Milk_Is_My_Drug
patreon
Chapter 101: The Shadow Army
🕑 Added 2025-07-18 08:00:05 +0000 UTCSilence fell upon the battlefield.
The maddened chaos that had raged across the ruined city ceased as though time itself held its breath. The wind whispered over shattered buildings and broken steel. Even the cries of pain and the mechanical whirring of Darkseid's war machines faded to nothing. All eyes turned to the trembling shadows. The shadow monsters and knights. The shadows of broken walls. The shadows of corpses. Of fallen titans. Of heroes and villains alike.
They all shook.
So did the shadows under the feet of Darkseid’s soldiers, his soulless, reanimated warriors and Paradooms alike. They began to move unnaturally, shivering like leaves in a hurricane. Even the other invaders, those monsters born from the fires of Apokolips, paused. Fear crept into them, inexplicably, irrationally.
Beru's terrified words rang in everyone's ears: “My king… is furious.”
Then, a rip in reality split open in front of Ace and Courtney, glowing with ominous, swirling purple. From it, two figures emerged.
Ashborn stepped through first.
His mere presence was a weight that pressed against the world. Jet black eyes. Glowing purple pupils. No expression. No kindness. No humanity. Just wrath restrained behind unfathomable control. Beside him stood Amazo, his frame transforming into his golden 3-meter form, glaring forward with uncontained fury.
Ace, still on her knees, blood and tears streaming down her face, looked up. “Grandpa Rex… he… he died… to protect me…”
Ashborn’s gaze did not soften. “I know.”
Amazo’s hands clenched, but Ashborn raised one of his own, still and calm. “Not this time,” he said. His eyes shifted toward Galatea’s distant figure, broken and mourning.
He began walking.
Step after step over the wreckage of what was once his home. His eyes scanned the aftermath: the shattered remains of Shadow Corp Tower; the bodies of Jinx and Blue Beetle lying cold and still; the other titans injured and scattered; Kyd Wykkyd’s lifeless form near the sobbing Bill, Mammoth and Gizmo.
Shops he visited. Streets he once walked with friends. Laughter, now echoes lost in smoke. People he knew in person, others he knew about, civilians, villains and heroes. His home was filled with destruction and death.
Ashborn’s gaze rose slowly… and locked onto Darkseid.
For the first time in this life, Ashborn felt pure hatred. His fury was not fiery, but cold. Absolute.
Darkseid narrowed his glowing eyes. “So, you are the controller of these black creatures. An interesting ability. Swear loyalty to me, and I shall spare you and a few of your choice.”
Ashborn stopped walking. His voice, quiet but sharp as a blade, echoed through the broken city “Spare me? You… a puny god… think you can spare me?”
A pulse of shadow erupted from beneath his feet.
It spread like a wave in every direction. From it, thousands of shadows rose, menacing, imposing. Yet… they were different from before. Their energy once a swirling mix of black and blue, now shimmered with violent purple.
Beru. Igris. The entire existing army shifted, darkened. Stronger, glowing purple. Faster. Now they were wrath incarnate.
And they moved.
Like the opening of a dam, the shadow army surged forward. What had been a close match became a massacre. Igris tore through Steppenwolf and the Furies as if they were made of paper. Doomsday crushed Grail and Dark Supergirl beneath his heel.
Beru collided with Darkseid again and this time, the tide had turned. Each strike Beru landed forced the New God back. His speed, his strength now equal, if not greater.
Darkseid snarled, body showing signs of damage for the first time. “ENOUGH!” A wave of Omega energy blasted Beru back. “You think this is the limit of my army?!”
In response, boom tubes tore through the sky.
Hundreds of them.
Tens of thousands of Paradooms emerged, their snarls echoing. Behind them, hundreds of thousands of Parademons screeched into the atmosphere, descending like locusts.
The heroes gasped. Even Superman’s expression fell into despair. “That’s… impossible…”
But Ashborn stood, unmoved. His voice was ice. “No army in existence can rival mine.”
And with that…
The city itself changed.
Rivers of shadows poured outward like a living sea. The ground twisted and cracked as hundreds of thousands of shadow soldiers emerged. Not just humanoid ones, giants as tall as skyscrapers rose. Drakes, beasts, monstrosities from forgotten nightmares, every kind of creature spilled out, filling the ruins.
And it wasn’t over.
Over the sea, new purple gates opened, larger ones. From one of them stepped a titanic being, dwarfing even the tallest buildings, the demon lord Trigon. Dragons of unimaginable size soared out behind them, their roars shaking the skies.
Then… the sky changed. An enormous purple gate opened above them all, stretching to every visible edge of the world. And from it, they descended.
Millions.
An endless tide of shadows, warriors of every kind, of every race. Creatures that seemed from myths, soldiers from different worlds, beings unlike anything this multiverse had ever seen. They fell from the heavens like stars going to war.
The battlefield stood frozen.
Even Darkseid himself stared at the sky, for the first time… truly stunned.
Ashborn’s voice rang calmly across the battlefield. “Earth is too small to host my whole army. But this won’t change the outcome.”
