Chapter 111: The True Superman had a mental breakdown, even his clone defected.
The white sonic boom cloud dissipated outside the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Conner turned into a black meteor, tearing through the night sky of Manhattan, heading straight for Gotham in the southwest.
Shen Che leaned against the swivel chair, picking up the coffee that had already gone somewhat cold.
He took a sip. The bitterness went down his throat, and the curve of his mouth deepened a bit.
Two hundred kilometers away, Gotham City.
Deep underground in the abandoned nuclear shelter.
The air still carried that lingering smell of engine oil and antifreeze.
In the shadow of the corner, Clark was squatting on the ground.
He held a screwdriver in his hand, his thick fingers carefully tightening the casing of an old diesel generator.
The plastic handle of the screwdriver had already cracked from his excessive strength.
This generator was currently the only backup power source in the Batcave, and it had broken down three times.
With no money to buy parts, he could only manually hammer those worn gears back into shape to make do.
"Click."
The last screw was tightened. He stood up and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
Sweat mixed with engine oil, leaving a black mark on his honest face.
Beside him, Bruce sat in a wheelchair, watching the generator cough up black smoke and resume operation without speaking.
Suddenly.
Clark's Super Hearing captured a sharp piercing sound through the air.
It wasn't an airplane, but a body flying at high speed.
It was cutting through the gloomy rain clouds of Gotham City at an extremely fast speed.
Crashing straight down toward this underground shelter.
Clark's expression changed. He abruptly raised his head.
"Something is coming!"
As soon as the words left his mouth.
"Boom—!"
Above the nuclear shelter, the dozens of meters thick reinforced concrete roof slab—
emitted a despairing wail, being directly smashed through from the outside by a violent kinetic energy.
Large chunks of cement and twisted rebar came crashing down like a meteor shower.
Dust filled the air.
A black figure heavily smashed onto the iron table next to the generator.
The iron table was instantly trampled into an iron pancake.
Conner straightened his body.
His black tight T-shirt was stained with a bit of white ash.
His blue eyes pierced through the flying dust, accurately locking onto Clark in the corner.
This was the country bumpkin his old man told him to catch.
His aura was weak, and his attire looked like a mechanic. How disgraceful.
Conner didn't waste words.
With his legs slightly bent, his figure vanished in place.
The next second, he had already appeared in front of Clark.
He swung his right fist, carrying a fierce whistle that tore through the air.
Violently, he punched Clark right in the chest.
"Bang!"
A dull impact sound exploded in the Underground Room.
Clark was completely unprepared. He was directly blown away by the immense kinetic energy of this punch.
His body of over two hundred pounds shattered a load-bearing wall.
Bricks flew everywhere as he tumbled into the abandoned passageway next door.
Clutching his chest, he gasped sharply in pain.
This power... was too familiar. This was pure Kryptonianpower.
Clark crawled up from the ground.
He looked at the young boy walking out of the dust.
That face. The contours between his brows and eyes looked extremely similar to how he looked when he looked in the mirror in his youth.
"Karl..." (Kryptonian language: Who are you?)
Clark tried to communicate using his homeworld's language.
He thought that on this lonely Planet, besides that brutal Shen Che,
another surviving Kryptonian compatriot had appeared.
Conner walked to the edge of the wall hole and stopped.
He couldn't understand the Kryptonian language. Lex Luthor didn't teach him, and neither did Shen Che.
But he could hear the confusion and that trace of absurd friendliness in Clark's tone.
Conner twitched the corner of his mouth, revealing an extremely contemptuous sneer.
"Put away that pathetic expression of yours, country bumpkin."
Conner replied in English, his voice echoing in the empty passageway.
"I'm here to capture you."
Clark froze.
"Capture me? Why? Who on Earth are you?"
Conner put his hands in his jeans pockets.
His chin was slightly raised, exuding an arrogance identical to Shen Che's.
"Me?"
He stared into Clark's eyes.
"I am Shen Che's son."
"By my dad's order, I'm here to deal with a disgraceful trash like you."
These few sentences were like a row of high-explosive armor-piercing shells,
solidly slamming into Clark's heart.
Clark's mind went completely blank.
There was a buzzing sound in his brain, as if he had been struck in the back of the head by a large hammer.
Shen Che's son?
He looked at Conner's face, which was seven parts similar to his own, and felt the aura of genes belonging to himself.
This was clearly a life cloned using his genes!
The bloodline of his homeworld, the final proof of his existence—
was not only desecrated and cloned by humans,
but now, this child possessing his genes
actually ran up in front of him and called that ruthless tyrant who trampled Earth underfoot his dad?
And even wanted to help that tyrant capture him?
Acknowledging the enemy as his father.
Clark's breathing became rapid, and his eye sockets instantly turned red.
The kindness he had always adhered to, the Kryptonianheritage he took pride in,
at this moment, by this clone's single phrase "my dad",
were torn to pieces and trampled into the mud.
His worldview collapsed.
