Chapter 3201: The Haze of Faraines (9)

Batman chooses to max out Psychoanalysis.

The moment the skill points disappear, he seems to hear the Transcendent's continuous announcements, but he cannot hear them clearly because all sounds have faded away in his mind.

He only hears the Transcendent's last sentence.

"Forgot to tell you, the characteristic of the talent is that the worse your mental state, the more you can see. Good luck, Batman."

The world in his eyes has changed.

Batman first sees a patch of blood-red, and then he discovers that his senses have failed; to be precise, his vision, smell, hearing, and touch have become confused together.

He hears some trivial sounds, but they are not actually sounds; they are gray ripples falling before his eyes, emitting a rotten and damp smell, with a texture somewhat like feathers that have been rained on, flowing flexibly before him.

Behind this ripple, there is a glimmer of crystalline green; it begins to expand gradually, reflecting the entire surrounding perspective into red, representing a series of squelching sounds, and brown-gray debris falls down.

Batman summarizes the pattern within this almost immediately.

Monsters are walking over his head; they are communicating with each other with peaceful emotions, slightly complaining, and their attention has never been focused on him; he has not been discovered.

The moment the monsters step directly above his head, Batman sees a crack open in this green color, and his soul seems to suddenly rise up, higher and higher, higher and higher.

Then the two monsters become a tiny dot, but he himself, hiding under the bridge, expands rapidly until he becomes larger than a huge sailing ship, and then suddenly explodes into a mass of black sludge, drowning everything.

When Batman comes back to his senses, the monsters have already left.

Or rather, he does not know at all whether the monsters have been there, or if everything was just his hallucination.

It is hard to say whether he is better or worse now, because apart from hallucinations, he cannot touch the real world at all; the basis for all his actions now is only the hallucinations he feels.

He does not know if he should trust these bizarre hallucinations.

In fact, Batman still cannot fully understand these hallucinations now; he only feels from this that everything is just the result of his flight of ideas; in reality, the hallucinations and these feelings of his do not exist, and even he himself does not exist.

He begins to become increasingly nihilistic, denying all senses, drowsily letting the hallucinations change, not thinking, as if time itself has stopped flowing.

Not knowing how much time has passed, he hears a vague voice.

"Wake up, Batman."

Then this voice becomes slightly confused.

"Why are you all like this? Is my talent some kind of dementia state engine?"

This voice is too familiar, instantly dragging Batman's memory and sanity back. Although he still cannot see anything except hallucinations, he can at least feel his own existence.

"Doctor?"

"It's me. I had already gone back to rest." The Transcendent runs to the tower, knocking on the door while screaming, saying: "My talent made you stupid, let me save you back. How do you feel?"

"... Very wonderful." Batman has to answer truthfully, saying: "Is this how you live?"

"Of course not, this is too extreme. It probably only activates this strongly when I am about to die. Of course, the pathological side is another matter; some of them can maintain this state all the time."

Pride's tone has always been stable, as if he didn't take this as anything at all, like he was talking about what he ate this morning, carrying a kind of leisurely nonchalance.

"Can you see what I am seeing?"

"Yes, I can. Our minds are connected, otherwise you wouldn't be able to use this talent."

"What do you see?"

"Hmm..." Pride ponders for a moment and says: "Your mental state is truly precarious. If you don't take some sedative medication within an hour, you might have to say goodbye to your Batman career forever."

"I am not talking about me." Batman tries his best to concentrate, but in reality, this is very difficult because he cannot even be sure if he is talking to his own hallucination.

"Are you talking about the situation you are facing now? Let me see... although I don't know why you broke into this place, there are about 15 living creatures around you now. Judging from the way they move, they should be patrolling."

Batman feels his hallucinations blankly and says: "Where can you see that from?"

"Can you feel the atmosphere now?"

"I am not sure." Batman says: "It seems like everything is expressing an atmosphere, but it also seems like everything is not."

"Concentrate, look for the common points in the hallucinations you see—not the common points of the senses, but the common feelings these hallucinations bring you."

Batman is silent for a while before saying: "I feel very cold, a kind of sunless chill, as if this night will never pass."

"Yes, can you feel anything unusual in this atmosphere?"

Batman is silent for a long time before saying: "There are some trivial things. I don't know that they are active; they are not so dead, as if they can also think and have emotions."

"Because that is life." Pride tells him, "You have to strip these vibrant things out of the atmosphere, and then gradually determine whether they are the creators of the atmosphere or the destroyers."

Batman no longer cares whether he is really talking to Pride; he just finds that this seems to really work.

"What counts as a successful stripping?"

