Chapter 4518: The Blackest Night (53)

"Why did you suddenly think of asking this? Is that Amanda Waller putting pressure on you again?" Barry stood in front of the coffee machine and asked.

Janna pressed the button, hesitated for a moment, but still opened her mouth and said: "It's nothing, just thinking that it would be great if I could help."

"This case is indeed a bit strange," Barry frowned and said, "All the residents in that old apartment building had mass hysteria. They all claimed they saw something, but Brainiac didn't film anything."

Janna shivered and said: "They wouldn't have seen ghosts, would they?"

Barry shook his head and said: "It would be better if it were that simple. They all said they saw something, but in the follow-up questioning, no one could say specifically what it was. But they repeatedly mentioned one sentence."

"What?"

"'Don't look out the window'."

"Out the window? What's out the window?"

"That's the problem, there's nothing out the window." Barry shrugged and said, "The streets outside are normal, no monsters, no criminals. But they firmly believe there's something out the window, to the point that law enforcement officers couldn't even take them away from the apartment building."

"They haven't been taken away yet?"

"No. They resisted too fiercely, some even like mental patients in the onset period, breaking through muscle limitations and injuring law enforcement officers. Sedatives and anesthetics didn't work. Otherwise, it wouldn't have become such a big case."

"My god, what's going on?" Janna said with some worry, "Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

Barry shook his head and said: "The situation is too weird, it's very dangerous for an empath to get close to these lunatics."

"So you believe they really saw something."

Barry nodded again: "There are too many things in this world that science cannot explain, haven't you seen enough in Cat Getan?"

"But this kind of thing is considered weird even in Cat Getan, right?" Janna frowned and said, "I mean, in Cat Getan now."

"If it were in Cat Getan, it would be easy to solve. There are enough lunatics here to deal with lunatics. But it won't work in Bludhaven; that's just a quiet and peaceful town, and they have no experience in dealing with such things at all."

"Barry, Barry, are you there?!" A voice came from outside the door. Barry walked over, found that it was actually Dick.

"Oh, my god, why are you back?" Barry walked over and hugged him, then said, "Is everything okay on Krypton?"

"Nothing major, I heard something happened in Bludhaven, so I hurried back."

"Your parents are still in Bludhaven, I almost forgot about this," Barry said, "Where do they live? Is it close to the apartment building where the incident happened?"

"Bludhaven isn't big, anywhere is quite close to that building. The drive from my house to there only takes about five minutes."

Barry sighed softly and said: "Are you here to investigate this?"

"Yes, I want to hear your opinion." Dick thought for a while and said, "Raven originally wanted to use magic to explore, but I was worried there might be problems, so I stopped her."

"It's fortunate you didn't go, that place is weird." Barry drank his coffee, thought for a while and said, "I suspect their spirits were contaminated by some things, but as for what exactly is going on, we are still investigating."

"Someone must be the problem, right?"

"Exactly," Barry said, "It's no coincidence that the disaster only happened in that building, someone must have summoned something that shouldn't have been summoned."

Dick seemed to have a headache, he rubbed his forehead and said: "What do we do now? Should we find the Professor..."

"There's no need for now, after all, no lives have been lost yet..."

Bang, bang, bang, the door of the lounge was knocked. The blonde woman who pushed the door in said somewhat helplessly: "Someone died at the pier, get ready for field duty."

Barry put down his coffee cup, put on his coat, nodded to the other two, and left. Dick looked at his back and asked: "Do you know what's going on?"

"Things are getting weirder and weirder." Janna paused and followed Barry's footsteps, then said, "I have to go see."

When the police car arrived at the pier, this place had already been blocked off. Bright yellow warning tape blocked a large number of onlookers, and police officers were shuttling through the crime scene. Barry walked to the door and showed his ID, the officer pulled away the warning tape, but stopped Janna behind him.

"I am..." Janna paused and said, "A student in the Department of Psychology at Cat Getan University, a student of Professor Rodriguez."

The officer hesitated for a moment, and then let her in.

"Wait for me!" Janna said a bit angrily.

"You shouldn't have come in," Barry looked back at her and said, "I said, it's very dangerous for an empath to enter such a crime scene..."

Janna stepped back two steps vigilantly and said: "Don't even think about sending me back."

Barry shook his head helplessly and walked into the crime scene. As soon as he entered, he was shocked. A woman was lying on her back on the ground, her arms slightly spread, holding an eyeball in each hand—her own eyeballs. Brain matter flowed out of her eye sockets. To be precise, it wasn't brain matter, but her entire brain.

