Zenith: Last Revenant - Chapter 83

(AN.: Just a short note for everyone to don’t skip over the Author’s Note at the end, as there’s an important notice there. Thanks!)

———

As the strange device stirred into action as an image of a figure vaguely similar to the elder albeit much younger appeared on the previously transparent window-frame. He was undoubtedly the young version of the now elderly professor. He looked incredibly excited, the fervor and eagerness only found in the youngster that wants nothing more than to prove himself to the world.

He held a small crystal-clear, hollow crystal in his hands, showing it to the recording device. His clean voice proved Bey’on earlier theory, he was the professor all right.

“Okay… So…” Albeit excited, it was clear this was the very first time, he attempted to create a recording, as he mumbled for a while trying to gather his thoughts that he should have before activating the device. Shortly later, he managed to collect himself, and with a loud cough, he restarted his speech.

“Greetings Krypton, my name is Quinn from the House Roth, and this is the beginning of the journey you decided to begin by watching this video. As you look around Krypton, what do you see? We have an incredible resource with tremendous amounts available to use all over the planet… “He presented the crystal closer to the camera, then as he pulled back, he looked up at the ceiling as if trying to pierce it through and look at the sky above. “…and we even have it available on our surrounding moons, but what do we do with it? We just use them as is! Yes, they are sturdy, and by design, able to store massive amounts of light and information in them, but have you ever wondered if that is really it? Is there more to it than what meets the nȧkėd eye?”

His articulation became wild, his expression turned increasingly fiercer as he continued to get into his speech and probably for the very first time in his life, voiced them out to the world.

“Even if there were some of you with these thoughts, nobody ever bothered to ask them. Always afraid to go against the public, scared to turn against the ‘sacred’ teachings of our gods… “He mockingly phrased the apostrophe signs around the world ‘sacred’ with his hands as he looked at the camera in a condescending, mocking manner. “Well, I say BULLSHIT! Too long we sat on our ȧsses, afraid to go against the old teachings! Too long, we were afraid to use our brilliant minds and unbelievable imaginations to question everything, even the very existence itself! I say no longer!”

In his heated moment, he violently threw the crystal to the ground, smashing it into tiny pieces. Shocked by his own self, the young Quinn-Roth gasped in fright and with a scared, horrified expression he quickly crouched and began to sweep the tiny crystal shards together.

“Oh no, no no no! I didn’t mean to do that! My father is going to kill me if finds out about this!” He mumbled at the verge of crying as he desperately tried to gather the million tiny pieces of the crystal’s remains.

Not understanding the point of this all, Bey’on looked at the elderly professor with a questioning stare.

Noticing her gaze, the professor kept his proud outlook, and simply, silently waved within his hand, motioning for the woman to continue watching. He then resumed focusing on the screen in front of them, ignoring her continued stare.

Not getting any answers, first Bey’on tried to invade the professor’s mind, only to hit a hard psychic resistance, a hard mental wall blocking, protecting any attempts. Even if he noticed or felt the failed attack, he did not show any signs of it and continued staring at the screen, looking at his younger self.

Following his gaze, Bey’on turned back and continued watching as the young professor finally finished gathering the pieces. He was on the verge of tears, bitterly weeping at his own misfortune and haughty attitude causing such a disaster for himself.

As he continued to curse and cry, he failed to notice, albeit the camera didn’t fail to record the strange phenomenon, a mysterious orange hue that began to surround the pieces as all of them were gathered.

Feeling the strange, faint light from below him, the young Quinn removed his hands covering his bawling, crying eyes and looked down below at the crystal shards. Shocked by the phenomena, he immediately went wide-eyed before a large grin began to curve on his previously saddened lips.

He clenched his fists into a ball and triumphantly raised them in the air. In just a few mere moments, there were no signs of his lament, his previous weeping, he returned to his haughty, passionate self, as he adjusted the camera’s angle and pulled it closer to the glowing crystal shards.

“Here! See that?! Is this something normal? All of you, stupid monkeys still questioning my current and future work, see this?! This is the crystal you all know and use, and think of nothing more and building material! This… energy is the core of every Sunstone Crystal, it is not just a legend, it really exists!”

The faint orange hue soon faded from the shards’ surface, but it was now an undeniable fact that something happened then and there. Bey’on wasn’t sure of what happened just then, what could have been the catalyst for the strange glow, but the result was unquestionable.

As the recording finished, she turned towards the elderly professor once again, with a questioning stare, ready to voice her thoughts, but once again, she was interrupted as the elder, Quinn, raised his right hand and proudly spoke out.

“To this day, I am not completely certain what happened there. Over the last 40 years, I achieved many great successes, but I am not too proud to admit that whatever happened back then, was a miracle. Maybe it Is true that the gods watch over us, and some decided to throw me a bone to spark my interest, kindle the fire of my passion, and set me on this course. Maybe it was something else… Whatever happened then, it was the defining moment of my life. If the Sunstone core didn’t turn visible for a faint second, I may have never been what I am today. Who knows? I may be a soldier, or a general by now, following my father’s footsteps. Or I may be a priest, delivering the stupid teachings of the old… ” His face once again morphed to a mocking grin for a brief moment, that quickly vanished as he changed the subject and picked up yet another small faintly glowing crystal and replaced the one that was inserted.

As the device slowly began to spur into action, he briefly continued before turning towards the screen once more.

“Anyway, just continue watching. Don’t worry, I will not force you to watch the entire 40 years unless you want to, but I want you to watch a few key moments, to understand the importance of what I achieved today. It won’t take long, I promise!”