From the rivers of shadows, millions of glowing purple eyes stared directly at Darkseid. But didn’t raise, they waited. For their king’s command.
And for the first time, the defenders of Earth realized the true horror of Ashborn’s power.
Ashborn’s voice cut through the thick air like divine decree.
“Eradicate them and bring me that puny god on his knees.”
It was not just a command. It was judgment.
The silence of awe shattered into a cacophony of screams, roars, and devastation. The heroes of Earth , those still standing, watched as the tide turned from overwhelming to apocalyptic. Darkseid’s army, once an unstoppable force, was now prey.
From the skies, the shadows rained destruction.
Spears made of solid purple energy fell in showers, piercing through Paradooms and Parademons with surgical precision. Where the dragon shadows flew, their roars alone disintegrated the creatures of Apokolips. The world trembled. Storms formed from the sheer velocity of their wings.
The ground below was no safer. Thousands of humanoid shadow warriors, clad in armor sculpted from the essence of death, shot through the air, carving Paradooms as if they were paper.
Amidst the massacre, Darkseid stood. But he was no longer the fearsome conqueror towering above the battlefield.
Before him stood a knight, a colossal one.
Twice his height, clad in obsidian armor crackling with purple energy. No name was spoken. It did not need one. This was the Hand of the Shadow King.
Darkseid’s eyes blazed crimson, and the Omega Beams fired. They twisted midair, impossible to dodge, unstoppable. They struck the knight full force.
And fizzled.
The knight shrugged, took a step forward, and grabbed Darkseid by the arm.
Then came the punches.
Each blow shook the ground like an earthquake. With each strike, the god of Apokolips groaned, not in rage, but in pain. His armor cracked. His face bled.
Finally, the knight seized Darkseid by the back of the neck, dragging him across the field like a broken trophy. The corpses of his army lay shattered around him. The cries of dying Parademons still echoed.
He was thrown before Ashborn.
Forced to his knees.
Ashborn stared down at him. His voice was low, controlled.
“Where is your hubris now, god?”
Darkseid looked up, bruised and bleeding, yet unbroken in pride. “You think you’ve won?” he hissed. “I am a god. Even if you kill me now, I will return. I will continue what I started.”
Ashborn’s eyes narrowed. “I know. But you won’t come back.” His voice was still. Terrifying. “I will make sure your name is forgotten. No one will know who Darkseid was when I am done.”
Darkseid sneered through blood. “You think you can end a god?”
Ashborn didn’t answer him. Instead, his gaze flicked to the towering knight.
“Go. The rest of you as well. To Apokolips. Destroy it. Leave no living creature. Not one.”
The knight nodded and dissolved into shadow.
One by one, the titanic beasts, dragons, humanoid soldiers, and monsters turned into pure darkness, swirling together into a vortex. They rose, a black tower breaching the sky until a massive gate appeared high in the sky. The shadow tower entered the gate like an arrow of doom.
Ashborn’s voice echoed behind them.
“Your name will be eradicated from this world. No one will remember you.”
Darkseid forced himself to stand, wobbling, blood dripping from his wounds. He turned and looked around.
In less than five minutes, his army had been reduced to a few thousands.
He clenched his jaw. His eyes burned red again.
“You just sent your entire army away,” he growled. “That was your mistake.”
Nearby, several heroes were still wounded and exhausted, tensed. Even they feared this might be a misstep. Darkseid was no common foe. He was a monster. Even a wounded god could level Earth.
Ashborn, calm as ever, turned slightly toward him.
“They are not needed.” His voice dipped into the abyss. “You brought me enough.”
Then, he spoke a single word “Arise.”
And the world changed.
From every corner of the battlefield, corpses stirred. The dead, the mutilated, the crushed, the torn, rose again.
But not as themselves.
As shadows.
Darkseid's eyes widened, not in fury, but in shock as he watched hundreds of thousands of Parademons and Paradooms rise again, now bearing purple-glowing eyes and obsidian skin.
He watched as Steppenwolf rose again, his body a dark echo of the general he once was. The Furies. Even the heroes he mutilated and controlled once rose again.
His own forces… now loyal to someone else.
The heroes could hardly breathe.
Superman turned, watching as fallen Green Lanterns rose once more, not as protectors, but as part of the ever-growing army of the void. Diana’s hands trembled as she watched hundreds of fallen Amazonians rise from the blood-soaked earth, no longer bearing the spark of Themyscira in their eyes.
Ashborn’s army had grown again.
Not just in strength.
But in meaning.
These were the dead. And the dead belonged to him.
A chilling realization spread like wildfire through the remaining defenders and invaders.
The Shadow Army was built from death. From all deaths.
And now the world saw how endless it truly was.
Superman’s fists clenched as he looked around, unease blooming in his heart.
His mind racing [How many… how many has he killed to build his army?]
Darkseid, no longer looking angry, but simply desperate, took a single step back as thousands of paradooms surrounded him.
Comments
shrekk
Darkseid needs a personal beatdown from ashborn
Virgil
So satisfying. I gotta admit tho I thought he was going to turn back time then begin the massacre
