A Sudden Twist (Part 1)

A gray light appeared before Batman's eyes, followed by Schiller's voice. As always, he seemed to be able to see what Batman was thinking. Schiller said to Batman, "I pull everyone's consciousness into a dream, and then attract the Lantern Ring by amplifying their emotions in the dream..."

"But the Lantern Ring can only recognize their master with the host's consent. After their consciousness is pulled into the deep dream space by me, the Lantern Ring will find that the physical body they found has no consciousness. In order to find the host's consciousness, they must enter the dream. So the Lantern Ring's physical body cannot enter. Only power can enter."

"In this way, these people didn't actually wear the rings, but only received the blessing of the energy within the Lantern Ring. I fused these energies together and created a new lamp furnace in the dream world, thus creating entirely new Entity..."

"But similarly, this only applies to the dream world. This gray Lantern Ring has no physical form, so it won't work in the real world. Once you wake up from your dream, it's as if nothing ever happened."

"Or you could say it's not a recognized new Lantern Ring, because it's just a dream we had."

"Then what's the use of it?" Batman asked.

"Now, the Laughing Egg that is fighting against you can nourish itself with the dark energy deep within you, which has accelerated its hatching infinitely, while you have almost no power to rely on."

"If this ebbs and flows, the monster that hatches from this egg will kill you, take over your body, and even run into the real world."

"And the gray Lantern Ring that has absorbed the energy of several Lantern Ring can provide you with energy to counteract them..."

Batman slowly extended his hand, and the gray light flew towards his hand. Before he put on the ring, he asked, "I heard Hal say that each Lantern Ring represents an emotion. So what does this Lantern Ring represent?"

"Intangible, formless, indistinguishable from the real, all-encompassing... chaos."

The moment the gray Lantern Ring touched Batman's finger, he was enveloped in layers of Gray Mist. The gray dragon that flew out of the lamp furnace let out a deep rumble that shook the entire consciousness space, flapped its wings and soared across the sky, arriving above Batman's head.

Batman suddenly felt a mysterious link between him and the dream dragon. With a thought, the gray dragon flew toward the Fear Laughing Demon.

The Dream Dragon led countless gray mists behind it, while behind the Fear Laughing Demon was an endless black tide. When the two forces collided, they formed an extremely bright spot of light, like a cosmic explosion, which then spread out in countless huge ripples.

This massive and shocking battle was beyond the control of one or two people; the consciousness of everyone else had retreated to the edge of a dream.

Because the power of the Lantern Ring was swallowed up by the gray mist, the light on the group also disappeared. Victor, however, sounded quite relaxed. He said, "Luckily, it didn't last long. In fact, that power gave me a strange feeling..."

"How does it feel?" Schiller asked him.

"It's like something is watching me, or rather, it wants to control me, to make some kind of emotion inside me explode."

"This is perfectly normal, because the Lantern Ring comes from the Emotional Spectrum, and the emotional energy within you can complement the energy of the Lantern Ring..."

"Hey, I say, what's going on here?" Hal walked over, interrupting Schiller and Victor's conversation, and the green light around him disappeared.

Hal's voice held a hint of panic as he asked, "What did you do to me? Why did my Green Lantern energy disappear?"

"I have simply absorbed all the energy from the ring you are wearing now. You can go back to the furnace to recharge later."

Hearing that the power wasn't permanently gone, Hal breathed a sigh of relief, but Schiller's next words silenced him. "Don't you think you're becoming a little too reliant on this energy? Are you controlling it, or is it controlling you?"

At this moment, the battle on the field became increasingly intense, and the fighting style had shifted from a visible physical struggle to a more mysterious contest of spirit and will.

The grey mist representing Batman and the black tide representing the Fear Laughing Demon churned into a spindle-shaped tornado in the center of the battlefield. Batman and the Fear Laughing Demon themselves clashed back and forth in this giant tornado, engaging in a mental battle.

Currently, Batman is still at a disadvantage, because he not only has to restrain the monster's movements and attack its main body, but also has to devote some of his strength to suppressing the monster that is about to emerge from the embryo. Batman's keen intuition tells him that once this monster fully hatches, it will be all over.

Then, a wisp of gray mist tightly wrapped around the outstretched hand and tried to press it back into the shell, while a thin layer of mist enveloped the eggshell, continuously thickening the outer wall of the embryo.

Just as the battle reached a stalemate, a wisp of gray mist traveled along the swirling tornado and touched the very tail of the Fear Laughing Demon. At that moment, Batman, whose consciousness was linked to the gray mist, felt an emotion enter his mind.

It was a brainwave containing information, but it was very chaotic. Batman deciphered the message it was trying to convey, roughly. "I am Parallax, and I want to cooperate with you..."

Batman quickly deduced what was going on: Parallax had clearly never intended to cooperate with the Laughing Egg.

Although the Time Difference Monster is a chaotic creature with a completely different way of thinking than humans, due to its inability to act independently, it has actually spent a long time with humanoid intelligent beings and they cooperate quite well.

Parallax can be seen as Symbiote in another sense. Without a host, it cannot stay in the real world for a long time. It must reside in the body of a Yellow Light host. The Yellow Light host must have independent intelligence and consciousness in order to move freely. Therefore, it is very well adapted to living in the host's consciousness space and interacting with the host's mind.

However, when a third consciousness enters the host's mind, the time difference monster will definitely feel uncomfortable, just like a pet dog can share a house with its owner, but cannot accept that the neighbor's dog also lives there.

Not to mention the neighbor's dog, which suppressed its consciousness, seized control of its body, and gave it an ugly head.

