OBS Chapter 4527 The Darkest Night (55)
Chapter 4527 The Darkest Night (55)
Chapter 4527 The Darkest Night (Fifty-Five)
“What is this?” Jack picked up the letter, looked at it, and said, “It doesn’t look like a letter that anyone would send me.”
“That’s definitely not it.” Barry still had some conscience and didn’t intend to lie to Jack. He briefly recounted the cases and continued, “This letter must contain some useful clues, but no one dares to read it. The power of mental pollution is terrifying…”
Before he could even finish speaking, Jack had already started tearing the letter. He quickly ripped off the wax seal, took the letter out, and glanced at it from top to bottom. Barry looked nervous, but dared not approach, as if afraid some monster might jump out of the letter.
Jack looked enlightened and said, "This is a trap."
"What do you mean?"
“This was left by the so-called victim,” Jack said. “He wasn’t corrupted by the letter itself, but rather he wrote it after being corrupted.”
“How is that possible? Didn’t Brainiac authenticate this letter as being written in 1873?”
“Perhaps she really did write it in 1873,” Jack said with a shrug. “It’s not surprising that anything happens to people who are contaminated. There are definitely some clues here.”
"Tell me in detail."
"He had me look east through a window at dusk. He claimed that this would allow me to see the truth of the world."
Barry paused, then said, "No wonder Jenna said she looked out the window. You mean she didn't die immediately after looking out the window, but left this letter behind."
"Yes, and the process could be quite long, perhaps a few days, which would be enough time for her to prepare the envelopes and seal them with wax."
“Brainiac,” Schiller called out, “check if Mrs. Gerrita has bought anything similar.”
“I’ll investigate,” Brainiac said. “I’m pretty sure she didn’t buy it from an official store; she probably bought it from someone else’s stock. But the East End, where she lives, is quite crowded, so we should be able to find a witness soon… Ah, there she is. It seems she found some stock at a former bookseller’s shop.”
Schiller nodded and continued, "Let's examine why she wanted us to look east. What's there?"
“The docks,” Barry said. “Gotham’s east side is the docks, and further east is the Atlantic Ocean. What’s the problem?”
"Anywhere is possible. Now we need to determine whether all the victims were looking east."
Barry used his Speed Force to travel to Broodhaven. Unsurprisingly, the apartment building there also faced east. And Broodhaven's eastern side also faces the sea. This confirmed that at least the two victims on the east coast were looking east.
“Are there similar cases in Europe?” Schiller asked.
“Something’s happened in Austria. I’m trying to make contact…” Barry operated his phone and then said, “Oh, Brainiac sent the information, let me see… Sure enough, they’re looking west.”
“The problem lies in the Atlantic,” Schiller immediately concluded. “They looked out the window toward the Atlantic and then something happened. There must be something wrong with the Atlantic.”
“Wait!” Master Jim called out to Jason. “This letter was found among the deceased’s belongings. Aren’t you afraid it might be contaminated? What if it was written by an evil god?”
“No,” Jason said. “This letter must have been written by the deceased.”
"how do you know?"
“He folded the envelope himself, and he’s not professional at all.” Jason turned the envelope over and said, “Look, the creases here are deeper than here, and this one is a bit crooked. This proves that the person who wrote this letter couldn’t get any other envelopes and had to make one himself out of blank paper. Many servants at Windsor Castle aren’t allowed to leave the castle and can’t buy them outside, so they have to fold them themselves. The evil god wouldn’t fold an envelope himself.”
Dr. Sohip took the envelope, looked at it, and said, "This looks a bit like the kind of paper used for memos by the security department at Windsor Castle. The wax seal also looks like something left by candles in the castle, not professional sealing wax."
“Even if it was written by the victim, he might still have put some traps in it.”
"It's just a verbal trap. If he knew magic, he wouldn't have ended up in such a tragic state." Jason had already broken the wax seal, taken out the letter, and said, "Just as I thought."
"what did he say?"
"Let's look west. Which way do the windows of Windsor Castle face?"
“They’re everywhere. But Brainiac recorded his movements over the past few days and found that he frequently went to the southwesternmost corridor of the castle.”
“Brainiac,” Jason called out, “draw the direction the southwest window of Windsor Castle is pointing on the globe, be precise.”
Soon Brainiac projected a globe, marking the direction the windows of Windsor Castle were pointing. At the same time, five other lines appeared on the globe, traveling from various parts of the world across the Atlantic Ocean and finally converging at one point.
“Gotham,” Jason said. “Something’s happened in Gotham again.”
The point where those five lines finally intersect is the east coast of the United States, or more precisely, the coast of Gotham.
No one was surprised; in fact, they were slightly relieved. It was Gotham, after all. They were already very familiar with the whole process.
"Should we go back?" Jim asked Jason.
Jason shook his head and said, "If something happens in Gotham, they'll handle it, but the disaster is global now. We need to deal with the royal family's problems first. Doctor, may I go to the library at All Souls Academy?"
