Hal Jordan shivered, his body stiff as he turned his head to look. Above the city, two figures he often saw on television were flying in mid-air.
The Transcendent, radiating a strong purple light, looked down with crossed arms. Superman followed closely, his cape fluttering. Beside him, a beautiful and spirited woman, a golden lasso at her waist, hovered in the air on the other side behind the Transcendent.
"Haha..."
Seeing David behind him, Hal Jordan gave a dry laugh. "I... I was just kidding."
The dazzling Lantern Ring on his hand dimmed considerably from fright.
"Why did the ring dim?"
Batman, who had found Hal Jordan's flashy ring annoying from the start, asked.
"Energy saving."
Hal Jordan's voice also lowered significantly, his face showing embarrassment.
The power of the Lantern Ring relied entirely on the wielder's willpower. The Transcendent, possessing a Lantern Ring outside the Legion's jurisdiction, must know this. He felt utterly humiliated.
"Did Hal Jordan become a Green Lantern?"
David recognized Hal Jordan by the outline of his face beneath the green mask.
As one of America's best pilots, Hal Jordan had a full page of biographical information, complete with photos, on online encyclopedias.
After unexpectedly obtaining the Lantern Ring, he had briefly looked up Hal Jordan online.
Whoosh!
"Something big happened, didn't it?"
Batman looked up at David.
Everyone knew this online. The Transcendent was powerful and mysterious, never participating in ordinary crime-fighting activities. He only appeared when a crisis that could threaten the entire world arose.
"It seems the master of those biological weapons wields extraordinary power."
Even with millions of those demonic-looking biological weapons, they posed no threat to the two individuals before him. There must be something else.
"We're a step too late."
Clark clenched his fist. His super-vision saw Parademons circling in the distance, like vultures searching for prey.
The appearance of groups of monsters not belonging to this planet indicated that the ancient device David mentioned, capable of teleporting alien armies, had been activated.
"These Parademons arrived on this planet long ago."
David shook his head.
They had met up en route and arrived quickly enough, meaning the Parademons had reached Earth earlier.
Perhaps the Mother Box in the human world had been activated while he was on his way to Atlantis.
Sensing through the gravitational field, David looked towards the Gotham branch of Star Labs.
The research building had been destroyed from the inside, and the scene had been secretly sealed off for some time. The entire block was under military lockdown, guarded by heavily armed soldiers who allowed no one to approach.
"Did they seal the news because it's related to aliens?"
Although the Mother Box should have been taken by the Apokolips high command who had teleported here by now, David decided to check the scene anyway. He wanted to see if there were any surviving witnesses from whom he could gather intelligence about the Apokolips figures who had descended.
"However, we can infer that Darkseid himself probably didn't come."
If that Dark Lord had arrived, he wouldn't be lurking in the shadows like this, sending Parademons to harass and attack around the world, causing chaos.
Just then, an explosion suddenly erupted from another block, accompanied by screams from the crowd.
"Someone is fighting those Parademons. It's..."
Clark immediately projected his gaze over, penetrating layers of steel and concrete, and his expression froze.
"Is it a half-man, half-machine?"
Cyborg?
David's expression shifted.
If nothing unexpected happened, there should be witnesses now.
"Let's go see."
"Where are you monsters from! Where are the leaders of your group!"
A sonic cannon swept across a dozen Parademons, turning them to ash. A Black man, over eighty percent of whose body was covered in metal, his expression filled with sorrow and anger, like a beast out of control, grabbed a Parademon and interrogated it.
But the mindless Parademon just kept roaring, trying to bite the creature before it, only to be held firmly by an iron hand, unable to break free.
"I can guarantee a dog is smarter than it. Interrogating it is futile."
With a green light, Hal Jordan descended to offer his advice.
Victor Stone, after killing the Parademon in his hand, turned with the jumpiness of a startled bird, his transformed arm's sonic cannon almost firing.
"Hey, be careful."
Hal Jordan raised his hands.
Cyborg, whose eyes were red from losing his father in a sudden attack, scanned the newcomers who had arrived in their own ways, his guard up.
"Batman, Superman, Transcendent?"
Besides two strangers, he saw the superheroes who frequently fought crime and saved the world in news reports, and he lowered his guard slightly.
Hal Jordan pouted in dissatisfaction.
Even though he had only been fighting crime in Coast City for a few days, was he really that unknown?
