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SM/DC Chapter 92 : The Syndicate Trap
🕑 Added 2025-04-17 20:30:17 +0000 UTCArthur carved a path of annihilation through the corridors.
With each swing of the Demon King Longsword, arcs of blue lightning tore through the air crackling, snarling, hungry for blood. One guard lunged at him with a plasma rifle; Arthur sidestepped effortlessly, letting the bolt fly harmlessly past before cleaving the man in half with a reverse grip slash. The body dropped before it even registered death.
Another squad opened fire from the end of the hall. Bullets and energy blasts lit up the space, but they never reached him. Ruler’s Authority activated in a subtle twitch of his fingers, and the projectiles froze mid-air, then dropped like rain. Arthur surged forward like a phantom storm, his blade dancing through steel and bone alike.
Men screamed. Metal melted. Sparks flew.
A soldier tried to run.
Arthur snapped his fingers, and a bolt of lightning burst from the sword, curving through the air and striking the man in the back. His body convulsed, then crumpled.
"You're wasting my time," he muttered, storming forward as the carnage continued.
Galatea trailed behind him, untouched, cutting down stragglers like an angel of death.
Suddenly, Arthur's eyes flared with a demonic blue light. His pupils narrowed as something flickered through his vision, an alert from his shadows.
“The ice elves found something,” he muttered. A grin tugged at his lips. “That’s a huge amount of Kryptonite... must be Ultraman’s drug stockpile.”
He chuckled under his breath.
"Take it all!" he commanded. “It’ll do well in my system inventory.”
He didn’t need to go look to know his Ice Elves were obeying.
Arthur and Galatea pushed deeper into the tower. The structure became colder, more metallic. No guards now, just silence and the low hum of machines that felt like they were watching.
They reached a set of vault-like doors. With a hiss, they opened, revealing a vast chamber circular, cathedral-like, pulsing with alien tech. The tower’s heart.
Arthur stepped inside.
The lights flickered. Not from damage...this was intentional.
Galatea slowed, her expression tightening. “My King… something’s not right.”
Arthur raised a hand, signaling her to halt. His gaze swept the room.
“I know,” he said, voice low. “Stay sharp.”
A thunderous mechanical CH-CHUNK echoed as massive blast shutters slammed down, sealing every exit in the blink of an eye.
Then came the hum.
It started as a whisper, but rose to a thrumming vibration in their bones. The walls glowed, veins of red, green, and blue pulsing through the steel. Inhibitor tech. High-level. Designed to trap gods.
Arthur narrowed his eyes.
A voice crackled through the intercoms. Smooth. Measured. Cold.
“I was hoping you’d come in person.”
Owlman’s voice echoed from every speaker, but it wasn’t mocking. It was detached. Calculated.
“You moved like a ghost,” he continued. “But a ghost that cast shadows… and shadows can be tracked.”
A brief pause.
“We didn’t even need to bait you. You made it all the more easy to trap you here.”
Arthur stared at the glowing walls, then the ceiling. "They’re coming.”
Suddenly, three sealed doors around the chamber hissed open with synchronized finality, metal groaning like beasts roused from slumber.
From the northern entrance, Owlman emerged. Calm. Composed. His cloak hung in perfect stillness despite the humming energy around them. His white lenses pulsed with data streams, scanning every inch of Arthur in a millisecond.
From the east, a red flash burst forth.
Johnny Quick skidded to a stop in a streak of lightning, the floor beneath his boots scorched and cracked. His smirk was wide, twitching at the edges with anticipation. Eyes burned with the promise of revenge as he cracked his knuckles.
From the western door, Power Ring stumbled in like a drunk man holding a ticking bomb. His arm trembled violently. The green construct on his hand pulsed like a heartbeat too fast to be natural. Sweat beaded on his brow, his gaze darting, twitching, as if trying to resist the very voice in his head.
Then glass shattered above.
Superwoman descended like fury incarnate. Her boots hit the ground with a sonic boom, knees bent in a perfect landing. She rose slowly, hair flowing with cape behind her, shoulders squared like a demigoddess ready for war.
The four closed in. Slow. Methodical. A predator's circle.
Galatea moved slightly in front of Arthur, fists clenched, her aura rising.
Johnny Quick tilted his head, that grin still carved into his face like a scar.
“Well, well... look at the Shadow boy getting cornered like a rat,” he said, his voice soaked in arrogance. “we meet again. This time? This time’s payback for last time.”
Arthur didn’t flinch. He merely smiled. Calm. Amused.
Power Ring’s head twitched. His breathing hitched.
“He’s leaking something…” he rasped, his voice cracked and full of panic. “Something dark... the ring says it’s not magic... it wants me to leave... but I WON’T LET IT!”
