Marvel: The Sole Player

Watching his only hope knocked to the ground by Darian, Jack was furious. He pointed at Darian’s nose and cursed.

"You damn charlatan..."

"I advise you to think carefully before you speak."

Darian’s eyes suddenly burst with a blinding white light, and he looked at Jack with a warm, kindly smile.

Jack froze for less than a second before dropping to his knees with a thud: "Great Father! Please, save my daughter!"

He wasn’t a fool. The man in front of him had eyes shining like searchlights; he was clearly no ordinary person and was definitely much stronger than the priest who had been knocked out by a Bible.

Darian’s face suddenly turned cold: "Too late. I think I just heard you cursing at me. Now I’ve changed my mind and don’t want to help anymore."

"I’m sorry, Father. I was frantic. I repent to you!"

Jack said in a panic: "As long as you are willing to save my daughter, I am willing to donate five million to the church. I know that a pious member of the clergy like you has no interest in money, and using money is an insult to your noble character, but this is the only thing I have to offer."

Darian’s expression shifted slightly upon hearing this, and he sighed: "Very well. Seeing as you have such a fated connection, I will help you this once. It’s not about the money; it’s mainly because I cannot stand seeing demons running amok in the human world."

"Oh, right. I’ll send you my account number in a moment. Just transfer it directly."

Jack was overjoyed and thanked him repeatedly: "Thank you, Father! Thank you, Father! Your great kindness is something I..."

Darian raised his hand to interrupt him: "Alright, stop dawdling. Let’s head out now."

Jack nodded hurriedly: "Okay, Father. Please take my car, and I’ll drive you there right now!"

Darian waved his hand: "No need, I have my own car."

A moment later, Jack watched, wide-eyed, as Darian climbed into an extravagantly styled supercar.

Jack: "..."

Are priests this rich nowadays?

Jack’s home was located in the West District of Metropolis, a rather impressive Villa.

As soon as the car came to a stop, Jack hurriedly led Darian into the Villa. A haggard-looking woman walked towards them; it was Jack’s wife, Catherine.

Seeing her husband return, Catherine’s voice trembled: "Jack, you’re finally back. Lily has been screaming in her room the whole time. Father said he had already contacted someone who could handle this and went out to pick them up. I was the only one home, and I really didn’t know what to do."

"It’s okay, Catherine. I have brought a priest; he can help us with the exorcism."

After comforting his wife, Jack immediately turned to Darian, his tone nearly pleading: "Father, I leave my daughter in your hands."

Darian nodded calmly: "Do not worry. The Lord will protect your daughter. Take me to see her."

"Yes, yes, yes."

Jack hurriedly led Darian to the second floor of the Villa.

Before they even reached the door, a shrill, miserable wail came from the bedroom inside.

Darian pushed open the pink bedroom door, and a cold, evil aura immediately rushed toward them.

Looking in the direction of the aura, a young girl in a white nightgown was lying on the bed. Her limbs were firmly tied to the four corners of the bed frame, and she was thrashing wildly, emitting hoarse screams from her mouth.

Noticing someone had entered, the girl’s face took on a pitiful expression: "Dad, Mom, I’m in so much pain. Please, help me untie these..."

"Lily, please endure it a little longer."

Although Jack was heartbroken, his reason told him he absolutely must not untie those cloth strips.

The next second, the girl’s expression suddenly turned ferocious, and her voice became coarse and grating: "Let me go! Let me go! I want to get out!"

Jack shuddered in fear and hurriedly looked at Darian: "Father, what do we do now?"

Darian didn’t answer. He stared intently at the girl and snorted coldly: "Stop pretending. I can tell at a glance that you are not human. Bold monster, I will make you reveal your true form!"

With that, he grabbed the cross on his chest and pointed it straight at the girl.

But the girl didn’t react at all and continued to scream at the top of her lungs.

Darian complained inwardly: "Movies are all lies. What happened to demons being afraid of crosses?"

Jack asked cautiously: "Father, is there a problem?"

"It’s nothing, just a minor issue."

Darian said calmly: "This demon has significant power; a normal cross cannot handle it. Don’t worry, I have a backup plan."

He hung the cross back on his chest and instead picked up the Bible, which was thick enough to be used as a brick.

Just when everyone thought he was going to open the Bible and start chanting to exorcise the demon, Darian suddenly raised his arm and smashed the heavy Bible hard against the girl’s face.

Thud!

This blow had considerable force; the girl tilted to the side, and even the bed frame creaked in response.

The screaming stopped abruptly.