"It seems you've encountered something," Batman said after a moment of silence.
The black man before him was extremely unstable, his eyes red as if he had suffered a great blow, as if he had lost loved ones in a sudden disaster?
He was familiar with this feeling and emotion.
"My father was killed, by a group of strangely dressed monsters!"
Victor Stone covered his eyes and wept.
"What exactly happened?"
David pressed for details.
"You and we might be able to find them together; they are brewing a war to destroy the world."
"I... I..."
Facing the Transcendent, who had once saved the world, Cyborg hesitated, his voice trembling and confused as he began to recount the bizarre events.
On his way home from a football game, he was in a car accident, his mother died, and he himself should have died.
"My father saved me with a peculiar box and modified me.
He turned me into what I am now.
Just this morning, as the modifications were completed, that box made a deafening roar, opening a passage. Several tall, ferocious creatures descended, along with countless of those monsters, and they broke through the building!"
His father was casually crushed to death by a man who was tall, with thick limbs, a beast-like face, and exuded an aura of crude violence.
A tall monster with two horns on its head, covered in silver scaled armor, like a soulless creature, coldly and brutally swung its axe, killing the remaining personnel in the laboratory.
Cyborg angrily charged forward but was easily blocked by a man in a green suit with an insect-shaped golden helmet. He was swatted away like trash and knocked unconscious.
When he woke up, he saw only ruins.
David frowned, organizing the information he had gathered.
"Kalibak, Steppenwolf, and Kanto..."
The invaders from Apokolips had indeed changed.
"It's no longer just Steppenwolf leading the Parademon army."
The monster with silver scaled armor and an axe in its hand was undoubtedly Steppenwolf.
In Cyborg's account, he appeared to be the lowest in status among the three leaders, while the tall, bull-like man was the highest in status among the three.
Cyborg's description of that man made him think of someone—Kalibak, Darkseid's eldest son.
"Kalibak, son of the Dark Lord, one of the most powerful New Gods, possessing strength comparable to that of the Kryptonian offspring, with a ferocious and brutal nature, the second strongest warrior under Darkseid."
But David valued the last of the three the most—the New God Kanto.
One of Darkseid's most loyal subordinates, a member of the New Gods, cold and ruthless, without any mercy, he was Darkseid's strongest warrior. In terms of status, he might not be as high as the Dark Lord's own son, but his strength surpassed Kalibak. His defense was nearly immune to physical attacks, and he possessed the ability to absorb and manipulate energy.
Clark looked at Cyborg with sympathy.
Having almost his entire body modified into machinery, this reminded him of his unfortunate uncle, Zor-El. After Brainiac was repelled, he was brought back to the Fortress of Solitude, but after a diagnosis, Jor-El discovered that his hippocampus had been removed and part of his brain had been excised.
It was impossible to recover his memories, so his mechanical body had to be dismantled and he was imprisoned in a red sun prison.
The young man before him was not much better off than his uncle; he lost his mother in a car accident, survived himself, became half-man, half-machine, and then his father died before his eyes.
"You said your father saved you with a peculiar box?" Batman frowned.
"And then that box brought a group of monsters?"
Amidst the chaotic grief of Cyborg's disastrous experiences, he keenly caught two key points in the young man's words.
No one understood the pain of losing parents better than he did, but how did it seem like this young man's father had attracted aliens?
"It sounds like Pandora's Box," Hal Jordan said, touching his chin with a solemn expression.
"Someone opened a box they shouldn't have, and the disaster came pouring out."
Ssss!
Screams echoed.
Cyborg had just killed over a dozen Parademons, and more were drawn to them, swarming in like a flock of ravens.
Clark frowned as he rose into the sky, his Heat Vision sweeping across, annihilating the Apokolips biological weapons that knew no fear.
"We need to find those extraterrestrial enemies who are trying to destroy the world as soon as possible, but these monsters that can endanger ordinary people must also be urgently dealt with!"
He looked into the distance, as far as his eyes could see, and found these ugly, ferocious figures above every city. There were at least a million of them attacking people worldwide.
"This is precisely their objective.
Release some to wreak havoc and slaughter across the world, bogging down this planet's resistance, and then summon more."
David spoke, pointing out Kalibak and the others' goal.
"But you're right."
He knew Clark wouldn't stand by and do nothing, and if these bugs were allowed to fly around attacking people, even small towns would be in danger of being attacked.
"I'm a bit short-handed on my own."
