Chapter 3536: Mind Hunter (5)

The other three returned to the truck bed. The roar of the truck's engine was more intense than ever, and every tremor felt like it was knocking on the heart, making people inexplicably suffocated and nervous.

Schiller felt the truck start and drive forward. At first, it was relatively stable, but soon, the intense weightlessness made everyone unable to speak.

It didn't feel like the weightlessness of bungee jumping or riding a roller coaster, but more like jumping off a roof in a dream, the feeling of being helpless and only able to feel endless falling.

"Bang!"

The truck suddenly shook violently, as if it had hit something. But Jack obviously didn't intend to stop.

"Bang! Bang bang!"

There were two more vibrations in succession. Schiller also had to grab the handle next to the car door. He vaguely heard Jack curse, but it soon became silent.

Schiller grabbed the car door with one hand, thinking about the situation outside.

H'El's spiritual strength was too high, and the bottom layer of the dream must be terrifyingly chaotic. All his negative emotions would turn into monsters, destroying wantonly here.

It was by no means easy to pass through such a place. Even if Jack, as Bruce's "Joker," had been greatly enhanced in strength, he might not be able to handle it completely.

Thinking of this, he took two steps toward the front of the car and said: "If you can't get through, you can drop me off here. I think I can handle it."

"Bang!!!"

Another violent impact. The degree of these two was much more serious than before, the whole truck shook violently, and the metal parts of the cargo bed made a tooth-aching squeezing and friction sound.

Immediately after, Schiller heard a "thump," and then semi-transparent white water seeped into the car from the cracks, soon submerging their ankles.

It was amniotic fluid.

Schiller had experience in emergency psychological treatment in obstetrics, and he knew what the liquid pouring in was.

The next second he confirmed his guess, because a huge baby head stretched over, and an eye much larger than the car door was pressed close to the crack of the car door, as if wanting to see if there was anyone inside.

Injustice Superman gasped, but Injustice Batman immediately covered his mouth. Schiller also pressed tightly against the wall of the cargo bed, and the three held their breath at the same time.

The baby didn't seem to see anything and soon floated away with the water. The truck bumped, as if it had gone ashore. The water that had just poured in soon flowed away.

One wave after another. With a "clang," the top of the cargo bed was dented, and a small gap appeared at the connection, just above Schiller's head.

He looked up and saw a pair of pliers, but it wasn't an obstetric tool. He couldn't say what it was, but there were faint Kryptonian characters engraved on it.

With another "clang," this one hit the side of the wall, and a large piece bulged out immediately. The truck made a sharp turn, avoiding the next strike, and didn't know where it had driven.

Immediately after, Schiller felt the ground where the truck was located shaking. A roar came from the front, as if something was breaking through the ground.

He took a look through the damaged gap and only saw heavy shadows covering it. Immediately after, the ground behind the car door suddenly exploded, and something sharp, like a snake's tail, drilled out from under the ground and slammed onto the car door.

Following the crack in the car door, Schiller took a careful look at that thing: it was silver-white, thin and long, with two horns extending from the tip of the tail, one left and one right, which could not only separate but also rotate.

This looked like a tentacle of some huge creature. Schiller knew that the shadow he saw before should be the main body.

After being chased by this tentacle for a while, it finally shook it off, and the whole cargo bed seemed to be squeezed by something, and the three of them leaned toward the center one after another.

Schiller turned his head and saw very obvious four-left-one-right finger marks—this was clearly the hand of a primate.

Immediately after, he smelled an unpleasant odor, which felt a bit like burnt rubber.

The truck's cargo bed had been devastated, and if anything else came, the three of them definitely wouldn't be able to run.

But fortunately, after only a few minutes, the truck slowly stopped, as if it had reached the landing point that Jack thought was safe.

The car door opened, and Injustice Batman and Injustice Superman didn't step forward out of caution. Schiller walked down first.

As soon as he came down, he smelled a very heavy smell of tar, followed by the choking smell of dust. Black ash filled the sky.

Schiller looked at this place. This seemed to be an underground mine, but this mine tunnel had been abandoned. Walking a few steps further out, one could see a vertical passage upward.

Although there was a passage, there were no stairs. Schiller immediately realized that this might be a Kryptonian mine, because Kryptonians could fly, and they didn't need stairs. This straight upward passage was the road they used to go back and forth.

The rock wall was dark brown. Schiller reached out and wiped it lightly, leaving a clear mark. His fingertips didn't leave much color, and the floating soil and residue fell down.

A very low roar came from underground. If one felt carefully, one could feel a slight vibration. The temperature here was also very high, close to 40 degrees, and the oxygen circulation was very slow; breathing faster made one feel suffocated.

Injustice Batman and Injustice Superman also followed. Injustice Superman looked at the environment here, but like Injustice Batman, he felt strange.

Although he could vaguely remember some things about Krypton, he never remembered his hometown having such a place.

