mtl008 Chapter 4535 The Darkest Night (63)
Chapter 4535 The Darkest Night (63)
Chapter 4535 The Darkest Night (Sixty-Three)
It is well known that confronting characters from the Cthulhu Mythos will lower your sanity and contaminate you with forbidden knowledge. However, few people know that contamination comes in many forms. The manifestation of contamination differs for each Great Old One or Outer God. The specific consequences generally depend on the author's interpretation of the Cthulhu Mythos.
Most fundamentalists prefer to depict spiritual pollution, that is, going mad after confronting some forbidden knowledge, and even trying to record and spread this forbidden knowledge, which is the origin of many deadly scriptures.
However, some believe that confronting an Outer God would inevitably lead to physical mutations. These authors clearly drew inspiration from the body terrorism style popular in the 1970s and 80s, depicting scenes of "contaminated human limbs becoming cancerous and twisted." This is clearly a new interpretation of cosmology born out of pressure from the Cold War and nuclear war.
The Cursed One, Xie Kun, exhibits similar characteristics. Those who look directly at him experience "unbearable itching and a strong burning sensation in their eyes." This is clearly the physical effect of directly facing an Old One, which leads to many bloody scenes like gouging out eyes, common in that era.
Simply gazing upon the Old Ones has such an effect. Hugo, on the other hand, was completely caught in that vortex. Although the power of death protected him from being directly devoured, he was constantly being chewed up by the Cursed Ones, so it's hard to call it protection.
It's like an ordinary human falling into a gas giant. They should be torn apart by the storms that engulf them instantly, but a mysterious force keeps reviving them, which is equivalent to enduring the pain of being torn apart every moment.
Hugo's eyeballs had completely disappeared, replaced by two fleshy growths emerging from their sockets. A hole seemed to have been punched in the center of each growth, from which black liquid continuously oozed. His chin was gone, and his neck below the upper jaw was now a blood-red color. A hole opened in his chest cavity, and some kind of spiderweb-like pattern of flesh spread from the wound, extending downwards and plunging into the endless depths of the sea, like an umbilical cord or a tongue. His limbs were stretched infinitely, their ends resembling some kind of web-like tissue, all uniformly hexagonal structures, spreading outwards into a vast expanse of sea. This made him appear as a colossal monster, yet also adrift and remarkably fragile.
This reminded Schiller of the remains of a mysterious marine creature—the Ancient Web. These traces have existed for millennia and have been proven not to be geological structures, but rather remnants left by some unknown organism. Now, it seems they might be related to the Great Old Ones.
Hugo's image resembles a rootless, blood-red duckweed, possessing a random and unexpected beauty. Schiller felt that Pamela would likely appreciate this form, as if nature had done its utmost to transform the human body, creating a form somewhere between plant and human.
Another force at work prevented Hugo from becoming a complete part of nature. The Black Death Emperor was trying to unravel these things, and as a result, the tumors around his eyes seemed to be breathing, making them look extremely eerie.
Schiller took out his phone and started taking pictures. Although his photography skills were not very good and his equipment was not professional, the scene was so impactful that even a casual shot was comparable to a big-budget horror movie.
Schiller descended the cliff from the other side and quickly found a large pile of corpses below. These were clearly undead created by the Black Death Emperor, and their gathering here was not for exploration, but simply to extract death energy from their bodies.
Clearly, the Black Death Emperor's budget was insufficient. He hadn't expected the sudden arrival of the Great Old Ones to directly disrupt his plans, forcing him to fight monsters first. He hadn't reserved any energy for this purpose, so he could only rob Peter to pay Paul, extracting some of the energy that the undead already possessed, leaving the drained corpses behind.
Schiller went to check and found men, women, and children. He stood silently beside the bodies, about to turn and leave, when the gray fog reminded him that they were not dead.
"what?"
"I mean, they just don't have the energy to move, but they can still move."
This statement was somewhat contradictory, and Schiller didn't immediately grasp its meaning. However, he quickly realized that the Black Death Emperor hadn't actually lifted their resurrected state. These people had been missing for several days; if they had reverted to their corpse state, they would have already begun to decompose. The fact that they were still alive indicated that their current state was strange.
They are still resurrected zombies, just without the energy to move and in a standby state. But since they haven't reverted to pure corpses, there should still be hope.
Schiller thought about it and wasn't sure how he could save them. First, if he moved the corpses now, it might attract the attention of the Black Death Emperor. After all, after the last clash in the mental realm, the Black Death Emperor should have already pinned him to the top of his message list. If Schiller showed even the slightest sign of life, the Black Death Emperor would come looking for him. Dragging them out for treatment was unrealistic.
