Chapter 944: The Mystery of Schiller's Past (Part 1) (Patreon)

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Constantine hadn't had time to contemplate the bizarre appearance of the corpse before him when he heard the distant roar of an engine approaching. Shortly after, the sound of a car door opening reached his ears, indicating that someone was approaching.

Constantine glanced around and noticed a pile of debris deep within the warehouse. Without further delay, he rushed towards it and took cover beneath a plastic sheet. Soon after, a dazzling light streamed in through the gaps in the rolling shutter door, making the floor gleam like a snowy field.

The patterns of fresh blood on the ground resembled plum blossoms in winter, causing Constantine's pupils to contract. From his perspective, there were at least seven or eight corpses scattered across the warehouse floor.

Two individuals, a man and a woman, entered, and due to the backlight, Constantine couldn't make out their precise features. However, they spoke in English with a U.K. accent similar to Constantine's, allowing him to understand their conversation clearly.

"Lola, I've said it before, we shouldn't have released Subject 1 so early. When we brought him back, he already outperformed all our previous experiments, and he has high-functioning autism. His mental state is unstable..."

"Enough," the woman named Lola interrupted. "This was our joint decision, and didn't you want to see Subject 1's capabilities?"

She then raised her chin and gestured towards the corpses, turning her head to address the man. "See him? He's the most successful experiment we've had so far. At fifteen years old, he killed eleven trained security personnel with just a knife..."

Hearing this, Constantine furrowed his brow deeply. He looked in another direction, and sure enough, there were bullet marks on the warehouse walls. However, judging from the bloodstains on the ground, none of the bullets had hit anyone. All the corpses on the ground had died from blade wounds, which explained the splattered blood.

"Subject 1..." Constantine muttered to himself. "Who could they be referring to? If this is Schiller's memory space, could it be Schiller himself?"

At that moment, Lola spoke again, "The results are quite impressive. It's a pity that the old man sent security personnel to escort us, and they all ended up here. But he had it coming; he interfered with our experiments before."

The man beside her shook his head in displeasure. "We didn't have many people we could send in, and you wasted so many of them..."

"But it's worth it, isn't it?" Lola shrugged and crouched down beside a corpse to examine the wounds. She said, "What a beautiful strike it was—elegant, precise, and lethal in a single blow."

"Alright, stop admiring it. I'll call someone to clean up these corpses, and then we need to get Subject 1 to the target location quickly. If the people here discover us, it could be troublesome."

Lola scoffed, "In such a poor country, who has the energy for security work? Rest assured, their attention isn't on us at all. I'd say we could run a few more experiments without any relationship to them."

Listening to their conversation, Constantine felt puzzled. He looked up at the warehouse and noticed two stickers on the wall, although he didn't know they were called flyers. However, he could recognize the Chinese characters written on them.

"This isn't the U.K.?" Constantine turned his eyes and whispered to himself in a voice only he could hear. "Could these people be U.K. spies? Oh, my, what am I talking about? How could there be legitimate U.K. spies?"

Before long, another group of people arrived, and the rolling shutter door was completely opened. They began to deal with the corpses on the warehouse floor. As the flashlight's beam moved closer to his location, Constantine realized he needed to find a way to escape.

He had come to find the Curse Spirit, and he wasn't interested in Schiller's past. He just wanted to leave this place as quickly as possible.

But as he contemplated using unconventional methods to escape, he noticed that the warehouse door had turned into a bright square, and a black figure abruptly appeared within it.

The figure appeared frail, standing at less than 1.8 meters tall, with little evidence of physical training. When the headlights passed outside the warehouse, their light briefly illuminated the figure's face, revealing that he wasn't Schiller—at least not in appearance.

However, he wasn't purely of Asian descent; he seemed to be of mixed heritage. What caught Constantine's attention the most was that, in that fleeting moment, he saw the same gray eyes on this young man that Schiller possessed.

As a practitioner well-versed in Mysticism, Constantine knew that "the eyes are the windows to the soul" was more than just a metaphor. If there was any external manifestation of a person's soul, it was undoubtedly in their eyes.

In that instant when Constantine saw the young man's eyes, he knew that he had found Schiller. But why did the Schiller within the memory space look different from the one in reality?

Constantine considered that the reason for the differences in appearance might be due to personality variations. He had encountered patients with Dissociative Identity Disorder who had multiple personalities, each with its own distinct appearance. Souls could look different in such cases.

