"So what? After going around in such a big circle, you were just waiting for my performance to finish to have some kind of meaningless mad laugh here?"
The Laughing bat grinned, revealing a cold smile. He simply changed back to his original costume and looked around the room.
The atmosphere in the room was indeed lively at the moment. Two-Face and Harley Quinn were discussing how difficult it was to study in that era, while Penguin Man was explaining to the Primary Universe Batman the details of how he made his fortune. The bigwigs of various academic circles gathered together to study other methods to poison Batman. Even Riddler had gotten some Superman merchandise from Primary Universe Batman and was admiring it back and forth in his hand.
The only person left seemingly idle in the room was Shiller. The Laughing bat watched him and began his signature lengthy monologue.
"Do you really think what you're doing is meaningful? If it wasn't for that young Batman being too reckless and revealing too much information in front of me, I wouldn't have thought of disguising myself as him."
"For those familiar with him, my disguise might not be perfect, but no matter, there are more people in this universe who are not familiar with him. As long as I act in his identity and casually kill a few natives of other cosmoses, he can forget about successfully helping Barbados with whatever plan he has."
"Yes, he will become the enemy of the universe instead of me. Today is just a small opening ceremony. No matter where you chase me, I can appear in a corner of the universe, committing what you call 'evils' using his crazy Batman identity."
"Isn't that how you see me? Dark, evil, irredeemable—but I am Batman. I never needed your praise, but now, you all also slander me without reason. I don't think that's fair..."
Actually, Shiller wasn't listening to what the Laughing bat was saying. He was rarely immersed in his own world and only came back to reality after a while, while the Laughing bat was still going on.
"So this is the retribution you deserve. Those hidden cosmoses are collapsing, but it's just as well they are destroyed; they are not needed anyway. All those lives, environments, societies, and everything else that superheroes hold dear, have long been tagged as garbage..."
Great, this was perhaps Shiller's favorite point about the Laughing bat. He could daydream for three minutes and not miss any useful information, like flipping through several pages of the Laughing bat's comic in a whoosh and—guess what—still understand everything.
The Laughing bat rambled on nonsensically. Shiller let his mind wander while listening. The topics meandered all over the place, but finally, they came back to the present.
"Now that you know my purpose, what about you? You bunch of crazies, creating such a big commotion—was it just to take the chance to appear in the show I'm directing?"
Shiller shook his head and poured himself a cup of coffee, saying, "Clearly, the chance to appear in the show isn't the key. Let me give you a little hint. Although Constantine and I hold some of dream god Morpheus's authority, we obviously can't manipulate dreams like Morpheus himself and control everything within them."
"So you had no choice but to do this?" The Laughing bat had some intelligence. He said, "Only by getting personally involved can you change the trajectory of the Dreamworld, so you must go in."
Shiller nodded.
"Then why do you need to go in?"
"We've been discussing that very question just now. Didn't you hear?" Shiller took a sip of coffee and said, "In order to see your play through to completion."
"And then what? What does it matter now that it is completed?"
"It doesn't matter much." Shiller seemed to be in a good mood as he said to the Laughing bat, "You indeed provided us with quite a bit of amusement, especially after we sped up time."
The Laughing bat showed no feeling toward his time acceleration maneuver and was devoid of any regret, not understanding what they were all laughing at.
Shiller glanced at his watch discreetly and spoke up, "Have you ever thought, even for a second, how The Clawed Killer, a teleporting killer devil named Fredy, managed to appear in the photographers' snapshots every single day?"
Upon hearing this, everyone in the room looked at the sky, the ground, examined the armrests of their chairs, or checked the structure of the table legs.
And what about Batman? What was Batman doing? He was swearing to himself that he truly didn't feel like laughing, but Jack held an opposing opinion.
The reason this question resonated like a great bell's toll was that Shiller had asked them the same thing after he finished his manipulation, and at that time, none of them had noticed anything amiss.
Of course, 'none of them' did not include Batman and Joker, but it was still embarrassing enough to go down in history for everyone present.
Here's what happened: at the time, Shiller said that he, too, would play a role. All the villains looked forward to it, eager to see what he would do. However, for some reasons, Shiller didn't plan on going in himself.
When the criminals heard this news, they were somewhat disappointed but still wanted to know what surprise move the organizer of the plan would pull off.
But what they saw was a letdown. The killer devil Shiller controlled not only targeted children, but he also always took advantage of the terrain—like appearing in closets, mirrors, bathtubs.
And he continuously failed in his attempts, either being discovered by parents and fleeing or being caught by police and having to use teleportation to escape.
