novelonline Chapter 4242 Possession by Evil Spirits (22)
Chapter 4242 Possession by Evil Spirits (22)
Chapter 4242 Possession by an Evil Spirit (Twenty-Two)
The claw struck Bruce's carotid artery directly, and blood gushed out. Bruce snapped as easily as a newly sprouted bud on a tree. Kent was completely stunned.
Superpowers are extremely important to Superman because they not only grant him super strength and a super brain, but also super senses. His way of perceiving the world is completely different from humans; a massive amount of information floods his brain through his almost limitless senses, allowing him to accurately perceive everything happening in the world every second, with nothing able to escape his notice.
So after losing his superpowers, Clark Kent lost not only strength and intelligence, but more importantly, his perception of the world was greatly diminished. Seeing the world through the eyes of an ordinary person was like becoming deaf and blind to Superman. His reaction time also decreased significantly, and his perception of the world became very blurry, somewhat like a human in a state of extreme sleepiness, constantly in a half-awake, half-asleep state.
Therefore, he didn't react at all when the mummified corpse approached, otherwise he wouldn't have been clawed. Even after being clawed, he still didn't react, otherwise he should have turned around and pushed the mummified corpse away immediately.
This mummified corpse was similar to the clown actor from before, with very sharp claws that looked terrifying, but it wasn't actually heavy or strong enough for an ordinary person to handle. Someone of Kent's weight could have easily tackled it, and if he had reacted quickly enough, he could have kicked it away. But he didn't.
This resulted in Bruce, who rushed forward to protect him, being fatally struck. Every breath Kent took was filled with the heavy smell of blood. Bruce fell before his eyes, and the whole world seemed to be shrouded in a blood-red curtain.
"Do not!!!!!!"
Kent let out a roar of grief and anger, and he lunged at the mummified corpse, pinning it to the ground with a thud and smashing its cheekbone with a punch.
He didn't seem very good at this kind of thing, just throwing punches haphazardly, which wasn't an effective blow to the mummified corpse. Those sharp and hard claws kept scratching bloody marks on his back, but Kent seemed oblivious, venting his rage wildly until he pulled hard with both hands and ripped the mummified corpse's head off.
Even so, it couldn't stop the corpse's movements. Just as Kent's anger was burning brighter, he suddenly heard a very weak "Fire..." from behind him.
Kent immediately stood up, pulled a lighter from his pocket, and smashed some rotten planks from beside the abandoned house onto the mummified corpse. He then lit food packaging boxes and threw them onto the planks and the corpse. Flames erupted, and the corpse retreated in terror, but Kent circled behind it and kicked it directly into the flames. After the fire raged, the corpse finally stopped moving.
Kent rushed to check on Bruce, but the claw wound was too deep; the artery had ruptured, and there was no hope of saving Bruce's life.
“No…no…” Kent shook his head helplessly, frantically trying to bandage his wound, but then he saw Bruce shake his head with his last bit of strength and mouth the words: “I won’t die…”
Bruce knew that when he was extremely weak, he would be sent to the mental world. His consciousness was already gradually fading, and he should enter the mental world soon instead of leaving the instance directly. However, the situation was complicated, and he didn't have time to explain.
"Are you crazy?!" Kent yelled at him. "You think you're Batman, that you don't bleed and get hurt?! You're about to die!!!"
Bruce was utterly helpless; he truly didn't know how to appease Kent. If the other hadn't inhaled stimulants, perhaps he could calm down more quickly, but in this situation, that was clearly impossible. In the last moments before his consciousness faded, he could only mouth to Kent, "Go find... Schiller..."
After saying this, his body died, and his consciousness entered the spiritual world. Kent, however, remained in the real world, completely bewildered. He could only watch helplessly as Batman slowly lost his life in his arms.
At this moment, Kent didn't know what he was thinking. It was as if he had been in a long dream and was finally waking up.
There are many things in this world that you can only understand through experience. Superman is a god among men; he possesses an extremely powerful body, and almost nothing can kill him. For him, injury and death are very abstract concepts.
His moral education told him that he should have pity on vulnerable ordinary people, that he should do his best to help the wounded, and that he should mourn for the dead. But this was just theory he had learned from his education. He had almost no experience of the birth, aging, sickness, and death that ordinary people go through. His understanding of the world of ordinary people was merely a castle in the air.
