OBS Chapter 4467 The Black Death (4)
Chapter 4467 The Black Death (4)
Chapter 4467 The Black Death (Part 4)
Seeing the seven lamp burners laid out before him, Hal's jaw nearly dropped. He stammered, holding up a finger, "This...this...this...this..."
“Batman did it,” Schiller said very bluntly.
Hal was about to say something when he remembered Sinestro's unwavering attack on Apokolips, disregarding Earth. He took a deep breath and said, "Impressive."
"But I heard he's going to extract life force..."
"He's not stupid. Why would he waste the power of the Seven Lamps instead of draining his own life force?"
“Oh, right.” Hal realized, then said, “I’ll have to explain this to Clark later; he’s terribly worried.”
Schiller shook his head and said, "Don't tell him."
Hal looked at him with some doubt, and Schiller said, "Superman needs the power of idealism. He needs a more specific and important goal to unleash his full potential."
"Isn't this a bit much?" Hal hesitated, clearly tormented by his conscience. He said, "Will Clark really accept this kind of deception? Or do you think you can keep it from him forever?"
“You don’t understand him, nor do you understand his relationship with Batman,” Schiller said, walking around the table. “When he finds out that Batman lied to him and that Batman didn’t drain his life force, he’ll just be happy.”
Hal opened his mouth again, but couldn't refute it. If it were anyone else, he thought Clark would definitely be angry, but with Batman, it was hard to say. Their relationship was so strange that outsiders couldn't judge it.
"Did you call me here just to let me know about this?"
“Just a reminder that you don’t need to be frugal,” Schiller said, tapping the lamp burner. “The green light energy here is practically inexhaustible, and if you run out, you can draw from the emotional spectrum. You can go all out and show them what you’re made of.”
Hal immediately rubbed his hands together, saying, "Great! Finally, we don't have to worry about quotas anymore. I'll show them what Earth's Green Lantern is all about."
“There’s one more thing,” Schiller continued. “Did Seneca tell you anything about the Ring of Light outside the Legion of Colored Lights?”
Hal was taken aback, but shook his head and said, "Actually, I don't even know much about the Colored Light Group."
The "Colored Lamp Legion" that Schiller mentioned is officially called the "Colored Lamp Legion" or the "Rainbow Lamp Legion," which consists of seven colored lamps: red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, and violet. The abilities they use are collectively known as the "Power of the Seven Lamps."
Since there is a colored lamp legion, there must also be a colorless lamp legion. The black lamp power used by the Black Death Emperor belongs to the colorless lamp category. And besides colorless lamps, there is also invisible light.
Currently, in most universes, only the Colored Lantern Legion has appeared. Batmen are still researching the power of the seven lanterns. As for colorless lanterns and invisible light, most universes haven't yet explored them. This universe is no exception.
“The Black Death Emperor is the controller of the Black Lantern’s power,” Schiller said, looking at Hal. “He belongs to the Colorless Lantern Legion. And Batman has learned from a certain universe that in addition to the Black Lantern, there is also the White Lantern.”
"White light? Can it counteract the effect of black light?"
"Yes. The White Lantern's attribute is life force, which corresponds exactly to the power of death. Batman and I are searching for the existence of the White Lantern. But like other Lanterns, the White Lantern's power must have a vessel to exert its power."
Hal suddenly realized, and then said, "You've chosen me? But I've already been corrupted by the power of death. Can I really pass the White Lantern test?"
"You've been corrupted by the power of death? Really?"
Hal looked down at his arm; the lividity wasn't severe, but it was definitely there. He sighed silently; he was probably the first to be contaminated. If only he had been more alert back then, perhaps things wouldn't have turned out this way.
Schiller turned and took a bottle of wine from the cabinet beside him. Hal didn't know what he was going to do. Seeing that he didn't remember, Schiller reminded him, "Don't you remember what you drank at the Christmas dinner?"
"A Christmas dinner?" Hal was genuinely confused. Although not much time had passed, he had experienced so much recently that it felt like years had gone by, and he couldn't remember what had happened at the Christmas dinner.
Schiller handed him the bottle, and Hal peered inside; only a tiny bit of wine remained. He thought carefully for a moment, and then his memory returned. Hadn't he taken this bottle home? How did it end up in Schiller's hands?
Hal instinctively sensed something was wrong. He remembered that during his training session, he was feeling down and had taken out the expensive red wine he'd brought back from the banquet and drunk it. But when he tried to find the bottle later, he couldn't. He assumed he'd misplaced it while drunk, but it turned out Schiller had taken it?
"What are you going to do with this?" Hal asked instinctively, then realized what he meant and said, "You went to my apartment?"
Hal's expression immediately turned somewhat unpleasant. Although there was nothing shameful about his apartment, this act of trespassing on private property was still quite upsetting.
"I poisoned you." Schiller's words nearly made Hal choke to death.
“To be precise, it was me and Batman together,” Schiller said, looking down. “At our first meeting, he noticed your taste and specially chose a bottle of red wine that suited your palate. He added his specially made toxin to it.”
Hal froze, completely stunned; his brain couldn't process such outrageous information. After a long pause, he finally asked, "Toxins? What toxins?"
