The Arrival of the Yellow Lantern

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Dull thuds, like heavy hammers striking a hide drum, echoed continuously across the helipad. Every attack was accompanied by the muffled sound of bones being violently jolted and muscle fibers being brutally torn apart.

The longer Bane fought, the more alarmed he became!

He felt as though he was not fighting one Batman, but facing two at once!

One was like a ghost, always able to predict every one of his attacks in advance, harassing him with unimaginable techniques and an endless array of gadgets, striking at his weak points and leaving his strength nowhere to be used.

The other was like a cold, merciless killing machine. Every counterattack carried devastating force, every move aimed at crippling him and stripping him of his ability to fight!

He possessed strength capable of destroying the world, yet he felt like a giant being toyed with. His fists could never truly hit that figure darting around him like black lightning. Instead, wounds kept appearing across his steel-hard muscles under the other man's precise, lethal blows, seeping with traces of blood.

"Roar—!!!"

Bane finally went berserk. His Venom-corroded mind could no longer handle complex thought. He abandoned all defense and technique, allowing Bruce's rain-like barrage of fists and kicks to land on him as he suddenly spread his arms wide. Like a massive bear ready to hunt, he lunged at Bruce in a desperate crushing embrace!

He would use his most primal, most powerful strength to squeeze this slippery, damned bastard into pulp, alive, inch by inch!

Data streamed rapidly across Bruce's dark-blue electronic lenses, and a red line of text—"Opportunity"—was instantly locked in.

He knew the moment to decide the battle had arrived.

Rather than retreat, he accelerated directly into Bane's bear hug, powerful enough to crush a shipping container flat!

Just as the two were about to collide violently, Bruce suddenly lowered himself. His entire body slid along the ground like a cheetah, slipping beneath Bane's somewhat stiff armpit—rigid from overinflated muscles—and appearing behind him in an instant!

This was Bane's greatest blind spot! It was also where his defenses were weakest!

"Slade, move!"

Through the quantum-encrypted communicator built into his mask, Bruce issued an order as concise as possible.

A thousand meters away, atop another skyscraper.

Slade Wilson, codenamed Deathstroke, had lain motionless at the edge of the rooftop like a statue from the instant the battle began. His one remaining eye gleamed with the utterly calm, sharp light of a hunter.

Using the real-time tactical-visor data Bruce had shared with him, he had already calculated every minute weakness on Bane's body, the flow rate and pressure of every Venom tube, even the material thickness of their walls.

What he had been waiting for was this perfect firing window—created by Bruce using his own life as bait—which would last less than half a second before vanishing!

There was no hesitation, not even a breath.

He pulled the trigger of the specially modified, vicious-looking anti-materiel sniper rifle in his hands.

"Pfft—"

A nearly inaudible sound.

A specially modified cryogenic sniper round, its projectile wrapped around a Promethium-alloy core and filled with liquid nitrogen, silently tore through the black rainy night. At a terrifying speed three times faster than sound, it crossed a thousand meters in less than a second.

Then, with absolute precision, it struck the thickest and most crucial main delivery tube for Titan Venom at Bane's lower back!

"Splat!"

The resilient tube did not snap on impact. But the liquid nitrogen contained within the round instantly froze that small section of tubing brittle at the moment of contact!

Then, under the immense internal pressure created by Bane's own terrifying muscle contractions, the brittle tube exploded apart!

Highly concentrated emerald-green Titan Venom sprayed wildly outward like an out-of-control fire hydrant! The instant it touched the cold air and rainwater, it transformed into vast clouds of pungent green vapor.

"Urgh... ah... AAAAAAHHHH!!!"

Bane let out an inhuman howl of agony. He could clearly feel the force that sustained him, the power that made him feel as mighty as a god, draining frantically out of his body at an unprecedented speed.

His muscles began shrinking and spasming at a visible rate. The violent withdrawal symptoms felt like billions of ants gnawing through his bone marrow, making his body shake uncontrollably.

Now!

Killing intent flashed openly across Bruce's electronic lenses. He did not—and never would—give Bane even the slightest chance to catch his breath.

He rushed forward in a single stride. His right leg rose high like a battle axe splitting heaven and earth, carrying the full kinetic force of his suit before coming down with thunderous force, stomping viciously and precisely onto Bane's back!

"Crack—!!!!!"

This time, the sound of bone completely shattering was crisper, louder, and more final than it had been in the Batcave.

Bane could not even release a full scream. Only a rasping "heh-heh" like a broken bellows squeezed out of his throat. His massive body, as though all its bones had been pulled away, instantly collapsed into the freezing puddles like a lump of rotten mud. It continued convulsing violently as he lost control of his bowels and bladder; filth mixed with rainwater and the spraying Venom, giving off a nauseating stench.

He was not dead. But his pride, his strength, his ambition—everything he possessed as a warrior—had been utterly, cleanly, and cruelly crushed beneath that kick of vengeance.

Bruce looked down from above at the once-arrogant loser beneath his foot, his combat boot still firmly planted on Bane's back. In a low metallic voice devoid of any emotion, he coldly pronounced:

"It's over."

This kind of crushing victory—destroying what an enemy took the most pride in by even crueler means, then dealing a double blow to both mind and body—brought this body greater satisfaction from revenge than simply killing him ever could.

At that moment, the system prompt sounded in his mind right on time:

[Ding! Main Quest: A Knight's Revenge, completed!]

[Quest Evaluation: S+ (Perfect)! It has been detected that the host employed flawless tactical coordination, overwhelming personal combat power, and inflicted extreme physical and psychological terror upon the enemy with the final strike! Quest reward has been significantly upgraded...]

[Reward Issued: Yellow Lantern Ring ×1!]

As the words ended, a ring radiating an eerie, ominous yellow glow appeared out of thin air before Bruce, hovering silently in the rain. As the rain approached it, it seemed to be pushed away by an invisible force.

As if it possessed a life of its own, it vibrated gently and emitted a deep hum. It seemed to crave Bruce's finger, to crave his endless power of fear—enough to make the entire universe tremble.

Bruce merely gave it a cold glance, as if he were looking at an ordinary trophy.

He extended his hand in its black tactical glove and seized it. The ring seemed to have found its home, its glow flaring brilliantly, but Bruce quickly suppressed it by force and stored it expressionlessly in the utility compartment of his belt.

As if this terrifying divine artifact, capable of stirring bloody storms throughout the universe and making countless heroes flee at the mere mention of it, were nothing more than some trivial little trinket he had picked up.

He lifted his foot and no longer looked at the lump of flesh on the ground that still twitched faintly.

He opened the public communications channel and said to Gordon on the other end, "Commissioner Gordon, Wayne Tower rooftop. Come collect the trash."

Then he switched to a private encrypted channel and said to Deathstroke, "Slade, mission accomplished. The remaining payment will be transferred to your Swiss bank account in installments within an hour. As for your son, bring him tomorrow to register at the Miracle Medical Center under Wayne Enterprises."

"...Understood." Deathstroke's brief reply came through the communicator, carrying a hint of complicated emotion.

After doing all that, Bruce did not linger another moment. He turned and walked toward the Batfighter hovering silently nearby. Behind him lay the fallen former overlord. Before him was Gotham's gray dawn, finally torn open by a crack after the long night.