## Chapter 41: Fear Bat
“Wh… when?”
The zombie Bane turned his grayish-white eyes: “When did you…?”
Bruce Wayne ignored him.
He forcefully sank his teeth deep into the other’s body, trying to bite longer.
His fangs became long and sharp, piercing like needles, deeply piercing, then injecting some unknown liquid.
Is it poison?
Funny, what kind of poison could work on Rot?
Even the strongest poison wouldn’t be able to kill a corpse. In essence, the word “death” wouldn’t even appear in Rot’s dictionary.
Loneliness, indifference.
Bruce’s heart was icy.
The unique indecisiveness and hesitation of a time traveler from a peaceful era had vanished from him. Bane’s brutal cruelty and Batman’s composure combined, with the immense dinosaur body, amplified by the poison, exploded into a chemical reaction unimaginable to ordinary people.
“Foolish fellow, to dare to get so close to me… Let Rot consume him. After all…”
Zombie Bane’s eyes rolled: “This so-called Batman, even if he has some superpowers, is still just a mortal. And mortals, they can never resist Rot…”
“Wait, why isn’t it working?”
Zombie Bane’s actions stopped. He couldn’t parasitize Killer Croc because Killer Croc was a vessel for the Living Red. He couldn’t control Poison Ivy either, because Poison Ivy and the Plant Master belonged to the Green.
Solomon Grundy was neither alive nor dead, a zombie. But this person in front of him—even with superpowers, he couldn’t possibly resist!
Wait…
Zombie Bane’s gaze shifted downward, seeing that the dark green dinosaur muscles, starting from the tips of Bruce’s teeth, were gradually turning into a shiny silver metal.
The power of Rot encountered inanimate dead objects, bewildered like frogs trapped in glass tanks.
The insect limbs extending from Zombie Bane’s back clashed against Bruce’s face with a clang.
Bruce slowly opened his mouth and slowly stepped back.
“Whew…”
Zombie Bane seemed a little helpless. Poison Ivy didn’t know that monsters like them, who were already dead, could even have emotions like “helplessness.”
“So, dear Ivy.”
Poison Ivy wanted to say, “We’re not that close,” but she decided not to provoke him unnecessarily now, because Batman was standing there quietly, not attacking.
She had already vaguely guessed what Batman had done.
“You still don’t intend to join us in Rot? I value you highly, Ivy. Do you think I didn’t kill you and let you play with me for so long? But playtime has to end.”
Zombie Bane looked up and down the dinosaur-Bat in front of him: “You’re relying on him? You have to let me defeat him before you’ll give up your luck? Like that zombie lying there? Oh, little girl.”
He said, “You really are troublesome.”
But he felt Poison Ivy looking at him with a strange expression, like she was looking at a dead man, even though he was one.
He heard her say with compassion, “You’ve never lived in Gotham, have you?”
“What does that have to do with what we’re discussing?”
“It does. Of course it does.”
Green plants gathered behind Poison Ivy, weaving into a vine chair. She slowly sat down, like an audience member waiting for the movie to begin.
“Let me teach you,” she said, “some rules of living in Gotham, some common sense. As a supervillain living in Gotham, how can you not know these things?”
Poison Ivy extended a slender finger and then said,
“First.”
Poof!
Zombie Bane’s body froze suddenly, a thick green spreading from his back, half of his body uncontrollably activated into green plants, a stark contrast to his rotten, foul-smelling other half!
“Impossible—it’s you! You just bit me—!”
Poison Ivy’s cool voice followed.
“First, Batman won’t fail, and he can’t fail, because if he fails, countless people will die because of him.
Therefore, Batman never fails. He will win, he has won in the past, he will win now, he will win in the future, he will just keep winning.”
Thump! Zombie Bane knelt on the ground, violently tearing at the half of his body that had grown plants. Countless rotting flesh and fresh meat were pierced by the growing plants, each pull of the plants brought with it a burst of black blood.
“No matter what opponent he faces, no matter how seemingly invincible the enemy, Batman will win. Even if it’s a Pyrrhic victory, even if it costs him anything. And Batman winning… means the criminals lose, so criminals in Gotham are afraid of Batman, because they will never defeat him.”
Poison Ivy’s voice was slightly low. Those youthful years… the Golden Age, when even Poison Ivy was a greenhorn.
“You will, again and again, exhaust your wisdom, think of every possible solution, like Sisyphus pushing the boulder—but you’ll never win! That’s Batman, he’s always one step ahead of you, has always been, and always will be.”
Glug glug glug glug…
Zombie Bane’s poison tanks behind him suddenly started running automatically without warning, continuously injecting poison into this body.
Zombie Bane screamed loudly: “No! You’ve been controlled by us, damn it—get out of our brains!”
Poison Ivy’s voice continued.
“Second, Batman won’t die. This is a fact.”
“Shoot Batman with a gun, he won’t die.”
“You saw him disappear in the explosion with your own eyes, he won’t die.”
“You can’t kill Batman with a knife, and you can’t kill him with a tank.”
“Poison won’t kill him either. No matter how fatal the attack, no matter how many people claim to have killed Batman and produce whatever convincing evidence, as long as crime is still happening, Batman will appear, will stand in front of them, and end their criminal career with his fists.”
“Even if he’s scarred and wounded, even if he’s riddled with bullets, he’ll appear in front of the criminal.”
“No! What have you done to me!”
Zombie Bane screamed and rolled on the ground, his two voices resonating in unison, emitting a piercing shriek: “Let me go!”
Poison Ivy’s voice was still ringing.
“Third, Batman has the most unwavering faith. No matter what you say, no matter what you try to use to buy him, no one can shake his faith, make him give up his cause, his identity.
He’s silent and doesn’t listen to anyone’s nonsense, he only needs to know if you want to surrender.”
Poison Ivy said sincerely:
“That’s Batman. Hard, if not impossible, to communicate with, unpredictable in appearance, sometimes like a shadow, sometimes infinitely close to humanity, difficult, if not impossible, to kill.
Her tone was full of compassion:
“Batman is a monster like that, unbreakable, unconvincible, untradable, only winning…
Never losing!”
(End of Chapter)
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