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Space burned around Arthur Blackwynd.
He streaked after the Kryptonian mothership like a violet comet tearing across the heavens, shadows trailing behind him in a long, swirling tail. His Shadow Ring pulsed, alive with hunger and command.
Ahead, the steel titan of a ship plunged toward Earth's atmosphere, Zod's promise descending upon a world unprepared.
Inside the command deck, alarms chimed. Kryptonian soldiers rushed to their stations, hands gliding over holographic controls. General Zod remained seated upon his throne-like chair, back straight, cape draped around him.
One soldier swallowed nervously.
"General… something is pursuing us. A lifeform, no propulsion system…"
Zod turned his head only slightly. "Show me."
The screen expanded revealing a blazing streak of violet and black closing rapidly.
Zod's eyes narrowed, unamused.
"Shoot him down."
There was no panic in his voice. No urgency. Just command.
The ship's hull lit up with cannons igniting in synchronized bursts. Streams of bright energy rained toward Arthur, crackling through space like lightning spears.
Arthur's eyes glowed brighter, he twisted through the storm, every blast missing him by inches as he cut sharp arcs, leaving smoke trails of shadow behind.
"Not enough to stop me," he muttered, a thin, eager grin forming.
The ship plunged into Earth's upper atmosphere heat blooming around its hull. Arthur accelerated, slamming through the burning air layer like a meteor falling.
Shadows responded to his will.
Around him dozens, then hundreds, the air rippled with portals of living darkness.
Shadow Lanterns poured out in swarms, violet flames flickering inside their armored chests. They streaked past him like a nightmarish army of meteors, surrounding the Kryptonian vessel in a tightening net.
Weapons fired wildly now, desperate. Explosions lit the sky.
Arthur raised his hand.
Shadows twisted, merging and shaping.
A colossal form coalesced above him…
A scythe of pure void. Massive, heavy and terrifying.
Its blade extended longer and longer, until it rivaled the ship in scale a weapon carved from the darkness.
Winds shrieked as Arthur swung his arm downward with a roar.
"Fall."
The blade of shadow fell like judgment.
It crashed against the invisible barrier surrounding the ship a crack of thunder shaking the sky. Energy sizzled, the barrier glowing white as it strained, then
SPLIT.
The scythe carved a screaming wound across the mothership's armor sparks erupting in a fountain of metal and flame. Systems ruptured. Alarms howled.
The entire vessel lurched sideways, losing control its descent no longer guided, but catastrophic.
It plummeted through the clouds smoke and debris trailing, before smashing against the distant horizon in a flaming slide that scarred the earth.
But Zod's invasion did not fall alone.
As the ship buckled, smaller Kryptonian crafts broke free, streaking into the sky like angry hornets, dozens of them.
Arthur hovered in midair above the ruin he'd just inflicted shadows spiraling tightly around him, dark cloak billowing in the wind.
His breathing was steady. And his eyes remained merciless.
This was only the beginning.
And Kara was somewhere among the small enemy vessels.
He raised his chin toward the smoldering sky where Zod's forces scattered like embers of war.
"Come then," he whispered to the coming storm.
"My shadows and I… will bury every last one of you."
****
The smaller attack craft shuddered as it rode the turbulent wake of the mothership's ruin. Inside the cramped command bay, the three figures, Zod, Faora-Ul, and Jax-Ur were carved from different kinds of cold. Zod sat like a stone king, shoulders broad, cape pinned against the bulkhead.
"Who is this man?" Zod asked without turning. The question was flat; he wanted a name he could punish.
Jax-Ur's eyes glittered as he routed the ship's sensors and tapped into long-range data caches. The scientist's face, usually composed in detached curiosity, took on the quick, hungry excitement of discovery. "Let me see." He swiped through a constellation of records, and Earth's data.
"It appears," Jax-Ur said, voice brittle with both interest and unease, "that he is… a Lantern. Not green.. not the corpored discipline of the rings I studied. His signature aligns with legends recorded in fringe transmissions: 'black' constructs. Accounts say he recently engaged an army of..." he frowned, searching for a sensible term. "black lanterns... using his own black lantern constructs to rip them apart."
Zod's eyes narrowed and he turned his face upward, toward the black veil beyond the viewing port. The horizon was still a smear of smoke and falling debris where the mothership had buckled; and beyond, the sky was moving with the silent, terrible geometry of Arthur's shadow-lantern army. Hundreds of violet beacons orbited and dove like a legion of predators.
"The black lanterns," Zod repeated slowly. His lip curled as if tasting a word he had thought obsolete. "Fairy tales. Fables used to frighten children of Krypton. And yet here they are, trailing our forces like vultures."
Faora's hand tightened on the rail. "It does not matter the name of a weapon. Kill it. Kill them. Kill the one who summons them."
Zod's reply was a smile without warmth. "We will take him down. Whoever he is, he will die for daring to meet a Kryptonian army in open space. The universe really needs a reminder, we were conquerors once upon a time."
Outside, a spray of smaller fighters peeled off from the wreckage and raced for the dark flanks of Earth. The sky erupted in fire and shadow as Arthur's lanterns swarmed to meet them.
Arthur cut through it all with effortless purpose. He flew like a spear of night, flanked by two of his most brutal Marshals, Ultra and Beru. Ultra was compact and calm, his silhouette carved in obsidian and violet; Beru, larger, the sort of brute force that enjoyed the crack and chaos of battle. They moved like extensions of Arthur's will.
Beru jabbered at him with the eagerness of a hound. "My liege, let me loose upon them. I will rip their hearts out in your glory." He threw a boastful look over his shoulder. "I shall annihilate every last one of those tins!"
Arthur did not look at him immediately. He was watching the escaping ships "Wait, Beru," he said, flat and calm. There was nothing to placate in his tone, only command. "We need to find Kara first." The name tightened his voice the way a chord might snap.
He pivoted his head to Ultra. "Use your sight. Scan their crafts."
Ultra flicked a glance a tilt of shadowed intelligence and swept his gaze across the air. His eyes sliced through hull plating and armor like x-rays. He narrowed in on clusters of energy signatures: power cores in odd rhythms, suspension fields, refrigeration and stasis signatures.
"There," Ultra said. His voice was cold. "A craft with an unconventional compartment, located on the flank of a heavier carrier. The ship Zod is using."
Arthur's eyes narrowed. He didn't need more words.
"Make sure every one of those smaller vessels is destroyed alongside the kryptonians inside." Arthur ordered, voice low and absolute. He turned then, not even to look at Beru, eye's fixed on Zod's ship. "I will take care of this ship."
The three of them, Monarch and Marshals tightened into formation. Arthur's ring pulsed, and the shadow-lanterns responded with a sound like a thousand wings. They split as ordered, some streaking ahead to break the incoming fighters against themselves.
Arthur rocketed toward Zod's flank. The metal of the smaller vessel trembled under the pressure of shadow constructs slamming into its hull, tearing gashes where once there had been only a skin of armor. Inside, alarms screamed. Jax-Ur cursed softly, out of fear as he threw the ship into evasive vectors, his fingers dancing to keep systems running while Faora barked orders to ready weapons.
Arthur struck. With a massive fist constructs of shadow he'd shaped, with that same hunger made manifest with the ring's authority. He carved through the outer hull wit contempt. Muttering to himself "Hold on a minute, Kara."
/-\
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