Chapter 56: Kryptonite Weapon Crafted, BatmanConfidently Returns to Metropolis
The heavily armored Batwing spewed a blue-white, searing exhaust flame.
Like a red-hot knife, it tore through Gotham's gloomy, rainy night.
The cockpit was unlit. The cold glow of the instrument panel cast light on Bruce Wayne's face.
He sat in the pilot's seat, both hands gripping the control stick.
The wound on his lower back was still oozing blood.
His third and fourth lumbar vertebrae were shattered. Now biting into the cracks of his bones was a titanium-forged spinal exoskeleton.
Several electrode needles pierced straight into his nerve plexus. Every jolt of the fighter jet brought a wave of piercing, excruciating pain.
Bruce gritted his teeth, the muscles in his cheeks as hard as stone.
He regulated his breathing to be very slow, his lungs inhaling the dry air inside the cockpit.
The anti-Kryptonian armor on his body was far too heavy.
The radiation-proof lining made of pure lead, combined with composite armor plates five centimeters thick, made the entire set of equipment weigh four hundred pounds.
If not for the hydraulic assistance of the exoskeleton, he would struggle even to raise his hand right now.
But he felt it was worth it.
Hanging in the tactical slot at his waist was the Kryptonitespear gleaming with an eerie green light.
That was an alien meteorite he had procured from the black market.
After three days and nights of calculations by the Batcomputer, this green radiation could cut off the energy absorption of Kryptonian cells.
It could turn a god into a bleeding mortal.
As long as that monster named Shen Che was still a Kryptonian, this stone would be the chain that choked him to death.
Bruce pushed down the control stick.
The fighter jet punched through the clouds.
Ahead lay the brightly lit Metropolis.
Tonight, with his own hands, he was going to pull that unbridled tyrant off his pedestal.
Metropolis city center. Starlight Plaza.
Tonight, this place was completely booked out by Vought Company.
A massive outdoor elevated stage was erected in front of the fountain. The red carpet rolled straight from the steps to the main thoroughfare.
Hundreds of high-power searchlights intersected, illuminating the dark night as dazzlingly as day.
The air drifted with the sweet scent of expensive perfume and champagne.
Shen Che stood right in the center of the elevated stage.
He wore a custom-tailored black suit with no tie, two buttons of his shirt unfastened.
He held a glass of champagne in his hand, tiny bubbles fizzing within the golden liquid.
A crowd surrounded him in a circle.
The mayor of Metropolis, a federal senator, and a few familiar-looking Wall Street bankers.
Just days ago, these people were jumping up and down on television, cursing Vought Company as Vampires.
Now, they were like flies smelling blood, holding their wine glasses and crowding around Shen Che.
"Mr. Shen, regarding the revision of the new energy bill, we can completely coordinate with Vought's pace." The fat mayor smiled until his face crinkled, his waist bent very low.
"As for next year's security budget, I have already proposed allocating all of it to the Supreme VIP Project." The senator handed over his business card with both hands, the Rolex on his wrist flashing brightly.
Shen Che did not take the business card.
He took a sip of the champagne. The wine was very sweet, carrying the cheap feel of industrial saccharin.
He looked at this group of sycophantic politicians.
Just days ago, they were clamoring to arrest him. After seeing that strip of New York's Seventh Avenue burned to white ashes, they all knelt.
Deep down, these people only recognized one thing: absolute violence.
Camera flashes clicked away continuously.
Outside the cordon, hundreds of media reporters carrying long lenses and heavy artillery frantically pressed their shutter buttons.
Recording the highlight moment of this plutocrat god.
Shen Che found it somewhat boring.
He placed his goblet on the long table beside him, preparing to tell Black Noir to clear the venue.
The symphony orchestra on the left side of the elevated stage was playing their cellos.
A low roaring sound suddenly drowned out the friction of the strings.
The wind grew stronger.
The violent gale whipped up the edges of the red carpet and blew over the champagne tower nearby.
Hundreds of glasses shattered all over the floor with a crash, and wine flowed everywhere.
A pitch-black heavy fighter jet tore through the night sky, hovering directly above the plaza.
The vertical takeoff and landing engines spewed searing airflow.
The glass covers of the searchlights cracked from the high heat, emitting crisp snapping sounds.
Clutching their heads, the politicians stumbled backward. Their female companions' high heels caught on their dress hems, causing them to tumble into a heap.
Terrified screams spread across the plaza.
The heavy hatch under the belly of the aircraft sprang open with a loud bang.
A massive dark shadow leaped down.
From a height of over thirty meters, without decelerating.
"Thud—!"
The heavily armored Batman smashed right into the center of the plaza.
The massive impact directly crushed the granite paving stones of the fountain plaza.
Flying rubble smashed into the nearby police cars, denting them in several places.
Several half-meter-wide cracks spread outward from beneath his feet.
The fountain's underground water pipes were ruptured by the shock, and white columns of water spurted out, drenching the dark gray armor.
This was a metal battle suit so bulky it looked like an iron tin can.
The chest plate was thick, and stout hydraulic rods were exposed at the joints of the limbs.
Bruce straightened his body.
The exoskeleton forcibly pulled his paralyzed lower body, emitting a creaking mechanical friction sound.
The sound was teeth-gratingly grating.
He raised his head.
The heavy eyepieces lined with radiation-proof lead locked a dead gaze onto Shen Che on the elevated stage.
The surrounding crowd was like a disturbed hornet's nest.
Reporters scrambled away pell-mell, throwing their cameras all over the ground.
In less than half a minute, a large area of the huge plaza was cleared out.
Leaving only that iron tin can and the man in the black suit on the elevated stage.
Bruce pressed the communication button on his neck.
The external loudspeaker of the armor switched on.
"Shen Che."
A deep roar echoed across the sky above the plaza, carrying static noise from the current.
"Your game is over."