And because of his ability to make his wishes come true, when he desperately wants to do something, there's nothing he can't do. He's God's favorite, and the world's rules will open doors for him. Even if he's weakened by Kryptonite's punishment, he still has the power to resist if he wants to; his margin for error is practically infinite.
However, things are different in this instance. He lost all his abilities, becoming as helpless as an ordinary person; the rules of this universe would not make an exception for him. So, like any ordinary person, one wrong step led to total defeat.
Did he make any particularly egregious mistakes? Not really. The mummified corpse's attack came too suddenly. It was very light, made almost no sound, and attacked quickly and fiercely. Someone without professional training would have almost no chance to react. Not to mention someone like Kent, who had fallen from grace and hadn't yet adjusted to life, it's quite normal that he couldn't push the corpse away immediately.
But because of this, his companion was fatally injured, and he could only watch helplessly as he died. It was his fault, yet not entirely his fault. If one had to say, it was simply that ordinary humans are too fragile, as vulnerable as withered grass in the wind in the face of any being with superpowers.
Damage to any part of the brain, carotid artery, pulmonary artery, internal organs, spine, or lower limb arteries can be fatal, and once damaged, there is no turning back. Even minor accidents in daily life can be fatal, let alone when facing such a terrifying monster.
At this moment, Kent finally realized why Batman always acted so tough, aggressive, and relentless, never giving anyone a chance to breathe.
Why is it that when they disagree, when each Superman wants to talk, when Superman is completely optimistic about something, Batman always acts like a cold, indifferent wall, as if nothing in this world can change him?
Batman is afraid because he can understand the vulnerability of an ordinary person without any superpowers. He must be strong enough, fast enough, and decisive enough to save everyone, including himself.
At that moment, Kent understood that ordinary people were actually living in constant danger of survival. They had too many things to be wary of and too many things to deal with, to the point that they exhibited excessive stress responses to everything around them. Because any moment of complete relaxation could lead them to a terrible death.
For Batman, his level of focus must be hundreds or even thousands of times greater than that of an ordinary person. This is because the survival crises he faces are on par with those faced by Superman, who is like a god among men.
The true greatness of a mortal being who stands shoulder to shoulder with a god lies not in the god's strength, but in the mortal's utter weakness. This fragility shapes them in every way, and even in order to possess the ability to cope with divine calamities, Batman cannot be perfect; he must make sacrifices.
What made Kent feel even more guilty was that he realized that, just a moment ago, Batman had let his guard down and his attention was not focused enough. Therefore, like Kent, who was still not used to the environment, he did not notice the approaching mummified corpse.
For Batman, this was a terrible mistake, and he paid the price for it. But Kent knew that there must have been a moment when the strength and reliability he displayed made Batman think that it was okay to lower his guard a little in front of him and relax a bit.
Considering the crises he has faced since birth, which ultimately shaped him into such a vigilant, focused, and uncompromising person, this moment of relaxation is all the more precious, like a spring in the desert or a campfire on a snowy night—the warmest and most touching side of him that he can show.
But it was precisely this habit that killed him. In his habitual relaxation and lapse in concentration, death quietly arrived, taking his life in a way that resembled a shallow joke.
Batman, who was once invincible in Kent's eyes and would never bleed, was taken away by death as lightly as a falling leaf, so decisive and swift that it seemed unreal, and not at all like a hero.
The thought of those human heroes he had learned about in textbooks, who died just like that, silently and helplessly, made Kent realize that he had never been a hero. The courage he needed to confront disaster was far less than what any vulnerable human being needs when facing injury and death.
If heroic death is a choice made by some people, like a leaf choosing to fall from a tree, merging into the soil and vanishing into nothingness in such a tragic and silent way, perhaps even forgotten, then they can be called heroes. Clark Kent then felt unworthy of all the praise he had received in the past.
Batman, on the other hand, not only jumped from the branches countless times, but also rose again from the earth countless times, battling against fate and fighting against death. He died and was resurrected countless times, forging bricks from his fragile bones and condensing mud from his blood, finally building such a magnificent wall.
This wall is the greatest miracle that Batman, as a vulnerable human being, could build; it is a monument to humanity's struggle against storms, its defiance of fate, and its transcendence of pain and death.
Clark Kent, on the other hand, had to feel ashamed of his past thoughts that "this wall is for protecting myself, or someone else."
At that moment, when he recalled the slightly relaxed side Batman had shown him, he miraculously found himself viewing the indifference he once loathed as a towering mountain. And even the strongest bird, wanting to fly there, would inevitably encounter some setbacks.