A drum.
At first, it was an intermittent, dull thudding, like a clumsy apprentice swinging a drumstick.
Only a few seconds later, the apprentice transformed into a true drummer, frantically swinging the sticks to strike a continuous, deafening roar.
Judging by the sound, it was clearly something massive, and indeed it was.
At Batman's signal, inside the hangar of the Batwing parked in the jungle on the Wakandan border, a massive mech—placed there by Batman as a contingency plan—was activated.
—Codename: "Rogue"!
Towering tree trunks in the border jungle fell one after another. Wherever the Rogue Mech passed, a path about three meters wide was cleared. Often, before the trunks could even hit the ground, the mech was already long gone.
The booming sound of the thundering drum was precisely the noise made by the Rogue Mech's six legs stomping the ground in turn.
Across the plains of Wakanda, the sound traveled so incredibly far that the moment the Rogue Mech stepped out of the jungle, it was completely surrounded by the Wakandan army, who had rushed toward the noise.
"Hah!"
With angry shouts, this Wakandan squad of dozens unholstered their spears, the tips glowing with an eerie blue light.
Behind them, the massive barrels mounted on three hovering fighter jets and five armored vehicles similarly lit up with the same eerie blue glow, ready to fire at a moment's notice.
The Rogue Mech stood at the edge of the jungle, its six thick mechanical legs remaining completely motionless.
"Halt! Step out of the mech, vile intruder!" someone in the squad barked.
Meanwhile, far away at the Vibranium vein, Batman frowned.
Through the scanning data from the Rogue Mech, Batman determined that the spears held by the Wakandans possessed enough power to pierce armor, and the eerie blue cannons on the Wakandan jets and vehicles were equally capable of paralyzing the mech.
"When Ulysses Klaue was thrown into the mine by the Enchantress, his sonic weapon was active the entire time. It seems the sound waves disrupted the stability of the Vibranium vein, causing Ulysses Klaue to fuse with the sound waves, turning him into what he is now: 'Noise.'"
Batman raised his hand and shot a web-line toward the hilltop, dodging a sonic blast from Noise.
He didn't have the time right now to try and hack those Wakandan jets and vehicles; if this stalemate continued any longer, Batman would eventually be caught by Noise.
Fortunately, Batman had a new backup plan designed specifically as a contingency for this contingency.
Beep!
Without a moment's hesitation, Batman pressed a button.
The next second, over fifty kilometers away at the Wakandan border, a vial inside the Rogue Mech shattered, pouring the Pym Particles swirling within it into a small, disc-shaped device.
Driven by a mechanical switch, the device dropped, snapping firmly onto the inner armor plating with a sharp clink.
Hummm—
Amidst a massive, vibrating hum, the eyes of those dozens of Wakandans nearly popped out of their skulls. They watched helplessly as the Rogue Mech grew larger and larger, until a single mechanical leg was thicker than one of their Wakandan armored vehicles.
Standing over ten meters tall and reaching a staggering width of nearly fifteen meters, it looked like a giant crab monster from the deep sea.
Boom!
A mechanical leg slowly lifted and slammed down, hitting the ground with a deafening roar like muffled thunder.
When the leg lifted again, it left a crater roughly half a meter deep in the ground.
The massive increase in size dramatically boosted both the Rogue Mech's armor thickness and stride length. The Wakandan jets and vehicles that had caused Batman concern moments ago were now completely ignored.
Lifting and dropping its six mechanical legs in alternation, the ten-meter-tall Rogue Mech thundered forward like a charging rhinoceros, straight toward the Wakandan Vibranium vein.
The five Wakandan vehicles remained frozen in place, terrified of being crushed to splinters by those absurdly thick mechanical legs.
The Wakandan jets hovering at low altitudes quickly dispersed to either side, attempting to bombard the Rogue Mech's armor with their cannons.
But in front of the Rogue Mech, which had been magnified fivefold by the Pym Particles, these attacks were completely shrugged off.
"What is that thing? Why did it grow?" The Wakandans ignored by the Rogue Mech looked at each other in bewilderment.
Someone suddenly thought of something:
"Could it be the Prince... no, the King? No..."
He fumbled with the titles a few times before finally deciding to use his actual name:
"Is T'Challa back?"
The others immediately rejected the idea:
"If it were him, he could have just told us directly instead of growing this big and stepping right over us."
"Cut the chatter! Follow the mech, and report to M'Baku to request backup!" said a Wakandan whose necklace clearly held more animal teeth than anyone else's.
The other Wakandans responded immediately, giving chase while keeping a distance of less than a hundred meters from the Rogue Mech.
The three fighter jets remained airborne, occasionally trying to use their cannons to find a weak spot on the Rogue Mech, but to little effect.
The mech was not slow; in the blink of an eye, it had already covered several kilometers.
Whether faced with plains, hills, or massive boulders, the Rogue Mech maintained a strict straight line, flipping boulders away and leveling hills.
This blatant, violent approach, combined with the route the Wakandans mapped out after pursuing it for a while, made their expressions grow increasingly grim:
"The mech is heading for the Vibranium mine!"
"Damn it! Could this be the work of that mercenary, Ulysses Klaue?"
The same Wakandan with the most animal teeth around his neck—seemingly the captain—made a decisive call:
"I need two warriors to get close to the mech and find a way inside!"
"I'll have M'Baku contact Princess Shuri to attempt a remote hack on this mech. We absolutely cannot let it get near the Vibranium mine!"
The giant Rogue Mech blitzed forward, making absolutely no effort to conceal its movements. Its six mechanical legs heavily stomped the earth in turn, sending a rumbling, thunderous roar that reverberated almost all the way to the nearby Wakandan Royal City.
—At its closest point, the mech's path was less than ten kilometers from the Wakandan Royal City.
The rumbling tremors traveled through the earth into the distance, reaching the Vibranium vein and even extending to the temple beneath the Wakandan Royal City.
The giant black panther had been dismembered by the Executioner into a limbless torso. Its severed limbs and tail dissolved into purple mist and vanished.
As the Executioner brought his axe down, severing the giant black panther's head, its entire body dissolved into purple mist.
Venom Robin's tongue lolled out as the Enchantress cupped his small face, staring into his eyes.
Robin had no actual eyes—the white outlines on his head were merely decorative—but even so, Amora successfully penetrated into the depths of Robin's mind.
There, she saw a hideous greatsword, its surface covered in black and red veins that rose and fell as if it were breathing.
--
Support me & read more advance & fast update chapter on my pa-treon:
pat reon .c-om/windkaze