“Yes! Yes! Yes! I did it! I was accepted into Erkol’s First Research Institute! Me! AHAHAHA!” Unable to contain it any longer the young Quinn on the screen burst into a peal of loud laughter, swimming in delight and self-satisfaction. Almost a minute passed as he let out all the contained excitement before he could manage to collect himself enough to continue his report to the camera.

“Ehhem, so what I wanted to say, that I managed to convince the council to see the light of day finally and grow some brains! Although they seemed clearly skeptical and condescending about my theories, they at least gave me this small space…�� He grabbed the camera and began to move around the mostly empty room as he continued. “…this small space to work and prove them wrong!”

He grabbed the camera and turned it on himself. Looking at it with a fierce, determined, gaze, he spoke with a fiery passion.

“And I will do just that! I will prove to everybody how wrong they are! Trusting such old, and pointless tales about gods and myths! Pfft! I will show everyone!”

The screen cut out, fading to black before the screen turned transparent, inactive once more.

As expected, the third crystal, brimming with a light of some recording inside of it, was already in the elderly professor’s hand, he quickly swapped it in, not saying a word in the entire process. As the screen began to vibrate and brim with light, turning active again, he was already back, focusing on it, ignoring everything.

Seemingly several years have passed between the last recording and this one, as the man on the screen was no longer in his youth, but was probably at least in his mid-thirties, if not more. He had a small, black stub of hair growing out from his chin, and his scruffy, unkempt face, told tall tales about several, long nights spent amidst these four walls. He had bags under his eyes, his eyes slightly bloodshot, but still brimming with a passionate light, as he slowly raised a small, colorless crystal in front of the camera. He had a smug, contented smile on his tired face.

“Haha! I did it! 23 years! 23 long, sleepless years of work, but I finally managed to prove the existence of the mysterious core!”

He pushed the empty, hollow, colorless crystal closer to the camera as if trying to prove a point.

As if he was oblivious that he was talking to a camera, and thinking that he was trying to convince the ever-skeptical crowd, he pulled the crystal back and looked at the device with an annoyed expression.

“Not convinced? You think I’m crazy, turned mad after so many years? Heh, let me show you the truth then!”

He walked back and grabbed a matte, black-colored rifle from the desk. From a distance, it looked completely average, standard-issue military-grade weapon, but as he walked back, closer to the camera, more and more intricacies became visible.

There were several small bolts and hinges scrapped and changed in the weapon, mismatching colors and even signs of a black tape holding the lower portion of the weapon in place.

Standing in front of the camera with the tinkered rifle in hand, the middle-aged professor continued.

“This is a modified version of the standard-issue ERK Military Phaser Rifle, used by our soldiers currently. I will not go into detail about all the changes I made to this weapon in this recording, as it’s not important and it would take all the time left on the crystal. I will explain in another one.”

Coughing, he turned around, whilst he adjusted the recording angle so the crystal that was sitting on a pedestal became visible again, he took a few steps back and aimed at it.

“Now, focus on the crystal as I aim and fire this weapon at it. Just… focus your eyes on it, as it will be only visible for a brief second! Trust me, you don’t want to miss this!”

Shortly after, he aimed the sights at the crystal, and by pulling the trigger, he released a stream of yellow-colored energy beam. As the energy connected with the crystal’s surface, the previously motionless object began to slowly stir, and buzz. The air around the crystal began to blur, showing signs of superheating, but strangely, the colorless crystalline surface remained still, not showing signs of melting at all.

A second later, the faint glow vanished and the crystal returned to its calm, usual state. Still, the momentary insight it provided into the mysterious, theorized existence of the seedling, was an unmistakable, undeniable fact. It was clearly visible on the screen.

Turning away from the screen, Bey’on glanced at the proud looking elderly professor who still kept his attention at the recording, ignoring the woman completely. Turning back, he saw as the middle-aged professor threw the weapon away to the ground, before approaching the crystal with an excited, almost manic expression on his face.

“Did you all see that? Can you still deny the truth even if it is presented right before your eyes?! Can you still say that I’m a crazed, mad lunatic?! Huh?! I was right all along! My theory, my work, you could all see it! Take that, and tell me I’m just a heretic! Those idiots from the House of Ra, come on, push me aside one more time, use your influence and the power you held in the council to just lock me in my little room, hoping that I would just die out by myself without any results!”

As his anger rose, he spat on the ground, before the screen faded and turned inactive once more.

There were no more crystals in the elderly professor’s hand this time around as Bey’on turned around to look at him. As the screen turned off, he switched his attention, focusing on the woman in front of him once more, an expectant glint shining in his eyes.

“So? What do you think?” He asked with an expectant, hopeful tone.

Turning towards the pile of faintly glowing crystals, full of recordings of the life’s work of the professor, Bey’on stood in silence for a few, excruciatingly long seconds before she nodded slightly in front of the aged elder’s life’s work.

“Interesting, that’s for sure. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t interested in the subject, but…” She leaned closer, and with a skeptical look in her eyes, she returned a question. “What you have shown me, doesn’t explain the fact as to why the crystal’s core reacted to my presence at all. What is the importance of it, why were you so excited about it?”

His expectant gaze morphed into a satisfied grin as he leaned back and sat down on his chair for the first time since they came to his office. Leaning back against the backrest, he sat in silence for several seconds before he let out a long gasp of air with a loud sigh, as he continued.

Leaning closer to the woman, he continued with a serious expression. “I need to study this phenomenon more and understand it better! You should know, this discovery could be the key to unlocking the Sunstone Crystal’s secrets! The future of our people could be locked inside your genes!”

