One of the summoners walked over, clearly looking for his companion. No matter what he was in the middle of doing, he couldn't afford to miss the demon summoning ritual they had planned.
"What's wrong with you? Why didn't you bring them over yet?" he called out, his voice echoing slightly in the abandoned factory.
Before he could get an answer, a black-armored arm shot out from the shadows and clamped over his mouth, cutting off any sound. A split second later, something hard cracked against the back of his skull. His eyes rolled back, and he crumpled to the ground without another word.
"Are you done yet? They're about to figure out something's wrong," Bruce whispered urgently from his position near the cages.
He could easily rush out right now and take down all these demon summoners in a straight fight—he'd done it before. But there was no guarantee they wouldn't turn their weapons on the captive girls during the chaos. That was a risk he absolutely couldn't take.
He was here to rescue these victims and track down whoever was running this operation, not to get into a messy brawl that could end with innocent people caught in the crossfire.
"Almost done, just give me a minute," Selina replied quietly, her fingers working even faster now. She could feel the pressure of time running out.
The demon summoners had tied up the girls with excessive force, probably paranoid about any of them breaking free and escaping from the cages. Because of how tight the knots were, Selina had to work carefully to avoid cutting or hurting anyone as she worked the ropes loose. It was taking longer than she wanted.
Fortunately, as soon as each girl got free, she immediately turned to help the others, which sped things up considerably. But even with the extra hands, it still wasn't fast enough.
The demon summoners weren't going to wait around forever.
They'd noticed that the guy who'd walked out a few minutes ago had suddenly gone completely silent. It wasn't just that he stopped talking—it felt like he'd vanished entirely. That set off alarm bells for all of them.
"You—go check it out. The rest of us will circle around from the back!" one of them ordered, his voice tense with suspicion.
The group split into two teams. One headed for the main entrance while the other moved to flank from behind, spreading out to cover more ground.
The first guy not responding might've just meant he got distracted by something. But when the second person said a few words and then went completely silent too? That definitely meant trouble.
Both teams moved quickly, approaching the cage area from opposite directions, their footsteps careful and deliberate.
Bruce hadn't spotted their movements yet, but years of combat experience had taught him to always think three steps ahead. He'd already placed specialized traps at every possible ambush point around the perimeter—every corner, every blind spot, every route someone might use to sneak up on them.
This tactic had proven useful countless times over the years. More than a few criminals had walked right into his carefully laid snares.
Tap tap tap...
The footsteps were faint, barely audible, but Bruce's trained ears caught them anyway. Someone was approaching his position.
He counted in his head, tracking their movement by sound alone, waiting for exactly the right moment.
Three... two... one!
The instant he hit one, Bruce exploded into motion. He leaned out from cover and his hand shot forward, grabbing the approaching figure with iron strength.
But the moment his fingers closed around the person, he spotted another one right behind—another masked summoner, this one with his hand already moving toward something at his belt.
Bang!
The masked man stumbled backward from Bruce's grab, but his gun was already firing. Bright muzzle flash lit up the dim factory as the weapon barked.
Ding!
The bullet struck Bruce's forearm but ricocheted off the reinforced armor plating with a shower of sparks, leaving nothing but a shallow dent in the dark metal.
"Go to hell!" the demon summoner snarled.
Seeing that body shots were useless against the armor, he quickly adjusted his aim upward, pointing the gun directly at Bruce's exposed head. His finger tightened on the trigger, ready to blow Batman's brains out.
Somewhere behind Bruce, there was a sudden crack and crackling sound—one of his traps had just been triggered. Someone had walked right into it.
"Damn it, they found us! I'm going to deal with them—you be careful!" Bruce called out to Selina.
He was done hiding. Bruce's hand clenched around the summoner he'd grabbed, and with a sharp twist and application of pressure, there was a sickening snap. The guy's eyes rolled back and he collapsed with white foam bubbling from his mouth, completely unconscious.
Bang, bang, bang!