The loudspeaker's voice was extremely loud, making the shattered glass on the ground vibrate slightly.
Shen Che stood on the elevated stage.
He did not step back.
His gaze crossed the few steps and fell upon that bulky suit of iron armor.
Heavy breathing leaked from the gaps in the armor, and the hydraulic rods were still leaking a wisp of white vapor.
That familiar scent of paranoia could be smelled from far away.
Shen Che recognized him.
It was that Gotham vigilante whose spine he had crushed in the office.
Only a few days had passed.
The bone fragments in his waist probably hadn't even been cleaned out yet, and instead of lying on a hospital bed in Arkham with a catheter inserted,
he actually put on a giant sheet-metal tin can and ran all the way to Metropolis to court death.
Shen Che found it somewhat amusing.
His chest vibrated, and a light chuckle escaped his throat.
The laughter was not loud, but it was exceptionally clear in the dead plaza.
"You really never learn your lesson."
Shen Che picked up the glass of champagne again, his fingers tapping twice against the rim of the cup.
"I thought that kick would allow you to peacefully spend the rest of your life sitting in a wheelchair."
He looked at Bruce's bulky lead armor.
As if looking at a comical circus prop.
"Slip on a lead bucket and strap on a few springs."
Shen Che twitched the corner of his mouth, his eyes filled with undisguised mockery.
"And that makes you think you can stand up and challenge me?"
"Are your bones set yet? Don't fall apart again after taking two steps, or I'll have to call the cleaning crew to sweep up."
Bruce did not waste words.
He knew what kind of thing he was dealing with; saying one more word was a waste of time.
This monster was arrogant to the extreme, thinking that nothing on Earth could hurt him.
This was precisely the opportunity Bruce wanted.
Bruce's right hand slid toward his left arm.
Hanging on the armored shield of his left arm was a custom-made heavy grenade launcher.
He bit the tip of his tongue, forcing himself to ignore the tearing pain radiating from his spine.
His fingers gripped the launcher's handle.
"Click."
The mechanical arm raised, and the pitch-black, thick barrel aimed directly at Shen Che on the elevated stage.
Within the scope,
Shen Che didn't even show the slightest intention of dodging, even leisurely taking a sip of champagne.
He completely disregarded this weapon.
Bruce applied force with his index finger.
Through his Kevlar glove, he savagely pulled the trigger down.
"Bang."
A muffled gunshot rang out. Gunpowder gas spewed fiercely from the ejection port.
The massive recoil made the heavy armor step back half a step, crushing the rubble beneath its feet to powder.
A custom grenade sliced through the night sky.
The tail of the grenade carried a green trajectory.
Inside the translucent shell, it was packed with high-concentration Kryptonite powder.
Emanating an eerie green glow, like a burning ghost fire.
The grenade traced a precise parabola through the air,
and heavily smashed down right in front of Shen Che's pair of expensive black leather shoes.
Chapter 57: Kryptonite smoke bomb? Why does this thing smell like mint?
"Clack."
The grenade smashed in front of the black leather shoes, less than two inches from the toe.
The translucent cartridge case burst at the moment of impact.
There was no fire, only a harsh "hissing" sound of air leaking.
High-concentration Kryptonite powder came into contact with the air.
The thick green smoke was like dry powder sprayed from a high-pressure fire extinguisher.
Within a fraction of a second, it burst open.
The green mist was like a small volcanic eruption, directly swallowing the entire open-air high platform.
Shen Che's tall figure was instantly covered by the green light.
The air around the high platform was stained with an eerie fluorescent green.
The smoke spread very quickly, its edge brushing against the long wine table.
The moment a row of crystal champagne glasses came into contact with the green mist, a layer of fine white frost formed on the glass surface.
This smoke not only had radiation, but also strong chemical corrosiveness.
Batman stood below the high platform.
The crushed stone slabs under his feet crunched heavily under his thick lead iron boots.
He did not fire a second shot.
His right hand moved away from the trigger and pressed onto the armor buckle at his waist, where the spear polished from pure Kryptonite hung.
He stared intently at the rolling green mist.
Inside the heavy lead hood, the green light on the tactical eyepiece flickered.
Data washed past like a waterfall.
In the supercomputer of the Batcave, he had simulated it hundreds of times using Clark's blood sample.
This high-purity Kryptonite aerosol.
As long as one inhaled a breath.
It could instantly cut off the Kryptonians' path to absorb solar energy. The cells would necrose at a speed visible to the naked eye.
On the computer-simulated screen.
That tyrant should now have painfully knelt to the ground.
His lungs would spasm as if on fire.
He would cough up blood in mouthfuls, and his throat would emit the wail of a dying Beast.
His unreasonable power would be completely stripped away, turning into a sick man weaker than an ordinary person.
Bruce gritted his teeth, and sharp pains came from his broken spine.
He was waiting.
Waiting for the muffled sound of falling to the ground from the green mist, waiting for Shen Che's peerless arrogance to be torn to shreds by pain.
As long as the opponent fell.
He would rush up and nail through the monster's chest with the Kryptonite spear.
The plaza was dead silent.
The politicians and reporters hiding in the distance covered their mouths and noses, stretching their necks to look over here.
The night wind blew by, rolling up waste paper on the ground.
The breeze blew the thick green smoke away little by little.
The concentration of the smoke began to thin.
The outline on the high platform slowly emerged.
Bruce's breathing stagnated.
The eyes behind the tactical eyepiece were dry and sore from staring intently ahead.
He heard no sound of falling, nor any movement of coughing up blood.
The green mist dispersed.
Shen Che stood steadily in place.
He didn't even move half a step.
The black haute couture suit swayed gently in the breeze. There was no melting, no white frost.
He stood straight, his posture still upright.
Not even a frown.
This was impossible.
Bruce's brain went blank for a split second.
Was he holding his breath?
