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The cries of Arthur's shadow legion echoed across the plains, rising like the drums of a war long awaited. Doom stood among them, unmoving. Empress's lasso coiled like a serpent ready to strike. Ultra's violet eyes narrowed as he cracked his knuckles, the air rippling around him. Behind Arthur, power gathered like a hurricane held barely in check. Waiting for the call to attack.
Sinestro narrowed his eyes. His arms folded over his chest with the posture of a commander measured, composed but there was tension in his jaw, a flicker in his pupils. He had seen many things. He had forged monsters from fear. But this was extremly different.
His voice cut the silence.
"Was that your oath?" Sinestro asked.
Arthur floated slightly above the ground, his uniform gleaming with unnatural luster, shadows slithering and stretching behind him like sentient extensions of will. His head turned lazily toward Sinestro.
A faint smirk touched the corner of his lips.
"Yeah," he said. "Also… I don't think the universe needs the Yellow Lanterns anymore."
Behind him, the roar of the shadow army erupted guttural, hungry, unified.
Sinestro didn't flinch… but he didn't answer either. Instead, he tilted his head and muttered under his breath, barely audible to any but himself.
'Is this… the Blackest Night prophecy?'
'No… something is not quite right.'
For a man like Sinestro, that alone was a thunderclap of significance.
He looked up at the dark ring pulsing on Arthur's hand, at the abyss-colored armor that drank in the light around it.
"...This was your plan all along, wasn't it?" Sinestro asked, voice quieter now. "You were not defeated... you let yourself get captured… knowing exactly what you wanted."
Arthur didn't answer right away. He rose higher, floating like a dark sovereign, his cape barely moving because space itself held its breath around him.
Then he smiled, eyes glowing with a slow, almost lazy amusement.
"Does it matter?"
A heartbeat passed.
Then the attack came.
No sound, no warning. Just motion blindingly fast, terrifyingly precise.
Arthur's ring flashed once, and from his outstretched hand, dark constructs surged forth not simple tendrils, it was claws, massive and jagged, made of shadows a force of pure intent. They ripped through the air like a predator unleashed, shrieking toward Sinestro.
Sinestro's instincts exploded.
He threw himself into a hard spiral upward, narrowly avoiding the strike. One claw shredded the ground where he'd stood a second ago, carving a deep rift in Qward's strong metal. The second claw caught his shoulder ripping his construct pauldron clean off in a spray of yellow energy.
He clenched his teeth and twisted midair, snapping his ring up to conjure a radiant yellow shield, but it wavered under the pressure of the next strike a barrage of tiny, slithering black spikes that bled out from Arthur's silhouette like venomous feathers.
Still floating, Arthur watched impassively.
Sinestro landed across the platform, his boots skidding.
He stared.
"Who… what are you really?"
Arthur tilted his head.
"The Shadow Monarch."
And then… the shadows roared.
The Shadow Legion surged.
Tusk, the High Orc Shaman, attacked first, Fire crackling in his Orb of Avarice. With one guttural word in a forgotten tongue, , spears of fire burst forth beneath the Yellow Lanterns, impaling several before they could lift their rings in defense.
Kamish the monstrous dragon marshal came next, his titanic body shaking the heavens. His wings eclipsed the burning light of Qward's suns as he let out a bellow that cracked the sky. His claws swept Lanterns out of the air like flies. His breath, a swirling inferno of violet and void, melted constructs mid-formation.
Ultra descended like a meteor violet eyes aglow fists sheathed in shadowed plasma. His first strike shattered three constructs. The next broke a Lantern's arm before they even registered his presence.
Empress spun in beside him, wielding her whip not of domination. It snapped and carved through yellow constructs like silk, wrapping around throats and yanking Lanterns out of the air.
Quick blurred in and out of the battlefield, dismembering constructs with surgical speed, leaving only screams and streaks of collapsed light behind him. Ring flew above the others, unleashing pinpoint constructs of deadly black javelins that exploded mid-air into clusters of homing shadow shards.
Doom was already amidst the chaos. Silent. Towering above everyone else. Each movement a calculated destruction. Lanterns tried to cage him with walls of energy Doom stepped through them adapting to every move. One grabbed him with a hammer construct, and Doom responded by gripping the construct with his bare hands and crushing it into nothing.
Arthur floated above all this, his smile held no arrogance only certainty.
He glanced at Sinestro.
