American comics: Starting with Luke the Maker

"That's a good question. Are you comfortable with someone entering your brain?" Stephen asked.

"Entering my brain?" Bruce frowned, hesitating slightly as he asked, "Is there anything I need to know?"

"For example, are you willing to show me the deepest memories and darkness within your heart?" Stephen answered honestly. Like a patient seeing a doctor, you always have to let them know the side effects of the medicine and the potential risks of the treatment before starting. Especially in the current situation, there's no point in hiding anything, because once you enter the other person's brain, they'll know everything.

Stephen didn't want to do anything to Bruce, and to avoid any unpleasant situations, he naturally had to explain everything to him.

"Memories? Darkness?" Bruce silently chewed on these two words in his mind. He had too many secrets and darkness in his heart, and he didn't want to share them with anyone. If it were him before Thanos, he would definitely refuse outright and consider finding his own way to heal himself. But after experiencing Thanos, he could face his darkness and secrets.

"Will you know all my memories?" After a moment, Bruce asked in a calm and deep voice.

"A portion. Human memory is vast. Unless you deliberately think about it, generally only your most profound or concerning memories will surface and be seen by me. Under normal circumstances, I won't actively explore your deeper memories and secrets," Stephen replied to Bruce's inquiry with great care. He understood that you first had to dispel the other person's inner resistance before you could talk about the rest.

"You seem very concerned about my condition?" Bruce didn't agree or refuse, but changed the subject and asked a seemingly unimportant question. He felt that if it was just his personal problem, it wouldn't be worth Stephen's attention.

"I'm concerned about any event where the power of the Dark Dimension is eroding someone, especially when it threatens the safety of the universe. Remember those fallen mages I mentioned? Each of them brought great hidden dangers to the world. Ordinary people don't know because we resisted them beforehand. If I discover your abnormality and don't manage it, the consequences won't just be your personal problem, but a major problem for this world and this universe. I'm not trying to say I'm some paragon of justice, but you can think of it as us protecting our territory," Stephen corrected and explained.

"I have no more questions. What do I need to do?" A look of understanding flashed in Bruce's eyes. After getting the answer he wanted, he agreed without delay and said he was mentally prepared.

"You just need to empty your mind and don't resist my power. I'll see you in a moment," Stephen said.

...

Bruce, having emptied his mind, first arrived in his mental world. Then, a familiar figure, Stephen, appeared beside him as if out of nowhere.

"It looks like your mental world has been severely eroded. Do you have serious self-destructive tendencies? Or have you accumulated too much darkness in your heart?" Stephen looked at Bruce's mental world and said, "Oh," with some astonishment. This kind of mental world hadn't gone crazy or suffered from a split personality. Should he praise Bruce's tenacious mental will and self-regulation ability?

"This is my mental world?" Bruce looked at the dark and oppressive environment around him, an atmosphere that made people feel despair and unease, and was silent for a moment.

"This is the current manifestation of your mental world. It can bypass everything and reach your heart directly, meaning it's the place that best represents your inner emotions and state," Stephen explained to Bruce, carefully observing his surroundings.

The place they were in was a barren, gloomy environment. They couldn't see the sky above, and they couldn't see beyond ten meters in any direction because of the dense mist surrounding them. The whole environment gave people a sense of oppression and coldness, causing them to feel down and paranoid. If an ordinary person were to fall into this mental world, it wouldn't take long for them to be guided by the environment to gradually collapse, go mad, and then self-destruct.

"What do I do next?" Bruce looked at Stephen. He was wearing his Batman suit, still instinctively wanting to give himself a sense of security, even though he knew this was all an illusion.

"You can feel around and see if there's anything unusual," Stephen's gaze fell in a certain direction within the mist. "For example, is there something calling to you? Or is there an impulse in your heart to go somewhere?"

Hearing Stephen's words, Bruce closed his eyes again and began to feel carefully. Suddenly, his body began to move. The mist beside him parted in front of them, and Bruce, with his eyes closed, strode in one direction. Stephen followed behind him, a mental link connecting their hands. This would help Stephen determine Bruce's direction and state, even if something unexpected happened and they were separated.

This was a very important measure, because in the mental world, like in fairy tales and dreams, anything could happen, no matter how absurd. Even if Bruce was always in front of his eyes now, he could completely disappear from his sight in the next moment, lost forever. And in the boundless and directionless mental world, trying to find someone was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Only by making the appropriate preparations beforehand could they have the means to deal with contingencies and risks.

But the journey was very smooth, so smooth that even Stephen was a little surprised. He thought some force would try to separate him and Bruce, but there was none.

Was it unable to? Or did it not care?

The meanings represented by these two possibilities were completely different.

The former meant that the other party hadn't really completely eroded Bruce's mind and become an inseparable part of him. This situation was naturally the best and the easiest to solve.

The latter, however, was a little more complicated. It could be disdain, or that there was some conspiracy waiting for them ahead; it could also be that it believed it had everything under control and really didn't care.

But in any case, Bruce ultimately led Stephen to their destination.

It was a familiar manor!

The Wayne family's manor!

It looked like it had been abandoned for a long time, filled with vicissitudes and weeds. The dark windows that absorbed all the light were like the night, easily stirring up people's inner doubts and fears.

Flutter, flutter!

Dense flapping sounds echoed in the manor's buildings, the sound of black bats soaring.

