The light from Bruce's energy rapier grew brighter and brighter, gradually illuminating every corner of the dark abandoned factory. The spatial fluctuations emanating from the weapon made the blade itself appear twisted and distorted, as if reality was bending around it. At certain angles, it looked like he was holding not one sword, but countless overlapping blades occupying the same space.
With a sharp sound of air being cut, Bruce swung the energy rapier in a devastating arc aimed directly at the demon's neck.
This strike contained nearly everything he had left. Every ounce of power from the Incinerator ring, every bit of his considerable skill and training—all of it focused into a single killing blow. He had absolute confidence that this attack could end the demon's life.
Swish—
The energy rapier met the demon's neck. The blade, charged with enough spatial energy to literally cut through the fabric of space itself, instantly bit deep into the creature's thick scales.
The demon's supposedly tough armor didn't slow the attack even slightly. Against the combined force of Bruce's strike, divine power, and spatial distortion, the demon's vaunted defenses proved as fragile as wet paper.
The sudden, excruciating pain drove the demon into an instant frenzy. It could feel the mortal threat of that blade cutting deeper—could sense its own death approaching. The creature thrashed wildly, every muscle in its massive body straining against its restraints. The energy whip binding it shook and vibrated violently with each desperate struggle.
The restraints weren't unbreakable. If the demon threw its full strength into breaking free, the energy whip wouldn't hold for long.
And right now, with the demon fighting for its life, the energy whip in Selina's hands was visibly becoming thinner and more strained with each passing second. The weapon was literally being stretched to its breaking point.
"Hurry up and finish it! The whip are about to snap!" Selina called out, her voice tight with effort.
She could see the separated strands of the energy whip beginning to fray and break under the demon's relentless struggling. She gripped the main whip tighter, her knuckles white, and shouted to Bruce with urgency.
Understanding that Selina couldn't hold the demon much longer, Bruce didn't hesitate for even a fraction of a second. He channeled absolutely everything he had left through the Incinerator ring, pouring that divine power into the energy rapier and driving it deeper into the demon's neck with inexorable force.
In just a single breath—barely a heartbeat—the demon's head separated from its body and fell heavily to the ground. Thick black blood erupted from the stump of its neck like a geyser, the corrupted fluid spreading across the concrete floor and staining everything it touched.
Dong~~
With a deep, resonant thud, the demon's massive body collapsed and hit the ground. Bruce pulled the energy rapier free, the blade still humming with residual power, and finally let himself take a full breath.
"Done," he said simply, his voice showing only the slightest hint of exhaustion.
"That demon's strength was pretty impressive," Selina observed, walking over to examine the fallen creature. "It wasn't quite at demon servant level, but it definitely wasn't something either of us could've handled solo."
She was being analytical now, thinking through the tactical implications. Their abilities had grown significantly—there was no denying that. Between their training and the Incinerator rings, they could handle threats that would've been impossible for them a few years ago. They could easily solve most supernatural crises that came their way.
But what they were facing now wasn't just "most crises." These were demons. Real, genuine creatures from hell dimensions.
Without the Incinerator rings providing divine power, they'd only be capable of handling the weaker demons they'd encountered over twenty years ago when this kind of thing first started happening. Maybe not even those.
The demons they were running into now were clearly operating on a different level entirely. And while their own capabilities had improved dramatically, they were still somewhat outmatched when facing these more powerful entities alone.
After all, it had taken both of them working together just to kill this one demon—and it wasn't even a full demon servant yet. If they actually encountered a proper demon servant, they wouldn't stand a chance with their current strength. Not alone, anyway.
"We really need to master Constantine's magic," Bruce said, his strategic mind already working on the problem. "That magic circle of his could help us take down demons much more efficiently."
"That's easy to say, but how exactly are you planning to do that?" Selina asked, raising an eyebrow. "We're not magicians, Bruce. We can't just cast spells and construct magic circles out of thin air like Constantine does. If we have to draw them manually like these cultists did, we'd need to carry around a whole kit of supplies everywhere we go."
It wasn't that Selina doubted the effectiveness of Constantine's magic—she'd seen it work firsthand, and it was undeniably powerful. But the practical application was another matter entirely. Magic was still deeply unfamiliar territory for both of them.
In the middle of actual combat with a demon, they simply wouldn't have time to stop and draw out an elaborate magic circle. The demon would tear them apart before they finished the first symbol.
And even if they somehow managed to complete the circle, figuring out how to lure an intelligent, dangerous opponent into it would be a whole separate nightmare.
