Imagine every civilization across the universe and all the deadliest long-range weapons they could possibly develop throughout their evolutionary history.
From slings to bows, from crossbows to bullets, and from bullets to missiles and laser beams.
Green Lanterns from different eras and worlds manifested the deadliest weapons their civilizations had ever known.
If intelligent life had existed on this planet, their future myths might have recorded the scene like this:
"The earth trembled, the heavens split apart, and the emerald gods hurled their wrath upon the world like thunder itself."
Joey weaved and twisted through the storm of attacks pouring toward him, dodging weapons born from civilizations separated by tens of thousands of years of technological advancement.
Amid the endless emerald sea, he looked like an undying crimson flame.
Thanks to the Kryptonian Empire's previous large-scale conflicts with the Green Lantern Corps, every weapon projected by the Alpha Lanterns carried traces of simulated Kryptonite radiation.
Individually, the radiation was negligible.
But with the combined power of over ten thousand Alpha Lanterns, the accumulated effect became so overwhelming that Joey didn't dare tank the attacks head-on while carrying Kara.
Even so, he still found himself thinking about pointless things in the middle of battle.
No matter where intelligent life came from, perhaps it was impossible to truly imagine things beyond one's own understanding.
After stripping away their emotions, these Alpha Lanterns had become numb, mechanical beings.
In truth, they were nothing more than tools of suppression wielded by the Guardians.
The normal Green Lantern Corps only maintained around seven thousand members, and that had already been enough to preserve order across the universe.
Yet just within Joey's field of vision alone, there were already more than ten thousand Alpha Lanterns.
The Guardians of Oa had clearly created this massive Alpha Lantern army specifically to prepare for the coming war against Krypton.
They needed enough manpower to oppose an interstellar empire where every soldier became nearly invincible beneath a yellow sun.
And the Alpha Lanterns were perfectly suited for that purpose.
Their cybernetic minds were directly connected to the Book of Oa, while their rings linked straight to the Central Power Battery itself.
In terms of obedience and immediate combat effectiveness, they far surpassed ordinary Green Lanterns.
But what was the price of all this?
The price was that, in the foreseeable future, the Green Lantern Corps would probably never again produce legendary Lanterns capable of creating miracles—people like Hal Jordan or John Stewart.
Twisting aside once more to avoid several incoming construct missiles, Joey realized this couldn't continue forever.
Every route toward outer space had been completely sealed off by the relentless assault.
No matter how strong he was, even if he himself didn't collapse from exhaustion, Kara—already severely weakened by Kryptonite radiation—would never survive long enough.
"Stop being an idiot, leave me and go!" Kara shouted again, desperately trying to persuade her soft-hearted cousin.
"You're Kal-El! Son of Jor-El! Do you even understand how important your existence is to Krypton?!"
A blazing burst of heat vision suddenly illuminated the skies of the entire eastern hemisphere.
For a brief instant, the emerald heavens were drowned beneath apocalyptic crimson light.
After vaporizing an enormous wave of incoming constructs in a single attack, Joey accelerated violently toward outer space.
Kara had already weakened to the point where she couldn't sense anything beyond a few thousand meters anymore.
She couldn't see the enemies.
She couldn't hear the incoming attacks.
All she could perceive was the planet rapidly shrinking beneath her, the howling wind beside her ears.
And then, eventually, only the sight of a yellow-brown world growing smaller and smaller behind them, accompanied by the suffocating silence of space.
Her bio-field had weakened to the point where it could no longer protect her in the vacuum.
Kal-El's own bio-field now enveloped both of them together.
And through that contact, Kara could clearly feel just how weakened her cousin had become.
The altered sunlight might not have weakened Kal-El in any immediately obvious way, but without the sun acting as an energy source, even a Kryptonian's powers ultimately had their limits.
No matter how powerful he was—an heir of the House of El and one of the strongest Kryptonians alive—there was no way he could fight his way out against over ten thousand Green Lanterns while dragging along someone in her condition.
"At a time like this, stop trying to be a hero!"
Kara had never liked this cousin of hers.
Just like she had never liked his father, Jor-El.
The father and son were complete opposites.
One was so ruthlessly pragmatic it was terrifying.
The other possessed a level of naivety and foolish optimism that felt almost absurd.
Either both of them died here, or he abandoned her and escaped alone.
Zero or one.
It was such a simple solution, yet he still refused to do it.
"You—"
Joey plunged straight into the dense emerald net formed by countless Alpha Lanterns overhead, narrowly dodging a beam fired from behind while forcing the Lanterns ahead of him to defend against attacks from their own allies.
"Can you just—"
Caught between overlapping firing lines, Joey finally gained a brief moment to breathe.
His nerves were stretched to their absolute limit as he rapidly analyzed the battlefield again and again before finally identifying the weakest point in the encirclement.
"Shut up!"
Kara's endless talking only made Joey more anxious.
She was already on the verge of dying from Kryptonite radiation, yet she still had the energy to lecture him.
Knowing time was running out, Joey exploded forward with a speed so overwhelming that even the semi-mechanical Alpha Lanterns struggled to react.
He held the dying Kara tightly against his chest and charged recklessly toward the weak point.
Countless glowing green barriers unfolded in his path, only to shatter apart beneath the impact of his body.
Behind him, thousands of Alpha Lantern rings projected Kryptonite chains and glowing restraints in pursuit, yet not a single one of them could catch up to him.
If an ordinary Green Lantern had witnessed this scene, they probably would've fallen into complete existential doubt.
The most powerful weapon in the universe, being physically overpowered by a single Kryptonian.
Only Kara, pressed tightly against her cousin, understood what was really happening.
This was the Green Lantern Corps' strategy.
Not a single Lantern was willing to engage a full-power Kryptonian in direct close combat.
All of them had chosen the safer option: a battle attrition.
Every time Kal-El smashed through another wall of emerald constructs, the bio-field surrounding his body weakened a little more.
Meanwhile, for tens of thousands of Green Lanterns, the willpower required to replace a destroyed barrier was practically negligible.
In Kara's eyes, Kal-El could've chosen a far more reliable method.
Compared to Kryptonians, individual Green Lanterns were generally fragile.
If he simply started killing them—dozens, maybe hundreds at a time—he could easily tear open an escape route.
But now, burdened with a dying liability like her, someone who would perish within minutes without sunlight, he had no choice except to physically force open a path toward the sun with his own body.
Kara could feel the bio-field wrapped around her gradually weakening.
And the worst part was that her own consciousness was beginning to sink into darkness as well.
At first, she could still see the dazzling and deadly green lights across the battlefield.
She could still hear the muffled thunderous impacts as Joey's bio-field collided against walls forged from willpower itself.
But now, everything had slowly begun dissolving into ripples and distant waves of sound radiating outward from her fading senses.
She could feel her awareness slipping away.
Curled weakly in Joey's arms, Kara Zor‑El used the last of her strength to grab onto the 'S' emblem on Kal-El's chest.
Ever since the crest of the House of El first appeared in Kryptonian history, it had always symbolized one thing:
Hope.
And only now, at the very edge of death, staring at the emblem that represented hope itself, did Kara finally lower the walls around her heart and speak the truest thought she had buried deepest inside herself.
"I don't want to die like this..."