76. Gotham: Claws
84.
As Damian fought with his katana, he felt like he was back in the Wayne family's kitchen. Pennyworth was beside him, calmly yet gently guiding him through the process of preparing clams for the first time in his life—this was Damian's own request, though even he had forgotten why.
"Don't use too much force, young master. The clam knife is not as well-tested as your sword."
"Then why not use a sword?" He could split the thing in half with one stroke, including the shell.
"Because there's no need to wave samurai swords around in the kitchen," the butler replied without question, but Damian always felt it was because of his father - his pickiness about food could even be traced back to the appearance of the ingredients. In his father's eyes, a clam split in half might be classified as the same as a tragically dead alien.
Damian curled his lips and tried to find the gap in the clam shell with his knife. He stabbed the knife at the moment when the clam relaxed slightly and pried it open with precise force. The tension of waiting for the best opportunity was very similar to the feeling of holding your breath and waiting for the moment of hunting during battle.
And now, after getting Aria's weapon, Damian felt like he was still in the kitchen, but he had become a vegetable cutter. He had to wave Aria's broken sword almost every moment to curb the claws' offensive trend - and the vegetables were still rushing towards him.
Enemies surged around him, and he swung his sword, needing to carve a path to survival almost every moment. The claw attacks were like a tide, forcing Damian to pull out his dagger from his belt and strike with both blades, long and short, in close combat.
Damian's katana was held tightly in the farmer's hand. She had seen strange weapons like Haley's curling iron and Sam's old guitar in previous files, so she was not surprised by the naming method.
It felt like she'd accidentally learned Robin's real name... It sounded familiar, but the enemy's attack left her no time to recall it. Just as Aria cleared a Claw's health bar, the self-defeating Claw used his arm blade to shave off ten points of hers.
The blood fueled Claw's madness. He sneered through his owl mask, lowering his voice to a whisper in the dark night: "You also think this world is a game, right?"
Aria's heart trembled as she heard the voice echoing from the abyss: "We are very similar. Should we say we are of the same kind?"
“The whole world is a giant zero-sum game, and most people are just insignificant pieces on the chessboard.”
Who is your kind?! This is the first time a farmer, after all his years of farming, has received such vicious comments: "I'm not your kind. This world is clearly a farming game." The famous Star Valley. If you can't play the NPCs in your game, it's your own loss!
"A farming game?" Claw laughed. Her naiveté was chilling, and her contempt was chilling. "Winner takes all, success is king, failure is a bandit—that's the rule of this world. With the power of resurrection, you could have joined the court and created a great cause with us."
At this point, he couldn't suppress his regret: "What a pity..." Someone chose the wrong side.
No, what is this? Is this a direct recruitment for the villain boss? The farmer didn't understand her thinking, but when it came to JOJA-style questions, her words could poison herself: "Do you have minimum wage and overtime pay? Do you have workers' compensation? Do you have safety training and protective measures? Do you have unemployment insurance? Oh, I forgot your court is a lifetime employment system. You have to keep working even if you die."
If JOJA Corporation in the original game had this technology, she would be able to see the corpse of her co-worker when she came to work the next day.
Claw sneered, "No need to worry about that—now, I have the final say in court."
His tone was filled with endless pride: "This hunting game will come to a perfect end tonight - all the pillars of Gotham will be uprooted, and Bruce Wayne will lose all support. From now on, my court will regain control of the lifeblood of this city."
Aria was dissatisfied: "That's not good either. The butt determines the head."
Claw was dismissive, even amused. He now knew the effects of magic on farmers—given time, he would surely find someone more to his liking.
Of course, the most important thing now is to "kill" the farmer and capture Robin alive.
Tonight will be a party night for the court, and he will try to make things as fun for Batman as possible by damaging his side.
"It's no use saying anything. You are destined not to escape today."