This ancient creature, representing fear, was unusually enraged. Regardless of how it would interact with its host in the future, it only wanted to work with the host's consciousness to destroy the monster that had stolen its territory.

Batman and Parallax communicated through the gray mist, but the human's sense of order and the chaotic creature's mindset were completely different. After communicating for a long time, they only reached a preliminary agreement on cooperation; as for how to proceed, they still had no clue.

At that moment, Schiller's voice rang in Batman's ears:

"The use of the Grey Lantern ring is not just about extracting its energy, but more importantly, about utilizing the power of dream rules."

"The power of dream rules?"

"That's right, it's what they call wish fulfillment."

"I know that in dreams, one can have whatever one wants, but you and the Laughing Egg are both the masters of this dream. You are two sides of the same coin. You want to have his death, and he wants to have your death. At this point, the two of you can only compete in willpower."

"But as I said before, he was dug out of your body. You are him, and he is you. So theoretically speaking, he has the same willpower as you. If this stalemate continues, you can't completely erase his existence, and he can't completely erase yours."

"So what?"

"I connected my dream with your dream and used the energy of my Mind Palace and other Lantern Ring to create the gray Lantern Ring, which represents my consciousness space."

"In other words, when you use this gray Lantern Ring, it's equivalent to my will and your will being superimposed, giving you enough power to erase the existence of this embryo..."

Batman narrowed his eyes; he understood what Schiller meant.

Originally, his battle with this the Laughing Egg was like an arm wrestling match between a person's left and right hands, because they were the same person, so their strength and will were not much different.

The Laughing Egg can draw upon Batman's dark side, much like how it is his dominant hand, which is stronger than Batman's in terms of muscle strength, but not by much. So when Batman drew upon the energy of the Grey Lantern Ring to fight the Dark Tide, the two were locked in a stalemate.

At this point, if we combine the wills of Batman and Schiller, it's like having the left hand hold down the right, and then a cleaver appears out of thin air and chops off the right hand, providing a key factor that can determine the outcome of the battle.

The onlookers suddenly noticed that the spindle-shaped tornado was growing larger and larger, and the black tide and gray mist were becoming thinner and thinner, allowing them to see the situation in the middle more clearly.

They saw that the crack on the embryo above the monster's head, which was confronting Batman, was growing larger and larger, and the pale hand was tentatively reaching out, soon extending its entire front half, then its elbow and upper arm.

"What's going on? It's about to hatch?? Batman is at a disadvantage??"

Schiller shook his head and said, "Batman is letting it hatch. He has no choice but to do so because the eggshell is not only a limitation for the monster, but also its protective shield. If it only extends One Hand, Batman's attack probably won't be able to cause fatal damage. He has to wait for the cracks in the eggshell to get bigger."

As they were talking, one of the monster's arms had already fully extended out, followed by its head. Batman saw a pale head with a gaping mouth and steel spike goggles appear. At that moment, it was rubbing its head against the Slime membrane inside the embryo, almost completely emerging.

Just then, the entire consciousness space began to tremble, and a gray mist, almost tangible, descended from the embryo's head. The moment it touched the hatching monster, the monster's image vanished into thin air.

It's as if the monster was frozen into a picture printed on paper, and then erased bit by bit, starting from the head.

But the monster immediately realized what Batman was going to do, and it began to resist desperately. The wiping speed became slower and slower, and at the same time, it kept struggling to break out of its shell. Its outstretched hand began to tear at the membrane on the top of its head.

But at that moment, Parallax backstabbed the monster and began to fight for control within its body. The Laughing Egg's movements were momentarily halted due to Parallax's interference, and in that instant, most of its arm and half of its head were wiped clean.

Everything happened silently, but everyone could see how intense the battle was. Hal almost held his breath, afraid that the noise he made would affect the battle.

The gray mist above the monster's head grew thicker and thicker. Batman closed his eyes and focused his attention, exerting his willpower to the maximum. The gray mist seeped into the eggshell through the cracks in the monster's shell and began to wipe away its body.

Parallax kept interfering with the monster, causing it to pause its movements from time to time. Soon, the arm protruding from the eggshell and most of the body inside the eggshell were wiped clean.

Just then, the monster, realizing it was powerless to reverse the situation, let out a scream that sounded like a loud laugh, and then the entire dream began to collapse.

"He's run out of tricks and seems to be planning to take everyone down with him." Schiller's tone remained calm, showing no sign of the urgency of an impending crisis. He turned to the others and said, "Follow me into my Mind Palace first. If this place collapses, I'll send you out."

After the figures disappeared, only Batman and the monster remained in the entire dream space.

Finally, Batman and Parallax launched a fierce attack together. After the monster's last remaining half of its head completely disappeared, the dream began to collapse completely.

But Batman, who had exhausted all his spirit and will, did not see that the Yellow Body of the Fear Laughing Demon, except for its head, began to shrink continuously, and then burrowed entirely into the eggshell left by the Laughing Egg, which was not yet completely destroyed.

The gray ring on Batman's finger flew off his finger and headed towards the towering High Tower in the center of Gotham.

Meanwhile, an egg emitting a yellow glow, carried by the turbulent currents of the dream, drifted to the entrance of the High Tower.

Schiller put on the gray ring and sensed the chaotic consciousness emanating from the egg. He paused for a moment, then released the egg into the High Tower.

Then Schiller raised his arm, and the gray mist became extremely dense.

Just as the dream was about to completely collapse, Schiller's voice came. "Return to reality."

The entire High Tower, along with the billowing Gray Mist, vanished completely from the turbulent, collapsing debris.