From a magical perspective, demons and ghosts favor eating the souls of boys and girls because the freshly ignited souls are the purest. They are not tainted by the various forces that wander in the mundane world and have not lost any original soul power. They are easy to digest and substantial in quantity. Who wouldn't like that?
It's the same with clones. Although they seem to have memories of several decades, those are actually false, implanted by scientists. In truth, they are newly born souls that have just been ignited and are as pure as infants.
This has been too much for the Ancestral God.
The times now are not like the primitive societies where one could easily perform a miracle and have people offer up children. Nowadays, if he wants to indulge in something tasteful, he must let his followers secretly kill those addicted to drugs in the streets to prevent the few believers he has from ending up in prison.
Martin's mother was a capable lieutenant of the Ancestral God. Even amidst the chaos of demons in Mexico, this lady was quite bold; the Ancestral God had enjoyed quite a few good days with her.
But with Martin's generation, things weren't going so well. Martin came too late; by that time, Gotham had become a society governed by law. Gordon was cracking down hard on heretical crimes, and Martin had to be extremely cautious even when getting tattoos, lest he be subjected to a crackdown on organized crime.
Martin wasn't as devout or as dependent on the powers given by the Ancestral God as his mother was. He thought it was enough if the powers could protect him; he could earn money through his own business, so at most, he would offer the soul of a dying vagrant to the Ancestral God during holidays and festivals.
Martin's claim that the Ancestral God had always been in poor health wasn't entirely a lie. At least during the years he hosted the Ancestral God, he hadn't seen any display of mighty power from him. Apart from frequently complaining about hunger, he seemed to be good for nothing. Don't even talk about comparing him with devils or angels; sometimes he couldn't even beat those possessed by lesser spirits or Beasts.
This time, however, the Ancestral God had encountered a stroke of good fortune. Which small god in such an out-of-the-way place had ever seen so many pure infant souls? Even the Demon King hadn't been treated like this!
The Ancestral God didn't care whether he could digest it all or not; he just started devouring voraciously. First, he indulged his mouth and worried about the rest later. But now he had gone too far, eaten too much, and had a bloated stomach - nothing more could fit, amounting to a complete shutdown.
His shutdown was a complete disaster for Martin, who had previously agreed to recycle the souls. But with the recycling machinery now malfunctioning, souls couldn't stay in the dead bodies for long – wasn't this a complete waste?
Fortunately, Pamela arrived just in time and took over this crucial responsibility. With many accumulated souls left uneaten, she directly stuffed all of them into All Things Green.
All Things Green was nearly scared to death.
My dear daughter, did you fail your arts entrance exams, or has the Age of Exploration returned and you've gone to scalp people on an island? Where did you get so many infant souls from?!!
Pamela couldn't be bothered to explain and simply reached out for money. After all, you've eaten your fill; you can't eat and run.
Human souls weren't of much use to All Things Green, but it didn't want to renege on a debt, so it promptly sent the power over and closed the summoning channel, saying, "Whatever trouble you've caused outside, don't bring your teacher into it—goodbye now."
Since All Things Green wasn't taking any more, Shiller was in a bind. Normally, this kind of task would definitely require the Hell demon king; they had the funds and the appetite to take as much as they were given.
But the problem was, they had just collaborated on a batch of sinful souls not too long ago. If Shiller sent over much more high-quality merchandise, they'd think he was overstocked and in a rush to sell, likely leading to them driving a hard bargain. It wouldn't be cost-effective at all.
After some thought, Shiller decided to make a phone call.
"Hello? Professor Shiller? ...Ah, wait a moment. I'm in Azarath; why can I still receive phone calls here?"
"Oh, is that so? Well, I don't understand much about that... Mmm, the two of us... We're in Azarath conducting an investigation."
Raven turned to glance at Dick beside her. His back was set against a vast golden wheat field. The sunlight shone on his black hair, its color even more brilliant than the ripe wheat.
With urgency, Raven hurriedly hung up the phone and yanked Dick up, saying, "We're in trouble; Professor Shiller has found out."
"Found out what?"
"That we haven't been doing anything serious, but instead, we've been..."
Raven hesitated, slightly embarrassed. She let go of Dick's hand and turned to walk back, but Dick, grinning widely, pulled her back, saying, "I know you don't want to face your father. If the Professor asks, just say I was too curious about Azarath, which caused the delay."
"But I'll have to face him eventually," Raven said, as if on the verge of a breakdown. "One day I'll encounter him, and just the thought of it makes me feel incapable of doing anything."
"You're too anxious," Dick said, patting Raven's back. "When people are anxious, they tend to take everything personally, feeling like a disaster is imminent. Maybe the Professor isn't in any rush."
Raven looked at him quizzically, feeling that the urgency in Shiller's voice was not an illusion.
"But we really should start doing something serious," Dick said as he took her hand again. "I'll accompany you to your mother's old house to look for the talisman Professor Shiller wants. Then, we can take a walk to the God's Temple and perhaps pick up a gift for him along the way."
