"I'm not joking, you're honestly a terrible ghost," the agent said. "It might be your first time being a ghost, but hadn't you seen any ghost movies? Look at those ghosts in the films, they appear for a few minutes and manage to kill dozens of people. And then look at you, how many days have we been here? Where are you? Even if you went on vacation to Hawaii, you should be back by now!"
"Every day it's find clues, find clues, listen to conversations, listen to conversations; the plot is long and stinky, and you can't even skip it. The clues come in bits and pieces, a little here, a little there. Here's the thing, buy a ticket now and fly to East Coast Gotham, go to Arkham Asylum and find Edward Nigma, kick him out, and you play the Riddler!"
"You're a proper ghost, either scare people or kill them. It's almost been a week, and all you've done is stage a reanimation event. I can see it now, you're indeed a bumpkin. If you'd worked in a big city for a few days, you'd know with performance like this, you'd be fired in two days!"
"And you still have the nerve to ask why I opened fire. If I didn't shoot, you'd probably sit here and chat with me until it gets dark!"
The agent shook the gun in his hand and said, "This isn't a gun, it's my freaking self-made plot skip button!!!"
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The agent fired five consecutive shots, sending Peter flying out of the church doors. Waving the gun, he said, "Coming to a church, do you think fighting here is more artistic? How many holes do you think Jesus has???"
The evil spirit finally couldn't stand it, rising with a roar. Peter's body visibly exuded a dark aura, let out an extremely terrifying shriek, and lunged at the agent.
The agent had already put away his gun. He didn't hold back against the evil spirit, using all his strength, he crashed forward with a shoulder slam. With a bang, the two collided, and the agent pinned the evil spirit down, raising his fist to punch.
Bang!
"That's for pushing child marriage!"
Bang!
"That's for running heresy!"
Bang!
"You damned..."
Before the evil spirit could finish cursing, the agent grabbed his neck and with a crack, snapped his spine.
Then he stood up from Peter's body, exhaled, and said, "Sorry, Peter, but this is the only way to clear the level."
He glanced up at his health bar, clearly it was almost depleted. Not only because he said things unrelated to the plot but also because he used his strength. After all, this kind of strength wasn't really a superpower, it wasn't granted externally but was rather a release of his own muscle limitations, so the system could only deduct health, not prevent him from using it.
And just as his health bar hit zero, the entire town suddenly clouded over. The agent saw many people coming out of the empty houses, more specifically, many mummified corpses.
They seemed to have just crawled out of the soil, covered in dirt and ash. Those long-decayed bodies moved with a living person's stiffness, looking extremely eerie.
They rapidly approached the agent, and the evil spirit controlling Peter's body let out an angry roar, commanding these mummified corpses to attack the agent.
The agent pressed the gun against himself, clicked to chamber a round with one hand, smiled, and said, "Now that's more like it, baby."
In the psychic battlefield, Bruce and Peter finally finished dealing with the corpses. Just as they were returning to town, they suddenly noticed that the people on the road were gone.
"Have they gone home?" Peter looked around, puzzled. "Why isn't there anyone?"
They quickly ran toward the town center and witnessed an astonishing scene: people were disappearing one by one.
They stood on the street chatting, looking relaxed, laughing and joking, and then their bodies gradually turned transparent until disappearing without a trace, which looked very frightening.
"Oh my God, what's happening?!" Peter couldn't help but turn around and look around.
But Bruce noticed more, saying, "It seems like they're being withdrawn. They... are they returning to the real world?!"
"But, aren't they already dead in the real world???" Peter asked in confusion, "Could someone still be alive?!"
"They are indeed dead, but don't forget the evil spirit has the ability to control corpses. And since they're part of the psychic battlefield controlled by the evil spirit, they might also be able to control their own bodies."
"But why would they go back to the real world?" Peter rushed to someone and reached out trying to grab that person, but only grasped nothingness, while the other seemed oblivious.
"It indicates something happened in the real world." Bruce didn't attempt such futile efforts, and said to Peter, "Shiller must know what's going on, let's find him."
"But where do we find him?"
"Follow me."
They ran all the way to the church entrance, unsurprisingly, saw the hunting in the chapel. It was like doing a service, standing motionlessly in front of the podium.
"Shiller?" Bruce tentatively called out.
The Hunter turned around. At the instant Bruce saw those desolate eyes, a chill ran down his spine. He thought: If he didn't know Shiller, he would definitely assume he was an evil spirit. Anyone would think so. Or rather, this yet-to-appear evil spirit might not even be as terrifying as Shiller.