Aria noticed the number of claws around her rapidly increasing. The dead enemies seemed unable to weaken their offensive, and more figures emerged from the depths of the maze. The court's staff quarters were actually located underground, a place that could only be described as miserable.
She looked back at Damian and saw that he had several wounds, but he was still as calm as ever, wielding his two swords and fighting hard.
"Robin!" Aria called out. Even in this situation, she didn't panic. She spoke as if she was going on a picnic. "Did you hear that?"
"This guy said we can't get out!"
Damian responded with a brief glance, their eyes locked as they waited for the next words.
So the farmer was quite cheerful: "Then we will -"
“Run!”
After shouting this, she rushed towards Damian's location, used the knockback effect of the weapon in her hand to temporarily separate those claws, picked up Robin and ran into the maze!
Damian struggled like a black cat in the shower, struggling at first, but by the end, he was already feeling a faint sense of doom. After the farmer and the Court of Owls had been hiding in the maze for two minutes, finally getting his feet under him, he coldly stated the crux of the matter: "We can't escape like this."
The farmer blinked, his claws sifting through them like cockroaches. If it weren't for her and Robin, Aria would have happily bought a bucket of popcorn to watch this boring but quite impactful plot. So she asked directly, "What can I do?"
“Running also requires direction.”
If the individual claws are regarded as a point and their movement in the maze as countless trajectories, then the traversal movement will eventually make them meet.
"Remember that photo wall we just ran past?" Robin said as he took a step forward. "I have some guesses that need to be confirmed."
After twisting and turning countless times in the maze, they finally returned to the photo wall. Because Robin's sight anchor point was too obvious, the farmer looked along it and saw a very familiar face on the wall with photos hanging on three sides.
Hiss, I can only say that the Court of Owls is not popular, but they like to take advantage of others. They even put Batman on the honorary employee wall. Did they ask for others' consent?
There was no time to hesitate. Aria stepped forward decisively, knocked down the picture frame and handed it to Damian: "Take it if you like it. Although this maze is not opened by me, who cares." Take it if you want. If the Court of Owls does not agree, they will come out to stop it.
She said very considerately, "If you can't put it there, I can keep it for you and give it to you when I get out."
Although this kind of painting usually costs 30,000 gold, Aria decided to be a conscientious farmer and not charge any storage fees.
Damian took the picture frame somewhat speechlessly, feeling the material behind the metal frame.
"This thing is new." Robin concluded, "Maybe this was originally planned for Batman, but we ran into it first."
He used his watch to check the material of the frame, and a row of data flashed on it: "And it's more damp than I thought. It can't be left underground for such a long time to achieve this state..."
"so?"
"There's a hidden river underground," he concluded coolly.
Aria immediately understood what he meant. "You mean... dig a hole here and swim out?"
"There's no better choice," Damian said, his voice still calm and decisive. "But I'll warn you in advance, Gotham's underground rivers are complex and turbulent. The currents could sweep us to unknown places. With luck, we might survive."
Aria was a little annoyed when she heard about luck: "The ladder I brought was used up when I put the bucket here before." If I had known earlier, I would have prepared one.
Damian glanced around, seemingly observing, but actually recalling what materials he had seen along the way: "I will try to assemble a blasting device..." His father had taught him before, so Damian didn't think it was a difficult task.
Previously, the farmer was not sure what was under the maze, and was worried that there would be a bug after jumping in, which would affect the NPCs. God knows what kind of MOD this game has become. Even if aliens fell from the sky one day, she would accept it, so she never dared to take action.
Now that her doubts were gone, Aria felt relieved. "How about explosives? I have some copper ore and coal on me. I can make some."
"?" Robin couldn't figure out why a farmer would make explosives. But time was running out, so the farmer used a freshly baked cherry bomb to blow a hole in the maze.
"I'll jump in and take a look first." Aria looked towards the cave entrance. There was no sound of water except the hollow echo from the depths. There was nothing to hear.
"If you lose blood, I'll scream." She turned to look at Damian and smiled, "So you know to change the route."