This left the audience utterly confused. Is that it? That's supposed to be a killer devil?
Then Shiller asked a question that dumbfounded everyone on the spot. Yeah, how does a teleporting killer devil manage to be so incompetent?
Teleportation is a great ability, but it usually comes with strict limitations. The type of teleportation used by Constantine is called Ash Avatar; it involves creating an avatar and sending it to a designated location before enabling the swap between the real self and the avatar.
Most villains' teleportation is more about moving at high speed, meaning they run so fast it looks like teleportation, but not Fredy—he literally appears and vanishes suddenly.
Moreover, he can even ignore physical barriers, descending from the ceiling one moment and drilling out of a bathtub the next.
One would think with such abilities, being a Killer devil would be beneath him, yet how does he manage to be so poor at even that?
Thus Shiller began his explanation.
"The purpose of the Killer devil's existence isn't merely to kill," Shiller began with his thesis, "If whoever kills the most people is considered the world's most formidable Killer devil, then we should deify the first person who contracted AIDS."
"Even if we're talking about premeditated murder, can that group of artless Butchers really compare to us?"
His statement garnered agreement from most criminals; these egomaniacs believed they were fundamentally different from Killer demons, styling themselves as artists and viewing crime as a special kind of art.
Having captured everyone's attention, Shiller continued, "Killing is just a process, it's all right to put some effort into it, but we shouldn't get things backward. If the focus is merely on slitting someone else's throat and then playing with the corpse, I'd rather slaughter chickens."
"Those who kill frequently should know that the process of killing isn't important. What matters are your intentions and objectives, the thoughts you maintain throughout, and the works that interpret your thoughts—those are of the utmost importance."
"So what kind of work do you want to present?" Scarecrow asked.
Shiller, however, shook his head and said, "Although I do have some mediocre works not worth mentioning, to confine the scope of a work to the posture of a body would be to settle for mediocrity. The killings by the Killer devil can be used to achieve much more."
"Predictably," Shiller nodded, acknowledging, "I've been deliberately controlling Fredy's frequent appearances in the media, and the purpose is..."
Shiller looked at Mad Laugh, saying, "…to create pressure."
"I don't feel it's put any pressure on me," Mad Laugh replied. "Because I simply don't care about who gets killed."
"But you do care if someone messes with your genius creations," Shiller revealed a smile, then took out a film reel to play back, and unsurprisingly, everyone saw Bruce, as played by Mad Laugh, repeatedly showing annoyance at the TV.
That expression shouldn't have been Bruce's, because according to his character setting, he was supposed to be too poor to do anything and would likely be indifferent to crime rather than annoyed.
This was clearly an emotion belonging to Mad Laugh himself.
"Fredy's abilities indeed make it easy for him to avoid anyone's filming. If I don't want it, nobody can capture him on camera, but I had to make sure the media did catch him."
"Because both you and I are aware that such a brazen Killer devil operating in the city would affect not only the ordinary people but also the Superheroes."
"The more frequently the Killer devil appears, the more the superheroes' sense of justice stirs within them. You know this better than anyone, so the more the Killer devil shows up, the more you feel the situation is slipping out of your control, leading to your anxiety."
"Nonsense," the Laughing bat countered.
"Oh, is that so? It seems that your move almost 20 years ago wasn't a forced error but was designed that way by you?" Shiller asked him with a smirk.
Mad Laugh fell silent.
Honestly, it wasn't his design. Logically, he knew that move was lousy and could be considered the only flaw in his play. Of course, he believed it was labeled a flaw not because the action itself was abhorrent, but because it wasn't part of his original plot.
Now he had to admit it was his design, which felt akin to being forced to confess guilt, but if he were to deny it was his design, he couldn't explain why that part had occurred. Wasn't that anxiety?
Shiller continued speaking.
"Your anxiety made you overlook an obvious fact, the same with everyone else here," Shiller addressed everyone. "How could a Killer devil with teleportation be frequently caught on media? It's utterly illogical, yet all of you were too focused on his actions to spot the fundamental flaw in logic."
Shiller sighed, turning his gaze back to Mad Laugh's face and saying, "Many things in this world are like this, the solution is right on the surface. Apart from the case of the Killer devil, it's the same right now."
"What about now?"
"Why did we enter into the play you're directing and go to great lengths to help you complete it?"
"Why?"
"Of course, it's to help you finish it," Shiller said, looking into Mad Laugh's eyes. "If you don't finish it, wouldn't you have time to do something else?"
"Like right now, if you weren't sitting here chatting with us, wouldn't you have discovered someone has entered your home?"