Marvel: Godhood Unlocked, I Chose Sci-Magic Dual Cultivation

"Bruce, what's wrong? What are you doing?"

"Who are you? What does it have to do with you how I am?"

Clark had meant well, but Bruce did not appreciate it at all. He picked up a bottle from the floor and raised it to his lips.

But the bottle was empty. After tipping it back for a long while without getting a single drop, Bruce flung it aside.

"Alcohol! Alfred, where's my alcohol?!"

"Are you sure he's the person we're looking for?"

"I'm sure, Diana. Don't let the fact that he's a drunk now fool you. He's a smart man when he's sober."

But Dane quickly sensed that something was off. Judging by Bruce's condition, this had not been going on for just a day or two.

If he had not left the house for that long, just how chaotic had Gotham become?

"This city gives me a bad feeling. It's gloomy and damp."

Diana had accurately summed up Gotham's defining traits.

"Don't underestimate this place. The villains who come out of here may not be especially powerful, but they all have a few tricks up their sleeves."

"Some of them can even get their hands on nuclear warheads. If Batman had not dealt with them in time, there would have been quite a fireworks show here."

"But when we arrived, we clearly saw that everything was peaceful. Nothing happened."

"That's exactly why I'm even more worried. In a place like Gotham, peace is more terrifying than chaos."

"Because you never know what's lurking beneath that peaceful surface."

"Sounds like you know Gotham very well."

The one who said that was Bruce, who had seemed completely passed out drunk. No one had expected him to be awake.

"When did you sober up?"

Clark stared at him blankly, feeling like a complete idiot.

"The moment you entered this manor."

Bruce roughly shoved away Clark's hand and casually smoothed back his hair.

Dane pondered for a moment. "How many surveillance cameras have you installed in this manor?"

Bruce said coldly, "Everywhere you can see. All right, my turn. Who are you?"

"We're the Justice League!"

Clark puffed out his chest proudly.

Bruce nodded. No one knew whether he had actually taken that in, but he continued asking, "How did you find out my true identity?"

"Oh, that? Actually, a lot of people in Gotham know your true identity."

As Dane spoke, Bruce's cheek twitched. Then Dane drove the knife in deeper.

"Look, Batman's gadgets and high-tech equipment cost money, right?"

"He goes out every night, which proves he has plenty of free time."

"He's rich and has time on his hands. Plus, Batman started appearing right after Bruce Wayne returned to Gotham. And most importantly..."

Dane looked at him with a strange expression.

"Did you think covering the upper half of your face meant no one would recognize your chin? Your cleft chin is pretty obvious."

A cleft chin was commonly known as a butt chin—a very noticeable groove in the chin.

Bruce's cleft was quite deep, making it a highly distinctive feature.

In fact, the reason Gotham's villains had not figured out Batman's identity was mostly because they were not familiar with Bruce Wayne. Otherwise, they would have recognized him at a glance.

After hearing Dane's analysis, Bruce's face had gone completely dark. Iceberg Face nearly cracked.

He could only barely salvage some dignity as he asked in a deep voice, "What do you want by coming here?"

"Do you have phlegm in your throat? Why are you talking like that?"

This time, Bruce really could not hold it together anymore. Who the hell are you? Do you know it's rude to keep exposing people's flaws?

"I don't!"

"There, that's better. We're all friends here, so why put on an act?"

Bruce turned his head away, unwilling to speak to Dane anymore.

Diana and Clark both snickered. Dane was really too vicious.

Only then did Dane become serious. "We came to invite you to join the Justice League."

"The Justice League? What is this, some third-rate scout organization?"

Bruce gave a disdainful snort.

Dane's eyes shifted as he nodded thoughtfully.

"You're right. The three of us are all 'scouts.'"

"But no matter what, we wouldn't treat criminals like villains in a child's game—catch them, let them go, catch them again, over and over..."

Bruce stared at Dane with bloodshot eyes. "What do you know?! What right do you have to say that?!"

Dane calmly named several people. "Rachel, Barbara, Jason..."

With every name he said, Bruce's presence weakened another degree.

The capable, sharp persona he had forced himself to maintain rapidly faded away, and he returned to looking like a man drowning himself in drink.

"I admire your 'no-kill' rule, but the way you carry it out is too extreme."

Dane showed no mercy with his words.

"You know perfectly well that some criminals are beyond saving. Procedural justice cannot sentence them to death, and that is exactly why Gotham is so chaotic."

"This city itself lacks the resolve to punish evil. That is why it needs you, Batman, to help carry out that necessary 'justice.'"

