Chapter 5771: Chapter 4794: Murderous Intent on a Rainy Night (Part 1)

As soon as the difficulty was selected, the elevator doors on the side of the hall opened. The robots guided the two individuals, each entering a different elevator. Arkham Batman thought to himself as he entered the elevator that this opening wasn’t bad; quite immersive, better than directly walking through a Teleportation Portal in Battleworld.

But soon he felt something was off, because the waiting time in the elevator was far too long. Though he didn’t have high hopes for such a small workshop, a loading time of a few minutes seemed understandable. However, Arkham Batman waited in the elevator for over ten minutes, and the elevator kept descending with no sign of the doors opening.

Arkham Batman started to suspect whether the elevator was broken, or whether the level had already begun and he needed to solve some puzzles to leave the elevator. But perhaps to avoid this misunderstanding, the elevator contained absolutely nothing—no buttons, switches, or wall decorations; just empty.

Arkham Batman could only continue to wait. He thought about how Doctor Manhattan had mentioned the need to balance attributes and turn their abilities into Skills. This process surely required some time, and Doctor Manhattan might need to operate manually, so taking a while would be normal.

After waiting a few more minutes, with a loading time of a full twenty minutes, the elevator doors finally opened. Yet to Arkham Batman’s surprise, the game hadn’t started. He appeared in an almost completely dark space.

He was seated in a chair, hands, feet, and neck all restrained. Meanwhile, four others were beside him, though the space appeared to have been blurred, the lighting dim, making it impossible to discern exactly who they were.

In front of the five, a beam of light shone down. Within the light stood a silhouette, and although it was just a back view, Arkham Batman recognized it as Shiller.

For some reason, Arkham Batman actually felt relieved, because fortunately, it was Shiller with his back to them and not the other way around. Otherwise, there would surely be a spectacle to watch.

Suddenly, the ground beneath everyone disappeared. Everyone plummeted downward, and the chairs vanished as well. Arkham Batman tried to maintain body balance in mid-air, but it was practically useless, as this was another segment of loading.

During the descent, they vaguely saw the spires of a castle growing larger below them. Simultaneously, a voice sounded in their ears: "Valley Castle, a dark place cursed by Devils, a realm denied peace for generations. On stormy, lightning-filled nights, the eldest son of the Vale family becomes possessed by Devils. And tonight, he seems to be exceptionally out of control. Exorcists from all over the world gather here, trying to seal the Devils, or, ultimately, get devoured by the Devils..."

The moment the line ended, Arkham Batman found himself fallen into some bushes. Yet it wasn’t painful, obviously not a real fall. He didn’t rush to get up, as lying among the bushes provided excellent cover for his figure. He needed to get a grasp of the plot and the game’s mechanics.

Undoubtedly, this was an asymmetric gameplay. There were several exorcists, but only one Devil. The challenge of this game lay in the fact that both exorcists and the Devil were played by players. This meant their opponent had no predetermined action patterns and would be very cunning and powerful.

The loading scene before arriving at the castle was not merely a time-consuming trick; it was meant to inform the players about the basic gameplay and who their opponents were. And most terrifyingly, Shiller was randomly assigned as the Devil.

Just as they had predicted earlier, though they could dual queue, they couldn’t form teams; they could only ensure that two players were in one game, without guaranteeing they wouldn’t be adversaries. Arkham Batman somewhat regretted pulling Shiller for a dual queue. And he shouldn’t have agreed to switch with Greed, as this swap brought the most troublesome challenge.

Nevertheless, it was precisely this mode that instead ignited Arkham Batman’s desire for challenge. He knew in asymmetric competitive play, the side with fewer players must get substantial enhancement; otherwise, one cannot battle a multitude. In this environment, facing Shiller’s pursuit was what brought the difficulty he desired, wasn’t it?

Thus, Arkham Batman wasn’t terribly upset. He began pondering the background story. The information given at the start wasn’t much, but it was clear it was another tale of an ancient family plagued by Devils. And they, the unlucky exorcists, were essentially here to deliver them a feast.

However, the background plot mentioned they could seal the Devils, which proved that there was a good ending of completely defeating the Devils. This ending was Arkham Batman’s target of effort, though he currently didn’t know how to seal the Devils.

Just as he stood up, Arkham Batman suddenly noticed a few icons before him that didn’t obstruct his view. The common indicators of blood volume and Physical Strength in video games were absent, but there was a row of things resembling Skills at the bottom right. Arkham Batman checked his Skills.

He had two passive abilities. One was a Race passive; his Race was "Human race." The effect of this passive was "a chance to clear negative states when conversing with players or characters who are also Human race." Arkham Batman understood, this likely emphasized the social attribute of the Human race, highlighting their ability to derive mental support through interaction with companions.

