There was no sound in the vacuum of space.
But Superman's suffering was like a silent scream stabbing into everyone's eyes.
Clark floated outside the shattered observation windows of the Watchtower.
The "S" symbol on his chest—the emblem of hope—had been ripped open by several savage gashes. Beneath bruised and battered skin, every breath tugged painfully at broken ribs.
Three bat-shaped Shadow Demon fighters circled overhead like vultures.
From beneath their hulls, sickening green beams swept across space like venomous tongues.
Kryptonite radiation.
The deadly poison of Kryptonians.
Every pass of that green light drained more of Clark's life away.
He wanted to break free from the cage surrounding him, but the body that once surpassed light speed now moved as sluggishly as though trapped in mud. The heat vision in his eyes had dimmed to dying embers, barely enough to repel Shadow Demon infantry, let alone damage the fighters' armor.
"Damn it…"
Superman gritted his teeth.
Another green beam swept toward him.
He instinctively twisted aside—but a fatal fraction too slow.
The beam grazed his left shoulder. His invulnerable skin immediately rotted apart, crimson blood freezing into tiny ice crystals the instant it touched the vacuum.
"Clark, your life signs are dropping off a cliff. You need to retreat immediately!"
Batman's voice crackled urgently through the comms.
"I can't…"
Superman gasped heavily.
His eyes passed beyond the cage toward the endless sea of darkness formed by the Shadow Demon horde.
"If I fall back, this entire defense line collapses."
It was the truth.
On the opposite side of the Watchtower, Wonder Woman was holding a massive breach alone.
The Lasso of Truth had become a golden storm of death, every swing shredding dozens of Shadow Demons into pieces.
But the monsters were endless.
Sweat covered her forehead. Her breathing had grown ragged. Even the arms gripping the lasso had begun trembling uncontrollably.
And the Green Lantern Corps' line was on the verge of total collapse.
Cracks spread across Hal Jordan's energy shield like a spiderweb. The emerald glow flickered weakly, already at its limit.
Standing at the breach, Levi took in the entire battlefield.
He could clearly see the blazing stellar life force within Superman being steadily consumed by kryptonite radiation.
The Anti-Monitor had clearly come prepared.
The Shadow Demon fighters were exquisitely designed. Their kryptonite emitters were wrapped in anti-energy shields specifically engineered to counter this universe's strongest individual warrior.
"Using this universe's rules against you really does make this nearly impossible," Levi thought quietly.
"But my power follows different laws."
He slowly raised his right hand.
Pressing his index and middle fingers together, he casually sliced them through the void toward the three circling fighters.
The movement was effortless, as though brushing away dust.
Yet where his fingers passed, visible ripples spread across space itself.
Invisible alchemical laws were drawn directly from the foundation of reality, becoming three slender golden threads that shot toward the targets faster than light.
The Shadow Demon pilots had no time to react.
The golden threads pierced straight through the anti-energy shields—not by brute force, but as though the barriers simply didn't exist.
The threads drilled precisely into the cores of the kryptonite emitters.
Then, a transformation began at the deepest level of matter itself.
Before Levi's will, deadly kryptonite was merely another arrangement of atoms and elements.
Like an omnipotent craftsman, he forcibly dismantled and reconstructed matter's most basic structure.
His will seeped into every kryptonite atom, rewriting bond energies and rearranging sequences.
One ten-thousandth of a second.
The lethal radioactive mineral became harmless, stable powder.
Then the powder continued breaking apart.
From molecules to atoms, from protons and neutrons to electrons—
Until finally it dissolved into pure energy particles and silently dispersed into the cosmos.
"WARNING! WEAPON SYSTEM FAILURE!"
Alarms screamed inside the three fighters as the Shadow Demon soldiers looked around in confusion.
The deadly green glow vanished completely.
The suffocating weakness, the tearing pain, the sluggishness—
Every shackle binding Superman disappeared in the same instant.
Clark suddenly lifted his head.
