Slipping out from under that warm palm, Damian immediately felt the damp chill of the night, but he lifted his head to meet Deathstroke's gaze, eyes full of hunger.
He liked learning—especially learning any technique that could make him stronger.
Martial Arts were naturally one side of it, but the way you think was just as important. Even if Deathstroke became an Ordinary man, he'd still be the most terrifying Mercenary on Earth, purely because his mind and tactical level were far above everyone else's.
"So, applied to the current case, what does that look like?"
Su Ming squatted down again, bringing his line of sight level with Damian's. "Let's sort out the intel you've got. First, you've found two scenes: one abdominal disembowelment scene, one dismemberment-and-pulverization scene."
"Yeah."
"Then wildly different MOs usually mean the perpetrator isn't the same person. No objection there, right?" Su Ming asked, guiding him along.
"Right." Damian and the others all nodded.
"But the differences in the corpses don't explain everything. At both scenes, you found that."
Su Ming pointed at a wall inside the room. Huge claw marks had been gouged there—three slanted, parallel lines, with blood seeping between the grooves, as if the wall itself had been wounded.
"Yeah, we found the same mark at both sites." Damian fixed his gaze on the imprint and answered with certainty.
"Good. So you don't think a bleeding wall is strange?"
Su Ming stood up. A black tentacle stretched out from behind him, slid across the marks to smear some of it up, then shrank back and opened before the group.
The black, soft-bodied Monster that could turn into a gag ball could now turn into a small bowl, filled with dark-red liquid.
Wally leaned in to look, then raised his head. "But shouldn't that be some kind of signature? Like Joker's smiley face, or Riddler's question marks—they paint their symbols all over the scene with paint."
"Good, your brain's still working at least..." Su Ming nodded at him, satisfied. "But all of you let your attention get sucked away by the two very differently mangled corpses, and you missed the details of the identical mark that appears at both scenes."
At this point, Damian already got it. He reached out, dipped a bit of the blood from the little black bowl, and lifted it to his nose to sniff.
"This is avian blood. Has the smell of feathers."
Su Ming nodded and had Strangulation move the blood in front of each of them to smell, but most refused. Aside from Himeko, who took a deep breath, everyone else just accepted Damian's judgment.
"To be precise, it's chicken blood—not Duck, not pigeon, and definitely not Owl." Strangulation dispelled the little bowl, and the black-red blood splattered onto the floor.
Moonlight shone in from the door, making the red look especially lurid.
Damian frowned. He didn't believe someone could identify the animal just by smell. "How do you know?"
"My little pet can distinguish the blood it's tasted before. That part you don't need to doubt. Honestly, we could take it for lab analysis too—it's just that this way is more convenient."
"So you're saying that big claw mark on the wall is actually the Array used to Summon the Monster, and the piano we thought was an altar is really just a plain dining table?"
Damian looked at the wall, then at the piano. Each of the three slashes on the wall was over two meters long, spaced about half a meter apart. If that was a single Monster's claw, then the Monster's body size would be way too big—this house couldn't even contain it.
But if those three things that looked like claw marks were actually carved by humans with chisels or other tools, then splashed with chicken blood, that would explain why the building itself was intact.
"You can look at it that way. Let's assume what these guys did, and always guess with the darkest possible mindset."
Under Su Ming's guidance, Damian quickly started using a Dark perspective to build a scenario for the others.
"First, the time of the crime is after the flood receded, when people returned to the city. Then the Cultists immediately regrouped, went to the first scene, Summoned the Monster, and the hungry Monster tore apart the first victim. After that, the Cultists came here and Summoned the Monster again, but the Monster was already full and had no interest in eating. So the Cultists themselves ate the victim's organs and staged the scene."
Damian quickly produced a chain of hypotheses that sounded quite reasonable.
"No, there's one part you got wrong." Himeko spoke up unexpectedly. Her eyes were clear again, and very focused. "Both bodies were actually damaged by people."
"Clap clap clap..." Su Ming applauded like Xin Pangpang. "Exactly. You all clap too—give your teammate some encouragement."
The others sighed. This wasn't kindergarten games; why were they applauding like for little kids... But under Deathstroke's looming menace, scattered applause still went up.
Damian lifted his head, looking at Su Ming in puzzlement. "Why do you say that?"
Su Ming pointed at Himeko, and with his other hand turned Damian's head toward her. "Ask your teammate, not me. What, you expect me to tag along on every mission you do from now on? Why do you think you're building a team? Trust your teammates."
Damian went silent for a moment, then looked at Himeko and repeated the same question.
Himeko was older, and she didn't care about Da Mi's previous rudeness. She immediately answered in a pleasant voice.
"Because the first body is all minced meat, and the second body has too little blood loss."
Hearing that explanation, Damian understood. He glanced back at the floor beneath the piano and nodded.
At the first scene, what he'd seen of the dismembered body was basically scattered chunks of skin and flesh spattered everywhere, clearly showing signs of having been torn and bitten. Damian had originally assumed a Monster did that.
If the Monster was a carnivore, then when it's starving it should lick up the bits of minced meat until they're spotless—like a dog or a cat licking a bowl. That's just Beast instinct under hunger.
But if it was truly that hungry, why didn't it finish the first body, yet didn't touch the second one at all?
And remember, the second corpse's organs were removed with a special blade that mimicked teeth marks—it only pretended to be bite wounds. A starving Monster wouldn't sit there calmly waiting for someone else to slice the meat and hand-feed it.
Even zoo tigers and Lions won't let you cut meat right in front of them; Beast instinct makes them attack humans. And even if you did the cutting first and then performed the Summon ritual, leaving a fresh corpse right next to it is absolutely not realistic.
Plus, like Himeko said, the second corpse had far too little blood loss.
The blood from the corpse had only run over the piano lid and formed a small pool on the floor—that didn't match up at all with the amount of blood in an adult body.
Su Ming seized the moment to give a thumbs-up. "Now you see why Batman concluded the other side was dealing with some kind of blood-drinking creature?"
Damian let out a deep sigh. "He never shares intel with me. Everything we've figured out so far is just confirming what he already knows."
"Doesn't matter. He won't teach you, but I am, aren't I?" Su Ming ruffled his hair; the gesture was getting more and more natural. "Next up is the part where we witness a miracle."