The Kryptonian's breath-holding time was very long. If he hadn't inhaled the smoke, the penetration of radiation might take more time.
Bruce's hand gripped the Kryptonite spear tightly, preparing for a frontal assault.
Just at this moment.
Shen Che moved.
Not only did he not dodge, but he took a step forward instead.
Walking into the core area where the green mist was densest.
Then, in Batman's unbelievable gaze.
Shen Che slightly raised his head.
His chest expanded noticeably.
Toward the fatal poisonous gas sufficient to cause Kryptonian cells to necrose.
He took a deep breath.
Hiss.
Air poured back into his nasal cavity, and a large amount of green smoke was directly inhaled into his lungs.
Bruce was stunned.
That was a high-purity Kryptonite powder!
Inhaled, the internal organs would rot instantly!
After Shen Che finished inhaling that breath of green gas.
There was no pain, no twitching.
He even smacked his lips, licking his lips with the tip of his tongue as if tasting some flavor.
Then, he turned his head.
His gaze pierced through the remaining green mist, falling on the bulky iron can below the platform.
"You spent days and nights making such a big commotion."
Shen Che's voice remained steady, without a trace of weakness.
He raised his right hand and fanned it in front of his nose.
His tone carried a bit of casual banter.
"Just to set off fireworks?"
He looked at the dumbfounded Batman.
"This so-called poisonous gas."
Shen Che twitched the corner of his mouth, revealing a mocking smile.
"Why does it smell like cheap mint toothpaste?"
Mint flavor.
He described the Kryptonite radiation enough to kill Superman as cheap mint toothpaste.
This sentence was like a heavy hammer, directly smashing onto Bruce's crown.
Smashing him dizzy.
Bruce under the hood had his eyes instantly bloodshot with shock.
The whites of his eyes were red, like they were congested with blood.
The data on the tactical eyepiece was still flashing. Everything was normal.
But this wasn't normal. This didn't make sense at all.
The blood sample had obviously been tested. Kryptonitewas obviously the nemesis.
Why?
Shen Che patted a few specks of green dust that had fallen on the front of his suit.
As casually as brushing off a few grains of dandruff.
He strode with his long legs, slowly walking down from the high platform.
His black leather shoes stepped into the green smoke residue, making a slight footstep sound.
He acted like nothing was wrong.
Unhindered, he passed through this "Death zone".
Bruce's Adam's apple rolled up and down with difficulty, swallowing a mouthful of bloody saliva.
His limbs felt like they had been poured with lead.
His whole body's blood completely turned cold at this moment.
The science he was proud of. The physical logic he firmly believed in.
Amidst Shen Che's taunt of "mint flavor".
It collapsed until not even scum was left.
This man simply could not be measured by conventional logic.
What on earth was he?
Chapter 58: Chewing up Kryptonite like jelly beans in front of Batman
Green dust fell on the lapels of the black suit.
Very noticeable, like a few unwashed specks of dandruff.
Shen Che stretched out his slender fingers and casually flicked his collar twice.
The dust drifted down, and the suit became spotless again.
He stepped down the last step of the high platform.
His leather shoes stepped on the fractured granite floor tiles of the fountain plaza.
The footsteps were not loud, but in the dead plaza, every single one felt like it was stepping on the tip of Batman's heart.
Bruce's breathing instantly became rapid.
His lungs whistled like a broken bellows, the heavy breathing echoing inside the lead hood.
On the tactical eyepiece, Shen Che's body indicators were all normal.
His heartbeat was steady, with no internal bleeding, no signs of cell failure.
The high-concentration Kryptonite powder inhaled just now was like being poured into a bottomless pit.
Not even a hiccup was burped out.
Bruce's tactical model completely collapsed in his mind.
Data panels shattered one by one in his consciousness.
Logic was broken. Science couldn't explain it.
Facing a monster that completely did not obey the laws of thermodynamics and biology, no amount of contingency plans was worth waste paper.
Fear.
An unprecedented instinctual fear of an unknown higher-dimensional creature.
Like thorny vines, crawling up along the broken spine, tightly entangling his heart.
"Beep—beep—"
The adrenaline pump inside the armor forcibly started, and the icy medicinal liquid was injected into the blood vessels.
Bruce shivered, forcing himself to strip away from the shock.
There was no way out. The fighter jet was parked mid-air, and the summoning command took time.
And he knew that in front of this man's speed, running away was just a joke.
Only fighting for his life.
Bruce's right hand slammed towards the special card slot at his waist.
His five fingers closed, gripping a half-meter-long spear tightly through the heavy lead gloves.
This was his masterpiece of sleepless nights over the past few days.
The spear tip polished from the largest piece of pure Kryptonite crystal.
Green fluorescence circulated on the spear tip, the blade sharp.
He pressed the telescopic switch on the spear handle.
"Click."
The spear handle instantly popped out, turning into a two-meter-long heavy spear.
"Ah—!"
Bruce let out a desperate and hoarse roar from his throat.
The sound came out through the armor's loudspeaker, like a Beast driven into a desperate situation.
The exoskeleton's hydraulic system was pushed to the overload limit, and red lights flashed wildly at the joints.
The two-ton heavy-armored Batman moved.
He dragged his heavy steps, every step stepping out a deep pit on the ground.
His hands tightly gripped the Kryptonite spear.
The spear tip crossed a green afterimage in the air, carrying a resolute determination of no return.
Piercing fiercely toward Shen Che's chest.
This was his last trump card.
Since aerosol poison gas was useless, he would use the most primitive physical piercing to send this stone directly into his heart.
The spear pierced the air with a low wind sound.
One foot away from Shen Che's chest.
Shen Che didn't dodge.
He didn't even look at the greenish spear tip.
Just one hand was inserted into his suit trouser pocket, and the other hand was raised casually.
There was no clenched fist, nor any defensive posture.
Just extending the index finger and middle finger.