That sense of powerlessness from his beliefs being completely shattered was even more fatal than the punch Shen Che landed on his stomach.
His legs went soft, and unexpectedly he didn't fight back.
He was directly rushed by Conner, who grabbed him by the neck.
"Bang."
Conner used brute force to pin Clark firmly onto the gravel-filled ground, grinding his back against it.
"So weak." Conner sneered.
Inside the Underground Room,
Bruce sat in a wheelchair, watching the surveillance footage on the screen.
He watched Clark give up resisting and get pinned to the ground like a dead dog.
He knew that physical resistance was completely over.
Even the strongest physical combatant had lost his fighting spirit; relying on these pieces of junk, there was simply no way to turn the tables.
He took a deep breath.
Reaching his right hand into his bathrobe pocket,
he pulled out that yellowish parchment business card,
and forcefully crushed a miniature magic crystal hidden between his fingers on it.
"Click."
With a soft sound,
at the soles of Bruce's feet,
a dark purple light lit up without warning,
instantly transforming into a complex hexagram teleportation magic array that enveloped him and his wheelchair,
and disappeared in place.
Chapter 112: Physical Methods Ineffective, Batman Begins Searching for a Magician
The miniature magic crystal shattered into powder between his fingers.
A dark purple light flashed across Bruce's palm.
Like a drop of purple ink falling into water, it instantly spread out.
The light transformed into a complex hexagram teleportation array, lighting up on the concrete floor.
Bruce, along with the cold steel-framed wheelchair, was enveloped in the purple light.
"Hum."
A faint sound of air vibration.
Bruce vanished out of thin air inside the nuclear bunker.
Leaving only a shallow circle of scorch marks, emitting a pungent smell of sulfur.
The weightlessness of spatial folding violently gripped his heart.
The acid in his stomach surged upward.
Bruce gripped the metal armrests of the wheelchair tightly, his knuckles turning pale from the force.
A few seconds later.
The purple light before his eyes burst open like shattered glass.
Rushing toward him was a dense humidity and the unique fishy scent of the River Thames.
"Drip. Drip."
Rainwater fell from the black eaves, smashing against the bluestone slabs and shattering into splashes.
Bruce opened his eyes.
He was no longer in Gotham.
London. Soho. A dark alley without even a streetlamp.
The fog was thick, smearing the air like gray phlegm with visibility less than five meters.
The rubber tires of the wheelchair rolled over the slippery stone slabs.
Bruce did not bring an umbrella. The drizzle dampened his gray old bathrobe.
He raised his head.
Before him was a shop sandwiched between two dilapidated apartment buildings.
There was no storefront window, only a wooden door with peeling red paint.
Hanging crookedly above the door frame was a broken wooden sign. The wood had turned black from wind and rain erosion, its handwriting blurry and indistinct.
Fortune Telling House.
Bruce placed both hands on the wheel rims of the wheelchair; the metal was ice-cold.
He pushed the wheelchair, sliding slowly toward that broken wooden door.
He knew full well why he had come here.
Driven to a dead end.
Shen Che, that monster, rubbed the laws of physics against the ground.
Immune to Kryptonite radiation. Speed crushing the Speed Force. Hard-carrying a nuclear bomb with his physical body and even watching it like fireworks.
His proud tactical contingency plans, the heavy exoskeleton, even coupled with Clark's fists.
In front of this high-dimensional panel, they were not even worth waste paper.
The path of technology and muscle had been completely blocked off by that guy with a single finger.
In this Universe, the only thing that could bypass this kind of absolute physical defense...
Was magic.
Was those black magics hidden in the cracks of dimensions, ignoring Newton's laws, and stained with demon drool.
He needed to find the sorcerer on Earth most proficient in this trick.
Even if the other party was a scumbag full of lies.
As long as he could banish or curse that tyrant sitting on the rooftop in New York, Bruce was willing to pay any price.
Even if it meant making a deal with hell.
The wheelchair's tires rolled over the moss-covered threshold.
"Creak—"
The broken wooden door was not locked; a gentle push opened it.
It emitted a tooth-aching sound of wood friction.
Bruce slid into the room.
The light inside the room was even dimmer than outside.
The windows were tightly drawn with thick black velvet curtains, not letting in a single ray of light.
Only a few nearly burned-out White candles lingered in the corner, dripping wax oil.
The smell in the air was complex.
The musty scent of old books, the sourness of cheap Scotch whisky.
The heaviest of all was a pungent smell of Silk Cut cigarettes.
The smoke was so thick it was as if someone had lit a Fire in the room.
Bruce couldn't help coughing twice.
Tugging at the titanium alloy exoskeleton embedded in his spine on his back, causing a dull pain.
He gritted his teeth, suppressing the cough in his throat.
Through the swirling blue smoke.
He saw clearly the scene in the center of the room.
A messy Eight Immortals table. The tabletop was piled with a mess of sheepskin scrolls, along with a few blackened unknown animal bones.
A man was sitting on a dilapidated leather chair behind the table.