The second summoner's pistol kept spitting fire, bullets flying. But Bruce was already moving, his body twisting and ducking to avoid the shots the moment he saw the man's finger move on the trigger.
He stepped in close and drove his fist into the summoner's stomach with brutal efficiency. The impact folded the man in half like a shrimp, all the air exploding from his lungs. His body lifted off the ground and flew backward, crashing into a stack of old crates.
The sudden eruption of violence and the sharp sound of gunfire made the girls still trapped in the cages panic. They could hear it clearly—that was gunfire. Real guns. The kind that could kill any of them in an instant if a stray bullet found its mark.
"There's only one person left," Selina said, untying the last knot on the girl in front of her. She pulled the dagger from her belt and swung it at the cage bars in a single fluid motion.
Ding~
The blade cut through the steel column like it was made of cardboard. The metal bar clattered to the ground, cleanly severed.
"Get out this way! There's a plane waiting for you—go, now!" Selina commanded.
She swung her knife again and the rest of the cage section came down. Without hesitation, she grabbed one of the cut steel bars and headed toward where she'd heard the traps go off.
Bruce was handling the front—he'd be fine. She needed to deal with whoever had gotten caught in the traps before they could cause more problems.
The ring on her finger began to glow with a faint light. In response, her black combat suit started changing color, the sleeves turning pure white as power flowed through them. Her hand gripping the steel column radiated a subtle but unmistakable aura.
Swoosh~
She hurled the steel bar like a javelin. It flew through the air with a sharp, whistling hum that cut through the ambient noise.
A second later, there was a wet thunk and a scream. The steel column had punched straight through a demon summoner's shoulder, pinning him to a wooden support beam. Blood sprayed from the wound.
"You all should take a nice long nap!" Selina called out.
Then she launched herself forward, channeling the energy from her cultivation practice into explosive speed. To normal human eyes, she became nothing but a blur—dozens of afterimages that seemed to attack from every direction at once.
Those afterimages struck like lightning. One after another, her fists connected with the necks of the trapped summoners—precise strikes to pressure points. Each man's vision went black immediately and they dropped where they stood, completely unconscious before they even realized they'd been hit.
Selina moved with incredible speed. In just a few breaths, she'd knocked out every single demon summoner who'd gotten tangled up in Bruce's traps around the perimeter.
Like Bruce, she deliberately held back from killing any of them. They still needed to interrogate these people, find out where the rest of the cult was hiding, and locate their headquarters.
"Let's see how you like being tied up," she muttered.
She got to work, moving efficiently from body to body. The same ropes they'd used on the victims now got wrapped around the summoners themselves, pulled tight to make absolutely sure none of them could slip free when they woke up.
With these guys secured like a bunch of dumplings ready for steaming, she headed back and slashed through more of the cage to make sure all the girls could get out safely. By now, the cage was empty—all the victims had already moved toward the Batfighter just as she'd told them to.
"Huh? There's another one over here!" she noticed.
In the corner, one more unconscious summoner was slumped against the wall. Selina grabbed more rope and quickly trussed him up tight with the others.
While Selina's approach was methodical and efficient, Bruce's side of things was turning into something much more brutal.
He was fighting with everything he had, weaving between multiple attackers while dodging bullets aimed at his head. At the same time, he was trying to take down as many demon summoners as possible without killing them.
He'd already knocked out several of them, but there were way more summoners here than he'd expected. The ones he'd put down earlier were starting to recover after a brief rest, and now they were getting back up and grabbing their guns again.
It had to be said—if Bruce were willing to break his fundamental rule against killing, these demon summoners wouldn't be able to touch him. He could end this in seconds.
But Bruce refused to cross that line. He held firmly to his no-killing philosophy. It was the bottom line he'd set for himself over twenty years ago when he first put on the cowl. He wasn't going to break that principle now, not even against people like this who probably deserved it.
However, that didn't mean he was helpless. After all, his rule was about not killing people—it said nothing about not hurting them. And he had plenty of ways to hurt them.
