Chapter 801: How Schiller Initially Cracked (Part 1) (Patreon)

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It was another silent night in Gotham, with the hospital's corridors deserted, bearing only faint footprints on the tiled floor. These footprints told the story of the daytime bustle, now replaced by the profound stillness of the night.

In a city that was typically noisy due to gunshots, the hospital remained quiet. Here, the injured sought solace, licking their wounds in silence before braving the dangers outside once again.

A hand gripped the doorknob of a hospital room, turning it gently. The sound of the door opening did not overshadow the faint tremor of medical instruments, nor did it disrupt the rustling of papers. Victor, who had been reading a report by the bedside, looked up at Schiller's entrance and inquired, "What does the attending doctor say? How's he responding to the medication?"

Schiller examined the report in his hand, particularly a set of data related to drug reactions, which struck him as oddly familiar.

Connor had once told him what specific data indicated the efficacy of the Lizard Serum. To Schiller's relief, the numbers on the report fell well within the effective range.

Approaching the bed, Schiller looked down at the now unrecognizable figure lying there—Bruce.

His earlier burns from the warehouse fire had not healed, and he had been doused in chemical compounds. Exposed to the elements without proper treatment, his injuries had worsened, leading to infection.

What was even more terrifying was that he had fallen into a vat of chemical dyes, resulting in the corrosion of all the hair on his body. His skin now resembled the rough surface of a zombie.

This gruesome appearance was utterly horrifying; with the skin eroded away, layers of fat, muscles, and tendons intertwined, turning him into something reminiscent of an anatomical diagram come to life, but even more dreadful.

Bruce no longer possessed his once-handsome exterior. Youth, strength, and beauty had all vanished in the aftermath of his fall. His physical self had descended into a state of stillness, like a bat trapped on a glue trap, forced to shed its own skin in order to take flight once more.

Yet, Victor and Schiller did not see this visage. Through the horrific exterior, they glimpsed the gradual awakening of his soul.

The potent power emanating from him left Victor astounded and prompted Schiller to silently cross himself, hoping that God would watch over him. A Batman who could laugh after being infected by the Joker's virus could never be defeated by a Batman who laughed out of genuine happiness.

Schiller subconsciously reached for his own neck, and Victor's gaze followed his movements, fixing on a shallow scar between his fingers.

Victor had known Schiller for a while, and that scar had always intrigued him. He couldn't fathom anyone in the city capable of harming Schiller.

Yet Schiller had never spoken about it, as if it were not an incident one could easily dismiss. Standing by the bedside, Victor once again questioned, "Schiller, can you tell me what happened? I don't believe you'd be one to mistreat students. How did Bruce end up like this?"

"Victor, would you like to hear a story?" Schiller stood by the hospital bed, his gaze meeting Victor's through the soft light cast by the overhead lamp. He said, "A story about pride and prejudice?"

Schiller lowered his gaze and looked at the monster lying on the bed. "On Bruce's first day at school, he was far from the formidable figure he appears to be today."

"He relied heavily on bluster to bolster his confidence in achieving his quest for revenge. I've never been fond of dealing with people like him."

Victor pondered for a moment before saying, "Indeed, if someone becomes so fixated that they can deceive even themselves, they will inevitably become forceful in demanding others align with their beliefs. They must become deeply engrossed in the act to avoid waking up from it."

"I can relate to that," Victor admitted with a tinge of sadness. "During the darkest days, I convinced myself that my wife would wake up, that she would recover."

"If anyone offered me sympathetic glances or condolences, trying to comfort me or urging me to accept the truth, I felt an urge to kill them. They were piercing through my delusion, and I clung to that delusion to survive."

Schiller let out a small sigh. "At that time, I thought my rejection of Bruce's behavior was driven by my emotions and reached through rational analysis. However, I failed to notice that something dreadful had begun."

Victor opened his eyes slightly wider, his gaze fixed on Schiller, curious about what could be so terrifying.

"You should know, I'm not a native of Gotham. Since arriving in this city, I've found it dull and monotonous."

"And when Bruce appeared before me and posed a question, I heard a series of laughter echoing within me. At the time, I didn't realize the gravity of the situation."

