Lucifer, standing behind the counter, showed an expression of disbelief.
Constantine's introduction had completely scrambled his brain.
Constantine, Constantine, Constantine, and still more Constantines.
Just one trip to the Infinite Parallel War, and Constantine had brought back so many Constantines!
Was the Imperium his family business?!
Why was his treatment completely different from other superheroes?!
Not a single one died?
All of them surrendered to the Imperium??
There wasn't a single Constantine who stood firm against the Imperium for his home!
How could there be people in this world with absolutely no morals or integrity??
If it were just one individual from a parallel universe, that would be one thing. The problem was that individuals from *all* parallel universes were like this, which was frankly a bit absurd. The numerous ancient gods who had lost their divine power and were hanging out in Lucifer's bar also had strange expressions.
As a grace from the Holy Emperor, those gods and daemons who voluntarily surrendered and cooperated with the Imperium by handing over their authority and power received certain preferential treatment. They had no followers, and no divine power. Their daily life consisted of loitering in Lucifer's bar, living as unproductive freeloaders.
At this moment, the look in their eyes towards Constantine was a mix of admiration, stupor, and mostly incredulity.
Even before the Imperium arrived, Constantine was always capable of doing things that left them dumbfounded and unexpected.
A mortal who swindled and cheated in both the divine and daemonic realms, like a cunning merchant, pawning his soul to dozens of gods and devils. They thought this guy would eventually mess up because of this.
Who knew that when the Imperium came, Constantine would truly show them what it meant to go from being a complete nobody to a high-ranking official.
He transformed from a charlatan loathed by God and spat upon by Hell into a sought-after Imperial civil servant.
He had even been summoned by the Holy Emperor of this terrifying empire.
Just think about what kind of concept that is.
Constantine had accomplished things that many people could never do in their lifetime. Those things were even beyond the capabilities of gods.
Don't think this is a joke.
Even gods have things they cannot accomplish.
Otherwise, there wouldn't be the succession of gods.
Human power has its limits, and so does divine power. There is no eternity in the world, nor is there omnipotence.
Lucifer felt this deeply.
Hell no longer existed, and neither did Heaven.
His former superiors had all been destroyed by the Imperium.
Such things, who could have imagined them in the past!
If someone had told Lucifer in the past that his direct superior, the God of Heaven, would be killed, his head hung at the gate of Paradise Lost, and that he would become a bar owner, living by selling alcohol...
He would have certainly thought the other person was crazy and thrown them into a boiling pot of oil.
In the past, who would have thought such things would happen?
In the concept of many gods, a god is a god, forever separate from mingling with mortals, let alone having to support themselves.
But now, he was selling alcohol, and those ancient gods were either sweeping floors or working as waiters. That beautiful woman wearing black stockings, a maid outfit, and two rabbit ears on her head, who was weaving between guests with drinks, was once his most powerful succubus.
She was also his executioner, specifically tasked with executing evil people who dared to believe in Christianity. That shabbily dressed guy with eyes full of whites, holding a broom, was once an ancient god. The one cleaning the toilets inside was the King of Disease - Abaddon. There were many others scattered around.
Life is hard, gods and daemons perform for a living. The Imperium came, and the swindling Constantine transformed into a lord.
Which idiot would dare to ask him for old debts now?
For Lord Constantine to borrow something, that was him showing respect.
Dare to complain, and the Imperial iron fist would educate these stubborn remnants of the old era. The numerous gods and daemons to whom Constantine owed debts were completely helpless against him.
Before, they could still threaten him with what would happen after death.
Even if he wasn't a follower, they would spend a great price to retrieve him, then torture him and make him pay the price.
It's worth noting that the domains of gods can only accept the followers who believe in them. This is not just a tacit understanding between gods, but also an iron rule of the soul world.
Even if a person commits evil, if they do not believe in Christ, their soul will not enter Hell, nor will they be judged by God.
Of course, no god would ever say this. They would only emphasize that non-believers would fall into the abyss or be devoured by primeval destroyers.
No salesperson would say that the product they are selling is bad.