Two slender, fair fingers.
At the place where the Kryptonite spear was only an inch away from his chest.
Steadily and nonchalantly, they closed together.
"Clack."
A soft sound.
Not the sound of a spear piercing flesh, but the sound of fingers pinching an object.
Bruce felt as if he had crashed head-on into an invisible iron mountain.
The huge reaction force transmitted back to his arm along the spear.
Shaking his arms numb, the lead gloves at the tiger's mouth directly cracked open.
The spear stopped.
That extremely sharp green crystal spear tip.
Was firmly pinched in mid-air by Shen Che's two fingers.
Unable to advance even half an inch further.
Bruce's eyes under the hood widened to the max, bloodshot filling the whites of his eyes.
His legs exerted force, and the buzzing sound of the exoskeleton motor reached its peak.
Desperately pushing the spear forward.
Useless.
Those two fingers were like the sturdiest hydraulic pliers in the Universe.
No matter how much strength Bruce exerted, enough to overturn a tank, the spear remained motionless.
Shen Che looked at Bruce's armored arm trembling slightly from exertion.
The corner of his mouth curved into a cruel smile.
"Don't you understand yet?"
Shen Che's fingers twisted slightly.
The absolute power of the Silver Age Superman erupted along the fingertips.
"Click."
A crisp snapping sound rang out in the plaza.
That piece of pure Kryptonite spear tip, claimed to be indestructible, between Shen Che's two fingers.
Was directly snapped in half by brute force.
Bruce was left with only a bare metal spear handle in his hand. Inertia made him stagger forward half a step.
Shen Che pinched that section of green crystal about half the size of a palm.
Brought it in front of his eyes to take a look.
The crystal was still emitting a faint green light.
"This kind of lousy stone might be a treasure in front of that big dummy at the farm."
Shen Che brought the Kryptonite close to his mouth.
Under Bruce's incredulous, ghost-seeing gaze.
Shen Che directly threw that green stone emitting lethal radiation into his mouth.
His teeth bit up and down.
"Crunch. Crunch."
The crisp chewing sound.
In the dead Starlight Plaza, through the microphone of Batman's armor, it clearly transmitted into Bruce's eardrums.
Just like chewing a piece of cheap fruit hard candy.
The fragments were ground between Shen Che's teeth.
A trace of green fluorescence leaked from the cracks of his chewing mouth.
But he didn't frown, nor did he vomit blood.
Shen Che's Adam's apple rolled.
"Gulp."
Swallowed that pile of Kryptonite fragments directly, mixed with saliva.
It was swallowed.
Bruce's whole body's blood froze instantly.
His proud scientific faith. The logical system he had built with painstaking efforts.
Along with this swallowing action.
Shattered all over the floor like glass struck by a heavy hammer.
This wasn't scientific. This was impossible.
He actually ate Kryptonite.
Ate the only fatal weakness of Kryptonians.
Bruce's hands hung down powerlessly. The scrap metal spear handle dropped to the ground with a clang.
He looked at the man in front of him who had finished chewing the stone and licked the corner of his mouth with the tip of his tongue.
What on earth was this thing?
Chapter 58: Chewing Kryptonite Like Candy Right in Front of Batman
The green mist was blown away by the night wind.
Starlight Plaza was filled with a pungent synthetic chemical odor.
Shen Che walked out from the toxic fog, which was potent enough to cause cellular failure in ordinary Kryptonians.
His pace was very calm.
His black leather shoes stepped on the fractured granite floor tiles, producing a steady crunching sound.
He stopped walking and lowered his head to take a look.
A thin layer of green dust had settled on the lapels of his custom-made black suit.
This color stood out glaringly against the dark fabric.
Shen Che raised his right hand.
His index finger and thumb pinched together, flicking casually at his collar twice.
The movement was light and deft, just like brushing away two harmless specks of dandruff.
The dust was flicked away by the force of his fingertips, scattering in the wind.
His suit became immaculate once more.
He lifted his eyelids and looked at the bulky iron tin under the steps.
Bruce's breathing became disordered.
Inside the heavy leaden cowl, the circulation filter hissed like a broken bellows.
There wasn't enough oxygen.
Or rather, his lungs were frantically demanding oxygen out of tension.
A piercing, agonizing pain came from his fractured lumbar spine.
The electrode needles of the titanium alloy exoskeleton pricked into his nerves, hurting him so much that cold sweat broke out on his forehead.
Sweat flowed down his brow bone into his eyes, stinging fiercely.
He didn't even dare to blink, staring fixedly at the unharmed man on the steps.
Green data cascaded like a waterfall across his tactical eyepiece.
Everything was normal.
No heart failure.
No cellular necrosis.
Not even the slightest fluctuation in body temperature.
The tactical model in Bruce's brain completely collapsed.
The supercomputer that had calculated in the Batcave for three days and three nights seemed to have turned into a pile of scrap metal.
Clark's blood samples clearly had a fatal reaction to this kind of radiation.
Why did this man take a big breath, yet only taste mint toothpaste?
His logic snapped.
The barriers of science were smashed open with a massive gap by this man's leisurely posture.
There was no way out.
The Batwing hovered in midair.
If he called for autopilot to land now, that gap of a few seconds would be enough for the other party to tear him apart into spare parts.
He could only fight for his life.
Bruce's right hand suddenly reached towards his back.
His heavy leaden glove touched a special slot on the back of his armor.
The metal clasp made a slight click.
He yanked out his final trump card.
A spear ground from pure Kryptonite.
That was the largest alien meteorite crystal, which he had cut with a high-pressure water jet into a sharp spearhead.
Eerie green fluorescence flowed across the spearhead.
The green light illuminated the lower half of Bruce's armor, exuding a chilling aura of Death.
He pressed the mechanism on the spear shaft.
A high-strength titanium alloy short staff popped out, connecting and locking tightly with the spearhead.
