Chapter 1698 Bruce Wayne and the Sorcerer's Stone (XIV)
Chapter 1672 Bruce Wayne and the Philosopher's Stone (XIV)
The nights in the world of Gotham are colder. There is no sultry heat in the midsummer of the surface world now. Instead, it is like the Gotham of the past. A cold rain fell from beginning to end all night. The whole city is like a pencil drawing soaked in water. The outline of the city is eroded in the dampness.
The spire of Rodriguez College suspended in the sky is guarded by the air mass of moist mist. When the window is opened at midnight, the misty waves pour in like a school of fish.
The window of the dormitory was blown open by the wind. Wisps of mist poured in one after another, like the hands of ghosts. The mist droplets condensed on the glass are like eyes that keep opening and closing.
The endless white mist reveals a warm golden light like the first ray of light at dawn. The dense clouds continue to disperse. The sky behind the clouds is blue and a little purple. The white clouds are gradually dyed black and arranged into strange and complex patterns. When you open your eyes and look again, the clouds form a pair of huge blue eyes.
"Ah!"
A figure sat up from the bed, he let out a scream, and then gasped violently.
Little Bruce held the railing beside the bed tightly with one hand, and touched his forehead with the other hand, which was covered with cold sweat.
"What is that...?"
Little Bruce muttered to himself in confusion, but suddenly his room door was knocked, so he had to kick off the quilt wrapped around him, get off the bed and open the door.
"Are you okay? I just heard a scream." Barry, holding a candlestick, stood in the dark door crack and looked at Bruce with concern. But as soon as he saw Bruce's face, he opened his mouth in surprise and sighed: "My God, your face is as white as a piece of paper. What happened to you? Do you need to go to the hospital?"
Bruce took a deep breath to calm down, loosened the door handle he was holding tightly, and said: "I'm fine, come in."
Barry seemed a little bit unbelievable that Bruce let him into his room so easily. Bruce turned around and walked back, saying: "Do you have to yell in the corridor so that the whole grade can hear it? It's two o'clock in the morning now."
Barry looked at Bruce's back. He could see clearly under the candlelight that there was a large wet patch on the back of Bruce's cotton pajamas, which looked like cold sweat from night terrors.
"You had a nightmare?" Barry squeezed in through the crack of the door, then quietly closed the door, took off his slippers by the door, and stepped barefoot on the soft carpet.
The dormitories at Rodriguez College are all single rooms, because reading and studying require a completely quiet environment, but even the spire expanded by magic does not have an endless space inside, so the students' single dormitories and the dean's office are loft structures with two floors.
However, unlike the structure of traditional two-story apartments, the beds in the single dormitory are placed downstairs, and the upstairs are bookshelves embedded in the wall and desks and chairs for reading and studying.
Each single room has a huge floor-to-ceiling window that stretches from the first floor to the second floor. There is a small reception area consisting of two single sofas and a coffee table by the window on the first floor, which is very suitable for inviting classmates to read and drink afternoon tea together.
Bruce and Barry sat down face to face in front of the window. Bruce took out two packs of snacks from the low cabinet next to him and poured them on the fruit plate. Barry felt a little surprised. He felt that Bruce was not the kind of person who would share food with him.
It turned out that what he expected was right. As soon as he sat down, Bruce picked up a pumpkin seed and put it in his mouth to bite. His expression was terrified. The ends of his short black curly hair were stained with sweat, and they shone cold silver under the moonlight through the huge French windows.
"What happened, Bruce?" Barry seemed a little anxious. He was the kind of person who would feel sad if someone got hurt no matter how much he hated him.
"I had a nightmare." Bruce took a deep breath. Maybe his pale face made him look particularly fragile and broken, and his tone softened: "I haven't had a nightmare since my parents' funeral."
"You..." Barry opened his mouth, but in the end he could only say one sentence: "My condolences."
"I saw a pair of eyes." Bruce bit the first pumpkin seed full of teeth marks, but did not eat it. Instead, he threw it aside and picked up a new one.
His tone was lower and more stable than before, but there was still a slightly doubtful uncertainty.
"A pair of blue eyes bluer than the sky, I saw many clouds, a complex pattern, and, and the light that might be holy light."
Barry's eyes widened immediately, and he took a breath of cold air. He stared at Bruce's face and said, "Did you see an angel?!"
