Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics

"What's wrong with you?" Night Owl was the first to look up. He furrowed his brows, watching Bruce with a puzzled expression.

Bruce's recent scream had been truly dreadful, but now it appeared he wasn't injured, and there seemed to be nothing around that could attack him spiritually.

However, it was at this moment that Jeff said, "It must be him, it must be him who has been possessed by the Wandering! Those who are possessed always scream like that when they are about to be killed! Hurry up and find a way to tie him up!"

Night Owl still firmly held Jeff down, preventing him from moving, but he too harbored doubts, just as Bruce suddenly turned around, his gaze vacant.

Shiller and Greed both thought of something at the same time. Shiller was busy extracting bullets and couldn't extricate himself, leaving Greed to walk over to Bruce's side. He placed his hand on Bruce's shoulder and said, "Did you see something?"

"You should ask me what I can still see." Bruce muttered to himself, "I can't see anything clearly now, what is all this?"

"Tell me what you saw, maybe I can analyze it for you."

"I can't describe it." Bruce shook his head and said, "I can't see the room or objects, nor can I see people, just a mess of lines and colors."

Greed and Shiller exchanged a glance. Greed snickered, then asked, "When did this condition start?"

"Just now," Bruce hinted, "Greed knows for sure that he has leveled up his Spiritual Analysis Skill to level 3."

"Your mental state might indeed have some problems," Greed said, "I think it will be better after some rest."

Bruce walked away with a blank look again, bumping into Joker who was eating in the corner. He could only apologize and then settled down to sit next to Joker.

His reaction alone made it clear he certainly couldn't see anything.

Just then, Shiller felt a whoosh of air by his ear, and with a plop, Jeff, who was about to shout, had his head and chest cleaved in two, while Night Owl, who was pressing him down, also lost half an arm.

Everything happened too suddenly. Night Owl did not even have time to dodge. He gasped for air, then staggered back a few steps, watching his remaining half right hand, his complexion darkening.

Now there were three Batmen in total: one was near death, one was blind, and one was maimed.

Nevertheless, Shiller quickly grabbed some bandages and started to stop Night Owl's bleeding. The amputation was very clean, with a smooth cut, which made bandaging easier, stopping the blood before he could bleed out too much.

Indeed, the right arm was still there, but given the current situation, thinking about reattaching the arm was unrealistic, so they had to settle for this.

Judging by Night Owl's habits, he was right-handed, and now his right arm had been severed, which would undoubtedly impair his ability to act significantly.

Shiller couldn't help but recall the timing of the Wind Blade incidents. If this was truly the work of the Wandering, then the creature was more cunning than he had anticipated.

Jeff died very neatly. Not knowing whether his body would move on its own, Shiller simply dragged his body and threw it out of the Lighthouse through the main door.

Through the doorway, one could see a snowy village in the distance, but due to the vast distance, it was impossible to see if there was any movement, just a desolate stillness in this icy and snowy world.

Everyone decided to make some hot food to replenish their strength. Although there were no proper pots, the cans from canned food could be used as substitutes - cooking something in them was no problem.

While eating, Shiller began to organize the clues they had gathered and pondered what exactly was going on.

As the game progressed to this point, Shiller realized a problem: not everyone was like Arrogant, who had spent the first part of the game just bickering with the Transcendent.

Of course, this was not to say that Arrogant's questions were useless, but they were mostly about the basic gameplay of the game and didn't delve too much into the lore of this world.

Shiller knew that the Batmen would probably be more interested in the latter.

Firstly, Arrogant had not participated in many Battleworld games. He spent most of his time in Battleworld in a spacious, bright room, grading papers, treating it like an office he could enter and leave at will.

Hence, his experience with the games was relatively limited, and this was his first time participating in such a game.

But that was not the case for the Batmen. Since Battleworld began, most Batmen had focused their efforts on the copy games. With their relentless gaming endurance, they had almost played every type of game.

In other words, this game format might be somewhat unfamiliar to Arrogant, but it was very familiar to the Batmen. There was no need for them to waste time learning the basic rules; they could completely rely on their previous experience to ask more meaningful questions.

For instance, what exactly was this world, and what precisely was their own situation.

Shiller remembered the Transcendent's requirement that they could make up a background story for themselves. Arrogant's was quite conservative, but others might not be.

If a Transcendent could make the stories they concocted come true, Batman could completely use the fabricated stories to influence the entire world's structure.

