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SM/DC Chapter 161 : Central Power Battery
🕑 Added 2025-06-28 22:08:06 +0000 UTCAmon Sur and Romat-Ru.
Their eyes burned with fury. Their rings screamed for vengeance.
They came at him from both sides a blitz of yellow rage.
Romat struck first, conjuring a jagged war-axe the size of a starship engine and swinging with the force to cleave a mountain. Arthur didn’t flinch. He vanished in a blur of violet-black lightning. [Speed Step.]
BOOM!
The axe split the ground where he had stood, cracking the terrain into a crater.
Arthur reappeared midair behind Romat, twirling his Kamish twinblade. With a flick of his finger, the blade flew forward like a predatorguided by Ruler’s Authority slashing across Romat’s back and sending a fountain of blood flying.
Before Romat could turn, Arthur was gone again.
“Amon!” Romat shouted while in pain himself.
Too late.
Amon’s eyes widened as Arthur crashed down in front of him with both feet shockwave exploding beneath and then launched him skyward with an uppercut wreathed in shadows.
CRACK!
The yellow construct armor on Amon’s face shattered, and he spiraled into the clouds, stunned.
Arthur launched after him, twinblade flying beside him, carving loops through the sky like a predator stalking prey. Dark, twisting constructs spun into being razor serpents, jagged wings, spectral hounds—all formed from his shadow ring, each one pulsing with quiet, lethal malice.
Romat tried to follow, roaring with fury. “COWARD!”
Arthur turned mid-flight face calm, almost disappointed and pointed one finger at Romat.
“You must be joking... Kneel.”
Ruler’s Authority exploded down like gravity magnified a hundredfold. Romat screamed as he was crushed from above, his construct shield imploding around him. He plummeted back to the surface like a meteor, slamming through broken yellow spires and skidding across shattered earth.
Back above, Amon recovered mid-air barely and fired dozens of energy spikes in rapid succession.
Arthur caught them. With his hands.
One by one, the violet glow around his fingers snuffed each out. Then he hurled them back at double speed with a swipe of his hand Ruler’s Authority redirecting every bolt like a symphony.
They struck.
Amon roared, raising a massive golden golem to defend but Arthur wasn’t finished.
He teleported inside the construct, a black blur blinking through space. One moment above, the next inside Amon’s defense, twinblade twirling with wild elegance. Shadows peeled from Arthur’s body, forming razor-edged wings and slicing appendages that tore the golem apart from within.
As it exploded, Amon was hurled backward but Arthur was already waiting.
He caught him mid-air by the throat.
“Still think I was trying last time?” Arthur whispered, eyes glowing.
Then he dove toward the ground, dragging Amon with him like a meteor. At the last second, Arthur vanished Speed Step, and Amon slammed into the earth, dust and rock erupting in a massive plume.
Romat tried to rise. His breathing was ragged. His ring flickered.
“I...I don’t understand… how…?”
Arthur didn’t bother explain.
Instead, his twinblade flew into his hand, and with a smooth motion, he pointed it forward.
The blade extended, grew or rather coated in a giant javelin of shadow and violet flame thanks to his ring.
He threw it.
BOOM!
The spear impaled Romat’s leg, pinning him to the ground like an insect, his scream echoing across Qward.
Arthur descended slowly now. Shadows peeled off his body like a shroud. Doom, Ultra, Empress, and others began converging behind him, tearing through fleeing Lanterns like a tidal wave of vengeance.
He looked at the broken Romat, then to the twitching form of Amon Sur nearby.
“I gave you a gift earlier,” Arthur said, voice cold. “I let you believe you were strong.”
He raised his palm, his ring glowing.
The ground shifted.
Shadows rose like tendrils a dozen massive constructs forming fanged maws and spiked tendrils, beasts ready to attack around the Yellow Lanterns.
Amon coughed, blood pouring from his mouth. “monster…”
Arthur smiled.
“Is that fear I'm sensing from you ?”
And then, with a snap of his fingers, the shadows surged.
The last thing Amon and Romat saw was a wave of pure darkness swallowing them whole.
Romat's bloodied hands clawed at the ground, yellow ring sputtering. His eyes were wide, wild with fear.
“No..no! This isn’t possible! This isn’t how it ends!”
Amon tried to rise, screaming over the chaos. “You think you’ve won?! He’ll burn your name from the stars!”
The Shadows, constructs and soldiers rushed forward like a collapsing void engulfing the two in one violent, deafening sweep.
Amon’s last words were drowned by the roar of the dark.
“NOOOOO!”
And then Silence took over.