His legs were crossed, hoisted high up onto the tabletop.
The old leather shoes on his feet were stained with mud, the soles almost worn flat.
He was wearing a wrinkled khaki trench coat, the collar standing up to cover half of his neck.
He was smoking.
Holding half a cigarette between his fingers, the red cigarette butt flickered on and off in the dim light.
Chapter 113 Constantine is approached, smokes a cigarette and casts a fortune
The man turned his head.
His blonde hair was messy, like a chicken coop that hadn't been washed in days.
His eye sockets were deeply sunken, covered in bloodshot veins.
Those eyes exuded the decadence of someone who had spent years mingling among thugs and swindlers, along with an undisguisable cunning.
John Constantine.
He looked at Bruce sitting in the wheelchair.
He froze for half a second.
Then the corners of his mouth split open, revealing a mouthful of teeth stained yellow by smoke.
"Hoo—"
He exhaled a thick, white cloud of cigarette smoke, blowing smoke rings onto Bruce's face.
"I was wondering who it was."
Constantine put down his legs that had been propped up on the table.
His leather shoes banged against the wooden floor, making a clanging sound.
He leaned back in his leather chair, looking up and down at the crudely made steel-framed wheelchair.
"The playboy of Gotham. The infamous Batman."
He flicked his cigarette ash, and the ashes fell onto a piece of parchment covered in runes.
"What? Bankrupt? Can't even afford a decent Batsuit?"
Constantine laughed out loud, carrying a thick sense of mockery.
"Your legs are broken, and instead of lying in your grand manor letting the butler feed you, you ran into the sewers of London to find me?"
Bruce did not get angry.
He had no time to bicker with this scum.
Every minute of delay, that tyrant sitting on the rooftop of New York might set even crazier rules on Earth.
He reached out and pulled a crumpled piece of paper from the inner pocket of his bathrobe.
"Snap."
The paper was heavily slapped by him onto the wooden table in front of him.
Pinning down a blackened animal skull.
"New York. Manhattan. Vought Tower, floor one hundred and twelve."
Bruce's voice was hoarse, every word bitten out heavily.
"Shen Che."
He stared into Constantine's frivolous eyes.
"I want you to use the highest-level dark magic in your hands, the most vicious curse, or the strongest Demon King you can contact."
"Send this person, body and soul, straight to the deepest layer of hell."
The smile on Constantine's face faded.
His fingers holding the cigarette stopped in mid-air.
Vought Tower. Shen Che.
These past few days, televisions worldwide had been looping this name.
That was a tough nut to crack. A monster that shattered a nuclear bomb with a single slap.
Constantine was a charlatan, but he wasn't a fool.
He shoved the cigarette butt into his mouth and took a deep drag.
"Not taking it."
He neatly and decisively refused, flicking the piece of paper back in front of Bruce with his fingertips.
"Bats. I'm just a swindler. I don't want to be roasted into charcoal by laser eyes of Superman's level."
He shook his head. "This job is too hot to handle. I won't take it no matter how much money you give."
Bruce tightly grabbed the armrests of his wheelchair with both hands.
"One hundred million U.S. dollars."
Bruce threw out his bargaining chip.
"Vought Company has frozen Wayne Enterprises' open assets, but I still have a few cold wallet bitcoins that only my fingerprint can unlock."
He looked at Constantine.
"After it's done, the password is yours."
"This money is enough for you to buy every bar in Londonand let you soak in a vat of liquor to drink until the next century."
Constantine's hand holding the cigarette paused slightly.
The ash fell onto his trouser leg, but he didn't bother to pat it off.
One hundred million U.S. dollars.
In all his life, he had swindled countless demons, yet he had never seen so much cash.
Men die for wealth, and mages are no exception.
His Adam's apple rolled once, a flash of greed and hesitation crossing his eyes.
"Are you sure he's an alien?"
Constantine leaned closer to the table, lowering his voice.
"Didn't bring any divine status? Didn't sign any contracts with the bosses of heaven or hell?"
"No."
Bruce answered very affirmatively.
"He's just a physically mutated alien with extremely high physical defense and fast speed."
"But he has no experience dealing with magic. That's his only fatal flaw."
Constantine was silent for a few seconds.
He pressed the cigarette in his hand, which was almost burned to the filter, into a yellowish skull-shaped ashtray.
Twisting it out.
"Alright."
He rubbed his hands and stood up from the chair.
"For the sake of the money, I'll give it a try."
He turned around and walked over to a dilapidated wardrobe, pulling open a drawer.
Fumbling around inside for a while.
He took out a small package wrapped in black cloth and an ancient piece of parchment scroll.
He laid the parchment scroll flat on the wooden table.
Drawn on the scroll was a complex red hexagram array, exuding a stale smell of blood.
Constantine untied the black cloth.
Inside were a few bleached white finger bones, their surfaces stained with dark red blood.
These were not ordinary bones.
These were carved from a high-ranking demon burned to death by the Archangel's holy fire.
