OBS Chapter 4500 The Darkest Night (28)
Chapter 4500 The Darkest Night (28)
Chapter 4500 The Darkest Night (Twenty-Eight)
"More than the panic and helplessness I felt from being framed, I felt anger. How dare they kill people in this way?!"
Some people will never understand. The meaning and beauty of ice lie in its stillness. Water molecules can take on countless forms, but only ice can bring the world to a standstill, creating a space for quiet contemplation. Therefore, things frozen in ice always possess a silent beauty. Even the most ordinary objects, when frozen in dense ice, resemble Byronian hero sculptures.
The woman chosen as the victim was utterly unremarkable. In her daily life, her stillness held no beauty whatsoever. There was no static aspect of her personality worthy of special mention. Therefore, when frozen in ice, what was magnified was not beauty, but ugliness.
Without a doubt, the murderer made a major operational error when activating the freezer, resulting in watermarks remaining on the ice. These irregular, morbid marks made me want to vomit; they resembled countless maggots gnawing at the body, completely destroying any sense of static beauty and making it look like nothing more than a frozen corpse, indistinguishable from other rotting and disgusting bodies.
In short, the murderer's work was a complete failure. Not only did it lack substance, but its appearance was also a poor imitation. More importantly, they dared to present such an ugly scene before me. Perhaps Schiller was right; I had been too gentle, to the point that everyone wanted to take advantage of me…
After Schiller broadcast Victor's thoughts again, the room fell into an eerie silence. Gordon, who had just entered, silently retreated. The concentration of psychopathic serial killers in the room was so high that Gordon felt his conscience would stop beating if he took even a second longer to breathe.
Jenna swallowed hard. She had clearly realized that Professor Fries, who seemed so mild-mannered, wasn't so simple after all. He hid it so well; those mad traits were buried deep within him, undetectable even to those who empathized with him. Until now, until the appearance of this corpse.
Whether the killer intended to provoke Victor in this way or not, he was terribly wrong. Jenna licked her lips lightly. Victor's anger tasted peculiar, with an extreme chill. As this feeling spread through her mind, Jenna couldn't help but shiver.
"Where is the equipment?" Schiller asked.
Tim had clearly already reasoned about it, saying, "I've seen those old-fashioned machines in Drake's cold storage before. They're huge and can't be carried around. So either they strap people to the location of the machine, freeze them, and then send them back, or they transport the machine here and flash-freeze them right here."
“I don’t think they’ll freeze it and then send it back. Because if you bring in equipment, people might think it’s some new kind of equipment that Brainiac has set up and won’t pay too much attention. But if you bring in a living ice sculpture, it will definitely be discovered.”
“The dock is an old neighborhood with a large flow of people. Even after the temperature dropped, it didn’t completely stop work and production. Under these circumstances, it would be almost impossible for the murderer to transport a human ice sculpture in without everyone’s sight. He wouldn’t take such a big risk. So I’m more inclined to believe that he transported equipment.”
"However, there's also a problem with transporting the equipment. An ordinary person might not know what it is and just assume it was arranged by Brainiac, but Brainiac wouldn't. Someone pushing such a large piece of equipment and swaggering in like that, he would definitely have recorded it. But I just asked Brainiac, and he didn't have any footage of the murderer transporting the equipment."
“This is very unusual. The dock has the highest density of surveillance cameras. No matter how small the movement is, it cannot escape Brainiac’s eyes. How the murderer managed to smuggle the equipment in is the key to finding him.”
"What do you think is going on?" Jenna asked.
Tim looked down at the ground: "The sewers."
“You arrived rather late, so you might not know. When Gotham was frozen over, the sewers were the worst hit. They were almost entirely filled with ice that was difficult to break. Because of this, many natural cold storage facilities were built inside. As technology has advanced, the early cold storage facilities have been gradually abandoned. After Brainiac came to power, most of the underground cold storage facilities were shut down because the working conditions were too dangerous. The entire underground of Gotham was sealed off, and Brainiac didn't have much surveillance there.”
"You mean he brought the equipment up underground?"
“That’s right,” Tim said. “This will also help us identify the killer. You see, Gotham’s underground sewer system is extremely complex, with three systems nested together…”
"Wait, three systems?"
“That’s right. Gotham has a huge underground labyrinth, a complete sewer system, and an underground cold storage and logistics system built by the mob. You could say that anyone who doesn’t know it will never come out. Otherwise, why would Brainiac forbid people from going down there?”
Jenna nodded, agreeing with Tim's point, and said, "The person who did it must be very knowledgeable. They're either a professional in this field or have done research."
Tim shook his head and said, "It could only be employees of the cold storage logistics system from the gang era. Because these three systems were established at different times. The underground labyrinth was the earliest underground system, followed by the sewer system built on top of the underground labyrinth, and the gang's underground logistics system was built on top of the sewer system. In that case, only those who know the last version can navigate it. If you only know the underground labyrinth or the sewers, you will also get lost because of the gang's changes."
