บท 3839: Chapter 2957: When Dusk Falls (39)
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Before returning to the teleportation portal, Constantine also plundered all the organs in the basement. Except for a few jars of improperly preserved organs that were left behind as evidence, he took everything else.
After all, for demons, organs are also good trading items. Unfortunately, Constantine is not very skilled at killing people, let alone harvesting and preserving organs. To stumble upon so many at once was like a pie falling from the sky.
Back at Mysterious House, Constantine asked, "Where to next?"
"Another trip."
"Another..." Constantine looked at Shiller with a puzzled expression.
Shiller turned the pocket watch forward one day, which brought them to the day before their previous visit.
This time they chose a different direction but arrived at a similarly remote community. Using the same hypnosis method, they mesmerized a serial killer to cause trouble at the police station and then found Barry from the day before, fooling him with almost the exact same spiel.
This time, the serial killer was an enthusiast of limbs, enjoying fitting his mannequins with real human limbs, so Constantine ended up with a great haul of arms and legs.
After returning to Mysterious House, Shiller moved the pocket watch forward another day, arriving at the day before the first day, and repeated the process. Constantine got his hands on a large number of eyeballs.
After repeating the cycle more than a dozen times, both Doctor Destiny and Constantine were exhausted, but Shiller didn't give them much time to rest, insisting on continuing without pause.
Constantine began to see that Shiller intended to use a war of attrition tactic. Since Barry had the ability to travel through time, it could be said that every second he possessed this ability. If they searched backwards along the timeline, they would find countless Barrys to gang up on Vampire Barry.
The reason for searching from later to earlier is that if they started with the earlier Barrys, those versions would have gone to find Vampire Barry, changing the future, and subsequent Barrys might not be in Central City anymore.
But if they started with the later ones, by the time Shiller reached them, the earlier Barrys wouldn't have been called to catch the vampire, and they would naturally be in Central City.
Theoretically, they could keep going back to the day Barry acquired Divine Speed, but in practice, there wasn't that much time—not because Shiller didn't want to but because there weren't enough serial killers.
Indeed, Central City had some retired serial killers, but there weren't nearly as many as on the East Coast. Using them as bait to catch Barrys meant that the numbers they could catch were limited.
Constantine couldn't quite remember how many times they repeated the process, but his warehouse was overrun with trophies from serial killers, enough to assemble several hundred complete humans.
However, Constantine saw a flaw in the plan. The Vampire Flash could also seek out his past selves from the past few months, bringing them to the future to fight against the normal Flash.
But after careful thought, he realized that Flash hadn't been bitten long, at most a few months, whereas Barry had been The Flash for quite some time, at least a few years.
If Vampire Flash could seek allies from the past, then the normal Flash could summon even more.
The most special power the Flash relied on was Divine Speed. Their great battle would basically occur within Divine Speed, not affecting the outside world, but it would engulf Vampire Flash in a sea of people's war, tying down the vampire side, possibly the most unsolvable fighting force.
"Absolutely perfect," Constantine remarked.
Nevertheless, he was still a bit worried and asked, "What if the normal Barry is bitten?"
"Don't worry about it," Shiller said. "Suppose the normal Barry can't beat Vampire Barry and all of them are turned into vampires, who do you think should be worried now, us or the King of Vampires?"
Constantine had an epiphany.
It was similar to the case of Batman being turned into a vampire; even as the King of Vampires, one wouldn't dare to trust a Batman who became a vampire. What if he was pretending? What if he wasn't restricted by bloodline control, what if he donned the yellow robe?
If Flash at every point in time was turned, there could be a vampire Flash army of millions. Barry Allen might really need to put on another layer.
"Wait a minute..." Constantine squinted at Shiller and said, "You aren't actually planning this, are you?!"
"There's more," Shiller sighed lightly. "If every Flash from every point in time is turned into a vampire, where will their food come from?"
Constantine was momentarily stunned.
People from the past don't belong to this world. Suppose the current Earth population is 7 billion; adding yesterday's 7 billion makes 14 billion, and including the day before makes 21 billion.
Right now, there's only one Vampire Flash who has to eat one person a day. Yesterday's Vampire Flash also needs one person per day.
If today's eats from today, and yesterday's from yesterday, then there's no problem. But if today and yesterday combined need to eat two people, then the consumption has doubled.
If today, yesterday, the day before, and every Flash from the past needed to eat one person, how many days would 7 billion people last?
This guy isn't planning to eradicate the human race, is he? Constantine made his most sinister assumption.
But upon further thought, he realized something was amiss.
The group of Vampire Flash wouldn't all come to the present to feed on today's human race, since they have to battle the normal Flash.
All the Flashes are engaging in mobile warfare; when they need supplies, they can't possibly travel great distances back to the starting point and would certainly prey nearby.