Specially used to divine dangerous targets.
"You know the rules. Before taking action, we must first see the background of this unlucky bastard."
Constantine grabbed those bloody bones.
He weighed them in his hand.
Closing his eyes.
The air in the room began to grow cold, and the flames of those candles turned into an eerie, pale green.
Constantine's lips moved.
Obscure and difficult Latin incantations were quickly chanted from his mouth.
The voice was low, carrying a harsh scraping sensation like glass.
"In the name of Belial, insight into the fire of the soul."
"Seek its origin, observe its lifeline."
He suddenly opened his eyes, his pupils instantly turning into slit-like gold.
Waving his right hand.
The bloody bones in his hand, carrying a dark red magical micro-glow.
Accurately scattered toward the center of the parchment scroll, the location representing Shen Che's coordinates.
Bruce stared closely at the tabletop.
Waiting to see the result of this divination, waiting to see that monster's weaknesses have nowhere to hide under the magnifying glass of magic.
The bloody bones fell.
Less than an inch away from the parchment scroll.
Just at the moment when the two were about to make contact.
There was no crisp sound of bones hitting the parchment.
"Sizzle—!"
A sharp, popping sound like boiling oil poured onto ice exploded in the quiet divination room.
The bloody bones did not land.
It was like falling into the highest concentration of industrial sulfuric acid.
The bloodstains on the surface of the bones were instantly evaporated, and the white bones turned black and dissolved at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Billowing black smoke, from the center of the parchment scroll.
Carrying a stench of corruption and a breath of destruction that made people want to vomit,
suddenly burst forth.
Chapter 114 The hexagram is extremely ominous, Constantine flees Earth overnight with a standing ticket
The pungent black smoke instantly filled this small divination room.
There was no firelight, only a suffocating dead aura.
That ancient parchment scroll spread out on the wooden table, claimed to be able to bear the Angel's prophecy,
within zero point one second of the black smoke emerging,
directly turned into a puddle of black ash, not even a spark splashing out.
A charred, large hole was burned onto the tabletop.
The wood made a sizzle of carbonization.
Constantine leaped backward in a big stride.
His lower back heavily slammed into the ragged wardrobe, rattling several empty wine bottles on top of the cabinet to smash onto the floor with a crash.
Broken glass littered the floor.
In his golden slit pupils, there was unmasked panic.
Even more terrified than Bruce seeing Shen Che eat Kryptonite in the square.
He had lived for over thirty years.
He had swindled the Demon Kings of Hell, fooled the Seraphim of Heaven. These eyes of his had seen through countless evil souls.
But he had never seen such a hexagram.
In that billowingly rising black smoke,
he didn't see the specific future, didn't see Shen Che's weakness.
He didn't even see any trajectory of fate belonging to living creatures.
What he saw,
was an endless abyss enough to swallow all dimensional concepts.
In that abyss, there was no cause and effect, no birth, aging, sickness, and death.
Even the magic power of the magic source, when approaching the edge of that abyss,
was easily crushed into nothingness.
That was not a mutant with superpowers.
That was an absolute overlord who completely jumped out of the rules of this Universe.
"Fuck!"
Constantine's voice cracked.
He couldn't care about the broken glass on the floor, directly jumping up from beside the wardrobe.
Fumbling in a fluster to grab the crumpled trench coat hanging on the coat rack.
He hastily threw the trench coat over his body, his fingers trembling as he buttoned the wrong button.
"You're fucking crazy! Bats!"
Pointing at the table still emitting black smoke, his spit flying far away.
"What the hell is that thing?! You want me to curse him?"
"That's simply a living dimensional black hole!"
"Satan in hell seeing this thing would have to weld the gates of hell shut overnight!"
Bruce sat in the wheelchair.
He looked at that puddle of ash, his brows knitted tightly together.
"He's an alien. He doesn't understand magic."
Bruce's voice was somewhat hurried. He could not lose this last straw.
"As long as you use a high-tier curse..."
"Shut up! I'm not doing it!"
Constantine interrupted him with a wave.
He pulled open the bottom-most drawer of the wardrobe, which was stuffed with his belongings used for running away.
A few rolls of tattered parchment, two bottles of holy water, and a bunch of messy amulets.
Without even looking, he stuffed them all into the large pockets of his trench coat.
The pockets were bulged out.
"Keep your 100 million bitcoins to buy yourself a nice titanium alloy coffin."
Constantine was sweating profusely from anxiety.
He walked to the corner of the room.
His hands quickly drew a complex golden rune in the air.
"Sizzle."
The air was forcibly torn open.
A space portal exuding the smell of sulfur and dark red firelight appeared out of thin air on the wall.
On the other side of the portal was a barren hell dimension.
This was the last retreat he left for himself.
"You're running away?" Bruce pushed his wheelchair forward half a step.
"Nonsense!"
Constantine stepped half his body into the portal.
He turned his head and looked at Bruce.
"This Earth can no longer be stayed on."