"This belongs to the shallow dream, it's relatively safe, but still need to be careful," Jack looked at Schiller and said, "How to enter the deeper layer of the dream, I shouldn't need to tell you. I'm leaving."

After saying that, he returned to the truck. Injustice Superman wanted to open his mouth to stop him, but Injustice Batman pulled his cape. In the blink of an eye, the truck disappeared.

"So how to enter the deep dream?" Injustice Superman looked at Schiller and asked. He appeared very vigilant, as if he didn't intend to be with Schiller.

"How did I enter your deep dream?"

Injustice Superman choked; in fact, he didn't know either. He only remembered that he was a bit irritable at that time, and then everything in front of him disappeared.

"Loss of control," Schiller said, "By stimulating spiritual weaknesses, making the owner of the dream lose control, he will fall into deeper chaos, and naturally he will be able to enter the deep dream."

"But I advise you not to act rashly. You also saw what kind of monsters were in the deepest dream on the way here. You might not be the opponent of that group of monsters. Being killed here means really dying."

Injustice Superman pursed his lips and didn't speak.

It wasn't that Schiller had to waste his breath with him, but if they made any mess, it might affect his investigation plan, which wouldn't be good.

Injustice Superman thought: When he was in his dream, it seemed that it was indeed after he went crazy that he would wake up from the bed again. So stimulating the owner of the dream to make him chaotic was the way to go deep into the dream.

But the problem is: how much difference is there between stimulating H'El in H'El's dream and looking for death?

Then he heard Schiller say: "In the dream, H'El might not be H'El."

"The shallower the dream, the more logical his identity is, such as someone he has come into contact with, or an ideal version of himself. And the deeper the dream, the more abstract he is; he could be a monster, some kind of animal or plant, or even an inorganic tool, everything is possible."

Injustice Batman began to think about what Schiller said, and he associated it with some dream experiences he occasionally had.

When sleep is relatively shallow, he usually dreams of his past. At that time, he is still himself, just that his experience and identity might be slightly different.

And when he is completely asleep, the dream begins to become whimsical. He could be a tree, a pile of sand, a building, or simply not exist, just a perspective like a camera.

It seems H'El's dream is the same. In the shallower dream, his identity in the dream is just a variant of the real world. But if it's in the deep dream, it would be difficult to find him.

Schiller didn't want to explain too much, nor did he want to delay time. He walked along the passage all the way until he came to a wide cylindrical vertical shaft.

A huge metal pipe went all the way down. The pipe emitted intense heat, and looking down from the edge, one could vaguely see some firelight. Looking up, the vertical shaft and the pipe converged at the vanishing point.

Schiller saw a pattern printed on the pipe, with a line of Kryptonian text below it. He didn't recognize the text, but he could roughly guess what the pattern was.

"The symbol of the Kryptonian High Council," Kara's voice echoed in the empty vertical shaft. She hovered in front of the pattern, her eyes a bit complicated.

"I once heard my parents say that a long time ago, it was the elders of the Council who led the Kryptonians to develop core energy and built our first spaceship. At that time, everyone was very happy, feeling that we would soon be able to get rid of this barren planet and go to the distance to find our own paradise."

"The celebration lasted for days and nights. People danced and sang, praising the achievements of the elders, and also fantasizing about their beautiful future."

"But fate played a huge joke on us," Kara smiled, but revealed an indescribable sadness.

Clark flew to her side and asked softly: "What?"

"We don't get along with the stars in our own star system. Such a race should have been eliminated on the path of evolution. But our ancestors didn't accept their fate, and in order to improve their genes, they developed gene screening and editing technology."

"Despite this, the early Kryptonians still lived very hard. Building a spaceship was to find a suitable star. But you know the result; until Krypton was destroyed, we didn't find a suitable star."

Clark also fell silent. He knew where the star suitable for Kryptonians was. It seemed that compared to Kryptonians, humans were a lucky enough race.

"After the grand ideal was shattered, all that remained were dregs. The first generation of elders died in depression, the second generation didn't see the picture in their ideals, and then the third generation, the fourth generation..."

"Things changed completely. They no longer wanted to develop and hike, but desperately plundered the resources on the home planet, built solid shelters and greenhouses for themselves, threw most Kryptonians outside, and let them fend for themselves."

"The equipment for extracting core energy is very dangerous," Kara looked down, her gaze lingering on the faint firelight, and continued: "Every unstable energy activity in the core sends countless living lives to their deaths. And we are helpless. Do you know why this is?"

Clark looked at Kara. Her profile was illuminated by the extremely weak firelight, with only a trace of light on the edge, and the rest was all submerged in the shadows, like a long solar eclipse.

He heard Kara's voice echoing in the empty vertical shaft again, and every slight vibration of the impact on the rock wall made his heart tremble:

"Because, our planet has a heart of a star."

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 3537 =====