The destructive power of Valkyr Prime's grappling hooks continued to amaze Marcus even after several minutes of testing. He'd grown accustomed to his Warframes' various abilities over years of use, learned to predict and compensate for their strengths and limitations. But this? This was something entirely new.
A mobility tool—something designed primarily to help him traverse environments quickly or pull enemies into melee range—had become a weapon of mass destruction. The hooks could extend billions of miles, strike with explosive force that vaporized asteroids, cut through space like razor wire, and deliver payloads of concentrated rage that made nuclear weapons look quaint by comparison.
"The emotional spectrum's power really is beyond expectations," Marcus mused, reeling in the hooks and watching them fold seamlessly back into Valkyr Prime's gauntlets. "No wonder the Lantern Corps have been major players in the multiverse for eons. This kind of power, wielded by even moderately competent users, can reshape civilizations."
Through his enhanced senses, Marcus could feel the approaching Lantern Corps more clearly now. They were minutes away, maybe less, moving in tight formations that suggested serious tactical planning. The Green Lanterns were leading—no surprise there, they were the self-appointed guardians of cosmic order. But the others were falling into support positions, creating a multi-layered assault pattern.
Smart. Individually, none of them could match him. But together, with coordinated attacks drawing on different aspects of the emotional spectrum? That could actually be interesting.
Marcus felt his awareness expand as the absorbed powers of Parallax and the Butcher fully integrated with Voruna Prime and Valkyr Prime respectively. The fear entity's essence gave him perfect perception of terror in all its forms, while the rage entity's power let him sense fury and violence across vast distances.
But more importantly, he could now sense the other entities. The remaining emotional spectrum embodiments called to him like beacons, their unique signatures standing out against the background noise of normal emotions. The Ophidian of avarice. The Predator of love. The Proselyte of compassion. The Ion of willpower. The Adara of hope.
Five more entities. Five more opportunities for armor ascension.
"Several spectrums, several armors," Marcus said with satisfaction. "Perfect symmetry."
He let Valkyr Prime's power surge through him, the crimson energy cascading off his body in waves. The armor's rage-fueled strength was intoxicating, begging to be unleashed, demanding release through violence and destruction.
Marcus obliged.
Hysteria.
The ability activated with a roar—Marcus's voice and Valkyr Prime's synthetic battle cry merging into something primal and terrifying. Red light exploded outward from his position, condensing around him into a sphere of pure fury before rushing outward like a tidal wave.
The aura Marcus projected changed fundamentally in that moment. Before, it had carried the weight of fear from Parallax's absorbed power, making beings instinctively want to flee. Now it became something more direct, more aggressive. This wasn't the predator marking territory anymore—this was the predator claiming its kills.
No mercy. No escape. Fight to the death.
Across the universe, every being Marcus had marked with his hunting declaration felt the shift. Strong individuals who'd been considering whether to get involved, whether to investigate this new threat, suddenly understood that consideration time was over.
This was war to the death. One side would fall. There would be no negotiation, no surrender, no walking away.
Some of those beings panicked, frantically searching for ways to remove the mark, to escape the hunt. Others grew furious, insulted by the presumption that they could be prey. A few simply accepted it with grim determination, preparing themselves for what was likely to be the last fight of their lives.
"They're starting to understand," Marcus noted, feeling the emotional responses rippling through his targets. "Good. Prey that fights back makes the hunt more satisfying."
He could sense the Lantern Corps' reactions specifically. The Green Lanterns' willpower solidified, becoming harder, more focused as they committed fully to stopping him. The Blue Lanterns' hope wavered but didn't break—they still believed all would be well, somehow. The Indigo Tribe's compassion shifted toward determination, understanding that sometimes mercy meant stopping threats before they caused more harm.
The Orange Lantern—singular, because there was only one—felt his greed intensify to manic levels. Larfleeze wanted Marcus's power so badly it was driving him into a frenzy.
And the Star Sapphires... their love became tinged with obsession. They looked at Marcus and saw someone who needed to be saved, converted, made whole through the power of love whether he wanted it or not.
All of it fed Marcus information. He could read their emotional states like open books, predict their actions based on which aspect of the spectrum they embodied.
