The golden light flashed brightly, with several rays of brilliance shooting out, but they stopped just within a meter's range. The dense moonlight imprisoned Doctor Destiny in the room.
"Constantine! What are you up to?! How could you be with a vampire?! Or have you also..."
"Clearly, this isn't my doing," Constantine said somewhat helplessly as he looked at Doctor Destiny. "Do you think I had a choice?"
Doctor Destiny had no choice but to turn his gaze toward that figure.
His presence was indeed commanding, the meticulously neat suit starkly out of place in the chaotic room, and in his hand, he held a huge golden candelabrum, still smeared with blood.
"You damned vampire!" Doctor Destiny's authoritative voice rang out, "What has your master sent you here to do? He also thinks he can't handle Constantine, so he wants to kill him, does he?! I won't let you succeed."
Constantine, with one hand on his hip, pointed helplessly out the window. Doctor Destiny turned slightly to look, and his eyes widened in shock at the sight of the full moon.
"If I'm not mistaken, wherever the moonlight touches, it becomes an otherworldly space akin to the Mysterious House, and only he can decide who may leave," Constantine said with a shake of his head.
"If the King of Vampires had such ability, you wouldn't have been able to come here," Constantine said as he picked up an unfinished beer, took a couple of swigs, wiped his mouth, and continued, "He also broke through Zatanna's spiritual seal and brought her back to consciousness."
Doctor Destiny was somewhat shocked and had to look at the person before him again.
Despite his youthfulness evident beneath his brows, his pupils were nearly completely white, save for a thin dark outline at the edges, surrounded by the blood-red hue common to other vampires, but lacking the sort of repulsion and disgust associated with evil, and instead exuding an indescribable indifference.
If one observed carefully, it seemed as if he was suppressing something, some dangerous entity on the verge of spilling out.
Doctor Destiny also noticed that the hand holding the golden candelabrum sparked with subtle flames. The flames were not weapons, but more like torture devices, charring his palm to a blurred mass of flesh, almost entirely blackened.
Yet his expression bore little pain, only those suppressed elements seemed more restless.
"Leave this place," Constantine urged further. "If you want to do something, then go find Batman first; you can find nearly all the answers to your questions there."
The moonlight grew brighter and eventually consumed everything. Constantine couldn't help but shield his eyes. When he regained his senses, the figure had already vanished from the room, only the bloodstains on the cup remained, evidence of his presence.
Constantine walked to the window, where above the dark cityscape of London hung a sharp crescent moon.
Soon, there was a disturbance in the bedroom. As Constantine entered, he found Zatanna sitting up, clutching her chest. He sighed and said, "You are now a vampire. The wound burnt by the Holy Artifact is hard to heal. I've given you some basic dressing; I hope you don't mind."
Zatanna just shook her head, her face pale as she said, "It feels like I was in a nightmare. I was being controlled, causing wanton destruction and drinking a lot of blood...I woke up too late."
"It's not too late," Constantine said, covering her hand with his. "Can you tell me what actually happened? What did you encounter after we last parted ways?"
"I...I can't remember much," Zatanna said, biting her lip.
Doctor Destiny approached the bedroom door, arms folded, and asked, "May I listen as well? After all, no one knows how this disaster started."
"I found traces of my father," Zatanna said with furrowed brows. "In a valley in Nevada, I knew my father had toured there. I thought he might have left some clue for me there."
"So you went looking for it?"
"Yes, but what I didn't expect was that a huge trap was waiting for me," Zatanna pressed her temples and continued, "I can't remember the details, but my neck hurt a lot, and then I felt so hungry, stumbling into the city, but the fast food couldn't fill my stomach..."
"You bit someone?"
"Maybe I did," Zatanna's complexion worsened as she said, "I don't want to evade responsibility, but at that time, hunger had taken over my brain, and I couldn't remember anything else."
"How did you get back to England?"
"I don't know, but I think I might have opened a Teleportation Portal on instinct, wanting to get home, but I was out of my mind, and something went wrong with the portal."
"Where did you end up?"
"I'm sure it was London but not my home," Zatanna said, pursing her lips. "It seemed like... the Islington District."
"That's right," Constantine nodded. "There was a church fire in Islington District yesterday. Don't worry, it probably wasn't your doing; I saw that the candelabrum he was holding is the style typical of the old churches there."
"It seems he's smart," Zatanna commented. "It could also be someone from within the circle; otherwise, how would he know that the ritual artifact placed before the statues even has more lethality than an ordinary cross?"
