Sinestro suddenly felt that something was off.
Superman, who had been bound from head to toe by countless chains manifested by the yellow energy, simply gave up struggling.
He seemed to sigh helplessly.
"A small punishment? Sinestro… he's not like me."
"What?"
Sinestro seemed to have missed something.
Superman looked toward Viktor with mild concern.
"They won't pose much of a threat to you."
Viktor's voice suddenly appeared near Sinestro—closing the distance from far to near in an instant.
"BOOM!!"
A sound like an explosion snapped Sinestro back to his senses.
Viktor grabbed one of the lanterns by the shoulder who was restraining Superman. He locked him in place to ensure he wouldn't be sent flying, and then blew apart that grotesque head with a single punch.
"I know that dealing with these aliens that plan to invade Earth, I can guarantee not a single innocent person in Metropolis gets hurt."
In just that short moment, Viktor smashed seven more lanterns.
They all died the same way.
He would first grab a part of their body so they couldn't run… and then either punch their head apart or punch straight through their body.
This will not only protect the area and the people nearby, but also quickly defeat the enemies he chose to defeat.
Sinestro's eyes widened in anger as he charged forward to stop him. A massive yellow energy war hammer formed in his hands and slammed into Viktor's waist.
However, it shattered into a million glittering fragments with a crisp crack.
"What? How is this possible?!"
Seeing that Yellow Lantern energy couldn't harm him at all, Sinestro was completely stunned.
In fact, Viktor didn't spare Sinestro a second glance. He only twitched the corner of his mouth, and then continued flying toward the next lantern.
He would grab them… then punch.
"BANG."
The sky began raining down colorful showers of blood once again.
The Yellow Lantern Corps, which had been fully focused on suppressing Superman, started to panic.
These warriors were all elite fighters Sinestro had carefully chosen from different galaxies.
They each looked absolutely terrifying, beyond anything normal civilizations would consider normal, and they were utterly bloodthirsty.
Their greatest specialty was bringing fear to other living beings across the universe.
They crave, experts, enjoy the killing, and armed with weapons considered among the most dangerous in the universe, a single Yellow Lantern could easily overpower and conquer a weaker entire civilization.
Even monsters like them still felt something when they kill, such as wild joy, desire, twisted pleasure, and obsession.
However, Viktor was different. There was no emotion in the way he looked at them.
There's no anger, no pleasure, and no excitement.
He simply calculated flight trajectories in silence, choosing the fastest and most efficient path to destroy them.
A few of the Yellow Lanterns couldn't take it anymore.
They withdrew the energy constructs that had been restraining Superman and turned their weapons toward Viktor.
"Back off!"
A massive yellow mace exploded right on top of Viktor's head, but it didn't hurt him—except for pressing his hair down a little flatter.
"You're cutting in line?"
The Yellow Lantern, covered with a red, blood-like liquid, panicked. He raised his ring and made dozens of thick, glowing yellow walls in front of himself.
Viktor treated them as if they weren't even there. He flew straight at him, and every wall of energy that touched him instantly shattered.
In the blink of an eye, they were face-to-face.
Viktor's hand was already pressing down on his shoulder with his other hand curled into a fist, getting bigger and bigger in alien's vision as it came closer.
"N-no… don't!"
"BANG!"
Afterward, more than half of the Yellow Lanterns who were holding Superman down started to lose their nerve and hesitate.
Sinestro raised his ring in frustration.
In an instant, a giant spaceship cannon appeared that covered the sky. The barrel pointed straight at Viktor as a yellow light began building up with a tremendous hum.
Viktor glanced at the cannon muzzle, saw it was building huge power… and then calmly turned away and grabbed another Yellow Lantern.
The latter began screaming hoarsely for mercy while Sinestro roared in disbelief.
"Stop! Do you not care if the people below live or die?! There's an entire city behind you!"
Viktor said nothing.
He lifted his hand coldly and threw a punch, but he ignored him and immediately flew toward his next target.
The Yellow Lantern Corps was completely terrified now. They withdrew their rings at Superman and tried to scatter and run away.
Suddenly, a blue figure appeared in front of Sinestro, almost like teleporting, and grabbed Sinestro's arms with both hands.
As Sinestro dared to threaten the lives of all the normal people in Metropolis, Superman became angry.
"I care about this city."
With a soft crack sound and a scream of pain, the massive sky cannon collapsed into a rain of glowing particles.
Superman punched Sinestro hard, knocking him unconscious while twisting his arms behind him.
Then he turned his head and saw Viktor still coldly pursuing the Yellow Lanterns who were fleeing in all directions.
A single Yellow Lantern, which looked like a slime made entirely of acid, was caught.
He begged loudly for mercy, even voluntarily offering up the ring wrapped inside its own bodily fluid but Viktor still crushed him with a single stomp.
"I doubt Earth has a prison built to hold this many strange creatures."
The Yellow Lantern Rings floated out from the lanterns Viktor killed.
But instead of flying away from Earth to find a new bearer, they stayed and started circling around him, bouncing up and down.
It was like a bunch of little fairy spirits that had found a new master. Soon, nearly a hundred yellow rings were circling him.
On the ground, Reverse-Flash couldn't help shivering. He hadn't seen a horror like this, not even a thousand years into the future.
In the future, Emperor Viktor never recruited new Yellow Lanterns.
After killing Sinestro, Emperor Viktor turned the Yellow Lantern Corps into something like the Orange Lanterns, with the whole corps having only Himself alone.
In the original timeline, Sinestro's overthrow and death also triggered extreme vigilance from the other emotional-spectrum corps across the universe.
After Earth fell under the power of fear, both the Green Lantern Corps and the Red Lantern Corps dispatched many forces to Earth to investigate.
However, none of them ever returned.
Those Lantern Corps were puzzled by the mysterious circumstances of Sinestro's death and spent enormous effort and time before they finally managed to make contact with anyone on Earth.
That's when they learned about Emperor Viktor's body, no matter how many Lanterns they send, they're basically a free meal delivered to his door.
That led multiple emotional-spectrum corps in the future to treat Earth as a forbidden zone of the universe, and no lantern dared approach again.
...
Ten minutes later, Viktor flew back with a hundred and twenty-seven yellow rings spinning and dancing around him.
After the killing stopped, Viktor's face visibly became more "alive" and expressive again.
"Not a single resident of Metropolis has suffered any physical harm."
Superman covered his face with one hand.
"I think their mental condition might disagree. And please don't present today's performance to Diana as proof of what you learned."
Superman's words lingered in the air, heavy despite the wind still howling above Metropolis.
"You disapprove."
Viktor said flatly.
"I do."
Viktor didn't respond to that.
He was watching a citizen peer out from a shattered office window three floors up, eyes wide, face pale.
The man ducked back inside when their eyes met.
Superman stepped closer.
"You executed them."
"Yes."
"We could have—"
"No."
The word landed clean and final.
Viktor didn't elaborate.
Superman was smart enough to fill in the rest.
No prison has ever contained a hundred intergalactic criminals with weapons powerful enough to destroy a planet.
Superman knew it too.
That was the worst part.
"Viktor—"
"I'm going to check on Rachel."
He turned and dropped from the sky without another word.
...
600 POWER STONES = 1 BONUS CHAPTER
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