Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics

The novel was originally written to the end, with only half a page of blank paper left, but for some reason, another stack was added, and the handwriting began to appear rapidly.

The previous text was all in beautiful script, showing traces of handwriting, but the spacing between letters was meticulous. The text that followed began in script but soon went wild, no longer concerning itself with line or letter spacing, becoming faster and faster.

Later on, certain words indicating shock became uppercase letters as if to emphasize the impact; these uppercase letters were made even larger and heavily outlined several times.

The whole text began to fill with various descriptions of fights.

First, Joker battled Batman and the Deep Diver; then Batman awoke the ancient soul on the Lighthouse, driving the Lighthouse to crash into the Fish God Dagon, killing him. Batman then turned the corpse of Dagon into a mechanical monster to battle Ipo Zettel.

Seeing they were no match, Joker summoned his Clone Army, but at this moment, the Church's army also entered the fray, bringing out their evil Bone Dragon, bred beneath the Holy City. They clashed fiercely with Batman's Lighthouse monsters, mechanical Fish God, and Joker's vast army.

Nyarlathotep was dumbfounded.

It wasn't that he couldn't handle it psychologically; anyone would be overwhelmed by this.

The narrative of American comics was already chaotic, and turning it into a novel version was even more intense, adding three points of verbosity compared to the storyteller version of The Avengers battling at the airport, and more repetitive than the comic cross-talk of Doctor Strange battling Dormammu.

The handwriting was quickly filling up the remaining stack of paper; in just about fifteen minutes, Batman and Joker had already moved to the far side of the Moon, preparing to part ways in a happy and amusing manner, as Batman had anticipated...

"Who wrote this? Who wrote this??" Nyarlathotep's tone finally showed some fluctuation, he said: "Constantine!!!"

"Stop shouting," Silv said. "He probably can't respond to you right now."

"Someone is calling me," a voice came from the bedroom, under the light of a lamp, Constantine, disheveled and stubble-faced, was tied up with ropes and thrown in the corner.

Sitting on his bed, Greed yawned and said, "You're hallucinating, nobody is calling you."

Constantine opened his mouth and said, "He sounds very angry, what exactly did you write on it?"

"It wasn't me who wrote it," Greed shrugged.

Then he stood up, walked behind the chair at the desk, leaned on the chair back and asked, "How is it going, buddy? What's the progress of the plot?"

Seated in the chair was a skinny figure, dressed in a tight black leather jacket, his eyes surrounded by long spikes, and a wide-open mouth below, busy writing at the desk.

"It's nearly there," he said. "Joker and Batman have split up, they are going to the Star Court among the stars to seek justice for themselves. The jury members include Cthulhu and, uh..."

"Here's the list of Outer Gods." Greed handed him a piece of paper with names like Shabu Nicholas, Yog-Sothoth, Abhors, Hegros, and almost every well-known Outer God.

"Yes, that's right," the figure hurriedly scribbled again, saying, "Only such a lineup could form the Star Court, this is my new setting, but there has to be a boss among them..."

"Asathos, the boss's name is Asathos," replied Greed, carefully spelling it out for him.

"Fantastic, I like this name! I'm going to design him as the Creator of the billions of Multiverse, the supreme foreseer, the founder and manager of the Star Court… and then, when it's my turn to appear, I'll be the one to kill him!"

"Constantine!!!!!!"

The roar echoed from outside; Constantine broke free from the ropes, digging at his ears, "Stop shouting, I heard you. Look at the situation now, what can I do?"

A tall shadow stood outside the window shouting, "What are you doing?! What sort of crap are you writing?!! Stop it right now!!"

"Open your eyes and see, this clearly wasn't written by me," Constantine retorted. "I wouldn't write about Joker and Batman flirting."

The tall shadow was just about to look down and check the situation inside, but upon seeing that wide-open mouth, he froze.

And upon seeing the content he was writing, he exploded.

"Stop! Stop writing! What is this Star Court? What's the King of a Billion Stars?? Creator and Multiverse???"

"Don't listen to him," Greed said from behind the chair. "You're doing great, this script is fascinating."

"Did I tell you? The notebook in your hand is a Divine Artifact, whatever you write here changes all related content, even novels that have been printed and published, and as far as I know, someone is preparing to publish this novel widely."

"Really? A worldwide publication?"

"Yes, he'll do his utmost to get this book published on Earth in some universe, and this is thanks to an Outer God named Nyarlathotep; he appeared earlier, you might want to give him more scenes later."

"How about having him captured by Batman? I just thought of a twist where Batman absorbs the power of an Outer God and then goes to beat up those at the Star Court!"

"Fantastic! You know, this Outer God is known as the Crawling Chaos, and also as the God of Mischief because he has many avatars; let me tell you about some interesting ones..."

"Greed... Greed!!!!"