The other was a Professional passive. Unsurprisingly, his Profession was "Batman." The effect of this passive was "nearly immune to all weather and environmental states, unaffected by ground effects." This Skill could also be understood as Batman’s high tolerance to the environment, being extremely cautious and careful, watching his step and not easily triggering ground traps.

There are only these two passive skills, Batman was a bit disappointed. He felt like he should at least get something like a presidential passive, otherwise, what’s the point of being president?

But he understood, considering the era of this castle, there probably weren’t any presidents back then. As for driving skills or something like mechanical engineering, it might be useless due to the period, and Doctor Manhattan didn’t provide them.

It’s a pity this is a medieval exorcism setting; if it were in modern times, he might have more room to shine, Batman thought. However, it could also be because he told Doctor Manhattan he wanted more challenging trials, so Doctor Manhattan purposely threw him here, which was quite considerate.

Next were the active skills. Batman was a bit hopeful, and these three active skills did not disappoint him. Possibly to make up for the lack of passive skills, the three active skills were given generously.

The first skill is "Bat Focus," which, once used, speeds up all actions of sealing or exorcism with a duration, increasing the speed by 30%. This effect increases to 70% when Devils are within a 50-yard radius.

Batman thought, this should just speed up the casting time. He really liked this skill because he hated waiting for casting bars to fill, and his patience was almost exhausted by loading times, making him even more impatient if he had to wait slowly there.

The second skill was "Puzzle Master," which, when actively used, highlights important clues within a 200-yard radius and can make clues within a 50-yard range directly fly into his hands.

Batman didn’t like this skill much because he was already good at solving puzzles, and clues could be found slowly. Only that part of making them fly over was somewhat useful, saving a bit of time.

The third was a combat skill, "Cape Dizziness," which, when used, swings the cloak to stun Devils in front, deflecting one of their attacks and stunning them for two seconds. Moreover, this skill can accumulate uses, with a total of three available, but each use has a two-second cooldown.

Batman loved this skill the most, knowing that the two seconds of stunning were enough for him to launch a twelve-hit combo. Unfortunately, the ground-tripping ability and disarm feature were not provided. But after thinking about it, letting him seize the Devils’ weapons would have been too overpowered, leaving the Devils no chance to play.

Moreover, Batman could feel that his physical quality hadn’t been reduced much, and his reaction speed was about the same. While this was better for him, it wasn’t entirely good news because it meant other players and his enemies weren’t weakened either—especially Shiller, who might have even more powerful skills while maintaining his physical quality.

The only thing Batman could be certain about Shiller was that he likely had a skill for back-attacking, meaning he could deal extra damage to enemies with their backs turned to him or track them. Moreover, there’s likely a passive that increases various attributes the more severely injured he gets. As for others, Batman couldn’t be certain.

However, considering the attributes weren’t weakened, Batman could confirm that the participants probably had a similar physical quality to him. At least, no one should be much weaker; otherwise, for balance, the overall values should be lowered.

After checking his skills, Batman squatted in the bushes and looked around. He seemed to have landed in the castle’s garden, which wasn’t good news because if someone looked out from the castle’s upper floors, they might spot him. Hopefully, Shiller wasn’t on the balcony now.

Batman turned around, faced the castle, and slowly retreated. He saw a pavilion behind him and wanted to back up there to see if he could find more clues. As for the castle, he didn’t plan to enter it for now since he didn’t know what kinds of demons and ghosts might be inside.

However, on his way back, he saw a figure climbing the castle walls. Batman had to stop and take a careful look, but since it was raining, he couldn’t see the face clearly. Judging by the wall-crawling action and proficiency, it might be Spider Man. That climbing posture was very Spider-like.

To think there was a Spider Man, Batman continued to back away while he thought that Spider Man should have retained his wall-crawling ability, which meant he had strong mobility. However, he probably couldn’t climb indefinitely; otherwise, if he hid on the highest rooftop, who could possibly find him?

Sure enough, Spider Man climbed only about one floor before jumping onto a balcony, probably cooling off. To Batman, this seemed like a suicide move; wait until Shiller poked his head out and gave a stab, that would be interesting.

Batman reckoned Shiller should have a map-exploring skill or be able to see their locations within a certain range. Otherwise, with such a large castle and garden, he wouldn’t be able to find anyone, and it would be easy to get outrun, which wouldn’t be balanced. But this Spider Man seemed not to consider this.

Just as Batman was praying for Spider Man, Spider Man suddenly looked his way and pointed. Batman almost immediately understood his meaning. As he turned his head, through the blurry rain lines, a black figure stood alone.