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PHANTOM ZONE -
The world around Arthur was silent, so silent it felt like sound itself had been stripped away.
He floated there, weightless, in a sea of pale blue and white haze. The air or whatever passed for air glowed faintly like mist. There was no clear distinction between ground and sky, only layers of shifting light, like clouds made of memory. The horizon stretched endlessly, and even that seemed weird to look at.
Arthur glanced down at his hands.
They weren't… solid.
His fingers looked translucent, each movement leaving behind a faint echo of himself—a ghostly outline that lingered for a heartbeat before fading. The same was true for his body; every edge of him blurred and wavered, as though the world refused to acknowledge his existence fully.
He flexed his hand, turning it over. "So this is the Phantom Zone…"
His voice felt strange hollow, carried through an endless void where nothing should echo yet everything did.
He slowly began to drift downward or what his mind decided was down. Beneath him, there were shapes that resembled mountains, but their color was undefined, smeared in shades of blue-white light. They looked more like memories of mountains than the real thing.
"A place where time itself ceases as a concept," he murmured, his tone curious, almost reverent. "Where even the laws of matter aren't quite sure if they exist."
His boots brushed against what should've been ground it looked solid enough but the instant he put weight on it, it flickered. His leg went straight through, as though he'd stepped through fog.
Arthur froze. His eyes narrowed, scanning the expanse again. In the distance, he could see… things. Shapes drifting through the haze. Some humanoids twisted into forms that defied logic, beings, and monsters that were unrecognizable.
A chill not of cold, but of understanding ran through him.
"Nothing here is tangible," he said softly. "Everything's… perception."
He crouched mid-air, eyes gleaming faintly violet as he let the logic form in his head. 'This realm bends to will, not physics. A strong will.'
He straightened slowly, his voice lowering to a thoughtful whisper. "I get how it works… This place doesn't follow time, doesn't follow reality it follows mind. The stronger your will, the more solid your world becomes."
Arthur closed his eyes and took a slow breath. He wasn't just existing here he was imposing himself upon the void. His power, the sum of who he is and what he refused to yield had to define the rules now.
When his eyes opened again, violet light flared across them like fire.
He stepped forward.
This time, his foot met something solid. The ground shimmered beneath him, like reality briefly remembered how to obey. His shadow spread faintly beneath him a strange thing to see in a place that shouldn't have light.
He smirked faintly. "There we go."
A faint tremor rippled through the distant haze, as if the zone itself had acknowledged his presence. Somewhere far away, a faint, distorted voice howled in the void, neither near nor far, but everywhere at once.
And then just barely he could feel H'El's presence. Distant and full of wrath.
Arthur adjusted his gauntlets, his form now glowing faintly brighter, more defined against the unreal landscape. His smirk deepened, quiet and dangerous.
A ripple pulsed through the emptiness of the Phantom Zone and a notification materialized before him in glowing script:
[Warning: Any further acts of disturbance will provoke hostility from those that dwell in the Phantom Zone.]
Arthur tilted his head, reading it twice before his eyebrow arched.
"Those that dwell in the Phantom Zone?" he murmured. His voice carried oddly, a hollow echo swallowed by the dimension's emptiness. "Is that even possible…? I didn't think the prisoners trapped here still had enough will left to pose a threat."
He smiled "No matter," he muttered, flexing his fingers, violet aura stirring faintly around him. "Bring it on."
He raised a hand, shadows swirling faintly around his palm flickers of familiar darkness trying to take shape. The air or whatever passed for it rippled violently.
The ground below him, if it could even be called that, shuddered. The Zone itself seemed to notice. And a soldier emerged kneeling it's form almost ethereal than shadow in this realm but it still managed to take shape.
Arthur frowned and immediately dismissed the summoning with a sharp wave of his hand.
"Just wanted to make sure," he said under his breath.
The tremor didn't stop.
The dimension groaned. The outlines of faraway shapes mountains? corpses? Souls? shivered as if recoiling from his presence.
He ignored it, eyes narrowing as he saw someone.
Floating some distance ahead, the faint ghost of a man form transparent, energy unstable. The phantom's face was twisted in confusion and disbelief, his hair adrift in the void's false wind.
H'El.