"Time to move," Marcus said, and then he stepped.
The motion wasn't walking or running or flying. Valkyr Prime's enhanced mobility let him distort space itself through sheer force of movement. His foot came down on empty void, and reality cracked—jagged red fractures spreading out from the impact point like a broken mirror.
Marcus launched forward through those cracks, becoming a streak of crimson light that crossed light-years in seconds. The energy claws extending from his hands left trails of devastation in his wake—asteroids exploding, planets scarred by deep gouges, stars twisted by passing force that hooked solar prominences out of their photospheres like fishermen pulling catches from a pond.
Even the universe itself wasn't immune. Space-time developed hairline fractures wherever Marcus's power touched it, temporary rifts that sealed themselves but left quantum scars that would persist for millennia.
The display of raw power was deliberate. Marcus wanted the Lantern Corps to see what they were dealing with, to understand the magnitude of threat they faced. Fear and respect were useful tools when hunting dangerous prey.
Ahead, the five remaining Corps had established their defensive positions. Through Valkyr Prime's enhanced perception, Marcus could see the massive construct barriers they'd built—multilayered energy shields created by hundreds of ring-bearers working in concert.
Green willpower formed the outer shell, solid and immovable. Blue hope reinforced it, making the defenders believe their barriers were unbreakable. Indigo compassion wove through the structure, creating a network that could redistribute damage. Orange avarice tried to claim ownership of the space itself, making it harder for enemies to occupy. And violet love bound it all together, creating connections between the elements that made the whole stronger than its parts.
It was impressive work. A lesser opponent would have smashed against those defenses and broken like waves against cliffs.
Marcus wasn't a lesser opponent.
The crimson light that was Marcus slammed into the multilayered barriers like a meteor strike. The impact released shockwaves that made planets tremble in distant solar systems, energy discharges bright enough to be mistaken for supernovae.
And then Marcus's claws swept.
The energy talons, each one now extended to its maximum length and charged with the Butcher's explosive rage, carved through the barriers like they were tissue paper. The green willpower held for maybe a second before shattering. The blue hope fizzled out as reality proved more unforgiving than optimism. The indigo compassion network tried to absorb and redirect the damage but was simply overwhelmed.
The orange avarice put up the best fight, Larfleeze's possessive power making it genuinely difficult to break through his claimed space. But greed, no matter how intense, couldn't hold back pure destructive force forever.
And the violet love? It held the longest, those connections trying desperately to keep the defense together even as everything around them crumbled. But eventually, even love had to yield to rage.
The barriers collapsed in cascading waves of colored light, and Marcus burst through into the Lantern Corps' formation.
Most of the ring-bearers were still reeling from the psychic feedback of their constructs being destroyed so violently. Their defenses had been breached in seconds, torn apart by a single opponent moving too fast to properly track.
But Marcus wasn't interested in most of them. His eyes locked onto one specific target, the signature that blazed brighter than all the others in the orange section of his awareness.
Larfleeze. Agent Orange. The one being permitted to wield the orange light of avarice.
And more importantly, the host for the Ophidian—the serpentine entity that embodied greed itself.
"Found you," Marcus said, and redirected his trajectory mid-flight.
The other Lanterns tried to intercept. Green constructs—giant hands, massive chains, containment spheres—materialized in Marcus's path. Blue energy tried to slow him with hope-based temporal manipulation. Indigo teleportation beams attempted to redirect him away from Larfleeze.
Marcus ignored them all. The red light surrounding him simply smashed through the green constructs, outlasted the blue time-warps, and overpowered the indigo redirections. Nothing they threw at him had sufficient force to actually stop his momentum.
Larfleeze saw Marcus coming and did the smart thing—he ran.
The Orange Lantern turned and fled toward the other Corps, seeking the safety of numbers. He understood, perhaps better than the others, that he couldn't face Marcus alone. His greed might be infinite, his desire for Marcus's power all-consuming, but he wasn't suicidal.
The hundreds of orange light constructs surrounding him—ghosts of previous Orange Lantern Corps members that Larfleeze had killed and enslaved—moved to intercept Marcus. They formed a wall of translucent orange figures, each one wielding constructs of their own, creating a dense field of obstacles.
