The Death Knell

In the empty sky, Constantine was falling.

This place is similar but different from the Land of Dreams. The dreams of dying people are often filled with the most precious memories in their lives.

During the fall, his field of vision was almost blocked by dense branches and leaves, as if a few cans of green paint had been poured onto a blank piece of paper.

At first, he felt that he was rappelling while holding on to vines, but at some point his hands were empty. Gravity turned him into a meteorite, hitting the leaves and branches along the way, making a crackling sound in the face.

Constantine seemed to know why the army did not recommend parachuting above the rainforest, because it was really not a good experience, even though he didn't even carry an umbrella, it was more like a free fall.

"Stab it!"

Suddenly he seemed to have hit a layer of wallpaper full of green plants, broke through it and entered a new level, then fell to the ground with a thud.

Although he had been blessed with a protective spell, this blow was still too harsh. For a long time, he was like a frog on the dissecting table, lying on the ground unable to recover.

"Pooh!"

Zha Kang spit out a small mouthful of blood and tried his best to turn over. He looked at the sky. The paper where he fell in was healing.

At this time, a little grasshopper jumped on the grass blades. After looking at him with contempt, he jumped into the grass nest not far away.

The crash site is surrounded by lush green plants, most of which are wetland species such as calamus, which is a rare solid land in a swamp.

The touch, smell, temperature, everything seemed extremely real, but Constantine knew that this was always a dream within a dream.

He climbed up and took out the wine bottle from his windbreaker to drink, but the impact of the fall shattered it. He had no choice but to lick his coat with his tongue and slurp the damp taste in his pocket. .

Just like the one above, he twisted his neck to recover. The demon's blood was burning in his chest, making him like a demon engine that could explode at any time.

After crawling a few steps in a half-crouched position, he heard the sound of rushing water not far away, and smelled the familiar swamp stench. He pushed aside the tall grass that blocked his view, peeking out like a Vietcong.

It was a piece of stagnant water. Not far away, a white-haired woman wearing jeans was wading into the lake. The sound of water was also made by her steps.

This woman is Abby Akane, or in other words, she is the young self in her dream before she was transformed into the spokesperson of the Black Decay.

She didn't seem to hear the sound of Zha Kang falling. At least in her dream, Constantine did not exist in her memory at this point in time, so he was subjectively ignored.

Zha Kang is there. This is an objective fact, but this is the conflict between 'objective existence' and 'subjective non-existence' in the dream.

Constantine didn't say anything. He reached into his pocket for cigarettes, but all the cigarettes were broken into three-section sticks. He could only reluctantly grab a small section, put it into his mouth and lit it with cursed fire.

Because at this moment, the lake not far in front of Abby was rippled, and a huge green monster gradually rose from the lake, and the algae and duckweed on the green water became entangled in him.

This is the Swamp Thing she remembers as Alec Holland, her future husband.

"Ah, I remembered. The old man told me how they met. This is what happened when they first met." Constantine spit out the tobacco residue in his mouth and whispered to himself: "Sure enough, for her, even if she sees a monster, the first meeting is one of the best memories?"

Alec was actually an otaku scientist back then, working in a mysterious chemical factory, and his job was to develop a new generation of herbicides.

There was an accident in the experiment, and the finished product he developed worked so well.

How good is it? About the amount of a wine bottle of synthetic material can wipe out all the plants in a park.

During the Vietnam War, the U.S. military decided to destroy all the forests in northern Vietnam because it had suffered enough from the forest guerrillas. So American scientists invented the infamous defoliant Agent Orange.

That kind of thing can effectively kill all plants after being sprayed from an airplane. When the guerrillas hiding in the forest come into contact with this poison whose toxic ingredient is tetrachlorodibenzodioxin, people will also suffer from it in the future. Better to die.

The new herbicide invented by Alec is probably tens of thousands of times more effective than Agent Orange, and it has no obvious side effects on humans.

It’s just that herbicides are supposed to kill weeds, but you’ve obviously failed by killing other trees and flowers indiscriminately.

And since the day that compound was invented, Alec began to have various hallucinations. He found that the flowers, plants and trees on the roadside were talking to him, persuading him not to kill them. Even when he was cooking, the chopping board The tomatoes on the table also scream when they are about to die.

He was a staunch materialist at that time and had no idea what the green of all things was. He felt that he was suffering from mental illness due to excessive fatigue.

So he went to a big city to find a specialist to help him see a doctor, prescribed various pills, and poured a lot of them into his mouth when he returned home.

It's a pity that those medicines were of no use. He even felt that his condition became more serious after taking the medicine because the wooden furniture at home came to life. He had to negotiate a deal with him and let him destroy the herbicide samples and information. The Green of All Things I am willing to provide him with a more "stable and lucrative" job.

After being kidnapped by the sofa at home, he could only agree to these 'illusion' conditions, not to mention that he himself felt that the product had failed, so he went to the company boss the next day to show off and planned to destroy all current scientific research products. Then do it again.

However, his boss is a talented person originally from Gotham, and he has long been interested in his invention.

"How much money can you make from selling herbicides in a year? You've lost all the R\u0026D costs you invested in just one sentence? So, the company is no longer in the herbicide business. Let's change the packaging of these chemicals and make them biochemical weapons!"

Yes, the boss plans to mass-produce these products and then push them to the international market, handing them over to those enthusiastic bearded men in the Middle East or black uncles in Africa, in exchange for some diamonds or gold that everyone loves.

Alec didn't want to cooperate with international terrorists, so he pretended to be submissive and secretly ran away with samples and information.

It turned out that he was a scientist who was industrious, could not distinguish between grains, and did not know how to escape and hide. As soon as he left the house, his boss discovered his back and sent his bodyguards to recover those things.

Alec was driving on the road and called his F. While reporting the boss, he also attached some scientific research results to prove himself via email. As a result, the bodyguards chased him and the two sides started racing in the forest and swamp.

How could he, who had never driven faster than the speed limit, be a match for a professional thug? After two cars were running parallel and the other side stopped him with the front of his car, he turned the steering wheel wildly in panic, stepped on the accelerator with his foot, and everyone including him and the car sank into a swamp.

Together with the herbicide samples and formulas he invented, they all turned into a water flower.

As we all know, there is no way to save a person who is completely trapped in a swamp. The bodyguard can only return in despair and be scolded by the boss.

However, Alec, who drowned after sinking to the bottom, inadvertently reached the terms of the deal for the Green of All Things.

The psychotropic drugs he took during his lifetime had a special reaction with the broken herbicide in the car accident. With the help of the green of all things, he was reborn as a swamp monster.

This is probably what happened to Swamp Thing, and the stories in each parallel universe are similar.

And after the death of 'Alec' on the surface, the F-boy who had received the report before naturally sent people to investigate the matter. The promised informant disappeared, and the other party still had biological and chemical weapons in his hand. How could this not happen? investigation?

So they fielded a team, and Abby Akane was one of the newbies.