"Between life and death lies great terror."
Li Ang's ethereal voice reverberated throughout the warehouse, as if an orchestra were performing from all directions at once, leaving no clue to its origin.
"When blood drains from the body, and the soul departs from its vessel, all that remains is a lukewarm heap of carbon-based compounds."
In the suffocating darkness, Li Ang followed the heavy breaths of a gunman. With a swift motion, a sharp iron shard slashed through the man's carotid artery, the gush of blood muffled by his agonized screams.
Five enemies remained.
"Damn it, damn it, damn it!"
Scarface cursed internally, huddling behind an old wooden table in the corner of the warehouse. His trembling hands fumbled over his body, desperately searching for a flashlight.
The remaining gunmen, paralyzed by the screams of their comrades, panicked. They fired blindly toward the source of the noise, each muzzle flash momentarily illuminating the oppressive blackness.
"Stop shooting!"
Scarface shouted, but it was already too late.
A faint smile played on Li Ang's lips. Moving silently across the concrete floor, he struck another gunman with a knife-hand blow to the neck. As the man groaned in pain, Li Ang's arms coiled like serpents around the gunman's, locking him in place.
Li Ang's 16-year-old body was far from ideal—malnourished from weeks of surviving on stale bread and dirty water aboard the ship. To sustain the intense battle, he circulated the remaining spiritual energy in his body through his meridians, akin to accelerating his metabolism at a deadly pace.
His heart thundered against his ribcage, his lungs burned with exhaustion, and his muscles screamed under the strain.
The fight needed to end quickly.
With a sharp twist of his arms, he dislocated the gunman's shoulder, muffling his cries as the firearm clattered to the ground. Li Ang deftly kicked the weapon into the air, catching it with a practiced grip.
The cold barrel of the gun pressed against the gunman's forehead. The golden brass casing spun through the air as the trigger was pulled, and the man's skull shattered like porcelain.
Four enemies remained.
Li Ang wasted no time, diving and rolling to avoid the next barrage of bullets from Scarface's weapon.
"Come out, you little yellow monkey!"
One of the remaining gunmen screamed hysterically, unloading his entire magazine in a futile frenzy. The bullets ricocheted off steel beams and shredded plastic tarps but found no target.
"Idiot!"
Scarface internally cursed his incompetent subordinate. Ignoring the man's dying screams, he focused on retrieving a flashlight from the table.
The moment the switch clicked, a six-bulb LED beam pierced the darkness. Scarface scanned the area briefly before shutting it off and retreating deeper into the shadows.
Bang!
A bullet grazed the spot where Scarface had been moments before. His heart raced, and his thoughts spiraled.
Who is this damn kid? A stowaway? Why not single-handedly storm the Coast Guard and invade Gotham while he's at it?!
Forcing himself to calm down, Scarface crept along the wall, inching toward the warehouse's roller door controls.
The roller door had a separate power source. It only needed three seconds to lift enough for him to slip through.
Wiping sweat from his brow, Scarface turned the flashlight on again, tossing it in another direction.
Li Ang used the light's momentary flare to shoot the last two gunmen. He aimed for Scarface next, but the man had already rolled out of the warehouse.
"Futile struggle," Li Ang muttered coldly. Grabbing the flashlight, he sprinted after his fleeing prey like an arrow loosed from a bow.
A low groan stopped him in his tracks. Li Ang turned to find the South Asian girl slumped in a corner, her abdomen soaked in blood. She had been struck by a stray bullet.
"To witness life yet be unwilling to see death... I cultivate the path of detachment, but I cannot treat others as mere ants."
Li Ang sighed and crouched beside her. "What's your name?" he asked in Malay.
"Mi—"
Before she could finish, Li Ang channeled his last shred of spiritual energy to heat his fingertips red-hot. With precision, he extracted the copper bullet from her wound.
"Lucky for you, it missed any vital organs. Stay here—I'll call the police."
He tore fabric from a dead gunman's shirt, binding her wound before stripping the corpse entirely and draping the clothes over himself for camouflage.
Scarface ran blindly through the wilderness, clutching his gun. The once-brutal man was now consumed by fear, the thought of facing Li Ang sapping his will to fight.
"That yellow monkey... He's a demon! A demon!"
Gasping, Scarface reached a parked truck outside the warehouse. Fumbling in his pockets, he retrieved the keys, his hands trembling uncontrollably.
"I swear, I'll come back with twenty—no, thirty men! I'll find him and make him suffer in the worst possible way!"
Jamming the key into the ignition, Scarface slammed his foot on the gas pedal. The tires spun furiously, kicking up a cloud of dust. But the truck didn't move.
"What the...?"
He peered out the window, noticing thin steel cables anchoring the truck to the ground. Each cable was tightly wound and unyielding.
A deep, gravelly voice echoed from the roof of the truck. "Tell me... what happened in the warehouse?"
The voice was a nightmare come to life, the stuff of Gotham's urban legends. Scarface's body trembled uncontrollably as he whispered, "Ba-Batman?"
The figure atop the truck offered no response. Instead, a powerful fist smashed through the windshield, yanking Scarface out of the vehicle effortlessly.
The Kevlar-clad vigilante delivered blow after blow, painting Scarface's face in crimson until it was unrecognizable.
Yet, to Batman's surprise, Scarface began to laugh—a giddy, relieved laugh.
"Saved... I'm saved!" Scarface muttered through bloodied lips. "You don't kill criminals. Please, save me!"