"How could..."

The officer next to him handed him a file, Barry flipped through it, and said: "Plucked out her own eyeballs? Then how do you explain the brain?"

Barry walked over to check and found that her brain wasn't just messed up, but had changed in nature from the root—not fragments that had been stirred, but truly turned into liquid.

It wasn't even liquid composed of cells, but like some kind of liquid metal, with a layer of oil on the surface, looking disgusting and weird.

Barry stood up, but his peripheral vision saw Janna, whose face was gradually turning pale. He immediately turned into a flash of lightning and took Janna away from the crime scene. On the pier's trestle, two figures appeared in the golden light. Janna vomited while holding the utility pole next to her.

"I said this might be very..."

"Don't... don't..."

Barry leaned over: "What?"

"Don't... don't... out the window..." Janna opened her eyes hard, wiped the sweat on her eyelashes, "... she looked out the window."

Barry stood frozen in place. At this time, he opened his phone and saw the detailed information of the victim sent by Brainiac. The name column read—"Mrs. Jerita."

"There's another one in the Forest Park!" Amanda threw a file on the table. The employees of the Federal Shield didn't even dare to breathe loudly. "It's the FBI's again! We can't even get a decent case. This is all because of your incompetence!"

"Janna! Janna..." Amanda shouted.

"Janna went out," an employee said, "she's not here."

"Damn it, not here at such a critical moment!" Amanda was even more dissatisfied. She took a deep breath, just about to scold someone, when her phone rang.

"What? You mean you... okay, I'll send someone over immediately. No, I'll go over there myself. What's the bookstore address?"

Hanging up the phone, Amanda put on her coat and said: "Stay here, tell me the first time there's any new news."

The car with the Federal Shield mark stopped slowly in front of a bookstore. Amanda looked up at the man at the door, who was strong, slightly decadent and gloomy, but had a different kind of beauty.

She recognized this face—John Constantine, a once-arrogant genius magician, now a well-known suspense and mystery novelist. "The Haze of Faraines" seemed to be preparing for film and television adaptation.

Amanda walked up and shook hands with him, then said: "Do you have clues about the Bludhaven mass hysteria and the Metropolis Forest Park jogger murder case?"

"Can't be called clues." Constantine turned and walked into the bookstore, saying, "You know I like to create some mystery and fantasy novels, so I often study this aspect. I can point you in the right direction."

"What?" Amanda frowned. She instinctively disliked these gods and ghosts, but had to admit that a case that even Brainiac had no clue about couldn't possibly be unrelated to mystery.

"Cat Getan University Library," Constantine said, "it has a long history, a large collection of books, and more importantly, there are many manuscripts containing mysterious annotations. I think those things might be helpful."

"Why help me?" Amanda still chose to question first. Although she also knew this might ruin the atmosphere, Constantine wasn't worth trusting.

"Helping you is helping myself," Constantine turned to look at her, "my constitution is prone to attracting those mysterious existences. Once they set their sights on Earth, they will inevitably find me first. By then, I'll be in big trouble."

Amanda reluctantly accepted this explanation. She said: "Then why don't you go find the manuscripts yourself?"

"That's exactly the problem. 'Cognition' has power. Once you know certain things, you might get noticed. I don't want to play with fire, so it's better to find someone else to do it."

Amanda frowned deeply: "So you came to find me?"

"You have no talent for mystery, and you are destined to be insulated from these monsters and ghosts. You are the best choice." Constantine said.

Amanda was speechless for a while, not knowing whether he was praising her or scolding her. But anyway, she wasn't interested in this herself, so she took it as a compliment. She said: "What can I find there?"

"A lot. However, the nature of this time is quite special, perhaps not those ordinary existences. I suggest you go to the second floor of the library to look."

"Second floor? What's there?"

"If I knew, I wouldn't have asked you to go." Constantine shook his head and said, "The second floor has always been a restricted area, and ordinary people can't get up there at all. Probably only the librarian has a way to get in."

Amanda was a bit disdainful, just wanting to popularize some modern agent breakthrough methods, but Constantine said: "Don't think about using helicopters or breaking in, that place is protected by magic."

Amanda pursed her lips, but still noted this point. After coming out of the bookstore, she immediately opened her phone and asked Brainiac to check who the librarian of Cat Getan University Library was.

Brainiac showed that Cat Getan University Library currently had no librarian. However, the previous librarian's name was Jason Todd. ===== CHAPTER 4519 =====