What bad thoughts can Batman have?

Chapter 977 Lord Void Hand, Once You're Here, Don't Leave! (Thanks to NOXYZ for the Alliance Leader, sob sob)

Papetua focused intently on feeling his finger.

I feel nothing at all now.

This surprised even Papetua. Batman's Dragon exaggerated the danger of the Batman Who Laughs to an extreme degree in front of him. Papetua did not express any objection, out of... well, politeness?
Okay, it's disdain.

Before the Batman Who Laughs actually made his move, Perpetua didn't really think that the Batman Who Laughs was capable of completely blocking his perception of that finger, okay? Even if that finger was cut off, it was still a part of Perpetua's body.

The Batman Who Laughs' power only reached the servant gods of Mandrake, which is not even close to the sixth-dimensional gods, let alone Barbatos. Although Batman Dragon repeatedly emphasized to him that once the finger was cut off, it would be completely taken over by the Batman Who Laughs, Perpetua still held a strange sense of getting something for nothing, always thinking, "You don't understand at all. I can actually get my money back without investing anything, but I can't reason with you, so just consider it an investment!" This strange arrogance, however, has truly surprised Perpetua with the Batman Who Laughs' actions.

The multiverse's mother, Papetua, began to sense danger.

A successful strategist should be able to consider the consequences of failure even when they have the upper hand, and Papetua was such a person.

As early as the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Perpetua was plotting her own resurrection. The Anti-Monitor and Parallax Morhal were all pawns she used to create the Crisis Force.

At this moment, when she once again found herself at this stalemate, although Papetua still held the advantage, she still prepared for the possibility of failure and made contingency plans for the future:

In every corner of the hyperchronic flow, every member of the Dark Knights, who had lost the dual control of the Laughing Bat and Barbatos, disappeared from their original locations almost simultaneously.

Papetua seized the existence of each of them from the upstream of the hypertime stream and then hid them in a special location on the hypertime stream called the Vanishing Point.

This unique position in the timeline allows the Dark Knights to avoid all the realities being rewritten by the timeline. Even when the DC multiverse restarts, they will be able to completely avoid the effects of the multiverse's history restart, just like the original Superman Supreme and Alexander Luthor Jr. who fell into the Heaven dimension, as well as the two old Supermen on Earth.

While the thought that one might lose is absurd, the so-called God represents non-human rationality. Completely eliminating the interference of anger is difficult for humans, but it is common sense for God.

But that was all. Papetua couldn't cram too many other powerful creatures into the vanishing point. She added a few monsters with Martian and Earthling genes fused together, and that was it.

After doing all this, Papetua turned his attention back to the Void Hand before him.

It wasn't without its price for her to voluntarily give up a finger; it was all the result of her own actions.

The Void Hand's actions seemed uncontrollable, suddenly biting one of her fingers, but the truth was that Papetua deliberately feigned weakness to the Void Hand, luring it to attack her, and then shoved her finger into its mouth.

Throughout the entire process, the Void Hand only served as a guillotine, which proves...

"At least when we first entered the DC multiverse, the Void Hand was completely unable to contend with Perpetua," Chen Tao thought to himself.

He was still thinking that if there was an opportunity, he could try to find out if the Void Hand could have some effect on Papetua, but now that Papetua was completely at ease, his room for maneuver was greatly reduced.

Yes, Chen Tao reached an agreement with Papetua on the issue of the Void Hand, and he almost entirely orchestrated the spectacle of Papetua losing his finger. Of course, all of this came at a price.

The cost is simple.

He needs to help Papetua completely sever the Void Hand, and the two of them must join forces.

On the surface, their current situation resembles a three-way standoff between Liu Bei and Sun Quan versus Cao Cao. However, in reality, Chen Tao, who plays Sun Quan, is a complete traitor. He's just waiting for Liu Bei's Shu Kingdom to attack Cao Cao's Wei Kingdom's cities, and then he'll launch a surprise attack from behind, crippling Liu Bei.

Bah, no, that's not right. He was Liu Bei, who worked with Cao Cao to first crush those Jiangdong rats who came to steal meat, and then settle the score.

