Support Me: https://ko-fi.com/arcaneyes123
"Anti-life equation?" Stephen thought about it, and without waiting for Luke to answer, he rejected the answer himself.
He had fought Darkseid, the owner of the Anti-Life Equation, and had experienced the power that could distort human consciousness. Overall, Stephen also admitted that the Anti-Life Equation was powerful, but it was not enough for Luke to rush over.
And anything that Luke considers effective for his project must be related to the project or on the same level. That kind of power and thing is at least above the Infinity Stones.
Luke held out his hand to Stephen: "Will you let me have Bruce's dark side?"
Stephen was a bit stunned. He didn't seem to expect Luke to be interested in Bruce's dark side. He looked at Bruce, who didn't object, and immediately took out Bruce's dark side, which he had put away. He stood up from his chair and handed it to Luke. Then, he stepped aside and watched Luke's actions with him.
The black sphere was floating in Luke's hand. Black metal sand like gravel seeped into the air. They combined into tiny parts, and then pieced together on the left and right sides to form an instrument like a horizontal hourglass. The center of the hourglass was the dark sphere handed over by Stephen, which contained Bruce's dark side.
The dark sphere was twisted and split open in full view of everyone, and the consciousness imprisoned inside turned into wisps of black mist, which seemed to have smelled the breath of freedom and quickly spread out in all directions along the cracked sphere. However, they soon encountered powerful obstacles. Layers of invisible barriers blocked them, and there was also a force that cut them precisely like a scalpel.
Two twisted phantoms were cut apart, their faces emerging in mid-air. One was that of young Wayne, the black markings of the Abyss still lingering on his body; the other was that of the Laughing Bat. He was unlucky. As an outsider who had actively merged with Bruce's dark side, he was also implicated by the attention of the Abyss summoned by young Wayne.
It's hard to say whether this was part of the Batman Who Laughs' plan, but he did use Bruce's dark side to come into contact with the abyss power of the universe and experience it firsthand.
Luke waved his hand, absorbing young Wayne's portion back into the dark sphere and re-enclosing it. Then, the sphere's seal was unlocked, and the device that had assumed the function of a pocket-sized intelligent soul operating table instantly disintegrated into hundreds of thousands of densely packed microscopic parts, then disintegrated again into black metallic sand, covering Luke's left hand with a glove of unknown material.
"Yes." Luke threw the dark sphere in the direction of Bruce and Stephen.
"Are you here for him?" Stephen's floating cloak extended a piece of cloth from his back, wrapped around the dark sphere, and handed it to Stephen obediently. Stephen looked at the soul projection of the Laughing Bat, which was dazed in the void, and asked.
"To be precise, I'm here for his memories and the mastermind behind them," Luke corrected. The next moment, the Laughing Bat's soul was compressed into an A4-sized book, as thick as a dictionary. His hands flicked back and forth through the Laughing Bat's soul projection, as if flipping through a real book. Every stage of the Laughing Bat's memories was neatly arranged in the catalog, categorized by time.
"Is there someone behind him?" Stephen was stunned for a moment, his eyes glancing at Bruce beside him, and a sudden realization hit him. He wasn't surprised by this, after all, any dimensional invasion usually had a mastermind behind it.
He and Bruce were both tempted to ask more questions, but seeing Luke so intently flipping through the book, they could only suppress their curiosity and desire for the time being. Fortunately, Luke flipped through the pages quickly. After just a few seconds, the book titled "The Laughing Bat" was closed again, clearly having been read by Luke.
"So fast?" Stephen was a bit surprised by Luke's efficiency. He had always been confident in his memory and learning ability. He'd spent his early nights studying many of Kamar-Taj's treasured grimoires, forgetting to eat or sleep. But he had to admit, if he'd had Luke's reading speed, it would have been much easier.
"I'm not interested in his other memories. There's no need to waste my time on them." Luke reached out and stroked the cover of the book. He looked at Bruce and Stephen, swung the book in the air, and asked, "Is there anything you want to know?"
"No." Bruce shook his head. In his dream, he had already read about the tragic experience of how the other person became like this. He didn't want to recall that memory again, lest it affect his mental state, which was still not stable.
"I'm not interested in him either." Bruce shook his head. It was certainly impossible for Stephen to take the initiative to read the book about the Laughing Bat. It had nothing to do with him personally, so why waste his time?
"Then his ownership belongs to me. Is it okay for me to use him?" Luke looked at Bruce as he spoke.
"Of course." Bruce understood Luke's intentions. He suspected Luke might do something inhumane to this soul next, and he'd consulted him, the alien, beforehand. Bruce didn't see the point in objecting, or that he could prevent anything. But since Luke had shown his stance, he certainly wouldn't be rude. It wasn't like the other party had crossed his line, was it?
"What are you going to do with him?" Stephen asked for Bruce.
"This is excellent material," Luke answered without reservation. "The crystallization of its death can open a path for me to my destination. It's a compass, Stephen."
"Are your materials so, um, weird? You use souls as materials?" Bruce looked at the soul of the Laughing Bat that was constantly transforming in Luke's hands with a complicated look.
"In the mysterious world, the soul itself is a popular material! The more outstanding the soul, the more sought after it will be! And dimensional demons such as Mephisto will constantly polish a person's soul according to their own power attributes and carve it into what they want." Stephen explained.
