Defeating Squid Man was not Batman's goal. His true objective was to confront Kingpin, his employer, and uncover the human experiments Osborn Enterprise conducted on Squid Man.
"I...ugh, you're Batman, right? All these elaborate traps just to ask that? Come closer, and I'll tell you everything..."
Squid Man's internal organs began to contract, preparing to spray a mouthful of ink the moment Batman showed himself.
At the same time, he was stalling for time. The intense electric current had almost paralyzed his body, and he needed to recover his strength to break free from the spider silk wrapped around him.
Footsteps sounded behind Squid Man, followed by a barely audible "hiss."
Before Squid Man could even understand what was happening, one of his tentacles was firmly grasped.
His tentacles had been grabbed by more than one woman before, and Squid Man knew exactly what the touch of a hand should feel like.
He somewhat suspected that the so-called "Batman" wasn't human at all, because the hand gripping his tentacle felt... like the claw of some reptile.
The next second, immense power emanated from that hand, throwing Squid Man away.
Squid Man's heart leaped with joy, and he quickly twisted his body in mid-air, trying to completely break free from the spider web, intending to escape the moment he landed.
"This guy definitely isn't human. He probably underwent some experiment at Osborn Enterprise just like me, turning into something like a lizard..."
Squid Man's mind raced, and at the same time, his eight tentacles swiftly cleared the spider silk from his body.
But he quickly fell into despair. Even as he was thrown through the air, highly frictional spider silk continued to shoot out from all directions, sticking to him and binding him together.
And that wasn't all. On the ground where Squid Man was about to land, there was a broken piece of concrete with menacing rebar protruding from it, seemingly ready to pierce Squid Man's body through and through at any moment.
Squid Man wasn't afraid of spider silk; even if he was entangled, he could slowly break free given time. But if those rebars pierced his body, even if he didn't die, it wouldn't be easy for Squid Man.
"Devil, you are a Devil!"
Squid Man's voice, tinged with a cry, shrieked. Batman remained unmoved until Squid Man was only a dozen centimeters from the rebar. When he had already tightly closed his eyes, waiting for death, Batman shot out a strand of spider silk, stopping him.
"Speak."
Batman said in a deep voice, simultaneously tearing off the spider silk he had wrapped around his hand to act as a friction glove to firmly grasp Squid Man.
Squid Man seemed to have been scared out of his wits, his eyes staring blankly at the ground, with nothing but foam coming from his mouth.
Batman: "..."
He used intimidation to extract information from Squid Man, but he never expected to scare him into such a state.
Batman didn't even get to use his other interrogation methods.
"Batman... Batman..."
Squid Man mumbled unconsciously, and no matter how Batman tried to prod him, he couldn't answer any more questions.
This made Batman somewhat uncomfortable. In Gotham, supervillains rarely cooperated without a full set of violent interrogation methods. Even if they did cooperate at the time, they would become arrogant afterward.
Of course, this was also related to Gotham's extremely corrupt Police system, which was rotten from top to bottom, and the absence of the death penalty in its laws.
But New York was different; the death penalty existed here, and most of New York's Police were on the side of order and justice, though they were somewhat overwhelmed by the vast number of Gangs.
One Police Director, known for his integrity and fairness, left an impression on Batman: George Stacy... George Stacy had just been promoted from Police Captain to Director of the Manhattan Police Station, and this was his busiest time.
Even at eleven o'clock at night, George Stacy was still busy poring over various case files.
Rubbing his tired eyes, George Stacy was about to end his day's work when suddenly, with a bang, something heavy fell from his window, hitting the ground downstairs with a thud.
He quickly opened the window and looked out, only vaguely seeing a Shadow flash between distant buildings.
On the ground, a giant Squid was tightly bound by black spider silk.
George Stacy hurried downstairs, cautiously approaching the Squid, who kept muttering "Batman, Batman," with his gun raised. He found a piece of paper pressed beneath him.
The paper listed a series of crimes, each sufficient to sentence Squid Man to death.
The Director held the paper, his gaze constantly moving between the paper and Squid Man, and finally pulled out his phone to make a call:
"Notify the Major Crimes Unit; they're working overtime tonight."
Although the charges and evidence on the paper were clear and undeniable, George Stacy, as Director, still had to confirm them. The necessary procedures still had to be followed.
Batman stood in the Shadow of a tall building, watching Chief George and a group of people put Squid Man into an iron cage, then immediately turned and left.
He had too many things to do.
After clearing the Gel Bombs and spider silk he had previously set up in the Sewer and Abandoned Shipyard but hadn't used, Batman re-excavated the firearms he had buried.
When he dealt with them last night, he had no concept of "Stark Industries" on the wooden crates, but today, after infiltrating the CIA, although Batman didn't see all the information about the "Tesseract," he remembered a few keywords.
One of those keywords was "Howard Stark."
Crackling... In the deepest part of the Abandoned Shipyard, in the temporary operations center, Batman's fingers flew across the keyboard. Web pages opened one by one, and information about "Howard Stark" popped up individually.
"Howard Stark, U.S. inventor, scientist, engineer, and industrialist. Founder and CEO of Stark Industries..."
"Only son Tony Stark, current CEO and Chairman of Stark Industries, the richest man in the World..."
Batman, as usual, cleared all his traces on the internet before turning off the computer, then immediately left the Abandoned Shipyard and headed towards Upper Manhattan.
He was going to visit Tony Stark to see if he could learn anything about the "Tesseract" from him.
However, the direction Batman was heading was not Stark Industries, but another company entirely opposite to it: "Osborn Group," owned by Harry Osborn's father, which invested in Dr. Otto's nuclear fusion experiment.
Having failed to learn more about Osborn Enterprise's human experiments from the CIA and Squid Man, Batman decided to go there himself.
"Human experiments, serum, super soldiers..."
Batman murmured these words as he infiltrated the headquarters building of Osborn Group.