"Well… that's that."
Cid didn't even know what to say.
That freak had landed and barely moved a single step since.
Electric shocks, sonic blasts, and tremors—he just stood there, tanking it all.
In an era where even mages no longer threw fireballs like in the old days, this guy looked like someone straight out of a warlock-warrior hybrid handbook.
Some twisted version of a spellcaster designed by someone who clearly hated subtlety.
"Interesting. This is getting fun," came a voice from the glue-coated man.
Though immobilized by a hardened cocoon of industrial-grade adhesive, "Mike" still wore a twisted grin.
His eyes, like two inky black pearls, spun slowly—deep and unreadable.
"I get it now."
He stared straight at Batman.
"You're something like 'Void.' Like light and shadow, fire and water… you and me."
He laughed wildly at his own cryptic nonsense, his body trembling violently in place, muscles quaking beneath the hardened glue.
"Yeah, he's nuts."
Cid muttered under his breath and walked up beside Batman.
"Look, I don't know who you are. Thanks for the assist, I guess. But I still need to bring you in. You're coming with me."
That's when it started.
Both Cid and Beatrix—watching from behind a computer screen—heard it.
Laughter.
Not from "Mike" directly—but from everywhere.
Multiple voices laughing in sync, echoing from all directions, bouncing off the underground garage walls.
Like an entire orchestra of lunatics… and "Mike" was the conductor.
The others, hidden in the shadows, kept time with him perfectly.
Then came the silhouettes.
The lights flickered—like the bulbs themselves were nearing the end of their lifespan.
And in that flicker, shadowy figures began to take shape, step by step, drawing closer.
They were the infected—the ones who were supposed to be dead.
The mad ones. The laughing ones.
Cid didn't hesitate.
He pulled his gun and fired at one of them—point-blank.
The bullet passed through the figure's wide grin and struck the wall behind.
"A spirit form?" he muttered.
"Their mental energy is strong enough to project phantoms?"
If an infected person's mental breakdown exceeded the limit of what the body could handle, the flesh would self-destruct.
In most cases, the soul would vanish too—just like what happened to Klein.
But there was a rare chance—very rare—that the spirit would survive.
A lingering echo of madness. A psychic remnant.
And now, Cid had a terrifying realization.
What if every one of these shadowy figures was the spirit of an infected who died here?
What if every single one of them managed to persist after death?
But... that was supposed to be nearly impossible.
Unless—this strain of the infection had special properties. Something far beyond what they'd seen before.
As he was thinking, all the laughing shadows began to unravel—stretching into dozens of thin, black threads.
They all slithered toward "Mike," still locked in the glue.
Cracks rapidly spread across the adhesive.
In just three seconds, it exploded into fragments.
And "Mike"—was no longer human.
His skin had been replaced with a slick, resinous substance.
His body swelled grotesquely.
From the gelatinous mass, fleshy tentacles burst out, whipping in every direction.
Eyes began to open—one after another—on the outer surface of the tendrils, twitching, staring, watching.
His human shell had been consumed.
Only a grotesque, writhing horror remained.
The underground garage couldn't contain the rapid expansion.
The ceiling cracked and collapsed as the monster burst through the ground and surged into the plaza above—tentacles flailing.
Its form was indescribable.
Nothing on Earth even came close to resembling it.
Covered in thorns and hundreds of unblinking eyes, it writhed like a living mass of nightmares.
People on the street had no time to react.
For a moment, they froze.
Then came the screaming.
Panic spread like wildfire. Traffic collapsed into chaos.
And after the panic—came madness.
It started small.
A man, mid-run, let out a chuckle.
Then another.
And before long, the laughter overpowered him.
He shoved aside the terrified people around him, tackled one of them to the ground, and started pummeling them while laughing hysterically.
And he wasn't the only one.
The laughter spread like a virus.
It infected more and more people.
A child laughed as he climbed onto a man's shoulders—then bit deep into his ear.
An old man in a diner laughed until he couldn't breathe, then smashed a wine bottle into the head of a passing stranger.
A compact car swerved into a fire hydrant. The front end crumpled like paper.
Water shot into the air while the fire hydrant went flying, crashing through a glass storefront.
The driver leaned over the airbag, wheezing through laughter, hands trembling as he shifted into reverse—ready to ram another target.
And the monster at the center of it all? It was thrilled.
It danced with its tentacles, whipping them through the air like a grotesque celebration.
The base of its body still had something like a mouth—huge, wide, oozing red flesh.
A perpetual, grinning slash carved across it like a smiling wound.
"Spiritual outbreak! Situation is completely out of control!"
Cid climbed out of the rubble and pressed his comm.
"You want a report?! You want specifics?!
How the hell should I know what this thing is?
It's a goddamn psychic abomination with a meat tornado strapped to its face!"
The plaza was in complete disarray.
He ducked and weaved through the rampaging crowd, edging toward the creature.
"Stay calm, Detective Cid," the operator said.
"Jet fighters just launched from the carrier. ETA: ten minutes."
"Ten minutes?!"
Cid stared at the crowd, tearing each other apart while the monster loomed above them.
Would there even be anything left to save in ten minutes?
Suddenly, a gust of wind slammed into him, knocking the air from his lungs.
A roar echoed overhead—metallic and thunderous.
Cid looked up.
A massive jet-black aircraft descended—sleek, curved like a teardrop, wings spread like a bat, blue plasma flaring from its engines.
And walking past him, calmly, was the bat-suited freak—Batman.
He raised a grappling gun, fired.
The hook latched onto the floating aircraft above, and in an instant, the cord snapped tight, pulling Batman upward at full speed.
Cid gawked.
"Wait—YOU HAVE A JET?!"
Batman said nothing.
He just vanished into the air, reeling upward toward the plane.
The unspoken message was clear:
What? You don't have one?
Cid stood there, dumbfounded.
Just who was this bat-crazed lunatic?