Schiller paused briefly before continuing, "You might be aware that I've struggled with mental illnesses, including congenital autism and anxiety, as well as some compulsive tendencies."

Victor was hearing Schiller acknowledge himself as a mental health patient for the first time, although he had long suspected it.

Schiller's daily habits were indeed somewhat abnormal, but in Gotham City, that was hardly noteworthy and didn't draw much attention. However, Schiller had seemed to avoid addressing this fact, reluctant to discuss his mental state.

Victor understood that no matter how knowledgeable or experienced a doctor might be, they couldn't treat themselves. Doctors were human too, with their own vulnerabilities, and often reluctant to confront their own medical conditions.

Now, for the first time, Victor heard Schiller voluntarily discuss his mental health, shedding light on the mysteries that had perplexed him.

"I don't know if you're familiar with Scholar Syndrome, but my mental world has been different from others for as long as I can remember."

Schiller lightly tapped the railing of the hospital bed with his finger, producing a crisp sound. He continued, "Of course, I only discovered this later. I later realized that the minds of normal individuals are chaotic and disorganized, their thought processes entirely different from mine."

"They access memories not by descending a staircase, searching for timestamps on archived documents, and carefully examining the files but through a more hazy and chaotic method, remembering events they've experienced, and some of those memories even get lost along the way."

Schiller pressed his hand gently against the bed railing, a detail Victor noticed. "If you truly don't wish to recall, then let's discuss other matters," Victor suggested.

Schiller shook his head and continued, "When I was very young, I saw other children playing with building blocks, and I found it fascinating. So, for the first time in my mental world, I assembled a tower from fragments of memories."

"That tower was extremely small, precarious, and would collapse at the slightest touch. However, in the days that followed, I had nothing else to do, so I kept attempting to create more blocks and build a taller tower."

"At that time, I was driven by instinct and didn't know what I was doing. I just found it interesting and didn't sense the danger lurking within."

"I merely wanted a more magnificent high tower. So, I created more blocks and reached higher places. But you must understand, towers made of blocks will inevitably crumble one day."

Victor understood Schiller's analogy. After all, he had read Schiller's dissertation on the Temple of Thought. So, he asked, "You built an uncontrollable tower of blocks in your childhood. What happened after that?"

Schiller fell silent for a long time and finally said, "The accidents in the real world did not happen on the day the high tower of blocks collapsed. There were signs leading up to it."

"As I kept building the tower higher, I found that I had an increasingly powerful memory. I could recall every detail of daily life, had a photographic memory, and could recite information effortlessly. Due to my pre-existing mental conditions, I didn't consciously try to hide this."

Victor had a bad feeling about where this was going. "You exhibited your genius, and then?"

Victor noticed that whenever Schiller recounted these events, he tended to pause for extended periods, as if he were trying to skip over certain experiences or carefully choose what to share.

After a while, Schiller continued, "Distinguishing oneself from the ordinary traits of society is always noticeable. My state of being began to change. Initially, it wasn't a problem, but after the high tower of blocks collapsed, things spiraled out of control."

"Did you have a mental breakdown?" Victor asked.

"Worse than that," Schiller replied, looking down at his fingers. "I'm just an ordinary person. The human brain has its limits. Thought is forever constrained by bandwidth; it can't expand to infinity."

"I assembled blocks of information, one on top of the other, in my quest to build a higher tower. My personality climbed along the tower of blocks, just to place the next block at the top."

"If you consider the high tower of blocks as the various types of information I acquired, then the ground represents my mental foundation. Clearly, my mental stability wasn't very strong."

"So, one day, it all came crashing down."

Victor pressed his fingers against his notebook, and although he couldn't discern anything specific from Schiller's expression, it was evident that this matter wasn't as simple as Schiller made it sound.

Translating these symbolic metaphors into more direct concepts made the situation even more terrifying. A genius born with Scholar Syndrome, possessing extraordinary memory and learning abilities, and then experiencing a complete collapse of their mental world—this could lead to many horrifying consequences.

"The ground ruptured, the high tower crumbled, but what's important..." Schiller shook his head. "What's important is that my personality fell from the top... shattered."

Victor was left dumbfounded.

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Next Chapter>>Chapter 802: How Schiller Initially Split Apart (Part 2)