Chapter 274

The monster with Alfred's face had caught up behind him, but Bruce suddenly grew calm; he slowed his steps and walked slowly into the dark alley.

After preparing himself mentally, the scene inside the alley surprised him—it held none of his greatest fears, but instead… two people drinking?

One was Jack with green hair; the other was… Professor Shiler with green hair???

Bruce frowned. At that moment, the green-haired Shiler turned to him and said, "You didn't expect two corpses and a string of scattered pearl necklaces, did you?"

"See, this is basic psychology—the previous rules all conditioned you to confront your fears, so when you saw an alley identical to the one where your parents died, you instinctively assumed it would contain your worst nightmare…"

"Like when the first six answers are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, someone will inevitably fill in 7 for the seventh question—even if the question is, 'What did you have for breakfast?'"

"I had a waffle this morning. Terrible. Too sweet!" Jack complained. "And expensive—fifty cents!"

Bruce was utterly confused. He opened his mouth to speak, but Shiler spoke first: "You're puzzled—wondering what happened, why we're here, how all this works."

"But that's another common psychological trap. Don't you remember? You're dreaming. Dreams don't need logic. You think these questions because we're speaking to you with unnatural logic—but you've ignored far stranger things, like…"

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

Bruce paused. He realized it was true: because Shiler was speaking logically, his mind had reverted to logic—but the scene itself was still utterly illogical. In reality, Professor Shiler's hair wasn't green, and he'd never paint his face with clown makeup.

More importantly, the two green-haired men were drinking atop an elephant's back. The elephant, cartoonish in form, was squeezed into the narrow alley, its four legs crushed together—yet Bruce felt no strangeness at all.

Bruce sighed. "What the hell is going on?"

"See! He asked after all!" Jack cheered, raising his cup, downing the liquor in one gulp, swishing it around his mouth, then swallowing.

"I told you—even if you explain the mechanism, he's still boring. Batman's like this. Even in dreams, he suspects a conspiracy. That's just how he is. Hahahahahahaha!"

"Stop laughing. We have work to do."

The moment Shiler finished speaking, he appeared before Bruce and swung his umbrella, knocking him unconscious.

A white halo flashed before Bruce's eyes. When he opened them, he found himself strapped to an operating table, overhead blinding surgical lights.

Two green-haired figures, their faces painted as clowns, stood before him in white coats, scalpels in hand.

Bruce closed his eyes, then opened them again. The green-haired Shiler held the scalpel and said, "I know you're confused—but don't worry. Before we operate, we'll explain everything."

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

"That's a long story…" Shiler began, but Jack suddenly shouted, "Because you abandoned us and left Gotham! You went on vacation! How could you do that?! You broke all our hearts!!"

"Enough, Jack." The green-haired Shiler seemed calmer, yet Bruce sensed a more dangerous aura radiating from him. The green-haired Shiler spoke seriously: "You know I'm a psychologist. Recently, my research topic has been—dreams."

"Dreams?"

"Yes—or rather, the human conscious space. I've already moved past studying ordinary people's conscious spaces…"

"Long ago, I hypothesized that if the pinnacle of the mind palace is reality, then the deepest layer beneath the surface must be the Dream Realm of the Sandman. Recently, I verified this theory…"

"I assumed everyone's mind worked like mine—but Jack disagreed. He believed Batman is unlike anyone else…"

"So we made a bet."

Bruce lifted his head, staring at the green-haired Shiler. Jack chuckled, saying, "I bet your deep subconscious bottom isn't connected to the Dream Realm—it hides something dangerous…"

"I'm aware of that," the green-haired Shiler continued. "But I think the thing Jack describes shouldn't exist here. So we devised a way to test who's right."

"What way?" Bruce asked.

"Since you know this is a dream, do you know where your body is in reality? Or when you first fell asleep?"

Bruce thought. "When I lay on the bed at Wayne Manor?"

"No. Your body isn't on the bed at Wayne Manor. It's beneath the sign marking Gotham's entrance."

"That means everything that happened after you entered Gotham was a dream."