"Sure, but what are you looking for there?"
“Abnormal sightings in the Atlantic,” Jason said after a moment’s thought. “Such a global catastrophe could not possibly be the first time it has occurred on Earth. It’s just that people in the past didn’t have the resources to investigate, but someone must have recorded some details. As long as we can find similar eyewitness evidence, we can outline the truth.”
Amanda pushed open the door to the second floor and was also incredulous when she saw the completely unfamiliar room.
“Gotham has places like this…” Amanda whispered. “What are they doing here?”
Amanda cautiously walked to the bookshelf, picked up a dusty scroll, untied the rope, and glanced at it, only to find it was full of unwritten Latin words that she couldn't understand at all.
Then she found a book that looked like a proper book, but the contents were difficult to understand, and she didn't recognize many English words, let alone Italian and Latin.
Amanda picked out a few books and looked at them, but couldn't understand any of them, so she was about to give up. She then noticed a door nearby, went inside, and found herself in an unfamiliar study.
Amanda's gaze was drawn to the planet-like chandelier above her, the only light source in the darkness. She stared at it for a long time, unable to determine if these planets were real. So she looked at things she could understand, like the globe in the center of the room.
Amanda walked over and gently touched the globe. Suddenly, many beams of light appeared on the globe, seemingly marking different locations. Amanda gently turned the globe, and the lights followed its rotation, flickering on and off mysteriously.
"Broodhaven," Amanda suddenly thought. She reached out and spun the globe, trying to see if there was any light in that spot. But the instant the thought crossed her mind, all the other lights went out, leaving only a faint beam of light on the east coast.
Amanda looked around and realized that it seemed to be Brudhaven. She went around to the other side of the globe, but saw a faint light coming from outside the previously dark doorway.
She pushed open the door again and went out, noticing a scroll of manuscripts lit up on the bookshelf. Amanda tiptoed over and picked it up. She still couldn't quite understand it after opening it, but it was a little better than before; she knew it seemed to be about something that happened over a hundred years ago.
Amanda went back to the globe to look at things related to Gotham again, but when she touched it, she suddenly felt a sharp pain in her head. She stumbled and bumped into the wall behind her.
After regaining her composure, Amanda pulled out her pistol, but there was nothing there, and nothing had attacked her. Amanda guessed that using the globe wasn't entirely without cost; an ordinary person like her might only be able to use it once.
But this wasn't bad enough. Amanda wasn't greedy; she just wanted to get out of this strange, awful place as soon as possible. So she grabbed the scroll and ran down the stairs.
“Take a look at this,” Amanda tossed the journal in front of Constantine. “I can’t understand it, but it seems to be about something that happened more than a hundred years ago.”
Constantine didn't go to look directly; he asked, "What is it?"
“If I could understand it, I wouldn’t be asking you,” Amanda said, spreading her hands. “The vocabulary here is completely chaotic and doesn’t make sense. If it weren’t for the year marked in the first few sentences, I wouldn’t even be able to guess what it is.”
“I dare not look either,” Constantine said. “I’m afraid only you can decipher it, madam. And don’t do it for anyone else, or you don’t know who will be contaminated.”
Amanda's features were practically scrunched up. She wanted to curse Constantine, but didn't know what to say. It wasn't like she'd just found out he was a scoundrel; she should have known long ago that she couldn't count on him.
Amanda took the journal back to her office. When her subordinates knocked on the door, she wouldn't let them in. Just like Constantine said, what if it got contaminated by this stuff?
However, Amanda remained cautious. She specifically consulted Constantine about the possibility of Brainiac being corrupted, and the answer was no. Electronic life forms seem to be naturally unaffected by mysticism.
Logically, it would be best for Brainiac to create a physical entity to explore the danger zone. However, this isn't practically feasible. Because if it's a robot he controls, the globe simply won't activate. It's like being immune to negative effects but unable to interact with the environment. Locked sanity isn't necessarily a good thing either.
However, he could help Amanda decipher these things without being affected. But precisely because he lacked intuition or inspiration, he could only use brute force, rearranging all the words to forcibly decipher them. The deciphered information was fragmented and could hardly be considered a complete reconstruction.
But it was enough for Amanda. Because some key information had been extracted—1873, total solar eclipse, the day of etched eclipse, beneath the ocean, the arrival of eternal night.
"Was there a total solar eclipse in 1873?" Amanda asked.
“There are no records,” Brainiac said. “All the astronomical records of total solar eclipses point to the total solar eclipse that occurred in the Indian Ocean and near the Malay Peninsula in 1868. But that was five years ago.”
“Five years ago…” Amanda murmured softly, “Wait. Did a total solar eclipse also occur five years ago now?”
"Searching... Yes. In March 1997, a rare 'reunion of the century' occurred in the northernmost part of China. A total solar eclipse and the astronomical phenomenon of Comet Hale-Bopp occurred simultaneously..."