"That candelabra might be particularly significant," Constantine pondered. "Modern churches rarely use such large candelabras anymore, I suspect it might be a medieval style discarded by Westminster Abbey. Plus, with its mysterious moonlight abilities, some old fanged rats are going to have a bad time."
Zatanna licked her teeth and, finding her fangs to still be there, felt a bit disappointed, but she still said, "After establishing a blood link with him, I felt my connection with the King of Vampires was severed."
"Who is the King of Vampires?" Doctor Destiny hurriedly asked.
"I don't know, the moment the link was severed, I forgot everything," Zatanna shook her head. "I only know he has a big conspiracy."
"What is it?"
"Vampires fear sunlight. They want to create a barrier between the sun and Earth so that Earth would forever lose sunlight, allowing them to take over the Earth."
"Delusional," Constantine commented.
"But they are indeed formidable, and such transformation is not easily detected. For security reasons, I think we need to..."
"I was just about to make some Holy Water, do you want to come?" Constantine asked Doctor Destiny, seeing the doubt in his eyes and using this indirect way to prove himself.
Doctor Destiny followed Constantine to the bathroom while Zatanna, lying on the bed, felt her thoughts were chaotic as if something kept calling to her. The lingering smell of blood around her nose tightened her brows, and closing her eyes brought visions of surging seas of blood.
"Ugh... truly unlucky," a voice came from the alley. A slightly gaunt figure slowly rose to his feet, pulling his cloak in front of him and wringing it out forcefully, while the water flowing into the drain was a dark shade of red.
It was a long-faced man with a beard, draped in a Red Cloak, his complexion pallid and eyes sunken, exuding a strong odor of blood.
He staggered in place, but the sound behind him caused him to turn. Seeing two figures scaling the wall, he cursed and slowly raised his hands. Black energy, like agile pythons, wrapped around the two pursuers.
Clenching his fists, he burst the two men open, splattering blood rain all over, and the cloak that he had just wrung out was once again soaked in fresh blood.
A red energy from within the two bodies was absorbed by the pale-faced man who breathed a sigh of relief, murmuring, "Although I don't know who these guys are, they sure have a lot of energy in them. Kill a hundred more, and I might just recover to half of my peak condition."
He steadied himself where he stood, and with another lift of his hand, at the spot where the remains of the two crushed bodies had fallen, two identical figures emerged from the ground, unsteadily standing behind him.
Just as he was about to walk away, he heard noises from outside the alley.
A scream followed, a silvery figure descended from the sky, the body he slammed onto the ground had its neck nearly severed. The tall youth seemed to pause in mid-air as though inspecting something, then looked at the bearded man and said, "You're a player too, right? Took me a while to find you. You can call me Arkham Knight, what's your name?"
"Doctor Strange," the man claiming to be Doctor Strange replied, neither retreating nor taking his eyes off the youth warily.
He was clad in what appeared to be highly advanced Battle Armor, his head entirely encased so that his face remained unseen, but the fresh blood staining his hands and feet had not been washed off, and the corpse on the ground was clearly his doing.
"What's the deal with those two behind you? Need some help?"
"No, they are my minions," Doctor Strange said, slightly raising his chin. "Let me reintroduce myself, Doctor Strange, I am a Necromancer."
"Cool," Arkham Knight remarked.
He turned away as two more figures appeared at the mouth of the alley, revealing their fangs and clearly growing impatient. He flicked his hand, saying, "They're like gum that you just can't shake off."
"I'll handle this," said Doctor Strange, stepping forward, and as he stretched out his hands, black energy surged once more, with all the ensnared enemies bursting into blood mist that flowed into him, empowering the dark energy within.
Then he took to the air, raising his hands, and countless corpses identical to the previous enemies stood up, the two sides clashing furiously.
Arkham Knight extended his hand to the side, his Hook flying out and taking him to the rooftop of a nearby store. Looking down at the fighting below, he lightly lifted his hand, and a large sniper rifle assembled itself in his grasp.
A long sniper bullet tore through the air, stirring up ripples and striking the head of an enemy with precision.
Bang! The head burst open like a watermelon.
Doctor Strange moved away with a look of distaste, flying up to the rooftop to stand beside Arkham Knight and said, "Did it really have to be this bloody?"
"Then why did you choose this instance?" Arkham Knight asked mockingly, speaking with a taunting tone, "Isn't it a bit late to play the good guy now?"
Doctor Strange snorted coldly and remained silent, knowing full well that no good person would come to such an instance. Everyone understood that only by killing archenemies of the Human race, like vampires or zombies, could they unleash their power without criticism from teammates; they were here for the thrill of the kill.
Such a scene was a rare opportunity, so dispense with the moral posturing. Killing as many as come was the way to solve all problems.