"I'll figure it out," Bruce said with quiet confidence.
He was well aware of the difficulties involved with using magic circles in combat. But he had no intention of giving up on the idea. He was already formulating a plan to use the advanced technology available through Wayne Enterprises to create a solution for the demon-exiling circle problem.
If he could solve the magic circle deployment issue—make it instant, portable, reliable—they'd have a much easier time dealing with powerful demons in the future.
Even if they came up against actual demon servants, they'd have a real chance of not just fighting them off, but actually exiling them completely and permanently.
The two of them continued talking through possibilities and strategies, but neither of them noticed something deeply wrong happening right behind them.
The demon's body lying on the ground was shrinking. Rapidly.
It wasn't until they were about to leave the factory that they finally saw it—the demon's corpse had already shriveled down to half its original size.
"Something's not right here," Selina said immediately, her instincts screaming danger. "We've seen dead demons before. This has never happened."
The two of them, who'd just started to relax, instantly snapped back to full alertness. They turned and stared at the withering demon corpse, weapons ready.
The body continued to shrink and deflate, but nothing else seemed to be happening. Maybe this was just some characteristic specific to this particular type of demon? Some kind of natural decomposition process?
They both scanned the area carefully, looking for any other threats or anomalies.
Suddenly Selina, who was standing a bit farther from the corpse, spotted something extremely unusual. The demon blood that had gushed out when Bruce decapitated it—all that thick black ichor pooling on the ground—was moving. Flowing in a specific direction.
"The blood! It's flowing toward the ruins!" she called out.
Following Selina's warning, Bruce's eyes snapped to the collapsed section of factory where debris had buried someone earlier. And that's when it hit him—there was still someone under those ruins. The demon summoner who'd called this creature in the first place.
The leader. The one who'd sacrificed himself.
The instant he made the connection, Bruce didn't waste a single second. He pulled out a small remote detonator from his belt and pressed the button hard.
BOOM!
A massive explosion erupted within the ruins, blasting the piled debris in all directions. Those were emergency explosives he'd planted on the summoner earlier during their initial fight—just a precaution in case something went wrong.
At the time it had just been paranoia and habit. But apparently his paranoia had been completely justified.
Even after triggering the explosion, Bruce didn't stop moving. He didn't know exactly what was happening, but whatever the demon's blood was trying to do, they had to stop it immediately.
He looked at Selina and they moved as one, both pulling out compact flamethrowers from their gear. At the same time, they pushed hard on the Incinerator rings, channeling divine power through them.
Puff~
Two streams of pure white fire shot out like attacking serpents, splashing across the shriveled demon corpse and the rivers of black blood still trying to flow toward the ruins.
The moment the divine flames touched the demon's remains and corrupted blood, everything ignited explosively. A fierce sizzling and crackling filled the air as the supernatural materials burned with unnatural intensity.
It was like watching gasoline meet an open flame—the whole area erupted in brilliant white fire, burning so hot and bright it illuminated everything around them and cast harsh shadows against the factory walls.
"Huh~"
A low, rumbling sound emerged from somewhere nearby. Both of them whipped around toward the source.
It was coming from the ruins—the same pile of debris where the explosion had just gone off. And now a deep, guttural roaring was echoing from within the rubble.
"That demon's still alive," Bruce said flatly.
They both dropped their flamethrowers and pulled their primary weapons again, facing the destroyed ruins with absolute focus and readiness.
Dong dong dong
Heavy footsteps sounded from within the smoke and dust. A figure emerged, walking out slowly and deliberately.
It was a humanoid monster that looked disturbingly similar to the demon they'd just killed. But the face—the face was different. It had shifted and transformed into something that looked like the demon summoner's features, twisted and corrupted but still recognizable.
Some kind of fusion had occurred. The demon had possessed or absorbed the summoner's body.
"Delicious soul..." the humanoid demon spoke, his voice layered and wrong-sounding.
His blood-red eyes gleamed with sick pleasure. He'd just devoured a human soul absolutely saturated with dark desires and twisted ambition—the summoner's soul.
The taste of it had been exquisite. He felt energized, almost euphoric. Even the significant loss in power caused by Bruce and Selina burning away most of his collected blood couldn't dampen the high he was experiencing.
His crimson eyes fixed on the two humans before him. The divine power radiating from them, clinging to their bodies and weapons, made him feel instinctive disgust and hatred. He didn't particularly care what their souls tasted like—all he wanted right now was to kill these two pests wrapped in heaven's power.