"What do you think?"

"Perhaps hearing a heartbeat?"

As soon as Batman finishes speaking, he hears a heartbeat by his ear; some are far away, some are closer, but he seems to be able to determine their positions based on the heartbeat.

"Congratulations on getting what you wished for." Pride's tone carries some laughter, and he says: "Now you should understand what these hallucinations mean."

Batman knows he doesn't understand, or rather, he doesn't want to believe it; he has to get to the bottom of it.

"I wish that whatever hallucination I produce, I can produce it, but what connection does this have with the real world?"

"Maybe there is no connection; it's just your crazy hallucination."

"Then can I make these hallucinations disappear?"

"Of course you can, but how can you be sure that it has really disappeared? And how do you know that the real world after the hallucinations disappear is not just a false world produced according to your wishes?"

Batman is silent.

"So you can only choose to believe." Pride says: "Believe that your hallucinations correspond one-to-one with the real world, and believe that you can use the information provided by the hallucinations to solve your current predicament."

Before Batman can speak, Pride continues: "This is unreasonable. The human mind and the material world should not be connected in such a chaotic way; this is pathological."

"But whether this is normal or not has no direct relationship with whether you choose to believe and use it now."

"Believing in common sense and pursuing survival should not be connected as you think, although various facts prove that the bridge between them is incomparably solid and the causal relationship is clear, but if there was an accident like me once, then naturally there can be a second one."

"What accident?"

"Do you think the tower is not the product of an accident? Then am I so bored that I must divide myself into so many pieces?"

"So in some accident, you chose the latter and abandoned the former."

"Yes, I didn't win, but I succeeded in surviving, so I embarked on this path, and so far, I have been living quite well."

"I am afraid I cannot be like you this time, Doctor." Batman says: "I know that many genius inspirations in this world have no evidence, and I am not paranoid enough to ask a mental patient's hallucination for proof of existence; this cannot be proven."

"So you don't intend to believe what you feel?"

"No, I believe, but I believe even more that one day I will figure all this out in a more scientific way, and before that, I will just treat this as a tool, just like Constantine's magic."

"You have never tried to study the root of magic because you know it is very dangerous, so why must you study this?"

"What is dangerous is not magic, but the magician." Batman seems to finally speak his true thoughts, saying: "Whether it is all the devil's fault for tempting them, they should know in their hearts. Why doesn't the devil come to tempt me? Why not tempt Superman? Even the Flash?"

"The bad seeds in this world don't have to be divided into those who know magic and those who don't. I don't study magic because I have studied enough lunatics, villains, and bad seeds."

"Then you study me because you think it is this devilish talent that tempted me, rather than me being a bad seed?"

"This will only be known after studying."

"Alright, before you reach a conclusion, just treat this as magic. I can tell you some basic rules, but the rest is up to you to explore."

"Thank you for your patience..."

"You're welcome, this hasn't even reached one-tenth of my patience."

When Batman opens his eyes again, he climbs up from under the pier and walks down the street in a swaggering manner.

At a turn, he stops, flips onto the awning with very nimble movements, and squats in the shadow of the corner of the wall, watching two black shadows walk past from the alley.

"Angry, complaining..."

He says softly.

Then he turns his head to look at the street corner; there is another very faint reflection of a trident, and he whispers again: "Impatient, sad, painful... found you."

In an instant, his figure follows the corner of the alley to the street, as if merging with the long shadow cast by the street lamp.

And the Deep One stumbling past in front of him does not notice him at all, just walking straight forward.

Until a hand grabs his trident.

The next second, his own weapon, which was pulled away, is inserted into his chest, and a huge force drags him into the alley next to him.

Just as the Deep One wants to let out a scream, the trident is inserted into his neck again, and blood flows out gurglingly. In the second before death, he sees a pair of unfocused eyes and hears his whisper like the Grim Reaper.

"Are you feeling sad for the disappearance of your companion?... But you are also very fanatical. You are willing to sacrifice your life for your followers and are proud of it. Is that your god?"

Instantly, the Transcendent's prompt tone seems to ring in Batman's ear again, "He might have thrown a die, but he can't see the result at all."

It is just that, in the bizarre hallucinations, he sees a hideous and huge body in the pitch-black seabed emitting rhythmic growls, as if singing a terrifying ballad.

Those protruding, yellowish eyes suddenly look at him, and after a buzz, he feels countless whispers surrounding him.

Characters and syllables dance around him until they appear in the form of hallucinations in his crushed senses.

He understands what It means.

"My name is... 'Dagon'." ===== CHAPTER 3202 =====