The days of being a spiritual mentor in Meiman.

Chapter 4421 Dark Prelude (Part Six)
Victor flew down, and Dr. Stone showed a surprised, or rather, panicked expression the moment he saw him.

"What are you doing?" Victor asked, suppressing his anger. "What did you do to Mother?!"

“Victor, let me explain.” Dr. Stone quickly calmed down and said, “But I need to know first, besides you, who else knows you’re here.”

Victor really wanted to curse, but he managed to maintain his composure and gritted his teeth, saying, "Bruce helped me find you."

Dr. Stone immediately pursed his lips, seemingly very dissatisfied with the answer. He said, "Call him now and tell him I'm fine, it's all a misunderstanding. Otherwise, I won't tell you anything."

Victor looked at him in disbelief. Dr. Stone stepped forward and said, “Listen, Victor. I’ve never done anything outrageous in my life, but they started it. I was just… I was just trying to fix the mistake.”

Victor had a vague feeling that something was wrong. He stared intently at Dr. Stone and said, "What exactly did you do?"

"Message Bruce Wayne first."

Victor took two steps back and said, "That's not how it is. Do you remember you taught me not to lie?"

“Yes, I know. But this time is an exception.” Dr. Stone said, spreading his hands. “Your mother is always the exception, isn’t she?”

When his mother was mentioned, Victor finally broke down. He punched a tree next to him, his whole body trembling.

“Victor, believe me. My love for her is no less than yours. It’s all for her…”

Victor looked at Dr. Stone, noticing his solemn expression and the utter sincerity in it. He squeezed his eyes shut, took out his phone, and, worried that his tone might give him away, simply sent a message to Bruce.

He explained that his father missed his mother so much that he did something so extreme. After his persuasion, everything was alright.

After explaining, he continued to stare at Dr. Stone. Dr. Stone let out a long sigh, his shoulders relaxed, and then he led Victor into the laboratory.

The moment the door opened, Victor was completely stunned. His mother was lying in a culture tank filled with solution—not a skeleton, not a projection, but his living mother.

"This...this..."

Victor was speechless for a moment. He said, "How is this possible?! Mom clearly..."

He had already recalled the specific details of the car accident. He remembered that his mother, who was sitting in the driver's seat, had suffered a severe impact, and her body was mangled beyond recognition. It was only after a mortician was called in that they managed to stitch her back together. When he was viewing her remains, he couldn't bear to look at them.

But now, the mother submerged in the culture jar was perfectly intact, with no stitches or wounds on her body. Except for her closed eyes, she looked incredibly alive. So much so that Victor uncontrollably walked over and placed his hand on the surface of the culture jar, as if wanting to touch his mother's face.

“What on earth is going on?” Victor asked. “How is this possible…”

He turned to Dr. Stone and asked, "What did you do?"

Dr. Stone shook his head, walked to the culture tank, and said, "You won't believe it, but it was your mother who asked me to rescue her."

"what?!"

“On Christmas Eve, I received a text message from her. She said it was very dark there and she wanted to spend Christmas with us…”

Victor stared at his father in disbelief, as if he were a madman. He certainly didn't believe such nonsense, but his mother was there unharmed, leaving him no choice but to believe.

He looked up at the culture jar again. His mother's expression seemed to have changed. Victor peered inside and discovered that the figure inside the jar appeared to be breathing.

“I don’t know how this happened either, maybe it’s a miracle. But your mother has come back to life.” Dr. Stone looked at Victor and said, “I don’t want to know how she came back to life, I just want her to be alive. She has to be alive, do you understand?!”

Dr. Stone was visibly losing control of his emotions. Victor's bad premonition had come true, but a voice inside him told him that his father was right.

His mother's death wasn't an accident, but a conspiracy orchestrated by those damned bastards. His family had done nothing wrong, yet they suffered the most tragic end. It shouldn't have been like this. This should never have happened. The world owes them this.

The sound grew louder and louder, and Victor was almost out of control. He stared straight at his mother's face, thinking, just this once. He just wanted to hear his mother say one more word, really just this once.

Victor took a deep breath and said, "So what's going on now?"

“Your mother has indeed come back to life. But right now, the energy in her body is not enough to support her activities. We need to replenish her nutrition, and then she will be able to communicate with us.”

How much energy is needed?

“No, we can’t use the mother box to transfer directly,” Dr. Stone said, shaking his head. “That’s too harsh; she won’t be able to handle it. But you could charge the nutrient solution; that might be faster.”

“However, you have an even more important task,” Dr. Stone said, looking at Victor. “Don’t let the Justice League know about this; they won’t agree to it.”

"why?"