"The toxin that's making your training difficult," Schiller said calmly. "The problems you're experiencing during training, such as fatigue, stiffness, and shortness of breath, are because you've been poisoned."
Hal was struck dumb. Before he could ask, Schiller continued, "Of course, if you drink to drown your sorrows because of training setbacks, even more toxins will enter your body, which can cause muscle inactivation, skin bruising, and other symptoms."
"Why...why did you do this?!"
Hal recalled that when he wanted to go to the hospital for a checkup because of his symptoms, Batman intercepted him and took him to the Batcave instead. No wonder, that makes sense now.
If he had gone to the hospital for a checkup, the doctor might have been able to tell that he was poisoned. But after going to the Batcave, Batman came to the utterly absurd conclusion that "he is already dead."
“To make you believe,” Schiller said, looking into Hal’s eyes, “the power of the green light comes from belief. Only when you believe it yourself will the corresponding symptoms appear without anyone else noticing.”
Hal was still confused. He asked, "Then why did you make me show these symptoms?"
“Of course, it’s all for today,” Schiller said. “You need to make the Black Death Emperor believe that you have been corrupted by the power of death. They will think that your fall was inevitable and will not focus their attention on you.”
Hal finally understood. A feint attack while secretly ambush. So that was what Batman and Schiller were planning.
What's even more terrifying is that this plan started so early. Did they foresee the arrival of the Black Death Emperor back then?
“It was me,” Schiller said. “At that time, I roughly guessed where the power of death came from, which is why I set up such a scheme with Batman to mislead them.”
Schiller was naturally referring to the Black Death. Although the Justice League's friends and family hadn't been resurrected yet, the dark forces remained lurking in the shadows. But Schiller knew the comic book storyline. To put it bluntly, there were only a handful of villains in the multiverse with such purely negative power, and Barbatos had already been ruled out, making the Black Death's probability quite high.
So he made this suggestion to Batman. Batman didn't know where he got the information, but it never hurt to be prepared. Based on the information provided by Schiller, he developed some toxins that could give a person the characteristics of a corpse and put them in Hal's favorite drink.
After drinking, Hal felt unwell and was tricked into going to the Batcave for a checkup, where he came to an absurd conclusion. However, since Batman was the one who reached the conclusion, and all the signs indicated that things were indeed as he described, and since Sinestro didn't notice anything amiss when Hal later went to Green Lantern headquarters, Hal naturally assumed that he had indeed fallen for a trap set by the mastermind.
Sinestro once said that Green Lantern energy requires belief and imagination, that is, depth and breadth of imagination. Once Hal firmly believes in something, Green Lantern energy will react accordingly. If he feels he has become a corpse, then various characteristics that only corpses exhibit will gradually appear on his body. Therefore, even as the toxins weaken with metabolism, these characteristics will persist along with Hal's belief.
“I don’t understand,” Hal said. “Does the Black Death Emperor not know whether he attacked me or not? Doesn’t he know whether the power within me is real or not?”
“You’re not trying to fool the Black Death Emperor, but his subordinate Black Death Sun Legion,” Schiller said with a smile. “Once they see the marks on you, they’ll think you’ve been corrupted, and they won’t focus their attention on you anymore.”
Hal frowned deeply, then said, "Won't the Black Death Emperor tell them?"
Do you think the Black Death Emperor can communicate directly with his subordinates?
This question made Hal fall into deep thought. His instinctive reaction was, of course, "Why not?"
That's how it should be. How could the mastermind behind everything be unable to communicate with their subordinates personally? If they can't even communicate, what kind of war are they fighting?
But upon closer reflection, something seems off. The behavior of those resurrected relatives and friends didn't seem to be guided by a master. If the Black Death Emperor could truly guide their actions in their minds at all times, things wouldn't have turned out that way.
The most obvious example is Amanda. Amanda isn't incompetent; otherwise, she wouldn't have risen from a low-level agent to her current position. However, her biggest flaw is her arrogance once she gains power. When someone can effectively control her and keep her in a subordinate role, her abilities are quite considerable.
However, once she's allowed to make her own plans, she messes everything up. Judging from her performance this time, she's clearly not entirely controlled by the Black Death Emperor, or even significantly influenced by him; otherwise, she wouldn't have messed things up so badly.
Moreover, Damian and Steve's wavering suggests that the Black Death Emperor was not constantly monitoring and manipulating them, and may even have never communicated with them at all.
Is it that he doesn't want to, or that he can't?
Or perhaps both. Hal recalled that he had willingly absorbed the power of the Yellow Lantern to defeat Steppenwolf. At that moment, he could sense that the life form of the Yellow Lantern Parallax was completely different from that of humans.
From their perspective, there is neither the need nor the means to communicate with humans. They can use simple methods to provoke intelligent life into conflict, but they cannot directly command it, because intelligent life is far too insignificant to them.
It's like cricket fighting. You can choose the strongest cricket, prepare a cage for it, and even tamper with the grass used for the fight, but you can't control every tiny movement of the cricket, nor can you understand what it's chirping. This is the essential difference between life forms.
Furthermore, the Black Death Emperor wasn't completely free to begin with. His abilities within the multiverse are limited, and he likely can't micromanage every single subordinate. Even if he could, there would be a delay. Schiller and Batman are probably trying to exploit this time difference.