That face of his, which usually always carried a cunning smile, was now terrifyingly pale.
"That jinx, just a glance could directly vaporize the divining bloody bones."
"When he finds this Planet boring one day, you and me, along with all the magical barriers—"
"will all turn into a pile of unreasonable powder."
Constantine waved his hand, as if making a final farewell.
"I'd rather go to the third layer of hell to buy a standing ticket and listen to demons chanting scriptures every day,"
"than ever stay on Earth with that monster."
His other foot also stepped into the portal.
"Good luck, playboy."
"Bang."
The portal instantly closed in front of Bruce.
The red light receded.
The wall returned to its original state, and the chalk marks used to draw the teleportation array fell down in flurries.
Inside the divination room,
there was only a floor of broken glass, and the puddle of ash on the table still emitting pungent black smoke,
along with the thick, un-dissipating smell of cheap tobacco.
Silence.
Deathly silence.
Bruce tightly grabbed the metal armrests of the wheelchair with both hands.
His knuckles turned a dead gray due to excessive force.
His chest heaved violently, his lungs feeling as if they were filled with ice water.
Even the top swindler of the magical world was scared out of his wits directly by Shen Che's destiny chart,
fleeing to hell overnight.
What did this mean?
It meant that Shen Che's panel not only immunized physics, but could even directly immunize the causality of magic.
Bruce clenched his back molars.
His gums made a teeth-aching grinding sound.
He had no time to despair. Earth was still under the tyrant's feet.
Since scum Constantine didn't dare to take it,
then he would go look for the next one,
find an orthodox magician who truly possessed reality-warping abilities and dared to face this deity directly.
He didn't believe that in this Universe, there really was nothing that could harm that silver body.
Bruce turned the wheelchair.
The rubber tires rolled over the broken glass on the floor,
making a crisp cracking sound.
He pushed the wheelchair, sliding across the dusty threshold,
leaving this smoky, foul divination room,
returning once again to the drizzle-filled alleys of London.
Direction. United States. New York.
Chapter 114: The divination omen is extremely ominous, Constantine buys a standing-room ticket overnight and flees Earth.
Black smoke burst from the center of the wooden table.
There were no flames.
There was only a pure blackness that devoured light.
That piece of parchment, claimed to be able to bear an Angel prophecy, skipped even the curling edges and yellowing burning process.
Within zero point one seconds of contacting the black smoke, it directly turned into a puddle of sticky black ash.
The blood-bone sank into the ashes.
The dark red blood of the high-ranking demon originally stained on it was instantly sucked dry as if by some invisible living creature, fading into a ghastly pale bone color.
Then, with a crisp snap of "crack".
Three hard finger bones cracked into powder simultaneously.
A pungent stench, mixed with a strong smell of ozone, exploded like compressed gas in the narrow divination room.
John Constantine suddenly fell backward.
The legs of the leather chair scraped a harsh noise against the floor.
He tightly covered his eyes with both hands.
His ten fingers trembled as if connected to high-voltage electricity, and cold sweat seeped from the crevices of his nails.
Just in that second, his consciousness probed forward following the guidance of the blood-bone.
He did not see Manhattan in New York, nor did he see the glass curtain wall of Vought Tower.
He crashed into a wall.
No, that was a boundless, bottomless black hole.
All the magic elements, the sulfur breath of hell, the holy light laws of heaven,
When approaching the edge of that black hole, were all crushed into invisible residues to the naked eye.
That man named Shen Che had no threads of fate at all, no entanglement of cause and effect.
He himself was a dimension-ripping shredder.
"Cough, cough, cough!"
Constantine coughed violently, coughing so hard that his whole body curled up like a shrimp.
Stomach acid rose to his throat, carrying a burning, sour, and bitter taste.
He spat the half-smoked Silk Cut cigarette clenched in his mouth onto the floor.
The specially supplied cigarette butt, usually treasured like a baby, was directly stepped on and flattened by him.
The sole of his shoe ground heavily twice on the wooden floor.
He raised his head.
His golden slit pupils had already scattered, and the whites of his eyes were covered with a thick layer of bloodshots.
That face which always wore a ruffian's smile and dared to tease even the God of Death,
Was now as pale as if brushed with a layer of cheap wall paint.
"Fuck."
Constantine cursed a dirty word, his voice cracking with a leaky tremor.
He scrambled up from the leather chair in a flurry.
Because he stood up too fiercely, his right knee bumped against the corner of the iron filing cabinet table.
With a loud crash of "clang".
Several empty whiskey bottles on top of the cabinet clattered down and smashed onto the floor.
Glass shards splashed everywhere.
The strong smell of alcohol volatilized, slightly diluting the stench in the room.
He didn't care about his bleeding knee.
Pointing at the puddle of black ash on the table that was still emitting residual smoke, his fingers trembled and could not be retracted.
"Bat. You're crazy. You're completely crazy."
Constantine spat as he talked wildly.
"You asked me to provoke him? You asked me to probe his bottom line?"