And no god would admit to having things they cannot do.
Some people might think that gods are noble, mysterious, and different from everything in the mortal realm. This idea is wrong. To put it bluntly, gods are like salespeople. Those foolish and ignorant mortals might object, believing that gods are omnipotent.
Lucifer had seen many such people before; they would always try to pick out a few phrases from religious texts and believe that gods are omnipotent.
In reality, there is no such thing as omnipotence in this world. The limit of what those mortals could imagine was nothing more than controlling others, or making someone who didn't love them fall in love with them. Their imagination was so impoverished, they were simply too easy to deceive.
Just a little illusion or some means of manipulating people's hearts was enough to fool them. To put it more directly, a top-tier rich person might seem omnipotent to a poor person.
"Boss, if it's really too much, let's close for the day!" Metz, the executioner, wearing black stockings, a maid outfit, and two rabbit ears on her head, walked up to Lucifer and whispered, "With so many Constantines, we'll break."
Metz had an extremely hot figure, curvaceous with a slender waist that could be easily grasped, fair skin, lips as red as fire, and smooth curves full of temptation.
"Don't use such ambiguous words," Lucifer rolled his eyes at his subordinate in a very human-like manner, "Saying it like that makes it sound like Constantine and I have some unspeakable secret."
"You don't? I see Constantine always seems to like coming here, spending less time with his fiancée than with you!" Metz looked at Lucifer, her alluring eyes teasing.
Lucifer: ...
"How about that! My team members." Constantine, having finished the introductions, slapped the long table, his eyebrows slightly raised, looking extremely smug.
From ancient times to the present, who could be as outstanding as him, gathering so many Constantines?
"Quite unique," Lucifer said, looking at the pile of Constantines of varying sizes and heights, giving a forced smile.
"Oh, it's little Morningstar," a milky voice sounded.
Lucifer looked down and saw the loli Constantine.
She was wearing a pink long dress, her face was round and chubby, and she looked absolutely adorable.
If only her tone wasn't so old-fashioned, it would be perfect.
"Children shouldn't talk like that," Lucifer said, looking at the loli Constantine.
"Uncle is so gentle," the loli Constantine showed a cute expression, trying her best to stand on her tiptoes, and extended a slender, smooth little hand.
Lucifer reached out without any guard.
As a result, the loli Constantine grabbed him and yanked him out from behind the counter.
He spun 360 degrees and then crashed with a bang onto a bar table, smashing it into pieces. The loli Constantine screamed, picked up a nearby stool, and rushed forward, about to give the former Lord of the Fallen Angels a headshot.
If the other Constantines hadn't intervened in time, Lucifer would have ended up in the hospital.
"I forgot to tell you, she's a ferocious loli," Constantine said awkwardly, pulling up the bewildered and frightened-looking Lucifer, "She used that loli face to trick a bunch of unfortunate local gods; she owes more debt than all the rest of us combined."
Looking at the cute loli, who was still flailing and demanding to teach Lucifer a lesson, tightly held by the strong Constantine.
Lucifer suddenly felt a huge urge to complain, unsure whether he should or shouldn't.
He limped back to his counter.
"I should be used to this. Constantine is just like this; no matter what form you take, you'll all be the same. Remember to pay for that table, or I'll sue you at the Imperial Ministry of Justice."
This small interlude made the numerous ancient beings lurking in Lucifer's bar as silent as cicadas in winter.
Each of them lowered their heads, afraid that this group of Constantines would notice them.
Ordinary Imperial citizens, however, were extremely excited.
Constantine always brought them interesting stories or rumors.
He was a rare adjustment to their dull daily lives. They all walked up, greeted Constantine, and urged him to tell stories of the Imperial expeditions. The scope of the Imperium's expeditions was growing larger and larger.
Every day, new worlds were discovered, conquered, and incorporated into the Imperium's sacred territory. The cheers and adoring gazes of the people could satisfy one's vanity. The Constantines were also mortals and could not avoid this.
Many Constantines were dragged away by the people, gathering around them, listening to their stories.
