Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics-Chapter 4268 - 3367: Bloodbath in New City (79)

The chilly moonlight pierced through the clouds, illuminating the hall on the first floor of Arkham Asylum but abruptly stopped as it cascaded down the stairwell, failing to light up the underground cells.

Shiller squatted down, his fingertips brushing over the black crystals protruding from the excavation walls, with Gray mist swirling around his fingertips as if they were another sensory organ.

"The Radiation Value is four hundred times that of an ordinary meteor," Gray mist whispered in his ear, "These crystals are continuously emitting unknown rays, and exposure to this kind of radiation could have unpredictable consequences for the average person."

A prickling pain like being stabbed by needles came from Shiller's fingertips, a sensation Gray mist faithfully relayed to him, one typical for humans.

He withdrew his hand, and a fine ash smoke suddenly rose from the bottom of the pit, twisting into a series of Runes. These were very similar to the Runes depicted in the Magic Array in the Batman dart photos.

"This is not a naturally fallen meteor." Shiller picked up a small crystal fragment and ground it into powder, watching it glow a deep red in the faint light, "Perhaps it was summoned by the Order Sect, as part of their conspiracy."

The urgent wailing of police sirens continued to tear through the Gotham night. The pursuit of Death Angel Paul was still ongoing and was sure to become increasingly stringent over time. Before his arrest, Shiller had to uncover the truth.

When Shiller walked out of Arkham Insane Asylum, three police cars bearing the GTO logo brushed past him; Gotham's Deputy Police Commissioner Harvey Block was likely unable to withstand the pressure from the State Council anymore. The involvement of GTO meant Death Angel didn't have much time left.

Shiller got into the car and sat down; the dashboard showed 1:17 AM—forty-three minutes until the Gotham History Museum closed.

The musty smell pervading the underground archives of the Gotham History Museum seemed like history itself was continuously fermenting here.

Shiller took a pass from the pocket of the unconscious security guard in front of him. About 20 minutes later, he stood in the dim light, his gaze flowing over the yellowed pages of the bound volumes of "Gotham Valley."

The headline from April 1718 suddenly caught his eye: "Fireball from the sky! Mysterious Meteor Falls on Gotham Valley! The General has yet to announce evacuation; residents are advised to stay vigilant to the changing situation!"

In the accompanying illustration, a surveyor with a tricorn hat was sketching the outline of the meteor crater with a pencil. When Shiller enlarged the details of the drawing, he discovered that the marked location of the meteor crash coincided perfectly with the topography of Arkham Asylum.

As soon as he accessed the construction records, he immediately found something—the completion date of Arkham Fortress was precisely 91 days after the meteor's fall.

Suddenly, footsteps came from the spiral staircase.

"I thought the closing time was very clear." The archive manager, an elderly woman with silver hair, was holding a flashlight; her badge read "Gema Collins—employee for 42 years."

Shiller simply turned his head and quietly looked at her, only to see the old woman walk directly to a shelf and take out an antiquated-looking videotape. She put it into an even more old-fashioned machine.

"Is this what you were looking for?"

Her thin fingers pressed the button, and a yellowed image appeared on the wall—the General Arkham suddenly convulsing at the completion ceremony of the fortress, his eyes rolling back and shrieking, "He is calling!"

"For twenty-five years, you are the third person to look these up," Maggie said as she lit a menthol cigarette, the smoke revealing old scars around her neck.

"The third?" Shiller narrowed his eyes slightly. He could guess that the pale knight might have investigated these. So who was the remaining one? Who else would care about these old stories?

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Rain began to fall again in Gotham; the cold autumn rain obviously added a lot of trouble to the pursuit, perhaps the last blessing from God to Death Angel.

The downpour washed over the windshield, the streetlights' glow sweeping over Shiller's hands on the steering wheel time and time again.

The car's radio was playing a voiceprint data restored by Gray mist, extracted from the subsonic waves in the meteor crater's soil using spectrographic analysis. When the frequency suddenly increased to 22.3 Hertz, the special substance that Shiller had acquired began to tremble in the bottle.

"Low-frequency sound waves inducing delirium have too high a match with the experimental data."

"Speak in layman terms."

"Stimulating meteor crystals with a special frequency can induce mental illness."

Shiller sighed. "This thing has quite the functionality. It can create cancer and induce mental illness."

Shiller abruptly stepped on the brakes. The windshield wipers moved rhythmically, producing a dry sound.

Museum manager Maggie's warning echoed in his head: "This meteor is not a relic; it is a seed. It's altering everything about the human race with radiation..."

"Bruce and Paul's mental illnesses are no accident." Shiller's fingers drummed lightly on the steering wheel, "The Order Sect artificially created two mental patients using the crystals within the meteor."

"No, it should be three." Shiller suddenly said, "General Arkham was the first. Shortly after the meteor landed, news of his corruption was in uproar."

Gray mist did not reply. It was sensing the very restrained anger signals from Shiller's brain waves. Knowing it would probably become very busy for a while.

Once again in front of the meteor crater, Shiller stared at the dark cavity for a long time in silence. He said, "Can you determine where the meteor came from?"

"I can guess," Gray mist replied, "Fomalhaut, home of Cthugya."

"Smart, but..."

"What?"

"I'm starting to understand Anatoli a bit more."

As the morning light pierced through the clouds, Shiller stood on the rooftop of City Hall, looking down upon Gotham. The rain had turned the cars as shiny as mirrors, and police cars still weaved through the narrow streets of Gotham like schools of fish.

"And there's even worse news." Gray mist said, "The construction of Arkham Asylum isn't enough to block the radiation. The low-frequency sound waves continuously emitted from the soil of the meteor crater have been stimulating the minds of all living things in the vicinity, including the criminals in Arkham Asylum."