Jack and Catherine opened their mouths wide simultaneously.

Shouldn’t the Bible be used for magic exorcism?

How did it turn into physical exorcism?

The next moment, they saw their daughter slowly turn her face toward them.

There was no trace of the young girl left on that face. The entire face was a lifeless, greyish-white, with features twisted beyond human recognition. Her eyes were almost devoid of pupils, leaving only large areas of white, with a pinprick-sized black dot in the center of each.

This was clearly the true appearance of demonic possession.

Seeing this, Catherine screamed and nearly fainted on the spot.

Jack hurriedly supported his wife, looking at his daughter with a face full of terror.

The girl ignored these two terrified ordinary people, her pinprick pupils locked tightly onto Darian.

"Damn priest, I advise you not to meddle in other people’s business."

Darian straightened his back, his face full of righteousness: "As a follower of the Lord, how could I stand by and watch a demon wreak havoc on the human world? I advise you to leave this body immediately, or I will send you to Heaven to meet God."

For a demon, going to Heaven is undoubtedly a terrifying thing.

"Just you?"

The girl let out a wild laugh: "Stupid human, who do you think you are? Those inferior exorcism methods of yours won’t work on me. Even if I lay here and let you do whatever you want, you won’t be able to hurt..."

Before she could finish, she saw Darian pull out a Golden Desert Eagle, its pitch-black muzzle aimed at her.

The girl: "..."

This doesn’t seem like the normal exorcism procedure she imagined.

Bang!

The gunshot rang out suddenly.

What shot out from the muzzle wasn’t a bullet, but a beam of white energy filled with a holy aura.

"Ahhhh—!"

The moment the girl touched this energy, she immediately let out a heart-wrenching scream.

Large patches of greyish-white skin on her face showed obvious burn marks, just as if a red-hot branding iron had been pressed onto them, sizzling and emitting white smoke.

For the demon hidden inside the girl, this energy containing light attributes was practically venom; touching even a tiny bit was excruciatingly painful.

Just as Darian was about to fire a second shot, a cloud of black smoke surged out from the girl’s mouth and nose.

The girl’s body immediately went limp and slumped onto the mattress.

The black smoke roiled rapidly in mid-air, quickly condensing into the shape of a hideous monster, clinging between the wall and the ceiling.

The thing was shriveled all over like a corpse that had been buried for three years and then dug up. Its limbs were thin, long, and twisted. It had no eyes or nose; its entire face consisted only of a mouth filled with sharp teeth.

Darian clicked his tongue and said: "What a unique little thing, it really is something."

"I want you to die!"

The demon let out an angry roar and, using all four limbs, pounced toward Darian.

Darian didn’t budge an inch, raised his gun, and pulled the trigger directly.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The three gunshots almost merged into one.

The demon sneered coldly and moved its body quickly.

It didn’t dodge it.

Under the effect of Dead Eye, the bullets had a homing effect and all hit the demon’s body with precision.

The demon wailed as it fell heavily to the ground from mid-air, black smoke constantly dissipating from the edges of its wounds; it had lost all ability to act.

The demon hissed and cursed: "Bastard, you’re not a priest at all. What kind of priest uses a gun?"

Darian looked at it with contempt and stepped on the demon’s chest: "The times have changed, demon. If you have a gun and don’t use it, how can you become a great priest?"

He didn’t waste any more words, pulling the trigger continuously until it was riddled with holes, directly performing a physical transcendence on this demon.

The demon didn’t even have time to leave half a final word before turning into black smoke and dissipating completely.

[Mission "Exorcise, Young Man" completed]

[Rewards obtained: Experience +1500, Anchor Shard * 1, Item "Cling Film"]

[Item: Cling Film (Use cling film to catch ghosts)]

[Detected that the player already possesses twenty Anchor Shards. Synthesize into a complete Teleportation Anchor?]

"Finally, I’ve gathered another Teleportation Anchor."

Darian breathed a sigh of relief.

He had originally been worried that, just like the X-Men server, he wouldn’t be able to gather twenty Anchor Shards even after clearing the entire dungeon and would eventually be forced to leave.

Darian didn’t hesitate; he synthesized the Anchor Shards immediately and used the newly obtained Teleportation Anchor right away.

[Teleportation Anchor deployed. Cross-server teleportation point officially activated. You can now freely travel between the current server and the main server.]

A new selectable server immediately appeared on the map.

Excluding the Marvel and X-Men servers, a new DC server had now been added.

"Not bad, not bad."

Darian was very satisfied with this.

