Chapter 5: Like Sunlight Piercing the Night
2023-10-23 Author: Rowing Without Oars 233
Click.
The restaurant lights went out without any warning. The sudden darkness plunged the assembled guests into confusion. This state didn't last long, however, because the next moment, the wall on the side of the restaurant facing the corridor was blown open with a deafening boom.
The guests cried out in alarm, and the elegant ladies shrieked. A bat-shaped silhouette appeared in the wake of the black smoke, like a demon sizing up everyone in the room with eyes of judgment.
"Ladies, and gentlemen."
A deep voice, disguised by a voice changer, rang out.
"What you are feasting on is the wealth of Gotham, the spirit of this city. But this banquet is about to come to an end. Starting from this very moment..."
He approached slowly, the shadow of a giant bat cast upon the carpet, reflected in the terrified pupils of every member of high society, as if it were being seared deep into their souls through their eyes.
"...not one of you is safe."
A grand entrance, a perfect sense of oppression. Although he was a novice, Batman had still succeeded in maximizing the dramatic effect, planting fear deep into the hearts of Gotham's elite.
Or rather, that was how it should have been.
But a sinister, sneering voice sounded from behind him.
"Oh, is that so? I have my doubts."
Batman whirled around in alarm, only to see that a twisted shadow had appeared out of nowhere in the darkness behind him. A pitch-black mass was flung at his face. He had no time to think, only managing to raise his arm to block it.
The next moment, he felt a tremendous impact that nearly dislocated his arm. His entire body was sent flying by the terrifying, monstrous strength, soaring out of the restaurant and into the corridor outside.
Incredible strength. Even with the cushioning of the Batsuit, the force was immense. Batman rose to a half-crouch, only to see the silhouette of another bat emerge from the darkness.
In the gloom, one could vaguely make out short, light-gray fur covering its tough skin. Its sharp-toothed maw was filled with curved fangs, and its wingspan exceeded two meters. Its form was terrifying and distorted.
Even the guests couldn't help but cry out in terror, while Maroni alone laughed as if possessed.
"Ha, when I heard some madman dressed as a bat was working against us, I thought, seriously? A guy in a costume, calling himself 'Bat'-man?
"Evidently, you've never witnessed a true Demon, my new ally, a Demonic Spirit from Hell!"
The bat-shaped Demonic Spirit let out a piercing shriek, and it seemed as if every pane of glass on the entire floor resonated with it.
Clearly, the rookie Old Master was encountering a supernatural event for the first time, and the situation was slightly beyond his expectations. But he reacted instantly, raising his hand and sending two Batarangs spinning out.
Batman's custom-made Batarangs, forged from a new alloy material developed by Wayne Tech, were sharp enough to slice through iron like mud and could even pierce a steel plate.
Yet they failed to leave even a single scratch on the twisted monster.
The bat-like Demonic Spirit let out a low growl and lunged forward. Batman rolled on the ground to dodge, and its sharp claws smashed through the wall behind him.
He used the momentum to spin into a spinning back kick. It was a leg attack with maximum explosive power, basically the most powerful strike the human body could generate. When executed with Batman's grandmaster-level combat skills and peak human physical conditioning, snapping a towering ancient tree in half at the waist like in a martial arts film would be no problem at all.
But the monster remained unmoved, without staggering for even an instant. Instead, it countered by grabbing Batman by the throat and slamming him against the wall, the impact cracking the plaster behind him.
At this stage, the equipment in Batman's utility belt consisted only of basic weapons designed for fighting street criminals. Forget the exclusive black technology for the Divine Battles of his later years; he didn't even have explosive Batarangs.
His armor couldn't resist this monstrous grip. He knew with certainty that his neck would be crushed into pulp by this monster within a second.
Before that could happen, he smashed a smoke pellet in its face.
Of course, it couldn't possibly do any real damage to such a monster, but the instantly deployed smoke screen successfully made it choke. The Demonic Spirit coughed twice, involuntarily loosening its grip. Batman took the opportunity to break free and quickly vanished into the smoke screen.
The Demonic Spirit roared in rage, swiping its claws through the smoke and angrily chasing him into the kitchen behind the restaurant. The chefs had long since scrambled out of the kitchen, leaving space for the two big shots to wage their war.
