Chapter 276: Sudden Turn of Events (Part 1)_1

A grey light appeared in front of Batman, followed by Shiller's voice. As always, it seemed like he could see what Batman was thinking. Shiller said to Batman, "I pulled everyone's consciousness into the dream, and then attracted the Lantern rings through amplifying their emotions in the dream..."

"But a Lantern ring must acknowledge its host through their consent. Once their consciousness is pulled into the deep realms of dream space, the Lantern ring will realize that the body they've found doesn't have consciousness, and to find the consciousness of the host, they must enter the dream. In such a case, the entity of the Lantern ring can't come in, only its power can."

"Thus, these people haven't really put on the rings, they've just been empowered by the energy in the Lantern rings. I merge these energies together, constructing a new Lantern Furnace in the Dreamworld, and creating a brand-new Lantern Beast..."

"However, this is only limited to the Dream space. This Grey Lantern ring doesn't have a physical form, hence it won't work in the real world. As soon as you wake from your dream, everything will seem as if it never happened."

"You may say, this is not an acknowledged new Lantern ring because it's merely a dream we are having."

"What's its purpose then?" Batman asked.

"Right now, the Laughing Egg, which you are opposing, can nourish itself with the Dark energy deep within you. He is thereby accelerating his hatching speed infinitely while you nearly don't have any power to leverage."

"In this way, the monster that hatches from this egg would occupy your body after killing you, running into the real world."

"The Grey Lantern ring, having absorbed several Lantern ring energies, can provide you with power to counteract it…"

Batman slowly reached out his hand, and the grey light flew towards his hand. Before he put on the ring, he asked, "I heard Hal saying that every Lantern ring represents an emotion. What does this ring stand for?"

"Aetherial, ambiguous, all-encompassing… Chaos."

The moment the Grey Lantern ring made contact with Batman's finger, he was engulfed in layers of grey mist. The Grey Dragon which flew out of the Lantern furnace, resounded with a roar that shook the entire Consciousness Space, flapped its wings, and flew to the skies above Batman.

From nowhere, Batman felt a mysterious link between him and the Dream Dragon. On his mere thought, the huge grey dragon started flying towards Fear Joker.

The Dream Dragon led an endless stream of grey mist following it, while an endless surge of darkness followed the Fear Joker. When the two forces collided, they formed an explosion as bright as the cosmos, quickly followed by countless giant waves spread out.

The intense and shocking battle situation was beyond one or two individuals; the consciousness of everyone else retreated to the edges of the Dreamworld.

Because the power of the Lantern ring was swallowed by the grey mist, the light of a few people had disappeared. Victor's tone seemed rather relaxed, he said, "Fortunately, it wasn't long. Actually, that kind of power gives me a strange feeling…"

"What kind of feeling?" Shiller asked him.

"As if something was watching me, or rather, it wants to control me, wants to make some emotion within me explode."

"That's normal because the Lantern ring originates from the Emotional Spectrum. The emotional energy within you can complement the energy of the Lantern ring…"

"Hey, I say, what's going on?" Hal came over, interrupting Shiller and Victor's conversation. The green light on him had also disappeared.

Hal sounded a bit panicked, he said: "What did you do to me? Why did my Green Lantern energy disappear?"

"I simply absorbed all the energy from the ring you are currently wearing. Later, you can go recharge in the Lantern Furnace."

On hearing that the power was not permanently gone, Hal let out a sigh of relief, but Shiller's next words stunned him into silence: "Don't you think you are a bit too dependent on this energy? Are you controlling it, or is it controlling you?"

At this time, the situation on the battlefield was becoming more intense. The manner of battle had shifted from visible physical combat to a more mystifying battle of spiritual and intentional competition.

The grey mist representing Batman and the black tide representing the Fear Joker whirled up a spindle-shaped tornado in the center of the battlefield. The physical forms of Batman and Fear Joker, primarily, shuttled back and forth in this gigantic tornado, conducting a mental duel.

From the current situation, Batman was still on the losing side. Not only did he have to suppress the monster's movements and attack its body, but he also had to split part of his power to suppress the monster that was about to crawl out of the egg. Batman's sharp intuition told him that once this monster was fully hatched, everything would be over.

So, a wisp of grey mist tightly entwined the hand that had just reached out and endeavored to push it back into the shell. A thin layer of mist also enveloped the eggshell, continuously thickening the outer wall of the embryo.

As the battle arrived at a deadlock, a wisp of grey mist along the constantly rotating tornado touched the tail end of Fear Joker's body. At this moment, connected to the grey mist consciousness, Batman sensed an emotion conveyed into his mind.