But the Constantine who was Lucifer's true friend sat at the counter, holding a glass of ale and chatting with Lucifer.
"How is the Imperial expedition going?" Lucifer rubbed the spot where he had been thrown; without divine power, he was bothered by these small aches and pains just like a mortal.
"It's still the same, fighting those superheroes, dealing with those self-righteous gods." Constantine said casually, "I'm not a regular army, at most a militia. Catching the Infinite Family, escorting those rebellious gods, other things basically don't fall to us."
Lucifer, wiping the wine glass, felt a wave of helplessness and wanted to complain.
When did the Infinite Family and the Rebel Gods become so pathetic, only fit to fight against the militia conscripted by the Imperium?
"Didn't you hear any rumors?" Lucifer asked.
Hearing this, Constantine looked at Lucifer and said, "What's there to ask about! I can't even finish my own work. This time, I captured Death and Superman from Parallel Universe 0414 and brought them back. Only then can I come here for a drink. After drinking, I have to go catch more people."
Hearing this, Lucifer was silent for a moment before asking.
"Have you seen Lucifers from other universes?"
Constantine nodded, then added, "The Surrender Act has been amended. Only those gods and daemons who are willing to be branded and serve the Imperium can survive. Many have been assigned to departments related to the warp. Don't think about setting up a Lucifer-exclusive bar, the Imperium won't allow it."
"I don't have such a twisted sense of humor as you, specially forming something called the Constantine Squad." Lucifer's tone was undisguised contempt for Constantine.
When he saw a group of Constantines walking in from the door, he was completely bewildered.
What is called Constantine's little shock!!
This is f*cking Constantine's little shock!!
"This is called a highly skilled squad with shared interests." Constantine tousled his hair.
"Sir, please be careful. I am a proper succubus who abides by the laws of the Imperium. If you continue like this, I will sue you."
An angry voice attracted everyone's attention.
When everyone looked over. They found the Constantines harassing the beautiful female bartender, who was Lucifer's former executive, Mazikeen.
Old Constantine raised his eyebrows, with a lewd smile on his face.
Big Dick Constantine even twisted his eight-pack abs and thrust his hips back and forth.
Even Loli Constantine used her small hands to grope the bartender up and down.
"You guys are indeed birds of a feather," Lucifer said mockingly, "Especially when it comes to reproduction."
Constantine: ... These guys are bringing too much negative attention to me!!
"Enough." Constantine stopped the squad members' unruly behavior, "Did you forget about the last time you messed up Sister Death and were punished? Do you want to have a heart-to-heart talk with an Imperial Inquisitor?"
As soon as he said this, several Constantines shrugged and dispersed.
Loli Constantine was still unwilling to give up. When she turned her head, she even winked at Mazikeen a few times, completely showing her deranged nature.
Occasional interludes kept popping up, fully displaying Constantine's true colors.
But nothing serious happened. The Constantine Squad just had some drinks and then went back to execute their mission. Those guerrillas who defied the Imperium urgently needed this group of Imperial lackeys to suppress them.
Humans always like to use poetry to express war and the end of all things.
Scholars and poets try their best to romanticize sacrifices.
However, true war is never romantic.
All it reveals is cruelty and bloodshed. The war here is destined not to be known by ordinary people. The vast amount of information and the evil truth between universes would burn their brains.
Urgent alarms blared on the colossus-class battleship *Expedition*.
Busy crew members ran around, desperately maintaining the damaged ship. There were explosions and fires everywhere. The wounded were carried down, or directly executed, in order to release their souls before they could be corrupted, allowing them to return to the embrace of the Holy Emperor.
Death, screams, wails, crying, all sounds echoed.
If one looked down from the vast void, they could see a large chunk of a colossus-class battleship, comparable to a planet, being bitten off.
Surging flames and explosions constantly appeared at the breach.
Occasionally, maintenance personnel and machinery would be thrown out, turning into ice sculptures, or dying from lack of oxygen.
Original temporal data lost, time reversal device has failed. The Observer Legion possesses power on par with the Imperium.