———

Several hours later, two figures could be seen standing in the elderly professor’s office. In front of the desk, the feminine figure of Bey’on, disguised as Reaya, was inspecting the strange crystal that Professor Quinn used for his experiment and turned ‘active’. Whilst it was no longer in a heated state, its core was still visible, glowing with a bright orange light as it swirled around, smashing against the crystalline surface every time Bey’on leaned closer to it.

At the other end, behind the desk, the professor was typing madly on a tabloid-looking device as he continued to examine everything happening in front of him with great detail.

“Try touching the surface! Don’t worry, it’s no longer heated, it should be cool to the touch.” The professor ordered, already focusing on the crystal with keen interest.

“Right…” Bey’on nodded, as she slowly, hesitantly began to approach the surface. She wasn’t afraid of any potential heat, being a true, prime martian and being remolded by Spencer, made her basically immune to this type of sensation after all. No, he was hesitant, because she didn’t know what to expect at all… She never voiced it or told the professor but even without doing so, it was obvious that there were some reactions from both sides. She also felt some strange sensation, as she first looked at it, and even felt this brimming happiness inside him, as she glanced at the visible core and felt its energy for the first time. It was something that, for some reason, reacted to her very self, her soul… She felt a strange, otherworldly call and had to keep her focus up at all times otherwise she could easily lose her mind…

As she slowly, carefully closed the distance between the crystal and her delicate, right hand, the professor suddenly yelled out, halting her approach.

“Stop! Stay there, and let me take a closer look at what is happening!”

Not bothering to wait for her response, the professor had already come closer and leaned closer to the crystal, focusing his attention on the seedling inside of it.

“Move your hand back a bit, and let me see if there would be any reaction towards me now.” He ordered, which Bey’on acquiesced immediately, pulling her hand back.

Replacing her, the professor raised his hand in front of the crystal and slowly began to close in on it, with a grabbing motion.

However, contrary to before, there was absolutely no reaction. As soon as Bey’on was no longer present, and it couldn’t sense her, the crystal turned silent, ignoring the old man completely.

“Remarkable!” The professor exclaimed excitedly, as he pulled his hands away from the crystal and began to type ferociously once again. Taking a step to the side, he looked at Bey’on once more.

“Okay, it seems that for some reason it only reacts to you, and as we have seen it…” He glanced at the second, hollow colorless crystal sitting still a bit further away on a small round-tray, he continued. “…this reaction is only active once we turn the core active. Under normal circumstances, we can’t see, nor feel any sort of response from the crystals, further increasing the mystery.”

He narrated the previous hour’s experiments, as he continued to type and jolt down every moment.

“Please, continue with your earlier action, and try to slowly approach the crystal and touch it. Tell me everything exactly how you experience it.” He ordered without looking away from his device, but it was obvious he was ready to observe.

“Mhm.” Bey’on nodded and once again, began to slowly approach the crystal, focusing her mind on the little seedling, the Sunstone Crystal’s core.

As her eyes once again reached a sufficient range, the core began to react, and as she gradually closed the distance, the core became increasingly more and more aggressive and continued to violently bump against the walls of its crystal prison.

“Absolutely remarkable! Astounding! Just what is it that causes this reaction?” The professor mumbled as he resumed his mad, fervent typing.

Just as he was about to speak once more, the office door was suddenly pushed in, and a blonde slick-looking green-eyed man walked in. He was slightly taller than the professor, at around the same height as Bey’on.

As he walked in, his emerald eyes spotted the woman. His lips curved into a knowing, nasty smirk, as he took in the delicious sight.

“Professor, professor…” He finally began to talk, as he did not stop eyeing the lonesome woman in the office. “You old coot, what were you planning with Miss Reaya here? I thought your interest was on the lifeless objects, and not on the other sėx! What an unexpected discovery!”

———

If one would raise their heads and look towards the sky, they could, if squinting really hard, spot the faint silhouettes of three figures whooshing through just below the small patch of white puffy clouds.

If by chance one would have extraordinary sight, he could make out two female figures at the sides, seemingly following a larger, muscular body. With a bit more concentration, he could also make out the faint yellowish, golden glow surrounding them, and the small trail of lingering energy as they zipped through the skies, towards the south.

They, however, most likely couldn’t make out any of the finer details, such as the fact that they were much taller than that of the average Kryptonian, and also couldn’t make out the strange, ritualistic, glowing markings over their bodies.

They were the last remnants, the final remembrance of a now-absent race in the galaxy, the Fashacalli.

———

Deciding their destination, the fashacalli trio, Milo, Cassa, and Shaya fellow towards the southern area of the continent they found themselves in. As they flew towards the massive forest biome, they soon felt the presence of thousands of different life forms appearing ahead of them.

“Woah… do you guys feel that?” Cassa exclaimed with expectant eyes. So many different beings, living their peaceful lives, oblivious to the dangers of the universe. They were happy and content with their own, meaningless existence.

“Yeah… it’s almost hard to believe…” Shaya added, closing her eyes, giving a good feel to the place below.

“Let’s get down guys and continue on foot. We are in no rush, we can take our time.” Gradually lowering his speed, Milo suddenly spoke out. Following his advice, the trio slowly began their descent, landing just in front of the first trees, the ‘unofficial’ gateway to the unnamed humongous, expansive forest.

