American comic book: After mastering resurrection, I became incredibly popular.

Of course, if that were all, it wouldn't be too difficult to deal with.

The real problem is that this guy is ridiculously thick-skinned, and he knows Gotham's sewers as well as a farmer knows his vegetable garden. Fighting him in this place? It's like wrestling with a shark in a swimming pool.

Are you sure it's him?

"I'm not sure, but his territory should be near the sewage treatment plant."

“Maybe the new tenants kicked him out,” Wang Baixi said softly, “like that muscleman who killed Bruce.”

“Bane certainly has the ability to kick any Gotham villain out of his territory,” Tim acknowledged the reasoning. “But if Dick really did fight Killer Croc, then things become more complicated. We need to find more clues as soon as possible.”

At that moment, Cassandra emerged silently from the darkness. She quickly made a series of gestures in sign language, then pointed to the wall on the left side of the passage.

Tim immediately went over to check, and Wang Baixi followed.

Cassandra discovered a set of fresh scratches, fanned out on the wall, as if a giant claw had left five lines about eight or nine centimeters long.

There are some dark spots next to the scratches, and if you shine a flashlight on them up close, you can see that they are slightly reflective.

“Bloodstains,” Tim said, taking a palm-sized testing device from his backpack and scanning the wall. “They haven’t completely congealed yet, which means the injured person left here no more than two hours ago. But this isn’t human blood; human blood isn’t that viscous.”

"Ah, what a damn cold-blooded animal," Wang Baixi thought, stroking his chin. "As long as it's not Dick's blood, you think he was injured in the fight, Tim?"

"Very likely. Killer Croc's skin is thick, but it's not made of steel. Judging from this alone, it seems he had a conflict with Dick."

After Tim put away the testing equipment, he stood up and shone his flashlight into the depths of the passage. The light source formed a beam in the darkness, and a blurry reddish-brown mark could be vaguely seen on the wall, extending into the depths of the passage.

"There's blood!" Tim used his flashlight to trace the red trail on the wall and quickened his pace. "It's most likely left by Killer Croc. If we can track Killer Croc down, we might be able to find where they were fighting."

However, before he could finish speaking, Cassandra had already run off along the trail of blood.

Wang Baixi and Tim ran behind for about two hundred meters before the passage began to change noticeably.

The original red brick walls were gradually replaced by exposed limestone layers, and the cement floor underfoot disappeared, replaced by pitted wet mud and gravel.

The group had emerged from the Wayne family's smuggling route during Prohibition and entered Gotham's naturally formed network of caves beneath the city.

The space suddenly opened up.

The rock face above them was adorned with stalactites of various shapes, and the stalagmites on the ground resembled sharp teeth growing out of the soil.

However, the humid air was filled with a strong stench of decay, forcing Wang Baixi to press his sleeve even harder against his nose.

“Relax, Gotham’s geology is unique. These caves were formed naturally and have been expanded many times by humans,” Tim explained as they walked. “During Prohibition, smugglers used them as cargo transfer points. During World War II, they were converted into air defense facilities, and during the Cold War, they became nuclear shelters. Now, these caves are divided up by Gotham’s homeless, mutated monsters, and supervillains. You never know what you’ll run into around the next corner.”

“Thank you, Tim,” Wang Baixi said in an almost tragic tone, “This makes me feel much better.”

At least he knew he was playing a difficult dungeon.

At this moment, Cassandra suddenly stopped again.

She stopped at a fork in the road in the cave, turned around to face the two of them, and quickly made a gesture that Wang Baixi couldn't understand at all.

Tim's expression immediately turned serious.

"Your Majesty, let's go quickly!!"

Chapter Seventeen: The Little Crocodile Loves to Run Away

Tim strode over to Cassandra and shone his flashlight toward the left side of the fork in the road. The beam first stopped behind a protruding rock, then fell on a massive creature lying on the ground.

What is this?

The last time Wang Baixi saw something that big was in the reptile house at the zoo!

But lying behind the rock was a humanoid creature over two and a half meters long, covered in dark green scales, with a row of bone spikes on its back that stretched from its neck to the base of its tail; its mouth was full of sharp teeth, which could be seen protruding from the edges of its lips even with its eyes closed.

On his back, there were seven deep wounds that exposed the bone.

It really is a killer crocodile!

A voice exploded in Wang Baixi's mind.

[High-level undead aura detected!]

[Experience points +160]

Current experience points: 262/800

"Could it be that experience points are calculated based on tonnage...?" Wang Baixi said speechlessly, only then realizing what the death of the killer crocodile pointed to.

"Holy crap, Nightwing did this?"

“Impossible,” Tim said, already crouching beside the body and beginning his examination. The beam of his flashlight moved from the wounds to Killer Croc’s neck, then from the bruises on his arm to the bloodstains on the ground. “Nightwing’s weapons aren’t like this. These wounds… so smooth, so deep…”

Tim stood up and returned to the group with a solemn expression, while Cassandra stared intently at the corpse.