As in the past, every battle requires a large number of lives to fill in order to win. Titus stood on the command platform, watching the screens, searching for a breakthrough in the battle from the feedback transmitted by other units. The Imperium paid a heavy sacrifice to corner the enemy in their fortress.
Now, only one final step is needed to annihilate them completely. This is a war waged against gods, far more brutal than the policing actions against superheroes.
A Primarch brother of the Holy Emperor commanded the battlefield, and countless armies launched an assault on the enemy's fortress under his command. The Observer Fortress is a giant palace built in a dimensional space, assembled from various complex geometric structures.
It is incredibly complex, extending infinitely into non-existent angles.
It's like a three-dimensional life form being suddenly thrown into a four-dimensional world, where the eyes perceive infinite detail.
In that space, time flow and orientation are reversed. The Imperial forces struggled to advance.
Glen and his 0142 Assault Squad were attacking a cube-shaped building.
He had completed the fourth generation Primaris upgrade, and the built-in Emperor's Heart also possessed the latest version of the Rule Concept Rewriter, with the ability to change the physical laws or temporal data around him.
However, in this war against the Observer Legion, this power, comparable to that of gods, was not enough to crush the enemy and change the battlefield. The building exuded a strange glow. These glows had the ability to distort spacetime and prevent detection.
Glen knew that the Observers were here, hiding and waiting for the Imperium to fall into their trap.
He had already lost many brothers in this campaign. The humming of the Cognitor was incessant.
Inputting the outlined five-dimensional map into Glen's mind, causing his head to ache.
His brain was not meant to process such high-dimensional data. The Observer Fortress is located in dimensional space. As long as they are willing and possess enough technology, they can build structures of any dimension.
Just like the Webway built by the Old Ones.
Humans find it unbelievable, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. The team was advancing, and every warrior's spirit was highly vigilant. The flow of time here was not uniform.
Some people moved fast, some moved slowly. This was one of the strange characteristics of these buildings.
Accompanied by a sharp sound, a monster with sharp and smooth limbs, a body as smooth as glass, and no eyes or facial features leaped out from the glow.
Its sharp limbs instantly pierced through the body of a Primaris warrior. The time of the warrior who was pierced seemed to be accelerated by tens of millions of times.
Before the warrior could show a painful expression, he rapidly aged, his skin sagged, and finally turned into dust. The armor, made of high-density material and capable of defending against exterminatus-level attacks, lost its luster, showing the mottled and rusted marks of time.
Glen raised his bolter and fired at it.
Bullets carrying annihilation matter struck the monster's body.
Amidst piercing screams, it turned into burning, scattered embers and ashes. This was just the beginning; more monsters leaped out from the glow and attacked Glen and the others. They were hidden within those special lights, undetectable and unfindable.
Only when the Primaris warriors entered their domain would they leap out and attack the Imperium. They all carried psyker glows, distorting the surrounding spacetime and the flow of time.
Glen killed twenty or thirty, possibly more.
His counter was disrupted by the time flow and couldn't calculate the number of enemies killed. The annihilation matter contained in the special bolter rounds could turn those monsters into ashes from the inside out.
He fired all the bullets inside.
Seeing the helmet indicate that ammunition was depleted, he activated his axe.
However, he did not achieve the final victory.
A monster pierced through his helmet.
Pierced through his brain.
**WARNING: Undergoing time flow acceleration attack, correcting personal time flow.**
**WARNING: Correcting personal time flow, please evacuate the dangerous area immediately.**
Piercing sounds echoed in Glen's mind.
His time seemed to be stretched infinitely, as he experienced a long and slow death.
Although in the eyes of other warriors outside, the moment he was pierced, he turned into dust under the ravages of temporal power.
Glen didn't feel that way; he felt as if he had gone through an eternity before finally welcoming the final darkness.
On the command platform, Titus saw another information feedback appear on the screen.
Assault Squad 142, all personnel killed in action, and then it was scrolled down, replaced by more death reports. Those death reports flowed like a tide, continuously, as if there was no end.