"Does that mean they weren't necessarily insane to begin with, or at least not that severe, but the crystal radiation made everything worse after they were thrown in there?"

"That's right. Who do you think benefits from them becoming more insane?"

"Obviously, the elite. Same old story: In Gotham, crime is an investment, and the crazier the criminals, the better."

Shiller paused, then continued, "This absolutely must not be known to Batman. His depression has been gradually worsening, and if he knew that he personally sent criminals into a madness-inducing hell, making more people suffer, his condition would only become more difficult to remedy."

"What do you plan to do next?"

"First, I need to do my job as a doctor. Find the crystal that's continuously influencing Batman's mental state and destroy it, ensuring his mental state won't deteriorate further. Then we'll talk about the rest."

"That thing must be very close to him. What do you think it could be?"

"If they wanted Alfred dead because of the diary Brad gave him, and they wanted Lucius Fox and Dr. Tompkins dead because they could provide more assistance to Bruce Wayne, then what about Jason?"

"I guess he must have been incredibly close to the truth." Gray mist quickly became proud, saying, "Although you don't like playing detective, I secretly peeked into Batman's brain, and I'd make a good detective."

"...Which Batman's brain?"

"The Primary Universe Batman's... and Arkham Batman's, I promise I only learned their detective wisdom."

"You better have."

The glass curtain wall of City Hall reflected Gotham's not-so-bright noon sunlight into shallow gold patches, and Shiller's fingertips lightly tapped on the rim of his coffee cup, causing ripples in the latte.

When Jason pushed open the door of the shop, the tinkling of the wind chime also seemed somewhat heavy. Shiller narrowed his eyes, looking at the mud on the young man's tactical boots, leaving behind the distinct gray-blue mark of the sedimentary rock from Gotham underground—evidence that he had just crawled out of the sewers in the Diamond District, as told by Gray mist.

"Death Angel has changed his hiding spot." Jason pulled out a chair to sit down, his tactical gloves flung onto the table causing the utensils to clink, "Nightwing cracked the flame trap he left in Crime Alley, and now GTO's drones are scanning the docks warehouses."

Shiller pushed over a cup of hot cocoa he had already ordered, the froth on the cup emanating a puff of gray mist. As Jason gripped the cup handle, a three-dimensional map of Gotham's underground network emerged in the steam from the cocoa, and instinctively, Jason looked at a certain spot on it, which Shiller knew must be Death Angel's previous hideout.

Unsurprisingly, Paul was always a rat from the Lower city area. The sewers were his best hiding place.

"The fools at the Federal Bureau of Investigation are still sifting through financial records." Jason scoffed as he pierced through the floating projection, "But Nightwing found this—" He flung out a distorted metal piece engraved with a familiar insignia, the symbol of the Order Sect.

As expected, Paul knew who his real enemy was. He would constantly remind himself that he must never stop until the sinners have received their due punishment.

"It seems to be a special metal."

"Exactly, part of the Batmobile. To be precise, it was pried off from Nightwing's vehicle, this guy's way of borrowing material was too violent." Jason downed half a cup of cocoa in one gulp, revealing new burn marks on his neck as his Adam's apple moved, "That madman modified his longsword with this material, and he's becoming increasingly difficult to deal with."

Shiller subtly changed the subject: "Tell me about the days before you were abducted—did it rain the last time you entered the Batcave?"

Jason's grip on the cup suddenly tightened, spiderweb cracks appearing on the ceramic surface, as memories were never a good choice for him.

"It was a blizzard night." The young man's pupils dilated slightly, "Once again, Batman borrowed the life support energy, the heating was broken, and I was shivering, wrapped in Alfred's wool blanket. Bruce was analyzing Black Mask's shipping manifests in front of the Bat Computer, and I..." he suddenly grabbed the sugar jar and poured three packs into the cocoa, "I stole the palladium scraps from the workbench."

Shiller noted how Jason unconsciously rubbed the base of his thumb, where long-term use of a precision welding torch had left scars.

"You made a Batman dart with the scraps." Shiller stated it as a matter of fact. He saw the boy's head snap up, with a few drops of cocoa splashing on the table.

Jason pulled down his high collar to reveal a tarnished silver chain with a miniature Batman dart as the pendant, engraved with the initials "J.T.": "It took me two weeks to adjust the aerodynamic structure, and during testing, it sliced off the Batmobile's rearview mirror; this was the leftover scrap."

Shiller looked at it with enhanced vision granted by the gray mist, and in the nanoscopic imaging, the dart's interior was filled with black filamentous matter—crystals.

"Bruce took it away." Jason's voice suddenly turned hoarse, "He said Robin didn't need such dangerous toys." The boy's fingernails dug deeply into his palm, "But two weeks later, I saw him stuffing it into the Bat-belt."

Shiller's coffee cup emitted a faint crackling sound. Suddenly, he understood everything.

"Guilt is a sharp knife." Shiller wiped off the coffee stain on the back of his hand, "Every time he uses your gift, he's allowing his brain to absorb more crystal radiation, until recently, he's almost completely become a beast that has lost its sanity."

Jason was about to stand up when he bumped into a damping force field woven by the gray mist. Amidst the beast-like panting of the young man, Shiller looked calmly out the window. The conspiracy unfolded before his eyes.

Using a child's pure love to deliver a deadly poison to his father's side, and then taking the child away. Making the father hold onto the last memento with nothing but guilt—ensuring Batman would carry the dart with him at all times.

"Where did you get the materials?" Shiller asked Jason.

"Mostly from the Batcave. But I added some carbon powder myself. I bought it... On the way back, I encountered Joker robbing a bank, holding a gun to a female employee's head."