The days of being a spiritual mentor in Meiman.

Chapter 4270 Heroes Strike! (Part Two)
Lord Batman was indeed very wary. He stood before the wall furthest from the grid, carefully examining the unidentified creature before him. He heard its voice, but in the current environment, it was hard to say whether it was a hallucination.

Looking around, they saw an endless snowfield, a completely desolate and cold desert. They were wearing the cold-weather gear of a research station, making them look like researchers. Just then, they encountered a wisp of gray, unidentified mist in the icy expanse, which seemed to be trying to communicate with them. It looked remarkably like the lamp on the front of an anglerfish's head.

“Okay, I’m not human, but there’s no rule that only humans can participate,” Gray Mist explained. “I’m really a player, not a monster generated by the map.”

"Why are you talking to him so much? Why don't you just turn into human form?" Greed asked.

"The question is, who do I become? Wouldn't it be even more terrifying to become you?"

"Uh……"

“Okay,” said Lord Batman, “who are your teammates?”

“You’ve hit the nail on the head,” Gray Mist said. “I do have a teammate, but I can’t tell you his name for some reasons I can’t explain. Just think of me as a monster.”

"What nonsense," Lord Superman muttered to himself in the room. He said, "Never mind that for now, let's try the combat system."

"Are you crazy?" Lord Batman said, but his tone remained calm. "Do I look like I could beat this thing in front of me?"

"Don't worry, the other side is definitely being restricted as well, so you might not necessarily lose. Besides, we're bound to have an encounter battle eventually, so it doesn't matter who the opponent is, right?"

Lord Batman sighed; he knew Lord Superman was determined to fight. He didn't care who he fought; it was all the same, it was just a game anyway.

So Lord Batman continued walking forward. Gray Mist, on the other hand, panicked a little and said, "Don't come any closer! Let's talk this out!"

Lord Batman wouldn't listen to him. Their squares soon merged. And the instant the two squares touched, Lord Batman's voice rang out.

"Oh, this battle isn't triggered; it can be started actively. It doesn't necessarily require the two of you to come into contact. Let me see..."

Just as Lord Superman chose to initiate the battle, Greed also received a notification. The entire screen turned into a red frame, and status bars appeared on both the left and right sides, except for the teammate in the very center.

On the left is the health bar, on the right is the mana bar, and in the middle is a row of cards.

These cards are actually the most complex; each one has a complete illustration and a lengthy description. The commanders on both sides tacitly refrained from taking any action, all focusing on examining the cards.

Greed glanced at the cards and saw that they were Gray Mist's skills, not normal attacks. It seemed he'd have to deal with normal attacks himself. He only drew three skills: "Factor Infiltration," "Symbiotic Strike," and "Nameless Mist."

The first skill, "Factor Infiltration," is a support skill described as follows: "The mist is omnipresent. By consuming the opponent's cells, it devours one of the opponent's cards and stores it in the factor. When the opponent uses a skill of the same type later, they will suffer continuous damage from the lurking factor."

The second skill, "Symbiotic Strike," is relatively simple; it's an attack skill: "The mist transforms into the most powerful fist, delivering a big blow to the opponent. It consists of three attacks. The damage of each attack is increased by 10%/35%/70% respectively. If all three attacks hit, the opponent will be stunned."

The third skill is the most complex, and it's clearly the core skill of the Gray Mist. The description of "Nameless Mist" is: "The true identity of the mist. Consume all remaining Spirit Points and Action Points to release the Gray Mist into a nameless entity. Upon release, deduct 60% of the Spirit Points of all opponents in the combat area and freeze two Action Points."

Transform 'Facing Fear' into 'Confronting the Outer God': Confront the Outer God, your mind trembles. All attack-type cards in your hand are transformed into 'Fear'. Each time a Fear card is played, deduct 10% of your current Spirit and freeze one action point. If you are in the Fear state and your Spirit reaches zero, trigger 'What is that?'. Increase damage taken from attacks by 200%, increase environmental damage taken by 300%, and cannot deal damage to any neutral creatures.

Transform 'Symbiotic Strike' into 'Facing the Nightmare': Midnight nightmares, terrifying terror. The nameless mist inflicts a three-stage mixed strike on the opponent. The attack attribute is determined by the opponent's lowest stat. Each strike deals increased damage. If all three strikes hit, the two targets swap positions.

After reading the skill descriptions, Greedy understood: this battle would definitely be a clash of overpowered monsters with various stats. Since Nameless Mist has appeared, for the sake of balance, the others won't be weak either.

However, he soon saw the passive skill in the information bar on the left side of the screen.

Gray Mist: "It has form but no substance. Its mist-like body makes it immune to all ordinary attacks, but it appears in any location on the field by default and is not limited by the opponent's attack range when attacked."

Greed slapped his forehead. He knew it; how could something this strong be without limitations? This was a strategy game, and mastering attack range was paramount. But the gray fog defaulted to covering the entire combat area; you could hit him from any tile. What was the point of playing?
But thinking about it, it makes sense. If there were no weaknesses, wouldn't anyone who came near him be doomed once the Nameless Mist state was activated? The passive ability to have a large default hit range isn't entirely without reason. After all, the gray mist is indeed very vast, and if he wanted to show himself and cause trouble, he would be easily discovered.

