"Wrecking Crew! Keep dealing with that Robin kid!
"U-Foes! Madman! Bi-Beast! Absorbing Man! Executioner! Surround Batman! Bring him down!"
Amora the Enchantress shrieked as she barked out her orders.
The Helicarrier shook violently once again—it had been ascending earlier, but now it seemed to have reached the troposphere.
Batman didn't even need to think to know that beyond the carrier he was currently inside, several other Helicarriers were bound to be ascending in tandem.
Once these carriers flew higher and higher, they would be capable of executing S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Project Insight without even needing to reach sub-orbital altitude.
At the current rate of flight, Batman had ten minutes at most to dispatch these remaining twelve opponents.
"I am Batman..."
Batman's Gargoyle Suit reached its kinetic absorption threshold once again, erupting with a surge of purple light while fresh blood spilled from his mouth for a third time.
The blood he spat out this time was even greater than the previous two times combined; after all, injuries accumulated continuously. No matter how strong the self-healing factor of Peter Parker's body was, it had yet to reach the level of Logan, Wolverine.
Robin was already hemmed in by the four members of the Wrecking Crew, crowbars and iron balls raining down upon him incessantly.
Reality was no movie; Venom Robin's mature state was indeed far stronger than his immature form, but it wasn't so absurd that a sudden burst of power could instantly crush opponents he couldn't beat moments ago.
Though the Wrecking Crew appeared crude and disorganized, the Enchantress had mentioned earlier that when Loki attempted to borrow the power of a figure known as the Queen of the Norns to defeat Thor, the power had accidentally transferred into Wrecker's crowbar instead.
Laughable as it sounded, that crowbar was a genuine artifact capable of clashing head-on with Mjolnir.
While that power had now leaked out from the crowbar and dispersed into the bodies of the other three Wrecking Crew members, it meant that in individual one-on-ones, their strength might not be particularly extraordinary.
Yet when all four members of the Wrecking Crew joined forces, they could prove formidable enough to serve as rivals to Thor, their power far exceeding that of Skurge the Executioner.
Venom Robin assuming his mature Venom state merely elevated his strength to match that of a base-level Hulk; he was still a long way off from Thor.
Fortunately, the Wrecking Crew couldn't kill Venom Robin either, succeeding only in tying him down so that he couldn't break free in a short span to assist Batman.
This meant Batman would have to face the remaining nine opponents all on his own.
Bi-Beast—his name alone revealed his nature as a four-meter-tall giant with golden skin and clawed hands and feet.
His two heads were not arranged left and right, but stacked one atop the other while sharing a single neck—one head responsible for thinking, the other responsible for fighting.
The Executioner was an old opponent; Batman was thoroughly familiar with him and had long since prepared a contingency plan tailored for him.
The crimson-skinned Madman, after that single heavy blow to his chest earlier, had seen his size, strength, and bodily density skyrocket in the span of a single blink.
In Batman's eyes, Madman currently presented the single greatest threat to him, followed immediately by Bi-Beast.
Absorbing Man was iron-gray all over; Batman noticed his skin tone matched the alloy floor beneath his feet with absolute precision, showing zero discrepancy even under the Gargoyle Suit's spectral scan.
Before the battle began, back when the engine room was shrouded in pitch darkness, it was Absorbing Man who had grabbed Batman and Venom Robin by their ankles.
Batman had devised a plan to handle Absorbing Man as well.
The remaining four belonged to another group mentioned by the Enchantress—the "U-Foes." The cloud of gas floating in the air was one of their members, as was the man who constantly emitted radiation outward.
"Time is running out... ten minutes... Alfie, how long until support arrives?" Batman asked in a low voice.
"Master Wayne, please give me three more minutes," Alfred's voice resonated inside the Gargoyle Suit. "My opponents consist of over a hundred drones."
"Understood," Batman said.
He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth before taking the initiative to charge straight toward his nine opponents.
One of the U-Foes members—a man emitting a golden glow all over—was the first to strike.
Previously, this person had maintained a low presence, to the point where Batman didn't even know what his ability was.
The moment he took action, though Batman saw nothing with his eyes, his Spider-Sense gave a frantic warning, prompting Batman to dodge violently to the side out of pure instinct.
Crunch!
A split-second after Batman dodged, a section of the alloy floor where he had been standing cratered downward without warning.
Batman's heart skipped a beat, knowing that if his Spider-Sense hadn't alerted him in time, he likely would have been crushed deep into the alloy floor.
"Telekinesis?"
Batman gazed at this U-Foes member, taking in his scars and golden body as a word flashed rapidly through his mind.
As a battle-tested veteran, opponents who refrained from striking could occasionally conceal their nature from Batman.
Yet the instant they acted, Batman could rapidly deduce the exact nature of their ability.
Even as his mind analyzed the situation, Batman's movements never ceased, continuously dodging, leaping, and shifting positions, virtually never remaining in a single spot for longer than a second.
Prudence proved Batman right: almost every time he dodged away, a neat, square grid would suddenly collapse into the floor where he had stood a second prior.
At times it wasn't a collapse at all; the floor or walls would suddenly bulge upward, serving the exact same purpose of restricting Batman's mobility.
Fortunately, the telekinetic U-Foes member seemed incapable of unlimited usage, unable to seal off all four directions around Batman simultaneously.
"Vector! Stop chasing him with attacks! Anticipate where he's going!" the Enchantress shrieked once more.
The U-Foes member nodded, immediately causing the ground at Batman's next landing spot to collapse downward once again.
"Vector?" Batman noted the man's name in his mind.
"X-Ray! Assist me!" Vector roared, his voice sounding unexpectedly young. "Vapor! Ironclad! Get over there and kill Batman!"
The figure whose body constantly radiated energy outward offered no verbal reply, raising his hands to sweep seven or eight red, green, and purple beams across the area.
Vapor—the cloud of poisonous gas floating in the air—let out a sharp screech as the gas composing her body rapidly turned colorless and transparent.
Hazily, Batman caught sight of Vapor's faint outline in the air before a gust of wind blew straight toward him.
Batman's brow furrowed beneath his cowl. In the midst of his intense movements, he took a massive, deep breath.
Inhale!
Drawing a single breath deep into his lungs, Batman's chest expanded by a visible margin.
Simultaneously, a soft click sounded from the mask section of the Gargoyle Suit as two thin armor plates extended from his cheeks, sealing flush over Batman's mouth and nose.
"Gas composition scan... Carbon dioxide?" Batman noted silently in his mind as the Gargoyle Suit displayed the atmospheric breakdown.
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