Even though Bruce Wayne had been tortured to the point of being emaciated and looked no different from a dried-up corpse, his heart, which was heavily guarded, did not relax in the slightest.
Barbatos's endless nightmare cycle has pushed his sanity to the brink of collapse.
He had seen too much false hope, too many relatives fabricated from nightmares; every wavering only brought deeper despair.
He can't afford to gamble anymore.
"When I was a child, I fell into the Batcave beneath the manor,"
Bruce's voice was still hoarse, but the tremor had vanished, replaced by an extreme calmness, as if stating a fact unrelated to himself, "What were those words you whispered to me when you were lying at the cave entrance?"
Upon hearing this question, Clark, who was standing next to him, was stunned for a moment. He looked weakly at Bruce, not understanding why he would question a "reinforcement" that seemed so real at a time like this.
Thor's heart skipped a beat.
Oh no, we've gone too far.
How could he possibly remember such obscure details?
He only knew the general plot; who knew about these private conversations between father and son!
However, Thor's face remained unchanged, bearing only a gentle and sorrowful expression.
Almost the instant Bruce opened his mouth, his vast, universe-like spiritual power transformed into an invisible thread, silently probing into Bruce's brain.
The next second, Thor felt as if he had stumbled into a super maze made up of countless data streams, memory fragments, and logical traps.
Bruce Wayne's memory palace is far more complex and robust than Thor could have imagined.
Any ordinary psychic would likely be trapped inside by the layers of defense mechanisms and logical Paradox if they dared to enter.
Unfortunately, he was not an ordinary person with mental abilities.
Thor's mental power was like that of a top-level administrator, ignoring all firewalls and maze paths, and directly pinpointed the location in the vast sea of memories to that rainy afternoon, to the little boy who fell into the cave and was covered in mud.
He glanced at his emaciated eldest son and said slowly in a deep, somewhat weathered voice, "We always fall, Bruce, but remember, the Wayne family never gives up. We will rise again."
As he finished speaking, a genuine emotional ripple finally appeared in Bruce's deep-set eyes.
However, he quickly suppressed this ripple.
"When I was little, you would read me stories every night before bed," Bruce said without changing his expression, then asked his second question, "What's that rule that only the two of us follow?"
This time, with his other hand, he quietly used his last bit of strength to reach for the tattered but still hanging all-purpose bat belt around his waist.
If the "father" in front of him hesitates for even half a second, or answers incorrectly, he will not hesitate to activate the last countermeasure hidden in his belt.
Even if it means mutual destruction, it's better than being toyed with by false hope again.
On the other side, the equally emaciated Superman could only silently watch this bizarre "father-son dialogue."
He was puzzled; why were all the nightmare monsters gone when they woke up?
Where have all those endless, fearless nightmare Superman gone?
But at least this is a good thing, isn't it?
Clark felt a faint glimmer of hope ignite within him as he experienced the emptiness of his own energy.
They... might actually have a chance to fight Barbatos.
"I can choose any story I want," Thor blurted out almost without thinking, his tone as natural as if the memory had always belonged to him. "You'll never refuse, Bruce."
After Thor answered the second question, Bruce's hand, which had been reaching for his belt, finally fell limply to his side.
His extremely tense vigilance finally eased a little for a moment.
He looked up, staring intently at Thor, and asked the last, and most crucial, question, " The Thomas I remember... wouldn't become a bat."
Upon hearing this, Thor breathed a sigh of relief, thinking to himself that he had finally managed to fool them.
He thought for a moment, then adopted a look of dismay, saying, "That's a long story."
"Then let's get straight to the point," Bruce interrupted immediately.
Thor: "..."
This conversation is impossible.
He organized his thoughts, paused for a moment, and then said, "To be honest, I don't know how to explain it either. This... is very unscientific. When Martha and I died, we witnessed death."
Bruce's brow furrowed instantly. "What do you mean?"
Thor pointed to a gothic-style girl not far away, who was squatting on the ground, curiously poking at a black rock and studying its composition.
"It is she," Thor said. "You can simply understand it as the end of everything. Every living being will only have two chances to see her in their lifetime: once at birth and once at death."
Bruce looked in the direction he was pointing, and the detective's eyes quickly swept over Tetiyu's attire, demeanor, and the serene and detached aura she possessed that seemed out of place in this Dark World.
Based solely on these fragmented pieces of information, his brain, comparable to a supercomputer, instantly arrived at an astonishing conclusion. "So, she is the goddess who controls death, right?"
"That's one way to put it," Thor nodded, continuing his story, "She found me, and we made a deal."
"What deal? What's the price?" Bruce pressed immediately, each word hitting the nail on the head.
"I'm going to a universe without Batman, to become Batman, and to put that collapsing universe back on track."
Thor's voice turned somber, tinged with a distant sadness, "When all this is done, she will return Martha to her."
Upon hearing the name " Martha," Bruce's body trembled almost imperceptibly.
He paused for a moment, then asked, "And you, Thomas?"
A complex smile appeared on Thor's face, a smile that seemed both relieved and helpless, "In exchange, I will become her spokesperson."
"Spokesperson?" Bruce caught the unfamiliar word. "What's the job, or rather, the responsibility?"
Thor paused for a moment, seemingly considering how to explain, "I'm not entirely sure either."
Perhaps... it's like her, guiding Soul Stone nearing their end. The reason I'm here to save you is because the catastrophe caused by Barbatos is about to sweep across the entire Dark Multiverse, even affecting the Prime Universe. Death... can welcome more 'clients' back to her embrace."
He paused, then added, "And she will stay with me until we defeat Barbatos."
A glint flashed in Bruce's azure eyes; he immediately grasped the core message hidden in those words: "If you deal with Barbatos, you'll leave, is that what you mean?"
Thor looked at him, said nothing, but nodded slowly and solemnly.
Bruce Wayne then fell into a long-absent silence.
He kept his head down, and no one knew what he was thinking.
That Superman external brain was working at lightning speed, disassembling, analyzing, and reassembling every word and every piece of information that " Thomas " said, trying to find even the slightest logical flaw.
A dead father, resurrected through a deal with the god of death, becomes Batman in another universe. Now, he appears before him again due to a Multiverse Level catastrophe, and will leave after accomplishing his purpose...
It all sounded absurd, yet he somehow managed to answer the two secrets that only the father and son knew.
Moreover, the "deity of death" not far away is a real and authentic being.
Should he believe it?
No... we can't completely trust it.
During his imprisonment by Barbatos, he witnessed his closest comrades turn into the most abhorrent monsters, and saw the most solid reality twisted into the most insane nightmares.
Trust is the most luxurious thing at this moment.
Bruce silently uttered a name in his mind.
One of his last and most secretive trump cards.
Daniel.
The instant that name echoed in his mind, a portal, shimmering with pure white light and completely different from the surrounding dark energy, suddenly tore open in the center of the platform without warning!
That door was like a ravenous maw, its immense suction threatening to swallow Batman and Superman, who were both extremely weakened, whole in an instant!
Thor's expression changed, and he was about to make a move.
Just then, a clear, slightly surprised male voice came from inside the door, breaking the tense atmosphere.
"Hey? Sister, what are you doing here?"