What Gives You the Right?

Slade Wilson, the super-mercenary who had spent years on the edge of life and death and was said never to miss a mark, hung with both feet off the ground.

His hands clamped around the arm gripping his throat. Then he saw the red-and-blue figure.

Superman.

To his own surprise, Slade felt a flicker of relief.

Superman did not kill. Superman would never let someone kill in front of him.

As long as Superman stepped in, Slade would live.

"Put him down."

Clark spoke again. His voice sent a ripple through the air that slammed toward Chu Men with palpable force.

Chu Men did not look at Clark. He pulled the armored brute, who weighed over two hundred pounds, closer and studied Slade's face, now swollen purple-red. His gaze passed over Slade's single eye, desperate to live.

"Put him down?" Chu Men turned his head at last, looking toward Clark ten meters away. Mockery filled his voice.

Clark's brows drew together.

"Gotham isn't your slaughterhouse. Whatever he's done, the law will judge him. Now let go." Clark leaned forward. The air around him groaned under the pressure. He was ready to intervene by force.

"You seem to have misunderstood something."

The smile left Chu Men's face. He gave his right hand a casual twist.

Crack.

The sharp sound of breaking bone echoed over the abandoned docks.

Slade's hands stopped clawing at Chu Men's arm.

His head, covered by a half-black, half-orange mask, lolled to the left.

His cervical vertebrae had been crushed completely. White shards of bone pierced his skin and jutted into the air.

His one remaining eye quickly lost focus, turning dull and lifeless.

Superman had been only ten meters away, and Slade had still died.

The DC universe's strongest mercenary had been taken out before he could utter a last word.

Chu Men let go, and Deathstroke's corpse dropped straight down.

It struck the churning sea below with a splash, throwing up a spray of water. Seconds later, the waves swallowed it completely.

"Here, my word is the law."

Chu Men looked at Clark, his voice calm.

The Iceberg Lounge, an underground chamber.

Penguin still held his brimming glass of whiskey.

Chu Men had killed Deathstroke right in front of Superman.

Penguin's hand began to shake uncontrollably, and whiskey spilled over the rim.

"Madman... He really is a madman..." Penguin muttered. He suddenly realized that the person he had provoked was neither a mob boss fighting over territory nor an alien with superpowers.

He had provoked a Tyrant with no moral restraints, one who delighted in trampling rules. Fear took hold of him. If Chu Men escaped Superman, what would happen to Penguin?

Wayne Manor, the Batcave below.

Bruce Wayne sat at the console. On the screen, the green waveform tracking Deathstroke's vital signs turned into a red line.

Above the docks.

Clark's chest heaved.

He stared down at the black water that had swallowed the body, rage roiling inside him.

He had always held to his rule against interfering with the natural course of human life. He controlled his strength with everything he had, afraid he might break this fragile world.

Yet he had just watched a life snuffed out before his eyes on a whim.

"What have you done?" Clark's voice dropped.

His Bio-electric Field erupted. The rain around him burst into a white mist.

A searing red glow rose in Clark's eyes as concentrated Heat Vision gathered behind them.

The temperature soared. White steam even began rising from the sea below.

On the Yacht's deck.

Several Falcone Family informants and more than a dozen mob bosses lay flat on the deck, watching from afar.

Two terrifying waves of pressure bore down on them from the docks two kilometers away.

The air grew thick. Even breathing became difficult.

Lark knelt beside the sofa where Chu Men had sat moments ago, her maid outfit soaked by the rain.

She watched the two figures facing each other in the distant sky, her nails digging deep into her palms.

She had once thought herself one of Gotham's finest killers. Now she understood that, before true power, she was not even fit to be cannon fodder.

"Will he... win?" Jay asked softly, her teeth chattering.

"Do you want him to win?"

Lark looked up as she asked.

No one answered.

Above the docks.

Chu Men raised his chin slightly.

He extended his right hand and pointed a finger at the "S" on Clark's chest.

"Superman? Do you think putting on a skintight suit and flying around means everyone has to listen to you?"

Clark stared into Chu Men's eyes. Deep within those pitch-black pupils, a dark red light churned.

"You have great power, but you use it to satisfy your pitiful lust for killing," Clark said, each word deliberate. "I'll send you where you belong."

The smile vanished from Chu Men's face. He looked at Clark, now so close, his voice brimming with arrogance and fury.

"What gives you the right to tell me what to do?"

Chu Men's voice cut through the howling sea wind and struck Clark's ears.

Clark's muscles bulged, and the red light roiling in his eyes nearly spilled out.

The line he had always upheld had been trampled into the mud right in front of him.

Red and blue blurred into a streak of light in the rainy night. Clark's fist was already inches from Chu Men's face.

Chu Men clenched his right fist and drove it into Clark's.

Boom!

Their fists collided in midair, nothing but raw physical strength grinding against raw physical strength.

A visible ring of white air blasted out from the point of impact.

The shockwave skimmed across the sea, forcing the water below down by two meters and leaving an enormous hollow.

Then the gale swept over the shore.

Along the East End coastline, abandoned factories, roadside shops, and parked cars stood within a five-hundred-meter radius.

Crash—

Every pane of glass shattered at once.

Shards rained down with a clatter, covering the entire street.

Two kilometers away, wind and seawater swept across the deck of the luxury Yacht.

The mob bosses and socialites who had been huddled on deck watching moments ago tumbled over one another.

Clark's brow tightened.

He heard the screams aboard the Yacht and, farther away, the shriek of tires as cars braked hard on the bridge.

If he unleashed his full strength here, the entire East End would be flattened.

He instinctively drew back some of his strength, and the force behind his fist eased.

Chu Men broke into a grin.

"You're fighting me, and you still dare to get distracted?"