Not far from the monitoring room, Shiller and his group found the cargo elevator. It was a cylindrical capsule elevator, very spacious, able to accommodate dozens of people, and it functioned well.
With the help of data in the monitoring room, Shiller had roughly inferred the aning of so Kryptonian characters, especially numbers, so he could understand the anings of the buttons on the elevator.
Shiller originally wanted to go straight to the surface, but considering the scope of the dream realm might not be that large, Chayle might be sowhere in the mine. He chose a middle floor number, planning to search for Chayle's traces on that level.
The elevator quickly ca to a stop. Upon stepping out, he looked around, and once again saw many dark passageways. The entire mine was eerily quiet, with only faint humming of machinery and the sizzling sound of lighting equipnt heard from a distant place.
Quiet signifies safety, Shiller thought. While recalling this past, Chayle felt safe; perhaps soone accompanied him, and that would be his ntal anchor.
Once more standing at the edge of the corridor and looking down, Shiller saw a light two levels below. That level clearly seed different, appearing to be a living area.
"Will they be there?" Injustice Batman asked after noticing the sa place.
"We can go down and take a look," said Shiller.
They took the elevator down two levels again. Once the elevator doors opened, many things beca clearer.
The closer one gets to the dream's owner, the clearer the dream becos, thought Shiller. It looks like Chayle is on this level.
To avoid conflict with the locals, they swiftly turned the corner. Shiller glanced quickly at the plaques on the corridor doors, which beca increasingly clear from left to right.
The plaque at the end of the left corridor seed to have only a number, the middle one had so color, and the plaque on the rightmost room showed clear signs of wear.
Even a super brain has a fuzzy logic function; unused and unnecessary information gets blurred out. The clearer rembered information is, the clearer it appears in the dream.
"You stay here and keep watch," Shiller told Injustice Superman.
Injustice Superman naturally wouldn't want to take orders, but since Injustice Batman stayed back, he didn't move forward either.
Shiller grasped the doorknob, feeling a slightly cool touch. He gently pushed the door open; behind it was a lounge with silver-white walls and a soft bed.
A gray-skinned little boy sat on the bed, fiddling with a toy in his hands. Noticing soone enter, he looked up towards the door.
At first glance, Shiller squinted, noticing that even the young Chayle had horrifying scars on his face.
Unlike Barry, he was quite familiar with this scenario. The El couple shouldn't have been abusive to him, so the problem likely lay with his creator.
Shiller recalled everything he encountered while traversing the deep dream—a terrifying infant, Kryptonian-inscribed pliers, strange tentacles...
Shiller thought of many things but still walked over. Chayle looked at him curiously and greeted him in Kryptonian, saying, "Hello."
Just by looking, Shiller could already discern a few things. His gaze fell onto the toy Chayle held.
Chayle rattled off a string of words in Kryptonian. Shiller keenly picked up the syllables "Joe El," the tone rising, carrying a bit of pride. When ntioning this na, Chayle was undoubtedly happy.
Shiller gradually restored the original appearance of this dream—El bringing his adopted son to work. Every ordinary day he was busy, little Chayle awaited in his father's lounge, playing with toys.
El was Chayle's ntal anchor. El's significance to Chayle was similar to Lois's to Injustice Superman.
In an instant, Shiller already thought of how to make Chayle in this dream lose control.
He glanced around; besides a bed, there was a table and chairs. Going over to the table, he saw so drawing papers and a row of pen-like things resembling colored crayons.
Shiller casually picked up one and began sketching so lines on a white sheet. After a while, he lifted it up and placed it in front of Chayle.
Reflected in Chayle's pupils was the emblem of the highest council.
Horror flashed in his eyes, his expression began to twist, and he slapped away the paper from Shiller's hand, clutching his toy and retreating to the bed.
Seeing his reaction, Shiller confird his suspicion.
The more vividly sothing is rembered, the clearer it appears in dreams. When they arrived, they saw this pattern on the central huge pipeline; every detail of the pattern's flow was very clear. This indicated a deep impression on Chayle.
Shiller also found this emblem on so equipnt in the monitoring room. He guessed it might be the emblem of the highest governing council of Krypton.
This is actually quite abnormal. Like asking soone about the emblem of their location's ruler, many can only recall the general, such as the shape and elents on it, but very few can detail every tiny pattern.
Because it's not an everyday item, even if it appears in news reports, no one scrutinizes it, a quick glance to identify it suffices.