Several batarangs flew from his hands in rapid succession, drawing bright arcs through the air as they spun toward multiple targets at once.
Ding ding sizzle
After years of practice, Bruce's throwing accuracy had reached an almost superhuman level. Each batarang found its mark perfectly, striking the guns in the summoners' hands and slicing deep cuts across their wrists in the same motion.
The sudden sharp pain and the wounds on their wrists made them lose their grip. Their hands went weak and all their guns clattered to the ground or hung limply from slack fingers.
Blood poured from the cuts, running down their arms and dripping steadily onto the summoning circle drawn on the floor beneath them.
"@#¥%@#..."
A strange, awkward chanting voice suddenly echoed through the factory. The dripping blood began moving on its own, flowing toward the magic circle and gathering in specific patterns.
Bruce's head snapped toward the source. There was another demon summoner hiding in the corner against the far wall, half-concealed behind some old machinery. His mouth was moving rapidly, chanting bizarre syllables that hurt to listen to. As he spoke, the magic circle began to glow and shift, responding to his words.
"Shut up!" Bruce snarled.
He knew exactly what the bastard was doing, and he absolutely couldn't let him finish. The moment he spotted the chanting summoner, Bruce charged, closing the distance in two powerful strides. His fist came down like a hammer.
Boom!
The punch connected with the man's jaw with devastating force, snapping his head to the side. Several teeth flew from his mouth along with a spray of blood. When he looked up again, his mouth was a bloody mess.
But the guy actually laughed, looking at Bruce with an unsettling calm despite his ruined face.
"Batman... you can't stop us," he said through his broken mouth, blood bubbling with each word. "You're nothing but prey..."
As his voice rang out, the sound of chanting started up again—this time from behind Bruce. He spun around and saw that the wounded demon summoners he'd disarmed were all chanting now, even as blood continued to pour from their slashed wrists. The blood ran down onto the magic circle, which was now flashing with an ominous, sickly light.
A demon was answering their call.
Whoosh...
Several blurred shapes cut through the air. All the summoners who'd been chanting suddenly flew backward as if they'd been hit by an invisible truck, their bodies slamming into walls and equipment.
"Looks like I'm still too late!" Selina said, frowning as she looked at the magic circle, which was now pulsing with increasing intensity.
She'd handled everything as fast as humanly possible, but apparently it still wasn't fast enough. She hadn't expected these fanatics to use themselves as sacrifices—no ritual components, no bound victim, just their own bodies and blood. All of it just to summon a demon.
"Hahaha! Batman! Catwoman! We'll always be watching you!" the leader suddenly screamed, laughing like a madman.
Then he spat out the final words of the spell through his ruined mouth. The bodies of all the injured summoners began to shrink and wither rapidly, their blood flooding across the magic circle in thick rivers until the entire pattern was drowning in red.
Hoooo~
A low, rumbling roar vibrated through the factory floor. A massive black claw emerged from the center of the magic circle, pushing up from below. The claw was enormous—easily the size of a car door—and covered in thick, overlapping scales that looked harder than steel.
BOOM!
Another claw slammed down, gripping the edge of the circle. Then a monstrous head pushed through, followed by a massive body. The creature hauled itself up from whatever hell dimension it had come from, its flesh wings spreading wide.
It looked like some nightmare combination of dragon and demon. Its entire body was covered in black scales that seemed to absorb light. The face was disturbingly human-like but twisted and wrong, with six curved horns jutting from its forehead. The flesh wings on its back were massive, spread out like grotesque hands with visible bones and membrane stretched between them.
The moment the demon fully manifested, Bruce and Selina acted simultaneously. They both activated the power of the Incinerator rings Moon had given them. In an instant, their black combat suits transformed, shifting to pure white as divine energy flooded through them. The daggers in their hands began to emit brilliant white light.
"Deal with this thing!" Bruce called out.
The words were barely out of his mouth before they both became blurs of white motion, rushing at the demon from opposite sides.
Neither of them knew exactly what kind of demon this was, but they both understood one thing perfectly: this was no ordinary hell creature. They needed to go all out from the start.
