In fact, for a long time, most of Shiller's friends had no clear understanding of how severe his dissociative identity disorder, commonly known as multiple personality disorder, really was.
But to describe it simply, the severity of Shiller's split had gone beyond anyone's imagination.
Many of Shiller's friends had seen and even stepped into Shiller's Tower of Thought, knowing that there were many personalities living in there, and they even knew it was normal, beneath which, in the underground area of the Tower of Thought, lived the morbid in the abyss.
But if each of Shiller's personalities had split to the point where they could act independently, then that had already escalated from being unscientific to being shocking or even disastrous.
"That was definitely Shiller." Natasha insisted, her back firmly against the door as she said, "I saw clearly this time, the hand with the knife was Shiller's!"
"But he wasn't there." Batman shook his head and said, "We only saw the reflection in the glass, but according to optics, there was no trace of him at the actual location corresponding to the reflection, meaning there was only a reflection."
"Shiller has become a ghost." Natasha still held that frightened look on her face, arguably the most horrifying expression a female agent could muster, but in reality, this was far more terrifying than encountering a ghost.
"No." Batman shook his head, recalling more details, and then pointed at Natasha's clothes, "We are all wearing patient suits."
"And so?" Natasha looked down at her clothes. Upon waking up here, she had put on a patient suit, the kind commonly found in psychiatric hospitals, blue and white stripes.
Suddenly she realized, "The cuff on that hand wasn't a patient suit, it was a...black shirt."
"But it was definitely Shiller." Natasha emphasized again, "I saw half of his face just now, I couldn't have seen it wrong."
"Which means he is not the Professor Shiller we know."
Batman seemed to have made a speculation. He glanced outside, saw nothing moving, and then began to tell the story.
"Do you remember how we got here?"
After some recollection, Natasha said, "I remember that after the game at the arena, we were all a bit tired, and fell asleep after getting on the bus."
The female agent also noticed that something was wrong, she said, "Actually, I haven't felt tired for many years now. I'm not like regular people who need to rest by sleeping. Unless I want to sleep, I won't get tired."
"And even on the bus, our situation wasn't exactly safe. Under such circumstances, it's impossible for me to fall asleep. It's a complete conflict with my instincts."
"I cannot fall asleep in any place that isn't safe." Batman added, "It's not that I don't want to sleep, but that I can't. Meaning, except for a few places that I consider relatively safe, I cannot sleep anywhere else."
"But you fell asleep."
"Which means this sleep is forced. It's the entrance to the next game."
Batman continued his speculation, "There's a question here, why must it be sleep?"
"The killer devil in this level could have driven the bus into a thick fog like before, and when it drove out, the world had completely changed. That could have brought us into an illusion, rather than needing us to fall asleep on the bus."
"You're saying this is a dream?"
Batman nodded as he said, "Since ancient times, people have had all sorts of speculation about dreams, and deep fears towards nightmares, derivng countless literary or film works. Since the previous games had similar horror-like plotlines, this one is probably the same."
"The murder devil in a dream..." Natasha instantly associated it with a classic character but suddenly paused.
"Exactly." Batman nodded, confirming Natasha's guess, then added, "This here is a dream. Dreams occur in our consciousness space, meaning this world is parallel to our conscious world, as well as Shiller's."
Natasha's mouth slowly dropped open.
Half an hour ago, in Shiller's Tower of Thought, Greed, who had been knocking on the floor tiles, looked up perplexedly, "Why is there no sound?"
He stood up, peered outside, and then walked out, accidentally bumped into Superego who was heading for the elevator.
"Why did they stop pounding?"
"Something's very wrong." Superego said, "No matter what, the morbid is part of Shiller, they share our body."
"They never act so recklessly, because if the Tower is affected and loses control, Shiller's body will be hurt too. This is a danger beyond control, it's not what the morbid would want, it has never happened before."
"Why were they pounding then?"
Shaking his head, Superego headed for the elevator and said, "Let's go down and check."
So Greed and Superego rode the elevator down to the Abyss together.
After arriving at the Abyss, Superego inspected the ceiling, which was also the foundation of the Tower of Thought, and found no damage.
He seemed to realize something and said, "Head for the periphery."
Greed was taken aback, and the two of them hurried towards the edge, where they saw a large hole in the wall next to the Abyss.
"Did they escape?!" Greed exclaimed in shock: "But beyond the subconscious, there's nothing..."
The Superego shook his head and said, "There must be a space on the other side, or else they wouldn't have crashed."