Crossing the ‘border’ they were immediately hit with the increased humidity, creating a sort of steamy, hardened, gaseous, opaque barrier, separating the two worlds. The sight that greeted them was wondrous, magical. There were no traces of worry and despair on their faces, they were glowing with childish glee, as they slowly took in this magical piece. The dense foliage was donning all kinds of shades and types of greens: light and dark, yellowish, or vibrant… you could find all. Amidst the large, wide, or sometimes the complete opposite: short and thin, needled, or leafy plants you could spot colorful flowers.

Some emitted some dangerous signals, while others had an inviting smell and look on them. Small buzzing insects could also be spotted by their enhanced sights, as they flew from plant to plant, flower to flower, unknowingly grabbing and carrying their pollen, spreading them around.

“This… this…is…” Cassa spoke up after a long while, but with so many things to see, her thoughts quickly trailed off, unable to complete the sentence.

“…magical…” Shaya, joining in, helped out her friend. Darting from left to right, she was focusing on the wonderland in front of them.

“Get ready guys, something is coming, and it doesn’t feel friendly!”

Their trance was broken when suddenly they heard Milo’s stern voice. As they woke up, even before they realized it, they felt a sudden sense of dread wash through them. Before they had the chance to locate the source of the aura, they heard a low-toned growling sound coming from a bit further ahead, from the cover of the thick dark green shrubbery. Soon, following the voice, a pair of dark-yellowish, glowing eyes sprung up, looking ahead, staring at them menacingly.

“W-what is that?!” Cassa was the first to speak out, looking at the shrubbery ahead. Judging from the size of the eyes, the predator that was preparing to lunge at them was even taller than them, or it sported a very large set of terrifying eyes.

“Don’t dawdle, get yourselves ready! Whatever it is, it’s power is roughly on par with mine!” Milo yelled out, warning the two.

“W-what?!” Shocked by what they heard, both girls yelled out, looking shocked. However, instead of being scared, a large grin began to surface on Cassa’s face. With a louder yell, the markings on her body lit up, basking her in their bright, yellowish glory. Next to her, Shaya was already in her battle stance, the markings on her body glowing in their bright golden ŀuster.

Milo was already ahead of them, the white, markings were already shining brightly, routing, guiding all the power towards his fists. With no dėsɨrė to wait for any further and potentially wait to fall into an even bigger trap, he suddenly vanished from his spot and appeared in front of the underbrush, his right fists already ċȯċked high up in the air, en-route with a wide-arced right swing. The outline of his fist was glowing, basking in bright colorless light as it rapidly approached the predator still hiding, lying in wait, sizing up its opponent and potential lunch.

Before his fist could collide with the enemy, the beast roared and sprung into action, launching itself forward, springing from its hiding place.

A huge, four-legged, feline monster appeared in front of them, his head appropriately large, with a huge, gaping mouth with rows, upon rows of razor-sharp dagger-like teeth. It had a thick purple-colored hide, and a long, similar tail. As it looked at the bald giant standing in front of it, it swiftly raised its right frontal paw, blocking and deflecting the still incoming arcing blow with surprising ease.

Although Milo did not put all of his strength into that hit just now, it still carried an incredible amount of his strength, it wasn’t a hit that many could block without suffering some backlash. Understanding the threat the creature represented, Milo quickly jumped back, regrouping with the girls, eyeing the monster in front of them.

“Be careful guys, this thing is strong!” He warned them of the already pretty much obvious fact.

“We’ll see how he handles a sizable amount of fasha then!” Cassa angrily roared, creating a triangle shape with her hands in front of herself. Squinting with her eyes she aimed at the center of the creature’s forehead. His hand soon began to glow even brighter as large amounts of her inner energy began to flow towards the shape formed by her fingers. A moment later, a yellow beam of energy was shot out, traversing through the air with incredible speed.

From the other side, Shaya did not watch the event in silence, clenching her fists, she gathered some of her fasha into his fist, and as if it were a ball, she threw it out, towards the creature.

In the next instant, both projectiles crashed into the beast, engulfing the area in bright, blinding light and a sonic burst, also kicking up a sizable amount of dust and destroying most of the surrounding foliage.

Even though the two energy bolts carried a tremendous amount of fasha combined from the two girls, none of them dared to relax. After all, the ominous aura did not dissipate at all, it continued to linger around them. They remained in their battle-ready state and besides walking closer to Milo to use a makeshift formation and protect each other’s backs, they did not let their guard down.

Shortly later, just as they expected, the humongous purple feline beast’s silhouette appeared amidst the rapidly evaporating cloud of dust. To their shock and vexation, the beast seemed completely unharmed. Besides two darker burnt patches on its fur, there was absolutely no damage.

“What the…?” Cassa exclaimed at the shocking revelation. “What is this beast made of to not just survive, but be completely unaffected by such an attack?”

However, an even more shocking thought surfaced on Shaya’s mind. Looking ahead at the monster, her face morphed into a worried, troubled look.

“Do we even have any chance of defeating it? Should we just return, and-”

“No.” Shaya was cut short, with Milo’s sudden, curt response. The white markings on his ċhėst began to change, as the now-familiar dark red saturation began to surface. His usual calm and collected facade twisted to a raging, feral expression. The white sclera in his eyes became bloodshot, he tightly clenched his right fist as he slowly ċȯċked it backward and began to gather an insurmountable amount of his newfound power.

His strength rapidly surged, as images of his now-dead kin resurfaced in his mind. All the deeply repressed emotions began to boil and surge like a twisting tornado, clouding his mind but at the same time, giving him more and more power. As if the gates in the depth of his soul were unleashed, the visible dark-red fasha flew towards his ċȯċked fist.

In mere moments, a frightening amount of violent, wild, and uncontrolled space-affiliated energy covered his fist, the air around his arm began to blur and twist. Tiny sparks of energy, as if miniature lightning bolts zapped throughout his entire silhouette.

