Chapter 3535: Mind Hunter (4)

In the pitch-black truck bed, the three were silent for a moment.

Schiller looked down at the alarm clock in his hand. It was a mini alarm clock the size of a palm, with a shiny silver shell. Although it looked like an old-fashioned alarm clock with two small ears and a hammer in the middle, that was just decoration; the bell sound was electronic.

Schiller gently pressed the button on the alarm clock.

"Ding-a-ling!"

Injustice Superman instinctively shuddered and couldn't help but glare at Schiller. But he actually didn't have much anger. Since promising Charles to seal his emotions, he rarely felt intense emotions.

Instead, it was a kind of emptiness and irritability.

"What is this?" Injustice Batman asked, as if asking a question he already knew the answer to.

"You probably don't want me to answer 'this is an alarm clock.' But in reality, it is indeed an alarm clock." Schiller seemed to be going in circles, but Injustice Batman understood what he was saying.

"What is my alarm clock?" Injustice Batman asked.

"If you are willing to let me visit your dream, perhaps I can answer this question, but not now." Schiller answered truthfully.

Injustice Superman didn't understand what they were talking about.

Schiller held the alarm clock in front of his eyes, but what he saw wasn't the alarm clock itself, but countless intertwined emotional threads. This was an extremely complex spiritual structure.

Everyone has their own spiritual weaknesses.

Spiritual weaknesses are divided into innate and acquired. Some people's mental states are inherently unstable, and if they don't receive good guidance and treatment later, that fragile part will accompany them for life.

This doesn't mean they will go crazy or anything; they just leave behind more weaknesses. For example, some people are born with a fear of heights and will shake as long as they stand in a high place; this is an extra spiritual weakness compared to others.

There are also spiritual weaknesses that appear later in life. For example, being hurt in a failed relationship, and feeling uncomfortable or even collapsing when encountering similar people afterward.

It can be said that as long as they are intelligent life forms that possess both logic and emotion, they must have their own spiritual weaknesses.

It's just that some people's weaknesses are hidden too deep, and some people are good at covering them up, so they look perfect on the surface.

The Creator is unfair. The living beings in this universe are strong if they are strong, and weak if they are weak. But he is also fair; all living beings dream the same dream.

In the dream, those things described as abstract in the real world, or simply not talked about, have their own entities here.

The alarm clock in Schiller's hand is the fuse for Injustice Superman's spiritual weakness.

Because of his long-term unwillingness to face Batman, and the great mental pressure when talking to Batman face-to-face, he formed a conditioned reflex to the alarm clock sound that woke him up every day.

Once the bell rings, he has to get up; once he wakes up, he has to face Batman; once he faces Batman, he has difficulty speaking and feels irritable and uncomfortable.

It was eventually simplified to: once the bell rings, he feels irritable and uncomfortable.

Injustice Superman's spiritual weakness is Injustice Batman, but the thing that triggers this weakness is the alarm clock in his own home.

This kind of thing that can hit other people's spiritual weaknesses directly is like an "alarm clock." As long as it rings, the owner's spiritual world will be disturbed. Deep in everyone's spiritual world, there is such an "alarm clock."

Injustice Superman didn't deliberately hide his spiritual weakness, and he might not even know he had this weakness. So even in the shallow dream, there was an alarm clock.

It was just because his spiritual power was too strong that Schiller couldn't invade the area he was most familiar with in the shallow dream, so he couldn't get the alarm clock and had to drag him into a deeper dream.

As everyone knows, people's control over their conscious mind is much stronger than their subconscious. The subconscious is the subconscious precisely because it is an area that intelligent creatures cannot control.

Even for an existence like Superman who possesses a super brain, there are areas in his consciousness that he cannot reach himself, otherwise he wouldn't dream. Dreams are the most typical manifestation of the subconscious.

Shallow dreams are closer to the conscious mind. There, their control over their consciousness is stronger, while deep dreams are closer to the subconscious, where people have less control, so it is more chaotic and out of control.

Control comes from certain "anchors" that give them a sense of security in the real world.

For example, Injustice Superman's anchor is Lois.

As soon as he enters a dream, he appears by Lois's side, because every time he lies by Lois's side, he feels safe and can better control his spirit and emotions.

And anchors create a psychological defense line. Injustice Superman's psychological defense line is his bedroom. As long as the anchor exists, the psychological defense line will not be easily broken, and naturally, it will not be easily taken by others.

Conversely, loss of control comes from "weaknesses."

Injustice Superman's weakness is Injustice Batman.

In the deeper dream, Injustice Batman appeared, and Injustice Superman returned to the countless scenes of arguing with him at the Justice League base. This caused his spiritual stability to decline.

Because of this, Schiller was able to gradually break through his psychological defense line, first coming to his living room, then walking into his bedroom, and taking the alarm clock from his bedside table.

With the alarm clock, Schiller could easily interfere with Injustice Superman's mental state.

That's why Injustice Batman asked Schiller "What is my alarm clock?"

He was actually asking "What is the thing that can hit my spiritual weakness?"

This is the key.

