As the first ray of sunlight broke over the horizon, the battle between Batman, piloting the Rogue Mech, and Klaw officially reached a fever pitch.
Or rather, this battle had been pushed to its absolute wildest limits from the very beginning.
Inside the Rogue Mech, Batman constantly traded blows with Klaw using sonic weapons. Wherever the two clashed, mountain peaks were blasted to pieces, throwing earth and stone high into the air before raining back down—interspersed occasionally with sheared pieces of the Rogue Mech's own armor plating.
Klaw had no physical form, yet his body, composed of pure sonic energy, possessed terrifying destructive power. Not only could he tear through the layers of the Rogue Mech's armor piece by piece, but he also occasionally attempted to lift and flip the entire thirty-ton mech upside down.
All Batman could do was return fire while continuously analyzing Klaw's composition, trying to locate a weakness.
Boom! A visible shockwave erupted from Klaw's palms.
The shockwave swept across the cliffside, shattering massive boulders; it plowed across the ground, carving deep trenches into the earth.
Creeeeak! Creeeeak!
The Rogue Mech bore the brunt of Klaw's shockwave, its armor plating emitting a stomach-turning screech of bending metal.
"A thick turtle shell won't protect you, Batman." Klaw practically threw half his body onto the Rogue Mech, his sonic hands gripping the armor tightly, trying to rip it wide open.
But under the counter-blast of Batman's sonic cannons, Klaw was forced back a step, his hands slipping off the mech.
"So far, I don't see any way you can defeat me. At most, you're just keeping me pinned here."
Though forced back, Klaw remained unbothered. Instead, he leaned against the mountain and mocked Batman relentlessly.
"Why don't you try finding my frequency to take me down?"
Inside the fully sealed cockpit of the Rogue Mech, Batman stared through the narrow viewport at Klaw's smug face.
Batman had already tried matching Klaw's frequency to neutralize him with sonic weapons, but the tactic was ineffective.
Although the creature was made of sound waves, they weren't pure. His form was built upon the sonic converter at his core, which had absorbed a massive influx of external ambient sound.
Unless Batman could perfectly simulate the tens of thousands of different frequencies inside Klaw's body and synchronize with them in real time, defeating him with sound alone was a pipe dream.
In fact, due to Batman's previous attempts, the frequency-matching sound waves he had emitted to gain control were instead absorbed by Klaw, causing the creature to grow progressively larger.
Even though the Rogue Mech Batman piloted was a behemoth in its own right, it still looked like an ant at Klaw's feet.
This scene was witnessed by the Wakandans who had followed the Rogue Mech. They had initially intended to join the fray, but after one Wakandan was sent flying into the distance just by brushing against the residual shockwave of Klaw's attack, they chose to watch from afar.
They simply had no way to deal with this sonic monster.
As for their previous plan of seeking help from the current King of Wakanda, M'Baku... that man had just received a declaration of war from T'Challa, the Black Panther. Currently throwing a furious tantrum in the royal city, M'Baku had absolutely no time to spare for this battle.
"You know, your attacks are destined to be futile. Any sound your mech makes only serves as nourishment to make me stronger. It will only make me more powerful."
Klaw continued to taunt Batman even as he maintained his assault.
Ulysses Klaw had never been a talkative man in the past, but after transforming into sound, he had grown fond of speaking. It gave him a sense of profound satisfaction from the inside out.
Even though Batman ignored him, hiding inside the Rogue Mech without uttering a word, it didn't stop Klaw from rambling on.
"Let me tell you how to defeat me."
"Drain the Earth of its air. Strip away the planet's atmosphere. Turn this place into a vacuum exposed to space, and you can defeat me easily."
Klaw wasn't afraid to share this method with Batman; he knew it was impossible for anyone to accomplish.
Thump! Thump!
Seeing that Batman still ignored him, Klaw reached out and tapped the top hatch of the Rogue Mech.
"Are you listening to me? Find a way to create a vacuum and you can beat me—a vacuum across the entire planet!"
Seemingly pushed to instability by Klaw's relentless mockery, the Rogue Mech began a sequence of bizarre maneuvers.
Despite knowing that frequent noise would only be absorbed by the sonic monster, the Rogue Mech deployed its turrets anyway, unleashing a wild, indiscriminate bombardment on the surrounding mountains.
Noise—all kinds of noise. The sharp cracks of gunshots, the muffled thuds of exploding rock, the grinding of mechanical gears, the metallic clatter of shell casings raining down onto the chassis, the echoes...
A chaotic symphony of sound violently converged.
Klaw smiled, imagining a frantic, desperate Batman inside the mech who had run out of options. He grinned widely and threw his arms open.
Like iron filings drawn to a magnet, those chaotic sound waves rushed into his body. His size began to balloon rapidly, and his irregular silhouette grew increasingly abstract.
"More! Batman! Give me more sound! This isn't enough!" Klaw roared, egging him on.
"Has that guy lost his mind? He's actively feeding the monster sound!" In the distance, the Wakandans stared with wide eyes, watching the Rogue Mech act as if it had completely given up and broken under the pressure.
Inside the Rogue Mech, Batman's expression remained unchanged. His eyes were locked onto the monitor, which displayed a real-time layout of the frequency distribution inside Klaw's body.
The newly absorbed sounds acted like stones thrown into a calm pond, sending ripples through the previously stable structure. It made Klaw's body larger, but also far more volatile.
Contrary to Klaw's belief that Batman had cracked, and the Wakandans' assumption that he had surrendered, Batman was as steady as a mountain.
There were indeed tens of thousands of frequencies inside Klaw, but they were not piled together at random.
Every sound was structured layer by layer around that central sonic converter.
Closest to the core was the primary frequency—the original set from Ulysses Klaw's initial transformation.
Moving outward were the subsequent absorptions, with the outermost layer consisting of the sounds he had just taken in. They hadn't had time to fully integrate yet, creating rings like those of a tree.
Batman certainly couldn't drain the entire Earth's atmosphere, but he was never going to let Klaw dictate the terms of engagement.
"Klaw? I've found your weakness," Batman said, his gaze fixed on the cockpit screen.
It was true that Klaw's body expanded as he absorbed sound, but when a massive volume of sound flooded into him all at once—when the rate of expansion couldn't keep pace with the influx of energy...
It became just like a balloon pushed to its absolute critical threshold, unable to take in even a fraction of air more.
Otherwise, it would go boom and shatter into pieces.
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