Chapter 2509: Cloak Contest (28)

Little Bruce used his tentacles to lift King Robin's body onto the table beside him and turned to look at Shiller, asking, "What would you like to do? Open his skull? Perhaps we could try starting with the eye sockets..."

Shiller understood; he was subtly suggesting whether to perform a frontal lobotomy on King Robin. However, Shiller knew this approach wouldn't work. The editors who created King Robin had already made it clear that this guy was just a teenage version of Mad Laugh, whose strength didn't come from his physical condition but from higher-level settings. So even if they tampered with his brain, it would be difficult to turn him into an idiot directly.

"First, take off the box on his belt," Shiller said, referring to the box on the front of King Robin's belt. "It seems to have many props inside. See if there's anything you can use, and give the rest to the other Robins."

Little Bruce didn't stand on ceremony; he had been eyeing King Robin for a long time and naturally knew how powerful the ability to always pull out the right prop from his belt was. He wanted to see what was up with this belt.

After unbuckling the belt and taking down the box, Little Bruce seemed a bit disappointed, for he found that he couldn't open the box.

This wasn't particularly surprising; after all, if there were indeed some extremely powerful props inside, King Robin certainly wouldn't have left it unprotected. Little Bruce tried using his tentacles and Nya's energy to no avail with the box on the belt.

Shiller was more concerned with King Robin's body. After a brief inspection, he found that King Robin's skin was corroded, likely because he had been thrown into the pool designed to transform Robins.

This meant King Robin's physical condition was more complex than Shiller had imagined because it was possible that King Robin's brain did indeed have congenital malformations, but after being thrown into the pool, an additional layer of madness had been added. Shiller needed to carefully distinguish which issues were congenital and which were due to later modifications, which was a rather troublesome task.

"We need to find a quieter place," Shiller said. "His psyche won't be back for a short while; we can thoroughly research where exactly his madness comes from."

Little Bruce was still more interested in the box on the belt, but since it couldn't be opened now, it might be better to join Shiller in his research. Perhaps by cracking King Robin's secret, they would be able to open it.

After some thought, the two headed to the underground laboratory in Wayne Tower. After the Batman of the Arkham Universe became President, most of the experiments conducted there were related to energy innovation. Little Bruce saw that this president, aside from trying to patch up the systemic gaps of the entire country, also planned to build a new engine for the nation.

While Shiller was performing a basic check on King Robin, Little Bruce discovered more traces left by President Wayne. It appeared that the Batman of this universe collected reports on new policies and annotated them, with all this information now stored here.

Little Bruce understood why he didn't go back to the study in Wayne Manor to do this work. His time in the main universe's Wayne Manor was never quiet; the Robins were really too noisy.

On inspecting it further, Little Bruce noticed that President Wayne's prestige was remarkably high. In just over a year of his administration, there were subtle signs of unification throughout the Federation.

As it is widely known, America is less a unified country and more a union of powerful small states with each state's power being unimaginably large. The President seemed more like a cheerleader than a commander, shouting out orders—but whether the people listened was another story.

However, Wayne didn't become President through elections; he directly seized power, donning the yellow robe. For the Batman of that time, the situation had reached the point where he had no choice but to assume office.

As it is also widely known, kings who ascend to power through less orthodox methods usually employ some subtle strategies, after which the era enters a phase of peace and order.

After all, this is unavoidable. If you seize power through unconventional means, surely a bunch of troublemakers will seek to challenge you. Suppressing them is vital to maintain authority.

The Bruce Wayne of that time had to assume the presidency. His and the Robins' true identities had been exposed. If he didn't take economic and political measures, Batman might not matter anymore, but his kids would also face social death.

In such a case, having seized the position, he couldn't afford to give anyone a chance to destabilize his authority.

So, the first act of Bruce Wayne upon becoming President was to establish a strong government, the most important step of which was to reduce the power of the states.

Many have pondered the question: what would happen if Batman, arguably the strongest character ever conceived in comics, became Emperor?

The answer is that even the loudest state governments and capital conglomerates could not contend with him.

On the one hand, no one could physically match him, as Wayne brought the technology of Apocalypse Star to his doorstep—who could fight back? On the other hand, their political and economic acumen were far inferior to that of the super-genius Batman, who managed to disperse and dismember them in an extremely short time. When it came to the manipulation of power, Batman was also a force to be reckoned with.

Thus, in less than a year, the majority of local power in the United States was reclaimed, resolving the issue of fragmented territories and, essentially, most of the country's problems.

