MC Creative Mode: Wholesale Perpetual Motion Machine

Chapter 266 Breaking the Storyboard
drop by drop...

Suddenly, a rapid alarm sounded in his ears, and Batman's face, hidden beneath his mask, instantly darkened.

'Watchtower system lost connection'

'Mother box system lost connection'

'Magic communication lost'

Just as the Griffin armor was torn apart, the device implanted under Batman's skin automatically sent a distress signal to his Justice League comrades. However, the three alarms that sounded in his headset left him in disbelief.

The Watchtower Communication System is the primary communication method used by the Justice League. It incorporates a variety of advanced technologies and possesses faster-than-light quantum communication capabilities.

The communication device is implanted under the skin, enabling Justice League members to provide almost instantaneous feedback within the solar system. Even if members are in parallel universes, hell, or other alternate dimensions, the signal is only interfered with, and communication can be restored with slight adjustments or signal enhancement.

In the most critical situations, Mother Box technology from Apokolips, originating from the New Gods, serves as a communication relay station, enabling communication to be completed in almost any corner of the multiverse.

But now, not only have the first two failed, but even the magic communication system, which is used the least normally, has lost all signal.

"How did you do that?!" Batman asked in a deep voice. He didn't know what the boy was going to do next, but he would try to stall for time with words.

The loss of contact with the three major communication systems not only means that he has temporarily lost contact with the Justice League, but also that the League has already discovered his disappearance.

Once Superman and The Flash discover the anomaly, they will rush to the scene as quickly as possible to check the situation, while Cyborg and the other members will also cross space through the blast portal to get there as soon as possible.

No matter which alternate dimension he is in, his Justice League comrades will try their best to re-establish contact with him.

Presumably, at this very moment, Superman and the Flash, the fastest of the three, have already begun scouting the area where they disappeared and are heading to the Justice League's watchtower base in outer space to overload the transmission system and increase the strength of the communication signal.

"Oh? What did I do?"

Batman coldly pressed, "Stop pretending. What exactly is your plan? If you didn't have a plan, you couldn't possibly cut off all of our Justice League's communications at the same time."

"What do you want to do to the Justice League?!"

"What nonsense," Fang Zheng shook his head and said, "It's just that some guy from your world forcibly skipped the scene just now, so I simply forcibly inserted myself into the scene."

Fang Zheng explained to him that a certain force within this worldview had been targeting him since his recent appearance, attempting to alter his essence, but to no avail.

Since it could not change the square itself, the power simply changed things outside of the square.

This is just like the old Founder. The blocky figures of the past had no intermediate process when they thought; they only continuously output answers. That non-existent thought process existed only in the "unknown".

The strange "skipped scene" that Fangzheng encountered didn't even have a "preconceived notion" thought process. It was like film editing, cutting a part of what seemed like a continuous film and connecting two segments of images that had no beginning or end.

Of course, just as there are breaks and no intermediate processes between Planck scales, the same person in two discontinuous films cannot perceive this change. From his own perspective, everything he experiences is continuous, and there is no change in the scene being cut off from the beginning.

Only an entity like Founder, capable of directly intervening in all processes existing "in the darkness," can notice this change that directly connects broken cause and effect, even though the processes "in the darkness" do not exist.

Thus, in this process of "skipping scenes," the unchangeable square itself is like being forcibly inserted in the middle of two discontinuous film strips, occupying a blank space, which is why it appears as motionless as a statue.

"Insert scene, is that it?" Batman fell silent and used the detection device on his armor to look out. Sure enough, he found that outside the spherical area with a radius of more than 30 meters centered on the boy in front of him, there was only emptiness.

If what the boy said is true, then he is not in some other dimension at this moment, but exists in a "process" that should not exist.

Everything outside of him is nonexistent, so communication is impossible. Only after the "process" and the inserted scene created by the boy are connected to the real world can he contact his Justice League partners.

"So, if you didn't plan this, why would you do something like this?" Batman was still somewhat incredulous.

Fang Zheng replied, "Oh, didn't you ask me a question? I was too lazy to be disturbed by the skipped scenes, so I did this."

Fang Zheng asked curiously, "Seriously, it's just that a few hundred bad guys were killed, and no good people were killed. Is it really necessary for you to make such a fuss?"

Batman's anger flared up again: "What the hell are you talking about! Even if you could really follow cause and effect and use your curse abilities to kill hundreds of people in an entire crime chain, it's impossible for everyone to deserve to die!"