"I've been wanting to test my shadow soldiers in battle," he said. "The full might of it. And for that… I thank you."
Sinestro's face twisted the calm, composed maestro of fear now showing the cracks. His yellow ring flared as he shouted, "You dare mock us?!"
He shot forward, a spear of golden energy extending from his fist brutal, perfect in form.
Arthur's own ring pulsed in response, a chilling, soundless beat and from it erupted a construct of violet and shadow shaped like a clawed beast's hand, colliding with the spear mid-air. Light and darkness clashed but neither gave way. The impact was a collision of philosophies. of worlds.
Sinestro sneered, eyes narrowed. "You're a child playing god. A novice," he hissed as their rings clashed again. "You lack control. You don't even understand the will needed to wield such—"
Arthur vanished in a blur.
[Speed Step]
He reappeared directly in front of Sinestro so fast the yellow construct hadn't even dissolved yet and drove a gauntleted fist into his jaw.
The air detonated around the impact. Sinestro's body snapped back, sent spiraling through the air like a comet before crashing through a rocky spire and embedding into a crater of molten metal.
Arthur hovered where he'd struck "Yeah," he muttered, brushing his hair back with a breath. "It's about concentration. Imagination. I've read the manual."
Sinestro stirred, groaning, but Arthur's voice rang out again calm and collected.
"But I'm not here to learn."
He lifted one hand, and behind him, his army surged again a wall of black fury washing over the yellow.
"I'm here to kill you all once and for all."
Arthur landed with a heavy thud the surface of Qward cracked beneath his boots, warped from the raw clash of constructs moments ago. Screams echoed in the distance, punctuated by the sounds of battle shadow against light, fear against death.
Then
A crackle.
A streak of red lightning tore across the battlefield like a jagged scar in reality. It zigzagged past falling bodies and collapsing constructs until it snapped to a stop beside Arthur in a sudden, thunderous flash.
Quick.
The shadow of the speedster stood tall, his eyes burning with energy. The crimson lightning that constantly sparked across his form hissed as it kissed the Qwardian ground. His arrival had kicked up a shockwave that momentarily silenced the nearby combat. For an instant, it was just Arthur and him.
Arthur didn't even glance. His gaze was already ahead, toward the chaos.
"Quick," he said, voice low, resolute. "Find their central power battery and quick."
Quick said nothing. He tilted his head slightly, waiting, his body language that of someone expecting more. A target? A strategy? Backup?
But Arthur said nothing further.
The silence stretched.
Then Arthur blinked once and turned to glance at him. "…That was the full order."
Quick tilted his head the other way.
Arthur narrowed his eyes, a twitch in his expression. "I see now... Quickly. I meant go quickly."
Quick blinked in mock surprise, scratched the side of his head sheepishly with a finger buzzing with lightning.
Then he grinned."At once my King."
In the blink of an eye, he was gone a streak of crimson thunder rocketing into the heart of Qward, weaving through the Yellow Lanterns. The air behind him cracked open in his wake, and lanterns who were mid-flight or mid-attack were spun wildly off course from the sudden gust his speed created.
"Damn show-off…" Arthur muttered to himself, though the smile tugging at the edge of his lips betrayed amusement.
Then, more serious again, his eyes narrowed as he stared across the battlefield. Sinestro had vanished from view.
Arthur didn't notice the glint behind him not with his eyes, anyway.
He felt it.
Two hostile energies approaching him through the air like razors.
Amon Sur came from the left, his face twisted in hate, a jagged construct spear spiraling toward Arthur's ribs. On the right, Romat-Ru unleashed a chain of spiked golden hooks, shrieking through the void like banshees, aimed to bind and tear.
But Arthur didn't move. His eyes closed slowly… and the world slowed with them.
And then he raised one hand lazily.
BOOM.
Both constructs halted midair, frozen in place inches from his skin caught, crushed, and shattered under an invisible force that warped the very space around them. A golden explosion flared from the collision, but it did not touch him. Instead, it recoiled like light itself was afraid to burn him.
Arthur opened his eyes.
They glowed with malice, "You two... I gave you the wrong impression on our first meeting," he said flatly. "Time to correct that."
/-\
If you Like this story! Check out my other stories! Solo leveling in Westeros.
&
If you wish to read more or simply support me than check out my patreon at
"https://www.patreon.com/FrenzyAren"
You can Get Access to 3 More Chapters OR 7 More Chapters if you want