amaotonovel Chapter 4610 The Day of Brightest Day (69)
Chapter 4610 The Day of Brightest Day (69)
Chapter 4610 The Day of Brightest Light (Sixty-Nine)
Constantine in the main universe seemed lost in memories. After a while, he said with some emotion, "What a nostalgic time of youth! Thank you, Adam and Eve, thank you, the serpent, thank you, the forbidden fruit... Oh, wait, didn't I thank Adam to his face?"
Constantine and Schiller were getting impatient. Schiller silently began loading his gun, which clearly had some effect. In the main universe, Constantine rummaged through the files again and actually found something.
The moment he opened his palm, Schiller froze. What appeared in Constantine's palm in the main universe was a pistol cartridge case, and this cartridge case was very unusual, not a common pistol bullet type.
Schiller took the cartridge case, examined it carefully, and then confirmed that it was a 9x18mm pistol cartridge, also known as a Makarov pistol cartridge. It was special because this 9mm pistol cartridge was essentially only used with the Makarov pistol. Its bullet was larger than other 9mm cartridges, it wasn't compatible with many German 9mm pistol cartridges, and its cartridge case was about one millimeter shorter than most 9mm cartridge cases, which is why he could recognize it at a glance.
If he remembers correctly, Anatoly used a Makarov pistol to commit suicide back then.
Schiller was speechless, unsure whether to wonder where Lucifer had gotten the cartridge case from, or how it ended up in Constantine's hands.
“I won this bet,” Constantine of the Main Universe said. “Lucifer’s bar had just opened, and I went to support him. We were drinking and playing games, and you know, you have to have a prize. Of course, I wanted something good.”
"And then you just took this?"
“This is not what I wanted.” Constantine of the main universe said with a sneer, “He must be jealous that I won, so he threw this piece of junk at me. There’s not much Satanic power on it, it’s unusable, so I’ve just kept it as a bottom-of-the-barrel item.”
Constantine took the cartridge case from Schiller and examined it closely. He was not looking at the model number, but rather at the Satanic power entwined within it, and the deeper emotions within it.
“Oh, I’m getting annoyed,” Constantine said. “He doesn’t like this thing, it annoys him just looking at it, so he just threw it at you.”
“See what I told you?” Constantine from the main universe said. “I’m going to have a serious talk with him about this someday…”
“I advise you not to do that,” Schiller said. “This thing has a lot of history, you’d better not go looking for trouble.”
Both Constantines stared at Schiller. After thinking for a moment, Schiller said, "Lucifer has a good friend; this must have been given to him by him."
"Since you're good friends, why would you feel annoyed?"
“Probably because this bullet once went through his best friend’s brain,” Schiller said. “You wouldn’t be too happy to see a bullet your friend used to commit suicide, would you?”
Constantine took a soft breath and said, "Suicide?"
“More importantly, what happened afterward,” Schiller paused before saying, “You could say that none of this would have happened without that bullet. It’s normal for him to be upset.”
Schiller had a lot left unsaid. He guessed in his heart that it was unlikely Lucifer had retrieved the bullet; it was more likely that Anatoli had picked it up later. But what his purpose was in giving it to Lucifer remained a mystery.
But Schiller knew that Anatoly would probably tell some lethal doses of hellish jokes about it. He never cared about such things, but Lucifer might not. Clearly, this thing was very troubling to him; he didn't want to throw it away, but holding onto it was terrifying, so he decided to throw it to Constantine in the main universe after losing a bet.
“The power on it is not strong,” Schiller said, “but the story behind it will give it greater power.”
“Now that you mention it, I do remember,” Constantine from the main universe recalled. “Because after I got this thing, I found that it didn’t seem to have any special use. I thought I just didn’t know how to use it, so I subtly asked him what this thing was all about. He was very vague, but one sentence he said stuck with me.”
"what?"
"There are two kinds of comedy in this world—beauty begins with new life, and beauty begins with death."
“That doesn’t sound good,” Constantine commented. “The key is in the second half of the sentence. How are Satan’s friends?”
"He might have been somewhat dead back then, but he's doing well now," Schiller answered in his heart. He couldn't help but ponder this statement; it didn't actually have any complex philosophical meaning, perhaps just Anatoly's sudden remark. Because it was because he died that he came before Lucifer, and that's how the two of them met—it could truly be described as a beautiful beginning with death.
However, considering Anatoly's subsequent experiences, this statement sounds rather tragic. Perhaps this is also the main reason why Lucifer threw away the spent cartridge cases; it seems almost prophetic.
Schiller stared at the spent cartridge case for a long time, then said, "Do you have anything else?"
“This is the only one I received directly from him. But I also collected some things that are supposedly blessed by Satan.” Constantine pulled out a few more items, the kind of mystical magical artifacts. However, after the two of them studied and examined them, most of them were not very reliable. There were one or two that might have come into contact with Satan, but they didn’t have any power on them.
