DC: Don't Utter A Word Chapter 160:

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[David Lance POV]

He charged at again, a feral grin on his face. I side-stepped his charge and then grabbed him by the horns, using all my strength to lift him off his feet and slam him into the ground. The impact sent shockwaves through the ground, but Trigon quickly got back up, unphased by the attack.

I knew none of this mattered.

It was a dream.

A ntal battle.

One that would not end until I found a way out, and if my suspicions were right, that way out was linked to whatever knowledge I had forgotten. Like why Trigon was after , to begin with, all I rembered was going bowling with Dinah, and that's it.

Nothing more than that.

But I rembered enough to know I was missing so key components.

I needed to rember.

The question was how.

Nothing, when it ca to the wonders of the mind, was ever easy.

But nothing was impossible to solve; rember what Batman taught you, analyze the situation, find a persistent value, break that constant down to understandable paraters, and see the truth as it is.

I was missing so mories, which was easy to conclude, thanks to the big gaping hole in my thoughts and knowledge about my current situation.

Two, I was fighting a ntal representation of Trigon. Who appeared to be quite adamant about keeping trapped in this nightmare.

Three, seeing as I was in a dream, it ant reality, and the laws that governed didn't necessarily apply here unless one of us wanted that. In short, it was all a ga of illusions of who had the strongest mind and the best playing field.

I had the best playing field, seeing it was my mind we were trapped in. However, I doubted I had the strongest mind of the two; Trigon was older than I could imagine, the celestial conqueror, the embodint of true demonic power, a being that was far beyond ti, so it was safe to assu his long life had honed an indomitable mind.

"You won't be able to defeat , no matter how many tis you try. You always snap back at the sa ti, but you always lose in the end. Do you have any idea how many tis we have done this already?" Trigon growled with a hungry smile as he charged at again.

Once again, I sidestepped his charge and then quickly turned around, delivering a powerful kick to his chest that sent him flying backward.

How many tis have we done this?

He was either trying to make lose focus, or his words were true; I was stuck in a loop with him within my mind, one where my nightmare would restart at a certain point once the conditions for such rest were t, wiping my mories of the last run, creating an endless cycle.

If that was the case, there was only one logical conclusion. In each run, I would try the sa approach, resulting in the sa results.

To avoid that, I had to do sothing out of the ordinary. But what?

I had no guarantee I hadn't thought of this before already. After all, if this was a loop, it was safe to assu I had co to this conclusion more than once; that was if Trigon had opened his mouth more than once.

Loops were complicated, especially if you didn't retain any information after each run.

But there was a chance, albeit a small one, that I could break out if I did sothing out of the blue, sothing that even I didn't expect, sothing so out of my character that even Trigon will be caught off guard.

It was a long shot, but it was all I had.

The question now was, what could I do that would be so out of character for ?

Based on Trigon's words so far, if they were to be trusted, we have already fought multiple tis through the loops, aning our clashes with a constant variable in each run, regardless of how each run started.

I doubted giving up would break the loop, so seeing that wasn't an option I was willing to take, it left one path, avoiding the conflict.

But how?

I was in a dream, a lucid one, which ant I should have control over the dreamscape. However, I didn't seem to have much control over it; the scene was the sa, a dark forest, the stage Trigon had set for my nightmare, which ant that so far, he had more control over the dream than I did.

This was, however, my mind, so if I could find a way to change the scene, to take us out of the dark forest, it was possible that Trigon's grip on the dream would loosen, allowing to gain so control over the loops.

The problem was finding a way to do that.

Taking a deep breath, I tried thinking of a different place, a happy mory, anything that would take us out of this dark forest, but every ti I tried, nothing changed. I simply remained in the sa place, clashing with Trigon in what seed to be a stalemate.

It was almost as if this forest was part of my subconscious mind.

I guess it was ti to change my approach. If I can't will us out of the forest, it was ti to move us out of this stage physically.

"So we are stuck in a loop, kind of sad, considering you're a celestial being, and I'm just a mortal," I taunted him, looking down at him with a smirk. "Having trouble breaking my will?"

There was a reason I was taunting him. To make sure he would follow without hesitation.

Trigon let out a low growl as he pushed himself off the ground, his eyes narrowing into dangerous slits. "You're stalling," he accused .

"Am I?" I replied with an innocent smile. "You're the one that hasn't been able to land a single hit so far. I an, sure, this is a ntal battle, but still, I kind of pity you."

"You will regret those words," Trigon snarled, launching himself at .

Good, that didn't seem like the response of soone that has already seen that interaction through a loop, he was either a very good actor, or I was making a new path.

Either way, I had a good feeling about this developnt.