America's foundation was incredibly solid. If not for the original pitfalls of its founding that prevented the country from acting as one being, it would not have declined so quickly. With this problem resolved, resting atop a mountain of gold for another 50 years wouldn't be an issue.

Upon reaching this stage, the President Batman of the Arkham Universe faced the same issues that Bruce of Shiller's universe confronted—the fundamental problems of the capitalist system.

There is no perfect system in this world, but it's apparent that the capitalist system is quite imperfect. Despite the myriad of contradictions it presents in theory, the descriptions on paper might even seem embellished, but in practice, it encounters even more problems.

The first superpower of this world has been operating this system for many years, accumulating innumerable chronic issues. The most troubling concern for those in power is that the bomb will inevitably explode, but you can't predict where it will detonate or how destructive the blast will be.

In Bruce's universe, the bomb had already gone off, and in a bizarre manner at that. Who would have guessed that one second people were joyfully celebrating a music festival, and the next, nearly the entire nation's economy would erupt into a fireworks display?

Bruce had indeed anticipated this. As the Cold War progressed, it came down to which of the two could endure without collapsing. If one stabilized, the other was bound to crumble.

It's like two starving ghosts fighting over a single bun, but only one has the last bit of chewing strength to swallow the bun, while the other is sure to starve to death.

In Shiller's universe, America not only failed to feast on the corpse of the giant bear but also, due to the Soviet Union's struggling last breaths, inadvertently caused Europe to unite. With America's demise, its "Kill Dad" plan was no hope, and it was utterly knocked out.

The day after the economic crisis erupted, the government shut down completely. State governments declared bankruptcy one after another, capitalists and politicians wouldn't let go when there was meat to eat, but they fled quickly when they realized there was no more food left. In less than a day, they'd all disappeared, and the country became an anarchist state in the physical sense.

Almost simultaneously, in the Arkham Universe, Batman, now president, solved the political problems only to realize that this was not the end but the beginning of the beginning. All the messes left for him were like terminal illnesses—curable in the early stages but way past the point of any solution now.

They had briefly communicated through the systems of Battleworld.

Little Bruce found this out later in their correspondence. It was likely that one of them—Little Bruce guessed it was the younger Batman—sent a mass message and the other side received it. Both realized they were facing the same issues.

Thus, they started corresponding, mainly to study how to resolve the fundamental contradictions of the system.

Then, these two super geniuses reached the same conclusion: there simply was no solution to be found in this world.

But this did not discourage Batman. He understood that if a problem has no solution, it's not smart to stubbornly tackle it. It's better to study a different problem instead.

If the contradiction cannot be resolved, is there a way to perpetually delay it, so it's almost like it will never erupt?

After some research, they found such a method did exist—the so-called further suffering of the people.

With Batman's methods of force, suppressing them for a few more centuries wouldn't be a problem. If they could also start plundering the world, suppressing while draining its resources, then indeed a new golden age could be extended.

But is Batman aiming to be remembered in history by this? Of course not, so such measures are completely missing the point.

Ultimately, they both arrived at the same conclusion—there are no solutions on Earth, so the only choice is to look beyond Earth.

The correspondence ended abruptly here. Since there wasn't any secretive information, the letters weren't encrypted. After Little Bruce read them, he couldn't figure out what they planned to do, and probably others who read these letters felt the same.

But Little Bruce is different from ordinary people. After all, he is Bruce Wayne himself, capable of empathetic thinking. Since the last conclusion was that they must seek solutions beyond Earth, then, looking at human history, this so-called solution has only two words—war.

Whether facing an alien invasion or initiating an interstellar war, both would be effective in shifting the internal contradictions of Earth and consequently, America's internal strife.

Because after all, a dying camel is larger than a horse. If Earth now faced an existential crisis, the first thing other countries would do is certainly to unite and save America. It wouldn't make sense to cut off their own arm in the face of a powerful enemy, would it?

They might not even need to save; as long as they don't kick America while it's down, given the current circumstances, Bruce Wayne, with his extraordinary abilities, could always give the country a breather to recover.

But here's the problem, where would this external enemy come from?

Little Bruce thought about it and felt that haphazardly sending out signals to invite aliens was definitely unreliable, because the ones who come would be uncontrollable. What if they actually blew up Earth with one shot?

In Batman's view, an alien invasion meant to exert pressure and the start of an interstellar war had to be controllable. If it wasn't possible to manipulate the adversary, at least there should be some understanding of them.

When it came to someone with a desire to invade Earth, whom Batman also knew, Little Bruce couldn't help but think of one person—Emperor Darkseid of Apocalypse Star.