Gotham City's East End, an old chemical factory. It had been abandoned for years, but now it had become the personal playground of another supervillain—Jonathan Crane, the Scarecrow—a living hell on Earth.
A thick, nauseating yellowish-green fear toxin, like a living mist, enveloped the entire factory. The air was filled with various shrill screams that were not human. Those unfortunate innocents he had captured were in the toxin, forced to confront their deepest, most primal fears. Some saw countless venomous snakes coiling around them, some saw the rotting corpses of their loved ones, while others repeatedly experienced the moment of Death in an endless fall...
Meanwhile, in the central control room on the top floor of the factory, Crane, dressed in tattered Scarecrow attire and wearing a burlap sack hood, spread his arms like a conductor appreciating a grand symphony, his eyes closed, listening with a look of ecstasy to this movement composed of fear.
"Wonderful... so wonderful!" he whispered hysterically. "This is art! This is the purest form of human emotion! Soon... very soon! I will deliver this concentrated essence of fear, enough for thousands of people, to every foolish Gotham citizen through the city's main Water supply system! Let them all join in this grand carnival!"
Just as he was about to press the valve button connected to the city's Water supply pipes—
"Boom—!!!!"
The factory's sturdy main gate, made of special alloy and boasted to withstand Rocket attacks, was violently torn and blasted open from the outside by an unimaginable force!
The Batmobile's massive, oppressive body crushed the twisted metal wreckage, charging in wildly.
"Screech—!"
The car door opened upwards, and Bruce, clad in his V8.03 Arkham Knight suit, resembling the battle armor of a Dark God, stepped out of the cockpit and slowly walked into the toxic mist, which was enough to drive an entire regiment of soldiers instantly insane.
On his face mask's HUD (Head-Up Display), lines of green data streamed past rapidly:
"WARNING: High concentration neurotoxin detected, composition: unknown compound..."
"Performing real-time component analysis... Analysis complete."
"Activating A-7 type composite biochemical filtration system... Filtration efficiency 100%."
These "masterpieces" that Crane believed could conquer the World were, to Bruce, merely making the surrounding air a little cloudy.
His appearance, his leisurely demeanor, was in itself the greatest and most ruthless mockery of Scarecrow, the "Master of Fear."
"No! Impossible! My toxin! My perfect creation! How could you..." Crane, in the control room, saw this scene through the monitor and let out an incredulous shriek.
Inside the factory, the thugs he hired as guards had already inadvertently inhaled trace amounts of the toxin, and their minds were twisted. In their eyes, the black figure walking in was not Batman at all.
It was an indescribable monster, patched together from countless writhing spiders, slimy venomous snakes, and putrid, oozing corpses, crawling out from the deepest depths of hell!
"Ahhh! Monster! Kill him!"
They howled, raising their machetes and firearms, rushing forward like madmen.
There was not a single ripple in Bruce's eerie blue electronic visor.
The next second, his body transformed into an extremely fast black lightning bolt, instantly charging into the crowd.
He did not use any Bat-arangs or explosive gel.
He was merely using his own body, and the killing art inherited from "Peak Arkham Knight," known as "Ultimate Combat Technique."
He was not fighting.
He was conducting an efficient and precise... anatomical dissection of human bodies.
A thug swung a machete down, Bruce didn't even dodge, just slightly shifted his body, letting the blade graze his shoulder armor, sparking. At the same time, his right elbow, like a battering ram, struck upwards, accurately hitting the opponent's lower jawbone.
"Crack!"
A crisp sound of bone breaking echoed, the thug's jaw caved in at a strange angle, and he flew backward, spitting a fountain of blood mixed with a few shattered teeth into the air.
Another thug swung a steel pipe at his waist from the side, Bruce didn't even look, his left leg lifted like a battle-axe, a fierce knee strike, fiercely hitting the opponent's ribs.
"Puff!"