Arthur stood there for a moment, the eerie hum of his Shadow Ring pulsating against his skin. His Kamish twinblade hovered beside him, floating like a sentient predator awaiting its master’s command.
He exhaled slowly and muttered, voice low and controlled.
“Sinestro is gone…”
His gaze drifted upward, sweeping across the sky of Qward where battle still raging now becoming a bit silent as the number of lanterns grew thinner. The glow of yellow lanterns in the distance, his shadow soldiers pressing the Yellow Corps back but no sign of their leader.
Arthur’s eyes narrowed.
“These guys…” He looked to the spot where Amon and Romat had stood moments ago, now scorched and hollow. “They were a distraction. They covered his retreat.”
A pause and a shift in the air.
Arthur tilted his head slightly, closing his eyes and listening not with ears, but with something far deeper. The mana in his veins flared, resonating with his shadow soldiers. “But I don’t think he escaped the planet..”
Then a pulse.
Faint. Distant. But unmistakable and it came from Quick.
Arthur’s eyes snapped open, glowing brilliant violet, shadows coiling up his neck like living armor.
“There you are…”
****
QWARD — BELOW THE SURFACE
Beneath Qward, past the screaming walls of metal and the choas of battle, Quick skidded to a halt. The residual red lightning trailing behind him sizzled against the cold air. He stood on a wide, dark platform an unnatural chamber that pulsed with a sickly, golden heartbeat.
There it was.
The Central Power Battery.
A towering monolith of glowing terror, the power radiating from it felt alive and sentient. The very atmosphere here crushed the lungs, thick with the weight of years of collected fear.
Quick tilted his head, a half-smile spreading across his face as his eyes lit up.
“I found it.”
“My King, I f—”
BOOM!
A monstrous construct of golden energy like the fanged jaws of a void beast slammed into Quick from the side, sending him crashing into the far wall. Stone cracked. Lightning flickered. He hit the ground hard, as a ripple of fear stabbed into his core.
From the darkness stepped Sinestro.
Hovering inches above the ground, his ring flaring with power, eyes cold.
“Stay away from this, you fool,” Sinestro sneered, extending a hand. From his ring, twisting, alien shapes erupted constructs of nightmares, angular weapons made of pure fear.
Quick snarled and dodged, his body flashing red, a blur of motion and lightning.
He launched himself forward, a speed-enhanced punch aimed at Sinestro’s jaw. It landed.
Barely.
Sinestro staggered half an inch, and then his constructs surged outward like a storm of spectral chains. Quick jumped, twisted, and slipped past them, landing another hit to Sinestro’s side but the blow fizzled against a golden barrier that hardened like a second skin.
“Strong.” Quick clicked his tongue. “My King, the target is found but...” swirling shadows started to form around Quick.
Sinestro grinned coldly, eyes narrowing.
“You dance well, little spark,” he said, twisting his hand. “But all that speed, and no weight behind it. You're nothing but a construct of shadows trying to outshine fear itself.”
Suddenly, Sinestro’s construct shifted an axe formed in the air, its edge glowing like the sun. He brought it down in a flash
And it never landed.
A shadow-forged longsword intercepted the blow, humming with energy. The impact sparked an explosion of light and darkness, and Sinestro was thrown back with a kick, skidding across the floor, golden boots tearing trenches into the stone.
From the swirling shadows that had consumed Quick only a moment ago, Arthur stepped forth.
Calm and controlled. Clad in black that devoured the light around him, he held the sword construct steady in one hand, the other still smoking from the sheer energy of the counter. His eyes flicked toward the towering yellow battery, its radiance now glaring against the overwhelming presence he exuded.
Arthur’s voice came low, intrigued.
“So this is it…”
He took a step closer, the ring on his finger pulsing with unnatural light. His gaze climbed the length of the Central Power Battery.
“Impressive,” he muttered. Then he slowly turned to face Sinestro with the ghost of a smile tugging at his lips.
“But tell me, Herald of Fear…”
The smile widened. Shadows slithered beneath his boots like snakes poised to strike.
“What would happen… if I destroy this?”
The air tensed like a held breath.
Sinestro stood again, fury now dancing across his features. The ring on his finger sparked, and the symbol of fear and his corps glowed bright on his chest.
His voice came sharp, restrained with rage.
“You really are a fool. You do not understand in the slightest the kind of consequence that action would bring.”
Arthur tilted his head, unconcerned, as the shadows curled tighter around his fingers.
“Maybe not,” he said.
“But consequences are more than welcome to find out about me.”
Comments
Cobalt
Honestly instead of destroying it corrupting it for the shadow corps use or giving it to the guardians of oa to beef up the green lanterns for future threats is probably a better idea