"He's dead, I'm pretty sure of it."

“I’m pretty sure he’s dead,” Wang Baixi echoed.

“But he definitely didn’t die on the spot.” Tim glanced again at the bloodstains around him, enough to form a path. “Killer Crocodile must have moved a distance before he died. There are bloodstains all the way from the passage ahead. This means that their battle should have started as soon as Killer Crocodile entered the underground passage and continued until Killer Crocodile was killed. In the end, he managed to crawl back, but he died halfway back.”

"...The question is, when did he die?"

If the time since death exceeds five hours, it could indicate a connection to Nightwing, but what if it isn't?

Wang Baixi suddenly had an idea.

"Tim, you also have no way of knowing when Killer Croc died?"

“I can’t make a precise judgment, but there are some detection devices in the bat cave…” Tim said, taking out his communication device to try to contact Alfred.

Unfortunately, the signal couldn't be transmitted at all.

Watching him repeatedly fiddling with the high-tech device, Wang Baixi asked again, "So, do you think Killer Croc is human or non-human?"

Tim's finger stopped on the button on the device, and he looked up at Wang Baixi.

"Hmm...why do you ask that? From a biological point of view, killer crocodiles are already far from humans, but very close to crocodiles."

But then Wang Baixi started making things up.

"My teacher taught me how to resurrect non-human creatures. If I succeed, we can ask him a few questions. If he's disobedient after waking up, you two are responsible for knocking him out."

"It's worth mentioning that my spell is only effective against non-human creatures that have died within three hours, which means that if my spell succeeds..."

"This shows that things are far more complicated than we thought."

Fortunately, six hours have passed, and his mana has recovered a little, enough for him to use 'Instant Recovery' twice.

Tim glanced at him, a grim smile on his face. "Fine, I believe you, Your Majesty. But how many times have you used this spell?"

"Including this time, that's seventy-one times." Wang Baixi held up two fingers seriously. "Last time, I cast a spell on a cockroach seventy times, and I succeeded every time."

Tim looked at Wang Baixi speechlessly, while Cassandra made a few gestures in sign language.

"What is this girl saying?" Wang Baixi asked.

Tim glanced at her and translated for him, "She asked you why you killed a cockroach seventy times."

"This is scientific research, you wouldn't understand! Alright, I'm going to begin. Don't be alarmed by anything that happens later, after all, I'm a necromancer, resurrecting a nine-foot crocodile is within my scope of business."

Immediately, he frowned, shielded Tim and Cassandra in front of him, and then cast a spell.

[Deathrattle triggered]

[Experience points +5!]

"Ouch! That hurts!"

In the killer crocodile's dying consciousness, Wang Baixi saw three blurry figures and a falcon that kept attacking the killer crocodile.

Could this be a weapon of the Court of Owls?

In any case, at least the system has classified the Killer Croc as a non-human creature.

Then, he could activate [Instant Recovery].

[Immediate Recovery Activated]

Current mana: 0.5/35

Half a unit of mana flowed out of his body once again, but this time, the atmosphere around him was clearly different.

The air in the cave seemed to freeze for this mysterious ritual, and even the damp rock walls and gravel floor seemed to darken by a shade.

Then, the seven gruesome wounds on the killer crocodile's back began to heal at a visible speed, as if someone had erased the scars from the skin with an eraser...

The killer crocodile's cells are regrowth...

The tissue fluid is reabsorbed into the body...

Even the black scabs that had congealed at the edges of the wound crumbled into powder...

Finally, the killer crocodile opened its eyes.

"Roar!!!"

The crocodile has come back to life, now enraged and ferocious.

Wang Baixi felt his eardrums buzzing and instinctively jumped back, only to trip on a stalagmite and land squarely on his bottom.

Killer Croc flipped itself up, its movements so fast they were completely disproportionate to its size.

The killer crocodile landed on all fours, its spines erect, and then its tail lashed out in an arc, snapping a stalagmite as thick as an arm in half.

Tim then pulled out two short sticks, which made a crisp sound as they unfolded.

Cassandra, of course, did not retreat. She stood still, her center of gravity slightly lowered, her hands hanging naturally at her sides. In her eyes, the mutated crocodile man was merely a large orange cat blocking her way.

“With the two of you here, I feel really safe…” Wang Baixi’s heart tightened, but he still stood up.

Killer Croc's vertical pupils swept over the three of them, a series of low gurgling sounds emanating from his throat. He sniffed the air twice through his nostrils, and then…

His tail stopped wagging.

Suddenly, an emotion that Wang Baixi had never seen on the face of a reptile welled up in those vertical pupils.

It is fear.

The killer crocodile took a half step back. Its massive claw sank into the stagnant water behind it, splashing up a spray, and finally roared: