Chapter 980: The Battle for Gao Ta (15)

“Fairness? Justice?” The overseer’s voice rose from beneath the mound, dripping with mockery. “Humans! Cunning humans! You must have used some kind of magic to conjure these ores—you’re cheating!”

“These ores were mined by everyone’s effort, not just mine,” Batman said. “They know every single stone here—they can name them. That’s their labor.”

“How dare you speak back to the great Jacob!” A junior overseer stepped forward from behind Jacob, pointing at Batman. “Jacob will throw you into the lava!”

“That’s all you’re capable of,” Batman said coldly. “Threatening everyone with the lava—even the short devils.”

This struck Jacob like a whip to the tail—he shrieked in fury: “Grab him! Grab him! I’ll flog him to death!! I’ll tear him into eight pieces!!!”

Batman snorted, dodged the lashing whip, and began leading the overseers in circles through the mine tunnels.

Batman hadn’t worked these tunnels for days without learning them—he memorized every protrusion on the walls, plotted countless routes, and moved with his cape flaring, swift as a true bat, darting over the devils’ heads, untouched by any hand.

Human bodies were far weaker than devils’, but they had one advantage: exceptional flexibility and coordination. Unlike many devils with powerful arms, humans didn’t stagger or lose balance with clumsy, top-heavy movements.

Batman’s physical condition, even among humans, was among the best—he pushed human potential to its limit, leaping from platform to platform, springing off, grabbing rock protrusions, swinging hard, clearing the heads of pursuers, and in midair delivering a spinning kick that sent another devil crashing down.

Seeing his subordinates unable to gain the upper hand, Jacob decided to enter the fray himself. His whip cracked with terrifying force—but the mine was too vast, the whip too short. Before he could swing it fully, Batman had already leapt to the other side.

Fuming, Jacob glared at the watching devils. “What are you all standing there for?! Grab that human!!!!”

The devils beside him looked at each other, instinctively wanting to obey.

But on one hand, these slaves were weaker than even the overseers—crippled by size and strength, many devils relied on smell alone, their vision blurred, unable to even see clearly, so they stood frozen, unsure what to do.

On the other hand, Batman had just saved them. Most devils didn’t understand “rewarding virtue with virtue,” but they weren’t fools—if they captured him, who would do the next mining shift?

If no one could do it, wouldn’t they all eventually be thrown into the lava? Even if death was certain, they’d rather die later.

Seeing these devils—who had never dared defy him—ignore his orders, Jacob went mad. His whip couldn’t reach Batman, but it could strike the nearby ogres and whipserpents.

One lash struck—a nearby devil reeled. The whip’s strange power slammed into the ogre’s back, sending him stumbling, then crashing down with a scream.

Jacob raged, lashing out at the devils around him. All devils fled in panic—but the large ones moved too slowly, the small ones were torn apart by a single strike. Soon, every devil was howling.

An ancient whipserpent, trembling, tried to hide behind a mound. Unlike others of his kind, his tail scales bore more colors, and beneath his tattered miner’s uniform, hidden tattoos of mysterious patterns glimmered.

But everyone was busy fleeing. No one noticed him. He heard a sharp whistle through the air—the green-glowing whip was already before his eyes. The old whipserpent closed his eyes in despair.

“Crack!!! Thud!”

The expected pain never came. A dark shadow flashed past him, slamming hard to the ground. Batman’s back bore a massive wound—from the right rear of his skull, slicing clean through to his left gluteus, nearly splitting him in two.

Blood gushed instantly. He writhed on the ground, unable to rise, only gasping helplessly where he lay.

Seeing he’d finally brought down the damned bat, Jacob panted, retracted his whip, clenched his teeth, and stepped before Batman. He let out two cruel laughs, then said:

“Damn human! Your weak body is your eternal curse! You’ll never match a devil! Think you can escape my grasp? Dream on!”

“Hahahaha! You want to be a hero here? Talk of justice and fairness? Look where you are! This is hell!!”

Batman lay motionless, as if breathing had drained every ounce of strength. Jacob stretched his whip in hand, then said: “Remember what I said? I’ll flog you to death! Tear you into eight pieces! Then throw you into the lava!!”