These weren't real beings. They were echoes, manifestations of Larfleeze's avarice given form through the rings he'd claimed from their original owners. But they could still fight, still use the orange light's power, still present a threat through sheer numbers.
Marcus's response was dismissive and brutal.
Hysteria - War Cry.
The roar that emerged from Valkyr Prime wasn't just sound—it was weaponized fury given acoustic form. The red light around Marcus pulsed outward in a spherical shockwave, and everything it touched simply stopped.
The orange constructs froze mid-motion as the War Cry hit them, their forms flickering as the rage energy disrupted their coherence. And then, as the full force of the ability took effect, they began disintegrating.
Most of the constructs vanished instantly, unable to withstand the concentrated anger being forced into their semi-stable forms. They popped like soap bubbles, orange light scattering into harmless motes that drifted away.
A handful survived the initial wave—the strongest constructs, the ones that had belonged to the most powerful ring-bearers before Larfleeze killed them. They managed to throw up defensive barriers fast enough to weather the worst of the attack.
But survival only bought them seconds.
Marcus's grappling hook shot forward before the surviving constructs could recover. The crimson cable, thin as wire but stronger than any physical material, swept through the defensive positions in a single fluid motion.
Ripline.
The hook's path took it through all the surviving constructs in sequence, making contact with each one's barrier for just a fraction of a second. But that was enough. Each touch transmitted an explosive payload of rage energy directly through the defenses.
The barriers detonated from the inside out. The constructs behind them had no time to react before they were caught in the blasts, their forms torn apart by the very shields that were supposed to protect them.
One construct managed to react fast enough to drop its barrier before the explosion, hoping to avoid the fate of its companions. Smart move—it saved the construct from being destroyed by its own defense.
Unfortunately for it, that left it completely exposed when Marcus's hook made contact.
The crimson cable wrapped around the construct's arm almost gently, and then Marcus pulled.
The construct came flying toward him, dragged across thousands of miles of space in an eyeblink. It tried desperately to break free, to cut the cable, to do something—anything—that would stop its inexorable approach toward the crimson-clad figure that radiated pure violence.
None of it worked.
The construct arrived in front of Marcus, and he opened his palm. A vortex of void energy materialized there, swirling white-gold against the backdrop of space, and the construct was drawn into it.
The orange light ghost barely lasted a second. The void's purifying emptiness dissolved its structure, breaking down the avarice energy that gave it form and converting it into raw emotional spectrum power.
When the vortex closed, Marcus held a small sphere of concentrated orange light—the refined essence of that construct's power, stripped of its corrupting greed and made pure.
"One down," Marcus said, looking at the ball of orange energy. "Not enough for an armor upgrade though. I need the source. I need Larfleeze. More importantly, I need the Ophidian."
The host didn't matter except as a vessel for the entity. Larfleeze himself was just a particularly greedy being who'd managed to claim all the orange power batteries and become the sole Orange Lantern. His personal power was impressive but not special.
The Ophidian though? That was what Marcus needed. The snake entity that embodied avarice on a cosmic scale, the being whose very existence defined what it meant to want something so badly you'd destroy everything to possess it.
That power would be perfect for a certain armor.
Marcus kicked off empty space again, creating more red fractures as he accelerated. Larfleeze was still fleeing toward the other Corps, screaming for help in a voice that mixed terror with rage at the indignity of having to ask for assistance.
"Help! HELP! He's going to take my rings! He's going to steal MY power! It's MINE! All mine! He can't have it! Stop him! STOP HIM!"
The other Corps members were still disoriented from their barriers being shattered, but they responded to Larfleeze's panic. Not out of any particular affection for the Orange Lantern—Larfleeze was universally disliked by the other Corps—but because they understood that if Marcus caught him, another entity would fall.
Green energy constructs materialized in Marcus's path—not trying to contain him this time, but to slow him down. Giant walls, sticky webs, gravitational wells, anything that might buy Larfleeze a few more seconds to reach the safety of the group.