Before the girls could even react and try to reach out to their raging friend, Milo, with a loud and powerful battle cry, vanished from his spot, and appeared just above the purple feline. The whole action seemed to surprise even the beast as well as, besides looking up to match its opponent’s gaze and revealing a surprisingly intelligent frown, it did not have any chance to defend against the crazed attack.

As Milo’s energy-coated fist collided with the beast’s temple, the space around them once-again visibly distorted, just the same way when Milo first used this power against Spencer. A low-toned sonic shockwave was released, throwing back both girls several meters before their bodies crashed against the ground with a loud thump.

As the huge cloud of dust eventually settled, the girls were shocked to their very cores. There were no traces of the ominous aura of the feline, but at the same time, they couldn’t feel Milo’s energy signature either…

Their worry soon became a reality, as where previously they collided, there was nothing at all…

———

Through the connection of his mental link with his monstrous creation, Spencer bore witness to the carnage it brought to his planet as he remained in the temple, getting a first-person view as Penance continued to adapt and quickly evolve after every wound or injury it suffered from a battle with the massive variety of powerful creatures that resided across its surface. Though as Penance had his fun with massacring all life it could find, for the past few days he resided in his mindscape performing a strenuous process involving the condensing of the solar nuclear core in his body.

Whilst he remained in front of the core generating a relatively infinite amount of solar, nuclear, chemical, thermal, and plasma-based energy, he continued to saturate the core with further and more potent amounts of his power to near-instantaneously speed up the process, the core excessively fluctuating in size as Spencer continued to condense it by redirecting all of the energy released back into it.

The fluctuations grew stronger as the core grew thousandths of times more massive in overtime, rotating several hundred times a second before eventually condensing, releasing a devastating blast of energy that slammed into Spencer’s stagnant figure. Redirecting the energy throughout his gluttonous cells, causing him to glow a brilliant blue light before his body stabilized and no further reactions could be seen.

Taking a quick look at the more concentrated core in his mind space, he returned to reality and hopped off of his cloud, “If I go any further than that, it’ll most likely become a black hole… I’m not sure how that would affect me at the moment so I’ll leave it at that.” Strolling through his temple halls, he soon exited to the outside.

Casually walking across the surface of the planet without much care to the creatures that would occasionally try to attack him, he would also sometimes spot the infant creatures that attacked the two green lanterns a few days before, along with the much bigger variants that watched over them.

Strolling into a mountain range, he once again spotted the bulky heavily armored creatures that resided near them, observing as they looked relatively carefree while eating a strange looking fruit that he didn’t bother paying much attention to, what intrigued him more was the creature that hid by blending in with the plants around it.

Focusing on the creature, he examined the unnecessarily long blades it held for claws as it stood on all fours. The creature stood surprisingly motionless, in wait for one of the bulky beasts to stray from the crowd, digging its claws into the ground before lounging out of the plant life it used for cover and at the seemingly unprepared beast.

But to Spencer’s amusement, the armored beast immediately turned to face the incoming attacker and used its massive tail to swat the almost rhino sized creature out of the air like a gnat. Once it was buried in the sand, the armored brute of a creature vigorously crouched into a compressed ball esque shape, before swiftly launching its heavy frame forward in the blink of an eye, abruptly spinning around and slamming its massive tail into the other beast that was struggling to get back up. Accelerating its body into the crowd of the other armored beasts for it to be promptly trampled and impaled by multiple tentacle-like masses that protruded from their mouths with a needle on the end of each, stabbing into its body while draining it of its blood and nutrients, quickly leaving behind a dry husk on the sandy floor.

“Damn… Didn’t think it would play out like that!” Spencer was a little surprised at that abrupt ending to the fight, watching as the creatures went back to eating the small spread of fruits scattered across the terrain as if nothing had happened.

Walking over and picking up one of the fruits for himself, he reformed his taste buds and bit into it. Promptly after, an incredibly sweet and sour taste struck the inside of his mouth, “These taste better than I would have thought!” Creating a few thousand temporal copies of the fruit, he locked them in time and threw them into his spatial storage, but not without tossing several hundred to the crowd of these creatures in front of him before being on his way.

Making his way around the planet over the span of hours, he carefully examined how his “children” reacted to the environment they were placed in. The varieties were endless, at one point he even came across a creature that was smart enough to use something that looked like the sharpened horn of a much larger creature as a means to attack and kill the smaller ones that inhabited the massive jungle floor, but he still came to one obvious conclusion.

“This planet bȧrėly has any form of natural biomes, the planet is mostly covered in lush plants and the occasional desert biome that I would sometimes see when flying over… Let’s fix that shall we!” Rubbing his hands together, Spencer flew to the upper atmosphere and scanned for a suitable area to make his first biome. Flying over another vast dry rocky terrain, spanning roughly five thousand miles in every direction from the center with bȧrėly any rock formations or outstanding sights, he chose this to be the first of many of his biomes.

His eyes glowing their usual bluish-platinum glow, he separated the entire terrain cleanly from the rest, dragging it miles across the planet to somewhat isolate it from the others, dragging it roughly a thousand miles away from the others whilst minimizing the effects on the planet from doing something at this scale in such a short time.

Once he situated the land at a suitable spot, effectively making it into a small continent, he stretched his hand to the sky and condensed the water vapor in the atmosphere above the continent with a combination of gasses he created to form black clouds with special rain over the entirety of the landmass’s sky, blocking out any light that could shine down on its surface.

