Oa's sky, originally deep crimson with hints of green, gradually became shrouded in gray soul fire.
The wind carried faint whispers. The air grew heavy, and wisps of mist enveloped the entire battlefield.
"Green Lantern Corps, attack! This is evil power!" The large-headed Guardian was cunning—he immediately retreated to the rear, letting the Green Lanterns take the front lines.
"Evil power, my ass. You're just ignorant!" Thea wouldn't let them slap that label on her.
Was your soul evil? If you had a soul, did that make you evil? Even Highfather wouldn't dare call himself evil. Of course, he probably ignored it to avoid ending up on Darkseid's side. The big shots hadn't spoken—who did these little blue men think they were?
Countless Green Lantern constructs surged toward her. The large ones included various spacecraft and unknown machines. The smaller ones ranged from cold weapons to bizarre firearms, all flooding in chaotically.
Thea glanced casually. She'd long passed the stage of competing in construct battles. These attacks might seem unstoppable to ordinary people, but to a New God, they were flashy but useless.
As if to mock the Green Lanterns, she used the soul power swirling around her to form soul armor constructs.
Strong willpower constructs would be resisted by her soul power. Weak ones would be directly absorbed and become part of the soul.
If she could master all seven emotional spectrums, she could use her Soul Godhood to connect them to an Emotion Godhood. What had been a vague idea became increasingly clear after obtaining the Soul Godhood.
Unfortunately, the universal laws seemed unwilling to allow any deity to obtain Emotion Godhood. The resistance was tremendous.
The more emotions she mastered, the harder it became to acquire new ones. Her previously well-developed Rage emotion had regressed significantly after she obtained Hope.
Fortunately, the universal laws hadn't completely blocked the path. Emotion Godhood was theoretically still attainable—it just required more effort.
The Green Lanterns' assault concluded. Thea didn't counterattack. She vaguely understood the Guardians' intentions. She'd overestimated their commitment to justice.
If she'd offered them some benefits upfront, given how they treated the Green Lanterns as tools, convincing them wouldn't have been difficult. Unfortunately, she'd come empty-handed asking them to deploy forces, directly triggering the conflict.
She'd been dealing with too many righteous people lately. She'd gotten sloppy. Still, she wouldn't back down. These paper tigers weren't worth the price.
Though she did feel some regret seeing so many justice-minded Green Lanterns.
The Green Lanterns had built up some magic resistance through constant exposure to the emotional spectrum, plus their different species, but against soul divine power, it might as well not exist. One large-scale soul extraction would wipe them all out.
The problem was extraction was easy, but putting souls back was hard. Without Death Godhood, extracting their souls would kill them all. Massacring over a thousand righteous Green Lanterns didn't seem appropriate.
But anyone who dared attack the Soul Goddess had to be taught a lesson.
She'd memorized the soul signatures of everyone who'd attacked her. With a slight finger motion, she activated their souls, drawing mysterious energy from the depths of their beings in reverse. Soul combustion!
The Green Lanterns suddenly noticed gray-white flames flickering on their green uniforms. Before they could process what was happening, they felt soul-deep trembling. Those with strong wills staggered to the ground. Those with weaker wills coughed up blood.
"I showed mercy this time. Next time you dare attack me, watch your lives." Thea glared coldly at the Green Lanterns scattered across the ground. Someone once said groups of five or more Green Lanterns always get wiped out—truly words of wisdom... She shouldn't have come to Oa at all.
That said, the universe was vast and full of surprises. Among the Green Lanterns recruited from across the cosmos, there really were some freaks. She spotted several who seemed barely affected by the soul combustion.
One guy seemed to have a talent for turning himself to stone—he'd resisted most of the soul combustion through transformation. Several plant-like beings had turned into liquid water and similarly endured the soul fire.
Worth noting were the Guardian small blue men. They'd been affected the least.
Thea observed carefully, growing more shocked the longer she looked. "You didn't just abandon emotion—you severed your self-will too?"
"Emotion is a cage. Self-will represents desire." The large-headed Guardian spoke with a hint of pride.
"So you exiled Ganthet? Abandoned your only companion who retained emotion?"
Hal Jordan, who'd been watching from the sidelines, exclaimed in shock. "Ganthet isn't sick? He was exiled?"
The few Green Lanterns who'd met Ganthet looked uncomfortable. Ganthet was arguably the most humane Guardian. If he'd truly been exiled... they couldn't help but imagine the implications.
"Ganthet betrayed our founding principles. Emotion only makes one weak. Your attack methods can't harm us." The ten blue men generated multicolored energy beams between their hands, sealing off Thea's escape routes from all directions.
"Pretty confident, aren't you? You've underestimated the methods of the soul—underestimated the New Gods." Thea's entire body became wreathed in gray cyclones as she engaged the ten blue men in battle.
Both sides chose to clash with pure energy. The sky became painted with their energy overflow. Multicolored lights filled the heavens while the gray mist was shattered repeatedly, but its tenacity allowed it to swallow the multicolored lights whenever it found an opening.
As the universe's most ancient race, the Guardian blue men truly possessed formidable power. In their prime, each had been Superman's equal. However, they'd been deceived by the First Lantern, pooling their entire race's power to forge the very first power ring. This had consumed most of their essence. Their current strength was less than thirty percent of their peak.
Thea wielded magic in her left hand and her whip in her right. Countless elemental spells flew forth while soul fire constantly wove between the blue men. Different energy attributes occasionally triggered explosions, expanding the battlefield and forcing many Green Lanterns to retreat from the center.
"The Guardians are actually this powerful?!" Many Green Lanterns shared this reaction. They'd always thought the Guardians were just decorative mascots, that universal peace was maintained by the Green Lanterns themselves. Now the energy the Guardians unleashed showed them how wrong they'd been.
"Your Earth comrade—should we help her?" Kilowog, Hal Jordan's friend with a massive hippopotamus-like head, asked in his deep voice.
After years of experience, Hal Jordan had developed some leadership qualities and was no longer as hot-headed as in his youth. He studied the battlefield carefully. Though Thea was fighting one against ten, he honestly couldn't tell who was winning.
"Let's wait and see."
"Will you go support Earth?" Kilowog asked quietly. But with his oversized head and mouth, plus his unique vocal cords, even his deliberately lowered voice—which he tried to muffle with his hand—was as loud as a normal person shouting.