Bruce sat in the steel-framed wheelchair.
The titanium alloy exoskeleton on his back emitted a faint motor operating sound.
He watched Constantine's out-of-control appearance, his brows tightly knitted together, squeezing several deep wrinkles on his forehead.
"He is an alien."
Bruce's voice was hoarse, trying to use logic to pull this magician back to the negotiating table.
"He doesn't understand magic. He hasn't received training in occultism. As long as you use a high-tier curse..."
"I curse your grandpa!"
Constantine slapped the solid wood coat rack beside him.
Yanking down that wrinkled khaki trench coat forcefully.
Using too much force, the coat rack fell to the ground and smashed onto the footrest of Bruce's wheelchair.
"Don't you have any idea what kind of thing that is!"
Constantine hurriedly put on the trench coat, his fingers trembling, the first button directly buttoned into the third buttonhole.
The trench coat hung crookedly on his body.
"That is simply a living dimensional black hole!"
"I've cheated three Demon Lords of Hell and stolen tribute wine in front of Gabriel."
"Those monsters at least abide by some basic laws, speak of contracts, and speak of the equivalent exchange of souls."
He grabbed the half-bottle of mineral water on the table and unscrewed the cap.
Pouring it directly onto his face.
The ice-cold water flowed down his golden hair into his neck, slightly easing his wildly beating heart.
"That Shen Che you asked me to investigate."
He smashed the empty plastic bottle against the wall, bouncing it into the corner.
"He has no weakness of soul. He has no cause and effect. He doesn't even have a birth certificate for this Universe!"
Constantine walked to the dark corner of the room.
His leather shoes stepped on the broken glass, creaking.
"My detection magic just got close, and I didn't even touch his edge."
"The magic pool on my body was almost sucked dry by him with a single glance!"
Bruce pushed his wheelchair and slid forward half a step.
The rubber tires rolled over the parchment residue on the ground.
"I'll add money." Bruce threw out his trump card. "Five hundred million. Physical gold in the Cayman Islands."
"Add your mother's money!"
Constantine turned his head and glared fiercely at Bruce, the terror in his eyes overwhelming his greed.
"Dealing with an elephant, you use poison. Dealing with a dragon, you use a dragon-slaying spear. This is called tactics."
"But now you want me to use a toothpick to pry open a man-eating black hole? This is called courting death!"
He bent down and pulled open the bottom-most drawer of the filing cabinet.
The drawer slides were rusted, making a harsh frictional sound.
Inside it was stuffed with his belongings used for running away.
Several rolls of tattered rune paper, two bottles of holy water, a rusted silver dagger.
Without even looking, he scooped them all out and desperately stuffed them into the spacious pockets of his trench coat.
The pockets were bulging, and the cap of the holy water was almost squeezed off.
"Keep your five hundred million in gold to buy yourself a better titanium alloy coffin."
Constantine was sweating profusely with anxiety, his breathing sounding like a bellows.
He walked over to the mottled cement wall on the left.
Raising his right hand, he put his thumb between his teeth.
Biting down hard.
Beads of blood oozed out. Ten fingers connected to the heart, he gasped in a breath of cold air from the pain.
But he didn't pause.
Directly using his bloody thumb, on the grayish-white wall plaster, he quickly drew a complex dark red circular magicarray.
The lines were rough, exuding a panic of being eager to run for his life.
"This Earth can no longer be stayed in."
Constantine muttered while drawing.
"That jinx, even just a glance can vaporize my divination blood-bones directly."
"When he finds this Planet boring one day, you and me together, along with all the magic barriers,"
"Will all turn into a pile of unreasonable powder."
The last stroke was finished.
"Zhilah."
The wall was forcibly ripped apart.
A spatial portal exuding a strong smell of sulfur and dark red firelight appeared out of thin air on the wall.
A heatwave rushed over his face, drying the rainwater on Bruce's bathrobe.
On the other side of the portal was a barren lower hell dimension flowing with magma.
That was the quagmire where demons exiled sinners.
"You're fleeing?" Bruce gripped the wheelchair armrests tightly, his finger bones turning pale.
"Nonsense!"
Constantine stepped half his body into the portal.
His leather shoes stepped on the scalding magma slag, a puff of white smoke rising from the soles, exuding the stench of burnt rubber.
He turned his head and looked at Bruce sitting in the wheelchair.
That face, which usually always wore a cynical smile, was as pale as paper at this moment.
"I'd rather go to the third layer of Hell to buy a standing ticket, listening to those disgusting little imps chanting scriptures every day and fighting with them for mud pits."
"Than ever stay on Earth with that monster."
His other foot also stepped into the portal.
Most of his body had already melted into the red firelight.
"Take a word of advice from me, rich kid."
Constantine rarely didn't sneer, his tone carrying a hint of genuine dread.
"Find a bomb shelter that a wheelchair can be pushed into, bury yourself, and stop provoking him."
"Good luck."
"Bang."
The dark red portal instantly closed in front of Bruce.