Next, he added an abundance of positive charges at the top of all the clouds before adding a larger excess of negative charges at the bottom, successfully creating vigorous lightning storms to plague the continent as long as it remained. Landing on the continent below, he warmed the air in his left hand and cooled the air in his right, bringing them together to generate a small spiral of air in his palms that quickly began to build in size, inevitably becoming a large vortex of wind that began to roam the continent freely, filling the area to simulate the effects needed to perpetually form vortexes of the same scale or higher, and with that, he was satisfied with his first manually created biome.

Dropping a sliver of his blood on the surface of the continent, it began to surge across its surface as new lifeforms immediately began to form whilst pre-existing life gained a significant boost in their capabilities.

“One down.”

Leaving the continent, Spencer flew to another section of the singular supercontinent on his planet, landing in an area filled with high mountain peaks and the formations to match, he separated it from the Pangea like supercontinent and made it into its own smaller one, just as the one before it.

Starting this second biome, he had a more “chilling” theme to its creation, swiftly amping the moisture in the atmosphere to a notable degree while generating an abundance of clouds to cover the sky whilst still allowing light to enter, before promptly generating ice crystals of varying sizes within the clouds, causing snow to begin to fall to the ground below, going above the clouds, he fast-forwarded time on the island by a hundred years, before quickly returning beneath the clouds.

Once he passed the clouds and his view of the ground was clear, he was welcomed by a now completely white surface covered in inches upon inches of snow in all directions, containing designated sections made of ice to allow for travel as well.

Nodding his head in fulfillment, he created large pits and small deposits in random areas of the frozen wasteland of a continent. Once that was finished, he produced a vast amount of liquified air before cryogenically distilling the liquified air to create extensive amounts of liquid nitrogen to fill the large pits and small deposits across the region.

With all of that completed, he had effectively created an environment relatively uninhabitable by conventional lifeforms. The everlasting temperature being roughly -246 degrees Fahrenheit, making this region just or about as dangerous as the first he created. Releasing another sliver of his blood on the frozen surface of the biome, he promptly left to the next.

Arriving at a stretched out savanna esque area, he spotted another group of those bulky, armor covered creatures, though a little different in size compared to the ones he saw in that mountainous area, he put them to the side and proceeded with the process, pulling this region from the main body and making it into its own continent just like the others. Once it was a suitable distance from the main body, he began the next phase.

By casually raising his left hand, he simultaneously formed a few dozen active volcanoes across the surface of the region, all of which went off, rapidly bathing the region in sweltering magma that continued to devour all life that once existed on the surface, leaving behind none of the wildlife or plant life. Fast-forwarding time a few decades, he watched as the continent quickly became engulfed in molten lava, leaving only a few dry spots. The constantly active volcanoes pumping the air full of a significant amount of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, and hydrogen halides, making the air extremely toxic to breathe whilst also turning all of the clouds black as they rained down a black snow-like substance.

Rushing to finish his next and last manual biome, he teleported to the main continent and separated a much smaller amount than the others, dragging it roughly a thousand miles from the main. He flew down to the small region and began the creation of this new environment.

“Considering this is going to be the last of my biomes, I might as well make it inconspicuously the most dangerous…”

Snapping his fingers, he generated a massive swamp biome that encompassed the entirety of the region in an instant, with a few harmless added touches of naturally generated methane, carbon monoxide, and phosgene gasses, all in great abundance in their designated zones that would continue to drift, making it harder to know what you are being exposed to before it’s too late.

He also generated trees to circulate the various gasses to manage the extremely hazardous ecosystem.” Now, that that’s over… it’s time for another member to join my list of creations.” Spawning a perfect human body from his vast knowledge of the anatomy of them, he left it without consciousness and allowed it to float in front of him.

Opening his right palm, a singular cell-like construct popped into existence, a singular construct containing a fraction of the most destructive properties he could conceive in a single manifestation. Programming the cell to a necessary degree, he injected it into the human body to see what it could do.

Once it had entered, he waited for the results. The process took only a few seconds to occur as the cell began to rapidly repeat the process of cellular mitosis at a blinding speed, consuming and replacing all of the cells within the body without fail. Soon enough, the entire body began to decay and die while forming warts over it that released a black smog into the atmosphere around it.

Witnessing the effects, Spencer was satisfied with the results and quickly grew elated, immediately infusing it into a random sequence of plantlife to drastically increase the danger this swamp biome held.

“I’d really like to see how the wildlife will react to this new addition to the region!” Seeing as he is done with manually creating biomes on his planet, he decided to leave it up to the planet itself to decide what else to add over time.

Teleporting to the main continent where his temple resided, he sat in a lotus at its center, connecting his mind to penance to observe his actions. Through the eyes of his creation, he witnessed its memories and brutalities as it tore apart even the largest of the creatures on his planet and consumed their traits into itself to further its growth.

———

Currently recombined into one body in the forest region of the planet, Penance could be seen tearing apart another unlucky victim out of the hundreds it has already consumed, a wolf sized creature which resembled the combination between a crocodile and a rhino, with its thick scaly skin and sharp jagged teeth. It bellowed in pain as Penance bore its claws into its stomach, tore out its organs and tossed it into a boulder with full force, shattering it and instantly killing the creature.

Walking up to it, Penance sunk its teeth into the corpse and commenced eating it, rending the flesh from the bone of the dead beast, making it grow stronger with every bite it took as it gorged itself on its delightful meat. Finishing its meal, Penance stood up from the puddle of green blood and faced the direction of Spencer, despite it being several thousand miles away from him.

