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SM/DC Chapter 100 : Death of the Endless
🕑 Added 2025-04-25 20:24:44 +0000 UTCA woman cloaked in flowing, obsidian-black robes that shimmered like the void between stars. Each fold of her garment seemed to devour the light, an elegant curtain of eternity. Her skin was pale as moonlight, lips dark as midnight ink, and her eyes..
Her eyes were endless.
Twin dark abysses, as if galaxies spinning slowly in their depths as if the stars themselves were caught in quiet orbit around her soul. Around her neck hung an necklace with a symbol..an ankh, the sign of life... and of its end.
Arthur’s breath caught in his throat.
He staggered backward, blood still running from his split lips, knees threatening to give in entirely not from fear, but from awe... and exhaustion.
His eyes widened. "You are... Death."
She smiled. Not cruelly. Not kindly. Merely... knowing.
Like she had always known.
"You know of me."
Her voice rang like a bell through his mind soft, serene, and absolute.
Arthur tried to answer but only managed
"Sort... of..."
His voice cracked, barely a whisper. Then his knees buckled fully, and he dropped down to the ground with a grunt, one hand bracing his trembling frame.
She laughed softly, a dark velvet chuckle, not unkind, but laced with irony.
"I assure you... this is not my doing."
She stepped forward with grace that mocked gravity itself, her feet barely disturbing the dust of the broken earth. And then she knelt.
On one knee, opposite him.
Her fingers, cold and smooth as glass, reached forward and cradled Arthur’s bruised face gently. Her gaze pierced his very soul, but there was no judgment. Only... recognition.
Then, her voice rang with quiet command:
"Take him, I will continue to allow it.. Your powers are.. Interesting."
Her hand gestured without looking toward the corpse of Ultraman, his severed head lying beside his fallen body.
Arthur looked, unsure what she meant. But before he could ask, she leaned forward and
kissed him.
A soft press of lips to his cheek.
Like frost touching the edge of flame.
A strange warmth bloomed where she touched him, even as the cold of the void echoed in its wake.
“And leave as soon as you can.”
Arthur froze caught off guard, wide-eyed.
Then she rose, tall and unbending, the galaxies in her eyes spinning faster now.
"I have grown... interested in you, Arthur," she said, turning her back as the wind began to howl unnaturally. "Ever since you first meddled with the energy of Death."
Her robes flowed behind her like the tail of a comet, her steps unhurried as the sky began to bend above her.
She paused only once, casting a glance over her shoulder.
"I’ll be seeing you again...
Arthur Blackwynd.
Monarch of Shadows."
And with that, she vanished
like she was never there at all.
Only the silence remained.
And Arthur… still kneeling, bloody and breathless, stared at the space where Death Herself had just stood.
"...What the hell ..was that about.."
Arthur stood slowly, wincing as his joints cracked and muscles protested. Blood still clung to his knuckles, his breath ragged from the relentless battle.
A long sigh escaped his lips as he gazed upward.
The sky was changing.
Too quickly.
"Well... at least she’s right…" he muttered to himself.
The horizon was beginning to brighten. Rays of sunlight crept across the battle-torn landscape, illuminating ash and debris with unforgiving clarity. Daylight of demise was fast approaching. It wouldn’t be long before this world would be no more
He turned toward what remained of Ultraman, his decapitated body resting like a fallen god in the ruin. For a long moment, Arthur just looked at him this broken weapon of another world.
Then he stepped forward and placed a bloodied palm gently upon Ultraman’s chest.
"Arise."
Silence.
No stirring of shadows. No pull of death’s whisper.
Arthur frowned.
He glanced around, tense. Tried again.
"I don't have time, come on…"
“Arise”
Nothing.
His brow tightened, a bead of sweat slipping down his temple.
"Did she do something…?" he whispered, remembering Death’s enigmatic expression.
Then, narrowing his eyes and focusing all of his will, he commanded the world
"ARISE."
The air shivered.
A ripple of dark energy burst outward from Ultraman’s corpse like a shockwave of smoke and lightning. The sky dimmed for a moment, just a blink like it remembered the night. The ground cracked beneath him. Shadow tendrils whipped and curled, and then…
He emerged.
A new figure knelt at Arthur’s feet.
Shaped like Ultraman. Cloaked in flickering black, a long tattered cape trailing behind him. A stylized, glowing violet “U” burned on his chest. His eyes once crimson with rage now burned with a deep, pulsing violet fire.