The Superbody should have a way. But the problem is that the Superbody might not be immune to the curse on Xie Kun. If she gets mentally corrupted, that would be troublesome too.
Schiller thought for a moment, then suddenly remembered a study Brainiac had conducted before. He had Jack draw a vial of blood and give it to Jonathan to test whether the Joker virus could counteract the power of death. Judging from Jonathan's recent behavior, he must have made some progress.
With that in mind, Schiller left the cliff and drove to Jonathan's lab. Jonathan was not surprised by his arrival and first poured him a glass of highly concentrated fear venom.
"Don't be so polite with me. I know that little guy on you really appreciates my work. Consider this my treat for him."
Schiller rolled his eyes, but still drank the Fear Venom and asked, "How's the Joker Virus research going?"
“This thing is amazing,” Jonathan couldn’t help but say. “It’s simply… well, you wouldn’t understand even if I told you. All you need to know is that this factor contains the power of both death and life.”
"What do you mean?"
"It can enhance the activity of human cells and enable the body to have spontaneous tissue repair functions, and it is a completely correct repair. We usually call this power 'self-healing,' but I think it is more like another form of 'resurrection.' It can even save cells that have been completely inactive."
"That sounds impressive. What about death?"
“That’s the key point: this stuff is transmitted through death,” Jonathan said, leaning against the lab table with his arms crossed. “I don’t understand how that was determined, but this stuff can be transmitted to another person through death.”
Schiller understood. Clearly, this was related to Batman's no-kill policy. Because killing the Joker would result in infection with the Joker virus, which had the property of spreading through death.
"So what improvements did you make?"
“I cannot improve the factor itself. However, I can create a solution that ensures that the substance works consistently.”
"Can't we just use blood?"
"Are you illiterate? Using blood will cause rejection!" Jonathan rolled his eyes. "Just because Jack is type B, does that mean you can only infect type B people? Then why are you an assassin? Go find a class."
Schiller hadn't considered that science should be respected in this regard. He was only thinking that the Joker and Batman could be infected out of thin air. But thinking about it, it makes sense; only the two of them could do this. If one wanted to infect others, medical considerations would indeed be necessary.
"I know you want to know if it's okay to drink it directly. I can tell you that it's possible, but the amount required would be too large. If you don't want to get hit by a truck, you'd better not consider this method."
Jonathan turned and took out a small box. Inside were about ten syringes, the kind with very thin needles, which didn't seem to hold a large amount. Jonathan said, "Just inject it intravenously. One syringe is enough for those under 150 pounds; for those over, you can decide what to do."
Schiller took the box, nodded, and then said, "Hugo, do you want it?"
"what?"
Schiller took out his phone and sent him a photo. Jonathan's eyes widened immediately: "My God! You did this?! You..."
Jonathan looked at Schiller again, his eyes filled with a mixture of admiration and jealousy, but mostly jealousy.
Schiller shook his head and said, "It's a pity it wasn't me this time. Another genius has emerged."
"Hahahaha!" Jonathan immediately burst into maniacal laughter. "Schiller, you've finally met your match! You're no longer the most creative one! He's the real king!!!"
Schiller ignored him and turned to leave, while Jonathan had already sent out the photo. Clearly, he was eager to make it public that Schiller had been surpassed.
Logically, Brainiac should have blocked such gory and horrific images, but considering the people Jonathan contacted, blocking them or not made little difference. Gory photos were considered light fare to them.
Schiller took the syringes and went back down the cliff. He estimated the weight of the people lying on the ground; one syringe per person should be enough.
Schiller went over and made bets on each of them. Just as he was waiting for things to change, a revolutionary storm was spreading within a very secretive group, diverting the madmen's attention from the mysterious detective Rodriguez to a new work.
On the deep, dark ocean, Hugo, like a blood-red drifting duckweed, possessed an eerie face and imposing figure that drew the attention of psychopaths. Those with sufficiently rich intuition had already glimpsed a fraction of the killer's true nature through this corpse. Thus, hundreds, even thousands, of investigators instantly appeared around the world.
However, unlike ordinary people who are forced into the vortex, psychopaths derive pleasure from madness. The lower their sanity drops, the more excited they become; the more bizarre and strange things they see, the more addicted they become.
Soon, a new generation of "Rodriguez Pen Pals" began to take shape. The hidden symbols and codes no longer discussed murder cases, but something more obscure and mysterious—the Great Old Ones and the Outer Gods.
Unlike the secretive first generation of pen pals, this generation is anything but. Three days of correspondence can generate enough to form ten "door-kicking" groups (groups of people eager to disrupt each other's activities). The sheer aggression of these "madmen" is not to be underestimated. Those undercurrents hidden beneath the surface for tens of thousands of years have finally met their true disruptors.