"What are you shouting for?" Greed frowned, "If I were you, I'd keep a close eye on the publication of this book; it's a great opportunity for fame."

The towering dark shadow paused, seemingly realizing something terrifying, then vanished in a whoosh.

On Faralines's highway, Bruce was holding the steering wheel with one hand, the other hand resting outside the car window, and the copilot Shiller was holding a map, with a route marked in pen, and a name at the destination circled - "Miskatonic University".

"Hey, have you guys seen it? The latest novel, the super popular one, what's it called?"

A student wearing a robe hurriedly caught up with a classmate ahead, putting his hand on his shoulder to ask.

"Faralines of the Haze? They say the first book is really good, and some even say that everything in it is true."

"Did you hear about it, too? My Dad told me things are getting chaotic over in the Holy City. They want to ban the book because they're afraid it might expose more secrets of the Church."

"The more they act like this, the more it proves that the book is telling the truth. Can you believe those weird happenings were orchestrated by the Church people? They even tried to send someone to teach here last time."

"Don't be fooled, they don't understand those stuff at all, and now they are nearly done for themselves. I heard that the Pope's personal guard has been disbanded. And the owner of that bankrupt Silter Medical Company, heard he died from an infection because he couldn't afford medical bills and had no insurance coverage."

"They deserve it, the Church might not be good, but that Silter Medical Insurance Company is even worse!"

Just then, another person caught up to them and said, "The second volume of Faralines of the Haze is out, the publisher has set up a little stall at the school entrance. Aren't you going to check it out?"

"Really? It's out already?"

"Yes, I heard this one has over 2 million words, finally something substantial to enjoy, let's hurry and check it out."

They quickly walked towards the school gate and indeed saw the book stall crowded with people, the students at the front curiously inspecting stack after stack of new books.

"Get me one." The girl in the front turned her head with pride and said, "I'm a big fan of Mr. V, I'm going to his meet-and-greet in Sigertek next week. They say he's super handsome, I'll bring back some photos for you."

"I'll take two, I'll take two, this book's so thick, it must be explosive! Open one for me, I want to start reading now!"

"Get me one as well, open it up for me, thanks."

Book after book was handed to the students, some of them so eager that they started reading right there.

But after a short while, they looked confused and said, "Are you sure this is Faralines of the Haze? Who is Batman? And who is Joker? Why are they suddenly fighting?"

"Oh my, this sentence structure is all wrong, and there are spelling mistakes too, why is the quality so poor this time?"

"Why are there so many uppercase letters? My eyes hurt!"

The first girl was also dissatisfied, saying, "This isn't Mr. V's style at all; he wouldn't use such shallow phrases. Did they change the writer for the second volume? I tell you, I'm not buying this!"

"Yeah, it's so badly written, totally ruins the brand! Refund! I'm not buying anymore!"

"Don't rush, everyone calm down." A figure approached, and the girl turned her head to see the clear blue eyes and immediately smiled, "Matthew, what are you doing here? I heard you're back for grad school, Professor Weiss must be delighted."

"Yes, I'm about to go meet him. Everyone, there's no need to crowd here, it's a safety hazard at the school's entrance. If you have any concerns, better discuss it directly with the publisher."

After the crowd dispersed, the student called Matthew turned and headed towards the department. Along the way, an acquaintance stopped him and said, "Matthew, you just came back and might not know yet, but the professor teaching undergraduate psychology has changed."

"What happened?"

That person lowered their voice and said, "The new professor used to be a member of the Pope's personal guard. Do you think he knows about those Church affairs?"

"Who knows? Maybe he'll be willing to share with us."

"Let's both go and listen then. I've been curious for a while now, and I'm not even sure if the novel tells the truth. Oh, by the way, the protagonist of the first book shares your name."

"It's probably just a coincidence." Matthew smiled and said.

The two entered the classroom and sat in the last row, but the classroom door paused with a slightly dull footsteps of dress shoes.

A robed professor walked in.

"Hello everyone, I'm the new psychology professor, you can call me Lodoff."

"What?! Your name is Lodoff, and you're also a member of the Pope's personal guard?! Are you the protagonist in that novel?"

"What novel?"

"Faralines of the Haze!"

"I've indeed been to Faralines."

As soon as these words were spoken, the classroom erupted into noise, students clamoring, "Professor, what really happened then?! Between you and Matthew, who is the cultist?"

"Yeah, who's the good one? I've been thinking about it for nights without sleep!"

The man at the podium smiled, making eye contact with a figure at the back of the classroom, then said, "Maybe we're both the good guys, or maybe.... both bad guys?"

The man's hand brushed over his collar, the school emblem made of books and runes reflecting the light, but inside the collar's crucifix, there was no crucified Jesus, only several twisting tentacles.

"Dingling."

"Class starts."