Inside the dilapidated monastery hall, the air was so thick it felt like it could drip water.
Selina was like a female leopard backed into a corner.
There was no retreat.
Behind her was Maggie, curled up in the corner, coughing so hard it felt like her alveoli were about to burst.
“Kill her!
Drag that little one away!” The gang leader, whose nasal bone had been kicked in, rolled on the ground holding his face.
Fresh blood gushed out between his fingers, and his voice was as shrill as a wild cat with its tail stepped on.
The remaining two thugs exchanged a glance, gripped their switchblades, and flanked her from left and right.
Selina gripped her short dagger in a reverse hold and arched her back.
She took a deep breath, trying to squeeze out the last shred of explosive power remaining in her body.
The thug on the left, with a rat totem tattooed on his neck, made the first move.
He let out a strange cry, and his switchblade slashed from bottom to top, aiming viciously at Selina’s lower abdomen.
Selina’s eyes hardened.
She stamped her right foot hard against the ground, preparing to repeat her previous tactic—a side kick to shatter the opponent’s knee.
Her brain issued the command, but her body betrayed her.
Back in the underground clinic, although William’s two fingers, which had precisely pierced the joint capsule behind the greater trochanter, had ultimately relieved the compression, the disorder of the bio-electrical signals following the violent blockage of the main sciatic nerve could not possibly be fully recovered in half an hour.
At the moment Selina’s quadriceps femoris on her left leg exerted force, a fatal 0.5-second spasm occurred.
It was just that 0.5 seconds.
The side-stepping movement that should have perfectly avoided the blade stuttered abruptly.
Her thigh muscles felt as heavy as lead, and the compensatory shift of her pelvis caused her center of gravity to lose balance completely.
“Rip!”
The sharp tip of the switchblade grazed Selina’s waist, slicing a long opening through her tight-fitting black leather jacket without any resistance.
The cold blade cut through her skin, drawing out a trail of striking blood droplets.
Selina groaned, stumbled backward, and her back slammed heavily against the paint-peeling wall.
“Sister!” Maggie let out a heart-wrenching cry.
The intense emotional fluctuation caused her asthma to worsen instantly, and a terrifying “wheeze-wheeze” sound came from her throat, almost causing her to pass out.
“You can’t run now, little wildcat.” The thug on the right grinned, seizing the opening.
He gave Selina no chance to adjust her center of gravity, pouncing like a hyena that had smelled blood.
Raising his right hand holding the switchblade high, he used the momentum of his charge to aim the tip directly at Selina’s abdominal cavity.
There was no avoiding it.
Selina’s left leg had completely lost sensation, and her violent panting made her lungs feel like they were filled with broken glass.
Looking at the cold glint that was constantly enlarging, a trace of despair flashed in her eyes.
No begging for mercy.
She spun around abruptly, using her back to shield Maggie behind her, and closed her eyes.
One second.
Two seconds.
The excruciating pain of the blade piercing her internal organs, which she had anticipated, did not arrive.
“Clang!”
An extremely sharp, piercing sound of metal clashing exploded in the empty hall, even drowning out the thunder outside.
Immediately following that was a distorted, inhuman scream.
“Ahhhh—my hand!”
Selina opened her eyes abruptly and turned her head.
The thug who had been about to stab her was kneeling in a mixture of mud water and oatmeal, twitching wildly as if electrocuted.
Nailed to his right wrist was a No.
11 high-carbon steel scalpel, shimmering with a cold silver light.
The blade had entered with extreme precision right through the center of the transverse carpal ligament, piercing the entire carpal tunnel, cleanly severing the median nerve and nine flexor tendons, and finally, the tip was pinned firmly into the blackened load-bearing wooden pillar behind him.
It was embedded deep into the wood.
The cheap switchblade lay on the ground, stained with mud and filth.
This was definitely not ordinary throwing knife technique.
The hall was deathly silent.
Only the thug whose hand had been ruined was wailing shrilly on the ground.
Selina and the remaining thug both turned their heads to look at the wooden door of the hall, which had a large hole broken in it.
Outside the door, the rain fell like a curtain.
A pure black long-handled umbrella slowly pushed open the half-hanging, precarious door frame.
Black leather shoes stepped into the standing water, making a steady, unhurried “patter, patter” sound.
William, wearing that deep black trench coat, held the umbrella in one hand and stepped over the threshold from the boundless night and heavy rain.
His hat brim was pulled very low, obscuring most of his face, revealing only those eyes with heavy dark circles, devoid of any emotional fluctuation.
“The carpal bones are composed of eight small bones, with very small gaps,” William’s voice was as flat as if he were reading an anatomy lecture in a university tiered classroom, “To be able to let the blade perfectly avoid the bones and only sever the nerves and tendons.
I usually use this knife to cut through the pleura.”
He stopped his footsteps and raised his head slightly.
His gaze passed over the wailing thug on the ground and coldly swept over the last remaining standing Rat Gang member who was holding a knife.
“Since when did it become the turn of sewer rats to touch my patient and my errand-running employee?”
This sentence contained no profanity, yet it exuded an oppressive feeling that chilled one to the bone marrow.
The standing thug swallowed, his legs shaking uncontrollably.
He looked at his two crippled companions on the ground, then at the man holding an umbrella like a God of Death before him.
“Who—who the f*** are you?
