Chapter 950: What Shiler Fears Most (Part II)

Batman had wanted to speak when Zatanna was feeling down to persuade her to give up. After all, Batman's purpose in coming here had been achieved, and he hadn't really thought Zatanna's plan could succeed anyway.

But unexpectedly, Zatanna suddenly pushed him away and said with full energy, "Since that's the case, I must see even more what kind of secrets this mysterious Professor Shiler is hiding? What are his weaknesses?"

"If the Curse of Ultimate Evil falls into the hands of such a person, something very terrifying must happen. I must stop all of this!"

Looking at the resolute expression on Zatanna's face, Batman, who had just been hugged by Zatanna, felt that it wasn't very easy for him to speak now.

But unexpectedly, Constantine coughed twice and said, "Zatanna, you can see it too, this professor is not an ordinary person. How about we..."

Constantine also had the intention to leave. Although he hadn't obtained the Soul of the Curse this time, he had obtained leverage over Batman, which could be considered a full harvest. His goal was basically achieved anyway, and he didn't think Zatanna's plan could succeed either.

But Zatanna glared at him and said, "Do you think I'm the same as you? I wouldn't aim for retreat."

After speaking, she walked to the balls of light again, looked down at the building blocks in her hand, and said, "Building blocks? Let me think... no, no, regardless, it's wrong to lie to children, but an exchange should be okay, right?"

After speaking, she pulled over another memory ball of light. This memory ball of light appeared smaller compared to the others. The screen expanded, and Zatanna constructed a scene of a children's room.

Then, she muttered to herself, "For the young Shiler, these building blocks should be a very important thing. If I use them to exchange for the umbrella, he should trade with me, right?"

After speaking, the young Shiler appeared in the memory space. At this moment, a female teacher who looked exactly like Zatanna walked in. She held a building block in her hand, then squatted down, looked into the young Shiler's eyes, and said, "Little Shiler, do you want these building blocks?"

The young Shiler looked into Zatanna's eyes and nodded. Zatanna showed a gentle smile, touched his head, and then said, "Then will you trade with the teacher using the umbrella?"

The young Shiler tilted his head and glanced at the large umbrella he was clutching behind his back, looked at Zatanna again, and then shook his head.

"Why don't you want to trade with me?" Zatanna still squinted her eyes very gently, smiling and saying, "It's not raining today, you can safely play with building blocks in the room without having to go out. Come on, give me the umbrella..."

Shiler took a slight step back and shook his head again, but his gaze remained fixed on the building blocks in Zatanna's hand. Zatanna felt that this might be the most hopeful round, so her hand reached forward again.

But unexpectedly, Shiler quickly snatched the building blocks from her hand and ran to the corner of the wall.

Zatanna's eyes widened in anger, seeming to feel somewhat annoyed. She immediately took two steps forward and said, "How can you snatch things? That's wrong, children should be polite!"

But the young Shiler, who had hidden in the corner, held the building blocks in one hand and the umbrella in the other, just staring at her. Zatanna wanted to take two steps forward, but was afraid of stimulating Shiler.

There was no other way, she could only reset the scene again. This time, she didn't reach her hand so far forward, gripping the building blocks tightly, not giving Shiler a chance to succeed. Then, she and Shiler stared at each other like this for three hours.

Of course, it was three hours in the memory space. In the soul buffer zone where Zatanna and the others were, about 20 minutes had passed.

Finally, the screen went dark. Zatanna chose to give up. She stood where she was, somewhat dazed, and said, "I really don't understand, how can such a small child have such powerful concentration? He stared at my movements for a full three hours. As long as my fingers loosened a little, or I got distracted, he would snatch the building blocks away..."

"Many autistic children have higher concentration than their peers. In cases where they are deficient in one aspect, they will be exceptionally skilled in another." Batman said.

Zatanna's complexion appeared very exhausted, not only because resetting the scene multiple times consumed too much power, but also because anyone who confronted Shiler would feel a kind of mental torture.

Batman saw Zatanna's expression. He knew that Zatanna's emotions were stretched like a string, and now it was stretched a bit too tight, and it might break at any time. Stimulating her at this time was not a good idea.

Sure enough, he heard Zatanna muttering to herself, "I must solve this curse, I have this responsibility, this is my destiny..."

"To hell with destiny!" Constantine, who was lying on the ground recovering his strength, raised his voice and said, "Why don't you understand? Those elders who say these things to you don't really want you to save the world, they just want to use you to save themselves!"

"Constantine!" Zatanna almost screamed, "Do you think I will become someone like you? I am different from you. I will definitely make good use of my talent to protect this world. I will absolutely not let myself go down such a path!"

Constantine closed his eyes, his chest rising and falling weakly. He said, "Perhaps, your heart to protect this world is true, but the people who established this goal for you and taught you methods and skills back then never really wanted to protect the world..."