The bat-like Demonic Spirit glanced around and quickly found Batman huddled in a corner of the kitchen. The latter was raising another Batarang, which he hurled at its head with a whoosh.
However, it seemed he was too flustered and missed his mark.
The corner of the Demonic Spirit's mouth curled up, its ugly face seemingly forming a mocking expression, as if laughing at how pathetic this human dressed as a bat was—he couldn't even hit a stationary target.
But when it saw Batman immediately dive to the ground and brace for the blast after throwing the Batarang, it began to realize something was wrong.
When it turned its head again, it saw the knives and forks stuffed inside the microwave, which was running at full power.
That last Batarang hadn't missed. He was never aiming for the Demonic Spirit at all. Because he already knew his Batarangs were ineffective against it, Batman wouldn't make the same meaningless attempt twice.
That Batarang had embedded itself in the wall, piercing the natural gas pipeline hidden within.
BOOM!!!
Fire instantly spread, filling the entire kitchen, like a thousand-strong army stampeding through an enclosed space. An intense heat wave flattened everything in the room. The entire kitchen collapsed in an instant, and everything, including the Demonic Spirit, was swallowed by the blazing flames.
Batman was also sent flying by the shockwave, blown out of the crumbling building and plummeting towards the street below.
Fortunately, his impenetrable Batsuit resisted the main damage, and he managed to deploy a black parachute during the fall. After the wind resistance slowed his descent, he landed with some difficulty on the roof of a car parked on the street. With a loud clang, the roof caved in, and its windows shattered.
Yes, his current landing equipment was just a parachute; he didn't yet have the black technology cape glider of his later years.
Onlookers screamed and scattered, looking on in shock and uncertainty at this bat-like figure who had suddenly fallen from the sky.
Batman took two seconds to regain his balance, rolling off the car roof onto the debris-strewn ground. He pushed himself up, leaning on the deformed car, and gasped for air.
He realized something was wrong when he heard the surrounding crowd scream again.
Sure enough, he looked up and saw the Demonic Spirit had already flown out of the fiery explosion. It flapped its wings and landed in front of him. It seemed neither the blast's impact nor the fire had done any damage to its indestructible black body.
"You're a little different... a human warrior?" the Demonic Spirit sneered as it approached. "You have technique, you have ideas, but in the end, you're just a weak human.
"And I am a Demonic Spirit who serves That Lord! I won't be defeated by a mere ant—
"Hmm?"
It seemed to be some kind of profound Sixth Sense, a premonition akin to what people often call "a chill down the spine," that allowed the Demonic Spirit to catch a whiff of danger.
Following that dangerous instinct, it turned its head and immediately spotted a particularly conspicuous figure in the fleeing crowd—a person cloaked entirely in black, like an assassin.
That person had a strange mechanical device fitted onto his right arm. He calmly raised it, the dark cannon barrel leveled and pointing in the Demonic Spirit's direction.
The Demonic Spirit judged at a glance that this thing was probably one of those contraptions modern humans called a "gun."
It had seen humans use similar weapons, but such things were laughably weak against a being like a Demonic Spirit; they wouldn't even scratch it.
So the Demonic Spirit was amused.
Who was he trying to scare with a toy like this?
A tiny human, so ridiculous.
Just as it was thinking about twisting this arrogant human's arm off and watching him wail in fear...
"Specium energy filling complete," the light energy cannon prompted.
Orin Vale pulled the trigger.
The next moment, the Demonic Spirit witnessed a brilliant light that seemed to exist only in dreams.
An azure beam of light, like a torrential river, gushed forth. The explosive recoil sent Orin Vale's entire body sliding back half a step.
The Demonic Spirit's eyes widened. In the instant the beam of light rushed towards its face, a single doubt flashed through its stunned mind.
Could it be that I've been offline for too long and can't keep up with the current version?
Are humans all this terrifying now?
I'm just a minor Demonic Spirit. What kind of deep-seated grudge is this? You...
...was this really necessary?
The azure stream of light swept past, crushing the Demonic Spirit to dust with irresistible force, and even Gotham's seemingly eternal night was briefly illuminated for an instant.
Like sunlight piercing through the night.
(end of chapter)