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SM/DC Chapter 137 : Fear Itself
🕑 Added 2025-06-03 23:14:34 +0000 UTCThe moment the last echo of the gates dying groan faded into silence, Arthur began to walk forward. No rush. No fear. Just quiet steps his boots tapping against ancient stone, each footfall soaked in shadow.
The wind bent around him. The Demon King’s Longsword trailed faint streaks of blue lightning as it hummed in his grip, hungry. Arthur’s eyes gleamed with cold fire.
The giants at least a dozen watched the lone figure advance. Colossal warriors dressed in blackened steel and old magic, carved by the dungeon’s will. They stood like moving mountains, their weapons larger than buildings, their voices like thunder.
One of them moved.
A tower of muscle and iron, with a sword the size of a bus clutched in both fists. It let out a roar like a crashing avalanche and charged each step a tremor, the giant raised its blade high above Arthur, intending to crush the insect daring to tread into their sacred domain.
Arthur didn’t flinch.
He raised one hand.
Fingers splayed open. No defense. He just stood there waiting for the strike.
Then
CLANG
The massive blade slammed down
And stopped.
Arthur’s palm caught it.
The shockwave shattered the earth around him. Cracks split the stone beneath his feet. Air bent, pressure screamed and still, he held it there, motionless, as if catching a falling leaf.
Arthur’s blue eyes slowly lifted to meet the giant’s. The monster hesitated. Confused and Shocked.
Arthur’s fingers closed.
The massive sword snapped like brittle glass. Shards exploded outward, bouncing off Arthur’s aura.
Before the beast could comprehend, Arthur vanished
Then appeared above, twisting midair, bringing his longsword down like a thunderbolt from a god.
A wave of lightning detonated through the sky as the blade cleaved through the giant’s neck. Sparks and blood burst like fireworks. The head spun away in slow motion, eyes wide in disbelief as it tumbled, crashing into a distant wall and turning it to rubble.
Arthur landed in a crouch then stood, rotating his shoulders.
“Alright,” he muttered, as five more giants bellowed and charged.
“One down.”
The first swung a warhammer the size of a tank. Arthur blinked then vanished in a flicker of shadow, reappearing in front of the giant’s chest. His hand exploded forward
[RULER’S AUTHORITY]
The giant’s chest followed by his heart imploded, blood gushing from mouth and eyes before the giant dropped to its knees, corpse crumbling.
Another came swinging. Arthur twisted around the strike midair and sliced off both legs at the knee in a flash of steel and lightning. The giant fell screaming. Arthur landed on its back, planted his foot on its neck and ripped its massive spine clean out, jagged vertebrae still twitching in his hands.
A third giant hurled a chain at him.
Arthur extended one hand lazily.
[RULER’S AUTHORITY]
The chain stopped midair. Reversed. Whipped backward into the thrower’s face at breakneck speed smashing the skull in like a wrecking ball. Blood sprayed across the castle wall like graffiti.
he kept moving in an unrelenting storm of violence.
Arthur flew upward In an instant a sonic boom cracked the air like thunder and he reappeared mid-flight, a blur of black and lightning. He flew straight through the giant’s chest, bursting out the other side like a cannonball of death. Flesh and armor ruptured, a hole the size of a car torn clean through the giant’s torso.
Blood sprayed in a geyser behind him as the creature blinked once, then collapsed, mouth still open in a wordless death-rattle, its heart already ash.
Arthur hovered for a moment in the aftermath, breath steady, cloak rippling behind him
Then
A second giant charged.
He flew sideways past a giant’s torso, the Demon King’s blade spiraling with lightning. His strike parted flesh like paper, splitting the creature from hip to shoulder, its body collapsing into itself.
One tried to crush him under its foot
Arthur vanished into shadow with [Speed Step]
Then emerged next to his other foot, grabbing the ankle with one hand and twisting violently with Ruler’s Authority. The foot twisted 360 degrees, bones snapping like dry twigs, the giant collapsing with a scream only for Arthur to impale its mouth from below with his sword.
The battlefield was ruin now. The castle’s interior was shattered, walls destroyed, floors torn up, statues decapitated. Magic sparks rained down like dying stars.
