If you Like this story! Check out my other story ! Shadow Monarch in Danmachi!
AND
If you wish to read more or simply support me just because ? than check out my patréon at
"https://www.patréon.com/Riadooo"
You can Get Access to 3 More Chapters OR 7 More Chapters if you want !
/*\
Jason landed hard on something that refused to be described.
The ground beneath his feet was not ground. It was not stone, not soil, not any substance he had ever encountered. It was simply... matter. Discarded matter. Piles upon piles of things.....broken things, forgotten things, things that had been erased from existence and left here to rot. The darkness was almost absolute, broken only by faint glows emanating from certain objects buried in the endless garbage. A shattered helmet here. A cracked gemstone there. Things that had once meant something to someone, now reduced to refuse in the universe's dumping ground.
He looked up.
And immediately wished he hadn't.
A wall stood at the edge of everything. Not a wall of stone or metal or light....a wall of absence. It was so dark that darkness itself seemed insufficient to describe it. Not black. Black was a color. This was the lack of color, the lack of light, the lack of existence itself. Looking at it made his mind twist, made his stomach lurch, made him feel as though he was being pulled toward it....sucked into something that had no bottom and no end.
He looked away.
'Find the gate' he told himself. 'Destroy it. Get out'
He walked.
The garbage shifted beneath his feet, crunching and sliding, releasing smells that had no business existing. He kept his eyes forward, scanning the horizon....such as it was....looking for the massive dark gate Dream had described. Somewhere in this nightmare, the Empty Hand's influence was anchored. Somewhere, a door needed to be closed.
Something whistled through the air.
Jason moved on instinct, sidestepping just as a spear embedded itself in the ground where he had been standing. The shaft quivered, metallic and wet-looking, carrying the weight of an ocean on its tip.
"MMM..." A voice slithered from above. "You smell different. Like you don't belong here."
Jason looked up.
A woman stood atop a pile of trash, her silhouette barely visible against the oppressive darkness. Her outfit was a patchwork nightmare....the melted remnants of something that might have been Batman's cowl fused with something that might have been Aquaman's scales. The spear that had nearly impaled him rose from the ground and flew back to her hand as if pulled by an invisible tide.
"I'm going to flay you," she said.
Jason didn't move. "Who are you?"
She didn't answer. Instead, she raised the spear and swept it forward....and from nowhere, from nothing, a massive wave of water erupted, crashing toward Jason with the force of a tsunami born in a void.
He reacted instantly. His hand came up, fingers curving through the air, and a Dimensional Cleave raced forward....splitting the wave cleanly in two. Water parted around him like the Red Sea before Moses, crashing harmlessly to either side. He shot forward, closing the distance in a heartbeat, and punched where she had been standing.
The trash pile exploded. Debris flew in every direction. But she was already moving, already repositioning, already preparing another attack.
"This is your last warning," Jason said, his voice cold. "Who the fuck are you?"
The woman's lips curled into something that might have been a smile. "Oh, you really are special. But you're also my ticket out of here." She twirled the spear. "So death is all I have for an answer."
"Death it is, then."
Jason moved.
The piles around her dissolved....cut to pieces by slashes he had released before she could blink. The ground beneath her feet collapsed. She fell, but Jason's fist caught her before she could drop, driving through her gut with a sound like wet paper tearing. His arm emerged from her back, a gust of wind exploding behind her, and she vomited—blood and bile spraying across the garbage.
He stood over her, hand still buried in her abdomen, and raised his other palm toward her face.
"Dea..."
The massive dark construct smashed into him from the side.
Jason dodged....barely....rolling across the trash and coming up in a crouch. The construct hovered where he had been standing, a massive green construct shaped like a battering ram, its surface flickering with corrupted light.
"The Drowned." A voice spoke from above....calm, measured, familiar. "Didn't we say you should not attack alone?" A figure descended, green light wreathing his form. "You are not strong enough."
Jason's eyes widened.
It was Bruce Wayne. Batman. But not his Bruce. This one wore a Green Lantern uniform.....black and green, the symbol of the Corps emblazoned on his chest, but twisted somehow. Wrong. The green of his rings glowed with something darker than willpower.
Jason glared up at the newcomer "Bruce... Wayne...?"
"Shut the fuck up," The Drowned spat. "Don't say my name!"
The Green Lantern Batman looked down at her with cold amusement. "You fool. He is referring to me. Not you." He gestured at Jason. "He clearly only knows a male Bruce Wayne."
Jason watched the two of them...these twisted variants, these broken reflections....and felt something settle in his chest. Confusion, yes. But also understanding. This was the Nightmare Realm. This was where erased things came to rot.
"He did say this place is filled with strange shit," Jason muttered.
Both of them turned to look at him.
"You both seem to already know me," Jason said.
"Oh, of course we do." The Green Lantern Batman's ring glowed brighter. "We're hunting you. So clearly, we know our prey." His smile was thin, joyless. "Your death is the key for any of us to leave this place."