It transformed into a two-meter-long heavy weapon.
"Ah——"
A low, hoarse roar burst from Bruce's throat.
This sound came through the armor's external speaker, carrying distorted electronic noise.
Like a Beast driven into a dead end.
He moved.
The four-hundred-pound heavy armor, combined with the mechanical weight of the exoskeleton,
was pushed to the limit of overload by the hydraulic system at this moment.
The pipelines at the joints emitted an overburdened hiss, even spraying a wisp of scalding white vapor from the hydraulic oil.
Bruce dragged this heavy shell and charged forward.
With every step he took,
the marble floor tiles on the plaza were trampled to pieces.
Gravel splashed about, leaving deep footprints on the ground.
His hands gripped the metal spear shaft tightly.
The muscles on his arms bulged from excessive force, pressing against the inner lining of the armor.
The spearhead tore through the air,
carrying a sharp whistling wind as it thrust straight towards Shen Che's chest.
This was an absolute puncture on a physical level.
Even if Kryptonite radiation acted slowly, as long as this pure Kryptonite weapon plunged into his heart,
the green toxin could directly enter the ventricle.
Bruce wagered all his hope and his obsession with Gotham on this single thrust.
The distance shortened.
Three meters.
Two meters.
One meter.
Shen Che did not dodge.
He didn't even move his feet half an inch, his left hand still tucked inside his suit trouser pocket.
He watched that faint green light rapidly magnifying in his field of vision.
His gaze was calm, just like looking at a toothpick being handed over.
The spear thrust forward with a violent gale.
The cutting edge of the spearhead had already touched the fabric fibers of the black suit jacket.
Only a final inch remained from the heart.
Shen Che casually raised his right hand.
No clenched fist.
No defensive posture.
He merely extended his index and middle fingers.
Two slender, well-articulated fingers.
At the instant when the spearhead was about to pierce the fabric,
they steadily pinched together.
"Snap."
A soft, slight sound.
It wasn't the dull thud of a sharp blade entering flesh.
The spear stopped.
The terrifying kinetic energy of a four-hundred-pound armored charge, in front of these two fingers,
was instantly reduced to zero.
Bruce felt as though he had crashed into a solid iron mountain poured at the Earth's core.
The immense recoil force transmitted back through the spear into his arms.
The bones of his arms emitted a sore, protesting creak.
His wrists were jarred numb.
At the web of his heavy leaden glove, a split directly burst open.
Fresh blood seeped out, staining the lining of the glove red.
But Bruce did not retreat.
He bit his tongue.
The mouthful of bloody taste stimulated his nerves.
The exoskeleton motors on his legs roared frantically,
desperately pressing his body forward.
The spear remained motionless.
That incomparably sharp green crystal
was firmly jammed in midair by Shen Che's two fingers.
Bruce looked at this scene in disbelief through the eyepiece of his mask.
He could not understand.
This defied mechanics.
There was no pivot point.
Not even the floor tiles beneath Shen Che's feet were shattered; he simply swallowed all the kinetic energy raw with just two fingers.
Shen Che tilted his head.
He looked at Bruce's armored arms, which were trembling slightly from exertion.
"You toward this stone..."
Shen Che's voice was very soft, somewhat scattering in the wind.
"have an unfounded superstition."
His fingers exerted a slight force.
The absolute strength of the Silver template was concentrated on that single point at his fingertips.
"Click."
A crisp sound
burst out clearly between the two of them.
Bruce's hand suddenly felt light.
Inertia made him stagger half a step forward, his iron boots scraping a white mark on the ground.
He lowered his head.
The tip of the spear was completely bare.
That pure Kryptonite spearhead, claimed to be harder than diamond and which he had cut with a high-pressure water jet for a whole day,
was broken.
The cut was not smooth; it had been snapped in half sheerly by brute force.
Shen Che pinched that half-palm-sized green crystal,
brought it before his eyes to take a look.
The crystal was still emitting an eerie green light, illuminating his expressionless face.
"This color is quite ugly."
Shen Che flipped his wrist.
Under the gaze of those bloodshot eyes behind Bruce's mask,
Shen Che took that green stone radiating fatal radiation
and casually tossed it into his mouth.
"Crunch."
His upper and lower rows of teeth closed shut,
just like biting apart a strawberry-flavored hard candy.
Right in front of Batman, Shen Che began to chew.
"Crack. Crunch."
The crisp chewing sound
echoed across the dead silence of Starlight Plaza.
The sound wasn't loud, but amplified through the Batarmor's external microphone and transmitted into Bruce's ears,
it was more piercing than a thunderclap.
The green debris was ground between Shen Che's lips and teeth.
A wisp of green fluorescence leaked from the corners of his mouth.
He did not frown.
He did not collapse clutching his throat.
The expression on his face even carried a hint of disdain, as if he felt the texture was too hard.
Bruce froze all over.
His hands loosened powerlessly.
"Clang."
That titanium alloy spear shaft dropped to the ground and rolled twice.
Shen Che's Adam's apple rolled.
"Gulp."
He swallowed that pile of Kryptonite debris directly, mixed with a little saliva.
He swallowed it down.
Bruce watched the movement of his Adam's apple.
A tumbling chill churned in his stomach.
This exceeded the limits of his understanding of the World.
That was Kryptonite.
It was the only thing in the Universe that could kill a Kryptonian.
Yet it was eaten just like a snack.
Bruce's proud scientific faith,
his logical system built upon physical rules, radiation theory, and biological restraint,
along with this crunching and cracking sound of chewing,
like a pane of bulletproof glass struck by a heavy hammer,
shattered completely all over the ground.
Chapter 59: Batman's State of Mind Shattered, How Could He Be Immune to Kryptonite
"Crunch. Crunch."
The crisp sound of chewing echoed across the dead Starlight Plaza.
Shen Che's Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed the gravel into his stomach.
