mtl008 Chapter 4519 The Darkest Night (47)
Chapter 4519 The Darkest Night (47)
Chapter 4519 The Darkest Night (Forty-Seven)
“Something’s not right.” A female voice came from the laboratory. “The power of death is returning to the spiritual realm. Schiller may be in danger!”
Everyone in the lab looked at him. Victor jumped to his feet and exclaimed, "What happened? Why did we come back?!"
“There’s some kind of force pulling at it.” The superhuman frowned deeply. “It seems… it seems to be the child’s own consciousness…”
She placed her hand on the ice, felt it carefully, and then said, "Something is constantly calling for death. The power of death is being guided, flowing back into the brain..."
"What do we do now?!" Victor said anxiously. "Once Schiller comes into contact with the power of death, he might face the mastermind behind it all!"
“Don’t rush.” The superhuman took a deep breath and said, “I can use my life force to slightly hinder it, but it won’t last long.”
"But isn't your life force supposed to counteract the power of death?"
"It's precisely because of this restraint that I can't unleash too much power. Once the power of death is completely dispelled, this child will die. Even a small amount of power can only prolong the time."
Before Victor could say anything more, Brainiac said, "Trust Schiller, he'll figure something out."
A white light flashed from Superbody's hand, enveloping the entire ice sculpture. Then he said, "Alright, this will buy him some more time."
With a whoosh, the flames in the fireplace leaped upwards, illuminating the entire hall once more. Schiller immediately understood that someone must have helped him from outside.
However, the flames were dimming much faster than expected. Schiller estimated that after the final three cycles, the flames would be completely extinguished. The deathly power invading the spiritual realm would then engulf the area entirely. He would be drawn into the Black Death Emperor's domain.
Schiller already knew what Hugo had done. Hugo knew he would come back to this memory to look for clues, so he set a trap: isolating Schiller and trapping him in a loop. And this loop was special because each time it looped, Novi had to experience the pain of death.
Each of her deaths would invoke the power of death, which would then return to this place after being banished from the spiritual realm. At that point, Schiller, trapped here, would be consumed by the power of death.
It must be admitted that Hugo was indeed quite skilled. Putting aside the technical aspects of creating a cycle, he successfully exploited Schiller's weakness—his moral character as a teacher.
Knowing that his student Bruce has been feeling guilty about this matter, Schiller will definitely want to lift Novy's hypnosis so that she can comfort Bruce. To find the key to lifting the hypnosis, he must examine her memories before her death. Once inside, he will be trapped and then swallowed by the returning power of death.
Schiller sighed softly; now was not the time to use his trump card. He needed to figure out how to break the cycle. And to break the cycle, he first needed to break the barrier and influence the memories.
Schiller glanced around, his gaze suddenly fixing on a figure.
This cycle begins with Novi's arrival at Wayne Manor and ends with her death. The main characters are Bruce and Novi, but they aren't the only ones involved. There's also an outsider: Dick.
That was the most strained period in their relationship. Bruce was too young and hadn't fully transitioned into a father. Dick was going through a rebellious phase, and because he hadn't experienced the loss of his parents, he hadn't matured and was still somewhat childish. It was perfectly normal for them to argue about things.
Hugo would overlook Dick—Schiller realized this immediately. Because, at least from this memory, Dick was just a rebellious teenager. His conversation with Bruce was meaningless and didn't play a major role in advancing the situation.
Hugo was always a very arrogant person. He hated mediocre people, hated boring daily conversations, only liked madmen who were worth studying, and only paid attention to abnormal things.
Throughout the whole affair, Dick behaved far too normally. His mental state and personality were too healthy; even his rebellious behavior wouldn't cause much of a commotion, at most a temper tantrum or a few words of retort. Hugo was destined to ignore him.
Dick must be the key. Schiller walked towards him, but Dick didn't react. Schiller stood there, staring intently at him without blinking.
No, the flaw wasn't in Dick himself. Schiller realized. There was nothing wrong with his appearance or his inner personality. And then, the first cycle began.
His memory shattered once more. Schiller returned to the hall. He looked up in the direction Dick had come from. As far as Schiller knew, Dick's room was on the second floor, and it remained so to this day.
When Brainiac was dividing the houses, he originally planned to give away more than half of them, which would mean the children's rooms would have to be moved. Bruce and Brainiac fought more than one free-for-all over this, but in the end, Brainiac didn't succeed, and the children's rooms remained untouched.
Dick's room was supposed to be on the far right of the second floor. Although it was on the edge, it had an extra window compared to the other rooms, so it was better lit, which is why he chose it.
