Free Web NovelChapter 493: Spiritual Body Manifestation
The Justice League were in complete awe.
Wonder Woman spoke first. "He’s toying with them."
"I wouldn’t say that... he is more like educating them," Superman corrected, his voice heavy. "There’s a difference."
"Three of the strongest hunters," Hal Jordan said, his ring flickering unconsciously. "Three. And he’s using one hand, one weapon and none of his shadows. I’ve seen him raise armies.. I’ve seen him drown Black Lantern forces in endless darkness.. He is using none of those powers he has.."
"He’s proving something," Diana said. "To them, to us perhaps as well." Her eyes found Batman.
Flash finally stopped tapping his fingers. "Okay, but that telekenisis thing? They almost had him, no? He was completely frozen. And then he just... no-sold it? How? Was he pretending to be like that..."
J’onn J’onzz’s voice was a low rumble. "You cannot bind what has already broken all chains."
Superman turned to Batman. "You knew about Ethan. You knew he was the strongest of the vessels no?"
Batman didn’t look away from the arena below. "I suspected as much and Arthur interest in him confirmed it."
"How?" Diana asked.
"Because Arthur doesn’t care much about this duel, he didn’t look at Elias once during that exchange, his entire focus is on the kid, trying to extract his potential."
Below, Ethan Jones finally moved.
Not toward Arthur.
Through him.
The teenager’s body blurred with gravity manipulation. He shortened the distance between himself and Arthur to nothing, his fist crackling with white-violet energy, and swung.
Arthur’s spear came up.
Ethan’s fist stopped three inches from Arthur’s face.
Not because Arthur blocked it.
Because Ethan stopped it himself.
"Celestial Collapse," Ethan whispered.
The miniature star of gravity ignited between them.
And for the first time in the fight, that actually surprised Arthur.
Yet Arthur canceled it almost immedietly, the miniature star died between them.
"That was truly a good move, but catching your opponent by surprise doesn’t guarantee a swift victory," Arthur said to Ethan.
Arthur moved through the explosion. His shadow armor had materialized across his chest in fractured plates, smoking slightly at the edges where the Celestial Collapse had grazed him. His Lightning Spear remained in his hand, crackling with renewed fury.
Ethan stood across the arena, his chest heaving. The attack had cost him. His white-violet mana flickered unsteadily.
Elias and Renshiro had regrouped, flanking their youngest ally with expressions that mixed desperation with realization.
Arthur studied them for a long moment, then he spoke.
"I know what you’re holding back."
Elias’s jaw tightened.
"The spiritual body manifestation," Arthur continued, twirling his spear lazily. "I know it takes a lot of energy. I know it will leave you exhausted afterward. Probably unconscious, if you push it too far... after all a vessel can only do so much with the power of a Ruler."
He pointed the crackling tip of his weapon at each of them in turn.
"But that is your only chance against me, so use it."
Then Renshiro laughed "Arrogant bastard," the Japanese Hunter spat.
The wind answered his call, and now he didn’t go for the controlled slashes he’d used before, he used a compressed blade of air that crossed the distance between them in an instant, invisible. It was the kind of attack that had carved canyons, the kind that had ended S-Rank monsters before they understood they were dead.
Arthur vanished with a crack of displaced air, a flicker of violet light, and he was simply gone from where he’d been standing.
Renshiro’s eyes widened.
Arthur was in front of him, his violet eyes blazed inches from Renshiro’s face, the Japanese Hunter tried to bring his katana up, and the flat of Arthur’s Lightning Spear connected with the side of Renshiro’s face with a sound like a thunderclap.
Lightning exploded across Renshiro’s body that made his muscles seize, his nerves fire randomly, his teeth clench so hard he felt enamel crack.
He flew thirty meters. Forty. He bounced once, twice, leaving craters in the reinforced floor, and finally came to rest against the far wall with a groan that spoke more of humiliation than pain.
Arthur hadn’t moved from where he’d struck. He stood with his spear resting against his shoulder, his expression almost bored.
"Just do it, don’t waste my time." he said.
Elias growled a low, rumbling sound that built in his chest, his golden aura flared brighter, consuming the air around him in divine radiance.
"So be it," the Iron Knight said, "Since you know about it, it doesn’t hurt to show you."
Arthur’s spear shifted. Pointed past Elias.
At Ethan.
"You too."
The teenager had been hanging back, his white-violet energy still flickering, still unstable. But at Arthur’s words, something changed in his expression and he nodded.
"What the hell are they talking about?" Flash asked in the Observation deck, his arms crossed so tightly his gloves creaked. "What move? They’ve thrown everything at him gravity, wind, lightning, holy swords, Telekinesis or whatever. What else do they have?"
Superman’s eyes narrowed and Wonder Woman leaned forward, her warrior’s instincts screaming. "Arthur asked them to do something, and they were hesitant to do it... it could be something they can’t maintain for long."
"Spiritual Body Manifestation."
The voice came from the shadows at the back of the observation deck.
