"You're trying to reforge the Tenth Metal?" Daniel asked, curious.
"Yep."
"Can you even do that without the World Forge?"
Thea grinned with satisfaction. "I can. You can't."
She ignored Daniel's indignant expression and turned her gaze toward the deepest reaches of the Dark Multiverse.
That was its core—the place once known as the World Forge.
Just as she'd once explained to Batman and the others: beyond the Monitors and the Anti-Monitor, the rules of creation had included a third figure—the World Forger.
The Monitors create. The Anti-Monitor destroys. And the World Forger—like an antivirus program running in the background—quarantined, cleaned, and purged every nightmare and destabilizing element, keeping the world developing in a smooth and orderly fashion.
At least, that had been The Presence's original design. But everything changes with time. The Monitors developed the concept of self—they refused to perish alongside the universes the Anti-Monitor consumed. They fought back, won, and relinquished creation in favor of observation.
The Anti-Monitor, even more so. A champion of self-determination, he'd rather cripple himself than surrender his freedom. Eventually, Thea let him go.
This cascade of upheavals inevitably reached the third figure as well. A single horseshoe nail snowballed into an avalanche. The variable that began with Bruce Wayne accumulated and compounded until, by the time it reached the World Forger, it had become a flood. He was killed by his own assistant—the dragon whose purpose was to devour nightmares.
That dragon renamed itself Barbatos and nested in the deepest pit of the Dark Multiverse, where it had remained until Diana's challenge today.
To refine Nth Metal into Tenth Metal from nothing, Thea's first step was to study how the World Forge actually operated. The World Forger had used it for eons—he had to have developed methods worth borrowing.
Daniel watched his boss crane her neck and stare into the abyss for what felt like an eternity. Just as he was about to suggest she take a break, Thea let out a sigh of relief.
"Oh, that's it? I thought it'd be harder than this."
Slender fingers brushed the surface of the metal mountain. Thea closed her eyes. No hammer, no anvil, no flame—once she understood the process, she could refine the metal through will alone.
Pinpoints of light began to glow. Nth Metal—or rather, the Ninth Metal—was purified and distilled down to its primordial essence. This was the Tenth Metal. Element X. The metal that embodied the fundamental forces of the universe.
Thea raised her hand and sent the Tenth Metal streaming into the Dark Multiverse.
Barbatos caught sight of it instantly. He realized her intent and moved to intercept.
"Too late, you fool!" Diana laughed, lassoing Barbatos by the throat. She hauled with every ounce of strength, dragging him two steps backward.
Then the flames on her sword guttered out—replaced entirely by the Fire of Justice. She raised the blade and carved two massive gashes across his unguarded back.
Seeing that he couldn't stop the metal's dispersal—and having been hauled back twice by Diana when he tried to disengage—Barbatos turned to resume his assault on her.
Across the Dark Multiverse, the heroes received the Tenth Metal's enhancement. Strength, speed, stamina—all surged dramatically. Their lethality against dark creatures skyrocketed to absurd levels.
The counterattack had begun.
Over his white bodysuit, Kyle Rayner now wore an additional layer of armor that gleamed like sacred battle plate. The white light of the White Lantern blazed brighter than ever in the Dark Multiverse.
With his arrival, the Seven Lantern Corps finally began to drive back the Dawnbreaker's Nightmare Constructs.
"No! Today should be your end!" The Dawnbreaker fought on, manifesting wave after wave of incomprehensible aberrations. Against the nonstop barrage from seven Corps plus the White Lantern, the Nightmare Constructs shrieked and thrashed, desperate to devour all emotion.
Behind the Dawnbreaker, a faint silhouette materialized—the residual will of the First Lantern. Throwing aside all concern for his remaining time, the First Lantern's echo began draining the universe's emotional energy on a massive scale, converting it into Nightmare Constructs to hurl at the Lanterns.
The emotion-nullifying power was formidable. The constructs, uncapped by any ring's limits, were terrifying. But the First Lantern was dead—a ghost running on fumes. That fragment of residual will plus an evil Batman's own determination, pitted against five hundred Lanterns and Kyle Rayner? Especially with Rayner clad head to toe in Tenth Metal, stacking power-ups on top of power-ups. The First Lantern's cameo as supporting grandfather plus the evil Batman—that combo was thoroughly dismantled.
The Nightmare Constructs met the White Lantern's light like snow beneath the sun and dissolved into nothing.
The Seven Corps' combined beam followed through. The Dawnbreaker's resistance was meaningless. In the end, he and his ring were annihilated by the pillar of light—every last trace erased, down to the final molecule.
The Lanterns took a brief rest before dispersing across the parallel universes to eliminate local nightmare sources.
Team Flash also received the Tenth Metal's boost. Before it arrived, they'd been on the verge of a total wipe.
The Red Death wasn't just fast and brilliant—he had a staggering arsenal of cutting-edge tech.
He even had Captain Cold's Cold Gun. Mid-sprint, he'd whip around and fire, leaving the Flash and Reverse-Flash scrambling.
The Tenth Metal's arrival leveled the speed gap.
"Caitlin, throw!" Reverse-Flash shouted, no longer caring if the enemy could hear.
The inertia-slowing grenade detonated right in the middle of the three speedsters. All three slowed to a crawl.
The Red Death cycled through several gadgets, none of which could shake the effect.
Before he could try another, the Flash and Reverse-Flash were already in front of him—strolling, yes, but in front of him.
"Heh." The Red Death realized the heavy deceleration was perfectly fair. No speed for anyone.
He threw punches without hesitation.
As it turned out, even without the Speed Force, a Batman who'd mastered 127 martial arts could still demolish a speedless Flash and Reverse-Flash.
Reverse-Flash was more scientist than fighter. Barry had gone through the police academy, sure, but his specialty was forensic evidence analysis. His hand-to-hand skills were mediocre at best—no match for the Red Death.
The Red Death used a joint lock to snap Barry's arm. He heard footsteps behind him, lunged forward to create distance, then spun around. The expected ambush didn't come.
Instead, he saw Reverse-Flash holding something that looked like a camera. Reverse-Flash flashed him a grin—and clicked.
A kaleidoscope of colors detonated in the Red Death's vision.
His expression shifted—first confusion, then agony, then twisted fury. Specks of golden light began seeping from his body.
By the time the inertia grenade wore off, he was already on his knees, head in his hands.
"Is he okay?" Barry asked.
Reverse-Flash gave him a look but said nothing.
Cisco rushed over to explain the device he and Reverse-Flash had built, rattling off a stream of biology, brain chemistry, and light spectrum terminology. It sounded like it sort of made sense. In practice, not really.