The Rat Gang is working here, mind your own business!” The thug roared, trying to sound tough, attempting to use the gang’s name to bolster his courage.
William did not answer.
He didn’t even change his posture while holding the umbrella.
“Boss Fith won’t let—”
Before the thug could finish his sentence, William moved.
Master-level combat instinct allowed him to cover the five-meter distance in an instant.
There were no flashy moves.
William suddenly retracted the black umbrella with his left hand, the tip emitting a sharp whistle as it tore through the air, piercing accurately and unerringly into the radial styloid process of the thug’s knife-wielding wrist.
“Crack.”
A crisp sound of bone cracking.
The thug’s wrist instantly bent at an eerie angle, and the switchblade slipped from his hand.
Before the thug could even scream, the umbrella handle in William’s right hand had already followed through with a fierce upward strike.
The solid wood umbrella handle smashed heavily into the thug’s mandible.
“Bang!”
Two hundred pounds of impact force smashed the thug’s mandible directly into pieces.
A few teeth stained with blood sprayed out of his mouth.
The thug’s eyes rolled back, he didn’t even manage a groan, and he collapsed stiffly onto the floor, completely unconscious.
The entire process took no more than three seconds.
Clean.
Efficient.
The ultimate aesthetic of violence.
William casually flicked the blood droplets off the tip of the umbrella and reopened the black umbrella to block the rainwater leaking from the broken roof.
He didn’t look at the three lumps of rotting meat on the ground, but walked straight up to Selina.
Selina leaned against the wall, her chest heaving violently.
She looked at the man before her; the wariness and arrogance in her eyes had been replaced by an extremely complex sense of awe.
She knew this man could fight well.
But until this moment, she truly realized that in the underground clinic, the other party had been merciful to her to the extreme.
If William had truly wanted to kill her, she wouldn’t even have had the chance to make the first move.
“Your left leg isn’t crippled; it’s just a temporary nerve conduction block,” William glanced down at the bloodstain on Selina’s waist, “Skin trauma.
You won’t die.”
Selina bit her lower lip, not refuting him.
William crouched down, his gaze shifting to Maggie, whom Selina was shielding firmly behind her.
A classic case of the three-concavity sign.
“Lay her flat.
Loosen her collar.” William’s tone was unquestionable.
Selina immediately obeyed, her movements extremely careful.
William took out the bottle of strong soothing spray he had previously given Selina from his trench coat pocket.
He pinched Maggie’s jaw, forcing her to open her mouth.
“Press twice, take a deep breath.”
“Psssh—psssh—”
The medicinal liquid, containing trace amounts of cell activator, turned into an extremely fine mist, rushing straight into Maggie’s spasming bronchi.
Miraculous effect.
Just ten seconds later, the wheezing sound like a broken bellows in Maggie’s throat began to weaken.
The tense chest muscles gradually relaxed, and the cyanotic complexion slowly faded, returning to pale.
The little girl greedily took deep breaths of air; although still weak, her life was saved.
“This only treats the symptoms,” William stuffed the spray back into Selina’s hand and stood up, “To cure it, you must go to my clinic.
The sterile chamber and targeted drugs, neither can be missing.”
Selina gripped the small aluminum bottle tightly, her knuckles turning white from the force.
She raised her head, looking up at William.
In the rainy night of Gotham, this man holding a black umbrella had become the only lifeline for her and her sister.
“I’ll go with you.” Selina’s voice was a bit hoarse, but extremely firm.
“As long as you can cure Maggie, I, Selina Kyle, this life is yours.
Whatever you want me to steal, whoever you want me to kill, I won’t even frown.”
“I don’t lack killers, nor do I lack thieves.” William turned around, his back to Selina, his voice indifferent.
“I lack an employee who knows the rules, keeps their mouth shut, and can help me handle trouble.
Remember what you said today.”
He started walking towards the door.
“Carry her on your back and follow me closely.
If you don’t even have the strength to walk to the clinic, then you can continue to stay in the sewer and be rats.”
Selina gritted her teeth, enduring the numbness in her left leg and the excruciating pain in her waist, and carried the weak Maggie onto her back.
Just as they were preparing to leave with William.
The gang leader whose wrist had been nailed through, enduring the excruciating pain, used his intact left hand to dig firmly into the cracks of the floor, raised his blood-covered face, and issued a vicious curse.
“Boss Fith… won’t let you go… the person behind him is a big shot you can’t stop… you’re dead!”
William’s footsteps paused for a moment.
He did not look back.
With his leather shoes stepping in the standing water, William turned his face slightly, his peripheral vision sweeping over the thug on the ground.
“Go back and tell that piece of trash named Fith.” William’s voice pierced through the rain curtain, carrying absolute coldness.
“He had better hide in the sewer for the rest of his life.
If he dares to appear within the line of sight of 22 Lake Street, ”
“I will personally dismantle his spine, one vertebra at a time.”
The black umbrella merged back into the night.
Selina carried Maggie on her back and quickly followed.
She took one last look at the three thugs on the ground; there was no pity in her eyes, only a sense of awe after finding a backer.
The rain in Gotham East District seemed to be falling even harder.
But Selina knew that from tonight on, her fate was completely tied to that Doctor with dark circles under his eyes.
Rat Gang?
The person behind them?
Gotham’s gangs were like tumors that couldn’t be cut away.
Since trouble would come knocking sooner or later, it was better to prepare the scalpel in advance.