"Huh? When did I say I used my curse ability to kill an entire criminal chain?" Fang Zheng tilted his head and pointed to the room next to him, which was full of human organs, bones and leather.

"I just killed the people in this room. The causal connections are too scattered and too broken. I just killed all the guys in this room."

Fang Zheng pointed to his face and said, "My essence can completely rewrite the whole, but it's a little troublesome for me to interfere with completely scattered, or rather, unrelated, cause-and-effect relationships. My human values ​​and memories, while not limiting my abilities, will make my actions more in line with human habits." "What did you say?"

Fang Zheng shook his head and said, "Speaking of which, your world is really quite strange and wonderful."

He then pointed to the side, and Batman looked in that direction. He saw a long alleyway stretching out inexplicably, extending endlessly into the void, with no end in sight and no idea where it led.

"They keep skipping scenes, not only is there no intermediate time, but the intermediate space and scene don't even exist." As he spoke, Fang Zheng dragged his tattered Griffin armor with one hand and walked towards the alley in the void.

With one step, the seemingly endless alley was traversed, and Batman saw the street across the alley where a light drizzle was falling.

With a flick of his wrist, Fang Zheng threw Batman out of the Griffin armor and onto the filthy ground.

Then, he watched as the boy walked to the entrance of the alley and gently tapped the air with his hand.

In the seemingly unobstructed air, a ripple of vibration inexplicably appeared, as if an invisible barrier was forcibly blocking the boy from passing through. "I feel like this is a panel from a comic book."

Batman frowned even more deeply.

Fang Zheng asked, "Would you like to give it a try?"

Batman hesitated for a moment, then stood up and tentatively walked out of the alley.

However, unlike Fang Zheng, he encountered no obstacles and walked out of the alley smoothly.

"Why can I... Hmm? Where did he go?" Stepping out of the alley and standing on the street, Batman turned around, only to see an empty alley without a soul in sight. "Was he blocked on the other side?"

Batman tentatively entered the alley again, but still did not see the boy who should have been standing there.

The rain was getting heavier. Batman looked up at the leaden sky, and the soft ticking sound in his headphones told him that his communication with the Justice League had been restored.

However, the system error message that followed confirmed to him that the communication between the Justice League and Batman had indeed never been interrupted, but the communication between Batman and the Justice League had been interrupted for nearly three minutes of subjective time.

It's as if Batman just got three minutes of personal time.

"There are hundreds of criminals in just one room, is that right..." The rain lashed his cheeks as he looked at the familiar streets around him and at the fearful and malicious eyes peeking through the windows. Batman fell silent, lost in thought.

"Hey," Fang Zheng, who was standing to the side, greeted him, startling Batman.

"You! Weren't you blocked on the other side, which doesn't even exist?"

Fang Zheng shrugged: "What's so strange about that? I'll create the middle scene and then insert it for you, and you'll be able to come over. Oh, by the way, I can come over, but the original you couldn't, so I just gave you a hand."

"What did you say?" Batman turned around abruptly, and as a flash of lightning streaked across the sky, he saw a figure standing at the alley entrance, exactly like himself, as if looking in a mirror.

Two identical Batmen hesitated, then reached out and touched each other as if looking in a mirror. As a result, they overlapped like phantoms, indistinguishable from one another.

Batman clenched his fist, but found nothing unusual about his body. He only noticed two conflicting images appearing in his mind.

In one image, you are standing on a street looking down into an alley; in another, the image is exactly the opposite. Other than that, there is no difference.

Recalling the boy's words, Batman asked incredulously, "Could it be that your ability is to bring things from another universe, similar to the Planck timeline, into this timeline? To bring me from the previous moment into this moment?"

“Well, you can understand it that way, but the you from the previous storyboard is still there.” As he spoke, Fang Zheng reached out and grabbed at the alley entrance, and cracks shimmering with a strange light appeared in the air.

Two identical, square hands emerge from one frame of the "storyboard" and clasp together.

The glowing cracks continued to expand outwards from the two hands.

As the strange crack spread, Batman saw another version of himself appear at the alleyway, exactly like him, maintaining the same posture as before. But it was fleeting, and all that remained in his mind was another perspective.

The process that was not present in the two "storyboard shots" was filled in.

"You probably understand now, right?" Fang Zheng asked casually. "Then goodbye again."

"I'm leaving again, so don't follow me."

(End of this chapter)