitably lead to the forging of the Blue Lantern Ring. The Black Death Emperor merely accelerated this process, rather than fabricating it out of thin air."
"And this leads to the second condition I mentioned: enough black lights."
"Once your surviving teammates have summoned a Blue Lantern, their existence becomes meaningless. The Blue Lanterns forged will automatically seek a suitable host in the universe, just like every Green Lantern ring."
Chen Tao immediately realized the dilemma he was in:
The Justice League is currently battling the Joker, who uses reality-altering abilities. The Joker has even turned Wonder Woman into Wonder Pig, who jumps up and fights with a sword in her mouth.
Once Chen Tao goes there and resolves their difficulties, the Blue Lantern Legion will be instantly forged from scratch because of this victory.
But if Chen Tao hardened his heart and let his teammates fall to their deaths...
"Then all your teammates will become Black Lantern Corpses, each one of them is worth countless ordinary ones."
Yes, that's right. Chen Tao listened silently to what the other person had to say.
In the current situation, whatever he does will only hasten the arrival of the Black Death Emperor.
"And the last of the three conditions is a sufficiently powerful corpse that can serve as the central energy battery of the Black Lantern. If this were before, I would have told you that the Black Emperor's target is the Anti-Monitor who roams the Dark Multiverse. The Black Emperor wanted to recruit him, but now the Anti-Monitor has become the Anti-Monitor Dragon. The Black Emperor will not make an enemy of Barbatos for such a battery."
"So what's your solution for the battery?"
Chen Tao asked.
"Not yet," he said with a wild laugh.
"But I've figured out solutions to the previous two problems," he said. "As for stopping the battery... I don't yet have information on what the Black Death Emperor will use as a battery. I'll keep an eye on it and keep you informed. Trust me, I'll always be on your side."
Chen Tao remained silent.
He smiled slightly at the Batman Who Laughs on the surface, calling him "senpai" incessantly, as affectionately as a beautiful girl with sparkling dandruff from an anime, while inwardly cursing the Batman Who Laughs to the core.
That damned laughter, an orphan without a family, a complete liar, not a single word of truth in his two sentences.
Since the darkest night cannot be prevented, changing the selection of people further and further will only increase the difficulty for ourselves.
Every word the Laughing Bat uttered guided Chen Tao to act according to his imagination.
Chen Tao certainly couldn't let all his friends turn into Blacklight Corpses, so Blue Lantern would exist, fulfilling one of the prerequisites for the Darkest Night.
If he defeats the Joker, it may seem like the problem is solved, but the Black Death Emperor and the Emperor Joker behind it will not be harmed in the slightest. They still want to invade Chen Tao's universe. In that case, the Black Death Emperor will completely collude with the Emperor Joker and create even more uncontrollable troubles for Chen Tao.
The plan proposed by the Batman Who Laughs was neither in the best interest of Chen Tao, nor in the Black Death Emperor and the Emperor Joker. He played a little trick in it. At most gambling tables, the house would let the gambler win a couple of rounds to completely trap them and make them addicted. In the end, most of them would give back all the money they had won.
The Batman Who Laughs is deliberately misleading Chen Tao into thinking that "regardless of whether what the Batman who laughs said is correct or not, he must have been telling the truth in order to gain my trust at the beginning." This kind of inducement is a kind of insurance. No matter how much trust Batman has gained from his previous actions, once the other party falls for his inducement, he will have a very high level of trust in the information he just gave him. Even if you want to lie to me later, at least what you gave me at the beginning was a sugar-coated bullet, right?
On the contrary, he was lying from the very beginning. The first thing he fired at his opponent wasn't a sugar-coated bullet, but a poison bullet.
If someone were to pick up a cannonball and lick it with the intention of eating candy, they might unknowingly get poisoned, hehe.
This is a clever trick, easily overlooked by habitual thinking.
Chen Tao had already made up his mind.
Amidst the wealth of information, some true and some false, presented by the maniacal laughter, to grasp the truth, he must take an action that even the laughter could not have foreseen.
He wanted to give the Laughing Maniac a shock, even though the Laughing Maniac had made his own mistakes while constantly guiding others.
For example, he made a classic mistake: he was convinced that Chen Tao was Batman.
The Bat Who Laughs is also Bruce. He uses Bruce's ideas to deduce Chen Tao's behavior, and then draws a seemingly plausible conclusion, based on which he formulates a plan.
Luther made this mistake, Bane made it, and Nite Owl let it go. Every villain who thinks they understand Batman has made this mistake. In a way, it can even be called a kill on first meeting.
So, what Chen Tao is thinking right now is:
Why can't they team up with the Joker?
(Note: Even in the original storyline, Batman himself cooperated with the Joker multiple times when faced with unimaginably huge threats. Batman himself is very good at prioritizing. If cooperating with the Joker can save the world, then Batman will do it no matter how much he hates it. Ironically, this is exactly what the Joker likes most, and cooperating with Batman almost gives him an orgasm.)
(End of this chapter)