The Knight's Judgment

Wayne Tower rooftop, helipad.

This was the highest point in Gotham City, a symbol of power and wealth. Yet at this moment, it had become a desolate arena ruled by raging wind and rain.

The gale carried icy rain like countless invisible steel needles, lashing everything on the helipad with mad fury. The wind howled like the wails of the defeated. The sky was shrouded in clouds so dense they seemed impossible to disperse, hanging low and black as if they might collapse at any moment. Gotham's countless lights had become blurred, distant halos amid the storm, unreal and insubstantial.

Bane stood at the center of the storm.

He had long since torn off the suit jacket that symbolized "civilization," baring his upper body to the icy rain as it washed over his bronze, terrifying muscles, carved as though from granite. Every muscle bulged with explosive power, as if he were not flesh and blood at all, but a component of some war machine.

Without hesitation, he injected an entire triple dose of the "Titan" super-venom into his body all at once through the controller on his wrist!

"Hiss—!!!"

Accompanied by the teeth-grinding whine of a liquid pump, the emerald venom surged madly through the thick tubes on his arm and into his circulatory system. Visible to the naked eye, green veins writhed and pulsed beneath his skin like living vipers, radiating an ominous glow.

His body swelled again at a speed that defied biology! Muscle fibers were forcibly torn apart and instantly reassembled, while his bones creaked under unbearable strain. Every heartbeat boomed like a heavy war drum, so powerful that even the air around him trembled. The horrifying heat radiating from his body instantly evaporated the rain that fell upon him into sheets of white vapor, shrouding him like a colossal war god risen from the depths of hell, thirsting for destruction and slaughter.

He was no longer human.

His eyes, bloodshot from excessive venom stimulation and entirely crimson, stared without blinking at the torn clouds overhead.

A black aircraft, like the wings of a demon, descended silently from the clouds.

The Batwing hovered steadily about ten meters above the helipad. The powerful airflow from its engines blasted away the pooled rainwater below, creating a vast, dry circle.

The cockpit canopy slid open soundlessly.

Bruce Wayne did not, like the original owner of this body, instinctively seek out shadows and hide in darkness.

He simply walked toward Bane at the center of the storm, step by step, like a king arriving in his own domain.

Every step was steady and powerful. His custom alloy combat boots struck the waterlogged ground, sending rings of tiny splashes outward. Yet that rhythmic tap, tap seemed to carry some strange magic, landing precisely on the beat of Bane's violent heartbeat and filling him with an inexplicable irritation and oppression.

The cold, murderous outline of the Arkham Knight armor looked both savage and sacred beneath the lightning that occasionally split the night sky. The two faint blue electronic lenses on its mask resembled two icy stars from a universe at absolute zero amid this backdrop of darkness and chaos, devoid of even the slightest trace of human emotion—containing only pure, rational judgment.

"You... finally came, Bat!" Bane's voice had become like rolling thunder from the excessive swelling of his muscles. Every word was filled with bloodthirsty excitement and cruel delight. "This time, none of your ridiculous little toys! None of those gutter rats you keep around! Just you! And me!"

He stepped forward, and the reinforced concrete beneath his foot was crushed into a web of cracks!

"I'll make you watch with your own eyes! Watch how I... break—you—again!"

Before the final syllable had faded, the ground beneath his feet exploded! He shot forward like a heavy shell fired from a cannon, carrying an unmatched force capable of tearing the air apart as he charged straight at Bruce! His fist, as large as a casserole, let out a shrill howl as it flew toward Bruce's head!

That punch held all his strength and fury. It could have pulverized the frontal armor of an M1A2 main battle tank, along with everyone inside, into a pile of bloody pulp!

Yet Bruce reacted at an inhuman speed. His Tactical Mastermind had calculated Bane's attack trajectory, speed, and power the instant Bane's muscles first tensed.

One thousandth of a second before that violent fist wind touched his mask, his body leaned back slightly at an incredible angle nearly impossible for the naked eye to follow. At the same time, his right foot slid forward a precise half-step as though gliding over ice.

Like the most brilliant matador toying with an enraged bull, he narrowly allowed Bane's mountain-shattering punch to graze past his chest armor.

The violent gust from the punch even ripped open a brief corridor of vacuum through the rain several meters behind him!

This was one of the core principles of Ultimate Combat Arts—never confront absolute strength head-on. Use the smallest movements and the most precise calculations to dismantle the greatest power.

Having missed, Bane's extensive combat experience kept him from hesitating in the slightest. He drove force through his waist and spun sharply, sweeping a devastating kick at Bruce's lower body with enough power to snap a steel pillar.

But Bruce had already predicted every one of his follow-up moves.

The moment Bane turned, the servo motors in Bruce's legs fired instantly, and he drifted backward several meters like a weightless phantom, perfectly evading the sweeping kick. At the same time, he flicked his wrist, and three coldly gleaming Batarangs flew out soundlessly in a triangular formation.

Their targets were the fragile connectors linking the venom tubes to the mask at the back of Bane's head!

This was precisely the combat style at which the original Bruce Wayne had excelled most—using refined tools and precise analysis of an enemy's weaknesses to strike efficiently.

"Clang! Clang! Clang!"

Crisp metallic impacts rang out. Bane's reaction was no slower; he used arms hardened like steel to block the three deadly Batarangs. Even so, their sharp edges left three shallow white marks on his arms.

He grinned viciously, exposing a mouthful of white teeth. "Useless, Bat! Your little tricks don't work on me anymore!"

Bruce did not answer with words. Against a dead man, any words were unnecessary.

He closed in once more.

This time, he no longer focused solely on evasion and gadgets. He unleashed a suffocating barrage of relentless attacks, like a raging storm.

His style perfectly fused two utterly different yet equally deadly approaches—the surgical precision of the original Bruce Wayne and the overwhelming lethality of the peak Arkham Knight!

At times, he dropped his shoulder and elbow, employing the essence of Wing Chun's sticky hands. His arms clung to Bane's savage swings like parasites on bone, using the rotation of his body and shifts in his center of gravity to dissolve Bane's immense force into nothingness.

At other times, he changed techniques in an instant, his style becoming vicious and direct. He brought the most brutal elbow strikes and knee blows of Krav Maga to their fullest potential. Every attack landed precisely on Bane's most vulnerable points: the soft tissue beneath his ribs, his knee joints, the arteries in his neck, and more.