Was it not necessary "justice" to execute murderous maniacs?

Clark frowned deeply at those words. He leaned more toward Batman's no-kill rule.

But his reasons differed from Batman's. Clark simply disliked killing by nature.

Diana, on the other hand, agreed with Dane.

To her, if it was necessary, physically eliminating an enemy completely was the simplest and most effective method.

Justified violence would always be needed. Ordinary people could not do it themselves, which was why they hoped heroes could do it for them.

Help them carry out that simple justice in their hearts.

"No, we can't do that..."

Bruce muttered to himself.

"We have to have a bottom line, or we'll become just like the criminals. If even we lose control, who will stop us? What kind of justice is justice stained with blood?"

"We have no right to take another person's life, even if they're criminals..."

Dane stepped closer and lowered his voice.

"Bruce, have you ever considered that from the very first day you put on the Bat Suit and fought criminals, you became a criminal yourself?"

"Did the law grant you the power to arrest them? Did it give you the right to abuse vigilante justice?"

"You hide in the Batcave every day, using surveillance systems to pry into the privacy of the entire city. Who gave you that right?"

He shouted, "You dragged good kids like Barbara, Dick, and Jason into this. Did you protect them?"

"No! You let lunatics like Joker torture them and kill them."

"This is all your fault!"

Bruce's eyes were vacant, as if he had heard nothing.

Dane stood up and looked down at him.

"You shouldn't be like this. It was precisely because the authorities could not punish insane criminals like Joker, Riddler, and Scarecrow that you decided to step forward, wasn't it?"

"Since you've already done this, since you've already become Gotham's 'Dark Knight,' why not see it through completely?"

"Remember what I said earlier? Gotham has been a little too peaceful lately."

Dane's words seemed to wake him. Bruce suddenly raised his head and glared at him. "What do you mean?"

"Don't look at me like that, as if I have bad intentions."

"I'm asking you: based on what you know about your 'old friends,' is it normal for things to be this quiet?"

As soon as Dane finished speaking, Bruce's watch sounded an alarm, as though on cue.

It was from the Batcave's supercomputer.

Whenever that thing went off, it usually meant someone was making major news in Gotham again.

Ignoring the three of them, Bruce headed straight for his room.

Dane did not stand on ceremony. He led Clark and Diana after him.

Bruce saw them following but still ignored them.

He pressed a section of the wall in his room. After a palm-print scan, a hidden chamber opened, revealing an elevator.

Dane stepped inside as though he owned the place. Clark and Diana exchanged glances, then followed out of curiosity.

Bruce still did not react. The elevator carried the four of them deep underground before finally stopping in a pitch-black cavern.

The moment Bruce stepped onto the platform, lights came on around them, illuminating the dim cave.

This was the Batcave, Batman's secret base.

Clark and Diana curiously examined the furnishings and structures around them, especially the technological products that were clearly far more advanced than anything on the market.

Bruce sat in the chair in the Control Room and turned on the computer. An intercepted news broadcast appeared on the large screen.

The image showed the upper body of a man wearing a hood. His face was covered by a mask resembling a ragged burlap sack, with something like a respirator over his mouth.

It was Scarecrow.

This was a livestream from five minutes ago. In the lower-left corner was a smaller screen showing a massacre taking place in a restaurant.

On the small screen, an officer was firing wildly at the civilians around him as though he had gone mad.

The civilians were slaughtering one another as well, as if controlled by some kind of hallucination.

Scarecrow spoke on the large screen.

"This demonstration used only five ounces of my new toxin. Tomorrow, this demonstration will look like child's play."

"Citizens of Gotham, you will receive only this one warning..."

Brats Unleashed

Clark looked at the restaurant shown in the news and felt that he had seen it somewhere before.

Only when he saw the officer arrested for intentional homicide did he suddenly remember. It was Officer Owens.

And that restaurant was Pauli's Diner, where he had eaten when he first arrived in Gotham a year ago.

It was also where Clark had first met Jason Todd.

Scarecrow's words quickly threw Gotham City into panic. Ten minutes later, terrified citizens gathered outside the Gotham Police Department.

They demanded in harsh terms that the police severely punish the culprit.

But honestly, the Gotham Police Department did not have that ability.

Aside from Commissioner Gordon and the officers under him who could still get some work done, the rest were not even good for making up the numbers.

Even Commissioner Gordon could not tell how many of his own officers were moles planted by the mob.

It had left him overwhelmed lately, and his receding hairline was becoming visible to the naked eye.

But the operation to capture Scarecrow had made no progress at all.