The League turned. Jean-Piere Gustave stepped forward, the French Hunter, his hair pulled back, his eyes fixed on the arena below, behind him, three other Hunters lingered near the doorway.
Batman’s cowl tilted slightly. "Explain."
Jean-Piere spread his hands. "It is not like that speak of it often.. It is... the final form. Since we know the truth about our powers now, the best way to explain is that this is the shape we can take when we stop pretending to be human and become what the Rulers meant us to be." He paused, searching for words. "You have seen S-Ranks destroy buildings. You have seen us destroy mountains of monsters. And Spiritual Body Manifestation? It is even beyond that."
"Then why haven’t they used it?" Diana demanded.
"Because it burns," Mariana said from the doorway, her accent thick. "Not just magic, Life. Every second in that form is a match held to the wick of your soul. You use it when you have no other choice, and no monster actually made us go that far. Or when..." She glanced at Arthur below. "When someone makes you angry enough to stop caring."
Batman turned back to the reinforced glass.
Below, the three Hunters had begun to change.
The first sign was the pressure.
Elias Kruger dropped to one knee.
Golden light erupted from his chest, not an aura this time, but a fracture. His body split along invisible seams, and from those seams poured radiance that had no business existing in a training arena beneath a mountain. The light emerged, shaping itself into something colossal.
Almost four meters tall.
A golden knight formed around Elias, its surface etched with a foreign writing that glowed. Geometric wings of light unfolded from its back, each feather a blade of condensed divinity. In its hands, a greatsword materialized, its edge glowing white-hot, its length sufficient to split a city block in half.
Elias’s voice boomed from within the construct, no longer human. "IRON PARAGON."
Beside him, Renshiro Takeda was consumed by Blue-white flame. His body dissolved into incandescent smoke and reformed as something out of legend. A spirit of fire and lightning, four meters tall, its lower body a vortex of wind, its torso corded with spectral muscle. Four arms extended from its shoulders, each hand gripping a katana forged from compressed storm clouds. Lightning arced between the blades, leaving afterimages burned into the air.
"GET READY WORM," the spirit intoned, its voice a chorus of thunder.
And then there was Ethan.
The teenager had closed his eyes.
When he opened them, the arena broke. freēwēbnovel.com
White and violet energy exploded from his body in concentric rings, each one cracking the reinforced floor, each one sending shockwaves through the mountain itself. The observation deck rattled. Superman’s hand shot out to brace the glass.
Ethan rose into the air, ascending. Gravity bent around him like a cloak, twisting the light into impossible spirals.
Celestial armor materialized across his frame, white and violet, angular and alien, each plate seeming to float a millimeter above his skin. A halo of rotating rings appeared behind his head, each one inscribed with symbols that hurt to look at. His eyes became twin points of absolute gravity, pulling at the very fabric of space around them.
He didn’t grow to the size of the others. He stayed human-sized.
Which made him infinitely more terrifying.
"Oh, come on," Flash said, his voice cracking. "One of them turned into a giant with a sword. One turned into a four-armed fire samurai tornado. And the kid just became... what? An angel or something?"
"Still a spiritual body manifestation," Jean-Piere corrected quietly.
Hal Jordan’s ring flickered. His construct armor materialized around him reflexively. "My ring is picking up gravity fluctuations that shouldn’t be possible indoors. Or on Earth. He’s bending spacetime, Barry." freeωebnovēl.c૦m
Wonder Woman’s hand had moved to the hilt of her sword an instinct she couldn’t suppress. "Diana," Superman said softly. "They’re not a threat."
Her eyes snapped to Arthur.
The Shadow Monarch hadn’t moved.
He stood exactly where he’d been, his Lightning Spear still resting against his shoulder, watching the three transformed Hunters with an expression that could only be described as satisfaction.
Then he smiled.
And changed.
Darkness coiled around him, the armor that wrapped his body wasn’t forged or summoned. It grew, rising from his skin like a second layer, black as night, edged with violet light that glowed the same glow of his eyes.
He raised his Lightning Spear.
And slammed the butt into the ground.
CRACK.
Violet lightning exploded outward in a perfect ring, washing over the three Hunters, over the walls, over the observation deck, and every light in Mount Justice flickered. Every electronic device within a kilometer stuttered.
Arthur’s voice cut through the silence, calm as ever.
"I’ll wait."
He spread his arms wide, the shadow armor rippling across his chest.
"Take your time. It’s bad manners to interrupt a transformation."
From within the golden giant, Elias’s laugh echoed, genuine this time, stripped of anger. "You might be sorry afterward."
Arthur tilted his head. The smile never left his face.
"Nah."
Renshiro’s storm-spirit form crackled with indignation. Lightning arced between his four katanas, each blade singing with killing intent. "We are about to tear this mountain apart around you."
"I want you to do that... if you can of course." Arthur said simply.
Arthur’s violet eyes locked onto the teenager’s gravity-twisting form and the smile remained.
’Finally,’ those eyes seemed to say.
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