Dawn Knight

In a wide, somewhat dim room, damp droplets condensed on the stone walls. Hundreds upon thousands of candles were fixed to the walls at varying heights. Enormous ribbons hung from the lofty ceiling supports, casting interwoven shadows across the floor.

A huge conference table stood in the center of the room. Several masked figures sat on either side of it, watching images on a screen.

This was the Court of Owls’ meeting room.

The Court of Owls was a mysterious organization in DC Comics. It had operated in Gotham since the city’s earliest days. In some comic versions, it was described as an organization maintained by Gotham City’s founders or their descendants, the dark king of Gotham City.

Of course, more comic versions devised even greater conspiracies for the organization. For instance, Gotham City’s Court of Owls actually belonged to the global Owl Council, and the Owl Council was an organization under the Dark God Barbatos.

But regardless, this organization had existed in Gotham for a long time and had always manipulated the city from the shadows.

The members of the Court of Owls only gathered over conspiracy plans concerning Gotham City. This time was no exception.

Of course, that had been their original purpose. But things were different now—or rather, the nature of the entire story had changed completely the moment they saw a massive black monster leap out through the surveillance devices on the Talons’ belts.

And the speed and impact of that change had far exceeded everyone’s expectations.

During the period of change in Gotham City, the Court of Owls had not been entirely inattentive. The problem was that any council-like organization needed a series of discussions, meetings, and member statements before deciding on anything. The Court of Owls was no exception. Regarding Gotham’s recent changes, they needed to investigate, gather evidence, analyze, and then vote.

Yes, this damned evil organization was damned meticulous. Its case-handling efficiency was far better than the Gotham Police Department’s.

Still, after reacting for some time, the Court of Owls finally found the mastermind behind Gotham’s changes from the faintest traces.

The Court of Owls was not actually worried about Gotham’s changes, because the city had not developed in a better direction. No one was trying to save it at the root. On the contrary, these changes had brought enormous benefits to the city, which aligned with the Court of Owls’ interests.

What they could not accept was someone controlling and influencing the city from a place darker than theirs, and doing it more precisely. Once such a person appeared, the Court of Owls had to eliminate him.

So the Talon found his target: the seemingly ordinary college professor, Schiller Rodriguez.

Everything had originally gone smoothly. The Court of Owls had thought they would once again strangle opponent after opponent in the cradle, just as they had before. But everything began to change with the appearance of that black monster.

It was not strange for the Court of Owls to install surveillance devices on the Talons. They had always been a conspiracy organization that monitored the entire city. But they never imagined that the coming spectacle would shatter everyone’s worldview and fundamentally change the purpose of this meeting.

At that moment, Schiller, still tangled up with Venom Bat, found the situation troublesome as well. Battles between Symbiotes were not like the giant monsters punching each other that he had seen in films.

As a factor-based life-form, a Symbiote’s battles mostly took place on a microscopic level, devouring each other’s Symbiote factors. It was like turning a one-on-one duel into a war between legions.

It was not that Schiller could not fight this kind of battle, but he was facing a crazed dark bat. Venom Bat did not care how many Symbiote factors he lost. He only attacked madly, trying to bite more from the Gray Mist.

There was no discussing tactics with such a mad enemy. Defending would only make him lose more, so Schiller had no choice but to attack wildly as well. The two Symbiotes began devouring each other without fear.

There was neither flame nor sound in this battle. Everything seemed shrouded in a mysterious, silent atmosphere. Tangible things gradually became intangible amid the mad mutual devouring. The tugging of Slime and mist made it all resemble a war of light and shadow, while beneath that silent surface lay screaming, chaos, and frenzied battles too terrible for ordinary people to see.

But the Court of Owls was not made up of ordinary people. They did possess certain dark powers beyond those of normal humans.

Thus, when facing this silent yet deafening battle, the Court of Owls, having never encountered creatures like Symbiotes, could only interpret it within their own worldview as some higher form of occult manifestation.

This battle taking place on an invisible level made it easier for them to associate it with the source of certain dark powers. Unlike ordinary people, the Court of Owls understood that this world was not as simple or peaceful as it appeared. They knew that greater, darker powers watched everything from within the cosmos.

