Chapter 4514

Cat Getan is often referred to as the "City of Darkness." But this is not just because it is overcast here; in fact, the city of Cat Getan has a very rich Gothic temperament—depressing, secretive, and dangerous. The spires are hidden in thick fog, and bone-chilling cold rain drifts every night. What shaped this temperament is not just the unique natural environment, but also the atmosphere here that reveres philosophy and art.

Even in the most violent gang era—turf wars, shootings, creating bloodbaths for family interests—the Twelve Families were by no means the kind of rough people who only knew how to shoot; they had their own cultural atmosphere and artistic pursuits. If outsiders were to look at them, they were elegant almost to the point of nobility.

Such a profound cultural heritage naturally did not happen overnight. The Irish who landed back then brought a large number of religious and cultural classics, and the missionaries built churches first, and then libraries.

First there was the Cat Getan Library, then there was Cat Getan University, and finally there were those Cat Getan madmen full of philosophical thoughts and artistic flair. Over the years, countless people have injected their crazy ideas here: all kinds of manuscripts and biographies that have never been published, classics compiled in madness, truths glimpsed by accident...

Those salts that were once sprinkled here flowed into the blood of Gothamites along with the muddy sewage, settled in their brains, and then turned back into their original appearance under their pens. Book after book telling the truth was sealed in the Cat Getan University library, looking like the ravings of a madman, but you could find almost all the truths of the City of Darkness here.

The old campus of Cat Getan University doesn't retain much. Except for a few historical protected buildings, the only thing that hasn't been relocated is the Cat Getan University library. In addition to having high historical and cultural value, no one wants to explore how much is preserved in the library, and what these things are.

Victor has taught at Cat Getan University for many years, and he also likes to go to the Cat Getan University library to read books. What is preserved here is basically religious culture and art classics. Victor likes philosophy books from the Enlightenment period very much, and in his spare time, he comes here to read.

Walking into the library again, Victor thought of many leisurely afternoons. However, the library at night looks different. He had never been here after dark. Those rows of bookshelves and the somewhat old wooden stairs didn't look so leisurely and peaceful. Under the dim light shining through the Gothic pointed windows, those complex patterns formed mysterious designs, carrying a bit of eeriness. The elegant and solemn plaster statues in the daytime were like silent gazers, and the portraits on the walls seemed to have suddenly come to life.

He shouldn't have let this city fall into eternal night. Victor followed Constantine's footsteps inside, thinking that darkness would bring too many things back to Cat Getan, and those things could even swallow death itself.

Passing through the hall and pulling open the iron door with fine and complex patterns, the bookshelves in the reading area became denser. Coming upstairs from the spiral staircase, the two figures were faintly visible in front of a row of pointed windows. It wasn't until Constantine pushed open a door that Victor had never entered, or even noticed, that he realized this library hid more dark secrets.

This was a brand-new area, and it seemed that very few people had set foot here. Those Renaissance-style statues had disappeared here, replaced by extremely strange monster statues; the beautiful and enchanting Rococo-style portraits had turned into some strange graffiti that looked surreal but whose brushwork was too classical.

The hall was still filled with bookshelves, but there weren't many books. There were more bundles of unknown manuscripts, and the shelves couldn't even hold them; many were piled up randomly in the corners, and a thick layer of dust had already accumulated.

Bypassing the bookshelf on the left, they came to a door. Constantine pushed the door open, and before Victor went in, he saw a metal doorplate nailed to the side of the door that read "Rodriguez Pen Pal Society."

Inside was a circular study. In the center of the study was a huge globe, and behind it was a wide desk, with bookshelves behind the desk. Victor looked up subconsciously; the chandelier hanging from the circular dome had a very unique shape, which was planet after planet. However, it was neither the solar system nor any discovered galaxy that Victor knew.

"Those are the stars." Constantine answered the question in Victor's heart.

"The stars?"

"There is an unobservable place in the universe, which is called the 'Depths of the Stars'." Constantine also looked up, watching the planets emitting a faint light in the darkness. "Some people who heard the call of the stars began to look for the source of the sound. Most of them failed, but some also glimpsed the scenery in the depths of the stars."

"They couldn't tell anyone, because any shred of information would make people go crazy. So, they submerged what they saw under dark stories. Only those who had the same experience as them could understand. Just like that, they built a secret alliance through words, communicating with each other for hundreds of years, sharing what they saw and heard, while at the same time... exploring the secrets of the depths of the stars."

"Once such dangerous behavior begins, it often leads to results more terrifying than death. Almost everyone went crazy. The survivors warned others frantically to stop peeking, so they fell silent again, maintaining communication at the lowest limit, until the arrival of one person."

"Shiler Rodriguez?" Victor asked.

Constantine nodded. He walked to the sofa in the reception area by the window, and Victor followed. He said, "But not the Shiler you know."

"Then who is it?"