Watching Darian blast the demon into bits with his gun, Jack swallowed hard and walked over tremblingly.

"Father, is this... solved?"

Darian nodded: "Solved. You can go see your daughter now."

Upon hearing this, Jack and Catherine rushed to the bedside impatiently.

Without the demon possessing her, the girl’s complexion returned to normal. Apart from her cheek being a bit swollen, her body was unharmed.

Catherine wept with joy, hugging her newly awakened daughter and crying together.

Jack was equally happy, but his reaction was more restrained than his wife’s. He gave Darian heartfelt thanks, asked for Darian’s account number, transferred the money immediately, and even added an extra one million.

Darian naturally accepted it all with a smile and kindly reminded them: "I did some divination, and the horoscope in this area is not very good. Your daughter’s demonic possession was likely not an accident; there’s a high probability she picked it up in this house."

Wait, aren’t you a priest?

How are you doing divination on horoscope ?

Jack’s face turned pale: "That explains it. We just bought this house a while ago. We finished the renovation last month, and we had only moved in for a few days when my daughter had this incident."

"Damn it. Tomorrow... oh no, we’ll move out later today. We’ll just leave this house here; we’re not living in it anymore."

After what just happened, Jack didn’t dare stay in this house any longer.

Anyway, his family had considerable assets and didn’t care about this small loss.

Darian raised an eyebrow upon hearing this: "You don’t want this house anymore?"

Jack said helplessly: "Since you said so, Father, how could I dare keep it? Selling it to someone else won’t work either. If the next resident ends up in the same situation as us, wouldn’t I be harming them?"

He actually has good character.

Darian chuckled: "Who says you can’t sell it to someone else? You can sell it to me."

Jack was stunned: "Sell it to you?"

Darian nodded: "That’s right. I happen to be planning to purchase a property in Metropolis recently, and I think this place is quite suitable."

Jack hesitated: "But, there might be demons here."

"Isn’t that even better? It’s perfect for boosting my KPI."

Jack: "..."

Does the church have KPIs?

Just at this moment, someone suddenly burst in from outside.

"I just arrived, and it’s already over?"

The person who arrived was a middle-aged man with blond hair. His hair was messy, and he was wearing a long khaki trench coat over a white shirt with a loose, skinny black tie. He had a cigarette dangling from his mouth, and his whole being exuded a sense of decadence.

[NPC: John Constantine]

[Affinity: 0]

[Evaluation: Hellblazer, Scumbag Constantine, DC’s strongest scumbag, a walking teammate sacrifice machine, smoking thirty cigarettes a day is better than an immortal, doesn’t believe in God, only believes in nicotine, anti-smoking ambassador]

Constantine, the famous Scumbag Constantine.

He is not a superhero in the traditional sense.

Smoking, drinking, whoring, gambling, scamming, and cheating—he’s proficient in almost everything.

But these are not the point.

The reason he was dubbed "Scumbag Constantine" is because this guy specializes in scamming those around him.

Especially his friends; almost none of them have a good ending. They are all like consumable items, used specifically for betrayal and as scapegoats.

Furthermore, this guy talks nonsense, scams everyone, and has no bottom line.

Whether it’s enemies or teammates, basically everyone who has dealt with him has been played; either they’ve been scammed to death, or they’re about to be.

Darian didn’t expect to run into this guy here.

Simply bad luck.

Because the girl was possessed by a demon, Jack’s family sought help everywhere. Jack found Darian, while his father-in-law found Constantine.

However, Constantine was a step too late. Before he arrived, Darian had already finished the battle.

Constantine, with a cigarette in his mouth, scanned from the girl on the bed to the dissipating remains of black smoke on the ground, and finally landed on Darian, who was dressed as a priest.

He noticed the Golden Desert Eagle in Darian’s hand and muttered: "Are church exorcism tools so up-to-date now? It’s actually made of gold! How fucking rich. If I’d known, I would’ve gone to get a priest license back in the day."

But immediately after, Constantine’s eyes lit up.

He could feel that the strength of the demon just now was not bad; at least it wasn’t some street-level trash.

The stranger priest in front of him could handle the opponent in such a short time, so his strength definitely could not be underestimated. He was an excellent candidate to scam... er, friend.

Thinking of this, Constantine grinned and said enthusiastically to Darian: "Hello, I’m John Constantine, a professional exorcist. How about we become friends?"

Darian didn’t hit a smiling face, but replied tactfully: "Get lost!"

Constantine: "..."

What’s going on?

Could it be that the news of him liking to scam friends has already spread?

***************************

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