"Don't do anything rash," Damian warned. "I can't confirm if there are any undercurrents or traps underwater. Let me first..."
"You're still a child."
"Don't worry!" Aria waved her hand and jumped into the cave entrance. "I can't die. Wait a moment--!"
There was a splash of water, and Aria disappeared into the cave.
…
To be honest, even though Damian had made up his mind, this situation still made him feel a little nervous - but he would rather call it excitement.
He knew the significance of Gotham's underground rivers—they had never been fully explored, and they might lead to Gotham Bay, or end in abandoned wire screens or deadly sewage treatment plants. Gotham was a mystery, and no one could claim to fully understand it.
He gritted his teeth and quickly jumped into the cave before the owl could close in. The icy water instantly enveloped him. He tried to open his eyes, but the murky water made it impossible to see anything. The sharp reefs and the suddenly accelerating undercurrent steadily drained his strength. Every bend was a choice—a matter of life and death.
His mother taught him from a young age that the blood of Al Ghul was born for victory, that no matter the odds, overwhelming success must be achieved. This belief, like a motto, sustained him through crisis after crisis, but Damian knew he needed more than just his family's motto. He also knew that the wrong choice could come at a deadly cost.
But it felt almost like traveling with his father—and this time he wasn't traveling alone.
Just when he felt that his chances of floating to the surface were getting smaller and smaller and the air in his lungs was about to run out, a faint light lit up in his sight, and then it became bigger and bigger - the water current sent him under the light.
"This way!" Aria, clinging to a rock to maintain her balance on the narrow landing spot, reached out and pulled Damian, who was being washed over, looking very happy. "You're finally here."
She went ashore first, then pulled him up. He was soaking wet, but Aria was completely dry. Damian noted another suspicious point, and then he heard the farmer, hands on his hips, looking at the flowing underground river before him, sighing, "So this is what a flush toilet looks like from a first-person perspective..."
"..." Damian didn't respond. He felt that this was not a good topic to answer.
He hurriedly lowered his head to check the extent of the damage to his equipment, then looked up and said, "Let's contact Batman first. I need updated intelligence."
As soon as he opened the communication channel, there were more than a dozen messages. When Damian saw that most of them were from Zero, he felt something was wrong.
Where are you, the normal you at the beginning? You escaped the school surveillance and climbed over the wall to leave - this violated the agreement between us. When you come back, maybe we need to have a deeper talk.
Skipping a few similar messages, he saw Damian, "I know you don't like asking for help, but this is not the time to fight alone. If you can get any message, please pass the signal, I'm looking for you."
Followed by R, immediately reply to your position report. Repeat, reply immediately. The current situation does not allow any loss of connection, your safety is the first priority.
Then came the automatic warning message sent by the Batcave system. He hadn't seen this kind of sign for a long time - it meant that the Batcave was being invaded.
The farmer felt Damian's aura suddenly change, as if a fire was rising from his chest, burning with anger mixed with pride.
Robin looked up at her and said, "Give me my katana."
"Batman needs me now."
The farmer exchanged weapons with him. As he was about to leave, Aria suddenly thought of something and said, "Next time I get a Radiance Ring, I'll give you one!"
It is everyone’s responsibility to protect the minors in Zuzu City!
…
Fortunately, Master Damian returned safely, which was the best news Alfred had heard today.
With the information brought back by the young master, they found the list from the captured Claw.
When the long list appeared on the Batcomputer, even the usually calm Alfred couldn't help but exclaim.
From City Hall to the courthouse, the list covered almost all the prominent figures in Gotham. The bright red names blurred into one as the list scrolled quickly, like the bloodstains left by people who were dragged to death.
The old man and Master Damian were currently mingling with the Claws in the Batcave, but the butler's work on deciphering the information couldn't stop. After sending the list, he took over the surveillance from all angles in Gotham, but the information he could get was too little.