Amidst the dull thud, the sound of several ribs breaking simultaneously could be heard. The thug let out a short shriek of agony, arching his body like a cooked shrimp, and a large amount of blood and organ fragments gushed from his mouth.
Backhand, block, grapple, break an arm.
Step, turn, a whip kick to break a knee.
Every one of his movements was filled with a cold, violent aesthetic—calm, efficient, precise, without a single superfluous action. He was like a Grim Reaper checking off a list; every strike inevitably meant one "number" was crossed out.
Soon, the path to the control room was strewn with twisted, groaning "parts."
Bruce stepped over the blood and wails, ascending the stairs to the control room, step by step.
Scarecrow watched this monster, completely unharmed, not even a speck of dust on his battle armor, approaching him step by step. For the first time, on his face hidden beneath the burlap hood, he showed the emotion he had always inflicted on others—fear.
But he was Jonathan Crane after all; he still had his last and most powerful weapon.
"Since conventional fear cannot make you yield... then taste this! Bat!" he shrieked hysterically, pressing the final button.
"Hiss—!!!!"
A transparent, almost invisible, ultra-high concentration fear toxin concentrate instantly gushed from the ceiling sprinklers, directly drenching Bruce!
The penetrative power of this undiluted concentrate exceeded the protective limits of standard biochemical suits. Traces of the toxin, seeping through the gaps in the suit, invaded his body.
Bruce's vision did indeed blur for a moment.
However, the illusion he saw was not the dark alley, the broken pearl necklace, and the two jarring gunshots from the original owner's memory.
His "Fear Aura" was completely activated and ignited by this powerful, external fear energy!
His resilient and rational soul, belonging to Luther, the White-collar worker of modern Earth; his battle will, inherited from Arkham Knight, filled with iron and bloodshed; and within this body, Bruce Wayne's deep-seated hatred and anger towards all the evil in Gotham... These three distinct spiritual forces, yet pointing to the same endpoint, violently collided, fused, and sublimated in the depths of his mind in an unprecedented way!
Ultimately, they formed a brand new, terrifying tableau representing "Ultimate Fear," one that would make even a God tremble!
And this tableau, through the still-connected toxic neural link, was forcefully and domineeringly injected in reverse into the brain of Scarecrow—Jonathan Crane—by Bruce!
Scarecrow's pupils dilated to their maximum in that instant!
He saw it!
He saw a terrifying entity that could not be described or defined by any known language!
It was a Dark God enthroned on a White bone throne piled high with the wailing skeletons of countless criminals!
His body was the flowing, bottomless Night itself, capable of devouring all light! His vast cloak, when spread, was a galaxy composed of billions of screaming Bats, obscuring the stars!
And His eyes... those were not eyes at all! They were two red stars being consumed by endless entropy and nothingness, slowly extinguishing, emitting desolation and despair!
In those eyes, there was no anger, no hatred, no killing intent... only an absolute, pure, ultimate fear that transcended life and Death, transcended space-time and causality!
The moment he saw those eyes, Scarecrow's proud brain, which had studied fear psychology his entire life, was utterly, physically... burned out by this ultimate fear that he himself could neither comprehend nor endure.
"Ah... ah... ahhhhhhhhhhhhh—!!!!"
Scarecrow let out a shriek so piercing it tore his vocal cords, an inhuman wail. Blood gushed from all seven of his orifices simultaneously. His body convulsed violently, like a fish thrown ashore, until his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed completely to the ground, becoming an imbecile with drool dribbling from his mouth and empty eyes.
He became a prisoner, forever living in the highest level of fear he himself had created.
Bruce stepped coldly over his still faintly twitching body, walked to the control panel, and pressed the master switch for the automatic fire suppression system.
"Splash—"
Countless chemical foams neutralizing the fear toxin gushed from the ceiling, falling like heavy snow, cleansing the filth and sin of this factory, and seemingly cleansing this just-concluded, one-sided ritual called "Judgment."