fictionpage Chapter 374 Neither Heaven nor Hell can offer us solace
Chapter 374 Neither Heaven nor Hell can offer us solace
Chapter 374 Neither Heaven nor Hell can offer us solace
"Three days, it's been three days already! Finding you is harder than finding a living creature in sector 666. I can't believe you've imprisoned me on this Kryptonian spaceship!!!"
On the other side of the screen, the berserker Green Lantern, who was originally as cold and arrogant as a black rock, now had all his bulging muscles shriveled up, and even his skin had lost its luster, turning into something like coal.
Chen Tao had just connected with Han Nu's communication system when Han Nu, as if grasping at a lifeline, poured out his sweet greetings that he had been holding back for three days through the screen with a sense of utter despair.
"For the past three days, apart from the AI robots that came with this spaceship, I haven't seen a single living person. You're treating me like a thief, refusing to communicate with me, and not letting me save OA planet myself. You're playing with the safety of the entire universe!"
Although Chen Tao took away his lamp ring, causing Han Nu to lose the ability to use the lamp ring to translate his own language, so he speaks a bunch of obscure alien languages from his own planet.
However, thanks to the Kryptonian spaceship's excellent translation capabilities, which are comparable to the Green Lantern Ring, Chen Tao was still able to clearly understand what he was saying.
Han Nu hugged his bald head:
"Damn it! Let me out!"
"Even if you don't want to save Planet Oa, you have no right to stop me from doing so!"
"Let me go, I'm going to save the universe!"
On the other side of the screen, Han was furious and enraged, while on this side, Chen Tao's gaze was leisurely.
He had his reasons for doing so, and from beginning to end, he never treated Han Nu as a real survivor who needed care.
The main force of the Green Lantern Corps was taken by Hal to fight Sinestro, and then never returned, either wiped out or trapped by some kind of trick.
When Planet Oa was left vulnerable, it immediately encountered the power ring, which self-destructed its limbs, severely damaging the last wave of Green Lanterns who remained at the base.
The entire attack was meticulously planned and interconnected, but guess what? Coincidentally, they overlooked Han Nu. After he passed out, they left the Green Lantern adrift in space, and then, by sheer coincidence, Athocitas found him and handed him over.
Do you really think that part of the universe on Oa is your 30-square-meter cramped apartment? Did Atocitas just happen to pick up the other party by chance?
Although, according to Athocitas, he carefully examined the area around OA after its destruction, and finding Han Nu, the Green Lantern, was a high probability event, it still doesn't make sense.
Chen Tao didn't believe in coincidences, especially not a coincidence that suddenly appeared after a long series of premeditated schemes.
However, even though Chen Tao used nanobots to examine Han Nu from head to toe, and even though he used Batreniak's mental abilities to scan Han Nu to ensure that the other party was not mind-controlled, and even though Chen Tao found no problems no matter how he checked, this was definitely not right!
Whether it's paranoia or just being neurotic, therefore...
Chen Tao countered, "Do you know how to save him?"
"What?"
Han Nu was stunned for a moment.
"I have no idea where OA is right now. Whether it was hidden in its original star field after being shielded, or it was teleported away by someone, or it was simply destroyed silently, we still don't know where OA is, so there's no way to save it."
"Even so, is this why you've stood by and watched for so many days?" Han Nu was almost going crazy. He said, "Go to Koruga! The legion that was supposed to attack Senesto lost contact first, and then OA was attacked. It's a chain of events, and it's very likely that Senesto orchestrated it. Even if it wasn't him, he must have known about it."
"We go to Corrugated Island, capture Sinestro, and force him to reveal where he's kept all the Green Lanterns who came to arrest him. Then we rescue them. Isn't that the normal course of action?"
"Once we get to Koruga, we'll find out what's going on. That's Sinestro's home planet, where his word is law, and he'll never give up his own planet."
"The answer must be there."
Seeing the wavering look on Batman's face, Han Nu continued to persuade him, "Hal and the others took Mogo with them. A living creature, such a huge size—Mogo is the strongest Green Lantern ever. Even Sinestro would have a hard time holding them back for long. If we go and support them, we can be the key to breaking the deadlock."
(Note: Green Lantern Mogo is a living planet with life, and also the strongest Green Lantern.)
"Once the Green Lantern Corps' main force returns, a counterattack on Sinestro will be a piece of cake!"
Han Nu's words made a lot of sense, but Chen Tao flatly refused his request.
"No, this is very likely a trap. I won't rashly step into a place I don't understand and then let myself be schemed against."
Chen Tao said, speaking with conviction:
"The enemy has somehow severed OA's connection with us—"
On the other side of the screen, Han Nu tried to interrupt Chen Tao by shouting, "OA planet still exists, they must..."
"The enemy is preventing us from contacting anyone on Planet OA in order to throw us into chaos. Listen to me, in this state, everything you think about is part of their plan."
Chen Tao said, "If we can't find OA planet, we will naturally want to rescue those Green Lanterns who went to conquer Koruga planet, but ended up being trapped and defeated."
"Even if we go to Planet Koruga with the intention of exploration, we might not be able to return, so we should conserve our strength and wait patiently for Seneto to make his move."
Chen Tao said, "I will only follow up after I discover that Sinestro has taken action. Otherwise, the initiative in the entire battle will always be led by the nose by the enemy."
Chen Tao's current strategy is to remain unmoved when allies are in trouble; no matter what you say, he simply won't take action.
"You..." Han was furious and flew into a rage, but Chen Tao decisively cut off the conversation, blocking the other party's long string of angry roars behind the phone screen.
