Walking down the streets of Gotham, Clark held the Bat Cat in his arms and sighed lightly, saying:
"Alright, I get it. They don't want a person from Metropolis meddling in a local murder case. It would tarnish their city's reputation. But I think I could offer some help. If the killer is too brutal, I could knock them out for them."
"Actually, they just think you're not capable of deductive reasoning." The Bat Cat piped in, "Also, you don't fully understand their insane ways of doing things."
"What's there to understand?" Clark shook his head, "Find the culprit, knock him out with a punch. That's all there is to it. Does it require any complex operation?"
"How do you still not get it? Gotham is a playground for lunatics. Each person here revels in solving these crazy and bizarre cases, just like people who know that the merry-go-round is stationary, but are still willing to buy tickets to ride it."
Clark shook his head in disagreement: "That's too complicated. The killer carries out a series of complex plans, and the police and investigators follow them with a series of plans to crack the cases. Why can't they simplify things?"
"If everyone here was as simple-minded and easy-to-please as the people from Metropolis, Gotham wouldn't be what it is today," commented the Bat Cat.
"Forget it, Professor Shearer called me earlier. He said he was opening a new bookstore. I think I will go there and browse. I have a colleague who has a birthday next month; a hardcover book could be a nice gift."
Clark quickened his pace. Following the address given by Shearer over the phone, he crossed the central roundabout of Gotham and entered a commercial street.
As he entered the street, Clark paused; he could hear the sound of fighting and the shattering sound of objects being smashed, but he could not see any robbers or gun flares.
Clark didn't have the spirit vision or magic, so he couldn't see the dazzling scene where magicians were fighting with magic. But his hearing and touch senses were far superior to ordinary people; he could sense the fight from afar.
The Bat Cat, a product of the Thousand Cats Dream, didn't need the spirit vision to see the effects of the spells directly. As Clark began to run with it in his arms, it shouted, "Those are magicians, they are fighting using magic."
"So, how do I deal with them?"
"Punch them."
"Bang!"
Zatanna, holding a magical shield, slowly turned her head to look at a magician who had flown to her side. Indeed, he had flown over from the air, but not voluntarily.
The moment Clark appeared at the door, apart from punching and sending one of the magicians flying, the Bat Cat darted out of his arms, jumped onto the face of another magician, and fiercely clawed at the man's eyes.
Noticing an enemy attack from behind, the leader of the black-robed mages at the front reacted quickly. He promptly used a teleportation spell to distance himself from Clark and conjured a dazzling magical brilliance in his hands.
Zatanna's eyes widened, and after taking a serious step forward, she stretched out her hands. With a swipe, a magic wall appeared before her. At the same time, she shouted at Clark, "He's about to explode! Take cover!"
"Boom!"
The dazzling brilliance suddenly burst out an intense shock wave, bringing shattered fragments as it swept through the entire room—other than the part blocked by Zatanna's magic wall, the rest of the room was hit hard.
After the brilliance subsided, the mage who had used the magic did not escape with the help of the explosion's impact. He thought that the impact of the explosion would have been enough to deal with most creatures in the human world.
But as the smoke cleared, what appeared before him was a fist as big as a sandbag: Clark had knocked the magician to the ground with a punch.
Then he heard a strange sound from behind him—continuous hissing noises accompanied by some vibrations. But because Clark didn't understand magic, he didn't realize that these were the signs of a magic array being activated.
Zatanna took out a magician's wand from her hat and pointed it at Clark's rear—a stream of light shot out, and the female mage who was conjuring the magic array was sent flying.
The black-robed female mage hit the doorway of the bookstore heavily. When her hood fell off, it revealed a very old face. However, judging from her neck and fingers, she was actually not old, just that her face was like an old woman's.
The female mage glared at Zatanna with jealousy and anger in her eyes, as if she wanted to devour her. Then, she burst into hysterical laughter and shouted, "Zatanna! You can't escape! And Constantine, we have already made a deal with Gabriel, he will come and arrest the fugitives in the magic realm personally!"
"You thought I was summoning a demon with my wand just now? I wouldn't pay such a high price to call on a weak demon. The one who will descend here is the great Archangel Gabriel!"
Clark looked at the female mage, bewildered and asked, "What did you say? Who's going to come here?"