"After you entered Gotham, that first dream occurred in your surface conscious space—Jack smashing your Batmobile with a truck, pressing the button, blowing up the chemical plant, tying people to the rooftop and making them fall—all were the first layer of surface dreams."

"To prevent you from suspecting and waking up, Jack engineered a series of accidents to exhaust you, so you'd return to Wayne Manor and fall asleep immediately."

"When you slept and dreamed again, you entered the second layer: you saw a clown standing at your bedside, waving a dagger—then came the third, fourth layers…"

"And so on. Each failure in Wayne Manor plunged you deeper into another dream layer."

"Throughout this process, your consciousness descended from the surface conscious space to the deep subconscious, then kept digging—until here…"

"Here? Where is 'here'?"

"This is the deepest layer of your subconscious. I call it… the 'Edge.'"

"Why did you bring me here?"

"To find whatever dangerous thing might be hidden inside your body." Jack stared into Bruce's eyes—but not at him. He looked through his eyes, into the depths of his soul.

"Jack suspects that dangerous, repulsive thing lies at the bottom of your deep subconscious. But it won't be out in the open. If it has a hatchery here, where would you guess it is?"

Bruce suddenly understood. He looked at Shiler's scalpel. "You think it's inside me?"

"Exactly. Only by reaching the deepest layer of your subconscious can we pull it out. So now…"

The green-haired Shiler grinned wildly. Bruce shuddered—because the moment he imagined the professor fused with the clown, he knew nothing in this world could be more terrifying.

Yet he didn't struggle. He thought for a moment, then lay back on the operating table.

The two clowns were surprised. Bruce said, "... 'm beginning to understand your mental state. Perhaps in the real world, you seem insane—but in dreams, you might be right."

"How dull," Jack sneered. Shiler showed no disappointment. "Did you expect him to scream and beg us not to cut? Even if he doesn't understand, he won't do that. Isn't that just Batman?"

"Alright. Let's see if your thing actually exists…"

Shiler slashed the scalpel into Bruce's forehead, cutting through facial tissue. Jack, like peeling a banana, began stripping off Bruce's outer skin.

Epidermis, dermis, fat layer—Shiler made the incisions; Jack peeled. Skin gave way to muscle, then bone…

The discarded scraps piled like an old, unworn jacket, crumpled in a corner. The two green-haired monster-doctors were drenched in blood, their faces still smeared with mad grins. Jack occasionally whimpered, as if mourning the dismantled Batman.

They tossed the unmentionable offcuts carelessly onto the floor, piling them higher—until the final layer was peeled away. Inside Bruce's body wasn't normal human viscera—but another Bruce.

Shiler sighed. "Perhaps you've won. He certainly looks abnormal."

"Normal? When has Batman ever been normal? If I peeled his skin and found a heart, I'd be disappointed."

Sisik

"Looks like we'll have to try again."

The green-haired Shiler and green-haired Jack exchanged glances. Neither showed fatigue or irritation—only excitement, like two lethal mad doctors from a horror film.

At first, they were harmonious—but soon they quarreled. The green-haired Shiler claimed Jack lacked medical credentials and demanded sole rights to the even-numbered Bruces. Jack insisted on division by body part—he wanted the head. Shiler refused.

Regardless, they kept cutting, peeling, layer after layer of Bruce emerging. The discarded scraps filled the room—until Jack peeled the final layer.

Beneath the last layer of skin lay a writhing black monster. Its body and limbs were thin pipes, no thicker than a wrist, wrapped in layer upon layer of Bruces. Only its head differed.

It wasn't Bruce's face—but a gray egg, bearing a crimson lip and a wide, grinning mouth.

The instant the final skin was peeled away, the arthropod-like creature shed all remaining layers and lunged upward.

A hand clamped down on its neck. Jack leaned close, revealing the same mad grin. "Found you, No. 3."

————EXTRA NOTES————

I wonder if you can spot all the things I stitched into this arc. Guess right, and the Joker will knock on your bed at midnight! Hehehehehe—