The atmosphere in the Forgotten Bar was extremely somber. The few people left were sitting around the bar. The Master of the Dark Night, Jim, was wiping the Night Blade in his hand and sighed, "The situation is quite bad. I called over a dozen Grand Mages, only a few went through. I just hope that they are simply hiding."
"They should have known that demons can't be trusted!" Deadman Boston dropped his eyelashes and said, "No one can blame them for making deals to gain power, but they rely too much on this kind of power leads to this kind of outcome."
"I don't know if the sudden withdrawal of power by the demons and the actions of the vampires are related. If they are, we're in big trouble." Bennett held a glass of wine, looking quite depressed. Obviously, he still felt that he had implicated Constantine.
"That madwoman Mary, she must have offered Constantine to Cain. Cain would drain his blood, and no vampire could resist the temptation of pure blood."
"We need to go to Plymouth." Red Robin, who was sitting at the farthest end, quietly said, "They have a base over there. We need to figure out what exactly Blood Queen Mary and the Ancestor of the Blood Race, Cain, want to do."
"I'm sorry, kid, but I can't leave London right now." Jim frowned and said, "I need to go check at the Magical Family's residence first, and then go to the Mage Towers of a few mages I'm familiar with for help. We cannot allow the demons to break the covenant and must unite to negotiate with them."
"Besides, Zatanna's mental state isn't good. My apprentice, Andrea, has given her some calming potions, but she still needs someone to take care of and protect her. We can't lose another friend."
Red Robin didn't say anything. He just nodded and stood up, saying, "I'm going back to the Forgotten Bookstore first to find my friends for help and see if I can find anything useful left by John."
Jim reached out and patted his shoulder, then opened a teleportation door for him. Before Red Robin walked into the door, Jim looked at him and said, "You're a very capable kid. I know I can't stop you from doing anything, but I hope you remember, absolutely, absolutely, absolutely be careful using Lilith's powers."
"I will. I have already seen the consequences of abusing power."
After saying that, Red Robin stepped into the teleportation door. The next second after the teleportation was completed, a very strong smell of blood rushed into Red Robin's nose.
He instinctively covered his nose, then immediately felt his foot step on some kind of slime.
As Red Robin looked up, he saw a terrifyingly disfigured corpse hanging on the wall next to the staircase of the Forgotten Bar.
It was a young man, pale-skinned, lifeless, pierced, and nailed to the wall by a roman styled spear. That spear was originally hung on the wall next to the bookstore door as decoration.
All the skin from the lower abdomen and waist of the male body was gone, but the exposed muscle tissue was too clean, there was not a trace of blood or residual fat. It didn't feel like the skin was peeled off, but rather like it had undergone a sophisticated surgery.
Red Robin was not afraid at all; he stared at the corpse and slowly walked forward, leaving footprints on the blood on the floor.
Lilith said in his mind: "How cruel, humans…"
"Shut up."
A glimmer of anger flashed in Red Robin's mind, but it was not his own, it was from Lilith.
Before Lilith could get angry, she saw through Red Robin's eyes that all the blood on the ground was rising up as if raindrops gathered in a puddle were defying gravity and returning to the sky.
All the information and clues in the space converged into glowing threads, winding around Red Robin's body. He spread his arms to embrace everything, with even more devotion than when he accepted Lilith.
He turned into a cocoon wrapped by information. The powerful cocoon threads hooked onto the beams of the room, lifting him to mid-air. When he looked down, he could see a spotless shoe stepping on the clean and neat floor through the gaps in the cocoon threads.
Shiller walked in first, followed by Red Hood Jason.
Red Robin was not surprised, when Constantine called him away, Shiller was giving Jason lessons. But what did they go out to do?
Shiller was carrying a briefcase and placed it on the table. He lit a match, its light reflecting off the bloody dusk of London Street.
Shiller burned the shopping receipt, and threw the ashes into the bin. Just as he was about to pick up his briefcase again, a shadow flashed past the window.
Red Robin's fingers tightened for a second. He should have thought of it sooner, Blood Queen Mary has probably had a two-pronged approach. In addition to leading people to the Forgotten Bar herself, she also sent people to the bookstore where Constantine was located, to prevent Constantine from escaping back here using the teleportation array.
A member of the blood race rushed into the bookstore. He unfolded his bat wings and stretched out his talons. But what was waiting for him was not the usual scream, but a spear that Red Hood took off the wall first.
The spear pierced through the chest of the vampire, and blood splashed onto the window on one side. Red Hood took another step forward and used the spear to pin the vampire to the wall behind him with its body.
Then, his movements stopped. As this information passed through Red Robin's mind, he felt a hint of confusion. Jason was a man who won't show mercy to human criminals, so why would he want to spare an evil vampire?
Someone stopped him. The footprints on the ground proved it.
Shiller stepped forward, his arm blocking Red Hood from continuing his attack, and shook his head.
Shiller let Red Hood stand back. He walked past Red Hood, picked up the briefcase on the table, and opened it to reveal a set of precise surgical tools.