“Blessing is not so simple,” Constantine said. “Sometimes, even angels and demons cannot succeed in blessing something. Even if they do succeed, the effect is very short-lived. The fundamental reason is that the thing has no connection with them and therefore cannot bear their power.”
“Connection is the most esoteric part of this whole process,” Constantine continued. “Simply using it, or even liking it, doesn’t necessarily constitute connection. It’s like a sculpture or throne in a demon’s palace; it may seem to have a deep connection with demons, but it might not be useful if moved to the human world.”
Constantine from the main universe nodded, clearly confirming this statement. Judging from his appearance, he must have moved it.
"The best connection is obviously emotion, which is also the most stable and universal solution I have found so far. As long as angels and demons infuse something with emotion, they can give that object eternal power. Whether it is positive or negative emotion, the deeper the emotion, the more powerful it is."
This was not surprising. Schiller realized that emotions were the underlying logic of God's creation, intricately connected to the laws governing the operation of the entire universe. These mysterious entities, it seemed, could also become more powerful through emotions.
“Thank you,” Schiller said. Then he and Constantine left together. On the way back, Constantine asked, “That friend of Satan you mentioned, is he still alive?”
Why do you ask that?
“Satan can control life and death, and even has power beyond God in some areas. If he doesn’t want his friend to die, then of course he won’t die.”
"What if his friend is determined to die?"
Constantine shook his head and said, "Satan's original sin is arrogance; he usually doesn't care about other people's feelings."
"What if he can't stop him?"
Constantine frowned slightly, about to object, but he could only accept it as a possible hypothesis for now, and said, "This is not a good choice. Breaking Satan's arrogance is a very dangerous thing. If he harbors resentment, then even his soul will never have peace."
“That does sound terrifying,” Schiller said. “Is there any possibility that he could choose to accept death and let the other person go?”
“It’s not easy,” Constantine said. “An arrogant person finds it hard to accept being abandoned, especially by death, which is the greatest humiliation for him. I can’t imagine how he could allow someone to do that.”
"Perhaps he really does understand him now?"
"Understand?" Constantine sneered. "Such beings don't bother understanding others, because there's no need. They control the entire universe; everything, the cycle of life and death, cannot escape their grasp. If you possessed such power, would you bother trying to understand anyone?"
Logically speaking, it shouldn't be possible. Schiller thought to himself that it was almost impossible for someone so powerful and arrogant to have empathy. However, he could roughly guess why Lucifer hadn't been able to outmaneuver Anatoly.
It's like Batman and Constantine in the main universe. If Batman were seeking revenge on Constantine, or simply venting his own frustrations, Constantine wouldn't listen to him. He has plenty of ways to escape from Arkham Asylum, and Batman wouldn't be able to catch him.
However, Batman had no selfish motives whatsoever. Even though Constantine did what he did, Batman simply felt that Constantine's mental state was worrying and that if he didn't receive professional treatment, his condition might worsen, so he tried to find a way to cure him.
Anatoly's self-destruction in Gotham was not out of resentment towards the world, nor to abandon Lucifer; it was to make the world a better place and to save the most hopeless place in the world.
In a way, this is what Lucifer also wants to do. Not to save the world, but to break free from predetermined fate—what Lucifer detests most is predetermined fate.
Gotham's tragedy was clearly a pre-written script, unchangeable and utterly beyond redemption. Lucifer didn't care whether the people here were suffering or not; he simply loathed the feeling of being "chosen to do something."
Anatoly defied Gotham's predetermined fate, making Gotham no longer necessarily beyond redemption—something Lucifer had always wanted to do but couldn't. Therefore, he couldn't help but forgive Anatoly's death.
To reiterate, if Anatoly had even the slightest selfish motive—such as resentment towards the collapse of the Soviet Union or dissatisfaction with Lucifer himself—and thus chose to commit suicide, Lucifer would absolutely not have let him go. But that was precisely not the case.
At this moment, Shiller somewhat understood Lucifer's breakdown. It was precisely because he couldn't resent Anatoly's death that he was so disoriented. Of course, he could understand the breakdown of Anatoly's creditors even more. Being defaulted on was already terrible enough; if Lucifer couldn't blame Anatoly, couldn't he blame these loan sharks? Although he hadn't witnessed it firsthand, he could still imagine the horrific attacks the wolves of Wall Street had suffered back then.
When they returned to the Justice League base, the Justice League members were already back. Anatoly was with them; clearly, the Sun Cannon was no longer usable, but he hadn't given up and seemed to be planning to organize a multiverse Justice League rescue operation.
Schiller stood outside the conference room and gave Anatoly a look. A short while later, Anatoly emerged. If the pendant had stirred any emotion within him, he had concealed it well; Schiller didn't detect anything amiss.
However, when he took out the bullet casing, he finally saw Anatoly's somewhat cracked expression.
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