(~˘▾˘)~~(˘▾˘~)
=======
"Lantern Ring can turn fantasies in the mind into reality, create everything, simulate nature.
From something as vast as a black hole or a star to something as small as a handsaw or a screw, but their power and hardness depend on your will."
Tomar-Re waved his hand, and the power of his will materialized into a glass bottle suspended in mid-air.
He flicked his finger, and it produced a crisp sound, as if it were a genuine glass bottle.
"Now, you two try."
He encouraged, looking at the two with a smile.
Clark extended his hand in amazement, holding his breath as he tried. The green light was shaped by his mind and a slightly crooked glass bottle appeared mid-air.
Compared to Tomar-Re's construct, his looked like a defective product.
"Imagine more details; it's normal to be unskilled at the beginning."
Tomar-Re commented, then turned to David.
David raised his hand, and the green light condensed. In an instant, a slender-necked Klein bottle appeared in the air.
He raised an eyebrow, looking at the Lantern Ring in his hand.
'It's a wonderful feeling, like controlling a universal printer with your thoughts.'
"Oh..."
Tomar-Re looked at David in surprise, moving his gaze away from the strange bottle.
"I've never seen a newcomer grasp the power of will so quickly."
If there weren't records of David in the Lantern Ring, he might have thought an experienced Lantern was standing before him.
David remained calm. Among the abilities he possessed, controlling energy, especially manipulating gravity, required extremely precise manipulation.
It was similar to manipulating the power of will in its own way.
"Now, let's see how strong your wills are."
Tomar-Re manipulated the bottle to collide with Clark's bottle, the most direct way to test whose will was stronger. The sound of clashing rang out, Clark's bottle shattered, and the remaining bottle also developed cracks, breaking into scattered points of light.
He was somewhat surprised. Leaving aside the fact that Clark's lack of attention to detail when constructing the bottle was lacking, both bottles broke together. Doesn't it mean that this young man in front of him has a stronger will than a seasoned Lantern who has experienced many battles?
Tomar-Re didn't harbor any doubts either.
'Everyone has willpower, but in peaceful environments, it's generally not easy to highlight their strength or weakness.'
Although the young man before him may have grown up in a peaceful environment, still not having ventured into society and appearing somewhat naive, he might have immense potential. When encountering difficulties, he might unleash an impressive and powerful will.
"Very impressive. Now it's your turn."
If the young Kryptonian before him were to join the Corps, he might achieve even greater success than he himself did in the Corps. Tomar-Re nodded in approval and turned to David, creating another glass bottle to collide with David's.
Crack! Crack!
Several cracks appeared, but it wasn't the bottle that David, a novice, had constructed. Tomar-Re's glass bottle shattered into pieces, while the strangely shaped Klein bottle created by David remained intact in mid-air.
Tomar-Re was taken aback, his eyes widening.
"Are all the newcomers nowadays monsters?"
He kept glancing between the two.
Yet another person with stronger willpower, but he didn't know who among these two newcomers was stronger.
David maintained a calm expression and dispelled the bottle with a wave of his hand.
He once killed the son of Zeus, the ancient god of war, frightened away a host body housing the power of the Six Demon Kings of Hell, single-handedly captured the island created by the gods known as Paradise Island, and conquered the Atlantean race that ruled the Seven Seas.
A bit of amazement from an alien was hardly something to make him happy.
As Tomar-Re prepared to impart some tips on using the Lantern Ring's power to the two newcomers, his own Lantern Ring suddenly lit up with a message from the Oa headquarters.
After reading it, his face froze, finding it somewhat unbelievable.
[The Parallax entity has arrived at Sector 2814, on the life-bearing planet known as Earth.
Tomar-Re, responsible for Sector 2813, you need to lead two new Corps members and, alongside the imminent arrival of Parallax, stop and eliminate the entity, ensuring the protection of Earth's civilization from destruction.]
[[Having rookies who are just starting to familiarize themselves with the Lantern Rings engage in battle immediately, and against such a powerful enemy rarely seen in the history of the Corps.
What's the difference between this and teaching someone to pull the trigger and then immediately throwing them into a meat grinder battlefield?]]
Tomar-Re quickly moved aside and communicated urgently with the headquarters through his Lantern Ring, expressing his doubts and concerns. However, the response he received was an unquestionable command from the founders of the Corps.
[The powerful enemy threatening the entire universe is currently at large. If we allow Parallax to continue to grow in power, no one in the universe will be spared from the disasters it will unleash.
The Green Lantern Corps must mobilize all available resources to eliminate the darkness.]
"Now, there's some very bad news for you."
With the fate of the universe hanging in the balance, Tomar-Re began to speak but hesitated as he walked up to the two of them.
"Parallax is heading towards this planet under our feet, and I know this is extremely unfair to you.