The forms of Venom Bat and Gray Mist Schiller made them all too easy to associate with Demon Gods beyond dimensions.

The giant black bat carried terrifying Dark Force. Even through the screen, they could see the vast black tide surging from Batman’s dark side. One glance was enough to make them feel as though their throats had been clutched, leaving them breathless with fear.

As for Schiller, that massive sun rising from the gray mist looked like a black hole devouring everything. Those strange, bizarre patterns in the mist added a solemnity filled with the sacred quality of religious ritual to their eeriness and absurdity. It was difficult not to think of something.

The limitless possibilities displayed by the unique Symbiote race made the transformations of these two seem anything but an impulsive whim.

In fact, the Court of Owls’ judgment was not wrong. The Symbiote race itself had been born from a Cosmic Demon, and the two currently fighting were both outstanding among their kind.

If possible, please allow Schiller to formally introduce the Court of Owls to a special enthusiastic online acquaintance—

The oldest being of the Seventh Cosmos, Cosmic Satan, Lord of the Abyss, Emperor in Black, master of the Black Death Sword, beheader of the Celestials, Gorr the God Butcher’s stepfather, the God of Thunder’s soul-bonded friend, Thanos’ headache generator, and the ultimate nightmare of the three cosmic empires—Knull, God of the Symbiotes.

All right, Knull’s story mentioned before might have made him sound a little weak, but in truth, this Demon God who forged the All-Black Death Sword ranked rather high among the Demon Gods of the Marvel Universe, and his record was impressive as well. Though his special descendants could not be considered independent Cosmic Demons, they were at least direct relatives.

One had to know that in this era, most famous villains had not fully debuted yet, much less Demon Gods beyond Earth’s level. Yet the battle between these two seemed to skip countless tiers of power and transform a street fight directly into a cosmic event.

How could the Court of Owls not get a chill down their spines?

Thus, the topic of this meeting changed from whether they should interfere with Gotham to whether they should evacuate Gotham.

After all, they had been completely unaware of these changes. They did not even know why the Batman they had closely monitored had suddenly become like this, nor did they know what the outcome of this battle would be. Would all of Gotham be destroyed? Would the entire Earth be destroyed?

But at least they were certain of one thing: before figuring out why Batman and this professor had suddenly leaped from ordinary people living on the ground into cosmic-level archfiends, it was best not to make any drastic moves.

What worried them even more was how sudden the changes in these two had been. There had been no warning whatsoever, and the Court of Owls had not discovered any mysterious power invading the city.

If these Demon Gods were organized and had already infected many people in Gotham, then who knew how many more people like this there were in Gotham City?

What if they sent out the Talons, poked one person and one exploded, poked another and another exploded? If Gotham City ended up packed with Cosmic Demons, what the hell would the owls even play at?

If every Gotham citizen had this kind of combat power, the owls would not even have the chance to run home and cry while clutching Barbatos’ leg.

Schiller had originally brought Venom to DC because he had seen a scene in the comics where Venom repaired the aging bones and nervous system of his host Eddie. He thought Venom might be able to treat Mr. Freeze’s wife the same way. But before he could do so, Venom had gotten himself killed by running onto Batman.

Batman was not someone just anything could parasitize. You stinking Marvel outsider, and you thought you could come to Gotham to beg for food?

As he thought this, Schiller noticed that the offensive across from him seemed to weaken. The gray mist rounded another building, and Schiller drew in his form, standing at the edge of the tallest rooftop and looking down.

The black bat made of Slime suddenly began flying crookedly, as though it were fighting itself, pulled by some invisible force.

Inside the black bat’s mind, another battle grew fiercer.

Wave after wave of black tide covered the sky and earth. Bruce’s own personality-consciousness was like a lone boat in a storm, swaying on the verge of collapse.

Even Bruce himself had never imagined that his dark side could be so terrifying.

Fighting alongside him was Venom’s miserable consciousness. Even now, he could not understand how he had stirred up another hornet’s nest.

After barely withstanding another wash of black tide, Bruce said to Venom, "Didn’t you call yourself an alien life-form?!!! Why is your alien will so fragile?!!!"

Venom was nearly furious to death. Was his will fragile? Why did humans love creating so many storms in their minds?