Clangclang
Their attacks landed solidly on the demon's scaled hide, but the impacts only produced ringing metallic sounds. Aside from a few sparks, they left no visible damage at all.
Huh~
After tanking both their strikes without flinching, the demon's flesh wings suddenly folded inward, then snapped forward. The wings transformed into massive fists that hammered down toward Bruce and Selina with crushing force.
BOOM~~
The impact shook the entire abandoned factory. The concrete floor cracked and crumbled, creating a small crater. The demon summoner with the bloody mouth got buried instantly under falling debris and dust—neither Bruce nor Selina could spare even a second to try and pull him out.
They had their hands full just surviving.
They both pushed more power through the Incinerator rings, and the daggers in their hands extended, transforming into longer swords of pure white energy. Using every combat technique they'd mastered, they attacked the demon again from different angles.
Maybe because they were channeling significantly more divine power now, their attacks finally had some effect. The two white swords pierced into the demon's body, and the wounds immediately began smoking and sizzling. The creature actually flinched and roared in pain.
ROAR!!!!
The demon's bellow was deafening, and the stench of its breath was overwhelming—like rotting meat and sulfur mixed together. Bruce and Selina could only hold their breath and focus, attacking again before it could recover.
Chi chi chi...
With their weapons fully charged with divine energy, the swords could actually cut through the demon's scale armor now. Soon, countless slashes and stab wounds covered the creature's body, smoking and bleeding black ichor.
But neither of them were in great shape either. They'd both taken hits from the demon's counter-attacks. Those flesh wings were far more flexible than they looked, constantly lashing out like whips or clubs. The demon specifically targeted their joints and other vulnerable areas, forcing them to spend significant effort just defending and dodging.
And while they'd inflicted numerous wounds on the demon, they both realized these were essentially superficial injuries. Like paper cuts on a human.
Even as they watched, the wounds they'd burned into the demon's flesh with heavenly power were already starting to close and heal.
"Switch weapons. The daggers don't have enough punch!" Bruce called out, breathing hard.
They'd learned their lesson. The daggers could wound it, but barely. If they wanted to actually defeat this thing, they needed heavier firepower.
Moving in perfect sync, both of them sheathed their white swords simultaneously and drew the energy weapons Moon had gifted them months ago.
The energy rapier with spatial fluctuation properties made a quick flourish in Bruce's hand, the blade humming and distorting the air around it. In Selina's grip, an energy whip extended and crackled with power, segments of it splitting and reforming.
Under the influence of the Incinerator rings, both energy weapons turned pure white, divine power flowing through them and amplifying their effects. Bruce and Selina exchanged a quick glance, nodded once, then rushed the demon together.
Under the surge of divine power, the spatial fluctuations from Bruce's rapier began transforming the area around the demon, turning the physical space itself into a domain saturated with heavenly energy—a pocket dimension that would weaken the creature.
Meanwhile, Selina's energy whip began splitting as she moved, multiplying rapidly. In just a couple seconds, one whip had become six separate strands. They lashed out and wrapped around the demon's limbs and wings, binding them tight.
Snap~
Selina cracked the whip violently, and another strand split off from the main weapon, this one whipping across the demon's face and chest with explosive force, leaving smoking burns.
The other whip segments drove into the ground like stakes, pinning the demon's limbs and wings to the cracked concrete floor.
"He's all yours!" Selina called out, straining to hold the massive creature in place.
Her whips were far better for control and restraint than pure damage. While they definitely had serious destructive capability, right now the most important thing was keeping this monster still long enough for Bruce to do what needed to be done.
Hearing her words, Bruce gave a short nod. He began channeling even more power from the Incinerator ring, directing it all into the energy rapier.
The sword grew brighter and brighter, the light almost painful to look at directly. The power radiating from it was immense—spatial fluctuations and divine energy merging together perfectly. The blade thrummed with barely contained force.
Bruce took a breath, centered himself, and prepared to strike with everything he had.