For instance, all they needed to do was invent a story about what they did in a certain war, and then that war would truly appear in the world's history. As long as the war was large enough, it could change the entire world's structure.

In other words, this was a game of imagination, where the boldness of the individual matched the bounty of the land. As long as one dared to fabricate, nothing was impossible to achieve.

Arrogant wasn't actually very good at creating stories. At the time, his understanding of the whole game was rather superficial. As soon as he heard the clergy profession, he just concocted a background story that relatively fit the professional role, and essentially no one could spot any flaws.

But the key point was that the fabricated background stories would be directly written into the world's background, meaning that no matter how absurd they were, they were true. There was no need to hold back, and if the skill was high enough, it could provide limitless advantages within the game.

Shiller wasn't sure whether Batman was that good at making up stories, but he was absolutely positive that Greed was very adept at it.

Not only were the stories he concocted absurd and bizarre, but he could also justify them himself. No matter how restricted the background story crafting was, he would certainly challenge the limits of this feature.

Shiller suspected that Greed was secretly practicing Immortal Cultivation, and he had evidence.

To start from the beginning, these people gathering in a small cabin was clearly a story in itself.

It seemed like the beginning of a game where the protagonist inexplicably found themselves in a certain world. However, in the presence of a plot, the games usually provided a reason for the protagonist's arrival.

It could be a deported prisoner, a distant relative visiting family, or at the very least, a Mercenary Ranger passing through.

Generally, the reason for the protagonist's arrival at a place would either be introduced via an opening cutscene, providing a straightforward first-person narration, which was the simplest method, or it could be shown through subsequent dialogues.

But the opening cutscene was too short, showing nothing, and no one told him why he came here. While introducing himself, he could only come up with a vague reason.

The fact that it was like this for him didn't mean it was the same for everyone else. Some might have already woven their purpose into their background stories, and the ambiguous things they said during self-introductions were just to avoid exposing too much information.

Take Greed, for instance; during his self-introduction, he was extremely vague, quickly changing the subject to being a rich second generation. But actually, such a character had the least reason to appear in a remote small village. To make such a story credible would certainly require a very convoluted process.

If that was the case, his identity definitely wouldn't be simple, and a person with a complex identity involved in this matter would surely not be undertaking a simple task.

Shiller thought, how would one win this game? Killing the Wandering, saving the village, or outright rescuing the entire world from the eerie shadow it was under?

The Transcendents hadn't said, and he hadn't thought about it before. He felt it was probably similar to previous instances—finishing the main storyline and surviving while acquiring some resources was considered the end.

That saying still applied—in a game where one could set their own background story and make it come true, it was imagination that counted for everything. There were no fixed main storylines.

Outside in the world, one's identity and purpose were self-given.

From this perspective, it was very likely that Greed's goals were different from theirs, or to say, everyone present might have different objectives.

Furthermore, not all of them might be good people.

And without knowing how the others had crafted their stories, the identities and objectives they set for themselves could very well be in conflict.

For example, Night Owl was a police officer, and his set objective was to save the village. Yet the Pale Knight was a lawyer, possibly acting on behalf of some important figure, with the aim of ensuring that no witnesses to the eerie events could leave the village.

In such circumstances, they could possibly aid each other in an extreme environment to uncover the mysteries of the whole event. But it was more probable that after discerning each other's identities and stances, they would eliminate the other first in order to fulfill their own objectives.

And if indeed the situation was as such, then the misfortunes they were currently encountering might not be challenges set by the Transcendents, but more likely interference from certain individuals in the dark.

The first person Shiller suspected was Greed.

He was really suspicious, having several times put the team in danger.

And the most important piece of evidence Shiller had was that the Wind Blade just now flew from the direction of Greed.

Thinking up to this point, a bold conjecture sprang to Shiller's mind—was everything abnormal they were encountering really caused by the Wandering?

The anomalies were definitely real, because that Wind Blade could split a person in half, and it wasn't something a blower could create—it had to be at least a level of Magic Skill, and a corpse standing up couldn't possibly be a trick, involving at least some Superpower.

But if all these superpowers belonged to the Wandering, why would this monster choose such a remote village to wreak havoc?

First possessing living people, then using Wind Blades to kill, followed by controlling corpses to possess other living people—this silky smooth series of moves would overwhelm not just Lighthouse Village but even Lighthouse Country.

If one were to consider it from a gaming perspective, it would be like throwing a monster, that shouldn't appear at this stage into Novice Village—are you cosplaying as a Tree Guard?