That is to say, doctors have already opened and explored the heart, yet nothing has changed.
Shiller looked at the x-ray film again. He found no abnormalities on it and his brow furrowed deeply.
Now, only one possibility remained. What most surgeons dreaded was not outside but inside the heart. Once the heart was opened, the operation would have to be successful. There could be no turning back. Little Bruce's life was hanging by a thread, he could not stand any more stresses.
Shiller did not hesitate for even half a second and made the incision directly. He had an emergency plan in place. The sight inside the heart, however, took everyone aback.
The so-called tricuspid atresia simply meant that only a muscle remained where the tricuspid valve should be, devoid of any anatomical structure. This resulted in the right atrium and the right ventricle being completely separated. The blood in the right atrium could not flow into the right ventricle, let alone into pulmonary circulation.
These principles were not vital, one only needed to know that a tricuspid atresia implied the absence of something. What Shiller had seen on the film seemed just like that.
Before the heart was cut open, its shape, size, basic structure all were identical to what was shown on the film. Only after it was opened did they find out, this was not a simple tricuspid atresia.
Little Bruce's heart was a maze.
He did not have atriums and ventricles in the conventional sense. His heart was just like a hive, full of teeny partitions. Blood was flowing irregularly inside, a horrifying sight.
But an even more frightening fact was, the direction the blood was flowing in took the shape of a pentagram. If one looked at a cross-section of the heart, they would see that the intricate labyrinth formed a pattern, a grotesque face of a demon.
From this angle, only Shiller could see the complete pattern. Residing in Little Bruce's heart was a demon.
No wonder other surgeons did not dare to operate. This was not about the complexity of the operation, but who had the nerve to take a scalpel to the demon inside the heart?
However, that wasn't the end of it. Before Shiller could withdraw his scalpel, crimson blood began to wrap around his fingers. Shiller heard an evil laughter, and the face of the demon on the heart began to move.
"He is mine."
Everyone heard this voice. As soon as Shiller lifted his hand, other people were also able to see the scene inside the heart.
Seeing this sight, Thomas and Martha let out a joint scream. Then Thomas gripped Martha's hand tightly and exclaimed, "No wonder! No wonder they asked us to find a Pope. Our child has been haunted by a demon!"
"Oh my god, oh my god! Please save him! My Lord, I beg you, save my child!"
"Doctor, oh no, your Holiness, please perform an exorcism to banish this demon. We are willing to pay any price!!"
Staring straight at the demon in the heart, Shiller said: "So you are the owner of the necklace?"
The demon was taken aback.
Shiller sighed and said: "Are the inhabitants of a small town not enough to satisfy your appetite? You must have seen his grand destiny in this child. But you don't know where that destiny came from. You will pay for this."
The face of the demon became more and more ferocious while at the same time, Little Bruce let out a cry of pain.
All the spectators stood up. Constantine took a few steps forward, looking at the screen and said: "It's too late. Whether to banish or kill the demon, this child will lose his heart. He is doomed to die."
"You already knew this, didn't you?" Spider Man asked anxiously. "Why is this happening? How did his heart become a demon?"
"Somebody inscribed runes on his heart. I guess they were 'The King's Abode' or 'Land of All Evils', turning his heart into a vessel for the demon."
"So, what can we do in such a situation?"
Constantine shook his head and said: "You can erase the runes before the demon's arrival or expel him when he's just moved in. But now the entire heart has transmuted. Without the demon, all that's left in the heart is an unstructured mess. A human can't live with a heart that lacks any anatomical structure."
"The demon has become one with this child. The child dies if the demon dies; without the demon, he still doesn't stand a chance."
"Why did the person who inscribed the runes want to harm him?"
"Maybe it wasn't their intention to kill him. They just wanted his heart. Living in the heart, the demon can provide its summoner with immense power. I've seen children who were made into vessels before. Their condition was the same as this child's. They all died, without exception."
The demon living in the heart obviously knew this as well. He sneered at Shiller, looking undefeated. He could neither be killed nor exorcised, and so the heart was assuredly his.
Shiller glanced at the television, then at the heart, and then again at the television.
He heaved a long sigh and, staring at the demon's face on the heart, said: "You have no idea how wealthy the Wayne family is...bad luck for you."
The moment his words died down, Shiller moved his scalpel deftly, inscribing a pattern on the skin of the heart.
The very next second, all the lights went off.
The television in the room, the monitor in the corridor, the screen in the broadcast room, and even the lights in the broadcast room all went out. Darkness was everywhere.
"Didn't you say he can't see us!?" Constantine roared out angrily. "He can even affect us!"
"No... just a moment... wait... hey, what's happening?!" From the darkness, the voice of a flustered Owen came.
Suddenly, a red light appeared. The heat vision of Lord Superman illuminated the darkness faintly while Owen managed to reboot the screen.
The Shiller, featured in the screen, had already started to stitch up.
Little Bruce, lying on the operating table, was visibly recovering with fantastic speed. His condition wasn't just about resumed breathing or heartbeat but rather his whole body seemed to be getting filled up like a balloon. In the blink of an eye, he had turned from a dessicated corpse to a rosy, healthy child.
Everyone was astonished.
"Playback, quick! What the hell just happened?!" Constantine disbelievingly shouted, "That's impossible! He didn't summon God, did he?!"
Owen scrambled to enact the playback but as soon as it reached a certain point the screen turned pitch black. Nothing was visible. After fiddling for a while, Owen made no progress.
It was then that Bruce suggested: "Play it directly from Shiller's point of view. There must be some residual imagery."
Owen thus switched to first-person view on Shiller instantly.
After Shiller finished speaking, he swiftly etched a pattern onto the skin of Little Bruce's heart. In an instant, his entire field of vision turned pitch black.
But just as expected, there was some residual imagery before the darkness which prevented him from seeing anything. This retained the pattern he had drawn.
However, this only confused everyone further.
Because it was neither a rune nor a spell, but a pattern likely composed of three circles. The largest was at the bottom, flanked by two smaller ones further up on each side.
This was quite a classic design, commonly known as—Mickey Mouse.