Extreme survival in the Consciousness World, huh???

Venom was aggrieved beyond measure. When he had first started out, his first host had been Deadpool.

Deadpool’s brain was like it had been churned by a mixer spinning thousands of times. Everything on him could grow except a brain.

Venom had felt like he was doing the butterfly stroke in a cesspit. Deadpool’s mind was not particularly dangerous, but it was disgusting. Extremely disgusting.

Deadpool had made Venom a little unhinged. After finally spending some time with an ordinary person, Venom could not resist temptation and ran onto Stark.

Stark’s mind was not chaotic, but that damned bastard had more than three thousand thunderstorms a day in his head on average. Tornadoes and sandstorms blew so hard even his mother would not recognize him, nearly ripping Venom’s skull open.

When Venom had been shaken out of Stark’s body, he had felt the relief of narrowly escaping death.

Then he had been locked in a jar and starved for ages. He finally found an opportunity to escape. Venom had been delighted, because the moment he entered Bruce’s body, he discovered this seemed to be a rich second-generation kid with a useful brain. His thoughts did not seem to spin as fast as Stark’s, either. Instead, his mind was full of irrelevant data like hospital beds and prison cells.

Filled with visions of a happy life, Venom had thought he had happily crawled into an egg. Just as he drooled at the yolk and prepared to swallow it in one bite, the egg cracked and hatched a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Venom had nearly had his head bitten off.

Venom could learn from his genetic information that the universe was vast and humans were not the only race. So why was he this unlucky? Why had he happened to land on Earth?

How could humans be so outrageous? If one day he could compile the Symbiote gene bank too, he would definitely tell all his kin: stay away from humans, safety first. Improper host selection brought Symbiotes tears.

But grievances were grievances, and complaints were complaints. The fight still had to be fought. Venom said to Bruce, "I can stimulate your emotions. You need an extreme emotion now to suppress this dark emotion."

Thank Stark. Venom’s logic system came from that genius cursed by knowledge. His thinking was very clear now, even a little clearer than Bruce’s. Bruce was too involved to see clearly, while Venom understood that to defeat these dark emotions from his shadow side, Bruce had to stir up sufficiently positive emotions.

"Then what are you standing around for? Start already," Bruce said.

"The problem is that I can’t find your positive emotions!!!!!!"

Venom roared, "Where did you hide them?! Dig them out already!!! They’re our lifeline!!!"

Another surge of black tide knocked Venom head over heels. Nearing collapse, he said, "What is there to hide?! You stupid humans!!!"

Bruce opened his mouth. He did not even know how to answer Venom’s question. It sounded absurd, but even an alien creature capable of peering into hearts could not find his positive emotions.

"You need to hurry!" Venom’s tone sounded very much like Stark’s now. Clearly, the genius had left a huge influence on him.

"Your dark emotions seem to contain another kind of power. Once they fully erupt, your hometown—the city we’re currently in—will absolutely be completely destroyed! Nothing will remain!"

Bruce pressed his lips together and dodged another attack from the dark consciousness.

Destroy Gotham? It might sound insane, but it also seemed so reasonable. This insane city should have been destroyed long ago. What was there to miss?

Alfred’s face appeared in his mind. He remembered the old butler’s expression as he sat by the hospital bed, then remembered the cheerful tunes Alfred hummed while polishing that old telephone alone in the pitch-black sitting room.

This did not surprise Bruce. If there was only one person in this city he still felt attached to, it had to be his butler Alfred. If there was only one place he still longed for, it was Wayne Manor, where Alfred was.

Soon, his memories began to blur, as though he had returned to Wayne Manor. Like any ordinary morning, he pushed open a door.

But to his surprise, behind that door lay Gotham’s pitch-black Crime Alley. It was where Detective Gordon had first called him a man in tights. They worked cases together, investigating and tracking. Then, on the rooftop of the Gotham Police Department, the detective in a trench coat and the bat in a cape spoke of justice and the city’s future.

When the night had grown late, Batman turned and left. When he returned to the manor, an old friend was already waiting amid the flickering yellow candlelight. Batman and Harvey sat on the sofa, talking about many things as though they had endless topics to discuss. The conversation flowed like that between a wise teacher and a good friend. Bruce’s memory of the principles Harvey had told him had become hazy, but the unspoken understanding between them remained clear.