His legs suddenly coiled and then he launched himself forward. His feet slammed into the ground with such force that the concrete instantly cratered beneath him, leaving a massive depression in the floor.
The humanoid demon rocketed toward them like a missile. As he moved, the nails on his hands grew and extended rapidly, transforming into vicious curved claws. He slashed at both of them simultaneously.
Bruce and Selina both instantly recognized that dodging wasn't an option—the demon was too fast, and they were too close. Their only choice was to block and counter.
Selina raised her energy whip and spun it rapidly. The weapon split and multiplied, the strands weaving together around them in overlapping layers, forming a thick protective barrier.
Snap~
The demon's claws crashed into the shield formed by the energy whips. Those razor-sharp talons sheared straight through a large number of the whip strands, severing them instantly.
But the whips kept splitting and regenerating, new strands appearing as fast as the old ones were destroyed. Compared to the shield's regenerative capacity, the damage the demon was inflicting seemed almost insignificant.
However, the demon wasn't limiting himself to that one attack pattern. His claws became a blur of motion, slashing and tearing in a continuous assault. Massive numbers of energy whips were being cut apart, dissolving into motes of divine light that dissipated in the air like fireflies.
"How are you holding up? Can you keep this going?" Bruce asked, assessing their situation rapidly.
"Don't worry—I've still got plenty of juice left!" Selina replied with a slight smile, though her voice showed the strain of concentration.
Bruce's Incinerator ring had burned through most of its stored power during that final attack on the first demon. But Selina's ring was still relatively fresh, which meant she could maintain this defensive barrier for a while longer.
Getting Selina's confirmation, Bruce nodded slowly. Right now they didn't have access to an Incinerator Lantern to recharge their rings. If they wanted to survive this demon's assault and still have enough power to finish it off, they had to be extremely careful about conserving their remaining energy.
"But this isn't a real solution," Bruce said, thinking ahead. "We have to take this thing down. Permanently."
Even though they could block its attacks for now, they couldn't actually defeat it through pure defense. And once the demon gave up trying to kill them directly and instead ran off into the city, it would be an absolute catastrophe for everyone living in Gotham.
They had to find a way to kill this thing before their energy reserves ran completely dry. There was no other option.
Both of them fell silent, thinking hard and looking for any weakness they could exploit, any opening they could use.
Outside the factory, the situation was developing rapidly.
All the rescued girls had successfully boarded the Batfighter, and Alfred was remotely piloting it away from the dangerous area, taking them somewhere safe.
But before departing completely, Alfred had deployed a surveillance drone that remained behind, hovering near the factory and waiting for Bruce and Selina to complete their mission.
That turned out to be a very good decision.
Just moments after the fighter jet left the area, Alfred's monitoring screen suddenly showed the abandoned factory erupting in a massive explosion. Immediately afterward, both Bruce and Selina's communication signals cut out completely. Dead silence.
"Master Bruce! Please respond if you can hear me!" Alfred called urgently into his headset.
"Master Bruce? Can you hear me?"
"Master..."
After repeated attempts got no response whatsoever, Alfred's training kicked in immediately. He pressed an emergency button on his console. Within seconds, every team member's communicator chimed with an alert, and a red emergency signal beacon appeared on their phones showing a specific location.
"Everyone, Master Bruce and Miss Selina have lost their signals," Alfred's calm but urgent voice came through every earpiece. "They must have encountered an extremely dangerous enemy. I believe they require immediate support."
Alfred's words rang in everyone's ears simultaneously. Every member of the team frowned, immediately understanding how serious this was.
"I'll head over first," Barry's voice crackled through the comm channel. "If my signal disappears too, then everyone else comes in together. Sound good?"
Barry was the obvious choice for first response—he was the fastest by a huge margin, which meant he could provide backup in the shortest possible time.
The moment he finished speaking, a brilliant golden lightning bolt flashed through Central City and streaked toward Bruce and Selina's last known coordinates at incredible speed.
"What the hell kind of demon did they run into?" Barry wondered as he ran, his mind racing almost as fast as his body.
The beetle demon he and Bruce had fought before had been tough—really tough, actually. But even that thing hadn't interfered with their communicator signals.
But now Bruce and Selina didn't have any signal at all. Not even static or interference. Just complete radio silence. That wasn't just a strong opponent—that was something with specific capabilities designed to cut them off from help.
Even if the demon they were fighting wasn't overwhelmingly powerful, they clearly needed assistance.