Within his blue eyes, stellar brilliance ignited once more.
Kryptonian cells began greedily absorbing solar radiation. Vast power erupted awake inside him like a volcano.
He clenched a fist, feeling once more the strength capable of moving planets, a cold smile appearing at the corner of his lips.
"Thanks."
Before the word even finished, Superman vanished.
The next instant, a shockwave exploded across the void.
The red-and-blue streak tore through space and slammed into the nearest Shadow Demon fighter.
BOOM!
His fist struck the cockpit directly.
The fighter's hull was as fragile as paper, instantly ripped apart and crushed.
Pilot and vessel alike disintegrated beneath the horrific impact, exploding into a brilliant fireball.
Superman didn't stop.
As he turned, twin crimson heat beams pierced through the engines of the remaining two fighters.
Violent explosions lit up space in succession.
In under two seconds, the enemies that had pushed him to the brink had become drifting wreckage.
"Much better."
Superman rolled his shoulder as the wound visibly healed.
He gave Levi a distant nod before transforming into an unstoppable comet and plunging directly into the heart of the Shadow Demon army.
"Clark recovered? The kryptonite…"
Wonder Woman asked in shock during a brief lull in combat.
"That man dealt with it," Batman replied gravely.
On the monitor feed, the data from Levi's attack had returned only one result:
Unknown.
"It looked like he… directly rewrote the properties of matter."
Diana's heart tightened.
Even on Olympus, she had never heard of an existence capable of altering the essence of matter so casually.
At that moment, Hal Jordan's desperate shout exploded through the comms.
"The line's breaking! We can't hold anymore!"
Everyone's hearts clenched.
The Green Lantern Corps' defense had already shattered.
Massive numbers of Shadow Demons poured through cracks in the energy barriers like a flood.
Hal barely maintained the final shield, now thin as paper and ready to collapse at any moment.
Worse still, the rings' light was rapidly dimming.
"Power reserves at ten percent… damn it, I'm almost out!"
"Mine too! Power depletion warning!"
Levi closed his eyes.
His immense psychic power spread across the battlefield like ripples, instantly perceiving the root of the problem.
The Green Lanterns' power came from willpower.
And now, fear was eroding every single warrior.
The Shadow Demons were the embodiment of fear itself.
When fear overwhelmed conviction, the light of will would fade.
"Will is the purest stubbornness of life in the face of despair."
Levi opened his eyes and raised his right hand.
The ring forged personally by the Guardians erupted with dazzling platinum-green radiance like a burning star.
But he intended to do more than merely share energy.
He would ignite hope across the entire battlefield.
The Law of Mind surged to its absolute limit.
Levi's consciousness instantly enveloped a hundred thousand kilometers of space.
He felt the fear and exhaustion within every Green Lantern—and also the deeply buried refusal to give up.
"In the deepest darkness, in the most helpless abyss…"
"Only the light of will shall never be extinguished."
The words echoed directly into every warrior's mind through psychic resonance.
As the final syllable fell, Levi clenched his fist.
The ring's radiance exploded.
A vast torrent of platinum and emerald energy surged outward, warping space itself.
The energy transformed into countless streams of light that shot precisely toward every Green Lantern, instantly replenishing rings on the verge of depletion.
But that wasn't all.
Levi infused his own Universe Overlord–level will into the energy—the absolute resolve never to retreat.
The minds corroded by fear felt as though a sun had been cast into them.
Instantly ignited.
Hal Jordan's eyes widened.
The power inside his ring now exceeded even its peak state by more than tenfold.
The overflowing strength left him utterly stunned.
He turned sharply.
There floated the black-haired man silently in the void, wrapped in blazing platinum-green light like a newborn sun rising over the battlefield.
Levi gave no answer.
He simply extended both hands forward slowly.
The roaring torrent of will did not disperse.
Instead, it intertwined and gathered within the void, forming the outline of something vast.
A colossal Wall of Will stretching across the entire battlefield was rising into existence.
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