It is now time to get off work, and many important officials have already left the office area to start their own private activities. At this moment, there are still twenty minutes before the Claws can take unified action - the Batcave has activated the signal shielding function, and these Claws who know that the information has been leaked will definitely not issue any warnings.
Facial recognition monitoring and screening is the easiest step in this series of operations, and the rest are a bit difficult.
"Sir, I'm afraid we don't have enough manpower." Perhaps this was the court's reasoning: killing an ordinary person only requires one claw, while protecting them requires a vigilante. This waste of resources meant that some places were bound to be beyond their reach.
The fighting was still raging over there, and under Batman's instructions, the Batcave's refrigeration system was operating. Batman was panting heavily, and Alfred was quite anxious. During a break in the fighting, he heard him say, "Notify Aria."
…
It seems that Batman and his team will soon wipe out the Court of Owls, making room for her brewing business.
The farmer thought so and happily walked out of the underground river channel and returned to the ground. He found the garbage piled up by the embankment more pleasing to the eye.
However, her good mood ended when she took out the Wayne Technology mobile phone that had been with her through many hardships.
Robin received a message from Batman, and she also received a message from Batman.
A quick look at the chat logs above shows that Aria is basically persistently posting cat photos, but the other party often doesn't even like them, which makes people doubt whether he has read them at all.
However, the latest and long-awaited news from Batman is:
Aria, I need your help. The Claw has drawn up a hit list for Gotham's top figures, and I need you and others to protect those threatened.
Sent ten minutes ago.
So, this is a time-limited mission?
Aria clicked on the list and took a quick look, but when she saw a familiar name appear on it, the farmer was stunned.
…
Faster, faster.
Aria was speeding down the street on a "borrowed" motorcycle, with the shrill horn blaring behind her like a death horn.
The sun had set in Gotham, and the wind was gradually becoming less comfortable.
She passed some people and overtook some cars. They had no idea what Aria was chasing or why she was in such a hurry, just as they had no idea how many people were being born in this world at that moment, and how many builders of Zuzu City would fall in conspiracy and blood soon - the whole game, or the whole world, always had a part that operated according to a logic that Aria could not understand.
She doesn't actually care about logic, she just cares about the people behind it.
Leaving the motorcycle casually downstairs, Aria rushed into Lincoln March's office building like the wind.
She didn't know how the Court of Owls decided the order of assassinations. If they were in alphabetical order, Lincoln March's initials would put him very far back, which would still give him enough time to salvage everything.
But if we go by the support for the construction of Zuzu City or Wayne's construction plan... Aria searched in her mind and felt that time was running out.
The elevator numbers ticked too slowly, so the farmer simply ran for the stairs. The stairs chased her, one step after another, and her footsteps pounded on them like a death-beating drum. This tense chase felt a lot like rushing to bed at 1:50, but the farmer knew it was different.
What she was chasing was no longer time, but people who could die at any time.
Arriving at the target floor, Aria stormed through the door without even taking a breath. Forget privacy at this point! Just grab Lincoln March and take him away. It would be best to hide the people on the list somewhere Claws can't find them.
"Lincoln!" The farmer was stunned by the scene in front of him after knocking down the office door with a pickaxe.
A pungent fishy smell came over like a thick fog, and the blood splattered on the wall and the scarlet smears on the floor foreshadowed what had happened here.
Lincoln March collapsed in a pool of blood, his chest rising and falling weakly, his breath barely moving, and he looked just a hair's breadth away from death. This was the first time she had seen a blood bar flash above the head of a friendly NPC, and his health was decreasing at an alarming rate.
"Lincoln!"
There was only a large area of horrible red in Aria's eyes. She rushed forward to help him and tentatively felt where his artery was - but her touch was cold.
Lincoln March had several throwing knives stuck in his back, with blood dripping down from the handles. He looked to be in grave danger.
However, the farmer did not give up.