"Back away, Dawnbreaker!" The Drowned pushed herself to her feet, her wound already closing, water swirling around her spear. "He is mine!"
She launched a wave at Dawnbreaker....not at Jason, at her own ally....and the green lantern's construct dome absorbed it easily. His expression didn't change.
From the ground, hands emerged....green constructs, dozens of them....grabbing the Drowned's legs and yanking her down. She fell hard, screaming in fury. Dawnbreaker ignored her. His ring pulsed, and a spear formed in his grip, aimed directly at Jason's chest.
Before he could throw it....
Light.
White light, brilliant and blinding, flooded the darkness. The Dawnbreaker threw up his hands, his constructs shattering as he focused on protecting his eyes. The Drowned screamed....a raw, agonized sound, as if the light was burning her.
A figure dropped from above, landing beside Jason in a crouch.
"Are you all right?" She grabbed his arm, already pulling him back. "We need to run now! They might kill you...ughm....kill us!" She tugged harder. "Let's go!"
Jason stared at her.
She wore a mix of blue and white, her outfit sleek and practical, her face framed by dark hair and wide, panicked eyes. There was something familiar about her.....something he couldn't quite place.
"I think I've seen you before," Jason said slowly. "Are you Dove?"
She froze. Her eyes went wide....not with fear, but with something else. Something raw and vulnerable.
"Oh." A flush crept across her cheeks. "Huh. I guess I'm not totally forgotten." A nervous laugh. "Hahah... but forget about that. We need to run. NOW!"
"ABSOLUTELY NOT!"
The Dawnbreaker's voice tore through the darkness. His ring flared....not green, but something darker, something that had once been green and had rotted from within. The light around him twisted, turned black, and the void inside his corrupted ring erupted outward, swallowing Dove's white light in a tide of consuming darkness.
"Fuck! FUCK!" Dove pushed herself in front of Jason, her body tensing. "Okay! You....uhm....you run, okay? I'll try to buy you some time." She glanced back at him, her expression fierce despite her trembling hands. "Go now!"
The Dawnbreaker raised his hand. Weapons formed in the air around him....cannons, rifles, something that looked like a railgun made of pure willpower turned rotten. They opened fire.
Dove moved.
Her hands shot up, blasts of white light erupting from her palms, meeting each construct projectile mid-flight. Explosions rocked the darkness, one after another, a chain of detonations that lit the nightmare like strobes. But there were too many. She couldn't catch them all. One slipped through, then another, streaking toward her
She pushed Jason aside.
"No! Run!"
She closed her eyes.
The projectiles flew toward her face.
The pain never came.
"You need to calm down."
Jason's arm was around her waist. He had moved her....not aside, not away, but behind him. His body was a wall between her and the incoming fire, and his hand was already raised.
The world shifted.
"Domain Expansion: Malevolent Shrine."
Darkness fell...not the darkness of the Nightmare Realm, but something else. Something owned. The shrine emerged behind Jason, massive and ancient and bleeding with cursed energy. The ground beneath their feet became something solid. The air became something that belonged to him.
The Dawnbreaker and the Drowned found themselves trapped in a world that was no longer theirs.
Jason smiled.
"Dimensional Cleave."
The slashes came from everywhere. From above, from below, from angles that didn't exist. The Drowned didn't even have time to scream....her body split into four pieces, head, upper torso, lower torso, legs, each section tumbling away in a spray of dark blood. The Dawnbreaker lasted half a second longer, his ring flaring desperately, a green dome forming around him
The dome shattered.
The slash continued.
He split in two, right down the middle, head to toe, his two halves falling in opposite directions.
Blood gushed. Bodies hit the ground. The Nightmare Realm returned, the domain dissolving now that its work was done.
Dove stood frozen.
Her mouth hung open. Her eyes were wide, fixed on the remains of the two beings who had been trying to kill her moments ago. Blood pooled at her feet. The smell of it filled the air.
"They're..." Her voice was barely a whisper. "They're dead."
She stared at the corpses. At the gore. At the pieces of what had once been monsters.
Then her face split into a grin.
"THEY'RE DEAD! DEAD!" She spun to face Jason, grabbing his arms, her eyes wild with something between shock and manic joy. "They actually lost! They died! You see that! YOU SEE THAT!"
"Yes." Jason gently pried her fingers off his arms. "I see it. I'm the one who did it." He held her gaze. "Now. Will you explain to me what the hell is going on?"
Dove blinked. Looked at the bodies. Looked at him. Looked back at the bodies.
"Oh." She swallowed. "You... you killed them? Uhm..." A shaky breath. "I... yeah. Okay. I'll explain." She nodded quickly, her hands still trembling. "I'll help you."
/*\
If you Like this story! Check out my other story ! Shadow Monarch in Danmachi!
AND
If you wish to read more or simply support me just because ? than check out my patréon at
"https://www.patréon.com/Riadooo"
You can Get Access to 3 More Chapters OR 7 More Chapters if you want !