"No, there were no iconic wings, and he didn't say anything to me, but the moment the clouds dispersed, I saw golden light pouring down, which was the iconic sacred power of heaven."
"How do you know?"
Bruce's face showed a trace of irritation again, but perhaps the shock, fear and doubt made him a little closer to ordinary people. He did not burst out his emotions as before, but explained with rare patience.
"I think anyone with normal intelligence should be able to see that I am not from this universe at all. I am Bruce Wayne from another universe. Do you think the incident that led me here is a normal event?"
"This..." Barry took a full half minute to recover from the shock of this fact, and then he said thoughtfully: "No wonder... No wonder you and Bruce Wayne look almost exactly the same. Even illegitimate children should be a little different."
"So what Professor Schiller said in class that someone had contacted angels in advance is related to your coming to this universe, right?"
"Obviously."
"Did that angel send you here?"
"I'm not sure." Bruce obviously needs someone to talk to now, but he doesn't talk to express his emotions, but just to sort out his logic again in the output language.
He briefly told Barry about what happened after he met Constantine, and then added details of the admission process.
"When I was sorting out my father's belongings, I saw a huge bat flying past the attic window. At that time, I felt something in my heart. I don't know if it was fear, but it was more like an anchoring excitement."
"Bats, yes, bats. I have pulled myself out of the world surrounded by idiots several times, but not like ordinary people fantasizing about becoming a carefree bird, but a bat."
"When I saw the bat, an idea sprouted in my mind, but before I could think carefully, the bat turned a corner in mid-air and hit the attic glass. My fantasy completely dissipated. "Little Bruce sighed softly and said, "I didn't expect the bat to be so stupid, but when it slipped from the glass, I found that it seemed to have something on its feet. At this time, Alfred had picked it up downstairs." "We read the admission letter it brought together. Alfred thought it was very dangerous and we should destroy the letter immediately, but I witnessed the magic of magic before, and I thought we should give it a try." "Alfred drove me to the Gotham River at the agreed location, and then I only saw a golden light, and then I appeared in this school." Barry keenly caught his words He heard a certain word repeated several times in the dream, so he asked tentatively: "Golden light?"
"I didn't see it clearly, so I can't be sure whether the golden light that took me away is the same as the one I saw through the magic circle that day and in my dream today, but they are indeed golden."
"I think it is very likely that the angel you saw sent you here, but the question is why he did it."
Little Bruce pursed his lips, obviously lost in thought, while Barry muttered thoughtfully: "Remember what Professor Schiller said? All your talents in magic may be illusions given to you by angels and demons, so you understood the runes of divine power from the beginning..."
"It means I was chosen by an angel, but why me?"
Both of them fell silent. Obviously, no one could give an answer. Barry brought up another topic to break the silence. He said, "You said you saw a pair of blue eyes. What kind of blue eyes were they?"
"It's hard to describe." Bruce's tone was a little vague. He was silent and thought carefully for a while, and said, "I can't see the details. I just remember that the eyes were very blue."
"Are they as blue as your eyes?"
Bruce was stunned. He felt as if he had grasped something, but he couldn't grasp the key. He reached out and touched one side of his eye with his fingers, and was silent for a long time.
"I won't let him manipulate me." Bruce took a deep breath and said, "Whether he is a devil or an angel, they are all a bunch of idiots anyway. Any plan they have on me will not succeed."
Suddenly, Bruce froze in place. He leaned back suddenly, his body shook uncontrollably, and then he made a short "uh".
Barry could see that in the less than two seconds when he lost consciousness, sweat soaked through his thick cotton pajamas and even flowed through his blood vessels. Bruce was as frightened as if he was frightened by something, holding the armrest of the chair tightly and shaking constantly.
Barry rushed forward and supported him instantly. When Bruce regained his freedom, he looked like he had just been fished out of the water. Barry anxiously grabbed his arm and asked, "What's wrong? What did you see?"
Bruce took a few quick breaths and said in a trembling tone, "...Demons and angels, under their gorgeous thrones are piles of human corpses."
Bruce's hand holding the armrest tightened and tightened, and he was shaking as if he was about to faint. Barry had to pat his back to calm him down. After a while, Bruce squeezed out a few words from his teeth.
"They extract human souls, grind their bones, and use their skulls as braziers. They are exploiting and torturing humans unscrupulously."
“And under that throne made of human heads, I saw… my parents.”