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Chapter 467: The Once Great (2)

After Bruce, Lex, and Clark's figures left the hollow space, Schiller surveyed the underground hollow, ignoring the half-pound micro-camera left behind by Bruce, and prepared to get to work.

Although it was referred to as an experiment, in reality, it was quite simple. Schiller transformed directly into mist and floated above the monster egg. As soon as the mist touched the egg, the monster egg disappeared without a trace.

Next, Schiller focused his attention on the ring on his hand. In a moment, he appeared on the familiar gray island in the mist space, turning his head to see the giant monster egg right beside him.

Schiller circled around the monster egg and noticed that while the heartbeat inside the egg had increased slightly, there were no signs of it hatching.

Since that was the case, Schiller decided to leave it there and deal with other matters first.

Returning to the Manor's underground, the mist let out a cheerful "Yeah!" and began feasting.

The gray mist spread, covering the entire hollow space, and the sound of munching could be heard incessantly. After a few minutes, all the kryptonite on the device was devoured.

"Burp... I'm full!"

The mist let out a satisfied sigh and fell silent, seemingly concentrating on digestion once again.

Schiller looked at the empty underground hollow, about to take a step to leave, when suddenly he remembered something and muttered to himself, "Oh, right, did Lex say that the previous me left something here?"

"Well, let me see, where could it be hidden?"

He first examined the hollow and then decisively left the area.

Firstly, because there was really nowhere to hide anything in the hollow. Secondly, if the previous Schiller was an ordinary person, the radiation here would have killed him in an instant, so he wouldn't have had time to hide something here.

Schiller walked outside, searching through the hallways and corridors, but found nothing. Eventually, he returned to the cellar they had come down from before.

In the cellar and the corridor leading to the hall, Schiller carefully checked several times. Finally, he unscrewed a lamp at the top and found what seemed to be a hidden compartment. He reached up and indeed touched a metal object.

After retrieving the item, Schiller found it was a small safe, small enough to be held in one's arms. Considering Lex's description earlier, Schiller guessed that it might contain something related to the Dionysian factor.

So, he separated a wisp of mist to open the safe's lock.

With a crisp sound, the cellar door opened, and it remained open for quite some time, but no one came out from inside.

After a few minutes, both Bruce and Lex crawled out of the cellar's door. They looked around in confusion, seemingly puzzled by the lack of enemies.

"It seems Clark dealt with them," Lex said, observing the traces on the snowy ground.

"Impossible. Clark doesn't kill," Bruce replied.

Lex snorted disdainfully, saying, "How long have you known him? You sound like it's been ten years, but in reality, it hasn't even been a day. How can you know he..."

"Hey, guys, I'm back!"

Just then, Clark descended from the sky, hands on his hips, slowly landing on the ground. Bruce frowned and asked, "Where did you go?"

Lex noticed that Clark was covered in chill, with snowflakes in his hair and eyebrows, as if he had been standing in the snow for a long time.

"I got rid of those annoying agents," Clark replied.

"Got rid of them? Where did you send them?" Lex asked skeptically. "You didn't actually kill them, did you?"

"Of course not, I wouldn't do something so cruel. I just sent them back home."

"Sending them 'back home' sounds a lot like getting rid of them," Lex retorted.

Clark shook his head and said, "No, they said they were from the FBI, right? I tied them up and flew them to the FBI base, then let them go there."

"My movements were fast, and no agents saw me. They should be thanking me. Otherwise, how would they have made it back in such heavy snow?"

Bruce and Lex both opened their mouths in surprise, exchanging a glance. Bruce hesitated and said, "Have you considered that they might not actually be from the FBI?"

"But they said they were FBI agents. Even if they're not, the FBI would still send them back home."

"The FBI might 'send them back home.'"

Bruce glanced at Lex, who was shivering in the snow, and at Clark, who was catching his breath after exercising, and said, "Both of you should go back to the room."

After saying that, he turned and walked forward, treading on the thick snow, crossing the courtyard, and returning to the banquet hall.

The banquet hall was still in a mess, with tablecloths scattered on the ground and candlesticks and tableware strewn everywhere. Bruce stepped over these obstacles, heading straight to where Benjamin was.

From his deduction, Benjamin was probably observing the situation in the courtyard from a higher floor, possibly from the higher floors of the main Manor building or the adjacent tower. Bruce decided to investigate the nearest high floor of the main building first.

As he reached the fourth floor, Bruce noticed some spider web traces. There were hardly any regular residents here, but there were signs of considerable activity.

Going up one more floor to the fifth, Bruce became even more puzzled. The place was filled with a bunch of miscellaneous items, and he couldn't understand their purpose.

It seemed like someone intentionally led someone else upstairs. That was Bruce's speculation, but he was sure that he wasn't the target of the guidance, as those traces had already been examined by someone else. He also felt that it wasn't a clever trap; at least he wouldn't be fooled.

Just as he walked through the corridor, turning a corner and intending to head toward the staircase, he saw a corpse lying on the platform in the middle of the staircase - it was Benjamin.

Bruce squinted his eyes, and after walking up the stairs, he began to examine Benjamin's body. Judging by the condition of the wounds and the blood, Benjamin had died not long ago, killed swiftly with a single shot.

Looking at the surroundings, it seemed that Benjamin had been besieged. Bruce couldn't identify the culprits because the party guests definitely didn't have the ability to kill Benjamin.