But the Corps needs both of you to intercept Parallax.
We will meet this monster in a while, and you will follow my command."
"The creature called Parallax? Is It on its way here?"
Clark was greatly shocked.
If it's a universal disaster, why is the Earth the precise center of conflict?
On the other hand, David was somewhat calm because he had known that Parallax was coming.
"Wait a moment, it seems like it's already here!"
David's face turned serious as he quickly turned his head to look in a certain direction.
Clark closed his eyes and used his super hearing to search and listen. In his ears, he heard the chaos from a city miles away, with people screaming and crying in the midst of the bustling urban area.
"What's that?"
"Monsters! Help!"
"It's Coast City," David said, using his gravity field sense to perceive the chaos in the city miles away and the huge creature hovering in the city's skies – Parallax.
"Where are the Green Lantern Corps' members?" Clark impatiently asked.
The massive monster had already arrived on Earth and was wreaking havoc in the city. He had limited experience dealing with this type of creature.
"They might still be on their way to Earth," Tomar-Re replied, his face tightening with a hint of embarrassment.
"For now, it might just be up to us."
Earlier, he had assured them not to worry about Parallax, as it would be the responsibility of the official Green Lantern Corps members to handle it.
However, now that the monster was on Earth and disaster was unfolding, the Corps members had yet to arrive.
The three of them quickly ascended into the sky, heading towards Coast City.
David glanced at the anxious Clark beside him.
Clark was in such a hurry to save people that he didn't realize he was flying faster and faster, far surpassing his still-inexperienced Lantern Ring flight abilities, breaking through hundreds of times the speed of sound within the blink of an eye.
David effortlessly kept pace, but Tomar-Re, the veteran Lantern, struggled to keep up. His face turned red as he pushed his Lantern Ring to its limits, but he still couldn't match the speed of the other two.
"We'll go ahead," David said, and then he began to speed up, with Clark following suit. In the blink of an eye, Tomar-Re could only watch as the two rapidly flew far away, his expression filled with shock.
Recalling his earlier words, he suddenly realized that when facing Parallax on the battlefield, it might not be him who was doing the protecting.
...
Above Coast City, the massive and menacing form of Parallax floated in the air, with its thousands of tentacles writhing and grabbing at anything they could reach, and one of them grasped a freshly unearthed corpse.
The familiar face was none other than the body of Abin Sur.
"Abin Sur, you're finally dead. It's a pity I didn't get to see your face one last time before you died."
Dead bodies didn't experience fear, and he couldn't absorb life energy from Abin Sur's corpse.
Crack! Crack!
The sound of bones breaking filled the air. Abin Sur's body was crushed into a bloody pulp and dropped from the sky, while Parallax's malevolent and greedy eyes turned towards the city below.
"You can't stop me anymore, Abin Sur. Let me show your corpse how I'll suck these fearful bugs dry!"
"Help! Someone come and save us!
Oh, God!"
In the streets of Coast City, cars were overturned, and terrified people who came out from the vehicles looked up in shock, frozen in place. Under the leaden-gray clouds that covered the sky, the city was shrouded in the shadow of the gigantic monster.
The dark yellow space monster seemed like an embodiment of fear. A single glance at it sent uncontrollable fear surging through one's heart and mind. People's spirits and even their bodies were controlled by fear, causing them to tremble incessantly.
Countless frightened people, their hearts pounding and skin crawling, turned to flee. However, they quickly realized in despair that they couldn't outrun the speed at which the monster extended its tentacles.
Hiss!
"It's the smell of fear," Parallax exclaimed with fascination as it deeply inhaled. Its eyes gleamed with malice as it opened its gaping, dark maw, starting to absorb the life energy of the people through their fear.
One by one, those who were too close had their faces twisted in terror, and their life energy was drained, leaving behind nothing but skeletal remains scattered on the ground.
"Stop, Parallax!"
A booming voice rang out as two figures streaked across the sky, leaving a long trail of air behind them as they flew at breakneck speed from the horizon.
'This is Parallax who possesses the body of a Guardian of the Universe. It looks like a space octopus.'
After a brief look, his eyes emitted thick, purple energy beams that struck Parallax.
Clark was covered from head to toe in a green battle suit, and like David, he chose to hide the Green Lantern Corps symbol on his chest, and his eyes burned with fury.
"Monster, you will not harm another life."
He shouted, and his eyes fired heat vision to attack Parallax.
Two beams of light, one red and one purple, streaked across the sky above the city. Accompanied by the terrifying heat that evaporated steel and a continuous barrage, they struck Parallax. The entity howled in pain and was forced back in mid-air.
"It's Superman!"
"And the Purple Light Man!"
The terrified crowd looked up at the two figures in the sky with shining eyes, seeing them as their saviors. They were excited and their faces turned red as they cheered for them.
