Chapter 2328: Gotham Music Festival (30)_1

At this very moment, Bruce was mentally cursing the organizers of this event with every expletive he knew.

As the greatest detective in the world, there was no way he could fail to realize this was a trap set specifically for Shiller.

Shiller suffered from seasickness, so they arranged a game at sea which Shiller was forced to attend, with Oliver serving as bait, whether it was Oliver himself or his ongoing business, both were reasons Shiller had to get on board.

Bruce's mental curses towards the organizers were not because they used despicable means to lure Shiller into the trap, but because these geniuses didn't even fucking investigate the target before making their plan!

Right now, Bruce really wanted to crack their heads open to see how many tons of seawater had poured into their brains. Watching the staff checking the invited guests boarding the cruise ship, Bruce roared in his heart, "Do you have any idea whose prison this is?!"

Bruce felt an urge to jump ship.

Because his keen observational skills were telling him that the personality trait currently dominating Shiller's body was not manipulation, but more like the madman he had seen when he first encountered Morbid.

Bruce hesitated as he looked at the sea next to him, then looked up at Gotham Dock not too far away. The ship wasn't too far from land, and if he jumped now, he would probably reach the dock quickly by swimming.

But even if the ship had traveled far, the most sensible choice at this moment was to jump and swim as quickly as possible, even if it meant swimming across half the Atlantic, it would be far safer than setting foot on this ship.

However, Bruce hesitated, for there were innocent tourists on the ship besides those who were participating in the game, who boarded out of curiosity, all ordinary people.

Thinking of this, Bruce cursed the organizers a million times over in his heart.

As soon as he looked up, Bruce saw Shiller turning to look at him from the deck of the cruise ship, his face pale and his eyes vacant.

But he was smiling.

Bruce's cold sweat almost instantly soaked his back, great, now this was his prison.

Bruce instantly took a side step, letting a staff member block his figure, and only rejoined the checking queue after confirming Shiller had turned and walked toward the cabin.

Trouble was brewing, Bruce took a deep breath, for the first time since his graduation, he felt an unparalleled pressure from Shiller again.

Bruce didn't understand why all the madness Shiller had displayed was still not his limit, when his curiosity shifted from what kind of person Shiller was to whether Shiller was even human, he knew, for the sake of survival, he needed to stop.

For the first time, Bruce reined in his curiosity, and began focusing all his energy on thinking of a strategy.

This situation was doomed to end badly, no matter who orchestrated this plot, they had geniusly hit all of Shiller's buttons—the impact on Oliver, the interference with Mexico, the pain inflicted on Shiller, the attempts at manipulation.

They had also more geniusly intensified all of Shiller's madness, causing Shiller's sickness to spiral out of control, threatening the revolutionary cause, letting pain bring extreme excitement, turning manipulation into a clumsy game.

Now, Bruce's only goal was to survive and to ensure as many ordinary people survived as well.

The interior of the Dakotazo was indeed as luxurious as rumors had it, but even more astonishing was its very special decorative style.

The first level of the cabin was a huge circular plaza, with the circular wall dividing the entire level into ten ring-shaped spaces. Numerous arches connected these spaces, each ring-shaped space containing different gambling games.

Above the gambling games, mysterious ancient characters indicated their sequence numbers, and at the far end of the circle stood a building like the Athens Temple, the exchange booth for chips.

Visitors exchanged their wealth for chips here, then followed the circle into the games. Upon completing a round and winning the bet, they could proceed through the corresponding numbered archway to the next ring, with an exciting grand prize amount hanging in the very center of the ten concentric circles.

Eventually, a platform would gradually rise at the center, and an old man with a trident marked on his forehead appeared before everyone, he raised his arms, and shouted, "Dakotazo welcomes you, revel to your heart's content tonight!"

A roar of excitement erupted from the crowd, but in stark contrast was the deathly silence of the second floor.

The second floor was also a circular architectural space, but differently, the designs on the floor floated up into view, turning into one round table after another, large and small.

The edges of the round tables displayed patterns of marine creatures, and people discovered that this corresponded to each of the masks.

The old man appeared again on the second floor, and requested that everyone stand in the spot corresponding to their mask.

Shiller quickly found the pattern of octopus tentacles, then he noticed that all the patterns on this table were of octopuses, only varying in the number of tentacles underneath.

He looked at the adjacent table, noticing it was the same situation, some were sea stars with varying numbers of arms, some were sharks with different numbers of teeth.

Therefore, they could be simply called Octopus No. 1, Sea Star No. 1, or Shark No. 1. Shiller's octopus had seven tentacles and was the most on that table, so his number was Octopus No. 7.

Shiller saw the woman who had come to talk to him earlier; her table bore patterns of swordfish, only differing in the number of eyes. Judging by the position, her number was Swordfish No. 3.

And of course, Shiller also recognized Bruce who had been staring at him earlier. The pattern on Bruce's table was an Orca, and according to the number of white patches on the Orca's body, Bruce was Orca No. 1.

At Christopher's table, the pattern was a turtle. Based on the number of patterns on the turtle shell, he was Turtle No. 4.

