RNP Chapter 156 Luther's Backup Plan
Chapter 156 Luther's Backup Plan
Chapter 156 Luther's Backup Plan
Luther is almost driven crazy by Bane.
Those who come to Gotham aren't normal people; they're all a bit off their minds. He knew that if he were caught red-handed here, even he would have a hard time escaping. What's more, what if Batman didn't intend to send him to jail, but instead locked him up himself…
Wait a minute, isn't Batman a superhero? Why would he commit lynching? This doesn't seem like his usual practice.
Luther felt a headache coming on again, followed by a slight dizziness.
Then he blinked, struggling to shift all his attention back to the problem at hand.
What should we do now?
Bane was now lying on the ground as peacefully as a baby, while the zombie Blake, having lost control of Bane, was now a useless corpse.
Luther turned his head and saw the mud-faced figures that had surrounded him and taken his form smoothly switch to other forms as Bane fell to the ground, and then surged forward.
Without a second thought, Luther immediately fired a blast, blasting away a mud face that had transformed into a beautiful woman. The energy cannon exploded without hesitation on the two lumps of conscience that had appeared on the mud face. He was talking, but his hands were not idle at all.
His goal now is to escape, to escape as much as possible; he shouldn't waste time getting entangled with Mudface.
"Get out of here, you filthy piece of trash!" he shouted, raising his energy cannon and taking down another mud-faced woman who had transformed into a fully-fledged beauty with four consciences.
He knew very well that Mudface knew that the combat power of his clones attached to the robot was actually very limited, and it would take too long to gather them all together and combine them. By the time he finished gathering them, Luther would have already run away. Therefore, he deliberately made himself look vicious to attract his attention.
If he wasted even a second looking at Mudface, he would have lost. Just now, he wasted a second looking at those four consciences, which not only delayed his escape but also emboldened more Mudfaces to do the same.
Soon, more consciences surfaced before him, and disgusting scenes that should have been censored were everywhere.
"Get out of the way! Don't block the way!"
Luther, expressionless, blasted away another mud-faced creature that charged at him. He tried his best to stay focused; these grotesque lumps couldn't attract his attention.
But amidst a multitude of consciences, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a mud-covered face facing him rapidly transform into a wrinkled, red-haired man with a ruddy complexion from drunkenness.
Luther recognized the man Mudface had become; his name was Lionel Luther.
This person is...is...
His father.
Luther's face was grim.
"Muddy face! You think you can disgust me like that?"
Old Luther, whose face had turned to mud, ignored him and simply called out:
"My son! Where are you going?"
Another mud-faced figure twisted its body, transforming into Leticia Luthor, Luthor's biological mother, and yelled, "Your mother's gone!"
The other one turned into his grandfather: "Grandpa's here! Grandpa's here!"
The trend of changing appearances quickly changed, and the clay-faced people rushed to perform a series of ancestral rites for nineteen generations in front of him.
"I'm not angry, I'm not angry..."
Luther calmly continued clearing out the mudfaces. He had tried to fly away using the flamethrowers on his leg armor, but was quickly knocked down from the sky by two conscientious mudface beauties. He then realized that if he didn't incapacitate these guys first, he wouldn't be able to fly into the sky with so many mudfaces blocking his way.
And then there's Batman… Luthor hadn't forgotten about him. He saw Batman's lower body had turned into black smoke, silently flying beside him, watching him struggle.
Luther gritted his teeth, even he felt a sense of despair rising within him. He was such an idiot; he shouldn't have rushed over to save Black. Now, he'd failed to save Bane, failed to find Black, and was now in Batman's hands.
Luther couldn't help but examine himself: Why was he so stupid? Why did he have to come to the rescue himself? He was so smart, why didn't he use some roundabout methods instead of choosing the stupidest way—personal rescue? With his intelligence, hadn't he considered the risks involved?
Luther was suddenly horrified; he…
Luther then momentarily lost his composure before regaining his focus.
"Leaving aside Batman, as time goes on, Superman will definitely discover the trick I used with the exoskeleton armor to switch places. When he comes, I'll be... damn it!"
The mud-faced members of the Luther family were still making a racket nearby:
"Bald!"
Luther took a deep breath, no longer wanting to get entangled with them.
"Baldy!"
"Braised eggs!"
"My son!"
"That's enough!"
Luther couldn't take it anymore. He fired a shot, and the mud-faced figure disguised as his father instantly shattered, the energy beam blasting his brown-haired head apart like a watermelon.
"Good! My dear grandson—"
The clay-faced figures, representing nineteen generations of ancestors, immediately began to praise him effusively. Faces that should only have been seen in portraits lavished admiration on Luther.
"So filial! Absolutely so filial!"
"What a truly filial son!"
"That's enough!"
One is one thing, two is another. Luther raised his hand cannon and unleashed a barrage of attacks on the nineteen generations of ancestors that Mudface had transformed into, until he had exhausted the last drop of energy within his armor.
He sat down somewhat dazedly, watching Batman float to his side.
"I surrender."
Before Batman could raise his fist, Luthor, now without his armor, decisively said:
"I surrender to you immediately."
Chen Tao lowered his fist, still feeling unsatisfied.
But in that instant, he suddenly saw Luther wink at him three times.
What does that mean?
Chen Tao remained calm and continued saying what needed to be said: "A wise choice, I would..."
In fact, Luthor's choice was somewhat unexpected. Normally, Mudface's disgusting tricks would at most distract Luthor. The reason Chen Tao hadn't made a move was that he intended to rely on his intimidation to prevent Luthor from ignoring Mudface and running away. He mainly planned to play a delaying tactic, waiting for Superman to return before joining forces with him to steadily and cautiously crush Luthor.
