Laughing American comics, I am becoming more and more like a clown

"Oh, you've done this quite a lot. You've killed me and Claw so many times recently..." Lucian paused, then asked, "So, who did you kill?"

"Zasz, Victor Zasz."

An exhibitionist, nudist and sadist, a pure serial killer and psychopath, any normal person would have no psychological barriers in killing him.

Lucian laughed. "I'm actually very happy, Bruce, that the first person you killed wasn't Falcone, the Penguin, or even any of the White Masks."

"You killed someone in your life who was of no help to this city at all. He truly deserved to die."

At least Falcone and Penguin have stabilized the gang, and at least the White Mask looks bright and beautiful on the surface.

"Sherlock Holmes once said: When the law cannot bring justice to the parties involved, private revenge is justified and even noble from that moment on..." Lucian looked at him: "Our little Sherlock Holmes of Gotham, please don't feel any psychological pressure."

"He tried to kill you... so you are a party to this."

"You sent him to prison, but he chose to escape, so the law cannot punish him."

"It's not that not killing is just, killing is also just."

"No." Batman shook his head slightly: "That's not what I meant."

"I'm not talking about who to kill, or the choice of the first person to kill. I'm not here to tell you my views on killing."

"So what do you want to say?"

Batman turned his head to look at the window, as if he wanted to see the rain, but unfortunately it was blocked tightly by the curtains he had pulled with his own hands, so he had to turn back and fall on the irregular powder on the ashtray.

"I killed him not out of character creation, not as a measure of his crime in the form of a lynching, and not because of anyone's inducement, deception, or coercion."

"I killed him simply because I wanted to kill him."

Batman said, "Because I wanted to kill him from the bottom of my heart."

Lucien looked at him, as if he saw a wet kitten on a rainy night, or as if he saw an indescribable monster that was like darkness itself.

He said, "I have some regrets, Batman, maybe you shouldn't kill people."

The black figure was silent, like a stone sculpture, or like the egg case in which a butterfly was struggling.

What will he hatch into?

"I'm starting to miss Flash," Lucian said.

Chapter 89 Why Can’t Batman Kill?

Batman just remained silent, a silence like a cold wave.

"...There's nothing wrong with that." Until he suddenly said, "I don't have any other feelings... Maybe there's more I can do."

"No, dear...don't think so."

"Lucian."

"You said I couldn't kill anyone before I killed you... but now that it's like this, maybe I should kill you."

Batman looked at him through his goggles, as if considering it seriously: "Perhaps I can use the non-stop meat grinder to make you die forever... Or sink the Iron Maiden to the bottom of the sea."

"With your fighting ability, I can do these things easily."

“…This isn’t funny.”

"I'm serious," he said. "You are only physically immortal, not immortal. I can even control you through brainwashing."

"..."

Lucian looked at him, and seeing how serious and earnest Batman looked, he somewhat believed that this was what he really thought.

"What then? What after you kill me? Do you want to destroy the world? Surrender to your fate?"

There was silence again, but one could almost see something struggling in the egg case, and one of the monsters was about to bare its fangs.

Lucian took out the four bullets, the brass texture gleaming with a cold light: "...I can kill you."

……

Bruce seemed to wake up suddenly. He took off his helmet and rubbed his temples: "Sorry..."

"This won't work... I have to say this, I can't kill anyone. No one can die in my hands."

This is just a hypnosis about whether Batman can kill people. It is a way for them to assume that Batman will have emotions after killing people, and the safe word is these four bullets.

Lucian rubbed his face. "You acted perfectly normal at first, but honestly, you scared me at the end... I almost thought you were laughing like crazy."

In order to control the variables, they set up the person he killed to be a completely bad guy... a bad guy who was able to look down on him from a moral high ground.

Similarly, in order to ensure the intuitiveness of the conclusions and prevent long-term hypnosis from causing harm to Bruce himself, they stimulated him to express his emotions quickly through external and subconscious stimulation.

Finally come to a conclusion.

"No matter what you say, you can't kill anyone now." Lucian was really helpless. "Sure enough, the nickname was right... You are the biggest psychopath in Gotham City."

"Also, don't mention the meat grinder and iron maiden stuff. I'm scared just hearing about it."

……

Lucien had thought that in this world, Bruce's mental state was normal...at least more normal than most bat psychos.

He should be able to kill...

The hot steam of black tea dispels the dampness brought by the rainy night, like a bonfire that has gone out but still carries some warmth.

But that's the reality.

"Why can't Batman kill people?" Lucian couldn't help but ask.

……

Perhaps it is a continuation of Kant's idea that "people cannot be destroyed as objects."

Perhaps it is the constraints imposed on the tragic hero by the world itself.

Perhaps it's a story about a warrior and a dragon, or something called gazing into the abyss.

……

Or perhaps it exists in the dark multiverse, and it is Batman's way of fighting against this world.

……

“It was like my first taste of drugs,” Bruce recalls. “After that, I realized there were better ways to deal with many things.”

"Kill them all?"

"Kill them all."

Lucien wanted to take out a cigarette, but unfortunately there were none in stock, so he could only lick his teeth with the tip of his tongue.

He was a little anxious.

"...Can I convince you? In every way you can accept?"

Bruce thought about it and shook his head: "No."

"You're truly depraved if you kill someone, aren't you?"

"Correct."

……

How could there be a Madonna in this world who couldn't bear to see anyone's life slip away?

How could there be a Jesus who was willing to die on the cross for the sins of mankind?

……

"Though that's a complete villain."

"Despite this."

……

Lucian looked at him, still baffled. "Is this Batman's character? A lofty moral code? Not only that, but he must be a spotless white paper, shredding it and starting over at the slightest stain?"

……

So what about Batman who kills people in the positive universe but doesn't turn evil?

……

"Those Batmen who kill without turning evil are more like a white handkerchief... Although they have black spots on them, that might be the natural pattern, or perhaps the force that can rip white paper isn't enough to rip cloth."

Lucian stared at him, the light in his eyes flickering again and again, but he couldn't help but curse: "So it's still because of the dark multiverse..."

The fragility of the Dark Multiverse itself cannot allow a Batman who has killed people to exist safely in the world.

……

What does this look like?

"I need an ID card to unlock it." "The ID card is in the box." "The box is locked." "I need an ID card to unlock it." ...

……

"So this is the situation now." Lucian couldn't help laughing:

"If we want to escape the Dark Multiverse, we have to play the role of a dark hero. Dark heroes must kill people, but this is the Dark Multiverse, so if we kill people, we are truly dark heroes."

"What a good one..." He paused, unable to think of any appropriate adjective, so he could only smile again.

“What’s with Dogecoin’s dark multi-faceted…it’s like shit.”

……

A typhoon landed on the coast of the United States, and Gotham was affected. There were heavy rainstorms for several consecutive days, and water mixed with the wind hit the glass like bullets.

In the silence, the room suddenly fell into darkness.

Lucien was stunned: "The power is out."

Although his eyes cannot glow like those of wild animals, he can still see in the dark.

He looked at Bruce and shrugged, "Sorry, it's a residential building, power outages are normal."

Bruce puts on the bat cowl again...which contains an infrared imager and night vision goggles, allowing him to see at night as well.

They could hear the violent storm outside, as well as each other's shallow breathing.