Bruce met Bane's gaze without flinching.

"She deserves someone who treats her as more than a weapon or a legacy," he said quietly but with a firmness that cut through the air like steel. "Someone who sees her. I won't fail her in that. She's my girl."

For a moment, silence settled between them. A silence with weight. A silence that meant something.

Bane nodded once. "Good."

But before the breath after that word could settle…

Bruce's expression shifted.

The world… darkened.

Instantly. Abruptly. Absolutely.

His senses snapped taut, instincts roaring in alarm as the living room dissolved into a vast, suffocating abyss. One blink, Sophie was gone. Not dead. Not teleported. Not erased.

Just... removed. Like someone had reached into reality and plucked her presence out, leaving an unnatural absence behind.

Bruce's chest tightened, muscles coiling instinctively as the last trace of the Reign villa vanished. It wasn't just darkness closing in, it was a domain. A constructed, absolute field of shadow swallowing sound, light, air, logic, even the subtle flow of mana around his skin.

A chill slid down Bruce's spine. 'This is like Domain Expansion in JJK'

The air thickened into an emotional sludge, grief, rage, despair, fear, a concoction of memories that weren't his, injected into him like invisible hands clawing into his skull, trying to overwrite his identity with someone else's ancient suffering.

His heartbeat staggered. His breath hitched. His thoughts warped at the edges.

And then…

In the void, two crimson eyes snapped open.

They didn't glow with power. They defined power.

Cold. Primordial. Predatory.

Eyes of a man who had seen the battlefield's deepest horrors and survived by becoming something worse.

A tidal wave of killing intent erupted from those eyes, crashing into Bruce with the weight of a falling star. Not metaphorical weight, real weight. A pressure so dense it felt like a spear of raw malice driving straight into his chest, pinning him in place.

Knees buckling. Pulse skipping. Vision blurring.

Then the bloodlust hit.

Not just murderous intent, but the instinct of a creature forged in carnage, sharpened by decades of slaughter, honed to something that transcended simple violence. An instinct older than the new era of awakenings. Something rabid. Something unstoppable.

System notifications slammed into Bruce's mind one after another:

[You've been affected by Bane's Killing Intent…]

[You're being adversely affected by Bane's Bloodlust…]

[You're being adversely affected by Bane's Domain…]

Bruce gritted his teeth, a vein pulsing at his temple as the pressure dug deeper. The domain wasn't just crushing his body, it was clawing into his mind, his emotions, his sense of self. A blanket of oppressive force heavy enough to crush any normal S-Rank into paste in seconds. It pressed against his lungs, weighed on his bones, wrapped around his thoughts like barbed wire.

But Bruce's will was a blade.

Hard. Unyielding. Forged through trials harsher than death.

Even as his muscles trembled, he refused to bow. Refused to kneel. Refused to let even a single thought inside him bend.

His eyes widened as he took in the full scope of the domain, an infinite void of darkness stretching endlessly around him, infused with Bane's emotions, Bane's intent, Bane's absolute authority. Every inch of it pulsed with killing will, memories, and something that felt eerily like… sorrow. A deep, ancient sorrow layered beneath the violence.

"Damn…" Bruce hissed under his breath.

He wasted no time.

Mana surged through him in a clean, sharp pulse. But he didn't heal his body, he healed the invisible wounds crawling across his mind. Healed the mental poison trying to anchor itself into his consciousness. Healed the spiritual suppression squeezing his soul like iron chains.

Light radiated from him in thin, concentrated threads, not warmth, but purification, slicing through the darkness like cracks forming in a black mirror.

System panels flickered in immediate response, their light carving out space around him:

[You've gained immunity to Bane's Killing Intent.]

[You've gained immunity to Bane's Bloodlust.]

[You've gained immunity to Bane's Domain.]

The suffocating darkness around him shuddered, wavered, and began to recede, not because Bane withdrew it, but because Bruce's existence refused to yield to it.

He had gained immunity…

Bane, within the domain, frowned sharply as if noticing something that shouldn't exist. He pushed everything higher, killing intent, bloodlust, emotional pressure, increasing it by leaps and bounds, stacking it layer after layer, force after force, until the air itself cracked under the weight.

But Bruce didn't bend.

No matter how much he increased it, no matter how suffocating or ancient the pressure became, it posed no effect on Bruce anymore.

Seeing that he had tested Bruce enough, Bane stopped.

"It seems you do indeed possess some skill after all. Treat Sophie well, or else you won't like the other version of me."

His voice echoed through the collapsing void like a cold whisper.

And then, in the next instant, the domain shattered.

Reality reformed with a clean snap.

The Reign living room returned, warm lights, polished floors, the faint scent of omelette Sophie had made earlier. Everything slid back into place with unnatural smoothness, like the world had never been twisted in the first place.

Except Bruce felt it.

He felt the difference.

He felt the aftertaste of violence and old grief still clinging faintly to the corners of his mind.

He exhaled slowly, steadying his heartbeat as the last remnants of Bane's shadowy world faded from the edges of his vision.

Bane was nowhere to be found.

Not a trace of him. Not a shift in the air. Not a flicker of aura. It was as if he had never stepped into the room at all.

Bruce frowned, his gaze sliding immediately to Sophie.

"Did you notice anything?" he asked quietly, eyes scanning her face for even the slightest hint of awareness.

Sophie blinked, a small crease forming between her brows. "Notice… what? Did something happen?"

***

A/N:

What do you guys think of the pace? Is it okay or should I fasten things up a bit...

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.