The last trace of eerie green fluorescence vanished from the corners of his mouth.
This sound became the final straw that crushed Batman's sanity.
The mechanical exoskeleton on Bruce's legs emitted a harsh hissing sound of leaking air.
The hydraulic pump lost pressure.
His knees suddenly went weak.
Along with his four-hundred-pound heavy armor, he heavily knelt onto the fractured marble floor tiles.
"Thud."
The lead armor on his knees smashed two pits into the floor tiles, and gravel sprayed onto his trouser legs.
Bruce weakly braced the ground with both hands.
He panted heavily, the air he inhaled into his lungs consisting entirely of despairing cold air.
His eyes stared fixedly at Shen Che's shiny black leather shoes.
He could not understand.
The gears in his brain jammed.
The most basic laws of thermodynamics in the Universeand the radiation suppression principles of biological mutation—
Why did they completely fail to work on this man, acting like a complete joke?
That stone would cause even the real Superman to vomit blood if he got slightly close.
That was a key specifically designed to kill gods.
Now, it was treated like an after-dinner candy bean.
Physics no longer existed.
The scientific worldview Bruce had built since childhood completely collapsed into a pile of wasteland at this moment.
Leather shoes stepped on shattered glass and stone slabs, the footsteps very light.
Shen Che walked slowly in front of Bruce.
He lowered his head, looking at the Gotham Knight kneeling on the ground like a useless iron tower.
Shen Che did not pause.
He extended his right hand with fingers spread open.
He directly grabbed that heavy lead Batman helmet.
This was not an ordinary helmet, as it was sandwiched with bulletproof ceramics and a pressure-resistant skeleton.
But in Shen Che's hands, it was little better than a paper lantern.
"Crack."
A teeth-aching sound of metal tearing rang out.
Shen Che twisted his wrist and pulled upward.
The heavy helmet was directly ripped apart into two halves by sheer force.
Communication wires were snapped, bursting out a string of yellow sparks.
Bruce's face, exposed to the air, was covered in cold sweat.
The corners of his mouth carried uncleared bloodstains, and his gaze was somewhat unfocused due to extreme shock.
Shen Che casually threw the shattered helmet onto the ground, producing two muffled clanging sounds.
His hand smoothly moved downward.
And gripped Bruce's neck in one clutch.
His thumb pressed against the carotid artery, while the other four fingers locked onto the cervical vertebrae.
He did not squeeze hard, merely holding him up like lifting a dead mouse.
Lifting him slightly upward.
Bruce's neck was forced to tilt up.
He looked into Shen Che's bottomless black eyes.
There was no anger inside them, nor the triumph of a victor.
Only a stagnant pool of indifference, just like looking at a lifeless stone.
Shen Che leaned forward slightly.
Bringing his face close to Bruce's ear.
His breath brushed against Bruce's auricle, carrying a very faint mint scent.
That was the residual taste left behind after chewing up Kryptonite.
"Surprised?"
Shen Che lowered his voice, his tone so cruel that it made one's entire body turn cold.
"Is that clever brain of yours crazily calculating formulas, trying to find a reasonable explanation?"
Bruce gritted his teeth, his gums aching as his Adam's apple bobbed with difficulty.
"Stop calculating."
Shen Che's fingers gently rubbed against Bruce's carotid artery.
"Let me tell you the answer."
"You and I, along with that big guy farming in Kansas, are not things of the same dimension."
Shen Che's voice was like an ice pick, stabbing straight into Bruce's brain marrow.
"Physical damage is useless against me. magic interference is immune to me."
"That broken rock you all think can suppress aliens—"
Shen Che twitched the corner of his mouth.
"Is not even enough to get stuck between teeth."
Bruce's breathing stagnated.
His pupils trembled violently within their sockets.
These few sentences tore Bruce's last remaining illusions to shreds.
"Did you think that by relying on a few tattered blueprints and a few lead plates—"
"You could bridge the gap between species?"
Shen Che straightened his body, looking down at him condescendingly.
"I am a god without shortcomings. And you are merely a cripple wearing a tin can, sustaining your life on painkillers."
This cruel truth—
Not only shattered Bruce's physical body,
But even thoroughly crushed his lifelong pursuit of tactical limits, his belief in science, and his hope of protecting the city—
Into powder,
Leaving not even a single speck of dust behind for him.
Bruce gave up struggling.
His hands hung weakly at his sides.
He closed his eyes, waiting for the moment his neck would be snapped.
Shen Che looked at Batman, who had given up resisting,
Finding it somewhat uninteresting.
His five fingers tightened slightly, preparing to casually twist and break this fragile cervical spine,
To end this boring farce early and go back to catch up on sleep.
Right at this moment—
"Beep—woo—beep—woo—!"
The piercing air defense alarm suddenly tore through the night sky of Manhattan.
The sound was so loud that the entire city echoed with it.
Immediately following that,
Above Starlight Plaza, those few gigantic LED advertising screens—
Which were originally playing images of luxury perfumes,
Suddenly distorted, turning into a screen full of static snow.
Then, the background color of the screen instantly switched to a startling bright red.
On the red background,
Flashed a gigantic black warning sign: Highest-level alert.
Not only the screens on the plaza,
But also on the glass curtain walls of surrounding skyscrapers and the billboards of street telephone booths—
All electronic devices capable of lighting up were forcibly connected to this red screen.
Shen Che's hand stopped.
He raised his head.
Bruce also snapped his eyes open.
Both of them simultaneously looked at the sky overhead.
Manhattan's gloomy night sky, those clouds illuminated by the fires after the massive blackout—
Without any warning,
Completely changed color.
The black and gray clouds receded.
The entire sky, as if splashed with a layer of viscous orange-red paint,
Turned into a terrifying blood-orange color that seemed to be burning with flames.
This was not an evening glow.
This was an apocalyptic phenomenon with an overwhelmingly oppressive presence.