Soon, he was weaving through the lights of Gotham’s towering buildings again, embracing Catwoman in a passionate kiss and falling into a sensual dream.

The flung gauze curtains, the knocked-over wineglasses, the spilled wine, every night both gentle and wild; the kisses that warmed a bat’s cold body; the lover whose passion fascinated him beyond measure, telling him stories of jewels and castles that Batman would never care about. In those memories, he listened with complete attention, but to him, Catwoman’s eyes shone brighter than any gemstone she described with every word she knew.

The scratch of a pen on paper rose, and Bruce seemed to return to an examination room. He watched his classmates scratching their heads over their papers, perhaps feeling surprised, perhaps helpless.

Then he painted murals with those people, watching black paint run down the walls and spontaneously form mysterious patterns he had never seen before, like the door of a time machine.

He passed through that door. Time sped forward, advancing bit by bit through his dreamlike memories until the present, then racing backward again. Every person and object returned to its place like a film playing in reverse, until he reached the place where a black sun rose and heard a familiar voice say, "Welcome to Gotham."

Venom watched the consciousness space begin to tremble. Strong light shone through fragmented cracks. He cursed under his breath and rapidly began stitching Bruce’s emotions together, trying to guide those scattered positive feelings into one.

Points of light gradually rose, then gathered into an even more dazzling orb.

The black tide’s counterattack became fiercer, like black ink soaking the entire world. A black ocean began spreading through the consciousness space, with enormous waves surging across the sky.

Bruce, who had already pulled free of the memory space, floated above the black tide. Through layer upon layer of black waves, he saw that in the deepest part of the black ocean lay a curled-up little boy.

That was him. Bruce Wayne.

Soon, Schiller saw the enormous bat made of Slime plunge headfirst into the ground. The Slime slowly retracted, then all of it shrank back into Bruce’s body.

Schiller jumped down from the rooftop and stood before Bruce. Bruce climbed up from the ground—or rather, Venom was now controlling his body.

"How did you get out?"

"You should ask the woman who ran into your house and stole that jar."

The woman who stole the jar? Schiller thought. There was only one female thief in all of Gotham capable of that. Could it have been Catwoman?

"I shouldn’t have listened to Stark’s nonsense," Schiller said. "He told me his Symbiote needed to live in a mansion worthy of the world’s richest man, so he used those strange instruments of his to make a diamond jar. He even assured me it was both beautiful and practical."

"Then I should thank him."

In an instant, black Slime erupted again. But this time, Venom took his original form: a huge mouth lined with fangs and a bright red tongue.

"How did you get onto Batman, anyway?"

"Don’t you think communicating in human ways is too slow? Don’t waste my time," Venom said.

"Your tone reminds me of someone very annoying."

Venom extended a tentacle of Slime, while the Gray Mist slowly spread out a cluster of mist. The instant their Symbiote factors touched, the two sides exchanged countless pieces of information.

The Gray Mist told Schiller in his mind, "…a woman with cat ears… like that vehicle… the necessary process for human reproduction… wouldn’t let him watch… he couldn’t figure it out either…"

"All right, I get it…" Schiller covered his forehead. He already knew what had happened. "Don’t tell me the details. Bruce completely deserved it."

Then Venom grinned with that enormous mouth and said, "You’ll never catch me again! Hahahahahaha! I’m free!! I’m going to eat everyone’s brains here!! I—"

"I told you before, you might have trouble to deal with before considering eating…"

Venom had just been about to answer when he felt his consciousness suppressed again in an instant. He roared unwillingly, "No! Damn humans! Bastards!!"

But in the end, the Slime retreated into his body. Bruce shook his head and said, "Did it work? What exactly happened?"

"You should ask the glutton inside you."

"I don’t mean that. He already told me who he is and what he wants to do. I mean…" Bruce clutched his head in pain. "Why did I lose control? What were those terrifying negative emotions? Why… where did that darkness come from?"

"Looks like you’ve discovered it," Schiller said. "The darkness hidden inside you is terrifying. It has never lost control before, but once it does, you could destroy everything."