Barry pushed himself harder, running faster and faster. The Speed Force current flowing through his body intensified, electricity crackling around him in visible arcs. The Incinerator ring on his finger suddenly began to glow brilliant white.
The next moment, the golden lightning that normally wrapped around Barry's body transformed. It shifted from bright gold to pure, radiant white in an instant.
His speed increased dramatically, the divine power amplifying his already incredible velocity. He approached the target location in a fraction of the time it would normally take.
Back at their various locations, the rest of the team stayed alert, watching Barry's communication signal carefully. If it disappeared like Bruce and Selina's had, they'd all mobilize immediately.
Inside the abandoned factory, Bruce was channeling the very last reserves of power from his Incinerator ring. This was it—the final move he could make. If this didn't finish the demon in one shot, they'd have no choice but to call for backup.
Assuming they survived long enough to make the call.
"Hold that thing still for me," Bruce said, his voice steady despite the desperate situation. "I'll end this."
"Got it!" Selina responded immediately.
She swung her arm hard and the energy whip that had been wrapping them protectively suddenly reconfigured itself completely. Countless individual whip strands shot outward like living serpents, rushing toward the demon and coiling around its entire body in tight restraints.
"Time to send you back to hell!" Bruce declared.
The energy rapier in his hand thrust forward with explosive force, erupting with blinding light. The blade drove straight toward the demon's head, aiming to punch through its skull.
This blow contained absolutely everything Bruce had left—every last drop of divine power, every ounce of his physical strength. The pierced head erupted with black blood as the blade penetrated deep.
But then the demon smiled. Even with a sword through its brain, it smiled.
The pierced head suddenly split apart, the flesh separating and pulling away from the energy rapier entirely. Then, right in front of Bruce's horrified eyes, the wound rapidly closed and healed, leaving the demon's head completely intact.
The demon suddenly flexed with overwhelming strength. The energy whips binding its arms simply tore apart, snapping like thread. Its claws lashed out, slashing viciously toward Bruce's torso.
Shua~
The claws cut through empty air with a sharp whistling sound. But there was no spray of blood, no scream of pain.
Bruce had simply vanished from directly in front of the demon.
"Ha! Looks like I got here just in time!" a new voice called out cheerfully.
The Flash—Barry Allen—stood several feet away, grinning. Bruce was right beside him, clearly having just been grabbed and pulled to safety at super-speed.
Seeing that it was Barry who'd rescued him, Bruce's expression showed a mix of relief and confusion. Why had Barry come? They hadn't called for help.
"We didn't send out a distress signal," Bruce said. "Why are you here?"
"It was Alfred," Barry explained in a relaxed tone, though his body was coiled and ready to move at any instant. "Your comm signals cut out completely. He figured you probably needed support, so I came to check it out."
Barry was still somewhat caught up in the rush of speed he'd just experienced. The Speed Force was always fast, obviously, but he needed to constantly push himself and train to increase his maximum velocity.
Just now, he'd released the power of his Incinerator ring while running, combining divine energy with the Speed Force. The result had been a dramatic surge in speed that let him arrive with literally seconds to spare.
That's when Bruce realized something and checked his communicator. The device was completely dead—not just out of range, but entirely non-functional. No signal, no static, nothing at all.
"I see. Well... I have to thank you," Bruce said sincerely. "If you hadn't gotten here when you did, I'd be in serious trouble right now."
He knew exactly how close that had been. Without Barry's intervention, those claws would've torn into him. Even with his armor, he'd have been critically injured at best. More likely, he'd have been killed outright.
Barry accepted the thanks with a cheerful nod, then turned his attention to the demon. Electricity began building in his hands, arcs of white-blue current crackling between his fingers as he prepared to attack.
But Barry didn't realize something crucial: the exact moment he'd rushed into the abandoned factory, his communicator signal had also vanished completely.
"Flash's signal is gone too," someone noted over the team channel, their voice tight with concern. "Looks like they really are in serious trouble."
After discovering that Barry's signal had disappeared the same way Bruce and Selina's had, everyone immediately understood that this wasn't just bad—it was potentially catastrophic. At minimum, they were dealing with an opponent that could somehow cut off all electronic communications in its vicinity.
"I'm the strongest," Clark Kent's voice came through clearly on the comm. "I'll go this time."
The moment he finished speaking, Clark changed into his Kryptonian battle suit and launched himself into the sky, flying at maximum speed toward the location where all three signals had disappeared.
The rest of the team prepared themselves. If Clark's signal vanished too, they were all going in together, overwhelming force be damned.
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