Countless Sadakos floated up from the thick fog, layering over one another until they filled every inch of space.
“Monster! Get back!”
Seeing Sadako right in front of them, several agents roared and pulled the triggers on their flamethrowers.
In the roaring flames, her form twisted continuously, yet the corners of her mouth curled up in an eerie smile as she kept crawling toward them, tilting inch by inch.
“Close your eyes! Cover your heads!”
Tony quickly pulled out several custom UV grenades and hurled them all out.
Dazzling purple light instantly bathed every corner of the terminal.
Like an old VHS tape being forcibly cut by a few frames, wherever the purple light touched, the dark fog and Sadakos vanished together without a trace.
“Did we get her?” Tony asked hesitantly.
Having experienced a similar situation before, he did not dare trust it easily.
Sure enough, as soon as the purple light completely dissipated, the black fog drifted back.
Hundreds, thousands of Sadakos lurked within it, all turning their heads at once to lock onto Tony with venomous glares.
His scalp tightened, and he instinctively took two steps back.
“Ten million dollars, plus a legal identity, and I’ll clear this vengeful spirit for you.”
John Constantine had somehow appeared behind Tony, a hand resting on his shoulder and a cigarette hanging from his lips, looking relaxed and completely at ease.
“Deal.” Tony agreed instantly without a moment’s hesitation.
“Pleasure.”
Constantine stepped forward, pulled an old piece of burlap out of his pocket, wrapped his right hand tightly in it, and used his lighter to set the cloth ablaze.
A brilliant, holy light burst from his palm like the rising morning sun, illuminating every corner of the terminal.
The black fog collapsed on contact with the light, and the Sadakos melted away like snow, disappearing in seconds.
In the blink of an eye, the station returned to normal.
The fog cleared, the ghosts vanished, leaving only an empty silence.
[Shock points from Tony Stark +1,000] [Shock points from Phil Coulson +600] [Shock points from SHIELD agents +1] [Shock points from Hydra agents +1.1] …
“Is that it?” Tony froze for a moment, then turned to look at Constantine with a bit more respect in his tone.
He was starting to believe what the man had said earlier, even if Gabriel conspiring with demons still sounded like a fairytale.
“If only it were that easy.” Constantine held his cigarette, his brow slightly furrowed.
“These were just her clones. You could kill a million and it wouldn’t hurt her main body in the slightest.”
“We have to find the item anchoring her spirit.”
“The anchor item is eighty percent likely to be that videotape of hers.” Tony crouched down, scanning the floor, his voice low.
“The Joker probably buried it underground in the station.”
“No wonder this place has such heavy dark energy.” Constantine pretended to hear this for the first time, giving a subtle nod.
“Mr. Constantine, I am Special Agent Phil Coulson of SHIELD.”
“May I ask for a moment of your time to talk in detail?” Coulson recovered from his shock and stepped forward with a warm, genuine smile.
Regardless of whether Constantine’s earlier claims were true or false, the extraordinary power he had just displayed proved beyond doubt that he was no ordinary man.
“I’ve never liked suits.”
“You lot are too much trouble—and stingy.”
Constantine waved a hand dismissively and casually lit another cigarette.
“From here on out, I’m going to enjoy my life. Now that I’ve changed territories, I finally don’t have to worry about that old bastard Satan constantly eyeing the soul in this rotten shell of mine.”
Tony and Coulson exchanged a glance, their heads full of question marks.
*Just what did you do to have the Lord of Hell personally stalk you, and still manage to walk around alive and kicking?*
“Alright, enough chitchat.”
“Let me hurry up and find that videotape so we can wrap this up.”
Constantine glanced at the bewildered Tony and Coulson.
Having no intention of explaining, he pulled a heavily worn compass straight out of his pocket.
“Are you sure that thing actually works?” Tony stared at the needle pointing steadily north, finding the whole thing more ridiculous the longer he looked at it.
Constantine raised an eyebrow and tossed Captain Jack’s compass to Tony.
“Quiet your mind and clear out all random thoughts.”
“Keep only one sentence in your head: *I want to find the Sadako videotape.*”
“This is pure superstition.” Black lines practically sprouted from Tony’s forehead, but he took the compass, closed his eyes, and silently repeated the phrase.
After waiting a good while, just as he was convinced the thing was useless junk, the needle suddenly twitched.
“It actually works…” Tony’s heart gave a sudden leap, his curiosity instantly exploding.
*It can even be driven by intent?
What kind of logic governs the power behind this thing?*
Following the direction indicated by the needle, the group twisted and turned through several corridors until they finally stopped right in front of…
Pepper Potts.
“Pepper? What are you doing here?”
Just as Tony lifted his foot to step forward, Constantine clamped a hand around his wrist.
“An evil spirit has her.” Constantine shook his head slightly.
He hadn’t scripted this part in advance.
All he could say was that Pepper, as a main character, possessed an innate death-seeking aura that led her to wander into the subway station all by herself.
“Tony… I’m so cold.” Pepper’s face was a sickly, pale green, and a bone-chilling cold radiated off her whole body, as though she had just been hauled out of an icebox.
“Pepper!” Tony clenched his fists and whirled around to Constantine.
“Save her! I’ll pay whatever it takes!”
“No problem.” Constantine agreed cheerfully, rolling up his sleeves as he prepared to chant an exorcism incantation.
However, plans failed to keep up with changes.
Pepper’s eyes suddenly rolled back into her head, white filling her sockets as her toes lifted off the ground, leaving her floating in midair.
Then, giving Tony a terrifyingly malicious smile, she pulled the real Sadako videotape from her shoulder bag, crunching and swallowing it piece by piece.