The firelight converged, and the heatwave disappeared.
The wall returned to its original state. The bloodstain used to draw the teleportation array was absorbed by the wall bricks, drying and turning black.
Inside the divination room.
There was only a floor of broken glass left, and the puddle of parchment roll ash still emitting pungent black smoke on the table.
Quiet.
Death-like silence, only the last half of the white candle in the corner was still flickering.
Bruce tightly gripped the metal armrests of the wheelchair with both hands.
The metal was ice-cold, piercingly cold.
His chest heaved violently, his lungs feeling as if filled with ice water, and every breath carried a dull pain.
Even the top-tier swindler of the magic world was directly frightened out of his wits by one of Shen Che's destiny traits.
He didn't even want five hundred million U.S. dollars in gold, and bought a standing ticket overnight to escape to Hell to avoid the limelight.
What does this indicate?
It indicates that Shen Che's perverted panel.
Not only is it immune to physical attacks, but even the cause and effect and detection of the magic dimension can be directly immunized.
As long as it is a power with aggressiveness or spying nature, the moment it approaches him, it will be crushed by that domineering attribute.
Bruce clenched his back molars.
His gums made a teeth-aching frictional sound, and he tasted the smell of blood in his mouth.
But he had no time to despair. Earth was still under the feet of that tyrant, and the remaining troops of the Justice League were still waiting for him.
Constantine was a swindler; he walked an unorthodox path and used tricky black magic and demon contracts.
Tricky things easily collapse in the face of absolute power.
Since this kind of sneaky spell didn't work.
Then he would go look for the next one.
Finding an orthodox magician who truly possesses the ability to change reality and dares to face this god directly.
He didn't believe that in this Universe, there was truly no power whatsoever that could harm that silver body.
As long as it is an existing matter, there must be loopholes.
Bruce let go of the tightly gripped armrest.
Placing both hands on the wheel rings, he pushed hard forward.
The wheelchair turned.
The rubber tires rolled over the broken glass on the ground.
Making a crisp cracking sound, glass shards embedded into the texture of the tires.
He pushed the wheelchair, slowly sliding toward the broken wooden door of the divination room.
Pushing open the wooden door with peeled red paint.
The London alley outside the door was even foggier, and the drizzle of rain was densely intertwined together.
Bruce slid across the dusty threshold, plunging into the cold rainy night.
Chapter 115: Zatanna refuses to believe it and tries to banish me with Backward Magic.
Cold rain beat against Bruce's old bathrobe.
He pushed his wheelchair into the cold, thick fog of London's Soho.
The tires rolled over the bluestone slabs.
Puddles splashed against the black metal frame,
leaving a crooked, twisted trail of water.
A few hours later.
New York.
Manhattan.
The backstage dressing room of a high-end theater on Broadway.
The air was filled with the strong smell of hairspray and cheap rose perfume.
Bruce pushed his wheelchair,
stopping in front of the makeup mirror.
He had already changed into a clean black trench coat, covering the titanium alloy exoskeleton on his back that kept him standing.
But his complexion remained pale, tinged with a grayish-blue from excessive blood loss.
In front of the makeup mirror.
A woman wearing a black tailcoat jacket and fishnet stockings on her lower body was removing her makeup.
Zatanna.
One of the most orthodox and powerful magicians on Earth.
She was holding a cotton pad soaked in makeup remover,
wiping away the black eyeliner at the corners of her eyes.
The mirror reflected Bruce's tired face.
"Batman visiting in person."
Zatanna didn't turn around, tossing the dirty cotton pad into the trash can beside her.
"It looks like that lunatic outside who treats the Earth like a toy has pushed you quite hard."
Bruce was not in the mood for small talk.
"I went to London,"
Bruce said in a hoarse voice.
"And looked for John Constantine."
Zatanna's hand holding the eyebrow pencil paused for a moment.
She turned around and leaned against the vanity.
Her black high heels clicked against the polished wooden floor with a tap.
"Constantine?"
She raised an eyebrow.
"That full-of-it charlatan. What did he say?"
"He ran away."
Bruce looked into Zatanna's eyes.
"He cast a divination. The divination burned the scroll. He opened a portal and ran straight to Hell."
The dressing room fell silent for two seconds.
Only the roaring sound of air blowing from the ventilation duct overhead could be heard.
Zatanna froze for a moment.
Then, she suddenly let out a sneer.
"Heh."
There was undisguised contempt in her laughter.
"Ran away? That really fits the style of that street scammer."
She turned around and picked up a black magic wand on the dressing table.
The two ends of the magic wand were inlaid with white metal, shimmering faintly under the cold light.
"What he studies are all sneaky, borrowed black magics. It's normal for him to be scared out of his wits when he encounters a tough opponent."
Zatanna's slender fingers twirled the magic wand.
The wand spun and flew between her fingers, leaving a black afterimage.
She had absolute confidence in her own magic system.
Backward Magic.
This was the most overbearing and unreasonable rule-based spell in the orthodox magic World.