On the other side, Lord Superman had already started playing his cards. He first used Batman's "Detective Insight" skill, which allowed him to see his opponent's passive effects and the types of cards in their hand. Upon seeing this passive effect, Lord Superman understood: this strangely shaped thing must be very strong, otherwise it wouldn't have such a purely negative passive effect.

"Don't hit him," Lord Superman said. "He's immune to normal attacks, just use your skills."

Gray Mist was still asking Greed about his skills when he saw three darts coming towards him. He quickly dodged to the side, but was still hit.

"What's going on?" Gray Mist said. "He clearly didn't hit me."

"Your model is set to cover the entire field by default, and it has nothing to do with your current appearance. Let's try out the Power Strike skill first and see how to hit these three parts."

After saying that, Greed played his card. The gray mist transformed into a giant fist in mid-air and smashed towards Lord Batman. Lord Batman tried to dodge, but there was a wall behind him. The two of them had merged into a combat zone, which was only about 200 square meters in total, leaving little room for maneuver.

Fortunately, Lord Superman reacted quickly, clicking on the next square to unlock the combat area with a single action point. Lord Batman should have narrowly dodged, but the gray mist accelerated through the air and still landed a punch on him.

After hitting him, he transformed his fist into a palm and struck down again. This time, Lord Batman rolled away to dodge, but the third strike transformed into a sharp spike, suddenly changing from an extremely conspicuous huge shape into an inconspicuous sword, which was about to shoot towards Lord Batman's chest.

Lord Superman plays another card: "Absolute Evasion": "Attempt to dodge the next attack by using Batman's invincible roll. The more action points you have, the greater your chance of dodging. If you successfully dodge, you gain +2 action points."

Lord Batman rolled, and the arrow grazed his scalp. Gray Mist seemed shocked, shouting into his headset to Greed, "He shouldn't have dodged! This doesn't make sense!"

“Because he’s Batman,” Greed said. “He’s someone who can dodge even Omega beams. You think you can hit him?”

Just then, Greed noticed that Gray Mist had a negative status effect called "Insight." This was probably another of Lord Batman's skills. He clicked on the negative status effect and found that it was similar to Vulnerability, but when you receive physical damage, you also receive the same mental damage, and vice versa.

Greed has discovered that this game has two health bars, a red bar and a blue bar, and it seems that if either one reaches zero, something terrible will happen. So, it's not only important to preserve health, but also to preserve sanity.

Gray Mist is clearly a mana-draining class, with almost all of its skills depleting mana, while Lord Batman seems to be a hybrid damage dealer, which is the most troublesome.

Lord Batman started throwing darts again, and because of the gray fog, it was impossible to dodge them. Not only was its health dropping rapidly, but its mana bar was also decreasing. Greed thought: "Don't let me drop to the bottom, or I'll really activate Nameless Fog."

Greed was still reluctant to reveal Graymist's true identity. Humans were extremely wary of Outer Gods, and someone like Batman would never believe in benevolent Outer Gods. Although there were indeed no benevolent Outer Gods besides Graymist, Greed didn't want Graymist to be ostracized because of it.

Greed immediately used another factor to infiltrate. This skill appears to steal cards from the hand, but it's actually equivalent to applying Bleed. Greed knew without even looking that Lord Superman would have the most attack cards. As expected, the skill stole a "Batman's Belt": it can be switched to various tools, and consecutive uses of the same tool increase damage by 20%.

It seems the dart was thrown using this skill. After activating the infiltration ability, Lord Superman threw another dart, only to find himself losing health, which left him somewhat confused.

"Is this a rebound damage?" Lord Superman asked.

“No,” Lord Batman shook his head and said, “Didn’t you say he stole a card? He probably marked that card, and if you use it, I’ll lose health. Why don’t you try some other cards?”

Just then, Gray Mist unleashed another triple attack. He used an evasion card and found everything was normal; Lord Batman hadn't lost any health. Lord Superman sighed helplessly and said, "Why did they have to steal that card?"

At this moment, Lord Superman's hand was empty. He clicked on "Next Turn," only to find a countdown timer, meaning he couldn't unilaterally end his turn until his opponent finished playing.

Greed hesitated for a moment and did not use the Nameless Mist card, and the two sides entered the next round.

However, upon entering the next round, the red and blue bars, as well as action points, were not replenished. This made Lord Superman immediately realize that they couldn't afford to play a stalling tactic. Lord Batman's skill set was based on increasing action points; although a successful dodge would restore points, if they failed to replenish them, they would be trapped in place after the battle, unable to move.

Greed also noticed that in only the second round, the screen displayed "Cold," followed by a parenthesis that said "Will turn into 'Hypothermia' in two rounds." This didn't sound like a good thing; staying put and fighting would only result in mutual destruction.

It seems this dungeon has an exploration mechanism, and it's relatively encouraging of exploration. Greed breathed a sigh of relief; Gray Mist's ability to ignore attack range and take damage was really too difficult to deal with. Lord Batman's three darts took away half of his health, and his sanity points dropped significantly.

Greedy can't help but ask: Is it reasonable for Batman to cause the Outer God to lose his sanity?