Almost everyone knows Batman's spiritual weakness, which is nothing more than his parents being dead.

Many people want to use spiritual weaknesses to hit him, but very few have truly succeeded, which is because they haven't found the right fuse and can't get the real alarm clock.

There are many things related to his parents' death, but no one knows which one can truly stimulate Batman's spirit.

Is it the alley? Is it the gunshot? Is it the pearl necklace? Is it the movie ticket? Could it also be some kind of light glimpsed that night? Some sound? Some sentence?

Perhaps every Batman is different. Without entering the deep dream, there is no way to find the correct thing.

And the alarm clock corresponding to the spiritual weakness is often very abstract, and may even have no strong connection with the spiritual weakness itself.

Just like Injustice Superman, before Schiller entered the deep dream, he wouldn't have thought that the thing triggering Injustice Superman's conditioned reflex was actually an alarm clock.

This is why it's very difficult for ordinary people to invade others' spiritual worlds, trying to find weaknesses and use them, but rarely succeeding.

Because the alarm clock and the spiritual weakness don't necessarily have a direct connection. Injustice Superman's spiritual weakness is Injustice Batman, but his alarm clock is really just an alarm clock, and it's the alarm clock in his own home.

If someone unprofessional came, even if they noticed that Injustice Superman's weakness might be Injustice Batman, they would probably look for equipment with the Batman logo or things representing Batman, and wouldn't think of looking for the alarm clock in Injustice Superman's home.

Injustice Batman looked at the alarm clock in Schiller's hand.

Injustice Batman had already noticed the pressure Injustice Superman was facing when Lois mentioned the alarm clock, knowing that he had become Injustice Superman's spiritual weakness, and knowing that the thing triggering this spiritual weakness was the alarm clock in Injustice Superman's home.

He deliberately mentioned this point before they entered the dream, just to see how capable the person who came was, and how much the rules of this so-called dream world were similar to reality.

The result was as he expected; this mysterious Professor was a true mind hunter.

He pulled Injustice Superman into a deep dream in a very short time and accurately found the alarm clock. This proved that his research on the spiritual world and dreams was very deep, and he was likely a professional.

And the rules of the dream world were somewhat similar to the conclusions drawn from the research on dreams in the real world. It was still the set of conscious and subconscious, seemingly absurd, but interlocking.

Injustice Batman also understood the true purpose of their trip—to find H'El's alarm clock.

But saying it was far from that simple.

Injustice Superman's mental state was already unstable, first receiving a huge stimulus from Lois's tragedy, then being interfered with brain waves by Malafak after coming to this universe, and then being sealed of his emotions by Charles.

His spiritual world was riddled with holes. If he didn't urgently need a sense of security, he wouldn't dream of Lois every time he dreamed, and he wouldn't have let Schiller succeed so easily.

In front of Schiller, Injustice Superman could be described as full of loopholes. But dealing with H'El and dealing with Injustice Superman were different.

H'El's powerful physical strength meant he would have a stronger spiritual sense of security. His anchors would be more stable and less easily shaken.

At the same time, he also possessed powerful psychic abilities that other Kryptonians didn't have. Every psychic is a naturally excellent psychologist, and their observation of their own mental state is more detailed than ordinary people. This made it even more troublesome.

However, Barry's plan coincided with Schiller's plan. He specifically traveled through time to lead the future H'El to the past, letting him know his true origins. This was also a stimulus to his spirit.

This caused a crack in H'El's originally impregnable spiritual world, and also gave Schiller a chance to take advantage of the situation.

The truck stopped. When the three of them walked out of the cargo bed, they saw a piece of slightly barren land. Stepping on the ground was like stepping on loose sandstone that had been weathered for many years.

Everything in sight was a dim yellow, as if it had been stirred into a sandstorm that hadn't dissipated for hundreds of thousands of years on a planet. Everything around was blown to lifelessness and chaos.

It wasn't until they walked a few steps forward that they could see clearly that they were on a cliff, and in front of them was a rift valley that couldn't see the end.

If one wanted to see the full picture of the rift valley, that truck like a behemoth would become a tiny black dot. People were even more invisible, melting into a handful of sand, just a few larger grains of sand.

A gust of wind blew, and the air was filled with a dry breath. Jack stood on the edge of the cliff and looked down, then said: "This is the entrance to H'El's dream."

"You mean we have to jump down?" Injustice Batman asked.

"Yes." Jack looked at Injustice Batman and said, "You must be thinking this is the Joker's conspiracy. But in fact, I have to go down too."

Schiller turned to look at him. Jack sighed and said: "The Dream Realm exists deep in everyone's subconscious. If we enter the dream in the normal way, we might directly enter his deep dream."

"However, the danger level of that guy's deep dream might be far beyond your imagination. If you start exploring from there, you might be torn to pieces before you find what you want."

"So I have to drive you to a safe place. It might be a shallow dream close to the conscious mind, or it might be a middle-layer dream. In short, it's a place to stay."

Injustice Batman also turned to look at him. He suddenly discovered a shocking fact—the Joker of this universe seemed more reliable than all the people in the Justice League combined.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 3536 =====