"Don't let me see you doing anything strange again, especially touching the toys! I guarantee you'll see your own brains!!"
Gordon pressed his pistol against Li Zu's head. He used great force, jabbing the barrel hard enough to force Li Zu's head back.
With Commissioner Gordon's emotions out of control, he could pull the trigger at any moment. "Why did you come to Blackgate Penitentiary? What did you do at the police station!"
"I borrowed the restroom." Li Zu released his right hand, letting the emptied pistol turn back into a toy and fall from his hand, clattering to the floor.
His utterly non-threatening display made Gordon lower his guard slightly, and his emotions calmed somewhat as well.
"The police station is a very warm place. I like its Christmas atmosphere."
"Hmph!"
Gordon was clearly dissatisfied with that answer, though at least Commissioner Gordon no longer seemed so out of control.
Batman was being lifted by the neck in Bane's grip below. Gordon had a gun pressed to Li Zu's head, while Joker lay on the ground clutching his stomach.
As for those bastards in prison uniforms who had broken free from their cages, they were not qualified to join this fight yet. They merely watched from afar, poised to act.
"I've been captured~" Li Zu helplessly spread his hands toward Joker, showing that under the threat of the gun, he had no ability to resist. "If he shoots me... oh~ I don't want to die!"
"Is that so? What a shame~" Joker, whom Gordon had kicked to the ground, leaned against the iron bars and clutched his stomach as he let out a bizarre laugh.
Joker did not believe Li Zu could dodge Gordon's gun. He simply wanted to laugh madly.
Sometimes, even a mad dog could not understand himself.
"Commissioner, be careful! He's no ordinary man!" Warden Joseph had personally watched Li Zu soar through the air like an acrobat, and he warned Gordon not to let down his guard.
But his warning came too late.
The instant Gordon's attention was drawn away by Warden Joseph, Li Zu had already grabbed Gordon's pistol with his right hand and yanked it downward, trying to move the muzzle away from his head and save his own life.
Almost at the same moment, Gordon pulled the trigger.
Sizzle~
A water gun sprayed Li Zu all over the face.
"Aha, looks like your gun has a little problem~" Li Zu wiped his face.
He spat out water twice.
The situation changed once more.
Commissioner Gordon, holding a toy gun, became the prisoner. In contrast, a Toy Meat Saw was pressed across his neck.
No one doubted whether this plastic toy knife could take a life now, because only a few breaths ago, its owner had turned a real gun into a toy water gun with his bare hands!
Li Zu held up the Meat Saw. The plastic blade felt light in his hand, yet no one dared question its power.
"Commissioner Gordon, please don't move~" Li Zu lightly picked at his left ear with his pinky.
"Ha ha ha ha!!" Joker clutched his stomach and climbed up from the ground. He raised an arm around Gordon's stiff shoulders, pressed a pistol to Gordon's head, and the commissioner who had held every advantage one second ago became Joker's prisoner the next.
Joker cackled, "Our warm-up act is over. It's time to watch the performance below. Toyman, do you have time to do me a favor?"
"Copperhead seems... a little disobedient~"
Li Zu lowered the Toy Meat Saw and walked past Joker.
"With pleasure!"
Batman was held by the neck in Bane's grip.
The suffocation deprived his brain of oxygen, and his mind slipped into a dazed state.
A wave of unconsciousness crashed toward him, nearly drowning Batman.
Above him came Joker's laughter, along with the cries of Commissioner Gordon and Warden Joseph.
Batman barely opened his eyes, only to see Warden Joseph shoved aside, and Commissioner Gordon held by the neck by Joker with a gun pressed to his head.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could also glimpse Li Zu's departing back.
"So this is Batman, hahahahaha!!" Bane laughed with savage contempt, finding it ridiculous that he had regarded Batman as such an enemy and been so excessively tense.
A mere Batman could never be his opponent! Yet Bane had lost to him and even considered him the most important enemy of his life!
Rip—
A crisp blade sliced through a plastic tube.
Batman took the opportunity to sever Bane's IV tube with a batarang. The green liquid flowing endlessly through the tube sprayed out, turning into a green misty rain above them.
After the green liquid burst from the IV tube, the tube embedded in Bane's vein, driven by the pressure of his heart, sprayed blood as well.
Bane collapsed to the ground, but Batman had already raised his hand and fired the bat-gun in his hand straight toward the "best seats in the house" overhead.
5:45.
Blackgate Penitentiary, the small chapel.
The prisoners had "occupied" the chapel in another way... they had become corpses.
Dim lights barely pushed back the darkness.
Faint footsteps slowly approached.
Li Zu pushed open the heavy chapel doors and walked inside.
"Copperhead?"
He turned his head from side to side as though he had not noticed the figure clinging to the wall in the corner.
Whoosh—
A gust of wind swept past his ear. Li Zu's head took a heavy blow, and his body flew out of control, smashing into the ground and rolling more than a dozen times before stopping.
"Pah!" He spat out blood, propped himself up with an elbow, and sat up with his head spinning.
"Hehehe." Li Zu smiled at the woman in the distance, not because she had brought him 1% World Exploration progress, but simply because the pain had awakened the frantic beating of his heart.
"A madman!" Copperhead glared at Li Zu in disgust. She pounced on him and, while Li Zu was completely unable to resist, easily stabbed his neck.
Thud!
Li Zu fell to the ground.
A few traces of green seeped from the wound in his neck.
His blood throbbed wildly with his artery, and the green spread through his veins toward Li Zu's heart before being rapidly sent throughout his body by it.
"This is a neurotoxin." Copperhead stood leisurely before Li Zu and explained casually, "You will experience unprecedented fear. Of course, once your fear reaches its deepest point, you will become one of this place. I truly hope that disgusting smile will still be on your face then!"
"Ha! Haha... hahahaha!!" Li Zu threw back his head and laughed, dropping to his knees with vacant eyes.
Just as Copperhead said, he really saw it... He was in a monastery now. From within its brand-new walls, he could hear rats.
It was an illusion.
Then the scene suddenly changed, and he found himself in a bizarre town where he could smell the stench of fish.
Still an illusion.
Grotesque ghouls ran beneath the moonlit night...
...An Old God made of countless chunks of flesh and bones raised its foot without hesitation amid the songs of its followers, crushing them into meat paste. Then, beneath the red moon overhead, it roared at the tentacled monster above.
Within that insane Mental World, he seemed to be drawing closer to that hazy madness, and closer to the truth of everything...
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(End of Chapter)
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