Chapter 1480: Flying Birds and Returning (40)

The pale-faced Zatanna was pressed to the ground. Mary walked in front of her, scratched her face with sharp fingernails, and then put her fingertips into her mouth, tasting the blood.

"This stupid girl fell into our trap, listened to her uncle's lies, and teleported directly to the family station, falling into our snare."

Constantine's gaze fell on the inside of Zatanna's right arm, where there was a blood-red rune, a control magic commonly used by the blood clan. The anger in his heart burned fiercely.

He knew that it must be Zatanna's weak relatives who betrayed her, and they must have told the blood clan Zatanna's weakness—reverse magic requires language and gestures. Once she couldn't speak to chant, she would have no resistance.

The vampires used runes to seal her voice, so they were able to catch her. Constantine took a deep breath, looked at Mary, and said, "What exactly do you want to do?"

"Mr. Constantine, long time no see." Mary took another step forward, but Bennett stood out and shouted sternly, "Mary, let that little girl go, the grievances between us shouldn't involve innocent people!"

Mary let out a cold laugh, glanced at Bennett with red pupils, and didn't look at him again, but stared at Constantine and said, "I was indeed looking for my stupid husband before, but I was looking for you when I found him. He knows your whereabouts, John Constantine."

"This is really rare." Constantine looked at her coldly, fished a cigarette from his bosom, put it in his mouth, lit it, exhaled a puff of smoke, and said, "Others avoid me like the plague, but you want to find me actively. Now you've found me, tell me, what do you want to do?"

"This little girl is very important to you, so, let's make an exchange, you for her."

Jim, the Master of Dark Night, widened his eyes. He lowered his voice and said to Bennett beside him, "Does this woman have something wrong with her brain? What does she want Constantine for?"

"Mary has long been crazy." Bennett also lowered his voice and replied.

Mary took two more steps forward. She had almost walked in front of Constantine. She lifted Constantine's chin with her blood-stained fingernails and said, "The sinful soul has long been saved. Now young, surging, and full of vitality, you are the sacrifice the ancestor wants. Constantine, you should be proud of this."

"Let her go." Constantine looked at Zatanna and said in a low tone, "No matter what you want to do, I'll go with you, let Zatanna go."

Zatanna was furious, but completely unable to make a sound. The Master of Dark Night looked at Constantine and said, "Don't listen to her ghost talk!"

Mary still wanted to say something, but Constantine said decisively, "Let your subordinates let Ms. Zatanna go, I must see her safe before I go with you, otherwise, you will have to fight the Master of Dark Night of the Oblivion Bar, or even the entire Maia."

Seeing his determined expression, Mary revealed a thoughtful look. She seemed to be weighing the pros and cons, but after a long while, she still pressed one hand on Constantine and then turned to her subordinates and said, "Let her go."

The two strong blood clan members loosened their hands. Bennett turned into a bat and pulled Zatanna over. The Master of Dark Night firmly protected her behind him and attacked Mary with the Night Blade.

But the next second, the thick blood mist dispersed, and Mary and the vampires in the bar vanished in an instant. Bennett used his power to dispel the runes on Zatanna's arm, and Zatanna immediately burst into tears.

"He was right... I will harm everyone... everyone... my friends, my relatives, this is the price I have to pay!"

"Zatanna, Zatanna, wake up!" Jim, the Master of Dark Night, knelt halfway and looked Zatanna in the eyes and said, "You are not like this usually. John was taken away, you have to find a way to save him!"

Zatanna's hands on the ground slowly clenched into fists. She remembered the scene in her mind when she was walking in the rainy night of Cat Getan before teleporting back to London.

Her cello case didn't contain the usual magic props, but stacks of research materials, or rather, chemical materials for a toxin formula.

That was what Zatanna found in Jonathan Crane's laboratory at Arkham Asylum, and she had just used her reverse magic to wound him two days ago, even almost killing him.

In the process of dealing with Crane, Zatanna gradually noticed his abnormality. She found that this learned chemistry and psychology professor was not as gentle as he appeared.

Curiosity is the best teacher. Zatanna taught herself detective skills, or rather, her overly convenient reverse magic provided her with great help. She didn'

In the process of dealing with Crane, Zatanna gradually noticed something wrong with him. She discovered that this learned professor of chemistry and psychology was not as gentle as he appeared.

Curiosity is the best teacher. Zatanna taught herself detective skills, or rather, her overly convenient backward magic provided her with great help. She didn't spend much effort to find out the reason why Jonathan Crane was admitted to the hospital in the first place.

He single-handedly orchestrated the disappearances in the Mo Sen neighborhood, killing more than forty innocent people.