It didn't need to borrow the power of demons, nor did it require lengthy sacrifices.
Her words became reality.
As long as the spell was recited backwards, she could directly distort reality and alter causality.
"Physical attacks are ineffective. Kryptonite immunity."
Zatanna repeated the tactical intelligence Bruce had just provided.
She plugged the magic wand back into the belt at her waist.
"It sounds like this is indeed an alien monster with an absolute physical stat block."
She walked up to Bruce.
Looking down condescendingly at the once-unrivaled Dark Knight.
"But magic cannot be withstood purely by physical body."
"As long as he is still within the rules of this three-dimensional Universe, as long as he still needs to breathe air and step on the floor—"
Zatanna tidied the collar of her black tailcoat.
Her eyes revealed the pride belonging to a top-tier mage.
"Backward Magic can strip him directly from this Universe."
"What reward do you want?"
Bruce got straight to the point.
He didn't want to hear magic theory; he only wanted results.
"Reward?"
Zatanna chuckled.
"Kick that tyrant who made the World a complete mess out of the game."
"This itself is the best magic show. Consider it my free gift."
She didn't say any more nonsense.
She clasped her hands together in front of her chest,
closed her eyes,
and slightly parted her red lips.
A backward Latin spell spilled from her mouth,
its voice not loud, yet carrying a strange frequency that vibrated the air.
"A-cps ert!"
As soon as her voice fell,
"Hum—"
the lights in the dressing room suddenly dimmed for a moment.
A dazzling white halo lit up under Zatanna's feet.
The halo instantly contracted, enveloping her entire body within it.
"Whoosh."
The sound of breaking air rang out.
Zatanna's figure, along with the black magic hat hanging on the coat rack,
vanished out of thin air in the dressing room,
leaving only a breeze mixed with rose perfume that fluttered the hem of Bruce's trench coat.
Bruce stared at the place where Zatanna had vanished,
his hands gripping the wheelchair armrests tightly.
He had staked his final bet entirely on this magic wand.
At the same time,
Vought Tower, floor 112.
The CEO's office.
Shen Che sat behind the obsidian desk.
He was holding a cup of freshly ground Blue Mountain coffee, with steam curling upward.
On the tablet in front of him jumped the "security fee" bills just received by Vought Company from several European countries.
A long string of green numbers.
"Snap."
A faint sound of spatial rupture rang out in the center of the spacious office.
The air was forcefully torn open a crack by an invisible hand.
A flash of white light passed.
Zatanna, wearing that eye-catching tailcoat and fishnet stockings,
and holding the black magic wand in her hand,
appeared without warning on the carpet less than ten meters away from Shen Che.
This kind of spatial transition directly bypassed all physical security defense lines of Vought Tower.
Shen Che's hand holding the coffee cup stopped mid-air.
He raised his head.
His gaze pierced through the rising coffee steam and landed on this suddenly popped-up female magician.
In his pitch-black eyes, there was no surprise.
Only a slight frown.
It was like looking at a reckless moth flying into a high-end restaurant.
"The door is outside,"
Shen Che said in a calm voice.
"Next time you come in, remember to use the front door."
He didn't even stand up.
Slowly placing the coffee cup back on the stone surface, it made a soft "clack" sound.
Zatanna didn't take up the conversation.
She was a practical action-taker. Facing a monster hyped up to be unfathomable, she understood the principle that villains die from talking too much better than anyone else.
She didn't plan to give Shen Che any chance to react or close in.
She made her move directly.
Zatanna spread her legs and stood firmly on the Persian carpet.
Her right hand lifted abruptly.
The black and white magic wand was like a gun pointing at the target.
Aiming straight at Shen Che sitting on the swivel chair.
She took a deep breath.
Her lungs filled with air.
Mobilizing the strongest and purest magic origin within her body.
This was a highest-tier spatial banishment spell. Once effective, the target would be forever cast into an alternate void with no concept of time.
Her red lips opened.
Her voice was crisp and hurried, carrying a terrifying magicpower that distorted reality.
"Zhu-fang bei-che shen!"
As the spell was chanted,
there were no booming thunders or howling winds.
The effect of Backward Magic was often a silent alteration of rules.
"Hum."
Accompanied by the falling of the last syllable of these words,
a dazzling purple magic halo
lit up without warning on the obsidian floor beneath Shen Che's feet.
The halo was composed of countless complex, backward-written ancient runic characters.
Rotating at an extremely fast speed,
in an instant,
it formed a dark purple vortex two meters in diameter.
At the center of the vortex exuded an otherworldly aura that chilled one's soul.
A powerful magical suction surged wildly from the bottom of the vortex,
trying to suck Shen Che sitting on it, along with the leather swivel chair,
directly into that endless different-dimensional void.
Zatanna stared fixedly at the man in the center of the halo.
The corners of her mouth slightly upturned, revealing a confident, cold sneer.
No matter how strong physical defense is, so what?
In the rules of magic, you don't even have the qualification to resist.