Apart from the guests, the only ones capable of such an act were Bruce's group or other agents.

Thinking about this, Bruce speculated that perhaps internal conflicts among the agents led to Benjamin's death, and the most likely suspect was Benjamin's assistant, Kayla.

With that in mind, Bruce continued to ascend. With a batarang in hand, he arrived on the sixth floor and found that only one room's door was open, with light pouring out, dividing the corridor in half.

Bruce walked alongside the wall, but just as he leaned over to look into the room, Kayla, standing in the center of the room, also noticed him. Kayla said, "Come in, Mr. Wayne."

Realizing he had been discovered, Bruce decided not to sneak anymore and walked in. However, he remained cautious, as Kayla stood on the other side, saying, "Mr. Wayne, I have some bad news for you."

Bruce remained silent, but Kayla didn't mind his attitude and continued, "Just now, for some reason, I killed that idiot named Benjamin."

"The motive and the method don't matter..." Kayla spoke as she walked behind the table, taking out some documents from the drawer and throwing them on the table.

With a snap, Kayla continued, "I found these in Benjamin's briefcase, personal files about your butler. Do you want to take a look?"

Bruce's gaze fell on the thick stack of documents on the desktop. Estimating the content's volume from the thickness of the papers, he stood in place, silent.

Kayla waved the handgun in her hand and said, "I'm different from that fool Benjamin. I have no intention of being enemies with the Wayne Group. I waited here for you just to give you this material as a favor. I hope you don't mind what the agents did earlier."

"That's it. You can take your time to read it. I'll leave now."

"Oh, by the way, it's best not to try and stop me with your darts. The communication has been restored just now, and my satellite phone is back online. If you act, headquarters will know immediately."

With that, Kayla strode past Bruce and left the room. After descending one floor, she entered another room on the fifth floor, where Alfred looked at her helplessly.

About ten minutes ago, Kayla brought Alfred to the room where Benjamin had stored the materials. Kayla walked behind the table, took out the documents from a folder, and carefully examined the contents.

"Oops, sorry. I've been curious for a while, but Benjamin was very cautious, and I never found an opportunity to look. Do you want to see it?" Kayla asked.

Alfred shook his head and said, "When you reach my age, you won't want to look back at your own history. It's all a dark past."

Upon hearing this, Kayla instinctively glanced at the column labeled "Emotions" in Alfred's personal files, where a long list of names was written.

"Okay, never mind. Let's quickly dispose of it all as if this never happened," Kayla said.

Alfred shook his head and said, "No need to be so troublesome. With Bruce's intelligence, if he really suspected me, he would have thoroughly investigated this information. Destroying these documents isn't that important."

Kayla sighed, looking at Alfred's indifferent expression, and said, "Even though you and Bruce have a good relationship, from what I've observed, he's a very typical American, instinctively suspicious of everything."

Seeing that Alfred was not interested in discussing this topic, Kayla persisted, "I have to make sure that Little Wayne doesn't suspect you, or that he has feelings for you too, rather than just you unilaterally giving everything. Otherwise, one day, he will hurt you."

Kayla reached out to push Alfred and said, "You wait downstairs. I want to see what Little Wayne will do when he sees these documents. If he dares to betray you, I'll shoot him."

Kayla had feelings for Alfred, and Alfred had the same for her. He had been a good teacher to her, pouring a part of his family's affection into her. Faced with Kayla's goodwill, Alfred couldn't firmly refuse.

So, after Kayla handed over the documents to Bruce, he stood behind the table, looking at the pile of documents on the desk. From his current angle, he could only see the first page, which had Alfred's basic information written on it.

Bruce walked forward and picked up the documents. He aligned them on the table but didn't flip through them. Instead, he took out a lighter.

As he watched the papers slowly turn to ashes in the flames, Bruce turned to look out of the floor-to-ceiling window.

Behind him, the first page of the documents quickly burned out, and the words "KGB - Military Intelligence Agent: Alfred Pennyworth" disappeared in the fire.

As Bruce stood by the window, gazing at the snow outside, he wondered if his butler had seen larger and more beautiful snowfalls in the vast snowy plains of a northern nation.

"But there's one more thing I need to confirm." In the room on the fifth floor, Kayla hesitated and asked, "Of course, if it's something you can't talk about, just forget I asked."

"There's nothing I can't say; you have a higher rank now."

"It's not really important, but it's about the 'Philby List.' You know, I find it hard to persuade those fools to change their minds. I need to ensure that you've hidden it securely; otherwise, it would be quite troublesome if it were lost."

"I did hide it initially, but later, I decided to completely part ways with my past identity and return everything to its rightful place. So, I contacted Moscow and had them retrieve the list from a designated contact point."

"After I sent the list to them, they sent agents to collect it, and the list should be back in Moscow by now."

"Back in Moscow?" Kayla frowned seriously and said, "That's not possible. I've maintained communication with Moscow all this time. If the list had already returned to Moscow, why is the Philby List case causing such a stir?"

Alfred also frowned, saying, "I'm sure the communication between me and Moscow is trustworthy, with no one else involved. As for the whereabouts of the list..."

He shook his head and said, "...I don't know either."

Meanwhile, in the underground of the Manor, Schiller successfully used the mist to cheat and open the safe.

Upon opening the safe, he was surprised to find not the expected Dionysian factor reagent but rather an ordinary-looking folder.

On the folder was a shiny emblem with a sickle, hammer, and red flag.

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