Not that despicable, huh. At most, he released a beast he couldn't control into the arena, and then joined forces with Papetua to kill it. His aim was for the beast to weaken Papetua as much as possible, thus facilitating his eventual defeat of Papetua.

After mentally preparing himself, Chen Tao's consciousness came into contact with the Hand of Emptiness.

"...What do you want...The Hand of the Void, what do you want..."

In the hazy mist, Chen Tao received the answer from the Void Hand.

“One-third of the DC multiverse.”

Very well, the Void Hand is quite shrewd. He didn't offer a price that Chen Tao clearly couldn't accept. If he had said he wanted to devour the entire DC multiverse, that wouldn't have been an attitude of wanting to make a deal, would it?

He offered a deal that was barely acceptable to Batman Dragon, which was good for everyone. Of course, this doesn't mean the Void Hand is benevolent.

I saved your life, but I will only eat one-third of your body. This is not because I am merciful, but because it is too much for me to eat all at once.

你被我吃掉了1/3，剩下的2/3受到重创，等我把1/3消化了，依然是我肚子里的肉。

But at least on the surface it's fair. It's better than losing a third than having everything used by Perpetua to create legions. Don't worry about whether he's going to use your entire universe to fight the Origin Hands in one fell swoop. At least he's turning everyone into legions, which is equivalent to everyone dying. Perpetua doesn't need a lot of self-aware subordinates. The Hypertime Stream will also be destroyed, and he won't even be able to live in the past.

Compared to such consequences, one-third is a very fair price.

"Destroy Papetua once and for all," Chen Tao stated his offer.

"Destroy Papetua once and for all, and grant me one-third of the multiverse in return," said the Void Hand.

When Batman Dragon uttered those words, it was clear he believed he couldn't destroy Perpetua once and for all. However, for the Void Hand, the destruction of the Multiverse Mother was equally in his interest. The one-third figure was merely a pretext; what he truly desired was the entire DC multiverse.

“I’ll give you the Mass Universe, the Wildstorm Universe, and the Watchers Universe,” Chen Tao said.

Chen Tao couldn't offer the Vertigo Universe; when it merged with the DC Multiverse, it brought with it a large group of people, including the Endless Family. These embodiment of rules were unsellable to Chen Tao; otherwise, he might have actually considered trying.

The Mass Universe and Wildstorm Universe were just empty words; Chen Tao didn't want to kill Shazam the Thunder, but the Watchers Universe was the only one that mattered.

Needless to say, the birthplace of Dr. Manhattan is indeed currently affiliated with the DC multiverse, but it hasn't yet merged with it. Strictly speaking, it belongs to the DC multiverse.

"This Void Hand, that stinking outsider from the multiverse, clearly doesn't know anything about this. The Watchers universe, huh? As long as he dares to ask, Chen Tao dares to give it to him." "Okay..." Void Hand said.

Great! Void Hand is strong, Void Hand is awesome, Void Hand is incredibly powerful, yay!
Chen Tao's mind was enacting a mini-drama. He let his thoughts wander freely, a way for him to relieve stress. He was like a bursting spring, having not experienced such a floodgate opening in a long time. So, given the opportunity, a multitude of thoughts bounced and jumped in his mind, like a happy little circus.

But then he sensed that the other party had used some kind of power to complete a contract between them, and the next second he heard the voice of the Void Hand: "Our story has been decided."

Chen Tao's heart sank suddenly. What the hell was this ability? He knew far too little about the Void Hand. The power of the Void Hand should be a kind of corruption called "Story." It used this power to complete the contract binding Chen Tao. Although he didn't know what would happen if Chen Tao changed his mind in the future, Chen Tao had a vague feeling that it would be very bad.

This is purely a gap in intelligence. Chen Tao doesn't know what the conditions are for this ability called "Story" to occur. Everything is unknown. What's even more troublesome is that he vaguely senses that this ability doesn't seem to have specific rules, but rather exists in a chaotic state of random variables.