"Are you talking about my father?!" Zatanna's voice had already cracked. She said fiercely to Constantine, "Regardless, what my father and I do is to protect others! Unlike you!"

Constantine didn't refute this at all. He just took out a cigarette, took a puff, and then said, "Seeking justice and protecting others in the magic world, did you get something wrong? We are just a group of poor wretches under a curse. Don't think of yourself as too great."

Batman saw Zatanna's somewhat twisted face. Through the conversation between Zatanna and Constantine, Batman guessed that Zatanna, born into a prestigious family, might have been instilled since childhood with the concept of using her powerful talent to save and protect the world.

Perhaps the person who instilled this principle in her didn't have pure motives, or perhaps their motives were pure, but they didn't match the facts.

Constantine had emphasized countless times that magical talent is like a curse, constantly forcing people to slide into the abyss. Zatanna seemed to think she would be the exception, but Constantine was very pessimistic about this.

"You should save some strength, Zatanna, save some strength to protect yourself, instead of forcing yourself crazy on the road to seeking so-called justice like this."

Zatanna's expression moved for a moment. Batman saw a trace of fragility in that moment, but it soon disappeared.

This female magician, who always wore a somewhat playful smile on her face, was like performing on stage at all times, mentally focused and full of vitality.

But first hearing the news of the Curse of Ultimate Evil, she rushed to Cat Getan without stopping, then consumed great power and energy to set up the fog blocking the Cat Getan spirit world, and finally, the matter of finding flaws from the memory space didn't go smoothly...

This series of blows made Zatanna start to feel very anxious. It seemed that there was always a voice in her heart urging her, telling her that if she couldn't solve this matter alone, there would be very serious consequences. As long as she didn't do her best, as long as she made any small mistake, the world would be destroyed, and humanity would perish.

And this kind of emotion, Batman knew deeply.

Batman was not a person very good at comforting others. He could only use his own methods to divert Zatanna's attention, so he spoke up:

"If we continue to waste time here, there won't be any additional progress. I think we should return to the real world first. This is the most rational choice."

He looked at Zatanna and Constantine and said, "The states of you two are not good. We urgently need to rest. Let's go back first."

Constantine nodded, stood up from the ground, and intended to leave. But Zatanna, who was silent where she was, took a deep breath, exhaled, and then said, "If you want to go, I can send you back first, but I must stay here."

"Even if I can't get the curse medium now, I must know how to restrain him. Otherwise, when the disaster really comes, it will be too late."

"Zatanna, listen to me, continuing to drag it out is meaningless. This will cause you great harm." Constantine looked into Zatanna's eyes and said, "I know you still have trump cards, but this is not worth it."

"There is nothing not worth it. I said it, I am doing my best at every moment." Zatanna was also unwilling to back down. She said, "If you want to go, I will send you away now, but I must find the flaws in these memory spaces."

Zatanna's stubbornness gave Constantine a huge headache. He gave Batman a wink, wanting Batman to come over and persuade her too. But unexpectedly, after Batman walked over, he said, "Do you think you still have spare energy? If you do, then execute your plan."

"My God, are you crazy?!" Constantine said very uncomprehendingly, "Even if you stay here for a few more hours, what results can you have? It's just repeating these previous failures a few more times..."

Unexpectedly, Zatanna said, "No, since things have reached this point, I think we can use some radical methods."

"You mean, you have other methods?" Batman asked, looking at her.

Zatanna sighed and said, "Actually, I don't want to do this. This has already exceeded the scope of memory modification."

"Now, what you see is me creating a virtual memory space and implanting false memories into the characters in the memory space, which actually won't have too much impact on the real memory."

"Because this is just making changes on the superficial layer of consciousness, without touching the deep parts at all."

"But actually, mind magic can do far more than this. We can completely follow the path of memory to go deeper and peek at more secrets there."

Zatanna sighed lightly and said, "If we can't make him hand over the curse medium through this deceptive way, then at least we can get a way to restrain him, to stop him when he wants to do something."

Seeing the expression on Zatanna's face and hearing what she said, Batman had a very strange feeling, because he saw his past self in Zatanna.

Suspicious, paranoid, persecutory delusion, hoping that everything and everyone acts according to his ideas, hoping that all plans have backups, and for any existence that might exceed his control, he must get their weaknesses, otherwise he would be restless.

Now, Batman clearly knew how his current personality was formed. He was driven by anger, revenge, and the heart to save Cat Getan, urgently wanting to become a perfect person, and feeling very anxious about not being able to be perfect.

Then Zatanna, what was forcing her to go down such a road leading to the abyss? And what could save her?

Batman suddenly discovered that from the perspective of a bystander, such a person is not likable. He finally understood why Shiler and that crazy person who was always laughing kept emphasizing that "the person who dresses up as a bat is the mental patient."

Because such people really look too much like mental patients. ===== CHAPTER 951 =====