Chapter 274: Layers of Fear (Part 3)

The monster with Alfred's face had chased him behind, but Bruce suddenly calmed down. He slowed his pace and walked slowly into that pitch-black alley.

Just after he made all the psychological preparations, the situation in the alley exceeded his expectations, because there was no thing he feared most there, instead... there were two people drinking?

One of them was the green-haired Jack, and the other was the green-haired... Professor Shiler???

Bruce was full of doubts. At this time, the green-haired Shiler turned to look at Bruce and said: "You wouldn't expect two corpses to be lying here, along with a string of scattered pearl necklaces, would you?"

"Look, this is the most basic application of psychology. All the previous rules have been instilling in you the rule that you must face various fears, so when you see an intersection exactly the same as the alley where your parents died, you will instinctively feel that the content you least want to see must appear inside..."

"Just like when the first 6 answers are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, the 7th answer must be 7, even if the question of the 7th problem asks you what you ate this morning..."

"I ate a waffle this morning, it was completely not delicious, it was really too sweet!" Jack complained: "And it was very expensive, it actually cost 50 cents!"

Bruce was already completely confused. He didn't understand what on earth they were doing. He wanted to speak, but Shiler said first: "You must be very puzzled about what on earth happened. You should want to ask now, how on earth did we appear here, and what on earth is going on."

"But this is another common psychological trap. Have you forgotten? You are in a dream. Dreams don't need logic. You will think of these questions because we suddenly spoke to you in a very logical way, but in fact, you ignored more weird things, for example..."

Bruce looked at him, Shiler smiled at him and said: "Do you like my new hair color?"

Bruce suddenly paused. He found that it was indeed the case. Because Shiler spoke to him in a logical way, his thinking also returned to the logical world, but in fact, this scene was still illogical, because in reality, Professor Shiler's hair was not green, and it was absolutely impossible to paint this kind of clown makeup on his face.

More importantly, the place where these two green-haired people were drinking was on the back of an elephant. That elephant was squeezed into the narrow alley like a cartoon image, and its four legs were squeezed together, but Bruce didn't feel strange at all.

Bruce sighed and said: "What on earth is going on?"

"Look! He still asked!" Jack cheered. He raised his wine glass, then poured the wine into his mouth in one breath, gargled in his mouth, and then swallowed it.

"I told you long ago, even if you explained the principle clearly to him, he is still a boring person. Batman is just like this, even in a dream, he will doubt whether there is any conspiracy behind this? He is just like this, hahahahahahahahahahaha!"

"Stop laughing, we have serious business to do."

As soon as Shiler finished speaking, he appeared in front of Bruce, then waved his umbrella and knocked Bruce unconscious.

A white halo appeared before Bruce's eyes. When he opened his eyes, he found himself trapped on an operating table, and above his head was the intense light of the operating room.

Two green-haired, clown-makeup-wearing people were wearing white lab coats, holding scalpels, standing in front of him.

Bruce closed his eyes again, and then opened them again. The green-haired Shiler held the scalpel and said to him: "I know you must be very puzzled now, but it doesn't matter, before the surgery, we can explain everything clearly."

"Why are you in my dream?" Bruce asked him.

"This is a long story..." Shiler just wanted to explain, Jack suddenly shouted: "Because you abandoned us and left Cat Getan! You went on vacation! How could you do this?! You broke all our hearts!!"

"Alright, Jack." The green-haired Shiler looked calmer, but Bruce felt a more dangerous temperament from him. The green-haired Shiler said very seriously: "You should know that I am a psychologist. Recently, the topic I have been researching is—dreams."

"Dreams?"

"That's right, or rather, the human consciousness space, and I have already passed the stage of researching ordinary people's consciousness space..."

"A long time ago, I had a guess. If the top of the Palace of Mind is reality, then the very bottom below the surface should be Sandman's Dream Kingdom. Not long ago, I verified this theory..."

"I thought everyone should be consistent with my situation, but Jack raised a counter-argument. He believes that Batman is different from everyone else..."

"So, we made a bet."

Bruce raised his head and looked at the green-haired Shiler. Jack laughed while saying: "I bet that the bottom of your deep consciousness space is not connected to the Dream Kingdom, but hides a dangerous thing..."

"Actually, I know something about this." The green-haired Shiler continued: "But I think that the thing Jack mentioned shouldn't appear here, so we thought of 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 recalled and said: "When I was lying on the bed in Wei En Manor?"

"No, your body is not on the bed in Wei En Manor now, but under the entrance sign of Cat Getan City."

"In other words, everything that happened after you entered Cat Getan is a dream."