However, his voluntary surrender is really not in line with Luther's usual character.
Then Chen Tao saw Luther wink at him three more times, followed by a slight twitch of his chin.
He frowned, suddenly realizing what Luther was saying to him:
They'll come to my cell at 3 a.m., not now.
"Hiss... Why do I know so much about what the villain is trying to say? I'm supposed to be a superhero." Chen Tao suddenly realized this.
He shook his head helplessly, but since Luther had made an appointment, he naturally had to keep it.
He wanted to see what this audacious bald man was really up to. Now that he had him cornered, he was at the mercy of the man and didn't care what kind of scheme he might have.
So Chen Tao bent his middle finger and tapped Luther's forehead three times as he said he was surrendering, as if to acknowledge the riddle. Then he directed the mudfaces to tie Luther up tightly, and used other ropes to tie up Bane and the zombie Black as well, locking the three villains in a row and securing them there.
It wasn't until quite some time later that Clark returned to the scene carrying a half-wrecked armored vehicle.
"That damned Luther! I was tricked!" Super Muscle exclaimed indignantly. "Turns out I was fighting an AI all along!"
Then he turned his head and asked:
"it's over?"
"It's over," Chen Tao told him. "Luther has been captured. Let's go back and talk more."
……
……
……
This is Chen Tao's private residence in the metropolis; it's already dinnertime.
Alfred asked lightly.
"Mr. Bruce, what would you like to eat tonight?"
The current Bruce Wayne is different from the one before. The old Batman didn't have dinner; he would just eat a sandwich and then inject himself with nutrient solution to keep himself from being depleted.
Alfred had cooked dinner for two countless times, but Bruce stood him up most of the time, leaving him to eat both meals by himself.
But today was different. Alfred finally had the chance to prepare a proper, sumptuous dinner for Mr. Bruce.
"Try this slow-cooked beef liver. I used a method an old chef taught me—I was 'working' in Argentina back then, and you know how cheap things are there?"
Alfred kept rambling on about his past military career, and Chen Tao almost couldn't bear to interrupt him.
But he did it anyway.
He tried his best to bring up the issue during the meal to make the atmosphere more relaxed, and this tactic worked.
"How many of the people I asked you to find have you located?"
Alfred heard Chen Tao ask, "Tell me the specific people you found."
"OK."
Alfred sighed, abandoning the topic of veal liver, then pressed a couple of buttons on the tablet beside him and said:
"First of all, I did find Barry Allen, whom you asked me to find, but he had an accident a year ago and is still in a coma. He has been in a vegetative state for more than half a year."
The first answer made Chen Tao's heart sink:
"But Captain Cold has already shown up," he said. "If Captain Cold has shown up, why isn't The Flash here?"
"That's the truth, Mr. Bruce. Captain Cold has been robbing banks for a long time, and now he's just invented his destined freeze gun and is using more high-tech equipment."
Batman heard Alfred say in a very calm tone:
"I also looked into Captain Cold and found out his information. He has a freezing gun that can turn people into ice sculptures, which is similar to Mr. Freeze. However, there is no Heatwave or Mirror Master, whom you mentioned to me before, around him. Perhaps they haven't appeared yet."
Chen Tao gave Alfred a look that said, "Go on, Alfred."
Alfred then continued to speak eloquently:
"You already know the previous Superman, so I won't go into details," Alfred continued. "That Superman you called Aquaman, we only found his father's lighthouse, but he's nowhere to be found, hiding somewhere."
"Air Force Colonel Hal Jordan has been missing for almost three months."
"Victor Stone just led his team to a gold medal at the Games."
Chen Tao felt increasingly distressed as he listened.
Of all those people, not a single one was willing to help him. He dared not force things or arbitrarily alter the plot. What if his intervention caused these people to miss out on the abilities they were supposed to have? Where would they turn for help then?
"And then there's Wonder Woman, Diana Prince."
Alfred said, "If you want to find someone to help you deal with Brainiac, then I think this princess is definitely a force to be reckoned with."
Chen Tao pondered for a while, then continued, "Alright. So, what has Princess Prince been doing all this time?"
"Diana has defeated many opponents in just a few months."
As Alfred flipped through the documents, he remarked, "Leopard Woman, Giant Woman, Silver Swan—it seems that ever since our Miss Diana descended to the mortal realm, dangerous creatures have started to appear in droves."
He closed the file and said, "It seems this Miss Prince is very busy right now, but she's probably the only strong ally you can find right now."
Chen Tao nodded, and a few hours later, he appeared in front of Luther.
This is the secret base where Luthor is being held, and just as Luthor predicted, Batman has not handed him over to the government or officials.
It was 3 a.m. when Chen Tao appeared in the darkness like a ghost, and as expected, Luther was sitting cross-legged on the bed, waiting for his arrival.
"I knew before that Lex Luthor wasn't the type to surrender easily."
Chen Tao spoke first: "So here I am, Luther. Tell me, what exactly do you want to do?"
Luther remained silent. After a long while, he slowly raised his head, his eyes revealing an expression completely different from that during the day.
"Brainiac, do you think I didn't know they existed? I'm not as stupid as Blake." The bald man blinked. "I knew about him a long time ago."
Chen Tao frowned. The other person's tone and demeanor were completely different from during the day. He deduced a possibility in his mind. No matter how absurd this possibility might be, it was indeed the most likely explanation for the current situation.
"You actively created a secondary personality?" Chen Tao said. "You deliberately allowed Brainiac to erode it?"
(End of this chapter)