Multiverse: Deathstroke

Chapter 41: Ch.40 Black Lantern Battery

The structure of the research facility was incredibly monotonous. Metallic walls painted white, and a series of halls connected like a string of candied hawthorn, gave Su Ming the feeling that this place was more like an ancient tomb than a research facility.

It was dull and oppressive. If he were one of the scientists here, he would have gone insane.

Who builds a research facility like this? Did they think that having door after door would make it safer?

Su Ming couldn't understand their thought process but had no choice but to move forward.

In the next few rooms, they encountered all sorts of monsters, all born from the experiments of these mad scientists. The methods were uniformly cruel, and the results were equally unreliable.

They had created a sponge-man that could rapidly absorb water, presumably to dehydrate Atlanteans by wiping them dry in close combat.

Then there was a convex lens-man that could gather light, probably to blind deep-sea creatures and gain the upper hand.

And then there was the creature with a fish's front half and a human's back half. What was that supposed to be? Did the scientists think Atlanteans looked like this?

All these creatures in jars or other containers were destroyed by Su Ming.

Rather than a biochemical research facility, this seemed more like a toy factory for the Amazonian government.

Cindy didn't know how to react. Earth Negative-11's Indian Hill wasn't as dangerous as Su Ming had described, which was a good thing. But seeing the Amazonian Council taking joy in killing under the guise of war, she felt a little ashamed.

War is a matter of life and death, and developing new weapons is understandable. But what were these?

"Phew... were they trying to make Atlanteans laugh themselves to death with these creations? If that's the case, I must admit they made some powerful weapons."

Cindy sighed, using the butt of her gun to prop up her chin while waiting for Barbara to open the next door. After several rooms filled with these bizarre creations, she had become numb to the grotesque displays. She even began to wonder if the Joker's ancestors had worked in a place like this.

The scientists here were definitely insane, and not just any kind of insane—they were incompetent madmen. Even Professor Pyg's creations were more reliable than theirs; at least her pig-headed voodoo dolls were genuinely terrifying.

Su Ming just quietly waited, tilting his head towards Cindy to indicate they should continue. The technology tree in this world was truly twisted. He didn't even want to talk about it.

The next door opened, revealing a familiar sight to the group.

"Zombies?" Cindy immediately opened fire. Not knowing the cause of these zombies, it was safer to use ranged weapons.

Su Ming also fired almost simultaneously, aiming at the zombies' heads based on experience and pulling the trigger.

Zombies rarely appeared in the DC Universe, but they weren't unheard of. There were always those fascinated by the mysteries of life and death, and such research often went awry.

These zombies were fast, almost sprinting, but being mindless corpses, their numbers quickly dwindled once Su Ming and Cindy secured the door.

"Are you sure it's not a virus?" Cindy asked, changing her magazine.

"Positive! If it were a virus, it would need to reproduce, and reproduction requires material energy, which would cause virus zombies to need to eat or accelerate decay." Su Ming shot a few more that got too close. Seeing Cindy had finished reloading, he began reloading himself while continuing, "Look at these zombies. This place has been abandoned for thirty years, yet they're still intact. It's likely some kind of magic."

"These madmen did manage to create a usable weapon. At least zombies don't need to breathe. They're weak, but numbers could compensate." Cindy quickly fired again, dropping another row of zombies.

"But simple corpses would move incredibly slowly underwater, again failing to consider the usage environment."

Su Ming finished off the remaining zombies with a shotgun.

There were around two hundred zombies in the room, all now lying on the ground, completely motionless. The downside was that both of their .45-caliber ammunition stocks were nearly depleted.

The group entered the room, which was filled with a stench unlike any they had encountered in previous rooms—a rotten, coffin-like odor.

The walls were covered in dried black and brown bloodstains, along with scratch marks made by fingernails. The floor had some yellowish-brown fluid of unknown origin, flowing freely.

The zombies had been treated even worse than the other creatures. They had been confined behind a simple iron fence on the walls, but over the years, the metal had rusted, and they had gotten out, running rampant in the room.

Cindy kicked a corpse over to examine it. The shriveled, tight skin, the grayish-white eyes, the exposed yellow teeth—it was the classic appearance of a zombie.

"Can't figure out the cause. Best not to touch them," she said, dropping the corpse and turning to Barbara and the others, who lacked protective gear.

Su Ming's attention was drawn to something else in the room—a seemingly ordinary object encased in a small glass display, resembling a flashlight that every household might have.

But even though no one was touching it, it emitted a black light from its front end. No flashlight had ever done that.

"I know what this is now. These zombies are magical constructs, not infectious."

He said this as he lifted the glass cover and slowly reached out to grab the small flashlight, gently holding it in his hand.

Instantly, even through his tactical gloves, a bone-chilling cold surged into his mind as if it were searching for something.

But it found nothing and quickly withdrew. Su Ming was unharmed.

He exhaled a breath of relief, placed the small flashlight into his bag, and told the others, "This is Black Lantern energy, from Nekron. I can't believe these maniacs were messing with this."

Vicki Vale was already taking notes again, while Cindy, still puzzled, asked for an explanation.

"In the universe, all light is made up of a spectrum. The seven colors each represent a different emotion, but that's not relevant now. Beyond that, there's the white light of life and the black light of death. They're the purest manifestations of abstract concepts and are extremely dangerous."

Su Ming glanced around, seeing nothing similar, so the group continued to the next area while he briefly explained.

"If white light represents life... doesn't that sound less dangerous?" Barbara asked, wheeling herself forward, her face showing a puzzled expression.

In her understanding, from childhood to now, everyone around her had always told her that life was beautiful, that death was terrifying, and that one must respect life.

But here, Deathstroke was telling her that life was... dangerous.

"Because it can spread to anything living. As long as the white light remains, those beings will never die. Imagine wanting to eat chicken and finding it can't be killed. Or wanting to harvest crops and discovering the wheat can't be killed. Or wanting to drink water only to find that the microorganisms and bacteria in it can't be killed."

Su Ming described the horrors of white light. Although in the comics, white light was still under the control of the White Lantern Guardians, here, there was already a battery storing black light energy, and who knew if white light might also appear.

And the energy in these batteries could be used by anyone, completely uncontrollable.