Schiller stopped staring at the people in the hall and headed towards the right side of the second floor. He didn't find anything unusual in the corridor, but when he reached Dick's door, he realized something was wrong.
Dick doesn't lock the door. This habit might be because his biological parents respect him and always knock on the door whether he locks it or not. Bruce isn't the type to barge in either. Jason, the only one who likes to just barge into a room, can pick three locks in five seconds, so locking them is useless.
But now, Schiller couldn't open the door to Dick's room. He turned the doorknob but there was no response, and he couldn't push it open either. It didn't seem like the door was locked; it was more like, "Let's explore the map later."
Schiller immediately understood the key point—Hugo had absolutely no interest in exploring Dick's inner world.
Given Hugo's professional level, even if he couldn't understand what Wayne Manor looked like within Novie's mental world, he could still make up a rough outline through guesswork. This is the basic quality of a master psychologist.
As for the layout of the hall or Bruce's room, one could guess with a high degree of accuracy based on personality analysis. But the problem was that Hugo didn't like analyzing ordinary people.
Dick was far too normal. Hugo had no interest in delving into Dick's inner world, nor would he bother to guess what Dick's room was like, much less add such an ordinary person's room to his meticulously designed trap. He would consider it a "flaw" that polluted his work.
However, the structure of Wayne Manor as a whole is intact. Schiller had already checked from the backyard; the windows of Dick's room were there, meaning the exterior modeling was done. It's just that the interior wasn't filled in; it might just be a texture, empty inside. This means it might be the only void in the entire memory fragment, and his only way out.
"Bang!" Schiller slammed into the door. To his surprise, the texture was even more fragile than he had expected. Sometimes he really didn't know whether Hugo or he was the arrogant one.
Hugo was clearly projecting his own experience onto others. He wasn't interested in the inner world of ordinary people, so he assumed Schiller must be the same. He thought Schiller couldn't see Dick at all, nor could he possibly study his room, so the texture was really just a thin layer that could easily clip through.
Just as Schiller was about to burst in, the second cycle ended. Back in the hall, Schiller intended to head straight for the second floor, but when he turned around, he stopped in his tracks.
Bruce and Novi, who appeared at the door, had turned into zombies, with large patches of lividity on their skin, but they seemed oblivious to it, talking to themselves.
Schiller took two steps back, then turned and headed upstairs. But Dick, who appeared there, had also turned into a corpse, his veins rotting and his skin peeling away. Just as Schiller brushed past him, Dick suddenly made a movement contrary to his memory—he turned back.
Schiller seemed to sense something, and he turned around to look. The instant his eyes met Dick's, Schiller knew: he had been discovered.
Schiller slowly released his grip on the doorknob, his posture shifting from slamming the door to standing. He turned to look at Dick standing by the stairs, the last glimmer of fire in his grey eyes fading.
The next second, the fragments of memory collapsed. An endless power of death engulfed the area, plunging everything into utter darkness. Silence, lightlessness, the world plunged into eternal night.
Schiller stood in the void of darkness and whispered, "I only let my friends see me because I didn't want them to worry. You shouldn't let them not see me."
Suddenly, a pale continent rose beneath Schiller's feet, stretching almost to the horizon. But when the colossal figure emerged from the darkness, it became clear that the continent was merely above its head. A skull as large as a planet appeared before Schiller.
"Consume to death." His voice was like some kind of ballad, "Life is short, the night is eternal, serving death is the only eternal answer."
“What is eternity? It is neither light nor darkness.” Schiller’s voice flowed seamlessly, like the second half of a song. “What cannot define me, what cannot be written about me, is not eternity. Everyone you have met eventually dies. But you have never seen clearly that my death is not death, but the beginning of another story.”
The giant skull froze. It seemed to see something: a crashing plane, raging flames, shattered shell fragments, and that neither warm nor bright morning in Gotham.
“You escaped death.” He seemed to suddenly become enraged. “You are a shameful cheat! You are unworthy to serve death!”
Schiller simply raised one of his hands slightly: "I told you, you shouldn't let everyone see me."
Suddenly, in the utter silence of the darkness, a low murmur drifted from afar. A thick gray mist emanated from the ring on Schiller's hand, until it thinned the darkness. On the distant horizon, the silhouette of a colossal dragon appeared and disappeared.
The mist around Schiller gradually solidified, and several gray rings with ancient patterns appeared beside him. They were then swallowed up by the thick gray mist and flew away to find their owners.