Chapter 1 The Beginning

A few minutes earlier...

As the rolling shutter door slowly descended, Feng Bujue stood up from behind the counter. At this point, he had already set up call forwarding, so that if Clapton outside were to dial the landline on the bank counter again, it would be transferred to the phone in his hand. Of course, the phone's ringing mode had been set to vibrate, and he had also confirmed that the number was not bound to a ring-back tone.

The time could naturally be seen in the bank lobby. Feng Bujue glanced at the electronic clock on the wall and muttered, "It will take them at least seven or eight minutes to get the general situation out of the hostage's mouth..." He took the key and the door card (which he had asked the manager for) and went through the door behind the counter to the surveillance room, where he turned off all the surveillance cameras.

Just now, in the few minutes after the hostages' heads had been covered, but before the police had called, Feng Bujue took the opportunity to take a turn around the bank to roughly survey the structure of the building. He knew very well that there were only three ways to get out: first, the main entrance; second, the ventilation ducts; and third, the windows of the four or five offices facing the street.

Feng Bujue wasn't clear about the police deployment outside; he could only rely on speculation.

First of all, there must be someone outside the main entrance. Even if the impact of the cash bomb was still there, he couldn't walk out brazenly.

Secondly, the windows facing the street were most likely being watched. Even if there were fewer police there than at the main entrance, he would still have to use pipe tongs to break the protective bars outside the windows in order to escape. Whether in terms of time or concealment, escaping from there would be very difficult.

Finally, there was the option of the ventilation ducts.

Feng Bujue wouldn't take any chances. He firmly believed that with his luck, and the intelligence of the Gotham City Police Department, there would definitely be someone watching outside the exit of these ventilation ducts. After he crawled out, the situation he would encounter would be nothing more than two possibilities: first, being caught by the police who had been lying in ambush nearby; second, falling into the sights of one or more snipers in the distance.

"After some questioning, Clapton will know that there is only me in the bank, and there are no more hostages. At this time, he will either send people to attack without saying hello, or he will talk to me and ask me to surrender." Feng Bujue deduced the development of the situation in his heart. "If they attack, it will be easy to handle. As long as I use Death Poker in conjunction with Ling识聚身术 (Ling Shi Ju Shen Shu - Spirit Sense Gathering Technique), I can stall the police officers who rush in a little, and then escape from the window they entered.

"However… facing only one person, his probability of choosing to negotiate with me is obviously greater. He has no reason to put his subordinates at unnecessary risk and further increase material losses. If, after communication, I indicate that I will resist stubbornly, then it will not be too late for him to order a strong attack. At that time, he can also use the call to stabilize me and create conditions for his subordinates to approach."

"So, as long as I maintain the call, the first batch of police officers to enter here will definitely take it for granted that most of their attention will be focused behind the counter," Feng Bujue muttered. "This will make it easier for me to lure them into a trap…"

He went back to the lobby and took off the mask of the submachine gun bandit. Then, he flipped over and jumped inside the counter, put the relatively intact mask in his hand on the face of the money-packing bandit whose face had been smashed. Then, he dragged the corpse of the money-packing bandit all the way into the surveillance room.

The surveillance room had two facilities that Feng Bujue needed to escape. The first was the entrance to the ventilation ducts. This thing was in almost every room except the vault, so it was not surprising; but the second thing was only in the counter area and the surveillance room, which was the switch for the metal rolling shutter door on the bank's main entrance.

Feng Bujue put the corpse on an office chair in the surveillance room and began to set up a trap…

He pushed the chair into a corner of the wall so that its back faced the door. Then, he took out the second grenade from the [Endless Grenade Clip], tied a metal wire (found in the warehouse) to the pull ring, and stuffed the grenade into the dead body's rotten face…

In fact, he could have fixed the explosive elsewhere, but… he just wanted the metal wire to extend from the eye socket of the mask. This might be some kind of unique sense of humor.

Thus, a metal wire tied to the grenade's pull ring, starting from the corpse's face, went down, passed through the torso, passed between the legs, and was finally fixed on the pivot under the chair.

This was a good office chair. The backrest was quite high, and it was adjustable. The pivot under the seat plate was also operating normally, and it could be turned left and right without too much force. The wheels on the chassis were not stuck either.

Feng Bujue was very sure that as long as someone turned or pulled this chair from behind, four seconds later, there would be several more corpses in this dozen-square-meter space.

After he finished doing this, he walked to the wall, supported himself with both hands, and jumped to the top of a storage cabinet. The entrance to the ventilation duct was there. He took off the baffle and looked inside. He found that the inside of the duct was relatively spacious, and with his figure, he could squat inside and turn around.

At this moment, the phone rang at the counter. Two seconds later, the phone in Feng Bujue's pocket rang. He smiled and said, "It's just right…" He jumped back to the ground, took off the Bluetooth earpiece from the phone, and pressed the answer button, "What's the matter, officer?" As he spoke, he carefully put the body of the phone into the corpse's jacket pocket.

Feng Bujue walked to the console, exchanged a few words with Clapton, and then opened the bank door.