[Ultra, Shadow General]
Arthur’s gaze sharpened as he took in the transformed being, the immense aura rolling off him like waves of controlled fury.
"Impressive..." Arthur murmured.
He walked a slow circle around the kneeling figure.
"I can tell. You’re almost a Marshal… just like Doom."
The Ultra Shadow remained kneeling, head bowed in total submission.
Arthur exhaled deeply, and with a wave of his hand, all his soldiers Doom, Quick, Galatea, began to retreat, dissolving back into the swirling depths of his own shadow. One by one, they vanished… until only Arthur stood amidst the ruin.
"I need to get out of here."
The sky had turned bright again. Dangerously bright.
Without another word, Arthur raised his hand. A flicker of dimensional energy sparked around him.
"Exchange."
And in a blink
He was gone.
****
Earlier that hour -
The city was chaos incarnate.
Glass shattered in skyscrapers as shockwaves rattled through concrete and steel. Sirens blared in every direction, police, fire, and emergency units overwhelmed by the raw unreality of what was happening in the sky above.
A woman held her daughter tight beneath the awning of a bus stop as the sky cracked with thunder not from a storm, but from fists slamming into gods.
"Is that… Ultraman?" a man asked, eyes wide, cellphone shaking in his hand as he tried to film.
"He’s… he’s furious."
"Who the hell is he fighting... are those.. GHOSTS?!"
Up above, figures blurred like comets, smashing through buildings and tearing across the skyline in streaks of black and red and silver. Every punch left sonic booms in their wake. Every crash sent birds fleeing, car alarms wailing.
From atop a rooftop, a teenage boy pointed to a moment frozen in time, Ultraman slamming a figure through a building, bricks exploding outward like a wave of paper.
"That man.."
"Who is that?!"
"I don’t know, but he’s going toe-to-toe with Ultraman!"
Street-level panic grew. People abandoned their cars mid-intersection, running for cover as chunks of metal rained from the sky. A flaming bus flipped through the air like a toy tossed by a tantrum.
"RUN! RUN! HE’S COMING THIS WAY!"
And then, suddenly
silence.
Not peace. Not safety. Just… the void left behind when too much has happened too fast.
The fighting had stopped.
Smoke curled into the heavens, pillars of ash and fire.
People crawled out from hiding, shielding their eyes from dust and heat. A young girl on the steps of a church pointed to the sky, eyes wide.
"Mommy… where’s the moon?"
Heads turned upward.
Murmurs became screams.
"Wait… it was just there…"
"The moon… it’s gone…"
"Did it explode?! Who destroyed the MOON?!"
Panic rippled like a storm surge. People began to run, again but not from buildings or monsters. From uncertainty. From the sheer wrongness of the sky itself.
And as the pale silver light of the missing moon gave way to a rising unnatural brightness.
"What is that light?"
"It's getting brighter..."
"Is it even the sun?!"
From the shattered remains of windows, from alleyways and rooftops, everyone felt it
Something had changed.
Something cosmic was approaching.
****
Arthur stood beside Alexander Luthor, the flickering lights of the machine casting jagged shadows across both their faces. Alexander was working feverishly, fingers dancing across a cracked control panel, his eyes sunken with fatigue but sharp and calculating.
Arthur's voice cut through the tension, urgent but composed.
“That thing is approaching. We don't have time. Is it ready, Alexander?”
The other man didn’t answer immediately. He was adjusting a dial, then pressing a glyph-marked button with the steadiness of someone used to doing the impossible with seconds to spare.
A brilliant vortex began to bloom in the center of the machine.
Alexander finally spoke, his voice quieter than Arthur expected. Almost... hollow.
“Yes.”
Click.
“It’s ready.”
The portal flared open like the eye of a god. Wind tore through the chamber. The machine howled with power. Alexander’s eyes reflected galaxies.
“The coordinates should be correct,” he murmured. “This’ll take you back... home.”
Arthur glanced into the portal. He felt it in his bones. This was real. This was the thread that would lead him back to his own world.
But something pulled at him.
He turned to Alexander.
“Come with me,” Arthur said, voice steady despite the roar of energy around them. “My world could use a decent Lex Luthor. One with a brain... and a soul. You might even change some people, Superman himself wouldn’t believe it.”
Alexander’s hands slowly dropped to his sides. The glow of the portal played across his features, but his eyes remained unreadable. He didn’t look at Arthur right away.
Seconds passed.
Then
“I can’t,” he said, simply.