An angry Zatanna stormed into Jonathan's office at Arkham Asylum and wounded him, but Jonathan smiled and said to her, "This is the price that must be paid to save Cat Getan."

Mrs. Miller rushed in and took Jonathan away. Feeling betrayed, Zatanna stayed up all night, her mind constantly pondering what Jonathan had said to her.

In the end, driven by emotion, she returned to Jonathan's laboratory two days later, wanting to figure out what the price he spoke of was.

In Jonathan's laboratory, she found countless documents related to human experimentation. Jonathan tested his chemical formulas on living people and eventually formulated a toxin that could be added to Cat Getan's rainwater to drive people insane.

But that wasn't a poison; it was an antidote.

In Jonathan's manuscripts, Zatanna learned that there was a toxin in Cat Getan's rainwater that would slowly erode the human body—and not just humans, but animals and plants as well—driving them mad.

Once the antidote Jonathan formulated was added to Cat Getan's water cycle, it would cause all people and animals affected by the toxin to go mad immediately, but it would force the rainwater toxin out of their bodies and even generate antibodies, so they would no longer be troubled by the toxin.

That's right, this was the trap Jonathan had originally set for Batman. He wanted Batman to mistakenly believe he was poisoning the city, only to discover the truth that he was actually saving Cat Getan. But unfortunately, at that time, Batman had just returned from hell and said thank you to him.

The Cat Getan villain who couldn't keep up with the times finally found another hero who couldn't keep up with the times. The trap Jonathan set didn't catch Batman, but it dealt a great blow to Zatanna.

Zatanna didn't think Jonathan was entirely innocent, nor did she think the people of Cat Getan deserved to be experimental subjects. It was just that what Jonathan did made her start thinking about whether the process or the result was more important.

Is it wrong for Jonathan to use despicable means to achieve a great goal? Is it necessarily right for her to ignore everything and hurt others for the sake of justice?

The questions that once troubled Batman began to trouble Zatanna. The difference was that Zatanna's luck was worse. The vampires had long been eyeing this extremely special daughter of destiny. They invaded Zatanna's family territory, used her relatives to lure her back, and captured her.

Zatanna had already been provoked, suffered betrayal from her relatives, and then caused Constantine to be taken away because of her. Back then, Schiller at least gave Batman a few days to think for himself. Zatanna had been hit with such a powerful combination of blows in such a short time that she was now on the verge of a breakdown.

Just as Jim and the others were busy comforting Zatanna, Red Robin walked behind the counter alone and pulled a small display screen out of the inner pocket of his jacket.

The pattern on the screen flickered for a while, and then a dimly lit room appeared. Lilith asked in Red Robin's mind, "What are you doing?"

"Times have changed." Red Robin shook the display screen in his hand and said, "I guess that female vampire from the sixteenth century and the even older vampire progenitor probably don't even know what tracking equipment is."

"You put a tracker on your teacher?" Lilith's tone always carried a hint of a smile.

"More than that. Each of them has more than one set of monitoring equipment, hidden in three layers. Even if they were stripped naked, there are nano-scale trackers and positioning devices hidden in their hair."

As he spoke, Red Robin, who had been squatting, sat on the ground, leaned his back against the bar wall, and began to operate the display screen in his hand, muttering to himself in a low voice: "Let me see... It seems their base is in Plymouth. They went back there. Oh, is this Cain?"

Red Robin's gaze focused on the screen. From the perspective of the monitoring equipment hidden on Constantine, a man wearing a formal suit and exuding blood mist slowly drifted down into the center of the room.

His long, jet-black hair floated behind his head, his blood-colored eyes were full of coldness and cruelty, and his every move carried a kind of aristocratic elegance. The demon vampires prostrate at his feet shouted his name—"Progenitor Cain!"

"What's going on? Shouldn't you be the progenitor of vampires?" Red Robin asked Lilith in his heart.

"It's a long story." Lilith sighed softly and said, "He and I share the same blood origin. When he descended to the center of the Red Sea, I gave him my blood and the method to control blood. His descendants inherited the bloodline and magic, becoming the vampires of today."

"In other words, he stole your position as the progenitor?"

"Your method of sowing discord is too inferior, boy. Besides, this isn't a title worth having. If he likes it, let him take it."

Red Robin fell silent. He continued to stare at the screen, and by this time Constantine had already been thrown in front of Cain.

Constantine climbed up from the ground with some difficulty, but he didn't stand up. Instead, he sat down right there, tremblingly fished a cigarette from his pocket, took a puff, and blew a smoke ring.

He didn't even look at Cain, smoking to himself, and said in a hoarse voice.

"I knew you'd come to settle the score with me. Come on, Cain, drain my blood and avenge the grudge of me digging up your grave over a hundred times in a year to collect spellcasting materials."