"Raise your hands and come out from behind the counter," Clapton roared on the other end of the phone.

"Heh… I refuse." Feng Bujue, wearing the Bluetooth earpiece, was not affected in the slightest. He jumped lightly onto the storage cabinet, put his legs in first, and crawled into the ventilation duct.

"Haven't you had enough fun yet? I don't want to see anyone die again today," Clapton said again. At the same time, several police officers rushed into the bank. As expected, they surrounded the counter in the lobby.

Feng Bujue leisurely picked up the baffle from the top of the storage cabinet, returned it to its original position, and slowly moved backward, deliberately talking to Clapton about call forwarding.

Clapton thought for more than ten seconds, then suddenly turned his head and ran to the hostages. He found a bald man from the crowd and hurriedly shouted, "Hey! Where can you control those metal doors?"

The bank manager was stunned for a moment and replied, "In… behind the counter in the lobby."

"Where else is there a switch?" Clapton asked again.

"Uh… in… in the surveillance room," the bank manager replied. "Go in behind the counter, the door says 'Employee Area', the corridor behind it leads to the warehouse, employee restrooms, and…"

Before he could finish his rambling, Clapton picked up the walkie-talkie on his shoulder and shouted, "Did you all hear that?"

"Yes, sir, we're about to go in," a police officer replied. He and three other colleagues who rushed in with him exchanged glances and approached the door.

When they discovered that the door lock required a key and a door card to open, the police officer decisively fired a shot at the door lock and kicked the door open. They were also able to adapt to the situation. One person was left to continue guarding the lobby, while the remaining three mutually covered each other and advanced inside.

"No matter what tricks you're playing, you've reached the end of the line," Clapton picked up the phone again and said to Feng Bujue in a stern tone, "I know you're in the surveillance room. I advise you to put down your weapon, put your hands on your head, and find a place to stand still, lest my people kill you."

"Heh… what you think is your business. I can tell you clearly that I am no longer in that building," Feng Bujue laughed. "I think, if your reasoning ability is still okay, you should realize that during the last closing and opening of the door, I have already gone out through the ventilation duct."

"Hmph… is that so? You cunning liar… then can you explain how you escaped from a rooftop that doesn't even have a fire escape? Before that, how did you get out of the ventilation opening under the noses of my snipers? Huh?" Clapton sneered.

Feng Bujue got these two sentences out of him and was secretly delighted. He replied, "Of course I have my ways. You can ask the hostages how I killed the robber with the submachine gun. After asking, you may be able to understand." He smiled and continued, "Okay, let's end this boring game, officer. I know that our conversation should be being recorded, so please remember these words—six super criminals from another world are about to give Gotham City a few big gifts. The rain of millions of dollars was just the beginning." With that, Feng Bujue ended the call and crushed the Bluetooth earpiece with pipe tongs.

Under normal circumstances, the distance between the Bluetooth earpiece and the phone must be within ten meters. If there are obstructions in between, it may be less than ten meters, so Feng Bujue did not crawl very far. Anyway, his position was almost impossible to be affected by the explosion.

It took the three police officers a little time to reach the surveillance room, because there were several other rooms along the way, and they had to quickly confirm the situation behind each door before they could continue to move forward.

The door to the surveillance room was not locked. When the police officers pushed the door in, their eyes were all focused on the same place.

In the corner of the wall farthest from the door, there was an office chair with its back adjusted very high. A person was sitting on the chair. The top of this person's head was exposed above the backrest, and it seemed that he was wearing a black mask on his head. His hands were neatly placed on the armrests on both sides of the chair, motionless.

The three shouted one after another, "Don't move! Police, raise your hands!"

"Raise your hands! Turn around! Now!"

"Turn around quickly! Let me see your hands!"

The other party did not respond.

The three police officers were very experienced. After a simple exchange of glances, one person stood at the door, continuing to aim at the chair with his gun, while the other two approached from the left and right.

This surveillance room was only so big, and the office chair was in the corner of the wall, so they had to turn or pull the chair to see the face of the person sitting on it, so…

…………

One minute after the explosion, Clapton personally led eight police officers into the bank, while the remaining people all stayed on the street to maintain order and stick to their posts.

He left two people guarding the bank entrance, two people standing on the two corridors connecting to the bank lobby, and the remaining four people rushed into the employee area behind the counter with him.

When he came to the front of the surveillance room, Clapton happened to see the fourth police officer who was originally left guarding the counter. He was the first person to rush in after hearing the explosion, and at this moment, he was kneeling on the ground, holding a dying colleague in his arms. He roared to the sky, "Oh! God! Lester… no…"

And Lester, the injured person who still had a breath left, was the police officer who was closest to the door when the explosion occurred. His face was covered in blood, and he was groaning in pain.

As for the other two, they had already fallen in the surveillance room in a bloody mess, and died on the spot.

"Call a doctor! Quickly!" Clapton roared at one of his subordinates next to him, "Quick! Go to the street and have them bring in a stretcher…"

Although he was shouting excitedly, he also understood in his heart that Lester was probably not going to make it. He probably wouldn't even be able to hold on until he was carried onto the ambulance, let alone hold on until he got to the hospital. Moreover… the situation on the street was very chaotic, and the ambulance couldn't get out at all.