"He's inside! He knows we're here!" Looking at the bats, Bruce, who had opened his eyes, looked at the building in front of him, which gave people a sense of oppression and fear like a man-eating monster, and reminded him.

"Who? The owner of the Dark Dimension's power?" Stephen asked softly, feeling the dark atmosphere around him suddenly becoming rich and gloomy.

"Another me, or rather, a fallen version of me from another universe," Bruce's lips, covered by the mask, twitched. "Of course, he might give us a big 'surprise.' Because I think that's what he would do."

"Alright," Stephen shrugged, continuing forward behind Bruce.

"Wait, do you hear someone crying?" Bruce suddenly stopped, his eyes scanning around, and asked Stephen softly.

"No, I didn't hear anything," Stephen shook his head, but then reminded him, "But in the mental world, any sudden abnormality may involve something deep within your heart, such as memories? Feelings? I think that's him saying hello."

Bruce's eyes swept over the long-abandoned building, and finally he turned and walked towards the source of the sound he heard. Stephen behind him didn't stop him, but silently followed behind him.

This was Bruce's mental world, and Stephen naturally had to follow Bruce's wishes. Generally speaking, Bruce would be more sensitive and able to make relatively accurate judgments here than he would. Although there was a possibility that this judgment could be deceived, Stephen behind him was there to back him up.

The further Bruce walked, the more familiar the surrounding environment felt. Finally, he came to an abandoned well. Looking at the familiar well and listening to the sobs coming from below, his heart instantly felt like it had traveled through time, back to the terrible scenes he had experienced when he fell into this well as a child. The creatures that appeared in those scenes, the ones that brought him fear, still accompanied him to this day, and had even become indelible marks and totems on his body.

Under Stephen's gaze, Bruce jumped down the well, and then quickly, he climbed out of the well with a child in his arms, using a grappling hook.

The child's face vaguely resembled Bruce's, but at the moment he was sobbing, wiping away his tears with his hands, seemingly uncaring about who had rescued him, and unable to feel that he was out of danger. He was just crying and sobbing, and waves of fear were eroding and affecting the surroundings along with the falling tears.

Bruce's condition was obviously a little abnormal. He seemed to be affected as well. He tried his best to comfort the child, but no matter what he did, he couldn't. Instead, he was stirred by the child, triggering the fear he thought he had already restrained, and his limbs went weak as he fell to the ground.

The whole scene instantly became eerie. A child stood on the ground crying and wiping away tears, while a man in strange clothes sat on the ground in silence and fear, lost in some kind of emotion and unable to extricate himself. And Stephen's figure disappeared when Bruce jumped out of the well, and Bruce seemed to have had his memory erased, unaware of this anomaly.

Finally, just as the expression on Bruce's face became more and more decadent, the crying child suddenly raised his little face, which should have been teary-eyed. He reached out and wiped away the mask on Bruce's face, looking at the distracted face hidden under the mask. The corners of his mouth stretched to both sides to an astonishing extent, and a terrible and evil smile appeared on his childish face. At this moment, he seemed to have a certain degree of overlap with the figure of the Joker.

A black dagger suddenly appeared in the child's hand. A blur passed, and the Batman suit on Bruce's body was pierced almost without resistance. However, just as the dagger was about to pierce Bruce's heart, Bruce, who was sitting on the ground, was suddenly pulled backwards by a huge force, narrowly avoiding this insidious knife.

Bruce also woke up suddenly from a dream, as if falling off the bed, under some frequent calls and the pull of this great force. He suddenly woke up.

Seeing that the prey he was about to successfully hunt had escaped, the young Bruce's face twisted into a hideous and terrifying expression, and then his whole body swelled up like a balloon, exploding in front of Bruce's eyes, spraying out a rain of fine blood.

Bruce's spirit shook, and he shook his head. When he looked around again, he found that he was not in the area next to the well, but was about to reach the door of the abandoned villa building.

Bruce subconsciously turned his head to look behind him. This time he remembered Stephen behind him. It was Stephen who had been calling his name when he was in a state of mental depravity, and a rope had always been like a beacon tower in the wind and rain, bringing him a little bright and insignificant hope, so that he wouldn't completely sink into it. He also didn't forget that it was Stephen's last powerful pull that had completely awakened him.

"Just now, was that an illusion?" Bruce believed that he could remain calm and composed when facing any enemy, but in this mental world, his mental fluctuations were extremely frequent and sensitive, and it was difficult to hide and suppress any of his emotional fluctuations. Just like now, he still had lingering fears about the incredibly real environment he had almost died in.

"A very fierce show of force. You have to know, in the mental world, whoever has the upper hand has a higher probability of winning. All your weaknesses and everything will be used by the other party to target you, until your heart completely collapses and is dominated by him. In the end, you'll become a fanatical believer of the master behind the power of the Dark Dimension," Stephen reminded him again.

Bruce nodded silently. He knew that if it hadn't been for Stephen just now, he might have been targeted step by step to the point of complete collapse, having lost the first move. After all, the opponent he was facing was himself!

"Also, your dark side may have already merged with the other party. At that time, I may take some drastic measures depending on the situation. You have to be mentally prepared," Stephen added faintly behind Bruce.

Without being affected by the crying, Bruce took the lead and reached out to push open the door of the villa. The old door made a creaking sound, and the light shone into the dark room as the door was pushed open.

A thin, dark figure was faintly visible at the limit of the light.