Chapter 587

Gotham's night rain always carried a coldness that seeped into the marrow. Between the swaying wind and rain, the coldness was like a distance, making him look like he had a kind of British elegant sexiness.

Constantine squatted down, tilting his head to look at Morpheus. No one knew, in his eyes, how beautiful the Dream God was.

But what was undoubtedly certain was that when he looked at Morpheus's face, that kind of intoxicated demeanor wouldn't lie. Perhaps, what he saw wasn't a certain person, but a beautiful dream he had longed for but never obtained.

"Morpheus, the last time I came to find you, I didn't get the answer I wanted, and, you no longer allowed me to enter the dream realm, so, I could only use such a method to personally say goodnight to you."

Constantine looked into Morpheus's eyes and said: "From a very young age, I knew that when I wanted to get an answer, who I should go to. At the same time, I also knew that if he wasn't willing to tell me, I could change a way to ask him..."

When shedding that kind of decadent attitude of playing with the world, the sharpness, paranoia, and coldness in Constantine's eyes were no different from those lunatics in Gotham.

Schiller, wearing a suit, stood beside Morpheus. He stood up straight, put his hands into his trouser pockets, and turned to look at the rainbow-light horizon in the distance of the dream realm. At this moment, his shadow overlapped with Constantine's, and the two people's temperaments were inexplicably similar.

On this matter, their attitudes were similar. No god, because of his divine status, had the right to refuse to answer their questions.

If inviting them to be guests in a civilized way couldn't get an answer, then pointing a gun at a person, demon, or god was all the same to them.

Morpheus lay on the ground, his eyes looking at the sky. He actually wasn't injured. The mental damage was much greater than the physical damage. Seeing the empty and desolate dream realm around him, and then thinking about the subsequent repairs, Morpheus knew that his long career had come to an end.

"You guys won't have beautiful dreams." Morpheus's eyes looked somewhat dazed at the sky of the dream realm, where there were colorful clouds and misty fog. He said: "You... and you, and the person standing on the bow, none of you will have beautiful dreams."

He was referring to Constantine squatting in front of him, Schiller standing beside him, and Batman looking from afar on the ship.

"This is not a curse, it's just me telling you a fact. Only people who don't know the existence of the dream realm can obtain beautiful dreams in the true sense."

"When you know that your dream is created by me, and there is a special place to store all the dreams you have made, you will never have beautiful dreams again."

"This is the rule of the dream realm. Only people who are willing to give up the truth, not think about the source and destination of dreams, and close their eyes with expectations and sleep peacefully can possess true beautiful dreams."

"And you guys, you bunch of damn truth-supremacists, you broke into here and learned the truth of dreams, so dreams will no longer go to you."

Morpheus turned his eyeballs and looked at Constantine, saying: "When you come here to seek a beautiful dream from me, instead of lying on the bed, relaxing your body, and closing your eyes full of hope, you have already lost the qualification to dream. Everyone in this world who knows the existence of the Dream God will no longer dream."

Morpheus looked at Constantine and said: "You are completely self-inflicted. You made deals with too many demons. They go into your dreams to harass you because you owe them debts. They appear in your dreams, not nightmares, purely because they are harassing your soul. This is not my business."

"And the reason I am willing to agree to your other request is because there will be a kind of person in this world who is born with power different from others, or a curse. They are plagued by disasters, full of blood, but have no other choice."

"Are you sympathizing with me?" Constantine asked him.

Morpheus took a deep breath, gritted his teeth and said: "You and this person rushed into the dream realm, threw a big bomb here, and turned my home into a mess, and you actually ask me if I am sympathizing with you?!

Constantine stood up and looked at the sky of the dream realm. From this angle, no one saw whether he felt sad because of this truth.

Perhaps, chasing a beautiful dream looked very childish, not like something an adult should do, nor like something Hellblazer Constantine should do, but he still stubbornly wanted to get an answer.

Constantine was silent for a while, then turned to look at Batman, and said in a voice that Batman could just hear: "... this is magic. When you are working hard to pursue the truth, you have already lost everything."

"First Cause of All Worlds"

He took a few puffs of his cigarette, exhaled smoke, and that kind of dissolute smile climbed onto his face again. He said to Schiller in a light tone: "Alright, it seems this matter ends here. The favor I helped you deal with those green-glowing guys, you have also paid it back."

He threw the cigarette butt that was about to go out onto the ground, stepped on it with his foot, then bent down, stretched out his hand, pulled Morpheus up, and said to him: "Sorry, I just wanted an answer."

"Don't rush." Schiller took out a cigarette from his suit pocket and lit it. He took out another one and handed it to Morpheus. Morpheus had a black face and didn't take it, but Schiller didn't mind.

"His purpose in coming to you was just to seek an answer, but I'm not. I don't need beautiful dreams." Schiller looked at Morpheus, his gaze making Morpheus feel a chill on his back. Soon, Morpheus discovered that this wasn't his illusion.

"It's like this, Constantine told me the story of him meeting you before. I heard you have believers, right?"

Morpheus snorted unhappily, but didn't refute. Seeing Schiller staring at him, he could only say: "Managing the dream realm is also very troublesome. Everyone's share of beautiful dreams and nightmares is different, and the combination of elements in dreams is also different. I need someone to help me manage these."