"The idea of ​​someone coming back from the dead is too horrifying. And I think you should know that there's bound to be a price to pay. I swear, I'll take care of everything. Don't let anyone know."

Victor's ominous premonition grew stronger, but he truly couldn't resist the temptation to see his mother again. So he nodded and said, "I'll try my best to keep it a secret, but I'm not sure if I can keep it from Bruce. He's just too..."

“Try to see him as little as possible,” Dr. Stone said. “We’ll just stay here and wait for your mother to wake up. It won’t be long.”

After Victor left, Bruce kept tracking his signal. But the signal soon disappeared, and he realized that the other party might have entered the Red Room base.

Shortly after, he received a text message from Victor. But after reading it, Bruce frowned. He knew things weren't that simple. Just then, Ron sent a communication request.

"Bruce, didn't you want to learn more about Martian culture? I remember there's an underground library in the east of the city; it's the archives of Martian City. Would you like to come with me?"

"No, Rong En, you go ahead. I have some things to take care of here."

After hanging up the phone, Bruce felt something was off. Ron had mentioned before that his home was in the east of the city. Ron had previously been very reluctant to enter Mars City, and although he had gotten a little better, he still didn't want to go to the east of the city; every blade of grass and every tree there would evoke memories for him.

But this time, he actually suggested going to the east of the city to check. Even though it was the underground library, which might not be in the same place as his home, it was still not quite normal.

Bruce discovered from the logs sent back by the Mars spaceship that Ron went there immediately after hanging up the phone, and unlike before, he didn't lock onto the city center, but landed directly in the east of the city. This is getting stranger and stranger.

Bruce sighed. He left the Batcave, went upstairs, and sat on the sofa to ponder. Perhaps things were as he and Schiller had deduced, but it still happened too fast, somewhat unexpectedly.

He took out his phone and sent a message. Schiller quickly pushed open the manor gate, looked at Bruce, and said, "You're really here, aren't you?"

"Yes, and they must have come during the Steppenwolves' invasion. But it's really strange. I can't be sure..."

“Let’s wait and see,” Schiller said. “He’s not only capable of this. You made such a big splash in the Steppenwolf incident, he’ll definitely come after you.”

"That's exactly what I was worried about. Perhaps..."

The phone rang suddenly, startling even Bruce. He turned sharply to look at the landline phone at the bottom of the stairs; with the widespread use of cell phones, hardly anyone would make that call anymore.

Bruce stood up and walked towards the phone. But instead of answering it immediately, he reached out and unplugged the phone.

This left Schiller completely stunned. Bruce was the kind of person ghosts in horror movies are most afraid of encountering. He hadn't even considered using his abilities in the cultist scenario; otherwise, it's questionable whether those cultists would have survived until the main storyline was finished.

However, this method was indeed very effective. Even after unplugging the phone line, the phone continued to ring. This meant the call was anything but ordinary. Bruce went straight back to the Batcave, put on the Hellbat Armor, then covered the phone with a cover made of some unknown material and took it into the Batcave.

Then he placed the phone from the cover onto a device. The reading began to change. Schiller looked at the reading and said, "This looks familiar."

He opened the interface of the Battle Realm, found the monitoring data on dark energy that Batman from the main universe had sent him, and looked at the several identical numbers. Schiller smiled: "Got you."

Only after recording all the readings did Bruce carefully move the phone to the lab table next to him, remove the cover, pick up the receiver, and say in a low voice, "Hello?"

"Hello? Bruce?"

Schiller noticed Bruce pause visibly, so he walked over to him. He heard a rather childish voice coming from the phone receiver.

"It's me. How are you? How many Christmases have you celebrated since I died?"

“Damian,” Bruce called out his name, “Where are you?”

"You know that. Come find me."

Then the call was disconnected. Schiller looked at Bruce with some concern and said, "You should know this is a conspiracy, right?"

“Yes, I know,” Bruce said, “but I still have to go.”

“You…” Schiller said hesitantly, “I know you’re very confident, and you think you’re absolutely immune to being swayed. But things might not be that simple. Humans often don’t have as much control over their emotions as they imagine…”

“Since he’s already come to me, he won’t give up unless I show my face. Besides, we have to go and see what this so-called resurrection is all about.”

"Since he dared to do this, he must be absolutely certain; it's probably not just about manipulating corpses. What if the other party really inherited Damian's memories and emotions?"

Bruce glanced back at Schiller as he walked out, then said, "You know better than I do, don't you?"

Schiller simply watched Bruce's figure disappear. He didn't try to stop him, because he knew that whatever Damian wanted to do upon his return, he was too late—Batman had returned from the darkness, and the world had a new sun.