"Yes, Gotham's current situation truly did not inspire optimism. On one hand, the old rules had already decayed, while the new rules had yet to take root. The times kept advancing; if we did not change quickly, we would certainly be left behind." Schiller summed up, "We had little time and a great many problems."
"The evil in Gotham that proved so difficult to eradicate was not entirely because the people here were born worse than others. There might be certain special reasons as well. Saving this city was like blind men feeling an elephant—you never knew how much darkness still awaited you."
"Generally speaking, I would not spend any more effort on something this fundamentally impossible to accomplish. But the reason I believed Gotham still had room to change was because we still had an unbeatable card that we had not played."
Hearing Schiller's words, Bruce asked in confusion, "An unbeatable card? What card could Gotham possibly still have... and one worthy of being called unbeatable?"
His confusion was understandable. Gotham had practically played every card it had. Its geographical location was not irreplaceable, and its people were utterly lawless.
Its fairly decent economy counted as its only advantage, but that had come only after playing nearly every card it possessed. Or rather, the fact that it had needed to exhaust almost every option just to gain this one advantage showed that the city was nearly beyond saving.
Yet now Schiller said Gotham still had a card, and an unbeatable one at that. What could it be?
Then Schiller said, "The unbeatable card I mean is you, Batman."
Bruce froze, but Schiller spoke as though it were only natural. "Do you remember Cat City Gotham, the one we saw in the dream? You thought it resembled a prison, didn't