Even with a super brain, an emblem isn't sothing one must rember. Chayle, having been away from Krypton all these years, yet still rembers this emblem so distinctly, implying it has extraordinary significance for him.
As expected, little Hai'er felt afraid.
Shiller persisted relentlessly, holding that piece of paper and pointing at the symbol on it, he asked Hai'er in English: "Do you know what this is? Can you tell what this is?"
Hai'er couldn't understand what he was saying, but creatures with empathy don't necessarily need to understand the language to feel what's being communicated. Actions, attitude, tone, and emotions can make one feel pressure.
Shiller's incessant questioning attitude made Hai'er even more frightened. His breathing beca rapid, and he threw the toy in his hand at Shiller.
Suddenly, he shouted sothing, and the entire dream shattered.
Once again enveloped in darkness, Shiller felt the familiar sensation of falling. This feeling always accompanied the journey into deeper layers of the dream.
The Injustice Superman and Injustice Batman outside the door also fell along with him. However, this ti, they could see how the dream was constructed.
First, so solitary objects flew by, like an experint table, laboratory bench, cabinet, chair. These objects rotated continuously in the air, forming a storm.
A sound of water flowed over, and the walls around them seed to rise from a river, slowly appearing beneath their feet and then enclosing them, forming a room.
The light source also spun incessantly around the room, suddenly stopping at a specific angle. The furniture fell down with a swish.
In a flash, it beca an utterly ordinary room, looking like a laboratory.
Outside the window, the sun was bright, the breeze gentle, and even the sounds of so birds could be heard, completely hiding the earlier chaos.
The three of them stood on one side of the laboratory, and on the other side of the lab table lay a specin of so animal.
What was most striking was a spherical machine fixed on the ceiling. Two chanical arms extended from the lower side of the machine, their tweezer-like sharp tips rotating slowly, seemingly awaiting the next command from the control end.
Seeing the shape of these two chanical arms, Shiller's breath caught slightly—these were very similar to the tentacle chasing the car.
Shiller walked over and looked up at the machine above his head. The round machine had many holes, suggesting various chanical arms could extend from within.
The Injustice Batman approached the control panel nearby. With a glance, he roughly understood the operation thod of the thing.
He reached out and pressed a button, the chanical arm on the left deftly bent, and the two sharp, tweezer-like tips slipped into the wound of the dissected animal, pulling out a milky neural strand.
"Ingenious design," Injustice Batman said. "If we illustrate with Earth's technology, it would mimic the movent of an octopus's arm. But I'm not sure what thods they used for the touch-point design..."
Shiller looked at the animal lying on the dissection table. It was an animal about the size of a wild boar, with a long nose and smooth skin surface, its abdon cut open by an incision.
Shiller looked up again at the chanical arm and noticed that the two sharp tips of the car-chasing chanical arm in the deep dream were noticeably larger, which is why they seed like a monster's teeth.
"Get rid of it," Shiller said, pointing at the animal on the dissection table.
Injustice Batman readily complied, maneuvering the chanical arm to push the boar-like animal down.
Then Shiller did sothing that surprised both Injustice Batman and Injustice Superman.
He laid himself on the dissection table.
"Now it's right," Shiller thought as he lay flat on the dissection table. "Lying here, indeed the tips appeared large."
He sat up again and then said, "You two go find Hai'er; he should be in the adjacent room. Bring him here."
Injustice Superman wanted to retort, but recalling Shiller's sudden move to lie on the dissection table, he thought this man must be a madman. Coupled with Injustice Batman waiting by the door, he simply went out too.
Shiller sorted through the clues in his mind.
There was no doubt that Hai'er had so childhood trauma. He might have stayed in a laboratory for experints when he was young, leaving a lasting impression of the chanical arm constantly waving above his head.
At that ti, he was very scared, which is why in his mory, the chanical arm was magnified many tis and beca a terrifying tentacle chasing every living creature.
By that logic, other monsters might be the sa.
Just as he thought of this, Injustice Batman and Injustice Superman brought Hai'er in. However, instead of walking him in, they had directly dragged him in.
It seed that young Hai'er didn't have such great strength, at least wasn't a match for Injustice Superman, who effortlessly dragged him into the laboratory.
He was shouting sothing, and Shiller heard similar syllables. He guessed it might an "Dad" in Krypton's language.
In the instant he saw the chanical arms behind Shiller, Hai'er let out a scream. The dream shattered once more.
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