Marcus simply went around them. Or through them. Or ignored them entirely depending on what was most efficient. The singular focus of Valkyr Prime's Hysteria state made him unstoppable once he'd locked onto a target, and right now, that target was the only Orange Lantern in existence.
"He's coming! He's—wait, wait! I have an idea!" Larfleeze's eyes lit up with sudden greed-fueled inspiration. "You want power, yes? I can give you power! Look at all my rings! I have thousands! Take some! Take half! Take seventy percent! Just let me keep the rest!"
The desperation was palpable. Larfleeze was actually offering to share—something that went against every fiber of his being, every aspect of his orange-light nature. The greed entity that possessed him must have been screaming in protest at the very suggestion.
Marcus didn't even acknowledge the offer. Words were meaningless now. He'd entered Hysteria's full battle state, and in that mode, there was only the target and the path to the target. Everything else was obstacles to be removed or ignored.
He closed the distance, and Larfleeze finally understood that running wouldn't save him.
The Orange Lantern spun around, every ring on his body blazing with power. The Ophidian manifested fully, its serpentine form coiling around Larfleeze like armor. The entity's eyes—hundreds of them, scattered across its snake-like body—fixed on Marcus with pure, undiluted avarice.
The Ophidian wanted Marcus's power. It craved the fear entity's strength, the rage entity's fury, the potential for consuming more and more until nothing in existence remained unclaimed. The greed was so intense it became almost physical, a pressure in the emotional spectrum that made nearby space warp.
"MINE!" The word erupted from Larfleeze and the Ophidian simultaneously, their voices merging into a chorus of possessive fury. "All power is MINE! You are MINE! Everything you have, everything you are, MINE MINE MINE!"
A beam of pure orange light erupted from the Ophidian's mouth, so dense with avarice energy that it looked solid. The attack could claim ownership of anything it touched, mark it as Larfleeze's property, bring it under his control. It was the orange light's ultimate weapon—the ability to simply take whatever they wanted.
Marcus's response was immediate and contemptuous.
Ripline - Impale.
The grappling hook shot forward, straight through the orange beam like it wasn't even there. The rage energy coating the hook overwhelmed the avarice, burned through it, reduced it to harmless light that scattered without effect.
The hook punched through the Ophidian's manifested form, piercing the entity's serpentine body. The creature screamed—a sound that resonated across the avarice spectrum and made every greedy being in the universe suddenly feel their desires turn to ash.
And then the hook continued forward and caught Larfleeze himself.
The tip of the crimson cable pierced through the Orange Lantern's chest—not deeply enough to kill immediately, but deep enough to pin him. The hook's barbs engaged, locking into Larfleeze's body and preventing any escape.
"No... no no no NO!" Larfleeze clutched at the hook with desperate hands, trying to pull it out, trying to break free. "It's mine! The power is mine! You can't take it! You CAN'T!"
Marcus pulled.
The cable retracted with brutal efficiency, dragging Larfleeze across space toward Marcus's position. The Orange Lantern struggled the entire way, his rings blazing as he tried to create constructs to anchor himself, to cut the cable, to do anything that would stop his approach.
None of it worked. The orange light's power to claim and possess meant nothing when faced with rage that simply didn't care about ownership. Valkyr Prime's fury burned through every construct, melted every barrier, dismissed every attempt at resistance.
Larfleeze crashed into Marcus with bone-breaking force. The impact would have killed a normal being instantly, but Larfleeze was sustained by the orange light flowing through him. It replaced his blood, his organs, everything except his brain and the core spark that made him who he was.
He was barely alive in the traditional sense, more of a vessel for avarice than a living being. Perfect for housing an entity. Terrible for surviving when that entity was forcibly extracted.
Marcus grabbed Larfleeze by the throat with one clawed hand, lifting him effortlessly. With his other hand, he reached forward and simply grabbed the Ophidian's manifested form.
"Kill him," a Green Lantern shouted, finally recovering enough to speak. "Kill them both before—"
But it was already too late.
Void energy erupted from Marcus's hands, white-gold light mixing with the crimson rage of Valkyr Prime. The purifying emptiness flooded into Larfleeze's body, into the Ophidian's serpentine form, dissolving the orange light that sustained them both.