If they fight on a past timeline, then they'll most likely be feeding on the humans of the past.
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So the question arises, if each person only has one life, what does it mean for the vampire Flash who has already consumed everyone in the past? What are the modern-day vampires?
Constantine slapped his thigh and exclaimed, "Brilliant!"
In fact, this simply advances the hunger crisis that Batman had mentioned. If the vampire population continued to expand, famine would inevitably ensue, though it might take some time.
But if so many Flashes are sent back to the past, it would mean that the expansion had in fact begun earlier, and the consequences would surely be evident in the present.
This would lead to a serious conflict between the present-day vampires and the past Flashes, because according to Batman's theory, when the vampire population reaches tens of millions, the extinction of their food supply is merely a matter of time.
That is to say, if the present-day vampires do not stop the past vampire Flash from eating people, then they would be facing famine right now.
Meanwhile, Zatanna pondered another issue.
"If someone who was supposed to be turned into a vampire in a few months is instead eaten by the vampire Flash in the past, does that mean he's gone forever?"
"Theoretically, yes." Doctor Destiny replied, "Changes to the past will reflect on the current timeline."
"I understand." Zatanna said, "The most malicious aspect of this plan is that it completely splits the vampire community."
Vampires should be very united since they have the bloodline control system. Starting from the King of Vampires and cascading downwards, each vampire has absolute control over their descendants, meaning all power would ultimately be concentrated in the hands of the King of Vampires.
In other words, they don't suffer from power struggles within. They could be as cohesive as one, and it is safe to say that if it were not for the King of Vampires being less than formidable, they would have taken over Earth already.
Constantine and Doctor Destiny both nodded in agreement. If such a centralized power structure were placed in Batman's hands, not to mention Earth, even Apocalypse Star might have a different master by now.
This is almost an unbreakable ruling structure, an ideally centralized autocracy. Even if the monarch's abilities are average, conquering an Earth is nothing challenging.
In contrast, considering the human race, not to speak of individual nations, even the Justice League is not a perfectly coordinated body. No matter how formidable Batman is, it's useless if his brain can't command his legs.
To level the playing field, it's not about making the Justice League achieve perfect centralization. If that were possible, Batman would have done it long ago.
But splitting the current vampire community is as hard as ascending to heaven unless a method to break the control of the bloodline can be found. However, even Constantine didn't know if such a method existed.
Necromancy seems to be one way, but Doctor Strange clearly has his limits—he can't convert too many, and while it works for gathering intelligence, it's too difficult to carve out an independent vampire faction.
Yet Shiller had adopted an ingenious and creative approach—setting the present against the past.
The current vampires may indeed be a solid bloc, but the vast majority of them, or rather, all of them except for the King of Vampires, were once vulnerable humans.
If they were killed by vampires in the past, they would not exist today. Therefore, they must ensure to the best of their ability that their past selves are not killed.
Therefore, the Flash with the ability to travel through time is no longer an ace up their sleeve but the greatest threat to the vampires, because the vampire Flash can travel back to the past and kill them when they were still vulnerable humans.
There was no reason for the vampire Flash to do this before, but Shiller gave him one—to take on the regular Flash.
If he doesn't take down the regular Flash, the regular Flash will defeat him. But to face an increasing number of regular Flashes, he needs to gather more and more vampire Flashes.
But more vampire Flashes require more food, and they don't have the time to return to the present to hunt, so aren't they just courting death on the timeline of the past?
Once the modern-day vampires realize what the vampire Flash is doing in the past, they are bound to fight to the death, for this is a struggle for survival.
Either the vampire Flash will starve to death, or the modern-day vampires will disappear because they have been completely devoured in the past.
These two parties are now completely opposed to each other, with internal strife far worse than that among humans.
And obviously, Shiller aims to do more than just that.
"To my knowledge, modern-day vampires do not possess the means to traverse time. If an outsider like me knows this, do you think they wouldn't John Constantine?"
"Are you saying they will come looking for me?"
"They definitely will."
Shiller stood up from his chair, walked over to the teleportation portal, and gently patted the door frame saying, "What you now need to do is contact all your time-traveling friends and join forces to make a big kill on them."
Constantine never thought he would one day judge someone as shameless.
But soon he realized Shiller was even more shameless than he had thought.
"Also, tell those vampires who want to go back to the past that to preserve their lives as humans, let you bind them with a Heart Inscription Contract."
"Do you think the bloodline control from the Initiation Ceremony takes priority, or does the Heart Inscription Contract? Or perhaps... they'll jam each other up, granting countless vampires their freedom?"
"Freedom... freedom..." Constantine murmured the word like the most malevolent spell, closing his eyes and leaning back in his chair, "Tens of millions of free vampires? I can hardly wait to see the look on Mary's face."
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