Arthur approached slowly, each step leaving faint violet ripples. He was the only solid figure in this world of ghosts a walking anomaly, radiating will strong enough to warp the Zone itself.
H'El's eyes snapped toward him, their faint glow flaring weakly. His voice came through broken, hollow, distorted by the emptiness itself.
"You…" The word dragged, echoing endlessly. "You brought me here, you… bastard!"
Arthur chuckled, a low, amused sound that carried like thunder in this still realm.
He began circling the clone slowly, like a predator amused by wounded prey.
"How horrible," he said, tone light but cruel. "I thought you had a stronger will than this. You look like a ghost already."
H'El roared and lunged, his fist swinging through Arthur's chest only for it to pass cleanly through, scattering faint wisps of shadowy vapor.
Arthur didn't flinch. He simply tilted his head, eyes glowing brighter.
"Watch closely."
He drew his arm back and punched.
The blow landed.
The air itself cracked, the sound muffled yet deafening, like reality had just remembered what impact was supposed to mean.
H'El screamed. It wasn't a normal cry it was a wail, a soul-deep shriek that tore through the silence and made the Phantom Zone itself shudder. Distant figures faint silhouettes of forgotten prisoners and things without names twitched awake, their hollow eyes flickering open in the far horizon.
Arthur lowered his fist, violet light still bleeding off his gauntlet.
"I shouldn't stay here for long." he said softly, almost kindly. "So I'll just make this quick."
H'El's head rose slowly, rage burning dimly through his translucent features.
"Bastard," he spat, voice breaking apart like glass.
It echoed faintly through the Phantom Zone fragmenting, splitting, bouncing back distorted. The sound didn't travel like it should have; it twisted, echoing in every direction at once.
Arthur said nothing. He only stared at H'El a bit.
The blue-white haze around them pulsed faintly with their tension, mountains of mist curling like smoke in the distance. Then without a gesture, without a sound a shape began to form in Arthur's hand.
A blade of pure shadow unfurled from his palm, manifested through his shadow ring. Smoke bled off its edges, curling in threads of black and violet. The handle was simple an extension of his will more than an object.
Arthur's eyes began to glow. Deep violet light burned within them, sharp and unwavering, cutting through the ghostlike atmosphere. His expression didn't change calm, almost eerily detached.
H'El, half-corporeal and disoriented, stared at the weapon with growing fury and fear twisting together. "I will endure.."
Arthur moved.
There was no warning.
The sword plunged forward, its movement almost silent, the dimension itself muffling the sound of violence. When the tip of the blade met H'El's chest, there was resistance a strange, rubbery density, as though the Phantom Zone itself hesitated to allow it. Arthur's brow furrowed slightly, pushing through that barrier, and then
It gave way.
The sword drove through him, fully and completely.
H'El's body arched, eyes widening, mouth open in a soundless scream that only found its voice a moment later a raw, hollow wail that tore through the fabric of the Phantom Zone.
Waves of distortion rippled outward from the point of impact. The ground if it could even be called that fractured in glowing veins of light, the blue-white around them flickering as if the Zone itself blinked.
Arthur watched in silence, his glowing eyes narrowing slightly as he pulled the sword free. The edges of it hissed with vaporized light, droplets of whatever made up H'El's essence dripping into nothingness.
"It's not enough isn't it," Arthur murmured, voice calm but low.
He turned slightly, the faintest smirk tugging at the edge of his mouth until something shifted.
The air around him grew dense. The haze in the distance began to churn, and from the folds of the endless mist… shapes began to move. Dozens. Then hundreds.
Indistinct, drifting silhouettes beings without form, yet filled with hunger. Faces flickered within the fog, hollow eyes watching, curious or wrathful, it was hard to tell.
Arthur straightened, violet light deepening in his eyes. "So those are the dwellers…Or the prisoners, whatever they are." he muttered.
He twirled the sword once in his grip, the smoke trailing elegantly, as the figures began to close in.
"Guess I've made some noise," he said softly.
/-\
If you Like this story! Check out my other stories! Solo leveling in Westeros.
&
If you wish to read more or simply support me than check out my patreon at
"https://www.patreon.com/FrenzyAren"
You can Get Access to 3 More Chapters OR 7 More Chapters if you want