"Lincoln, Lincoln March!" she called in his ear, patting his cheek to try to keep him awake. "Mr. March, you need to wake up now!"
Only when it wakes up can it eat the food, otherwise even the farmer will be helpless.
Lincoln March's eyelids twitched slightly, and his blue eyes, which had been stained with gray, lit up a little again when he saw her - but it had nothing to do with the desire to live. He did not struggle, nor did he feel the pain before death, as if he had already expected her arrival.
“…” He opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, but the farmer stuffed a carrot into his mouth first.
“…”
"Don't say anything yet," she said quickly and anxiously, "Your health is still dropping. First, give me a carrot that can add 35 health points to keep you hanging."
"I've called an ambulance, it'll be here soon, just hold on a little longer!"
Lincoln March smiled and shook his head. God knows how he managed to suppress the pain and show such an expression. Under the increasingly anxious urging of the farmer, Lincoln tilted his head back slightly, and with his other still-movable finger, he hooked the end of his turtleneck sweater and exposed the wound to her.
A shocking cut appeared, a flush horizontal cut running through his neck. The people from the Court of Owls seemed to want to teach him to keep silent forever, venting their anger on his throat with a sharp blade. His black turtleneck sweater was soaked with blood, but it was not easy to see from the outside.
As if to avoid scaring her, he only glanced at her before letting go and letting the clothes cover her again.
An unbearable chill ran up Aria's back, but Lincoln March held her hand to soothe any possible trembling - Lincoln March was still smiling, and he held the farmer's hand with a very weak force, not much lighter than a butterfly landing on it.
Seeing his lips moving as if he wanted to say something, Aria suppressed her sadness and moved closer to him. The closer she got, the more she felt that he was breathing in more than out.
"I, I thought... there was still more time." Lincoln March spoke each word as if stained with blood, and the ending tone was blurred due to the damage to his vocal cords. "Sometimes... I think, maybe in the future... I can be invited to your farm as a guest."
Lincoln March gasped for breath as he spoke. Aria, worried he'd leave with regrets, quickly said, "Don't worry. You won't be able to do farm work there."
The man spoke in the same style as always, and he smiled with a fishy smell. He placed a warm object in her palm.
It is difficult for a person with a wounded throat to continue speaking. Lincoln probably knew this himself. He dipped his blood and slowly wrote two letters on the back of Aria's hand.
"BW"
"I know," Aria's heart skipped a beat. This was the first time she had faced the death of a character in a game, and her mind was a little confused for a moment: "I'll give it to Bruce Wayne."
The little bit of strength he had managed to hold on to finally faded away during these few words, and his voice became lower and lower.
At the end, he seemed to have something else to say to her. Aria lowered her head to listen, and the corner of his lips gently touched her cheek - a kiss with the last warmth of Lincoln March's life fell on her cheek.
"Aria..." he said, "This city needs you... go save it."
Lincoln March was dead, and Thomas Wayne thought this was the best possible outcome for his skin.
His body was gently put down, and there was no extra expression on the farmer's face, but she wiped her face with the sleeve of her clothes when she walked out - even though there was nothing on her face.
…
"We're running out of time," Aria said calmly, having been temporarily transferred to the newly established communication channel. "It's best to gather the threatened personnel to a safe place as soon as possible."
"There's no safe place in Gotham," the voice sounded all too familiar, tinged with disdain. "If we put them all together and can't defend them, it'll just become a mass grave. That saves the effort of sweeping the graves."
"No," said the farmer, "I know a place that is absolutely safe."
————————
Rice was caught off guard and fell without a trace
Thomas Wayne Jr. happily arranged a touching and tearful exit scene for his identity (expressionless applause), which severely stimulated the friendship-minded farmer (tsk
Aria: Friend, why did one of my NPC friends die...
After knowing the truth, the farmer will probably let people know what an angry farmer is (looking up at the sky)
No one should feel sad for Brother Lincoln (probe)
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