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Chapter 269: Layers of Fear (3)

That monster with Alfred's face had chased him down, but Bruce suddenly calmed down. He slowed his pace and walked slowly into the dark alley.

After preparing himself mentally, the situation in the alley surprised him because there wasn't what he feared the most. Instead... there were two people drinking?

One of them was Jack with green hair, and the other person was green-haired... Professor Schiller??

Bruce was puzzled. At that moment, the green-haired Schiller turned to look at Bruce and said, "You weren't expecting to find two bodies lying here and a scattered string of pearl necklaces, were you?"

"You see, this is the most basic application of psychology. All the rules before were meant to instill in you the rule of facing various fears. So when you see an intersection that looks exactly like the alley where your parents died, you instinctively feel that the content you least want to see will appear here..."

"Just like when the first six answers are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, someone will definitely fill in 7 as the answer to the seventh question, even though the question is asking what you had for breakfast today..."

"I had a waffle this morning, and it was absolutely terrible, way too sweet! And it was expensive too, 50 cents!"

Bruce was completely confused. He didn't understand what was happening. He wanted to speak, but Schiller beat him to it and said, "You must be very curious about what's going on, and now you're probably wondering how we ended up here and what's happening."

"But this is another common psychological trap. Have you forgotten? You're dreaming right now, and dreams don't require logic. You're thinking about these questions because we suddenly started talking to you in a very logical manner. But in reality, you've overlooked even more strange things, such as..."

Bruce suddenly paused. He realized it was true because Schiller was speaking to him logically, so his thinking returned to the world of logic. But in reality, this scene made no sense because Schiller Professor's hair wasn't green, and he certainly couldn't have painted this kind of clown makeup on his face.

What's more, the place where these two green-haired people were drinking was on the back of an elephant. The elephant looked like a cartoon character squeezed into a narrow alley, with all four legs pressed together, yet Bruce didn't find it strange at all.

Bruce sighed and said, "What's going on here?"

"Look! He asked after all!" Jack cheered. He raised his glass, then poured the liquid into his mouth and gargled it before swallowing it.

"I told you before, even if you explain the principles to him, he's a boring person. That's Batman for you. Even in a dream, he'll suspect that there's a conspiracy behind it. That's just how he is, hahaha!"

"Stop laughing, we have important things to do."

As soon as Schiller finished speaking, he appeared in front of Bruce and swung his umbrella, knocking Bruce out.

A white halo appeared before Bruce's eyes. When he opened them, he found himself trapped on an operating table, and overhead was the strong light of an operating room.

The two green-haired people, wearing white coats and clown makeup, stood in front of him, holding surgical knives.

Bruce closed his eyes again and then opened them. The green-haired Schiller held a surgical knife and said to him, "I know you must be confused right now, but don't worry, we can explain everything before we start the surgery."

"Why are you in my dream?" Bruce asked

.

"That's a long story..." Schiller was about to explain when Jack suddenly shouted, "Because you left us and left Gotham! You went on vacation! How could you do this?! You hurt all of us!!"

"Alright, Jack." The green-haired Schiller seemed to be a bit calmer, but Bruce sensed a more dangerous aura from him. The green-haired Schiller said seriously, "You should know that I'm a psychologist, and recently, my research topic has been... dreams."

"Dreams?"

"That's right, or rather, the human subconscious space. And I have moved past the stage of studying the ordinary human subconscious space..."

"A long time ago, I had a theory. If the top of the Mind Palace represents reality, then the bottom, beneath the surface, should be the dream realm of the Sandman. And not long ago, I confirmed this theory..."

"I believed that everyone should be the same as me, but Jack argued against it. He believed that Batman and everyone else were different..."

"So, we made a bet."

Bruce lifted his head and looked at the green-haired Schiller. Jack giggled and said, "I bet that the deepest part of your subconscious space doesn't connect to the dream realm but hides something dangerous..."

"I actually have some knowledge about this," Schiller with green hair continued, "But I feel that what Jack said shouldn't be here, so let's find a way to verify who is right."

"What way?" Bruce asked.

"Since you know this is a dream, do you know where you are in reality? Or rather, do you know when you started dreaming?"

Bruce thought for a moment and said, "When I was lying in bed at Wayne Manor?"

"No, your body is not currently lying in bed at Wayne Manor, but underneath the entrance sign of Gotham City."

"Meaning, everything that happened after you entered Gotham was a dream."