Turning its head back around, it ran on all fours through the forest at such a speed that it became a blur, generating a powerful stream of air as its body pushed the air molecules out of the way. Spotting its next target, another large bipedal creature just like the many others on this planet, it launched itself at it and used its immensely sharp tail to stab it in its spine, injecting a neurotoxin that it gained from a group of lizard-like creatures that tried to ambush it, quickly paralyzing the beast and causing it to fall to the ground.

Penance then began to slowly eat it alive as the creature could do nothing to retaliate. Soon enough, the creature was completely devoured and ȧssimilated into Penance to further enhance its power even more. On the verge of looking for its next target, it spotted another in the distance and wasted no time to attack it, approaching it at its top speed with its claws fully extended and coated with a neurotoxin.

Jumping in the air, Penance was about to sink its claws into the creature, until it suddenly heard Spencer’s voice in its head.

“It’s time for you to return home, little one.”

Causing it to miss its target and landing next to the unaware beast, prompting it to jump away much to Penance’s irritation, releasing deep grumbling noises as it turned around and sliced a tree in half before abruptly squatting down, its legs bulging while releasing steam as it jumped into the sky at such a height that it was no longer visible from the ground below.

———

Sensing that Penance was rapidly approaching, Spencer planted his feet on the group and began making his way through his temple, approaching the exit with his hands in his pockets. Leaving the temple, he walked forward and looked up in the sky, watching as Penance could be clearly seen plummeting towards Spencer’s location, accelerating faster until it came to an abrupt landing in front of him.

Kicking up dust as a small crater was formed upon its rough descent and landing, Spencer blocked all of the dust from making contact with his body before swiftly clearing it, allowing for the drastically larger frame of Penance to be observed in its full glory. Watching as his creation made its way closer to him from the crater, standing in front of him with a greatly annoyed expression, but it still showed no aggression towards its creator.

Spencer placed out his open left palm towards it, which was soon imitated as Penance placed its open palm on Spencer’s.

“No need to be upset little one, you’ll be able to have your fun soon enough, but I can’t have you destroying the ecosystem on my world since I have plans for it.” Removing his hand, he placed it back in his pocket. “Now… don’t you have something for me?”

Penance grunted and cloned itself once more, the clone began approaching Spencer before its head was cleanly severed from its body faster than anything could perceive before the clone was promptly absorbed into his body, though he was strengthened, it was negligible, what interested him more was the complexity of the genes he received from the clone, though made from what he already had in his body, it still exceedingly intrigued him.

Tossing the DNA with the rest within his body, he focused more on the ability he gave Penance, the ability to rapidly self replicate like a cell. By using the life affinity he granted Penance a lot of abilities, but this one was the most interesting to him as the strength of the clone was the same strength of the main body due to it being an exact copy.

Though he could replicate the equivalent effect using his time affinity to create a temporal clone of himself that would hold all the abilities he did, his ŀust for any new ability he sees was enough for him to want this ability to clone for himself. Now that he had absorbed the clone body of Penance, he had now gained that same ability, remarkably enough, granting himself abilities with the life affinity is much harder than granting abilities to lifeforms he has created personally.

Creating a perfect clone of himself, he immediately felt as if a second brain was formed outside of his body, although briefly confused by the sensation, he quickly brushed it off and continued to analyze his clone which of course did the same back to him.

“How do you feel, any changes?” Spencer addressed his clone with intrigue, interested if the cloning was truly perfect.

“Not really… although I don’t feel the energy cores in my body anymore, but I can still harness the energy around me.” The clone channeled some of the energy around it into a ball in its palm, generating a blue sphere.

Sensing the energy in the sphere, it was bȧrėly enough to destroy a small mountain let alone reaching the scale of his casual attacks. “How’s your physical strength?”

The clone clenched his fist and examined himself, “Relatively the same, I’m still being fueled by the energy of that star you?…I?…We created, so it’s not much of a problem with my physical strength.”

“Very well… that’s good enough.” Spencer promptly reabsorbed his clone and turned his focus on Penance.

“You can return to what you were doing before, but do not go too far, only kill creatures that are in too great of an abundance, nothing more.”

Hearing his words, Penance nodded before crouching and taking a powerful leap to a random direction, returning to its sadistic hunting.

Leaving Spencer, who slowly tilted his head to look up above his planet’s atmosphere, he smirked lightly while shaking his head before entering the temple to meditate with his time affinity as he waited.

———

Presently residing above the atmosphere of Spencer’s planet, a squadron of roughly twenty green lanterns of various alien races of both genders could be seen floating with their rings fully charged, flying in front of two rather familiar green lanterns who had already been on this planet, the squadron stood in wait for the two of them to speak.

“Not long ago, Agath and I had visited this sector solar system to check for any abnormal behavior in this area. We have found that the solar system has been drastically changed and the mother star has been replaced…” Tomar-Re stopped speaking and looked at Agath, signaling her to speak.

“This planet is home to the being who is responsible for all of this. Do not underestimate him, and be on guard at all times as even the wildlife can easily overpower the average lantern, we were almost killed within the first few minutes of landing here.” Agath made sure to add in how they were almost eaten upon stepping foot on the planet.

“We will try to negotiate with him in the beginning, but be prepared to use lethal force as he does not appear easy to convene with.” Tomar-Re began to fly down with his fellow Green Lanterns, quickly approaching the planet’s surface in the same area where Spencer’s temple was located.

———

After a few minutes, he finally sensed the presence of all twenty lanterns breaching the atmosphere without an invitation and heading straight for his temple. Though he didn’t like them just coming and going willy-nilly, he simply waited for them to land at the stairs of his temple without interfering with their descent.