"After you entered Cat Getan, that dream actually happened in your surface consciousness space, including Jack flipping your Batmobile with a heavy truck, pressing the button, blowing up the chemical plant, and then tying those people to the top of the building and letting them fall. These are all the first layer of dreams that happened in the surface consciousness space."

"In order not to let you doubt all this and wake up quickly, Jack created a series of accidents, making you very tired, and letting you go directly to sleep after returning to Wei En Manor."

"And when you fall asleep and dream again, you enter the second layer of dream. You see a clown standing before your bed, waving a dagger at you, and then immediately after, it's the third layer, the fourth layer of dream..."

"By analogy, how many times you failed in Wei En Manor, you fell into how many layers of dreams."

"In this process, your consciousness gradually descended from the surface consciousness space to the deep consciousness space, and then kept digging down, until here..."

"Here? Where is here?"

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

"Why do you want me to come here?"

"To find out the dangerous thing that might be lurking in your body." Jack looked into Bruce's eyes, but didn't seem to be looking at him, but through his eyes into the interior of his soul.

"Jack speculated that the dangerous and annoying thing might be at the very bottom of your deep consciousness, but similarly, it wouldn't hide on the main road. If there really is an incubator for it here, then guess, where would that be?"

Bruce suddenly understood. He looked at Shiler's scalpel and said: "You think it's in my body?"

"That's right. Only when you come to the very bottom of your deep consciousness can we possibly drag it out, so now..."

The green-haired Shiler revealed a crazy smile, which made Bruce shudder, because once he thought of that professor and the Joker combined, he felt that there was nothing more terrible in this world.

But he didn't struggle, but thought for a while, and lay back on the operating table.

This made both clowns a bit surprised. Bruce said: "... I suddenly have some understanding of your mental state. Perhaps, in the real world, you might look very crazy, but perhaps, in the dream, you are right..."

"So boring." Jack curled his lips. Shiler didn't feel disappointed and said: "Don't tell me you expected him to scream and cry for us not to do it? Even if he doesn't understand, he wouldn't do that, Batman is just like this, isn't he?"

"Alright, now let's see if the thing you mentioned exists..."

Then, Shiler used the scalpel to stab Bruce's forehead, cutting open the skin tissue on his face, while Jack, like peeling a banana, peeled off Bruce's outer skin.

Epidermis, dermis, fat layer, Shiler was responsible for cutting the opening, and Jack was responsible for peeling the banana skin. After the skin was muscle tissue, then bone...

The peeled-off waste was like a jacket that hadn't been worn for a long time, wrinkled and piled on the side. The two green-haired terrifying doctors were covered in blood, with only crazy smiles remaining on their faces. Jack occasionally let out a few whimpers, seemingly feeling sad for Batman who had been dismantled into parts.

Those unspeakable scraps were thrown to the ground by them at will, piled higher and higher. After the last layer of tissue was peeled away, what appeared in Bruce's body was not the internal organs of a normal person, but—another Bruce.

Shiler sighed and said: "Perhaps you are about to win, because he indeed looks abnormal."

"Normal? When do you think Batman was ever normal? If it were a heart inside after peeling his skin, I would be disappointed."

Siluke

"It seems we can only do it one more time."

Green-haired Shiler and green-haired Jack exchanged a glance. They saw no exhaustion or irritability in each other's eyes, but rather excitement, looking exactly like two deadly mad doctors who would only appear in horror movies.

At first, it was considered harmonious, but later, the two started arguing. The green-haired Shiler wanted to monopolize the even-numbered layers of Bruce on the grounds that Jack didn't have a medical license. Jack thought it should be distributed according to body parts. He wanted the head part, and Shiler of course didn't agree.

Regardless, cutting the skin, peeling the epidermal tissue, one Bruce after another appeared in the body. Those discarded scraps were almost filling the room, until Jack peeled off the last layer.

After the last layer of skin was revealed, a wriggling black monster lay there. Its body and limbs were all pipes no thicker than a wrist, wrapped in one layer of Bruce after another, only the head was a bit different.

That was not Bruce's face, but a gray egg. On that egg was a pair of bright red lips and a huge smiling face.

Just as the last layer of skin was peeled off, the monster that looked like an arthropod shook off all the skin that still covered it and was about to jump up.

At this time, a hand pressed on its neck. Jack leaned over, revealed the same crazy smile, and said: "Found you, NO. 3."

--- Side Note ---

I don't know if you can see what I have sewn together in this whole big event. Guess right and reward... the Joker will go to your house and knock under the bed in the middle of the night! Hehehehehehe! ===== CHAPTER 275 =====