Gotham's nights are no longer a carnival for criminals.
Tonight, it's their memorial service.
Inside the Batcave, Bruce Wayne sat like a cold conductor, elegantly positioned before the colossal control console.
On the holographic star map before him, a three-dimensional map of Gotham City slowly rotated, and the once dense, dazzling red dots, representing the core members and strongholds of Bane's forces, were extinguishing one by one at a visible speed.
He didn't even step onto the battlefield himself.
His will, his tactics, his ahead-of-its-time brain, had transformed through an encrypted quantum communication network into the God of Death's most precise scythe, silently harvesting the city's sins.
Alfred approached silently, carrying a silver tray.
He gently placed a steaming cup of Earl Grey tea beside the control console, not disturbing Bruce's concentration.
His gaze swept over the constantly updated combat footage on the screen, filled with violent aesthetics—slow-motion shots of sniper bullets piercing skulls, criminals strangled to Death by vines, strongholds reduced to ashes in explosions... A flicker of an extremely complex, ineffable emotion crossed the kind old butler's eyes.
He knew this wasn't the Master Bruce he was familiar with, who would return from battle scarred and struggling with inner turmoil.
The Bruce before him was efficient, cold-blooded, devoid of any personal emotion, like a perfect War Machine operating solely for the goal of "victory."
But for Alfred, as long as this person was still Bruce Wayne, as long as he could see him sitting here safely in the morning, that was enough.
He silently retreated to the side, like a loyal Shadow, guarding his master.
The overall coordinator of this Death symphony was Slade Wilson, the Commander in a heavily modified command vehicle, resembling a mobile fortress.
Slade Wilson's single eye, like an eagle's, was fixed on dozens of split screens before him.
Some of the information on these screens came from the macro-level city data Bruce shared via the "Sky Eye" satellite, while another part came from his own intelligence operatives, disguised as homeless people and drug addicts, whom he had planted throughout Gotham.
They continuously transmitted real-time frontline intelligence via old-fashioned, hard-to-trace shortwave radios.
His biological brain, enhanced by the super-soldier serum, combined Bruce's macro-strategic directives with this fragmented frontline intelligence, rapidly processing, analyzing, and integrating it, finally breaking it down into tactical missions precise to the second, or even millisecond, and issuing them to the "performers" scattered in every corner of the city.
"Lawton," his voice, cold and professional, sounded in Deadshot's ear through bone-conduction headphones, "Target A, 'The Butcher' Boris, Bane's weapons supplier, is traveling in a modified bulletproof troop carrier, at a speed of sixty kilometers per hour, about to pass under the Cloverleaf Bridge."
"My informant reports that to avoid GCPD scrutiny, he will choose to pass beneath the bridge. In three seconds, a tanker truck I've arranged will have its front left tire remotely detonated, creating a 0.5-second steering gap. That is your only chance."
"Your bullet needs to pass through the three-millimeter bulletproof glass seam of his left window. Don't disappoint me."
On top of an abandoned clock tower two kilometers away, Deadshot Floyd Lawton lay like a corpse on the cold concrete. His custom-made, absurdly long-barreled sniper rifle, engraved with the words "I am the Light, the Way," was as steady as a rock. He didn't even use the scope to find the target; he completely trusted the Commander's instructions.
His entire mind was immersed in the perfect rhythm of his breathing and heartbeat. The Commander's countdown, like the God of Death's pendulum, echoed in his ear:
"Three..."
"Two..."
"One..."
"...Fire."
The trigger was gently pulled.
There was no deafening gunshot, only a faint whistle, as if tearing cloth.
A special armor-piercing bullet, made of depleted uranium alloy, carved an almost perfectly straight trajectory through the air, completely imperceptible to the naked eye.
Under the Cloverleaf Bridge, the tanker truck's front left tire suddenly blew out as predicted, and the massive vehicle swerved out of control to one side.
The troop carrier behind it instinctively swerved to avoid it.
In that split second, too fast for even high-speed cameras to capture, the Death bullet precisely, as if alive, drilled into that almost non-existent glass seam!
"Puff!"
Inside the troop carrier, "The Butcher" Boris's fat head, like a watermelon smashed by a heavy hammer, instantly exploded into a red and White blood mist.
Chaos erupted inside the vehicle, which then crashed uncontrollably into a bridge pier, bursting into flames.
"Beautiful," the Commander's praise was sparse but genuine, "Next one."
"Target B, 'The Mouthpiece' Marconi, Bane's intelligence chief. He's very cautious, hiding in the Iceberg Lounge's underground cold storage, surrounded by thirty armed guards. Harley and Pamela will create a grand 'Plant Party' from the main entrance in five minutes, attracting everyone's attention."
"My informant will cut the cold storage's backup power during the commotion, causing the emergency ventilation shaft to open. Your firing window is only one second. Shoot from the rooftop of the building opposite him, through that ventilation duct. I've already calculated the angle for you."
Deadshot licked his somewhat dry lips, his eyes gleaming with excitement.
He quickly put away his sniper rifle and moved positions like a ghost.
His entire life had been dedicated to pursuing this ultimate art of shooting, turning the impossible into the possible.
And tonight, Batman, or rather the mysterious Commander behind him, was providing him with the most perfect, grandest stage.
Tonight, he was no longer a killer who killed for money.
He was a performer, an artist composing a magnificent Death symphony with bullets.
And the Commander was his conductor.
As for the Dark Knight in the Batcave, controlling everything... he was the devil himself, composing this forbidden symphony.
Overnight, twenty-three important leaders who had wielded great influence in Gotham's underworld and were entrusted with heavy responsibilities by Bane, died violently in various bizarre, strange, and even scientifically unexplainable ways in different corners of the city.
Some died in their homes, silently strangled by a vine hanging from the ceiling.
Some were accurately headshotted by a bullet that flew from an unknown source while speeding.
Others, under tight security, were dragged into the sewers, car and all, by a giant alligator that suddenly burst in... Gotham's night was, for the first time, completely enveloped by a fear deeper, more unknown, and more despair-inducing than crime itself.