“Brutal.” Constantine’s eyelid twitched.
Why did he feel like Sadako had a personal vendetta against Tony, hating him down to her very bones?
“Constantine, what is she doing?” Tony asked frantically, his voice tight.
“She’s forcibly trying to possess this lady’s body.” Constantine muttered under his breath with a frown, beginning to chant an incantation at breakneck speed.
*Bang!*
Spell power erupted, blasting Pepper off her feet and sending her flying backward.
Constantine immediately surged forward, pinning her abdomen down with one knee while slamming a hand firmly onto her forehead, chanting the exorcism passage from the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew.
“Argh!!”
Seeing Pepper twitching and thrashing violently, Tony rushed over to help hold her down.
“How is it?” Tony looked at her pain-contorted face, his heart tightening as he pressed for answers.
“Sadako has locked onto you like a leech—she refuses to leave.”
“If I force her out, Pepper might die on the spot.” Constantine shook his head, his tone grim.
“Is there another way? I’ll add another hundred million!” Desperate and racked with guilt, Tony instinctively pulled out his usual unlimited-wealth strategy.
“Well, there is an unorthodox method…” Constantine blinked, his expression suddenly growing somewhat certain.
“Though you’ll need to prepare yourself mentally first.”
He sliced Tony’s palm to draw blood, tracing intricate runes across Pepper’s flat lower stomach while speaking with slight hesitation.
“Prepare myself for what?” Tony asked, completely lost.
“Well… you’re going to be a father, Tony.”
Constantine flashed his signature scammer grin and pressed his hand heavily onto Pepper’s abdomen.
A blinding red light erupted.
The dark energy clinging to her surged like a tide, entirely sucked into her womb.
Pepper instantly stopped thrashing.
Her blood-curdling screams cut off mid-shriek, and she collapsed, swooning into unconsciousness.
Tony quickly checked her breathing.
“Be a father? What do you mean by that?”
“Literally what I said.” Constantine scratched his head with a touch of embarrassment.
“Pepper is pregnant—about two weeks along.”
“At this stage, the fetus hasn’t formed and its soul hasn’t gathered, so I sealed Sadako inside.”
[Shock points from Tony Stark +1,500]
Tony’s mouth dropped wide enough to fit a coin, his entire brain completely crashing.
After a long silence, he barely managed to recover his voice, stammering, “Can you… get Sadako out?”
“No. If I touch it now, neither mother nor child will survive. Even if they somehow lived, the spirit of an aborted fetus would very likely turn into an even fiercer malicious ghost.” Constantine shook his head cleanly and decisively.
Tony took several deep breaths, staring at the innocent yet intensely slap-worthy face before him, nearly exploding on the spot.
“Tony, isn’t having a daughter a good thing?” Constantine tried to defend himself.
He really hadn’t set out to trap him on purpose.
He had simply noticed Pepper was pregnant and seized the moment with a win-win solution.
Tony’s eyes were hollow.
He was going to be a father—and the biological father of Sadako, no less.
At the thought of Sadako’s twisted, gruesome face, a chill ran down his spine, and he suddenly felt that life had lost all meaning.
“You’re not planning to skip out on the bill, are you, Tony?” Constantine eyed the dazed billionaire suspiciously.
“Don’t worry. I won’t.”
With fire burning in his eyes, Tony glared dead at the bastard, squeezing each word through his teeth.
In his heart, Constantine had firmly secured the number two spot on his Most Hated Humans List, right behind The Joker.
“Good to hear.”
Constantine clapped his hands together, his eyebrows perking up with a relaxed, teasing smile.
“When the kid is born, don’t forget to invite me to the party. I wouldn’t mind giving the godfather gig a try.”
“Shut your mouth!!”
…
“Hahaha!”
In a villa in the Upper East Side, Luke Lane laughed so hard he nearly bent double, almost losing his breath.
Even he hadn’t anticipated this outcome.
Pepper happened to discover she was pregnant and rushed straight to Grand Central Terminal to look for Tony, only to end up possessed by Sadako…
“Not bad at all.”
He shook his head, a lingering smile still hanging on his lips.
An old-school vengeful spirit like Sadako relied on videotapes to kill.
Without a broadcast signal, she was completely useless, long left behind by the times.
Luke had originally been pondering how to dispose of her, but now he was saved the trouble—everyone got a place, and everybody won.
Once his laughter faded, he pulled up the system interface to tally his gains from this affair.
[Shock Points: 156,300.34]
“A solid yield.”
He nodded in satisfaction.
The fertile field named Tony Stark paid out more reliably the longer it was cultivated.
Next time, he’d harvest it all the same.
“Time to keep opening chests.”
With a swipe of his finger, he picked a bronze treasure chest first to test his luck.
A flash of white light—
[Item: Shame Lollipop] [Effect: Forces the consumer to reveal the truth] [Description: A gag item from the movie Tricky Brains.
Once placed in the mouth, speech becomes uncontrollable, making every sentence spoken entirely truthful.] [Note: “I love taking baths, my skin is so good…”] …
[D-Rank 5-Star Card: Sakonji Urokodaki] [Skill: Water Breathing] [Description: From Demon Slayer. Former Water Hashira of the Demon Slayer Corps and current cultivator. Always wears a Tengu mask. Master of Water Breathing—one of the five main breathing styles—and all its sword forms. Possesses an extraordinary sense of smell capable of discerning the subtlest scents.]
“Lady Luck is on my side today.”
Luke Lane stroked his chin and casually opened a silver treasure chest.