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Central City -
Black rings streaked through the night like carrion birds, finding corpses in the rubble and raising them in waves. Heroes darted through the wreckage, green flashes, crimson streaks, a shield of golden lasso light cutting through the dark.
"Sector eight compromised again!" Flash's voice came sharp over the comms, his breath ragged even at his speed. "We clear one block, two more rot behind us. I'm starting to feel like a damn broom in a hurricane."
Above the skyline, Superman hovered with his cape torn, eyes glowing faintly red as he surveyed the chaos. His jaw tightened, the sound of collapsing towers grinding through the static. "We cleared them from Metropolis and now they are everywhere...This isn't a war...it's erosion," he muttered. Then louder, over the comms: "Arthur was right. This… this will exhaust us. That's what they want. They don't have to win fast...just bleed us dry."
Wonder Woman's blade sang as it split through a half-rotted construct lunging for a group of survivors. Her voice cut through the channel, calm but iron-hard. "Then we cannot let them dictate the rhythm of this war. Every second we hesitate, they gain ground."
From the charred husk of a high-rise, Batman's voice crackled in, flat and surgical. "Information is the only weapon that matters now. If we can't find the source of this infestation, we're swatting flies on a corpse."
Martian Manhunter phased through a collapsing overpass, dragging two civilians to safety. His tone was weary but steadfast. "Their power is tethered. All this death, all this resurrection...it's drawn from someone, somewhere. Cut the cord, the puppets will fall."
Kara's silhouette streaked past the moonlight, colliding with a flock of black constructs midair, scattering them like dry leaves. Her voice, clear but edged with strain, joined the comms. "Then trust him. Trust Arthur. He said he'd find the one pulling their strings, their 'Herald', and if anyone can sever this at its root, it's him."
There was a pause, a subtle catch in her breath, before Batman's response came. "Did he contact you? About his current whereabouts?"
Kara slowed for a moment, hovering above the smoldering skyline. Her eyes scanned the horizon as if expecting a shadow to answer. "…No." The single word carried too much, a flicker of doubt breaking through her tone.
Superman turned his gaze skyward, fists clenching as he hovered. "He's out there, I trust him." he said, more to himself than to the team. "Because if this keeps up… we'll be fighting until the sun dies, and still lose."
On the ground, Wonder Woman planted her sword in the cracked asphalt, rallying a ring of battered Green Lanterns and League members around her. "Then we hold. Every street, every breath. We will not let this world fall, not while there's one of us still standing."
Flash zipped past, leaving a streak of light in the ruin. "Great speech, Diana, but unless that shadow guy shows up with a giant off-switch for these things, we're tap-dancing in a graveyard."
Martian Manhunter's eyes glowed faintly as he lifted his head toward the roiling clouds. "Then we continue saving the people and buy him time. However much he needs."
All around them, the dead kept rising faceless soldiers of a war that was never meant to end. The heroes formed a moving fortress of light, steel, and willpower amidst a planet that had become the battlefield of the living and the dead.
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Coast City –
Emerald light streaked across the skyline, cutting through the smoke and ash that hung over Coast City. Hal Jordan's construct a massive turbine of spinning blades tore through a swarm of Black Lanterns, scattering limbs and rings into the air. But for every one cut down, two more lurched from the streets below, their rings pulsing with hunger for death.
Beside him, a phalanx of shadowed figures Arthur's Shadow Lanterns fought without rest. Their constructs were brutal, claws that snuffed out the black rings as if crushing simple glass. And still, the tide didn't break.
Hal gritted his teeth, his flight faltering for a moment as another wave surged up from the cracked roads below. "They're too damn relentless here," he muttered into his comm, sweat beading along his brow. "I've been across half the globe today and I haven't seen them this rabid anywhere else. It seems for whatever reason Coast City's a magnet for the worst of it."
A shadow lantern, Arkillo's shadow one of Arthur's very best lanterns, its eyes glowing faint violet grunted in something like agreement as it skewered a charging corpse through the chest. Razer, flying close, sliced another with a blade of crimson and azure light. "They're drawn here for a reason, Jordan," he said, his voice taut but composed. "This city reeks of memory… I don't know how to describe it but... they want this place to fall the most."
Hal didn't have the luxury to argue. A trio of Black Lanterns dove from above, their twisted visages familiar pilots, firefighters, people he once saved, now turned into fanged mockeries of themselves. His ring flared as he threw up a dome, but the impact rattled his bones.
Razer moved before he could recover, streaking ahead in a flash of two-toned light. "Get down!" he barked, crossing his arms and forming a shield that swallowed the blast meant for Hal.
The explosion ripped through the air. When the smoke cleared, Razer was tumbling earthward, his aura flickering, body limp.
"Razer!" Hal's shout tore from his throat as he dove after him. His ring's glow sputtered, the glow weakening. He caught a glimpse of his own construct fraying at the edges. "No..no, damn it, hold together!"
He barely had time to look up. The same trio had already recovered, joined now by five more, their rings pulsing with oily black light as they formed a writhing spear of black. They dove as one, murder incarnate.
Hal raised his ring, his breath ragged. "Not today!"
The green light flared, then faltered. His shield cracked like ice. Their impact sent him careening into the ground, carving a trench through the pavement. Pain blossomed through his ribs. His ring dimmed again, a sickly flicker of emerald against the dark.
Above, the Black Lanterns banked, their silhouettes cutting across the smoke-thick sky as they prepared their next strike.
Hal spat blood and pushed himself up on one elbow, his voice low and ragged. "Damn it… not like this."
The ground trembled.
At first, he thought it was just the concussion from their descent. But no the vibration grew, rolling like thunder beneath his palms. Pebbles rattled, broken glass danced in the debris-strewn street.
A light burst upward from behind him blinding, pure, unlike anything he had seen in this cursed war. Not green. Not blue. Not violet. Something raw, a brilliance that even the blackened sky seemed to recoil from.
The Black Lanterns halted mid-dive, their jaws slack, their rings sputtering with a hiss. They shielded their sockets with clawed hands, some screeching as their flesh began to smoke.
Hal squinted against the radiance, his ring reacting with a tremor like static electricity. "What the hell…" he whispered.
The Shadow Lanterns landed on the ground, their shadow constructs trembling as if answering an unseen command. Razer groaned somewhere in the rubble, his chest rising and falling weakly, blood all over his body, the strange light casting his battered body in stark relief.
And then the earth split, a light poured out like dawn breaking through the sky.
Hal's breath caught in his chest. A memory surfaced Arthur's voice, low and almost offhand, spoken sometimes ago in private.
'A myth, Jordan… one the Corps never believed but the Guardians surely know about it. Something buried deeper than Oa's archives, waiting for a moment of real reckoning. It won't wake for just anything. Only when the scales might tip too far, when death floods the living world beyond its limit.'
Hal stared at the fissure, the way the light didn't just shine, it blinded the eye, Shadows bent away from it, even the filth of the Black Rings recoiling like frost in fire. His pulse quickened, unease mixing with a little sense of hope.
"Is this…" he muttered, voice barely carrying over the roar of the rupturing street. His knuckles tightened around his glowing ring. "…No. It can't be. Arthur ..damn it, you weren't spinning me a story, were you?"
/-\
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