"Are you members of the Indigo Tribe?" Thea asked, feigning casual interest.
"Tggrow asn bor... nok!" The lead woman spoke in a language Thea didn't understand.
"Uh... I'm a friend of Abin Sur. He told me about you." The young miss continued to use dead people as cover.
Hearing Abin Sur's name made the woman's eyes narrow slightly. "Lek lek abinfoem... nok!"
Thea's eyelid twitched. The two of them talked past each other for a while longer.
The lead woman maintained a wooden expression while spouting nonsense at her. Thea found it both absurd and amusing. From subtle facial cues, she could tell the other party absolutely understood what she was saying but was deliberately playing dumb. Moreover, their language was similar to a certain country on Earth—every sentence ended with "nok!"
As they talked, more people gathered around—all of them from the other side, naturally.
Thea discreetly scanned the area, secretly amused. So much for that! About thirty people surrounded her, making it look like she was trapped and alone. But these were just ordinary aliens. The Indigo Tribe wasn't famous for combat prowess. She felt no fear whatsoever.
"Alright, your people are pretty much all here. I know you understand me. You're Indigo-1, aren't you? I've heard your name. You killed Abin Sur's daughter. What was your original name again?" Thea decided enough was enough. This planet had maybe a hundred inhabitants total. If a hundred people tried to jump her, it would be troublesome. She wanted to cut through the nonsense.
Exposed, Indigo-1 stopped pretending. Her expression remained somewhat detached. "I did kill Abin Sur's daughter, but he showed me compassion and let me continue living to atone for my sins. My original name doesn't matter. I am Indigo-1 now, and only Indigo-1."
"Admirable noble sentiments." Thea offered some perfunctory praise. "I've always admired the Indigo Tribe's light. I wonder if I might have the honor of obtaining an indigo ring?"
Indigo-1's expression remained as bland as ever. "Of course you can." Then, under Thea's hopeful gaze, she raised her long staff. "But first, we must purify the evil in your heart! Nok!"
An indigo beam shot straight at Thea. Bold and skilled, Thea naturally wouldn't be hit by such a crude attack. A mage hand swatted the energy beam away.
"What is wrong with you?!" Thea was genuinely annoyed. How did peaceful conversation suddenly turn into violence? Did you seriously just switch from talking to fighting in a heartbeat?
"Must be purified, nok!"
"Must be purified, nok!"
The remaining thirty-plus people activated like some switch had been flipped. Each one held up their long staff, firing indigo light at Thea.
Thea felt exasperated. Since they'd struck first, she didn't hold back. Lightning spells shot back.
Chain lightning, lightning orbs, lightning beams—the air was heavy with moisture, and she unleashed ice storms mixed with water and wind magical properties.
Indigo-1 and her group were caught completely off-guard by her sudden explosive counterattack. Everyone hastily raised emotional constructs to block the onslaught of spells.
"I thought you'd be tougher than this! Where's your 'nok' now?!" Thea blasted a two-meter-diameter lightning beam straight into their construct shield.
Even thirty people's combined emotions couldn't stop her surging magical power. On one hand, they had no experience with constructs and their methods were crude. On another, Thea was borrowing divine artifact armor to rapidly convert magic. Six elemental magics cycled endlessly within her.
Gales, rainstorms, and thunder—more than ten large-scale spells struck these people in rapid succession.
Water tornadoes ravaged the battlefield. Ice storms covered the sky for ten miles around. Thea herself controlled lightning, constantly bombarding their construct defenses.
"Nok!" The lead woman spun her staff like wielding a massive guandao. After several rotations, a blinding indigo flash erupted and she directly teleported all thirty-plus people away.
"Nice escape... whoops? I should retreat too!" Thea was initially quite proud, but she quickly realized the other side hadn't retreated—they'd gone to rally reinforcements and were planning to swarm her with superior numbers!
Logically, even if this hundred-person tribe all wore power rings, Thea shouldn't fear them.
In the original timeline, Orion—Highfather's adopted son, Darkseid's second son, and a New God—has gone toe-to-toe with Green Lanterns, and he's even beaten Hal Jordan before. Yet the same Orion struggled much more against Diana's divine siblings.
Being a New God didn't automatically translate to unbeatable combat power. Thea figured her fighting strength was comparable to Orion's.
Facing thousands of combat-experienced Green Lanterns simultaneously would be impossible, but handling a hundred-odd Indigo Tribe members with mediocre skills? No problem.
Just as she prepared to strike back hard, she sensed something unusual. Thea felt the planet itself rejecting her. Having absorbed Earth's Gaia power, she was sensitive to planetary will.
This planet certainly couldn't compare to Earth, but planetary will was no joke—incomprehensible and unpredictable described it perfectly.
After brief hesitation, Thea chose a temporary retreat. Honestly, this battle made no sense. These people attacked on sight, and when losing, called for backup. If backup failed, they'd probably commune with the planetary will to self-destruct. Such reckless behavior genuinely surprised her.
Activating invisibility and continuously using super-vision to scan her surroundings, Thea—extremely sensitive to emotional energy—quickly discovered an anomaly. Before Indigo-1's group could complete their encirclement, she charged directly into distant woods.
Threading through dense vegetation, Thea kept glancing back. She didn't know if the Indigo Tribe was wary of this forest or simply hadn't detected her trail, but within three minutes of entering, the sense of pursuit completely vanished.
Following the faint emotional energy her psychic scan detected, Thea walked and stopped intermittently, finally halting in an open clearing.
"An alien?" An elder no taller than Thea's waist emerged. By Thea's aesthetic standards, this elder firmly belonged in the "ugly" category—huge head, small body, limbs that looked malnourished. His exposed skin was covered in indigo tribal symbols. He also held a long staff but wore no ring.
After countless space journeys, being called an alien wasn't new—especially since this was their planet. Thea calmly accepted the designation.
Seemingly reading her confusion, the elder spoke. "Alien, you shouldn't have come to this planet. The tribe has long strayed from its original purpose. Or perhaps I'm the one who strayed? Either way, you shouldn't be here."
The elder's self-contradictory statement only deepened Thea's confusion. "Why did they attack me?"
"Compassion emotion is exceedingly rare. They believe only the pure deserve to possess this feeling. They use emotional power to purify everyone, bringing them up to the standard for wearing power rings. This is my greatest disagreement with them." The elder spoke like someone trying to help, his words measured and unhurried.