Although Clark had almost exclusively fought crime in Metropolis, and David had rarely appeared in public, both were the subject of much discussion as the only two superpowered people exposed to the public eye. Anyone who browsed the internet would be well aware of them.
"You insignificant bugs dare to attack me!"
Parallax was furious. The most important reason was that in the vast sea of fear, he didn't sense a trace of fear emanating from the two men. He roared and unleashed a beam of light formed from the power of fear, sweeping across the sky.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Parallax, having absorbed the life forces of two civilizations, possessed formidable strength. David and Clark raised their arms to defend. Clark was sent flying and tumbled through the air but managed to quickly regain control.
His green battle suit was damaged, and his arm was throbbing, turning bright red, but he had suffered no significant injuries.
Supported by the power of his gravity field, David was like a nail in the sky, completely unaffected by Parallax's onslaught. After the wave of fear had passed, he remained unscathed.
Raising his palm, a yellow aura of fear materialized and shot through the sky with a thunderous force.
"You should also have a taste of this!"
After fully merging with the Black King template, David found absorbing any type of energy to be as easy as eating or drinking.
"How dare you use my power against me!"
Parallax roared, swinging his tentacles to effortlessly uproot skyscrapers from the ground, hurling them at David.
David raised his palm and manipulated the gravity field to suspend all the buildings in mid-air.
Under the boundless power, the skyscrapers have become like toys.
There were still surviving humans inside those buildings. David moved those skyscrapers far behind, and Clark, thinking that David might be struggling, flew forward to buy him time, delivering a powerful punch to Parallax's ugly and massive head.
A circular shockwave erupted, rippling for miles.
Parallax was sent reeling back further into the atmosphere.
This was a crisis that Clark had never encountered before. Behind him were the people of an entire city, and the numerous white bones on the streets were proof that this monster could easily claim the lives of thousands in an instant.
"The lives of thousands are at stake behind me. Failure is not an option!"
Driven by his anger and urgency, Clark unleashed a level of power he had never exhibited before.
Buzz!
"There are too many people here, so let's find another battlefield."
Setting down the skyscrapers, David pursued Parallax. He unleashed the aura of fear from his hands as if he had no money in his hand, accelerating the monster's ascent into space.
It was a piece of cake, and he didn't mind saving the lives of others.
David could perfectly control the absorbed powers, but the fear power was uncomfortable. Using it, he could faintly hear a faint scream of fear in the background, which was somewhat irritating.
'Fear power does erode one's mind, just as it's suspected.'
His mental resistance made it feel like he was hearing noise, but others might start to have their minds affected.
"Parallax!"
Finally, Tomar-Re arrived from a distance, and upon seeing the corpses of intelligent life on the ground, his face looked ugly, and he took action in anger.
He manipulated his power ring to create a large construct that enveloped Parallax and had a spaceship drag it into space.
Although Tomar-Re was one of the more outstanding and powerful Green Lanterns in the Corps, his strength was still far too weak compared to Parallax.
"All you annoying Lanterns deserve to die!"
The green energy construct, like a fragile spider's web, infuriated Parallax. It broke apart with the slightest movement, but it made him angry, causing him to shoot out energy torrents from its eyes.
"Get out of the way!"
Clark quickly flashed in to help Tomar-Re, raising his arm to block the attack.
Buzz!
Just the fear aura splashing through Clark's body was enough to send Tomar-Re, who constructed a shield to resist, flying away and narrowly avoiding crashing through a skyscraper.
Blood oozed from the corners of his mouth, his internal organs were injured, and he felt like he had come close to death's door.
He had never realized that he, who was guarding tens of thousands of star systems, was so weak. The aftermath of Parallax's casual attack nearly killed him.
Tomar-Re felt a chill run down his spine. Over ninety percent of the Lanterns in the Corps were not as strong as him.
'Can the Corps' power really deal with this terrifying monster?'
He began to doubt uncontrollably.
"Do you want to destroy this planet? Then taste the wrath of this planet, Parallax!"
The global life that Parallax sought to consume also included Jonathan and Martha. David's eyes turned cold as he unleashed his full power.
He swung his fist, releasing a torrent of cosmic energy, and at the same time used the gravitational field of the planet beneath him to strike Parallax from the air, knocking it backward and sending it flying back dozens of kilometers with each blow.
"Insect, I'll turn you into cosmic dust!"
Despite being disoriented and enraged during the relentless barrage, Parallax's counterattacks did not inflict any harm on David. The attacks hit him like water off a duck's back.
"My gods..."
Tomar-Re, who had just experienced how terrifying Parallax was, watched in awe as David continued to ferociously pummel the monster. His mouth hung open and he was unable to find words to express his shock.
=======
(~˘▾˘)~Don't forget to send your power-stones!~(˘▾˘~)