He screamed the last words, as if trying to drown out the fear whispering in his skull.
Superwoman took a step forward, hips swaying, lips curved in a lazy smirk. Her eyes ran over Arthur, slowly. Like she was savoring the sight.
“You’re cute,” she said. “Broody. Strong jawline.” Her voice purred with mischief. “You’d make a nice companion if you join us.”
Arthur’s gaze met hers, unbothered, unmoved by her proposal. His smile faded into something colder. Sharper.
“I don’t do secondhand,” he said simply.
The smirk vanished from her face.
Her eyes narrowed, the air around her snapping like tensioned wire. “Then you’ll make a nice corpse when I’m done with you.”
Owlman’s voice cut through the air next. Precise. Controlled. As if reciting a calculated analysis.
“I anticipated an assault,” he said, stepping fully into the light. “What I didn’t expect… was a commander who sends an army of shadows and still dares to walk in here by himself with only one of them.”
He paused, studying Arthur. As if memorizing every detail for future review.
“That was… impressive.” “Stupid. But impressive.”
Galatea took a step forward, shoulders tense, eyes burning red.
“You dare mock my King?” she growled, her voice full of venom.
Arthur didn’t look at her. Just raised his hand slightly.
She stopped immediately.
He inhaled once. Rolled his shoulders, a casual stretch as if he were just waking up, not standing in the center of a trap designed by the world's most dangerous minds.
Then his voice cut through the tension. Calm. Deadly.
“Four of you. One of me.”
He stepped forward.
“Almost seems unfair.”
His eyes swept over them one by one, Owlman’s emotionless mask, Johnny Quick’s smirk, Power Ring’s trembling form, Superwoman’s narrowed gaze.
“Shame that Ultraman isn’t here, apparently. Maybe then… maybe… you would’ve had a chance.”
He sighed like this was all just mildly disappointing.
“No matter.”
His expression changed. Just slightly. The faintest smile pulled at his lips.
It wasn’t joy.
It was inevitability.
“Soon enough… the four of you will know what it means to walk in shadow.”
He took one more step.
“To serve in shadow.”
The lights around the room flickered again, not from the trap, but from him.
The temperature dropped. his own shadow stretched unnaturally long.
His voice dropped lower now, but it hit harder like the clang of a war drum echoing in the bones.
“And when your bodies fall…”
His eyes flared brighter. The shadows behind him rippled like a living tide.
“...your souls will rise again.”
“With me.”
A pulse rippled from him not energy, but presence. Like death had just taken notice.
Galatea smiled.
Johnny Quick took a step back.
Power Ring whimpered.
And Owlman’s hands twitched behind his back.
Arthur’s voice cut one final time, soft as a whisper loud as fate.
“Welcome to the beginning of your eternal servitude.”
Then… the air shivered.
A pulse rolled out from Arthur's body heavy and cold, like a storm cloud pressing down. Shadows from his feet, crawling outward like living tendrils.
From that darkness, one figure rose.
One massive, towering, yet swift and coiled like a snake, twin tridents spinning in his hands, his form rippling with shadow-forged armor. Jima the naga.
Arthur didn't look at them.
He just whispered toward Owlman, his voice laced with iron.
“You miscalculated, Owlman.”
Johnny Quick’s smirk dropped. Visibly.
His voice cracked with frustration and disbelief.
“Oh no...another one of his monsters.”
The entire Syndicate moved.
It was instinct. Fear. Strategy. Rage. Whatever it was, it happened all at once.
Superwoman launched forward with a scream.
Power Ring’s hand lit up, the emerald glow flaring into a shield and a cannon.
Johnny vanished into lightning.
And Owlman hesitated. Just for a second.
Arthur Activated [Monarch’s Domain],
The room exploded in pressure. Darkness rushed out like a tidal wave from Arthur’s body, swallowing light and twisting gravity. His shadow soldiers pulsed, grew sharper, faster, deadlier.
Superwoman's path shifted she was fast, brutal aiming for Arthur but Galatea was waiting. She caught the punch with a thunderclap of impact, her feet skidding slightly on the floor.
Galatea growled. "You fight me."
Arthur moved.
No sound. No warcry. No wasted motion.
He launched forward like a freight train of death, his arm crashing down toward Power Ring with terrifying precision. As if he knew, Power Ring might be a problem. As if he could smell it.
The emerald constructs shattered like glass.
Jima was already on the move trying to catch the red blur that was Johnny Quick, tridents slashing, crashing, locking against the speedster in a deadly dance of flickering sparks and shadows.
Arthur then simply raised his sword, the Demon King Longsword and pointed it directly at Owlman.
Its blade crackled with blue lightning, Their eyes locked.
And for the first time, perhaps in his entire cold, calculated life
Owlman felt dread.
