Kalibak collapsing from a single hit was far too suspicious. Batman—a man whose paranoia bordered on clinical—wasn't about to take it at face value.
He grabbed a random grunt, balled the man up like a cannonball, and hurled him at Kalibak.
"Pfft—" Like a miniature fountain, the lion-maned warrior spewed another mouthful of blood. Earlier, his eyes had been burning with defiance and hatred when he looked at Batman. Now there was nothing—his consciousness was slipping, and he was clearly on the verge of collapse.
"Am I really that strong?" Batman looked at his own fist, then glanced back at the trail of casualties he'd left behind.
It didn't add up. The grunts were only badly injured, so why had this one—who appeared to be their leader—gone down like a sack of bricks from a single punch? Was this some kind of insurance scam?
Even Batman's ninth-level intellect couldn't untangle the real reason.
He had no idea that his armor was powered by the divine force of Death, and that Kalibak's body was still saturated with a substantial amount of the same energy.
Whatever paternal affection Darkseid held for his son, it certainly didn't extend to purging divine residue on his behalf. With the death energy attacking from both within and without, Batman's punch had ripped open old wounds. A Kalibak at full strength might have weathered it. As things stood, all he could do was lie there and wait for medical attention.
Batman had intended to interrogate the brute about his son's whereabouts, but one look at Kalibak's sorry state and he abandoned the idea—another punch might literally kill the man.
The tracker signal was still active. Rescuing Damian came first. Without further hesitation, he flew onward.
Watching from the rear, Steppenwolf was completely baffled. Kalibak had gone down far too quickly. You couldn't even bother to trade a few blows? Even Steppenwolf, who considered himself reasonably composed, wanted to strangle the fool. Absolutely disgraceful! They were family, after all—watching a relative get punched out like a training dummy by some mortal was a stain on everyone's reputation.
Left with no choice, he stepped onto the field himself.
"Steppenwolf?" Having punched his way through several more pursuers, Batman studied the axe-wielding giant ahead of him. He actually recognized this one.
"Who are you? There's a faint scent of death on you." Steppenwolf wasn't wrong—he knew the divine force of Death intimately. On a screen, it might not register, but face to face, there was no mistaking it.
Unfortunately, Batman misread him entirely. His expression darkened. "That would be your death."
Steppenwolf was done talking. The axe swung in a horizontal arc.
Without the armor, dodging would have been nightmarish. But now, Steppenwolf's ferocious strike played out like slow motion in Batman's eyes. The Speed Force hummed through the suit's systems—not enough to grant him a speedster's full velocity, but combined with the armor's suite of tech enhancements, his reaction time wasn't far behind a speedster's.
He read the axe's trajectory, seized the haft, and launched a flying kick at Steppenwolf's jaw.
"Oh?" As if startled by his opponent's blazing reflexes, Steppenwolf tilted his head to dodge, simultaneously drawing a freshly forged greatsword and slashing diagonally at Batman's arm.
The strike was fast, vicious, and wickedly precise. Even diminished, he was still the same Steppenwolf who had ambushed Earth-2's Wonder Woman. Batman had no choice but to release the axe and retreat, flinging three Batarangs as he went.
The Batarangs seemed to take on lives of their own. Mid-flight they split and multiplied—three became thirty, thirty became three hundred, three hundred became three thousand—until they filled the entire sky.
A dense swarm of dark shapes wheeled and darted in chaotic patterns, flooding Steppenwolf's field of vision while emitting strange sonic frequencies designed to scramble his judgment.
A smokescreen? With his vast combat experience, Steppenwolf grasped the intent instantly—or thought he did.
He sheathed the sword. The great axe whirled overhead like a hurricane, scything through the swarm.
Among them were genuinely lethal Batarangs, optical-tech projections of shadows, and even a few Green Lantern constructs—though amid the darkness and the chaos of flickering light, the faint green glow was easy to miss.
"You dare use cheap tricks like these? I—!" Steppenwolf's taunt died mid-sentence as Batman materialized at his left flank.
When had the mortal closed the distance?
Steppenwolf's weapons were built for reach—close quarters were uncomfortable. The axe was only halfway through its arc when Batman raised his left forearm.
The arm-mounted blades had been forged by Superman inside a star. Their hardness and edge represented the absolute pinnacle of metallurgy on this or any world. Three blades punched into Steppenwolf's left ribs. Knowing that New Gods possessed regenerative divine healing, Batman didn't withdraw them immediately—instead, he twisted, then exploded forward, using the momentum of his charge to carve a massive wound along Steppenwolf's flank.
Golden divine blood gushed out. Steppenwolf desperately channeled his power to mend the damage.
It was no use. Half his body was going numb. His divine energy didn't heal the wound—it collided with something coating the blades, amplifying the destruction.
This energy felt familiar. Wasn't this soul-force? And not just soul-force—there was something else mixed in.
Something that felt... vaguely... like it might carry a trace of Darkseid's signature?
Neither combatant was in the mood for conversation, but if they had been, Batman would have told him: the substance was an unnamed residue extracted from the battlefield where Thea and Darkseid had clashed.
The Blood Brothers had turned similar residue into toxic smoke. Batman wasn't about to be outdone.
No existing technology could identify the stuff. The best he could do was treat it like a League of Assassins poison—coat his weapons before a fight and reap the results.
The cocktail of divine energies left Steppenwolf in silent agony. The quantity was small; given time, he could absolutely purge it.
But Batman was far too experienced to grant him breathing room. He pressed the attack relentlessly.
They traded another seven or eight blows. Exploiting the numbness on Steppenwolf's left side, Batman carved a second wound across his back.
Just as he prepared to press the advantage, a sphere of black energy slammed into his shoulder, sending him tumbling back over thirty feet (~10 meters). DeSaad had finally arrived—seeing Steppenwolf in danger, he'd fired a shadow-force blast to knock Batman away.
Even with Diana's enchantments layered onto it, the Hellbat armor couldn't achieve total magical immunity.
DeSaad's personal sorcery might fall a notch below Thea's, but he was still among the elite of the divine magic-users. When it came to shadow magic specifically, the number of beings who surpassed him could be counted on one hand.
Batman, being a mere mortal, was certainly not among them.
However, the outer plating Superman had forged inside a star was a natural counter to shadow magic. Combined with the Olympian enchantments and Batman's own ironclad willpower, the spell delivered little more than a hard shove.
Seeing his target emerge unscathed, DeSaad felt a twinge of unease. He exchanged a glance with Steppenwolf, and the same thought crossed both their minds: this hulking figure in black was radiating either death-force or soul-force. Was the Goddess of Death lurking nearby, waiting to ambush them?
The memory of Thea carving through them like they were nothing sent a cold shiver through both gods. Without realizing it, their movements slowed.