Clearing the existing Parademon army and finding the location where the enemy was summoning their forces had to proceed simultaneously. Clark was the fastest among those present, and he chose to clear the monsters circling above the cities.
But relying on him alone was still a bit slow.
"I have a helper I know.
He's just as fast, like lightning."
Hal Jordan raised his hand, then used his Lantern Ring to make a call, turning around and lowering his voice to speak secretly with the person on the other end.
"Flash, it's me, Green Lantern."
"Hal? I told you not to call me that." At the same time, a junior clerk in the evidence investigation department at Central City Police Station said, flipping through crime files.
"Cough, cough, cough!"
Hal Jordan coughed urgently, drowning out the voice of his unexpectedly met friend. He looked behind him guiltily, unsure if anyone had heard.
"Someone needs you now, Flash.
I'm at the intersection of Gotham's Main Street and Seventh Street. Just between us, I'm with the Transcendent, Superman, and Batman."
"The world is facing a crisis."
"World crisis? What crisis?"
A series of yellow lightning bolts flashed, and a figure appeared in the block where they were. He wore a form-fitting suit with red as the main color. He held his phone, looking a bit nervous, seemingly unaccustomed to the current situation.
"You seem to know more than us?"
Batman asked David.
He had heard David call these monsters Parademons earlier and wasn't particularly surprised by what Cyborg had said.
David explained what he knew: the enemy had arrived, the world was in crisis, and there was nothing to hide.
As for the information about Apokolips, he didn't need to explain his sources.
"Are you saying there are two more of these boxes?" Hal Jordan was a bit panicked upon hearing that there were a total of three boxes for summoning the Dark Multiverse forces. Did they have to split up?
He hadn't faced alien monsters before.
"I already have those two.
That's their ultimate goal too."
David said.
In fact, he didn't need to search for Kalibak and the others; they would find him eventually.
But they might bring along an endless Parademon army that would make the universe fear them with sheer numbers, and Earth might suffer heavy casualties.
"That's great! How did you find them?"
Hal Jordan patted his chest, his face full of curiosity.
After all, finding a few boxes with sides measuring tens of centimeters on Earth wasn't that easy.
"We need more power to resist the invasion."
And Batman, upon hearing that the box almost came from the most powerful darkness in the universe, frowned in thought.
After discovering the Transcendent and Superman, he had focused much of his energy on supernatural matters and had made some discoveries.
"I know the whereabouts of a man who moves freely in the sea like a fish at supersonic speeds and has the strength to lift nuclear submarines.
Every bit of power is extremely precious at this moment."
Aquaman?
David looked around.
With Aquaman added, the initial members of the Justice League were almost all present at this moment.
"Let's go.
I hope you can be faster."
Clark looked at The Flash and said.
"Never falling behind." Barry Allen made a gesture at his head with his finger; working with Superman made him a little excited.
The two, one in the air and one on the ground, set off like lightning, beginning to clear out the Parademons causing chaos around the world.
The rest of them prepared to find a place to see how they could locate the remaining Mother Box.
"I should be able to help out a bit," Cyborg said, clenching his fist.
His mechanical body came from a Mother Box, and he had a special connection to it. He was avenging his dead father.
...
Chernobyl. Since the nuclear leak incident, it had become a forbidden zone for humans on Earth.
Inside the abandoned nuclear power plant.
Kalibak and a few others manipulated the Mother Box, releasing energy and altering the terrain, turning the entire area into a fortified base.
Standing nearly three meters tall, with thick limbs like pillars supporting the sky, a wide mouth, a lion's nose, and fangs, Kalibak, with his beast-like, rugged, and ferocious face, wielded a thick metal staff and commanded his uncle, Steppenwolf, to place the Mother Box into the steel.
The Mother Box released energy, melting the steel and connecting with Apokolips on the other side of the universe.
The sinister appearance of Desaad, the Dark Lord's assistant, materialized from the rolling molten iron.
"Kalibak, son of the great Dark Lord, why did you leave Apokolips with the Parademon army without reporting to His Majesty?
And why are you consorting with Steppenwolf, who once betrayed your father?"
He looked at Steppenwolf, who stood by with a battle-axe.
"This is exactly what I want you to tell my father," Kalibak said, his deep voice seeming to contain the power to shatter steel, his eyes burning with fervor.
"You don't know what kind of treasures this backward, primitive planet possesses!"
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