At this moment, the entire World was dyed in the color of blood.
Chapter 60: This is not an ordinary Superman, this is Silver Age Superman!
Blood-orange light.
Like a bucket of viscous slaughterhouse waste blood, it was splashed head-on across the night sky of Metropolis.
No transition. No warning.
In this very second, the night was forcefully torn apart. The entire sky lit up with an eerie brilliance.
The plaza fell dead silent for two seconds.
The crowd, who had just been too terrified to make a sound because Shen Che ate Kryptonite raw,
now all raised their heads.
Thousands of faces were illuminated crimson by the blood-orange light, looking as if they had been brushed with a layer of rust.
A drop of sweat slipped from the tip of a female reporter's nose,
and smashed onto the scorching cement ground.
"Hiss."
The sweat evaporated instantly, turning into a wisp of white vapor.
The temperature in the air was skyrocketing crazily.
It was not the sultry heat of summer, but a burning pain akin to an oven pressing directly against one's face and heating up.
"Ah——!"
The female reporter let out a shrill scream, her voice tearing through her throat.
This scream acted like a fuse.
The plaza instantly boiled over with chaos.
Panic spread among the crowd like a plague.
Everyone dropped the cameras, microphones, and handbags in their hands, running like crazy toward the surrounding buildings.
A stampede broke out.
High heels stepped on the backs of other people's hands. The crisp sound of bone fractures was covered up by even louder cries and wails.
Someone fell beside the fountain pool.
The water in the pool was already starting to bubble. The landscape lights at the bottom of the pool were shattering with pops in the boiling water.
In downtown Metropolis, hundreds of huge LED commercial screens
were originally all occupied by red highest-level warnings.
The screen flashed abruptly. Static dots jumped.
A male news anchor wearing a white shirt appeared on the screen.
The male anchor's tie was pulled crooked, and his collar was wide open.
He was sweating profusely, his hand holding the news script shaking like Parkinson's.
"Emergency broadcast... Global emergency broadcast..."
The sound of him swallowing saliva spread through the loudspeakers across the entire plaza.
"This is a direct signal from the NASA Houston Command Center."
The screen switched.
A messy control hall.
Hundreds of researchers in white lab coats were running around in front of the consoles.
Coffee cups were knocked over onto keyboards. No one went to wipe them.
The alarm red lights illuminated the hall like hell.
A white-haired old expert was pushed in front of the camera.
The gold-rimmed glasses on the old expert's nose bridge had fallen halfway off. He didn't reach out to adjust them.
"It's over... It's all over."
Facing the camera, the old expert's voice sounded like two pieces of withered tree bark rubbing against each other.
His trembling finger pointed at a giant star map screen behind him.
On the screen, at the position representing the Sun, a dazzling dark red halo burst open.
"An unprecedented, ultra-massive solar flare just erupted."
"The energy level... exceeds all our existing measurement scales. It is tens of thousands of times that of an X-class."
The old expert's tears mixed with sweat flowing down.
"It is hurtling toward Earth at sub-light speed. This is not a solar storm... This is the breath of a star."
He grabbed the microphone in front of him, his knuckles pinched dead white.
"Five minutes. No, there are four and a half minutes left."
"This flare will cut into Earth's orbit."
"The atmosphere will be completely baked dry the moment it makes contact. The oceans will boil down to their bottoms."
The old expert slumped dejectedly into the swivel chair.
"All carbon-based life forms on the surface of the Earth... will turn into ashes."
"Go home. Hug your families."
In the lower right corner of the screen, a blood-red countdown popped up.
04:28.
04:27.
Every time the numbers ticked, the air in the plaza became one fraction hotter.
The streets of Metropolis had turned into a pot of boiling porridge.
Cars piled up in multi-car collisions. Drivers didn't even close their car doors, abandoning their vehicles and diving into the subway stations.
Plastic trash cans by the roadside began to soften and deform, emitting a pungent, burnt odor.
The asphalt road surface melted.
The black asphalt, like viscous glue, stuck to the soles of the runners.
Below the high platform.
Bruce Wayne knelt on both knees on the shattered floor tiles.
That four-hundred-pound heavy armor had now become a huge oven.
The temperature alarm on the tactical goggles kept ringing. The external temperature had already broken through one hundred degrees.
The lead armor had excellent thermal conductivity.
The coolant inside the armor had dried up long ago, and the thermal insulation lining began to heat up.
Patches of red blotches were scalded onto Bruce's skin.
At the fractured spine in his lower back, the titanium alloy exoskeleton was as hot as a branding iron, clinging tightly to his flesh and skin.
But he didn't struggle.
He loosened the lead glove that had previously tightly grasped Shen Che's suit trouser leg.
The heavy metal arm hung limply into the melted asphalt.
He closed his eyes.
There was no saving this.
Facing this kind of cosmic-level natural disaster, all tactical contingency plans were just a piece of waste paper.
He could outmaneuver madmen in the night of Gotham, and could craft radiation weapons targeting Kryptonian.
But he couldn't calculate the explosion of a star.
The Batcave was deep underground, but it couldn't block the temperature of the Earth's crust being baked through.
The entire Earth was about to become a dead, silent piece of charred coal.
This was a despair that didn't even allow one to conceive the thought of resisting.
He even slowed his breathing, waiting for the cremation of that final moment.
Around the high platform.
The politicians and chaebols who had just been holding goblets and wearing suits and leather shoes
now completely lost any human appearance.
The fat mayor's expensive suit was soaked with sweat, sticking to his flab.
He scrambled and rushed up the steps.
His knees knocked against the sharp corners of the cement, tearing his trouser legs and causing blood to flow out.
He couldn't care about the pain.
He crawled all the way to Shen Che's feet.
The mayor reached out his chubby hands, tightly hugging Shen Che's black leather shoes.
"Mr. Shen! Save me!"