"After you entered Gotham, that dream actually occurred in your surface consciousness space. This includes Jack ramming your Batmobile with a heavy truck and pressing the button, blowing up the chemical factory, and then tying up those people on a rooftop and letting them fall. These are all dreams that occurred in your surface consciousness space, the first layer."

"To prevent you from suspecting all of this and quickly waking up, Jack created a series of accidents that left you exhausted and made you go to sleep as soon as you returned to Wayne Manor."

"And when you fell asleep and started dreaming again, you entered the second layer of dreams. You saw a Joker standing in front of your bed, waving a knife at you. Then came the third layer, the fourth layer..."

"By this logic, for each failure you experienced at Wayne Manor, you fell into that many layers of dreams."

"During this process, your consciousness gradually descended from the surface consciousness space to the deep consciousness space and kept digging deeper until you reached here..."

"Here? Where is here?"

"This is the bottom of your deep consciousness, I like to call it... 'the Edge'."

"Why did you bring me here?"

"To find that dangerous thing that may be hidden inside you." Jack looked into Bruce's eyes, but it seemed like he wasn't looking at him, but through his eyes into his inner soul.

"Jack speculated that the dangerous and annoying thing may be at the very bottom of your deep consciousness. However, he wouldn't hide in the Batmobile on the road. If there is really a hatchery for him here, guess where it would be?"

Bruce suddenly understood and looked at Schiller's scalpel, saying, "You think he's inside my body?"

"That's right, only when you reach the bottom of your deep consciousness can we possibly extract it. So now..."

Schiller with green hair revealed a mad smile, which sent shivers down Bruce's spine because once he thought about the professor and the Joker merging into one, he felt that there was nothing scarier in the world.

But he didn't struggle, instead, he pondered for a moment and lay back on the operating table.

This surprised both Jokers. Bruce said, "...I suddenly have some understanding of your mental state. Perhaps in the real world, you may seem very crazy, but perhaps in the dream world, you are right..."

"How boring." Jack pouted, but Schiller didn't feel disappointed. He said, "Do you expect him to scream and beg us not to proceed? Even if he doesn't understand, he wouldn't do that, right? Isn't that how Batman is?"

"Well, now let's see if that thing you mentioned actually exists..."

Then, Schiller stabbed Bruce's forehead with a scalpel, cutting open the skin tissues on his face, and Jack peeled off Bruce's skin like peeling a banana.

Epidermis, dermis, and adipose tissue, Schiller was responsible for making incisions, while Jack peeled off the banana skin. After the skin, there was muscle tissue, and then the skeleton...

The peeled-off debris piled up like

an old jacket that hadn't been worn for a long time. It crumpled and piled up on the side. The two terrifying doctors with green hair were covered in blood, and only a mad smile remained on their faces. Jack occasionally let out a few sobs, seemingly feeling sad for the dismantled Batman.

They casually threw the unspeakable debris on the ground, piling it higher and higher. After the last layer of tissue was pushed aside, what appeared inside Bruce's body was not the organs of a normal person but another Bruce.

Schiller sighed and said, "Perhaps you're about to win, because he indeed doesn't seem normal."

"Normal? When has Batman ever been normal? I would be disappointed if I found a heart inside his skin."

"It seems like we'll have to do it all over again."

The green-haired Schiller and the green-haired Jack glanced at each other. In each other's eyes, they saw no signs of fatigue or annoyance. Instead, there was excitement, resembling two deadly doctors that would only appear in horror movies.

At first, things seemed harmonious, but later on, the two of them started arguing. The green-haired Schiller claimed exclusive rights to the even-numbered layers of Bruce, citing Jack's lack of a medical license. On the other hand, Jack believed that the allocation should be based on body parts, and he wanted the head part. Schiller, of course, disagreed.

Regardless, they sliced open the skin, peeled away the epidermal tissue, and one Bruce after another appeared inside the body. The discarded remnants quickly filled up the entire room until Jack peeled off the final layer.

After the last layer of skin was peeled away, there lay a wriggling black monster. Its body and limbs were nothing more than pipes as thick as wrists, wrapped layer by layer within the various Bruces, with only the head being slightly different.

Instead of Bruce's face, there was an oval shape in gray. On that oval shape were bright red lips and a wide, enormous smiling face.

In the instant the final layer of skin was peeled away, the insect-like monster broke free from all the skin still covering its body, ready to leap up.

At that moment, a hand grabbed its neck. Jack leaned in, revealing the same crazed smile and said, "I found you, NO.3."

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