That should be about right now. Let's give it a try.
Chen Tao narrowed his eyes.
Let's see if my guess is correct.
……
……
……
William Hand sat alone on the roof of the Metropolitan Justice League base.
The Justice League base was strategically located, offering a commanding view. Below lay a sprawling steel jungle stretching to the horizon, bustling with traffic.
Countless people are busy, like ants completing their tasks, and no one ever looks up at the sky to try to see what the person standing on the clouds is thinking.
At that moment, William Hand stood by the eaves, staring blankly at the world below.
Ba... Ta...
Chen Tao appeared beside the other person. He didn't say anything, but took another step forward, now standing a full body length ahead of the other person.
This action nearly caused him to fall, but Chen Tao knew that this was unlikely to happen.
"What are you thinking about?"
"I'm a Christian." But William didn't directly respond to Chen Tao's question. He continued, "My family is a Christian family. My two older brothers are good kids, the kind of kind people. Only I, and only I, have shown an unusual interest in corpses."
Then he turned his head: "But Mr. Atositas told me that it was just the darkness in my heart that was acting up, that it wasn't my true thought. And he has helped me dispel the darkness in my heart, and now I am free."
He said, "But I'm even more confused now."
"I'm just... I'm just an ordinary kid. My mother often tells me that everything is God's will, as if she can use this sentence to explain all the tragedies and comedies that happen in life."
Then he turned his head back, ignoring Batman, and quietly looked at the hazy clouds on the horizon.
"But I don't quite understand. I don't quite understand why it had to be me. I don't quite understand why I have to endure all this."
William turned to look at Chen Tao:
"These are too dangerous, too deadly, and too insane. Do you have any faith, Mr. Wayne?"
"no."
Chen Tao told him, "And I don't intend to believe in God. Even the origin (note: the source of DC is often considered to be God) is just a powerful thing. Perhaps many insignificant people like to call the enormous things they cannot understand God, but I have never thought so."
"So you're a faithless person, Mr. Wayne?"
"No." But Chen Tao rejected William's question again.
Neither heaven nor hell can offer you solace.
He said:
"We are all alone. Small, lonely, struggling, fighting with each other, and fighting with ourselves."
"I am not an unbeliever, William. I pray to myself, I pray for myself."
William's gaze was fixed, then gradually hardened.
He seemed to have made up his mind, and then said in a low voice:
"It's no use."
"What?"
"I said it was no use. Master Atositas believed that he used blood magic to stop the darkness in my heart, although I don't know exactly what aspect of the darkness he was referring to. But what I do understand is that my necrophilia hasn't disappeared, it's just been suppressed, like when I was a teenager and secretly used my family's money to hire some thieves to steal some drugs to treat my nervous system."
"The medication can suppress my emotions, thereby suppressing my rampant necrophilia."
William said, "But none of them are a cure. I'm just having that feeling blurred, but I haven't stopped."
"They told me everything. I know what I was supposed to become on the darkest night, but I can't change it. I don't dare tell Professor Atositas, and I don't dare tell anyone."
As he spoke, his whole body began to tremble:
"Professor Bain showed me flowers. You know, those flowers bloomed in the pots like miracles under his manipulation. I had never felt what life was like before; I had always been forced to be obsessed with death."
Chen Tao listened quietly as William rejoiced at discovering that he had strayed from his dark destiny, just as Chen Tao himself had repeatedly thought he had strayed from the destiny of bearing the heavy responsibility for the survival of the entire world.
That feeling is so addictive.
"I truly believed that kind of fate was far behind me. You have no idea how much I wanted to be a normal person. A normal person wouldn't be interested in corpses, a normal person wouldn't disappoint their mother like that, but I couldn't."
William said:
"But after Professor Atositas helped me, I really did it, I really stopped being attached to corpses, but now I've just realized that this is only temporary."
He looked at Chen Tao without saying a word and became somewhat anxious:
"Say something, Batman."
"You once told me what I would become. Superheroes change the world, I can choose who I want to be. But none of that is true, Mr. Wayne. From that moment on, I know none of it is true. I'm going back to that dark, broken path. I can't control myself. I have no choice."
He said, "If my destiny is to bring death and destruction to the world, then what is the meaning of what I believe in?"
Having been a necrophiliac for so long, having wallowed in it for so long, why did God let me briefly regain my senses, only to watch me fall back into it? Why give me hope, only to cruelly extinguish it?
"If I'm destined to always return to the path fate has laid out for me, then what's the point of all the struggles I've made to escape that path?"
"What can I believe in? God? Myself? Or you?"
Then he heard Batman say:
"If becoming the Black Death Emperor is your destiny, William, then this is your manifest fate. True faith is what you can hold onto even in the most severe trials."
"If you want to earn the respect of fate."
"Listen to me, William."
"Disobey him."
"But if you don't want to have faith in yourself, but instead want to find faith outside of yourself..."
"Believe in me."
……
……
……
"Batman wasn't fooled."
Sinestro sat alone in the room, with no one around, but he heard a voice in his ear: "He stood by and did nothing."
"It's alright."
Sinestro said in a low voice, "Even if Batman does nothing, I've achieved my goal. Throughout this whole affair, whatever Batman chooses will be wrong, and whatever Batman chooses will lead things in my favor."
The purplish-red alien shook his head: "For us, invading OA is the most important thing. We must seize the Green Light Central Power Battery."
In the microscopic realm, invisible to biological eyes, a tiny yellow worm sways quietly, echoing Seneca's words.
(End of this chapter)