[Warning! Anchor item "Ventriloquist's Tear of Personality Destruction" detected] [Searching for a Batman that can be targeted by this anchor item] [Warning! No targetable Batman was found for this item] [Randomly matching a weak, low-level Batman... Success] [Matched: Bat-Monster Truck] [Danger Level: F] [Syncing... Success] [Your current Crisis Energy: 0] [Warning! This Batman comes from the Dark Multiverse. His thoughts are highly malevolent and may damage Batman's morality and sanity!]
Cells... were boiling! Wailing in delight!
His genes were overturned like dominoes. Invisible, illusory particles kissed and intertwined with the existence called [reality] across his body, then transformed into each other's truth, revealing an anomaly beyond the limits of human language!
[File "Bat-Monster Truck's Memories" synced] [You may sync other...] [@#$^&%!$#!... No other anchor items detected. Crisis Energy is 0. Temporarily unable to sync with other Batmen]
...In the parallel universe where the Bat-Monster Truck existed, Batman had cast a part of himself into every technology that controlled the world...
...He had become a part of people's lives, providing the flock with a comfortable and safe existence...
...But the flock launched a revolution. They didn't want peace and prosperity. Those idiots wanted only freedom, along with all the flaws that came with it...
I was erased from this planet by the system. My electronic technology and physical personality were destroyed...
...I could only upload my consciousness into this enormous vehicle...
No!
I wasn't the Bat-Monster Truck! I wasn't even Batman. I was Chen Tao!
Chen Tao was immersed for only half a second before instantly waking up. Chaotic memories slammed into his mind, making his temples throb incessantly.
Wait.
His temples?
What a joke. He didn't even have temples. Chen Tao lowered his head and saw wheels spinning uselessly on the ground where his arms should have been.
With a clang, glass shattered. Chen Tao tried to turn his head—but he didn't even have a head to turn. In the rearview mirror, he saw his swelling body crush the glass door of the room beside him.
What the fuck... I turned into an off-road vehicle?
???
"Mm..."
The vast memories continued to pour into Chen Tao's mind. This was the Bat-Monster Truck's entire life—love, hatred, affection, resentment, all of its unwillingness and sorrow. An uncontrollable, violent emotion surged through his heart, making him want to destroy all of Gotham!
He looked at the Ventriloquist, and the desire to kill and destroy surged up at once. He suddenly felt an intense urge to bathe in the man's blood.
Chen Tao felt that if he were living in an online game, "Morality -1, -1, -1..." would probably be constantly floating above his head right now.
"..."
"This must be a side effect of receiving the memories. Thorough mental contamination... falling into depravity? But this doesn't fit my moral standards at all—what would I gain from killing the Ventriloquist?"
With a brush, the dark and violent emotions in Chen Tao's mind were swept into the trash can. The process was so easy that even he felt speechless.
"Got it. A good Batman raises the moral ceiling, an evil Batman lowers the moral floor, and I have no morals."
Proud.jpg
He wasn't Batman at all, so he couldn't identify with Batman's worldview, much less understand the moral choices and struggles found in those memories.
Since he couldn't empathize with him in the slightest, he naturally wouldn't be affected. It was like the trolley problem. While everyone else was debating whom to save, he alone was standing to the side, wondering how to take a picture and sell it to the newspaper for money.
Those two things weren't even on the same wavelength.
Of course, this was also because the Bat-Monster Truck was simply too weak. Its negative emotions were too minor, and Chen Tao couldn't empathize with it. If it had been one of the more powerful evil versions of Batman, would the result have been different?
He didn't know yet. Chen Tao quickly shifted his attention to another problem.
"Can I change back to how I was before?"
The moment he thought this, half of his body dissolved into dark-red points of light. Then it reassembled into flesh, and the memories that had been playing nonstop in his mind abruptly ceased.
Perhaps it took a long time, or perhaps it happened in an instant... Everything returned to normal, as though what had just happened were nothing more than a dream.
Chen Tao rubbed the web between his thumb and index finger, confirming that he had returned to the normal Batman he had been at the beginning. Not even half a piece of his clothing had torn.
With a thought, his left hand swished into a constantly spinning off-road wheel, then changed back the next second.
"So as long as I want to, I can turn completely into that Bat-Monster Truck anytime, anywhere..."
But when all was said and done—what use was a superpower that let him turn into a super off-road vehicle?
Listen to Me and Get Yourself Killed?
And this Alfred Protocol... Forget it. His original plan still sounded more reliable.
Chen Tao shook his head. Entrusting the success or failure of his actions entirely to an unknown variable had never been his style.
He turned his gaze back to the Ventriloquist. Fortunately, when he had subdued the Ventriloquist just now, he had driven the several hostages out. The man was now the only witness who had seen him turn into a vehicle.
The balding, middle-aged white man stared back at him with wide, blinking eyes. The Bat-Baby in his hand kept shouting words of encouragement like, "That's right, this is exactly what a good dog should do!"
"Don't tell anyone what happened just now."
"Woof!"
"Speak human."
"Okay."
Ignoring those details, everything had gone smoothly with his original plan so far. The snowball had already started rolling. With the Ventriloquist, he could finally hide behind the scenes and manipulate him into recruiting more villains.
He could also borrow the Ventriloquist's identity and use Batman's money power to hire some international mercenaries. By then, with the villain army and mercenary army charging in together without any regard for honor, even Bane with three heads and six arms would be hammered into little biscuits!
Personally taking the field? That wasn't happening.
Even if I jumped off Wayne Tower, died outside, and—
After all, he was a transmigrator.
It was true that he loved Batman comics, but that didn't mean he had to be Batman in real life.
What kind of person would give up a fortune and take to the streets at night to vent his chaotic emotions like a giant bat?
He even encouraged teenagers to put on brightly colored costumes, go without pants, and fight killers and lunatics. Admit it, Bruce Wayne had gone insane a long time ago.
But this transmigrator was different. He wasn't a lunatic. He was a normal person.
For now, Chen Tao only wanted to get rid of the harbinger of doom, [Bane], who knew Bruce's true identity, then retire in peace. After that, he would spend every day living in drunken pleasure, exhausting the last sliver of his energy on Gotham City's socialites.
Yes, that was the life he wanted!
Hadn't he struggled in Hollywood in his previous life precisely for a life like this?
As for what happened to Gotham afterward...
He had already thought it through. Did they really think the Man of Steel, the Kryptonian, and the five-thousand-year-old demigod princess from Amazon were useless?
Although Chen Tao hadn't found Clark Kent at the Daily Planet in Metropolis since transmigrating, nor the antique appraisal expert Diana Prince in Boston,
Lois was already at the Daily Planet. Judging from the timeline, those two would soon emerge and stir up trouble. So all he had to do now was deal with Bane and keep himself alive until those two heavyweights made their dazzling entrances. Then his wonderful billionaire life would be beckoning him.
As for those cosmic crises... At worst, he could become a spoiler. With so many superpowered beings and demigods in the Justice League, could they really be utterly defeated and need an ordinary mortal like him to save the day?
Chen Tao's heart was filled with hope for a leisurely life in the future.
But for now, his top priority was defeating Bane.
Mm, more specifically, the Ventriloquist needed to make a call and find some cannon fodder... No, mercenaries.
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