Keep Persecuting Batman

Over in Konoha Village, Naruto and Nine-Tails had achieved a win-win outcome.

Meanwhile, Lin Xiao, lying on the sofa in his luxury apartment, glanced at Bruce Wayne, who seemed to have already taken control of Gotham City's entire future. A particularly wicked smile suddenly curled across his lips.

[He Is Simply God]: "Bruce, looks like settling Gotham City's future has eased those tightly wound nerves of yours quite a bit."

[He Is Simply God]: "Since everyone's in such high spirits, as the group owner, I'll give you another little 'surprise.'"

Gotham City, inside the Batcave.

Bruce Wayne had just finished refining the 473rd Arkham Riot Control Plan when he saw the message and frowned slightly.

[Dark Knight of Gotham]: "A surprise? What do you mean?"

Before Batman could figure out what mischief this invincible "god" was about to stir up, a golden notification suddenly popped up in the group!

[Ding! Group owner "He Is Simply God" has uploaded the massive memory instance <DC Universe: Justice League and the Multiversal Crisis>!]

[He Is Simply God]: "That Batman instance you saw before was, at best, just one corner of your world—and a realistic version of 'Gotham Village Brawl' without much in the way of special effects."

[He Is Simply God]: "This DC Universe is the full picture of your world. Go take a look, Bruce. Remember to take some blood pressure medicine afterward."

With a trace of confusion and extreme wariness, Bruce set down his coffee cup and opened the massive file.

Five minutes later, the dim Batcave was filled with the sound of fingernails scraping desperately against the metal edge of a desk.

"Hiss..." Bruce Wayne clutched the left side of his chest tightly. A violent stabbing pain suddenly tore through his heart!

What had he just seen?!

A Superman who could fire heat vision from his eyes after soaking up some sunlight and smash meteors with a single punch? A Green Lantern who could materialize any weapon as long as he wore a ring?

An Atlantis king capable of controlling every ocean on Earth and flooding entire continents, along with the descendant of a god?

If those could barely be understood as "metahumans," then what the hell were those villains afterward?!

Darkseid, who wanted to enslave the entire universe with the Anti-Life Equation?! Trigon, who existed in another dimension and could turn Earth into hell just by leaking a trace of his aura?!

And Superboy-Prime, who could shatter the barriers of reality itself with one punch?!

Bruce looked at the 472 Gotham Countermeasure Plans he had painstakingly written overnight on his secondary monitor and suddenly felt that they were too rough even to wipe his ass with.

Bomb shelters? Herbicides? Background checks? To hell with Gotham City! If this universe was really like that, all Darkseid had to do was stand in outer space and press a button. Forget Gotham—even Earth would instantly become cosmic dust!

Overwhelmed by shock, Bruce's words carried an intense sense of denial and self-hypnosis.

[Dark Knight of Gotham]: "Kryptonians? Darkseid? Trigon? And that Flash who runs faster than light and can casually alter timelines?"

[Dark Knight of Gotham]: "What kind of joke is this? Settings where star systems are destroyed at the drop of a hat and multiverses are reset—you made this sci-fi novel up on purpose to get back at me for what I said earlier and mess with me, didn't you?!"

With Batman's utterly rational scientific mind, he simply could not accept that so many "gods" capable of destroying the world were lurking on his Earth.

Watching Batman's rare loss of composure and utter breakdown, Lin Xiao, far away in Chiba Prefecture, stretched lazily and typed a message that would completely crush Batman's last hopes.

[He Is Simply God]: "Whether it's a sci-fi novel or not, can't you just investigate it yourself with Batman's methods?"

[He Is Simply God]: "At this point in time, that 'god among men' is still an ordinary person. He hasn't become famous in that red-and-blue bodysuit yet."

[He Is Simply God]: "Look into a small town in Kansas. There's a farm boy there named Clark Kent."

[He Is Simply God]: "You're lucky. If you go now, that alien with invincible power should still be diligently growing corn. And his adoptive father, Jonathan Kent, is still alive—he hasn't been swept away by that tornado yet."

The moment those words appeared, the Batcave fell into deathly silence.

It even named the exact location, the people involved, and the status of his adoptive father. There was no way this could have been fabricated!

Bruce Wayne even forgot to breathe. He spun around and his fingers became blurs as they hammered frantically across the Batcomputer keyboard!

"Kansas... Smallville... population registry search..."

"Target locked... Clark Kent... Jonathan Kent..."

"Pull up real-time satellite thermal imaging and optical footage of the farm!"

Code flickered across the screen like a waterfall. Seconds later, the satellite feed came through.

Under the blinding Kansas sunlight, a dark-haired young man with an absurdly muscular build was working shirtless on a farm.

Without shedding a single drop of sweat, he casually bent down and lifted a heavy Ford pickup truck weighing several tons out of a mud pit with one hand, as easily as if he were picking up a plastic toy!

"..." Watching that scene, which utterly defied human muscle mechanics and the laws of physics, Bruce Wayne slumped weakly against the back of his broad leather chair.

This time, even the Dark Knight, whose will was as hard as steel, finally felt the suffocating despair unique to the DC Universe.

"Alien invaders... gods on Earth... and a Kryptonian growing corn in Kansas..."

He had to start developing the <Darkseid Cosmic Invasion and Metahuman Rampage Defense Plan> immediately!!

Meanwhile, in the Myriad Worlds Chat Group, the members who had just finished the DC Universe instance were all gasping sharply.

[The Boy Who Wants to Be a Hero]: "So this is Mr. Bruce's world... The Heroic Spirits we fought to the death against in the Holy Grail War wouldn't even qualify as cannon fodder before a monster like Darkseid."

[Snow Queen of the Service Club]: "No wonder Mr. Bruce has such severe persecution paranoia... In a world where gods are everywhere and the universe gets rebooted at the drop of a hat, surviving this long is already a miracle."

[He Is Simply God]: "@Dark Knight of Gotham, so? Did you find him?"

[He Is Simply God]: "And a reminder: don't think about targeting that corn-growing boy. That Clark may possess the power of a god, but he has a kinder humanity than anyone else in the world. If he turns evil..."

[He Is Simply God]: "Trust me, if Superman goes insane, he'll be ten thousand times more terrifying than Joker. Though from another perspective, he's also your ultimate superpowered muscle."

A full five minutes passed before Bruce Wayne finally sent a reply in the group. It was incredibly weak, yet carried the frantic aura of someone ready to work himself to death.

[Dark Knight of Gotham]: "I understand all of that. Of course I won't do anything stupid."

[He Is Simply God]: "I don't believe you. (laughs)"

[Dark Knight of Gotham]: "..."

[Dark Knight of Gotham]: "Also... Lin Xiao. That [Miracle Light] in the shop that costs 1,000 points—if I suffer sudden cardiac death, can it save my life?"

The moment they saw that message, Yukino and the others burst out laughing in front of their screens.

Gotham City's protector had been driven by Lin Xiao's DC Universe spoilers to prepare Miracle Light as a precaution against his own sudden death!