He didn't know why he felt this way, it was just an intuition. Bruce believed that ghosts are distant from humans, although they try hard to disguise themselves as human-like, for example by possessing normal people or appearing in human-like phantom forms. But you can tell from various small details that they are not human at all. No matter how cunning a ghost is, it cannot escape Batman's scrutiny.
Yet in every aspect, Shiller looks completely human, with no flaws to be seen, but there is a natural sense of danger and intuition telling you: he is not human, he is some kind of unknown creature.
Even Batman couldn't identify the source of this premonition, it was a thought beyond his control, making Batman realize that his control over his own thoughts was not as thorough as he imagined. But perhaps because of this, this awareness saved him from disaster.
"It's angry," the Hunter said, "It's sending its followers to the real world. You should go back too."
"How do I go back?"
"It hasn't noticed you, so it will soon throw you out. You will likely wake up soon."
"What about Peter?"
"He can't leave," the Hunter shook his head, "His body in the real world has likely been killed, going back would only allow him to control a corpse, and that wouldn't be a good feeling. Besides, it's better for him to stay."
"What are you going to do?"
"It made a mistake, a big mistake."
Bruce saw, in the moment Shiller finished speaking, his somewhat unfocused eyes began to concentrate as if he suddenly saw something.
And that thing saw him too.
When you gaze into the Abyss, the Abyss gazes back at you. At this moment, Bruce realized that Shiller was the Abyss.
Shiller turned and walked away. Bruce turned to look at him, but before he could see what he was going to do, his figure began to gradually become transparent. The whole world of consciousness was blank. When he opened his eyes again, he saw Kent's face.
"Oh my god, you've been in a coma for almost two days!" Kent's face was full of anxiety and worry. He said, "I wanted to find medicine for you, but I was afraid something might attack you. You're finally awake!"
Bruce just wanted to speak, but Kent hugged him tightly. He squeezed his chest painfully, so Bruce could only say weakly, "Let go of me first."
"I'm really sorry," Kent said, "I really didn't mean to hurt you. Please believe that, Bruce. I really didn't!"
Looking at Kent's excited expression, Bruce smiled helplessly. He knew Kent was not referring only to the matters in the copy, but he just said, "I believe you, Clark. Can you find me some water?"
"We've run out of water," Kent said. "I got some from a family, here."
Bruce took a sip and froze: there was something wrong with this water too. It seemed like there were stimulants in it. Was he not awake yet?
He looked up and down at Kent, but he was very sure that this was indeed Clark Kent, probably not an evil spirit impersonating him. Could it be that the town's water source in the real world also had issues?
He hadn't noticed before because his occupation in this context was a supermarket owner, and naturally, he brought some supplies for exploration here. He brought quite a lot of bottled water, and being cautious, he usually didn't eat or drink outside. The water Aunt Cain gave him before remained untouched, so he naturally didn't find out.
Then he looked at Kent, who had probably consumed quite a bit of the water. He was initially a bit worried, but then he suddenly thought: Kryptonians probably aren't afraid of stimulants, right?
No, Superman doesn't seem to be a Kryptonian right now because he doesn't have any Kryptonian powers. However, since he used to have a super brain, its threshold for excitement could be much higher than that of the human race, so even if he gets a bit excited, Kent might not feel it.
But Bruce still reminded, "This water might have issues, drink less of it."
"Huh?" Kent said in surprise, "But if I don't drink this, there's no other water, and I don't feel any problem."
"Alright, drinking a bit is fine," Bruce shook his head and said.
"Why are you like this?" Kent pouted, looking very aggrieved. He said, "You say there's a problem with the water, yet you say it's okay to drink a little. Isn't that contradictory? If anything happens to me after drinking it, you'd blame me. But if I don't drink it, there's no other water..."
Bruce already realized what problem Clark had with drinking this water: his display of excitement was emotional agitation combined with excessive talking. Or rather, most people's display of excitement is like this, but coming from Clark, it seemed somewhat endearing.
Henry Chao is actually relatively serious among the Supermen and not so lively in daily life. Having drunk the stimulant, he instead appeared childishly naive. Bruce actually thought he was somewhat cute.
Quickly shaking his head, Bruce asked, "Is there anything unusual in the town?"
"Unusual? What's unusual? I haven't..."
Before he could finish his sentence, a dried corpse suddenly crashed through the window and jumped in, letting out a hoarse roar, clawing at Kent's back. Three deep scratch marks bled continuously, and he let out a cry of pain: "Ugh!!!!"
Bruce quickly pulled out a crowbar and slammed it down on the dried corpse's arm, but this arm was as hard as metal, emitting a "clang" but not breaking, just slightly tilting.
But because the attack was ineffective, the dried corpse not only wasn't repelled, it seized the opportunity to get close, clawing at Bruce's neck, and blood immediately gushed out.