"Go fetch me that book over there." Shiller casually indicated, Red Hood hesitated for a moment but still followed Shiller's instructions and went to the bookshelf to get the book Shiller wanted.
Shiller had Red Hood open the book to a certain page, then with a dazzle hand, used a surgical knife to inscribe a complex pattern on the back of the vampire knocked down and nailed to the ground.
Shiller ordered Red Hood to hold the magic wand used during the previous magic array experiment conducted by Constantine and Bruce, which still contained some energy. He pressed it against the back of the vampire's hand. The magic array released a filthy red glow, and the vampire let out a horrifying scream.
He instinctively wanted to transform into a bat and escape, but the restraining magic array rendered his ability useless, and the spear that Red Hood had thrust into his chest kept him prone on the ground.
"He can't escape, go and pull out the weapon," Shiller said, cleaning his scalpel, speaking to Red Hood.
Red Hood always hated being ordered around, even by Batman, but now he moved so fast as to leave a residual image. That's because the Shiller he was facing now gave him the impression that he was no different from the poor fool lying pinned to the ground - Shiller didn't see them at all.
Red Hood pulled out the spear. The vampire struggled to rise, but Shiller shook his head and said, "Take hold of him and keep him still."
Moving to the vampire's head, Red Hood reached out and dragged the creature's upper body off the ground. He passed his arms under the vampire's armpits to secure him. Shiller nodded and said, "Good, hold him like that and don't move. If you don't want to watch, close your eyes."
"What are you planning to do to kill him? Expose him to the sun?"
"I am not planning to kill him. Vampires have strong self-healing capabilities, I am simply extracting something from his body. He will not die."
As he spoke, Shiller removed the vampire's shirt, then used the scalpel to draw a thin, bloody line from the center of the vampire's collarbone to his navel. The vampire had no idea what he intended, and just kept swearing.
The next second, Shiller cut into the skin. It was not a deep cut, and not very painful, but he pushed his fingers inside, pulled apart the nearby skin with both hands, and continued cutting downwards until he reached the vampire's soft belly.
The vampire's body was without heat, and Shiller seemed to dislike this. He quickened his movements, peeling back the skin of the vampire's abdomen while talking to Red Hood.
"Have you ever read the Bible?"
"Sort of."
"Abel was a shepherd, Cain a tiller of the soil. Abel nurtured livestock with a heart of devotion to God. God was pleased with his piety, accepting this and letting all know that God finds pleasure in the sacrifice of livestock."
"God liked Abel's offering for two reasons. Firstly, because God likes sacrifices. The offering is a scapegoat for the sacrificer's sins, its blood is shed on behalf of the sinner, showing God the intention to repent."
"Secondly, because the offering was the best. The firstborn of the flock is the strongest, and the fat of the belly is the most luscious part of the sheep. Only the best offering pleases God."
The vampire kept shaking and screaming. More and more blood flowed from his body, and his uncontrolled legs smeared arc-shaped marks on the floor with his blood.
"You're loosening your grip," Shiller said, his head down.
Red Hood showed a slightly conflicted expression and said, "Don't do this, just kill him, I can't... I can't..."
"If you let go, you'll be the next one lying here."
In an instant, the vampire had no chance to fight back anymore. Shiller removed all the skin on the vampire's abdomen and waist, cut off the nerves, removed the blood vessels, then slowly scraped off the clean subcutaneous fat with the scalpel, placing it in a glass jar.
While exerting all his strength to hold the struggling vampire, Red Hood closed his eyes, constantly hypnotizing himself.
It wasn't until Shiller stood up, cleaning up his surgical tools and the jar and said to Red Hood, "Take the spear and pin him to the wall. Someone will know what it means," that Red Hood, almost instinctively, did as he was told. But seeing the vampire desperately grabbing at the spear in his chest, screaming and struggling, he couldn't help but stop Shiller, who was about to leave, and say, "There's some mercury in the basement. I'll go get it to feed him. Wait a moment."
Without looking back, Red Hood went downstairs. Soon, he brought up a small bottle of mercury, forcing the vampire's mouth open to make him swallow it.
The vampire showed no signs of mercury poisoning, but his self-healing power gradually disappeared, followed by his vitality.
Red Hood walked past Shiller, went to the door and said in a low voice, "So the folklore is true; I didn't expect it to work."
"You will be an excellent student of pride."
Shiller lowered his head, meticulously packed up his surgical tools, picked up the jar filled with abdominal fat and left the Forgotten Bookstore with Red Hood.
Having seen the scenes reproduced in Red Robin's mind, Lilith remained silent, while Red Robin looked up at the body on the wall with focused eyes and said, "So ruthless, humans…"
A moment later, Red Robin stepped out of the Forgotten Bookstore quickly. Lilith asked in his mind, "Where are you going? Do you need me to open a portal for you? "
"No need."
Red Robin went outside. A taxi drove down the street. He got in the back seat and said to the driver, "Take me to Westminster Abbey."
Before Lilith could ask, Red Robin said, "He left that body behind because he knew that someone would understand… and that someone is me. This is his letter to me."