Arthur stood in the center of it all, the last giant still twitching, coughing blood beside him.
He wiped gore from his cheek, tossed a piece of giant armor aside. His chest rising and falling, blue eyes alight, he rolled his neck with a grin.
“…These dungeons,” he muttered, voice low and satisfied, “are the only place I can actually let loose.”
Dust still curled from shattered pillars. The air pulsed with leftover magic, thick with blood, and ruin. Limbs the size of trees lay strewn across the battlefield. Giant corpses monsters of muscle and steel lay in heaps, slain by a single man who now stood still, Longsword in hand.
Arthur let out a quiet breath, then drove the Demon King’s Longsword into the stone with one clean motion. The blade sank into the ground like it belonged there, crackling with residual lightning.
He didn’t need it for what came next.
A smirk crept onto his face.
“Arise.”
The word cut through reality like a divine command.
Shadows thick and black as death flooded from beneath the corpses. They slithered, and rose up in unnatural spirals. The ground rumbled as forms took shape colossal, grotesque, monstrous reflections of the slain giants, now reborn under his will.
One by one they emerged. Twelve in total.
Shadow-forged titans with blank glowing violet eyes, obsidian armor cracked by violent power, each carrying the warped remnants of the weapons they once wielded in life.
And every one of them, knelt.
A thunderous quake followed as their knees crashed against stone, sending shockwaves through the broken floor. Like loyal knights before a warlord king.
Arthur’s eyes glowed brighter, and his smile widened into something dark and satisfied.
“Formidable addition to my army…” he muttered, walking slowly between them, gaze sweeping across the hulking monsters. “They’ll draw attention, sure they are massive targets. But that’s exactly what I need.”
He reached out and let his fingers brush the helm of one shadow giant. The creature twitched, as if responding to his touch like a hound awaiting command.
“Let them come. You’ll tear through our future enemies.”
Then he turned. Past the corpses, past the ruin and storm, stood a massive door. Ten times the size of the last. Guarded until moments ago by the giants now kneeling at his feet.
And yet, now…
Only silence lay before it. Heavy. Waiting.
Arthur narrowed his eyes.
“I know,” he said under his breath, stepping toward the door. “It’s not over. Not yet.”
Behind him, the twelve shadow giants slowly dissolved, their forms breaking apart into black mist returning to Arthur’s shadow like soldiers sinking back into the void between worlds. The battlefield was once again empty.
Except for him.
He walked forward, alone.
He raised one hand toward the gate, then paused.
“Let’s get this over with,” he said.
****
In the vast, endless stretch of space where nebulae burned like sleeping titans and there is nothing but silence, a figure hovered motionless, arms crossed in the vacuum of space.
His gaze was fixed.
Locked onto one small, distant world.
Earth.
The planet spun quietly in the void, fragile and bright. A blue spark of life.
He had been watching for some time.
And now… he spoke.
“Interesting fellow…” His voice was deep. Measured. Laced with intellect.
“He radiates it. Not power. Not hope. Fear. The real kind. The kind that makes beings kneel and monsters hesitate.”
His lips curled into a faint, deliberate smile.
“I had my doubts after our first plan failed. That Joker fellow didn’t achieve what I really wanted, I thought perhaps I would find candidates, someone who can truly be part of something great. I thought I miscalculated.” His eyes glinted. “But now? Now I am certain. I found one. And he’s more than fitting to wear this.”
He raised a single hand pale against the stars and a golden glow began to pulse from one of his fingers. A ring, burning with sickly yellow light.
Behind him… movement.
Dozens no, a large number of shapes began to emerge from the starlight, silhouettes of beings from every corner of the galaxy. Tall. Towering. Monstrous.
Each lifted a hand.
And one by one… each hand began to glow.
Yellow.
Not just light, emotion, weaponized and focused. The first figure didn’t turn. He simply spoke again, voice calm and reverent.
“We are going to change the cosmos. The Guardians will panic, and the Green fools will tremble. I can already see it.”
Comments
Cobalt
Ah fucking sinestro I thought it was going to be chaos for a second there