Simply put, no one knows what the outcome of this ability will be; chaos and disorder are the types of power that Chen Tao hates the most.

"It's not over yet. What if Papetua isn't completely destroyed?"

He said immediately.

The Hand of the Void did not answer.

Chen Tao stated directly, "If Papetua is not completely destroyed, the Mass Universe and the Wild Storm Universe will not belong to you."

“No, our plans will not be affected in any way,” the Void Hand refused.

Chen Tao frowned. He couldn't accept this. If that were the case, the Void Hand would become a completely risk-free business. Even without defeating Papetua, the Void Hand could still take what he wanted. This was unacceptable. Chen Tao felt the power called "Story" pressing on his head like needles, but this time he had no intention of giving in.

Even though he didn't understand this power, he was determined to forcefully imprint it onto his mind at this moment, even if it meant suffering a backlash!
Despite the stinging pain, Chen Tao spoke.

"Do not."

He waited for a while and did not feel any backlash. The stinging sensation disappeared. The Void Hand was silent for a moment, and then continued to speak.

“But I will still take one-third of the DC multiverse. That’s what you promised me.”

That wasn't enough; Chen Tao wanted to say no, but a strong sense of unease exploded in his mind again.

Why couldn't he refuse? Chen Tao had a tentative thought; he still wanted to forcefully refuse this outcome he didn't want, but a sharp, needle-like pain suddenly erupted on his skin, and Chen Tao gave up.

"Sure, but before you take one-third of the DC multiverse, you have to take the Watchers universe first. If you can't swallow it all, you have to let go of one-third of the DC multiverse itself."

Chen Tao said.

The intense warning suddenly contracted, and Chen Tao felt the invisible power of the "story" leave his body and land on the Void Hand.

Wait, no, this is your power, how could it possibly restrain you?
Chen Tao was completely ignorant about the power of "Story" and was a complete novice. The reason he could sense the existence of this power was entirely because he had merged with the Ultimate Watcher and become one with it.

But this spontaneous conversion of power still left him somewhat bewildered.

"Yes, that's perfectly fair." The Void Hand's voice echoed in your ears like a mournful lament, welcoming you with a sorrowful elegy as gloomy and desolate as a new moon.

Chen Tao felt a bone-chilling cold. The mournful elegy did not come from the Hand of the Void, but from the painful howls of countless universes devoured by the Hand of the Void within its body.

"But you must truly assist me."

Chen Tao nodded directly, the power of the story once again binding him, but he didn't care at all.

What a joke! His assistance is absolutely genuine. Don't think that what he said to Papetua about completely eliminating the Void Hand was some kind of backstabbing. That's too low-level.

He has plenty of ways to "help" Lord Voidhand defeat Papetua, and he is absolutely sincere.

Look, during the "Sixth Dimension" event in the comics, didn't the main universe's Batman genuinely help the World Makers replace the DC multiverse with the Baby Multiverse? In the end, didn't he still get punched in the face by the main universe's Superman?

It's hard to accomplish something, but to genuinely and sincerely ruin something—that's Batman's specialty.

In an instant, countless famous achievements flashed through Chen Tao's mind, including but not limited to helping Darkseid upgrade the Apokolips Hellspore Self-Destruct Defense Program, and helping Lord Barbatos fight against the whole world. Cough, these are all, uh.

It was done intentionally and unintentionally.

"So, are we going to make our move?"

Chen Tao said.

"Yes."

He heard the Void Hand answer like that.

"very good."

The next moment, the Void Hand felt a large amount of power being poured in.

The entire DC multiverse was laughing. For the DC multiverse, the center of the universe must be Clark Kent, but now the Void Hand, with his strange ability called Storytelling, has changed himself to Clark Kent at the multiverse level. To be honest, Chen Tao was a little surprised. He originally thought that the Void Hand's identity could only be changed to a "superhero" at the multiverse level.

As a result, he actually took on the role of "Superman" himself.

That's wonderful. Since you're in the DC multiverse, stay a while. It would be best if you didn't leave, Lord Void Hand.

(End of this chapter)