Larfleeze felt his power draining away, felt the entity that had possessed him for so long being torn free. The sensation was indescribable—like having his soul extracted through his chest cavity, like watching everything he'd ever claimed slip through his fingers, like facing the absolute certainty that he would die with nothing.
For a being whose entire existence revolved around possession and accumulation, it was the ultimate horror.
"Mine," he whispered, the light fading from his eyes. "All... mine..."
And then Larfleeze died, his body crumbling to dust as the orange light that had sustained him was completely extracted.
The Ophidian thrashed in Marcus's grip, trying desperately to escape. The greed entity was ancient, powerful, had survived countless conflicts across eons. But the void was older still, and it was relentless.
The Ophidian's struggles weakened as void energy saturated its form. The serpent's hundreds of eyes began closing one by one, its coils going slack, its avarice draining away into nothingness.
And then, like Parallax and the Butcher before it, the Ophidian was reduced to pure emotional spectrum energy.
Marcus pulled back both hands, the void energy dissipating. In one palm, he held the small sphere of orange light from the construct he'd destroyed earlier. In the other, he held something much larger—a ball of concentrated avarice energy the size of a basketball, pulsing with power that made reality bend around it.
The Ophidian's essence. The crystallized embodiment of greed itself.
Marcus pressed the two spheres together, and they merged seamlessly. The final result was a perfect orange orb that radiated such intense avarice it felt like everything in the universe was being pulled toward it.
"Three down," Marcus said with satisfaction, storing the orange orb in a void pocket dimension. "Four to go."
He looked up at the surrounding Lantern Corps members, and for the first time since the battle began, he actually spoke to them rather than just attacking.
"Hand over your lantern rings," Marcus said, his voice carrying through the void with unnatural clarity. "Do that, and I'll let you go. Keep them, and you'll end up like Larfleeze—dust and memories, your entities absorbed, your power claimed as mine."
The offer hung in the space between them, heavy with implications.
On one hand, Marcus was giving them an out. Surrender their rings, walk away alive, accept defeat without death. For beings who valued life—and most of them did, greed being a notable exception—it was a generous offer from someone who'd just demonstrated he could kill them whenever he wanted.
On the other hand, the rings were everything to the Lantern Corps. They were their purpose, their power, their identity. Asking a Green Lantern to surrender their ring was like asking them to stop breathing. The rings weren't just tools—they were extensions of the wielders' souls, manifestations of their core emotional states.
Surrender them? That was asking them to give up who they were.
The silence stretched as the Lantern Corps members processed the offer. Marcus could see the internal conflicts playing out across their faces, sense the emotional turmoil through the absorbed entities' perception powers.
Some of them wanted to accept. They'd seen three Corps destroyed, three entities consumed. The rational part of their minds screamed that survival was more important than pride. Give him the rings, retreat, regroup, find another way to fight another day.
But the rings themselves resisted that logic. The emotional spectrum didn't do rational surrender. Fear fled. Rage attacked. Greed hoarded. Willpower persisted. Hope believed. Love protected. Compassion understood but refused to abandon those in need.
The various aspects of the spectrum that powered each Corps made true surrender almost impossible.
Marcus waited patiently. He genuinely was giving them a chance—if they took it, fine. He'd collect the rings and entities without further violence. But if they refused...
Well, he'd shown them what happened to those who stood between him and his prey.
The decision came from an unexpected quarter.
The Star Sapphires—the violet-light wielders of love—made their move.
"No," Star Sapphires leader said, her voice ringing with conviction. "We won't surrender. But not because we're choosing to fight."
Violet light blazed from hundreds of Star Sapphires simultaneously. The energy didn't form weapons or barriers though. Instead, it condensed into a single massive beam that shot straight toward Marcus.
"We choose to save you!" she continued, her voice taking on an almost zealous quality. "You're in pain! You're broken! The rage, the fear—they're consuming you! But we can heal you! Love can make you whole again!"
"No!" A Green Lantern shouted in alarm. "Don't! You saw what he did to three Corps! The violet light won't—"
But it was already too late.