“I see,” Jenna said. “Let’s go down and look for it.”
Tim quickly stopped Jenna, saying, "That won't do. The situation down there is very complicated and dangerous. Even if we go down there, we might not come out unscathed."
“Brainiac,” Victor said coldly, “put water down the sewers. I’m freezing the underground system.”
Jenna gasped softly. Tim shook his head at her, signaling her to be quiet. Because, from any perspective, this was the best solution.
There are already enough cases on the surface; where would they find the time to go underground and play hide-and-seek with others? Those who used to work underground know the sewer system too well. If they just randomly found a nook or cranny and searched by hand, it would take months.
Moreover, this case was clearly not handled by Hugo Strange himself. If he died too young, his understanding of the sewer system might not have been very deep, and he wouldn't have taken this risk personally. He must have manipulated some unfortunate soul again. If he can manipulate one, he can manipulate many. This investigation will never end.
Besides murder, there are many other things that can be done using the sewer system. For example, secretly killing people and stockpiling zombies. This is what Brainiac fears most. So far, he hasn't fully explored Gotham's sewer system. If the mastermind uses this to their advantage, building up defenses and stockpiling resources, Brainiac will have a real headache.
So Brainiac agreed to Victor's proposal almost without hesitation, saying, "I will control the seawater purification system to reverse the flow, which will take about two hours to fill the entire sewer."
“Chief Gordon,” Victor called out, “get me some people to set up the cryogenic generator…”
Gordon looked troubled. Schiller patted Victor's arm and said, "Don't make things difficult for him. He has dozens of serial murders to investigate. Let's find someone else."
Victor sighed and said, "It's a pity Barry isn't here. Otherwise, he would have finished in no time."
After saying that, he turned to Jenna and asked, "How is Barry? Has he contacted you?"
Jenna shook her head, a worried look on her face. "Although he asked me to investigate the Perrotta case, there hasn't been any progress. We don't know how to counter those who have come back from the dead..."
"Any good news from Lucy? Brainiac?"
“Just a moment,” Brainiac replied. He quickly compiled a document and sent it to everyone. In short, the document stated that only the power of life could restrain those who had returned from the dead.
In other words, only those who possess the power of life can distinguish between those who have been resurrected and those who are truly alive. For example, Lucy can accurately identify those who have been resurrected among tens of thousands of people in the shelter. This isn't because these people have any difference in appearance or speech; it's purely because the power of life reacts to the power of death.
The problem is that life force is extremely rare. None of the students in the magic academy have ever formed a contract with a mysterious being possessing life force. Even seasoned mages like Zatanna and Constantine have had little contact with this power.
Furthermore, not everyone can use the power of life. Superhumans can use it, but she can't give it to others. And asking her to distinguish them one by one would definitely be too late.
This conclusion was clearly not good news for them, and things were becoming increasingly complicated. Even Schiller, who had inside information, didn't have a good solution.
He certainly knew that the Spirit of Existence lay deep within the Earth. Awakening him should grant him the White Lantern Ring, but the problem lay in how to awaken him.
In Batman's universe, they didn't use any normal procedures at all. Instead, they used brute force, driving three nails into the ground to forcibly collect the death energy from the ocean, compressing it, and then driving it into the Earth's core. The spirits of existence are very sensitive to death energy, and they were immediately awakened by the impact.
Schiller's universe couldn't replicate it. Firstly, it lacked the three nails. Most universes don't have them. That seems to be unique to the cinematic universe. The key point is that the Black Emperor learned from his mistakes. Knowing that humanity would use this method to awaken the spirits of existence, he stopped unleashing death power on a large scale.
The key to awakening the spirit of existence lies in the power of death. Without enough power of death, it's impossible to wake it up. So even if Schiller's universe created weapons capable of targeting the Earth's core, it would be useless without the power of death to make the projectiles.
The Black Emperor proceeded with extreme caution in Schiller's universe. He avoided emotional manipulation and brute force, resorting instead to the classic "Dead Rising" tactic. What makes a classic classic is its simplicity and effectiveness.
In fact, in modern criminal investigation, the most difficult cases to solve are not premeditated serial murders, but crimes of passion. These are cases where the killer and victim have no prior grudges or conflicts. The killer suddenly decides to kill, and the victim just happens to walk right into their presence. They kill, then flee. This is extremely difficult to track down.
This is the Black Death Emperor's current strategy. He randomly selects victims globally. In each region, he resurrects a very small number of the dead—those who died recently, even those like Perrotta who weren't discovered by Brainiac when they died—turning them into living corpses.
Then these undead were used to secretly kill, trying to avoid Brainiac as much as possible. It was almost entirely random; some would act, some wouldn't. Some of the dead would resurrect, some wouldn't. The resurrected undead would then engage in random, impulsive killings. Brainiac had no way of investigating.