"Lester! Lester!" The police officer who was holding him shouted twice, then couldn't help but cry, "God! Why did this happen…"

"Damn it!" Clapton kicked the wall hard, "That son of a bitch!" He rushed into the surveillance room and went straight to the point of the explosion. His eyes seemed to be spitting fire, "What's going on?"

The walkie-talkies on these police officers were always on, so Clapton could hear their voices during the action. He knew that in the tens of seconds before the explosion, these three had already seen the target and controlled the situation, but he didn't know what happened next…

"Could it be that this bastard pulled the bomb on his body…" Clapton squatted down and looked at the charred corpse, "No… the clothes on this dead person are wrong!" He stood up, frowned, "He made an explosive trap on the corpses of others? Then where did he go?"

In fact, during Clapton's initial questioning, someone had already mentioned the so-called "strange golden light" and the fact that Feng Bujue could take out weapons out of thin air, but Clapton focused on other information and did not pay attention to these seemingly nonsense situations.

It wasn't until the explosion that, at Feng Bujue's suggestion, he once again focused on the details of the submachine gun bandit's death, and realized that things didn't seem so simple.

"Is this 'Nameless' some newly emerged 'super criminal'?" Clapton grabbed his sparse hair with one hand and gritted his teeth, "Could it be that he has really escaped?" Thinking of this, he picked up the walkie-talkie and said to the sniper who was responsible for monitoring the roof of the building, "Newman, can you be sure that no one has ever come out of the ventilation opening?"

"Uh… yes, sir."

"I mean, can you be one hundred percent sure that your sight has never moved away from that ventilation opening?"

The other party thought for a few seconds, "Well… sir, I can't stare at the same place every second. There may be a few intervals of more than ten seconds. I aimed at the street and the gate."

"Damn it!" Clapton cursed and then sighed angrily, adjusting his tone, "Okay, come down, Newman," he adjusted the frequency again, "All the other snipers, withdraw too. Put the rifles back in the equipment truck and go to the street to help." He adjusted a frequency again, connecting the tactical team, "Team two, team three, leave three people on the street behind, and the others come to the bank entrance to help."

Clapton was, after all, the highest commander on the scene. Even though he was more saddened and frustrated than anyone else, he still had to fulfill his responsibilities and direct his subordinates to clean up the mess: "Notify the bureau to send a logistics team to the scene to collect evidence. Everyone else, come with me and search every room and corner here to see if there are any other bandits or hostages." He spoke into the walkie-talkie as he returned to the corridor.

At this point, Clapton had basically confirmed that he had encountered a "super criminal."

Feng Bujue's previous series of actions, coupled with his calm attitude, showed that this "Nameless" was by no means an ordinary person. His behavior was fickle, making him unpredictable. He killed the robbers; then he held the hostages; he played tricks on the police; he scattered millions of dollars in cash on the street; he released all the hostages; he killed three police officers…

Hero? Outlaw? Robin Hood? Terrorist? Humanitarian? Murderer?

He was like a metronome, swinging back and forth between good and evil, revealing an aura of madness, but also with meticulous thinking and outstanding action ability. If it weren't for the hostages describing Feng Bujue's appearance, Clapton would definitely have associated him with a psychopath from Arkham Asylum.

"Sir, maybe he's still hiding in the ventilation duct?" A young police officer in the corridor asked.

"That's right, then it's up to you to be responsible for checking it," Clapton replied with a wry smile. In his opinion, Feng Bujue must have escaped. He would never have imagined that the other party was hiding a few meters away from him…

"Uh… me alone? Where do I start?" the young police officer asked again.

"Hey… listen, rookie, when you've been in Gotham City long enough, you'll understand that some criminals can't be dealt with by conventional methods," Clapton said in a lecturing tone. "With just a few seconds of relaxation, they can slip past the sniper's sight and disappear forever. Some of these guys can climb walls, some can release nerve gas from their bodies, and some can bite off half of your body in one bite. Do you think the Joker would hide in a ventilation duct? Would Two-Face, the Riddler, would they hide in a ventilation duct?" Clapton shook his head, "I've seen too many things like this today… If you want to check, go ahead, the others come with me."

Clapton's thoughts also reflected the thoughts of most police officers in Gotham City. Even Commissioner Gordon could not deny that when facing those super criminals, the only person who could save this city was Batman, and the police's job was to clean up the battlefield for him.

The young police officer adjusted the hat on his head and replied very seriously, "Yes, sir." He looked around a few times, and his eyes quickly stopped on the ventilation opening in the surveillance room.

The entrance to the ventilation duct was located at the highest point of the wall, close to the ceiling. Although the explosion had deformed the storage cabinet somewhat, this did not affect the police officer's ability to climb up.

He supported himself with both hands, and his upper body flipped onto the top of the cabinet. After his center of gravity shifted to the top, his legs followed. Then, he reached out to reach the baffle of the ventilation duct…