However, just as Constantine was about to delve deeper into this matter, Schiller, who stood at the door, didn't give anyone time to think.

Constantine noticed that Schiller held a long knife that resembled a cleaver, about the length of a forearm. It seemed a bit mismatched with his frail and slender frame, but Constantine soon had no time to ponder its coordination.

The traffic on the highway outside the warehouse came and went, all with their high beams on, the light flashing briefly outside the warehouse door.

The fleeting light was like a gentle hand brushing over the cold cleaver. Constantine saw neon reflections on the blade surface. Quickly, this dazzling shadow vanished, leaving only a pool of blood behind.

At the moment when the two intruders pulled out their handguns, it was already too late.

Schiller swung the cleaver horizontally, and the light cut through the air as he dodged the other person's gunfire, followed by another strike.

As the cleaver was pulled out with a "swish," the warehouse floor, illuminated by the light, depicted the motion in vivid red.

He turned around again, using the backlight to evade the aimed gunshots. Schiller positioned himself behind the man, thrusting the sharp cleaver into his body and then releasing the handle.

Only when the corpse fell to the ground did Schiller step on the man's spine and pull out the cleaver.

Constantine swallowed hard; he felt that now was not the right time to make an exit.

However, it seemed that this young man had already sensed a presence in the warehouse. When he approached Constantine with the cleaver in hand, Constantine knew that today might not end well.

Of course, Constantine was a sorcerer. Even within the memory space, he possessed the means to use magic. In a flash of fire, he appeared behind Schiller, his hands glowing with a golden light.

He raised his hands and gently turned them, forming a golden magic array between them. With a "clang," the cleaver struck the magic array. In the instant when sparks flew, Constantine's face was illuminated.

His appearance seemed weathered and weary, while the slender and pale Schiller stood on the other side. When their two sickly faces met, Constantine could sense the inherent madness and evil in Schiller being ignited instantly.

The Magic Circle solidified and turned into a beam of light, brushing past Schiller's ear. He turned slightly, looking at where the light landed. In an instant, a scorched mark appeared.

As the cleaver's handle moved from his index finger to pinkie and back to the index finger, Schiller's thin knuckles gripped the band on the handle. Constantine quickly retreated, and when his fists clenched, another beam of light shot out.

Schiller rushed forward again, and Constantine formed a magic shield to block him, but at that moment, he saw Schiller sneer.

In the next second, Schiller sprinted to the right at a speed Constantine could barely track and threw the cleaver.

Constantine hurriedly adjusted the magic shield, but he was instantly knocked down by the cleaver. As the cleaver struck him, he realized that it was much heavier than he had imagined, and Schiller's strength far exceeded his expectations.

The blade cut through his skin and continued forward before landing with a "clang" in front of Constantine's right.

Constantine, lying on the ground, let out a painful cry, struggling to breathe. He saw Schiller approach, pick up the cleaver, and then examine him. But at that moment, Constantine displayed a cold smile.

A series of electric flashes jumped from his body, momentarily paralyzing Schiller as they made contact with his feet. Another beam of light shot out, sending him flying. Constantine staggered to his feet, picked up the cleaver, and said,

"What a fine blade..."

As he touched the handle of the cleaver, he knew he had found the "vulnerable item" that Zatanna had mentioned. But it also meant that this world was about to become even more terrifying.

Injured, Constantine didn't linger. He swiftly made his way out of the warehouse while Schiller was still recovering from the shock, pulling down the rolling shutter door.

As he hijacked a car, he noticed a figure standing in the dark warehouse door, watching him, but that figure didn't follow him.

With the cleaver's handle gripped tightly in his hand, Constantine applied a slight pressure with his knuckles. Soon, he secured the cleaver inside his trench coat and drove towards an unknown destination.

As he sped along the highway, Constantine was certain that this place was not the U.K. The unfamiliar architectural style, inscrutable mystical writing, and the entirely different car radio music from British stations made him question Schiller's past for the first time. Why did he have a personality from an Eastern country? And why did he ultimately come to the East Coast of the United States, to Gotham?

But what Constantine found even more intriguing was the male and female intruders with British accents who had appeared in the warehouse. Who were they? What was the deal with the so-called experiments and Subject 1?

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Next Chapter>>Chapter 945: The Mystery of Schiller's Past (Part 2)