Seeing as they were basically already on the ground, he unfolded his legs from the lotus and began to float towards the exit of the temple in his normal, casual manner, quickly making his way to the entrance of the temple to meet his ‘new’ guests. Exiting the temple, he studied the various aliens in front of him wearing green and black spandex, shaking his head from the fact that they had brought more people, though he had already ȧssumed that they would.

“I clearly remember removing both of you from my planet because you were not invited, why have you returned?” Spencer tilted his head to make it seem as if he didn’t expect the return regardless of what he said. After examining all who arrived, he focused his attention on Tomar-Re and Agath as they were the only ones he was familiar with.

Tomar-Re and Agath slightly shivered from his gaze, but they did not let it deter them from what they came here for.

“…You are under arrest by Green Lantern law due to the tampering of a solar system and its star, we came to bring you in to receive your judgment by the Guardians of Oa!” Tomar-Re extended his fist as his fist glowed, promptly followed by the rest of the members present. “I would much rather do this without the need for force, kindly cooperate with us”.

Spencer looked at all of them before him with slight surprise as they all were ready to fire upon him at the slightest sign of resistance. Seeing this brought him to the point of a forced laughter, “The sheer amount of gall you must have to return to my world and attempt to arrest me is quite entertaining… but, just as I said before, I will, once again, have to decline your ‘tempting’ offer.”

Tomar-Re was hoping it didn’t need to come to this. “Then you leave me no choice…Lanterns, take him down!” He and his companions began to shoot green blasts at his body with lethal force, not holding back in their ȧssault.

Not bothering to block their attacks, the blasts bounced off of his skin akin to bursts of water from a water gun. He bȧrėly even realized the fact that he was being attacked. If not for seeing it with his own eyes, though their attacks were hitting his temple, which did annoy him to a small degree, he still did not react simply to prove a point. As some time passed while they continued to attack him with their rings, they quickly noticed that he was very unbothered by their continuous efforts, causing them to halt their fire upon him and watch in shock as he brushed his shoulder.

“So not only have you come uninvited, but you have also attacked me unprovoked… Tomar-Re, was it? You are not as smart as I thought you would be, I have to say… I’m very disappointed.” Spencer’s eyes glowed as he fired a beam of energy from his eyes that separated into several different beams, each for every member that was present.

On contact, one by one, each member was instantly vaporized into nothing, not even dust remained, the only thing he did not destroy was one of the many rings they had, as he wanted to run some tests on them later. Once he was done with the others, he left Tomar-Re and Agath alive to witness how easily he wiped out the squadron.

Snapping his fingers, he teleported the remaining ring to his hand, taking it and examining its design, even using his x-ray and microscopic vision to analyze its inner workings down to the smallest level in a matter of seconds, storing all of the information in his head for future use. Getting all that he could, he decided to place the ring on his finger to test something, much to Tomar-Re and Agath’s objection.

“Forcefully putting on a green lantern ring is not permitted, doing so is against Green Lantern la…” Tomar-Re could no longer speak as Spencer had fused his lips shut with a simple thought, leaving him to struggle to try to speak with no mouth.

Wearing the green lantern ring on his finger, Spencer was intrigued to find that it didn’t reject him and remained on his finger, surrounding his body in a green and black suit. Briefly looking at the suit, he began to create a variety of almost indestructible energy constructs using the will of the millions of lifeforms he has absorbed. Anything from swords, guns, cannons, even armor, he quickly lost interest in it as he could already do all these things by himself, causing him to perform something he wasn’t sure about.

Focusing all of his will into the ring, it began to vigorously glow as he received a mental message from it.

[Warning, willpower exceeding powering threshold]

Continuing to fuel the ring, it promptly began to crack and fall from his finger, removing the suit that formed on his body. Seeing that the ring could no longer entertain him, he undid all of the damage done to his temple before placing his attention on the still struggling Tomar-Re and the scared Agath.

“Now�� dealing with you two…” Spencer restrained the two with his telekinetic abilities and brought them before him. “I could kill you both by just thinking about it.” He stroked his chin as he thought about what she should do. “On second thought, I have a much better idea!” Freezing the two in time, he left them floating there.

Performing demi-cellular division, his body began to split as he created three clones of himself. “You already know what I’m going to do, and you already know what I want you to stay here and do!” Nodding their heads, the three clones entered the temple and began to enter their version of meditation to accomplish the task they needed. Still, outside the temple, Spencer used his time affinity to create a temporal copy of himself by dragging himself from a second ago into this current moment, allowing this clone to have everything he has, even the cores within his body.

“Hello me, I’m sure you already know the idea you had a second ago!” Spencer placed his arm around his clone’s shoulder.

“Of course, me!” His temporal clone then teleported inside of the temple to perform another one of his ideas.

Now all he had left to do was to address the issue with the two lanterns. Unfreezing them, he unsealed Tomar-Re’s lips. “I think it’s time for us to give Oa a visit, don’t you?” Before they could answer, he teleported them lightyears from his planet to Oa, casually going through their defense systems and appearing in the room where the Elders resided.

“Hey everyone!” Spencer addressed the shocked guardians to his existence as he had the two lanterns floating in temporal stasis.

“And who might you be?” One of the Guardians addressed Spencer with a raised brow.

“Don’t concern yourself with that for now…all you need to know is that I don’t like my world being trespassed by some flying green glow sticks who think they can arrest me.” Tossing the two Green Lanterns, he undid his temporal stasis and let them recover.

“Now let’s make a deal!”