"Although humans are not the most diligent workers, your understanding of the dream realm is the deepest, and your brains are considered flexible, so I do have a few human believers. Why do you ask this?"

"It's like this, Your Majesty Morpheus, I know deeply the strength of your divine power and the breadth of your divine authority, but a mere few human believers are really hard to match your noble status."

"According to what I know, the believers possessed by your brothers and sisters should all be much more than yours. I heard Constantine say that human souls and faith have special significance for all gods..."

"I have studied human consciousness space and the dream realm for many years, and know deeply the vastness of the dream realm. This is an unknown place that has aroused the curiosity of generations of humans. I think your great achievements should be spread better..."

The more Morpheus listened, the more he felt something was wrong. He retreated two steps vigilantly, looked at Schiller and asked: "... what do you want to do???"

"As the saying goes, there is a specialty in the art industry. To develop faith, one must have enough believers, and to increase believers, one must have people to preach. To preach with the highest efficiency, there must be someone to organize them. Perhaps... do you need a professional Pope?"

"I don't need..."

"Listen to me first. I know you are probably thinking now that after we group of people leave, you will immediately find a unlucky person, throw this mess to him, and then you will be free."

"However, last time, I asked about fate and didn't get an answer. So, after leaving here, I have to find a way to find a doorbell and see if I can knock open the door of fate."

"Oh, by the way, some things happened before that made me have deep thoughts about death. Death is also a very attractive mystery to me. I look forward to having a conversation with death very much..."

Morpheus's face became uglier and uglier. He looked at Schiller and asked: "Are you threatening me?"

"Of course not, I am just narrating a possible fact."

"Then do you know what you are doing? In our view, you and all humans are as small as dust. Your life and death are only in a thought for the Endless family."

"Oh, is that so? Then why don't you persuade fate to write my name in his book?"

Morpheus was choked. Schiller restrained the smile on his face. He looked at Morpheus and said seriously: "I remember when we met last time, you told me that all members of the Endless family must pay a price for their great divine power."

"The price death pays is to witness every death, and you, perhaps the price you have to pay is that you never know whether you really exist, or if it's just a dream."

"You want to give up the divine power of the Dream God and hand over the dream realm to others. If one day, you find that you don't really exist, or don't have to exist, then just like a dream will eventually wake up, you will also disappear completely."

Schiller's words were not alarmist, because in the comic, Morpheus did indeed die. He committed suicide.

In the comic "The Sandman," when Morpheus decided not to serve as the master of the dream realm, he allowed the three witches to kill him, and another member of the Endless family, Death, took him away. And when the Dream God representing the dream chose death, it meant that this dream had woken up.

Just like all dreams, when the dream realm shatters and people wake up from the dream and return to reality, that dream disappears forever. There will never be a second identical dream in this world.

Perhaps, this is the price Morpheus has to pay for his great power. As long as it is a dream, there will eventually be a day when it wakes up.

However, Schiller has a way to make a dream never wake up, because in his consciousness space, the one who dreams and the one who controls the real world are not the same personality, which means he has many endless dreams.

"I remember when we met for the first time, you said you had never seen that high tower in anyone's dream world."

"Since you have already planned to give up your current job, why not book a guest room with beautiful scenery and comfortable conditions for your retirement trip in advance?"

Morpheus opened his mouth. He didn't expect Schiller to come to him to talk about this, but he wasn't stupid. He said: "... then who caused me to give up my current job?"

Constantine lowered his head to study the flowers and plants under his feet, and Schiller looked up at the clouds in the sky.

Morpheus sighed. He also had to admit that he wanted to put down the dream realm and find a new master for this place, which wasn't entirely because Schiller came here to make trouble.

He was a god with relatively strong humanity among the Endless family. Because he wasn't entirely a concept of rules, he would also be infected by various things. Because the dreams he managed, human dreams, were varied, Morpheus would also be influenced more or less.

"Perhaps, I should tell you a fact, which will make you feel more balanced in your heart." Morpheus said somewhat helplessly: "It's not just you guys who don't have beautiful dreams, there's also me."

"From the day I was born, what I faced was endless work. Such a long life without an end can't be called a beautiful dream. If it continues like this, I won't be able to bring beautiful dreams to others."

As the master of the dream world, Morpheus possessed near-infinite power. He was the dream, and the dream was him. And if he himself had a problem, the dreams of all creatures in the universe would be affected.

After he himself started to feel bored with the endless work, the source of beautiful dreams became exhausted. If it continued like this, all that would be left for all creatures would be nightmares.

So, when he realized that he no longer had full enthusiasm for this job, he knew he should retire.

Schiller's behavior of ringing the doorbell and driving a ship into here could only be said to have accelerated Morpheus's retirement speed, but without him, Morpheus would eventually give up the dream realm like in the comic and return to the embrace of death.

When Morpheus's attitude started to waver, Schiller keenly noticed this point, so he said:

"In fact, it wasn't on a whim that I came here to apply for a job."

"I am a quite experienced Pope. If you don't believe it, I invite you to enter my dream. The gods I once believed in will verify what I said..."