Shiller had been waiting in the house for over three hours, and it wasn't until late at night that he finally saw the two people he had been waiting for. As soon as Dick entered the door, he began to make faces at Shiller, clasping his hands together in a plea for leniency.
Shiller struggled to suppress his anger and asked Raven, "How is Azarath doing? Any signs of the Sanguine Demon?"
Raven thought Shiller was worried about her homeland's misfortune and felt somewhat touched. She said, "There's no problem. The Sanguine Demon has been unusually quiet, and there have been no signs of invasion."
Shiller sighed with a sense of regret. If the Sanguine Demon had really appeared in Azarath, he could have gone there to negotiate directly and wouldn't have needed to rely on Raven, the unreliable middleman.
From her pocket, Raven pulled out a pendant and said, "This is the only thing I could find with a magical aura. I suspect this thing might have come into contact with the Sanguine Demon's true form, so it's purer than the power inside me. It should serve as a talisman for summoning."
As Raven handed over the pendant to Shiller, she hesitated and asked, "Should we really be doing this? He is an evil demon. Summoning him to Earth could possibly..."
Shiller waved his hand dismissively at Dick and said, "She's a bit too anxious. Take her back to Wayne Manor and have Alfred make her a health tea. It might help."
Dick immediately became excited. Before leaving, Raven kept looking back at Shiller with concern, muttering, "I should stay here in case something goes wrong," while following Dick out without stopping.
Shiller caressed the pendant, his mind recalling the origin of the Sanguine Demon, a classic example of a villain whose backstory had been altered after the event known as Flashpoint.
Initially, his backstory was that some mysterious and evil force had amassed within an infant, and upon birth, the child became a natural Devil, destroying planets and conquering millions of cosmos.
Later, his story was changed to that of an alien ruler who encountered three gods seeking to purify him. He killed these gods and absorbed the Dark Heart from their hands, gaining the formidable power of the Sanguine Demon.
But no matter how powerful, he was not strong enough to overcome the barriers set by the Universe administrators, thus he could only wander outside the Multiverse, unable to pass through the cosmic barriers into any physical universe.
Yet he always coveted the power of the beings within the physical universe, just like all other life forms excluded from it, constantly devising various methods to tamper with cosmic beings.
His method was to transport women from the physical universe to his dimension, allow them to become pregnant, and then send them back, so that the children born would naturally carry his potent forces of evil.
The overwhelming majority of such infants were natural human bombs, exploding the moment they were born, sacrificing the souls of everyone around them.
Raven was an exception; her mother was a cultist with some other abilities, and not only did Raven not explode upon birth, but she also grew up successfully and even partially managed to control the power left by the Sanguine Demon.
This made the Sanguine Demon realize that Raven was special, potentially a sword he could use to conquer the real universe, so he always paid special attention to her and did not take back the power within her, allowing her to use it freely.
As expected, the Sanguine Demon's current wish was probably to take Raven home and properly guide her. But also as expected, this wish is definitely not going to be fulfilled since Raven is now intimately involved with the Boss of the Wayne Family, the most unique Wayne in the entire cosmos.
Shiller had no intention of being so kind as to warn the Sanguine Demon; he just wanted to make a deal.
In fact, no one could truly summon the Sanguine Demon to Earth because the cosmic barrier set by the Archangels was like a net with relatively large meshes, preventing any large entities from directly descending to Earth. Moreover, the Magical Defense Network established under the direction of Strange was like a finer-meshed net, preventing even those less powerful beings from entering.
With his sheer size, the Sanguine Demon couldn't get through the net laid by the Archangels, let alone breach the Magical Defense Network. Only a projection small enough to fit through the Magical Defense Network could come here.
Shiller was unsure if the Sanguine Demon would comprehend the conditions to come forth, but he planned to try anyway.
He, along with Martin and other students skilled in magic, headed to the Gotham Magic Academy where they found Constantine and handed him the pendant.
Constantine was an expert in laying out summoning arrays, akin to a chef among magicians whose cooking was the most tantalizing. It didn't matter whether it was the Demon King, the Sanguine Demon, or an Archangel, they'd all be deliciously confused.
Constantine watched the pendant and then looked at Shiller who brought along a large group of exceedingly pure baby souls, swallowing hard.
"What's the matter? Are you hungry?" Shiller asked with a raised eyebrow.
"You know how much Little Zha would scold me if I helped you with this, right? I couldn't even get out of the door recently because Shark Man was looking for me."
"She definitely doesn't like second-hand goods used by sharks; no one does," said Shiller. "But if you help me out, maybe I can go inquire with Lucifer about when the dream god is coming back. She can't keep you from dreaming, can she?"
Constantine immediately beamed with joy, smacking his lips, and while turning to gather materials, he said, "Morpheus is a beauty, always has been."