Chapter 104: Ultimate Darkness
"Perfect body and powerful muscles—I love you, Batman!"
The symbiote abandoned Eddie Brock, bonding with Batman. Its first reaction was ecstasy.
Its original intent was temporarily controlling Batman through bonding. It wanted thorough close-quarters combat with Batman rather than various projectiles, bombs, and webbing greeting it from distance.
A second ago, Venom's ideal bonding target was the hatred-filled Eddie Brock.
But after entering Batman's body, Venom's thinking immediately transformed. It decided never returning to Eddie Brock's interior, instead becoming one with Batman.
Though symbiotes don't require highly demanding hosts, if the host himself is sufficiently powerful, their combined form also becomes more formidable.
If the symbiote had a heart, currently Venom's heart would definitely be pounding wildly.
It had just descended from the hatred-filled Eddie Brock. Batman not only possessed an extremely powerful physical body—his heart likewise overflowed with even more immense rage and hatred.
This further solidified Venom's determination to unify with Batman. It plunged headfirst into Batman's memories.
It saw the pearl necklace in Crime Alley. Heard that eternal gunshot.
It saw Arkham Asylum's endless madness. Felt Gotham City's every corner breeding evil.
It trembled excitedly, attempting to absorb this profoundly deep fury and pain.
But Venom's anticipated feast never arrived. What it encountered wasn't an emotional powder keg that could be ignited, but rather a cold, hard, boundless darkness.
It had entered a prison of darkness.
Batman's heart contained infinite plans and control desires twisted to extremes over everything, plus loneliness and distrust nearly hostile to the entire world—and from this, even more plans derived.
Within darkness, Venom saw a figure wearing a bat cape, seated amidst absolute silence in pitch-black form.
That figure's face was completely dark, featureless, currently facing calmly toward Venom's direction without movement.
In the mental realm, a terrified Venom wanted to escape, but suddenly a young child's sobbing rang out.
"Oh, so the weakest you hides here? Hidden beneath seemingly most impenetrable exterior?"
Venom stopped its attempted escape. It heard sobbing coming from behind that seated pitch-black figure.
Venom slowly approached. It knew clearly that as long as it could grasp that weakness, it could become this body's dominant controller—just like Eddie Brock.
As Venom drew increasingly closer to the dark shadow, it finally saw the sound's source—a boy appearing only seven or eight years old, currently sitting in darkness, arms wrapped around himself while sobbing quietly.
But just as Venom wanted advancing further, that perpetually seated shadow had somehow stood up. Simultaneously, indestructible barriers rose from the ground within darkness.
.....
FEAST Center entrance. A car screeched to halt. Before stopping completely, the door opened. Martin Li rushed hurriedly inside the welfare center.
The place was now deserted. Walls showed widespread patches of dark red blood. Originally neatly arranged tables and chairs now lay toppled everywhere.
The floor held several corpses scattered haphazardly. All uniformly lacked heads. Still-uncongealed blood slowly flowed from necks.
"Batman eats people? He really is a monster?" Martin Li frowned at the hellish scene before him.
He'd heard of Batman—this guy recently causing frequent commotion throughout New York.
According to Martin Li's understanding, Batman might be some ancient legendary creature come to life. Regardless of opponents, his methods were extremely brutal, yet paradoxically nobody had reportedly died by his hand.
But currently, seven or eight headless corpses in his welfare center lay here bloodily, making previous "Batman doesn't kill" rumors laughable.
Martin Li always believed he and Batman minded separate affairs. His FEAST Center had no conflicts of interest with any person or faction.
He'd never imagined Batman would someday come knocking to conduct massacre.
'Is it Batman, or some other monster?' As Martin Li wondered, he suddenly heard successive muffled impacts.
CRASH—
FEAST Center's front and rear walls had massive holes smashed through them. Currently, not only did night wind pour through openings, but also footsteps plus strange inhuman, beastly roaring sounds.
Just as Martin Li stepped over headless corpses approaching the rear wall hole to investigate—
FLASH!
Intense white glare suddenly blazed, plunging FEAST Center's rear small garden into blinding white light, accompanied by high-frequency noise plus violent shockwaves.
Martin Li almost instinctively deployed his negative energy. Silk-thread energy blazed like flames from his body.
Within white light, human screams and inhuman beastly roars intertwined.
When white light dispersed, Mr. Negative saw Batman standing motionless in the small garden. Eddie Brock—missing all evening—was currently gnashing teeth attempting to remove Batman's mask.
Besides this, the small garden contained no other people or creatures whatsoever.
Just as Eddie Brock's hand touched the mask, electric current immediately released, striking Eddie Brock, causing him to collapse on the ground convulsing while screaming continuously.
Mr. Negative's gaze didn't linger excessively on Eddie Brock. Most of his attention concentrated on Batman.
Currently, Batman's body outline was violently fluctuating.
Pitch-black symbiote matter occasionally burst from his body, forming twisted muscles and fangs, yet in the next second forcibly suppressed back internally by some invisible force—like a prisoner attempting to break free from restraints.
"What happened?"
Mr. Negative watched Batman—whose combat suit seemed to come alive—with furrowed brows. He sensed two types of massive negative energy accumulating inside Batman's body.
One was Eddie Brock's hatred of everything, wanting revenge against everyone's hateful emotions. The other was even more complex.
But regardless, at least currently Batman stood rooted in place, motionless. Even Eddie Brock collapsing resulted from passive electrical discharge from the suit.
Without overthinking, Mr. Negative attempted reaping fisherman's benefits. From his fingertips he fired a negative energy beam flying toward Batman.
Mr. Negative, controlling negative energy, possessed abilities to perceive others' negative emotions and guide amplification. He could make closest relatives, best friends, most loving couples mutually slaughter each other.
He could make all weak people driven by negative emotions, becoming Mr. Negative's own hands and beasts.
Currently Mr. Negative was about to do exactly this to Batman.