Constantine shook his head gently: "No one knows who he is, where he comes from, or what he really wants. He just appeared suddenly, and then disappeared, like a nameless passerby."

"What did he do?"

"He reorganized the Pen Pal Society, restored the communication of global observers, and then..."

"Then what?" Victor narrowed his eyes slightly, saying half-guessing, half-affirming, "Re-exploring the depths of the stars?"

Constantine nodded gently. Victor sat down, placed his hand on the armrest, sighed, and said, "What a classic horror movie opening."

"Up to this point, the following plot seems imaginable." Constantine said. "An ignorant researcher drags observers from all over the world to study forbidden knowledge, and then they walk toward destruction together. The only problem is that this researcher is Shiler Rodriguez, and he never plays by the rules, no matter which one it is."

Victor glanced at the ring on his hand and nodded, saying, "Indeed. So what did he do?"

"He didn't just want to observe; he also wanted to make contact. So, he launched an extremely crazy plan..."

Victor's hand paused, and he looked at Constantine and said, "He wouldn't be thinking of summoning those things from the depths of the stars to Earth, would he?"

"I said, he doesn't play by the rules." Constantine sighed softly. "There are too many people who summon all kinds of mysterious existences to Earth. Shiler is different—he plans to send himself over."

Victor's movements froze completely; he looked at Constantine, seemingly unable to believe what he had heard. Constantine lowered his eyes and continued, "To be precise, he not only wants the existences in the depths of the stars to see him, but also wants to make them have to contact him."

"... Did he succeed?"

Constantine nodded again, placed the black notebook in his hand on the desktop, and then said, "He not only succeeded in going, but also succeeded in coming back. Moreover, he brought back quite a few useful things. In addition to power, the forbidden knowledge about the depths of the stars was all preserved by him in the Cat Getan University library."

Victor thought of the manuscripts he had seen outside the study, and he said, "Are those all left by him?"

"Not just him; the knowledge investigated by all members of the Rodriguez Pen Pal Society was left here. And the main purpose of my bringing you here is to find this."

Constantine walked behind the desk, pulled open a drawer, took out a wine-red notebook from inside, and placed it in front of Victor.

Victor picked it up and looked at it, finding that it recorded many names and contact addresses. Most of the names were pseudonyms: "The One Who Writes Darkness," "The Blair Witch," "The Gypsy Fortune Teller," "The Multi-Faced Apprentice," etc., and the contact addresses were also strange, mostly not residential houses, but mailboxes at protection stations in the wilderness.

"These are all members of the Pen Pal Society." Constantine sat down again and then said, "Some of them must have also gotten a ring; we need to contact them."

"I don't understand." Victor closed the notebook and then said, "What exactly is this ring? And why would Shiler give it to us?"

Constantine didn't answer directly. He got up and walked out of the study, and soon brought back a scroll of manuscripts, which he handed to Victor.

Victor hesitated before opening it, saying, "Are you sure this is safe to read?"

"Don't worry, everything placed outside is safe and harmless. Those that cannot be read are all preserved in the secret room."

Victor untied the rope and flattened the paper. He immediately noticed that the texture of the paper and the ink marks looked like they had some age to them; they should be notes from the 18th to 19th centuries.

"Mysterious mist... the source of the distant... the boundary between mystery and reality..." Victor looked up. "This is... gray mist?"

"Nameless Mist." Constantine answered. "This is his true name. I have read all the records here; the information about this Outer God is the least, but there is no doubt that he is related to Shiler."

Victor recalled the scene he had once seen of Shiler turning into a burst of mist; that was clearly not ordinary mist, looking very mysterious, but also extremely fitting with Shiler's temperament.

Victor opened the notes and continued to read. Soon he captured the keywords: "Turning thoughts into reality... dream-weaving power... is this really possible?"

"There is nothing impossible." Constantine said. "There are too many powerful mysterious forces in this world; didn't you just see the miracle of resurrection from the dead?"

Victor reluctantly accepted this statement. After all, compared to turning thoughts into reality, resurrection from the dead was even more mysterious. To some extent, ordinary people could also turn thoughts into reality, but the process was more troublesome. But human thoughts turning into reality didn't violate the rules of the universe, but resurrection from the dead was different—physics didn't even exist anymore.

"Can the things I write become real?" Regarding this part, Victor was still a bit skeptical.

Constantine nodded and said, "Yes. But the Gray Lantern ring is not a wish machine; it's not that everything you write will come true. It's like a novel; the logic must be reasonable, the imagination must be rich, and more importantly, it must be able to resonate with people's emotions."

"Emotions..." Victor was a bit dazed. "Is this why the form of expression is a Lantern ring?"

"You could say that." Constantine said. "Whether it's logic or emotion, it's all to let the reader substitute themselves into it, to let them immerse themselves in the story and the dream. Only in this way can creation be turned into reality."