The Guardians, who'd lived for hundreds of millions of years, didn't understand intelligent life's thinking. They forcibly imposed their own thought patterns on the universe. Seventy percent of major cosmic events could be attributed to these little blue men meddling according to their own ideas.
Day couldn't understand night. Different life levels meant different perspectives and heights. Thea couldn't figure out what she'd said that resonated so strongly with Ganthet. This world's timeline was already chaotic enough. Now with her constant interference added in, who knew how it would develop?
Future problems for the future. The ring remnants in her hand urgently needed processing.
Finding a cave on a nearby planet, she began careful examination. The more she looked, the more her heart ached.
Hal Jordan and Sinestro were both idiots. Their mutual attacks had literally blown the ring apart through sheer energy impact.
Thea released her own ring, using fear emotion to communicate with the residual energy in the fragments.
Her control over mental power now far exceeded these Lanterns. They were all one-shot deals—everyone's mental power was whatever they were born with. No training methods existed. Whatever amount they had was it. Virtually no growth afterward.
With weak mental power of their own, they relied on so-called "willpower" to control emotion. Those with strong willpower like Hal Jordan could graduate in three days and defeat their master badly enough to send him to the Antimatter Universe in five.
Other professions had a process of "easy to learn, hard to master," requiring gradual progress. Lanterns needed no accumulation at all. Working for a lifetime versus three days made little difference. Skill levels were obvious at a glance. This stemmed from lacking mental power assistance—they could only stupidly rely on personal will to withstand emotion's impact.
Thea now felt these little blue Guardian bastards were playing possum. With just slight contact, she could tell Ganthet had practiced mental power or some higher-level internal force. They knew mental power would help Lanterns but deliberately pretended ignorance, watching Lanterns use personal will to grind against universal will.
The results spoke for themselves. Even iron-willed people like Sinestro and Hal Jordan had been forced to die and live, live and die repeatedly—obvious proof.
Though thinking from their position wasn't incomprehensible. Thea also held things back when acting. Just not this excessively. They weren't holding back one hand—more like seven or eight.
Communication between ring and remnants wasn't smooth. The two rings had been separated too long. The remnants hadn't really recognized Thea originally. Now it needed an "even more" added.
Unfortunately for them, Thea wasn't a regular Lantern—not one of those ordinary people who became helpless without their rings.
She directly activated demon magic to melt and refine it. Some residual wills could submit happily or submit unhappily—choice was theirs! If she couldn't handle Ganthet, that was one thing. If she couldn't handle a single ring after all these years of effort, that would be pathetic.
She mixed in a trace of faith power. The ring remnants completely couldn't withstand it. Yellow particles continuously flew into her ring.
The originally pale yellow ring's color gradually deepened. Weak resistance got suppressed by force. Strong resistance got converted by faith power. The fusion speed steadily accelerated. During the merger, Thea tried imprinting her mental mark within. The ring barely resisted before accepting ownership.
With this mark, her control deepened several levels.
Even if Sinestro jumped out now shouting until his throat was hoarse, the ring wouldn't acknowledge him. Want a yellow ring? Forge a new one himself.
After four hours of effort, all remnants were absorbed. The color depth exceeded what Sinestro had wielded.
The ring emanated a sunrise-like golden yellow. Thea immediately closed her eyes to sense it.
Constructs, protective shields, high-speed flight, wormholes—all basic functions present.
Her original ring's functions—phase shift, spatial warping, teleportation, Kryptonian charging—all preserved.
The fear instillation ability that had originally been split half and half between them was complete again. Though this ability she'd long been able to cast through spells anyway. For her current self, it meant little.
Energy twin, environmental playback, invisibility, light refraction, cellular regeneration, energy absorption and other functions were also acquired one by one.
The energy twin function's explanation wasn't clear. She tested it on site. The ring would release an energy duplicate her size at a designated location. While the duplicate existed, the main body remained still. The duplicate could move at extremely high speed. After canceling emotion support, the duplicate returned to the main body, transferring learned knowledge to the ring bearer.
"Seems like a learning ability?" Thea didn't see how useful this duplicate was. It couldn't speak, was entirely yellow-glowing—anyone could tell it was fake.
The only benefit was it could go to many dangerous places. The main body stayed outside while the duplicate ignored all traps, high-speed moving inside to memorize things, then regardless of life or death bringing knowledge back to the main body.
Two rings remerging—many functions she'd once envied were now useless. Thea wasn't used to wearing it every time she needed something. Casual spellcasting was far more convenient and quick than the ring.
"Sigh, I'm already this strong!" Recalling initial experiences felt like yesterday. For ordinary people, the ring was ascending to heaven in one step. For her, merely icing on the cake.
The ring's emotion amplification function was still affected by the previous shattering. Thea's original ring could amplify emotion to one hundred fifty times. Now with two rings merged, emotion amplification hadn't even broken two hundred forty times—a full thirty percent less than her estimate.
Checking the time, Deadman and the others had probably already arrived. Thea didn't delay. She tested the new ring's wormhole.
Faster and more stable. Full-speed flight could exceed light speed. This world's first yellow ring truly lived up to its reputation.
This power and speed were genuinely intoxicating. Thea herself couldn't fly this fast. And this was just the incomplete first yellow ring.
Like the First Lantern—not distinguishing between seven colored lights, directly obtaining the universe's first ring gathering all primal emotions—power instantly elevated beyond True God to the peak. Casually modifying history, altering reality showed emotion energy's impact on personal will was simply crushing.
Thea didn't want to become emotion's slave. However, she also didn't avoid eating for fear of choking. The ring was just a tool to her. If not for automatically changing into that slightly embarrassing tight suit every time she wore it, she might use it more often. Now? Optional at best.
Arriving at Grudd's planet, Deadman, Fiora, and Grudd—three official Yellow Lantern Corps members—were all waiting for her.
Thea briefly explained the situation. Considering Sinestro's later period massively recruiting soldiers to counter three thousand six hundred sectors' Green Lanterns, Korugar's Yellow Lantern Corps currently had at least over a thousand people.
Over a thousand temporary workers who hadn't been confirmed by the Book of Parallax!