"What exactly is it?"

"That’s Batman. Don’t you know that?"

"Batman? Then who am I? No… no, that’s wrong… impossible!" Bruce covered his eyes and crouched down. Half-kneeling on the ground, he looked utterly pained. "Impossible… I am Batman… I am Batman…"

"You thought you had become another version of yourself, but that too was only an appearance."

Schiller’s thoughts began drifting away. He gradually recalled the Batman he had known from those comics, and his voice grew increasingly ethereal as he said, "Batman? You are somewhat different from him. True, he did not blindly pursue darkness."

"He was ultimate darkness, and also ultimate light. He wielded ultimate darkness over this hopeless city, then used light to prevent the destruction that such ultimate darkness might bring."

It sounded more like Schiller’s sigh. Bruce’s voice was full of exhaustion as he said, "I thought I didn’t need those things. I am the avenger in the night. I don’t need any useless emotions that might shake my faith. I’m not that ridiculous Bruce, that powerless Little Bruce who could not save or change anything…"

It was the first time Schiller had heard such obvious trembling in his voice. Bruce’s tone shook so badly that he could barely finish the last complete word—or perhaps he simply did not want to say it.

This was the first time he had spoken of what he had always avoided—that night, those two gunshots, the two people fallen in pools of blood, and the helpless little boy named Bruce Wayne.

He had thought Little Bruce had been buried forever in that night.

So when he realized that, like that little boy, he still held onto fantasies he should not have about the world and those happy, movie-like memories from that night, it was as though all the hatred of these years and every effort driven by that hatred had been nothing but self-deceptive escape.

Facing the little boy who had lost his parents brought Schiller a stronger emotional response than facing Batman. For the first time, he did not offer advice like an uninvolved observer. Instead, he truly said it as a piece of counsel: "…Even Gotham has daytime."

Bruce’s Adam’s apple moved. He took a deep breath, as though some life had suddenly been injected into him. He stood, trembling slightly. The cold wind of Gotham’s night blew against his Bat-armor, bringing a tremor no one could hear.

Limping slightly, he slowly walked to the edge of the rooftop.

Standing there, he saw a glow appear on Gotham City’s skyline. A golden line, like the creation of heaven and earth, cleaved through the dense darkness.

Bruce had never watched a sunrise in Gotham.

He suddenly realized that even such a dark, gloomy city possessed a brilliance he had never seen before at the instant the sun rose, when light tore through the darkness.

The deeper the darkness, the more the light shook the heart.

Bruce closed his eyes. He slowly curled the fingers of one hand, as though grasping that light which had cut through the darkness.

Soon, Bruce took a deep breath and opened his eyes. The sun’s glow seemed held within them, and the arc of light on the horizon left a brilliant gold in his pupils.

No one knew that he had briefly seen the little boy lying beneath the black tide in the consciousness space. Only after seeing him did Bruce understand that he had always treated those happy memories as rewards granted before his painful life began. Thus, whenever he received even a little happiness, he always wanted to repay it with ten times the pain.

He had been so desperate to flee those happy memories, just as he instinctively fled pain.

To become Batman, what he needed to accept was not merely the pain and darkness. He also needed to accept that he had always been that little boy, that he had always looked forward to that film, always longed for that light.

Just like that dark night years ago, without hope for the light, there would never have been a desire to merge into darkness.

"Who am I?"

He softly said, "Who am I?"

The breaking dawn offered no answer, but he already had one in his heart. He said, "I am Bruce Wayne…"

"I am Batman…"

His tone became gentle. "…I am Batman."

A silent, weighty oath settled in his heart like a heavy stone monument, standing firm beneath the wash of the black tide.

From this day onward, this dark city would have only one Batman: Bruce Wayne, and Batman.

From this day onward, he would bear the dark authority of Gotham, that insane city, while wielding a blade as bright as dawn.

He would stand above this Living Hell. Cold wind could not pierce his armor, and flames could not melt his heart.

He would heed no rules and fear no crimes. With dawn as his boundary and daybreak as his signal, he would stand in darkness with his heart turned toward the light, forever toward the light.

Bruce thought that he would be Gotham’s dawn.

He would be—Batman.