"I just feel a little strange in my heart. After all, it's myself in another world." Bruce was not too sentimental. From the dream, those darkened selves in other universes were obviously not good people. Each of them carried the wails of the destruction of a universe.
"This is normal, haven't you noticed? You are simply the best fusion agent in these universes! Anyone can fuse with your soul, and any energy can adapt to you. You are simply a glue that has lasted for ten thousand years." Luke held a finished black pointer in his hand and looked at Bruce with strange eyes.
Bruce's whole body tensed up at the interested look in Luke's eyes. He was afraid that Luke would suddenly say something like, "Would you like to contribute your body as material for my research?"
"Don't be nervous, I'm not trying to study you. Your physical information has been in my database since the first time. I just want to explain to you how special you are. Look at you, who possesses all kinds of strange power characteristics in the dark army. Each one is a combined product of someone's soul and power. It's obvious that the mastermind behind the scenes thinks that you are a very useful material." Luke saw Bruce's nervousness and comforted him casually.
"When you say that, I don't know what emotion to use to express it." Bruce smiled bitterly.
Luke waved his finger, and an illusory furnace spewed out energy. A sturdy man's figure appeared out of nothing, and then, under the stunned gaze of Bruce and Stephen, he threw an extremely illusory soul shadow into his body.
"Let him stay here for a while. I'll go see Becky. You can also chat with him." Luke put away the black pointer, and then a door was neatly drawn in the air behind him. He reached out and pushed it open, turned around and gave instructions as he stepped in.
"What is this?" Seeing Luke step into the space gate, Bruce and Stephen's eyes fell on the third person on the field.
It was a face exactly like Bruce's, and Luke was so considerate as to make him a loose-fitting hospital gown-like garment.
"Another you." Stephen opened his mouth.
"Of course I know this is another me." Bruce took a deep breath and pointed at the other person. "The question is, which me is he? I understand his skills are unreasonable, but what does that mean?"
"Hmm!" Bruce in the hospital gown let out a light groan. He slowly opened his eyes and looked around vigilantly in an instant. Until he saw Bruce and Stephen, his body suddenly relaxed.
"I'm sorry for causing trouble for you and your universe, Bruce." Bruce in the hospital gown said before the other two, looking at Bruce with a guilty look and apologized.
"The Laughing Bat?" Stephen and Bruce looked at each other, then looked at Bruce in the hospital gown and asked.
"I really don't want to hear this name from you. Because it always reminds me of that nightmarish experience." Bruce, wearing a hospital gown, squatted down, holding his head and said with a painful expression.
"What the hell is going on?" Bruce was a little confused. For a moment, he couldn't tell if his mental state was still normal.
"It's obvious that Luke helped him return to normal," Stephen speculated. The illusory soul that had been slapped into this body was the Batman Who Laughed, after being extracted by Luke. According to its original properties, it should have been a soul combined with the Joker's chaotic and dark personality, but now it was acting so normal. If it wasn't a disguise, then it was obvious that Luke had helped him free himself while extracting the materials he needed.
"Cognitive modification?" Bruce thought of a possibility. Darkseid's Anti-Life Equation, for example, has the ability to distort a person's consciousness, causing them to lose their true self or become corrupted into another form. Based on his understanding of psychic powers, psychic powers also hold a high and absolute priority in this regard. In other words, it's not inconceivable that Luke could modify a person's cognition.
"No, I remember everything about me. I just went back to the way I was before I was infected with the Joker virus." Bruce in the hospital gown denied Bruce's speculation. He didn't think his cognition had been modified because he remembered everything.
"Are you sure your memory is real and has not been modified in any way?" Bruce expressed doubt.
"I am you, you should trust your own judgment." Bruce in the hospital gown looked at himself strangely as his emotions fluctuated and he was not very stable.
"This shouldn't be a simple cognitive modification," Stephen concluded after observing. His words also attracted the attention of the two Bruces, who turned their heads to listen to Stephen's opinion.
"Emotions are easily influenced by various factors. However, for someone like the Laughing Bat, who has connected to a powerful dark master and been contaminated and influenced by its power, simply modifying his cognition cannot change his corruption.
In other words, simply modifying his cognition would only give him a momentary false sense of clarity. Then, under the influence of the Power attribute, he would continue to degenerate and become what it represents. Stephen analyzed, "That method only treats the symptoms, not the root cause. It's unlikely that the Laughing Bat will ever regain his true self."
The two Bruces nodded slowly. It was like cutting a waterfall. If the subsequent water flow was not stopped, the waterfall would not be cut off.
"So, rather than a cognitive modification, I think it's more of a shift in power attributes! A force that opposes the mastermind behind the scenes, acting as a protective layer and filter, protecting Bruce's spirit from further contamination. It allowed him to regain his original rationality and composure." Stephen continued, "And regarding opposing energy attributes, this is Luke's most proficient area. He can always find a way to restrain any energy and create energies with opposing attributes."
"But that doesn't stop him from arbitrarily altering and distorting people's spirits and souls like those dimensional demons, does it?" Bruce narrowed his eyes. "The only difference between him and those dimensional demons you mentioned is that those dimensional demons may only have one kind of power attribute pollution, but Luke can freely combine and match them, switching people back and forth between the camps of justice, darkness, chaos, and so on."
"I can't deny what you said. But I don't think you need to worry too much about this. If he wants to, it will be difficult for you to stop him, right?" Stephen spread his hands.