The elder's words made Thea blurt out, "Damn!" She'd always been the one brainwashing others. Now discovering she was about to be brainwashed made her extremely unhappy.
"You know so much? Who are you... to them?"
The elder remained silent for a long moment. Just when Thea thought he'd fallen asleep, he finally spoke. "The Indigo Tribe was founded by Abin Sur and me."
"I know that much. Abin Sur. I even got this planet's coordinates from his ring."
"Seems you know quite a lot. How is Abin Sur doing?" The elder asked with obvious affection.
"He's... doing well." Thea answered with a smile. If you ignored the fact that he'd crashed his ship straight into Earth and subsequently been dissected into tiny pieces by Earth scientists, then yes, Abin Sur was doing fantastic.
"Abin Sur is a good man. Centuries ago, invaders destroyed our civilization. We called our world Nok. The invaders turned Nok into a colony and resource extraction site. Countless tribespeople were transported across the universe to unknown worlds. I was this planet's last survivor. Abin Sur saved me."
The elder looked miserable as he told his story. The young miss didn't understand why he was telling her this. She maliciously wondered if maybe he'd been holding it in too long and needed to vent.
"Abin Sur and I fought together..." The elder paused. Thea couldn't help but size him up. Under one meter tall, barely thirty kilograms—you fought alongside Abin Sur? Talk about shameless bragging.
The elder, unaware of her skepticism, continued. "We drove back the colonizers, but my people had already perished. My wish fulfilled, I prepared to enter the deepest part of Nok's world to enjoy my final peace."
He paused here, as if scenes were replaying before his eyes. "In the world's deepest place, I met the true Nok—an indescribable power. I told my friend Abin Sur everything. He used his special abilities to help me extract the Indigo Light and forge power rings."
Planetary will, Thea thought. This planet witnessed its children being captured and slaughtered and actually developed compassion. This exceeded her comprehension entirely. If it happened to her, she'd slaughter her enemies. Compassion? You've got to be kidding!
But precisely this kind of universal love could serve as the Indigo Tribe's total energy source.
"Soon after, Abin Sur returned here. He brought his mortal enemy, the vicious woman who'd murdered his daughter—a killer named Iroque."
"Iroque donned the world's first Indigo ring. The ring changed her. She wept ceaselessly, grieving for her actions. She took the name Indigo-1. Later, Abin Sur intermittently brought back others."
"They were all cosmic criminals of the worst kind. The Indigo Tribe transformed them one by one. Abin Sur was very satisfied and left. Alien, do you know where he went? It's been so long since he came back to see me."
The elder looked at Thea with hopeful expectation.
Directly saying he'd been dead for years seemed inappropriate. A well-meaning lie could still be told.
This elder's body was completely empty—no energy response whatsoever. Unless he was leagues beyond her in true power, he was basically an ordinary person, reading as completely harmless.
Regular Lanterns would be stumped by this problem. Ring abilities limited their options—rings could only record footage, not conjure realistic scenes from nothing.
Thea, who could pass for a grand mage even in ancient times, had no such problem. Making up lies came as naturally as drinking water. She directly cast a water mirror spell. The image showed Abin Sur before his death. Among Sinestro's collections on Korugar, footage of Abin Sur wasn't rare. She casually recalled several scenes, edited them on the fly, and even added herself into the frame to demonstrate her close relationship with Abin Sur.
The elder, overjoyed at seeing his close friend, agreed without much hesitation when Thea requested to observe compassion emotion's source.
*Magic made this embarrassingly easy!* These people were too simple to deceive. If she'd had ill intentions toward the Indigo Tribe, these guys wouldn't even know how they died.
However, Thea's plan needed another adjustment. She'd originally wanted to take over the organization, then scaled back to just wanting one ring. Now, with the ring's brainwashing capability being absurdly overpowered—it felt like instant, irresistible mind control—she respectfully declined this unreasonable forced conversion. Without understanding the underlying principles, she wouldn't wear this thing casually.
Fortunately, this elder had delivered himself to her doorstep, giving her a chance to experience compassion emotion up close.
Not wearing a ring just to look shouldn't cause problems, right?
Having mastered the Sinestro Corps' total energy source, she had that foundation. If just looking could change her thoughts, that would be invincible—the whole universe would be saying 'Nok!' by now.
The elder led her slowly through the forest. As Abin Sur's "good friend," she couldn't grab the elder by the scruff and make him hurry. Thea could only follow his snail's pace. Yes, the elder was too short and walked too slowly. At one meter eighty, Thea's single step equaled his three. Unable to use force, she could only patiently shuffle along.
The elder turned out to be a relentless chatterbox. Meeting his close friend's "friend" had him in high spirits. He pointed at surrounding scenery while endlessly recounting stories from ages past.
Quite experienced in handling elderly people, Thea could only respond with noncommittal "mhm" and "ah" sounds. The surroundings were all trees and dense forest—she genuinely couldn't see anything worth narrating about the past.
Accompanying the elder through an alien version of neighborhood gossip, Thea marveled at how the planet's original inhabitants must have had particularly active saliva production. After chattering the entire journey, somehow he never even seemed to get thirsty. She couldn't help but respect that.
By her calculations, they'd walked at least eight Earth hours. The elder finally led her to a mountain stream.
"Go inside, young one. What you seek—compassion's total energy source—is in there." After their journey-long conversation, the elder felt quite favorable toward Thea. His form of address had changed from "alien" to "young one"—proof enough.
"Thank you for guiding me. From your earlier words, you seem dissatisfied with the current Indigo Tribe?" Having sensed the emotional energy, Thea was in no hurry to enter. She noticed the elder had decided to leave and wanted to extract more inside information.
"Do you know about Blackest Night?" The elder asked a new question.
Such a famous major event—Thea naturally knew. But she feigned confusion and gently shook her head.
"Abin Sur once saw the future. Blackest Night—the dead rising to destroy all life. In preparation for that day, he created an army in advance. That's the Indigo Tribe." The elder spoke with pride in his friend, satisfaction radiating from every pore.