The mayor cried with snot and tears, the fat on his face squeezing together.
"I still have three billion in my overseas account! It's all yours! As long as you take me away from Earth!"
The federal senator also crawled over.
His proud custom wig fell onto the steps, exposing his bald head.
"Take me with you! I'll stamp Vought Company's tax exemption bill tomorrow!"
The senator grabbed Shen Che's trouser leg, like grasping at the last straw.
Several executives of Vought Company cried and wailed, kneeling in a row.
"President Shen! We are your most loyal dogs! Help!"
This group of people who were usually high above and controlled the lifeblood of this country,
in front of the numbers of the doomsday countdown, trampled all their dignity and decency into pieces.
They knew Shen Che could fly, and knew this man possessed unreasonable alien power.
This was their only hope of survival.
Shen Che stood on the high platform.
The surrounding air had already been distorted by the high temperature, and things in sight were swaying.
But he didn't feel hot.
The panel of Silver Age Superman made this temperature capable of baking the atmosphere dry feel like just a warm current when hitting his skin.
Even giving a sense of comfort like soaking in a warm bathtub.
He lowered his head.
Looking at this group of dignitaries wriggling and weeping bitterly like maggots by his feet,
his eyes were full of contempt.
He turned his head again, looking at the iron-canned Batman kneeling in the distance waiting for death.
Shen Che raised his head.
Looking at that blood orange color in the sky that was getting heavier and heavier, suffocatingly oppressive.
The flare hadn't arrived yet, but the heat wave had already ignited several skyscrapers in the distance.
Flames soared into the sky.
Shen Che's mind turned very fast.
He didn't care about the life or death of Earth. He could survive in the vacuum of the Universe.
If this damn rock exploded, he could easily change galaxies and continue being his god.
But that would be too boring.
He needed an audience. He needed the labor force of an entire Planet to generate wealth for him.
This suddenly erupting solar flare,
in the eyes of ordinary people, was a devastating disaster.
But in Shen Che's eyes, this was simply an ultimate marketing campaign delivered to his doorstep for free by the heavens.
Nothing could shatter humanity's psychological defense line more than showing absolute power in front of billions of people during a World-destroying disaster.
Saving this Planet,
everyone in the World, along with this group of dignitaries who still carried a bit of rebellious gene in their bones,
would completely and thoroughly become his most devout leeks.
Shen Che twitched the corner of his mouth.
A muffled sneer came from his throat.
He raised his right leg.
His ankle trembled slightly.
That fat mayor who was tightly hugging his leather shoes was directly blasted away by a huge force.
Tumbling twice in mid-air, he smashed against the fountain pool edge below the steps and passed out.
The senator and executives were so scared they quickly let go, kneeling on the ground trembling.
Shen Che took a step forward.
Walking to the very edge of the high platform.
Those media drones that had not yet been baked by the high temperature were still hovering in mid-air.
The camera lens was locked firmly onto him.
This was a global broadcast. Billions of pairs of eyes stared in despair at this man in a black suit.
Shen Che stopped his steps.
He didn't look at the camera.
He lowered his head, looking at Batman on the ground looking like a pile of scrap metal.
"You think."
Shen Che's voice was not loud, but it penetrated the surrounding screams and the roar of collapsing buildings.
And clearly transmitted into Bruce's ears.
"I am the same kind of thing as that big lug who grew up on the Kansas Farm?"
The eyes under Bruce's cowl opened slightly into a crack.
"You hold a piece of broken green stone, and think you've found the key to kill a god."
Shen Che shoved his hands into his suit trouser pockets.
His chin lifted slightly.
"You Earthlings have too poor an imagination."
He turned his head, facing those drone lenses hovering in mid-air.
His gaze pierced through the glass lens, looking directly at the billions of trembling souls behind the screen.
"Look clearly."
"I am not that kind of defective product that can be restrained by a rotten stone."
Shen Che's voice became cold and hard, carrying an unquestionable divine majesty.
"I am an existence superior to your so-called physical rules and superior to the concept of the Universe."
He said word by word.
"Remember this name."
"I am Silver Age Superman."
As soon as his voice fell,
the red countdown on the big screen jumped to 02:15.
the blood-orange sky began to flash with dazzling white light. That was the friction of the flare front edge contacting the atmosphere.
Shen Che closed his mouth.
No more nonsense.
He pulled his hands out of his trouser pockets, letting them hang naturally on both sides of his body.
His knees bent slightly.
This was a simple knee-bending action.
But as his muscles contracted,
the surrounding physical space emitted an unbearable wail.
The air was instantly drained, forming a brief absolute vacuum zone.
"Boom——rumble——!"
It was not the sound of jumping, but the sound of the crust shattering.
The entire downtown of Metropolis,
with Starlight Plaza as the center, the ground within a radius of five hundred meters,
under this reaction force so pure it couldn't be calculated by formulas,
suddenly sank.
A full three feet.
The foundations of the surrounding buildings snapped instantly, and the tall buildings emitted harsh steel twisting sounds amidst the shaking.
Underground water pipes and gas pipelines exploded simultaneously. Water columns and flames intertwined and jetted out of the surface.
Bruce's heavy armor was directly shaken half a meter high from the ground, then heavily smashed into the bottom of the pit.
And Shen Che
was no longer in place.
He transformed into a black meteor.
There was no sonic boom cloud, because at the moment his speed started,
it directly broke through the conceptual limit of the speed of light.
Physical laws were forcibly torn apart in front of this black shadow.
The violent kinetic energy tore open a straight vacuum channel.
The black meteor, against the blood-orange light scattered across the sky,
soared straight up into the sky.
In less than one thousandth of a second,
he crashed through Earth's thick atmosphere,
blasting out a huge hole several kilometers in diameter in that oppressive cloud layer,
and headed straight for that World-destroying, roaring giant solar flare rushing toward Earth in space.