Shiller lowered his head to closely observe the specific appearances of the patterns while taking a puff of the inhaler in his hand. Octopus No. 6 beside him said in surprise, "They let you bring that up here? Didn't they say no other items were allowed?"

His voice was loud enough to draw everyone's attention to Shiller. Shiller took a deep breath and coughed a few times before saying, "If they didn't let me bring it, I would soon die here."

Shiller was very weak, without any hint of exaggeration; dizzy, in pain, struggling to breathe, his heart racing—it seemed talking was difficult for him. He supported himself with one hand on the table, while bringing the mouthpiece of the inhaler to his lips with the other as if he would faint if he missed even a single breath.

The crowd silently withdrew their gazes, the majority believing it unnecessary to pay too much attention to this wastrel. Even if there might be conflicts later on, such a person was not the greatest threat.

On the contrary, most of them shifted their attention to the Orca and Turtle tables, where they could tell by the physique of these people that most were very strong.

Then people began to speculate that the animal groupings might be based on the level of physical fitness. It seemed that the Turtle table had the largest build, with the most overweight individuals, while the Orca table generally consisted of taller and stronger individuals, clearly the athletic type. The Barracuda table was not as muscular but more evenly proportioned, and the Octopus table, on the other hand, was comparably weaker and thinner.

But the Octopus table was not the weakest. In addition to the Octopi, there were Jellyfish, Coral, and Luminous Shrimp groups. The people at these tables were generally women, elderly, and children, and not the ones in good physical condition—they mostly appeared hunched and timid.

Some visibly frowned and showed displeasure upon seeing that children were present, but not a single person spoke out.

At this point, the organizer announced the entrance of the challengers, and a group of people dressed in formal wear and wearing masks came out from both sides of the venue, stopping at the tables with their corresponding patterns.

The Octopus table initially only had four people, but three more soon arrived to fill the seats to seven. The same occurred at the other tables. Once everyone had arrived, people noticed that the Barracuda, Whale, Coral, and Luminous Shrimp tables had the most people, generally over ten, while the rest had fewer, less than ten.

The Octopus table turned out to have the fewest people, a total of only seven, and Shiller noticed that apart from himself, the others seemed to know each other in pairs.

"Ladies and gentlemen, you must have noticed by now that all the challengers and challenged are in the same group, with odd and even numbers opposing each other..."

Before the old man could finish, voices of objection rose from below because, like Shiller's table, many tables had an odd number of people, making it impossible to pair up. They wanted to know where the persons who were supposed to challenge them, or be challenged by them, had gone.

"Due to some reasons, certain challengers and challenged have advanced early. Their opponents have a bye, and those without a corresponding counterpart may observe the gambling at their table or go rest."

No one moved.

Clearly, these people intended to observe the gambling here, accumulating experience for their later bouts.

Bruce wasn't given a bye. His opponent was Orca No. 3, who was standing diagonally opposite him. Through the names on the invitations, Bruce knew it was a former college classmate who was now a wanted fugitive by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Roman Sionis.

Sionis had once, alongside Elliot, accused Shiller, but later was wanted and imprisoned, initially detained in Arkham Asylum before being transferred to the Florence ADX Supermax Prison. He should be still serving his sentence to date.

Bruce also didn't know why Sionis wanted to challenge him, but Sionis' presence here already said a lot.

Just as everyone thought the organizers were about to announce the start of the game, the elder suddenly changed his tone and said, "To thank some generous guests for their sponsorship of this game, we have specially set up a VIP spectator gallery for this game. Those who have purchased VIP tickets will be able to watch the entire game."

After finishing his speech, he pointed, and the central stone wall of the circular wall slowly opened, revealing the seated VIPs inside. However, they were also wearing masks, concealing their true identities.

The number of VIPs was not large, but they filled two rows, looking to be over twenty people. They were also wearing masks of marine creatures, but all of their masks represented prehistoric creatures that are now extinct, such as Dunkleosteus, Mosasaur, Leviathan Whale, Megalodon, and so on.

A not insignificant uproar erupted on the floor, clearly, some were unhappy about their personal challenges being witnessed by others.

The elder immediately said, "Considering that the rules of this game have been changed, those who do not wish to participate may opt out. Does anyone want to withdraw?"

Immediately, several from the Coral Group and Luminous Shrimp Group raised their hands, and it appeared in pairs, showing a consensus reached to not settle scores here.

Staff members promptly escorted them away, and seconds after they left the room, the wall nearest to the sea opened. Bodies were thrown into the ocean, the water stained crimson with blood, while the whitecaps churned up by the cruise ship's wake turned an eerie pink.

A silence fell.

Seconds later, screams and chaos erupted together, but the doors of the game room slammed shut, while the elder raised three fingers.

"You have three seconds to return to your seats. After three seconds, any contestant not found at their place will be considered to have forfeited automatically."

All those who had scrambled out in panic now screamed as they scrambled back to their places, angrily shoving anyone who blocked their way to be in their rightful spot.

Shiller remained expressionless, standing in place. His unfocused, vacant eyes made it seem as if he saw nothing and thought of nothing.

Only a handful of people with extremely keen observation skills could tell that whenever his gaze passed over a female figure, he made an effort to concentrate, but each time, he failed.