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He swung the whip again. The fast-moving lash churned the air, then shot forward like a blade toward Batman—Batman appeared powerless to flee.

But as the whip’s air current neared Batman, a deafening scream erupted from the side—“Bang!” Jacob’s whip flew from his grip. The ancient whipserpent whipped his tail, darting out from the side, wrapping his body around Batman’s waist, dragging him to the mound.

“Damn it!!!” Jacob staggered two steps, then snapped to attention. He ignored the fallen whip and charged straight at the whipserpent.

The ancient whipserpent looked defenseless, raising his arms in a futile guard—when suddenly, a young whipserpent shouted: “Protect the Elder!!!!”

Instantly, all whipserpents moved. Their massive tails lashed out at Jacob.

Whipserpent tails were strong and agile. One, closest, tripped the powerful devil overseer, sending him crashing to the ground.

At that moment, the ancient whipserpent reached out a hand and said: “Kill him. Or we die.”

All whipserpents shrieked together, snatching up rocks and hurling them at Jacob. The other devil races, still confused, heard the ancient whipserpent shout:

“A riot has broken out in the mine. If the higher-ups investigate, none of us will escape. We must kill every overseer to resist the army!”

His meaning was clear. Most devils finally understood.

Jacob was being attacked by the whipserpents in the mine—but if he reported it, he’d claim the entire mine had erupted in rebellion. After all, from his own words, it was clear he’d long resented the Central Mine and sought to purge all slaves here.

So they had to kill him and every overseer—to buy time. Otherwise, the elite troops under General Fuxin would storm in now, and these low-level devils of hell had no chance to resist.

Any sentient being faced with a choice of “you die or I die” chooses no other answer—they exhaust every thought to survive, to make their opponent dead.

And when forced to choose, devils are swifter than humans—because hell itself is a world of survival of the fittest. Even if you were once strong, once you weaken, you’ll be torn apart and devoured.

The next second, ogres raised fists, shadow creatures lifted tentacles, even the short devils picked up rocks.

In the great mine, excluding the short devils, there were over a hundred devils. More than twenty ogres towered over Jacob. One punch each—Jacob didn’t last two minutes. He became pulp.

At that moment, Batman rose from the ground, too weak to stand, only sitting where he was, looking up as the whipserpent elder slithered over, tail swaying.

This had been his plan all along. During the mining, he’d noticed the old whipserpent had no mining ability—he was too old. Yet he survived in the mine. That meant someone protected him.

After observing for a while, Batman realized the old whipserpent held an extremely special status among his kind—young whipserpents helped him carry ore.

Batman knew hell had no concept of respecting the elderly. Here, only the strong survived. Lose your labor capacity, and you die. No one would expend extra effort to feed another—unless they brought extra value.

Batman noticed the old whipserpent’s tattoos and tail scales differed from others’. He concluded: this was the leader of the whipserpents in the mine.

So Batman devised this self-harming ruse—to spark chaos in the mine, forcing these devils to kill the overseers.

Once the overseers were dead, there was no turning back.

Sitting there, Batman thought: Just uniting the shadow creatures? No—that was too simple. He could do more. He wanted to do more. And the first step was to seize the mountain.

Batman staggered to his feet, walked to Jacob’s corpse, but didn’t glance at it. He picked up the whip lying nearby.

Batman returned to the whipserpent elder’s side, handed him the whip, then extended his chained hands toward him.

On the half-human, half-snake face, the elder wore a faintly sorrowful expression. Then, with his wise green vertical pupils fixed on Batman, he took the whip, looped it around the manacles.

The whipserpent elder pulled hard. A flash of green light—the manacles shattered. Batman took the whip, leapt again to the highest mound in the center of the mine.

As Batman looked down, he saw longing in every devil’s eyes.

At that moment, he knew: his plan had succeeded.

But he felt no pride. Greater work awaited him. This was only one of the mine’s tunnels. The entire Central Mine had over sixty tunnels, from top to bottom.

Batman raised the whip with his chained hands, then shouted:

“Fairness! Justice! And… freedom!”