Following some reflection, Greed admitted to the Superego's theory, because he knew that Morbid was also aware of the exterior of the Abyss, meaning the outside of the subconscious, which is solid and devoid of anything apart from walls, making it unnecessary for them to crash into these walls.
However, if they had crashed, it meant that they must have detected something on the other side of the subconscious, at least a space they could move through, so what could it be?
Surrounding the subconscious, in the space crowning it, Greed slowly uttered a single word: "Dream."
"Moreover, it's not a simple dream." Superego furrowed his brows and hypothesized: "A dream revolving around the subconscious must not be a coincidence - not on top of the subconscious, not below the subconscious, and not within the subconscious, but explicitly around it."
"The dreams above the subconscious are too light and easy to wake from, the dreams beneath are too deep and difficult to construct, and the dreams within the subconscious are the most common, and the easiest to shape, so why not?"
"Unless what 'they' want is more than just a dream." Greed pondered and spoke: "When a human is in a sleep state, the body cannot move freely. This is because the conscious mind that controls the body's movements is in total hibernation. If the software system does not issue commands, the hardware naturally doesn't work."
"However, when monitoring sleepwalkers, it's observed that their brains continue sending signals to their bodies. Yet, they don't remember anything when they wake up. This is because their bodies are being controlled by the subconscious instead of their conscious mind."
"The subconscious mind, of course, can control the body, and it does so without the conscious mind being aware of it," Superego responded. He added: "Sleepwalking is a manifestation of dreams within the subconscious controlling the body."
Greed seemed to have an epiphany, and said, "If you want to control someone's body, you would create a dream within their subconscious, and the movements within this dream would affect the movements of the body in the real world."
"But to control a group of people simultaneously, creating dreams within their relatively isolated subconscious spaces wouldn't be a good choice."
"If there exists an entity already capable of creating dreams, like a dream god, creating a shared dream like a Kingdom of Dreams would be a good choice."
"And it's very likely that 'they' do not possess the powerful authority of a dream god." Superego crossed his arms and spoke, "They cannot create a dream that exists at the deepest level of everyone's consciousness. Thus, they chose to create a shared dream around a few people's subconscious mind."
Instinctively, Greed visualized a similar scenario - a normal dream occurring within human subconscious, like the sesame filling in a rice ball.
A shared dream is like immersing the rice ball in a bowl of soup, with the rice ball representing the individual's subconscious, and the soup signifying the shared dream realm.
Just as both the sesame and the soup can influence the flavor of the rice ball, ordinary dreams and shared dreams can control the physical body by impacting the subconscious.
Superego lifted his gaze to the ceiling of the Abyss and said, "Although the actions of the dream world don't perfectly correspond to the real world, there's a certain correlation. If I'm not mistaken, the bodies of all the contestants in the real world have started moving."
In the hospital room, Batman and Natasha's conjectures were put on hold, but they were stuck in a deadlock.
They deduced that it was a dream but couldn't think of the true intent of the Killer Devil in this round.
Because this contained a glaring contradiction.
They had speculated earlier that the Killer Devil probably couldn't begin to kill until some time after the game began, otherwise there would be an embarrassing possibility of bumping into each other at the door.
But the dream world and the real world may not completely correspond, a day and a night have passed in the dream, but maybe only two hours have passed in reality.
But the Killer Devil certainly couldn't set the flow of time in this way, because it's disadvantageous to him. If one hour in reality equaled twelve hours in the dream, wouldn't he have to wait in the dream world for several days before the killing could begin?
So it must be the other way round, where one hour in the dream equates to twelve hours in reality. If they have spent a day and night in the dream, it would mean they have spent several days in the real world, rendering the safety protection obsolete and the Killer Devil can now kill at will.
So, why hasn't he made his move?
Even though just now there was collapsing ceiling debris and jostling bathroom tiles, those actions were more theatrics than substantive damage. If you brought in some college students, the worst that could happen would probably be a few scratches.
This isn't actually a horror movie where dramatic effects have to precede the kill. Since there are ghosts in the dream, why not just rush over and strangle the few players to death?
So, there's another possibility, the Killer Devil can't control the speed of time in the dream and reality.
The speed of time is forcibly fixed at a value beneficial to the contestants, that is, a few hours pass in reality for every day that passes in the dream.
So, why would the Killer Devil encourage them to escape from the hospital?
If the Killer Devil possibly can't start the killing for a few days, then it would be best to keep them confined in the hospital.
Judging by the weakened physical conditions of the contestants, there's no need for a hospital setting. A tin shed would suffice; they couldn't break out, and when the time comes, the mass killing can commence.
"Did you notice that the two corridors we just ran through were exceptionally long?" Batman said, furrowing his brows.