Nearly four billion years remained before Max would return to the age he had left behind.
Before he saw his family again.
Six billion years earlier, when he had first properly awakened in the past, that distance had seemed impossible. He had measured the journey in human years and imagined every one of them passing with the same unbearable slowness. The thought of remaining conscious for billions of years had frightened him enough that he had chosen to spend a few billion of them in stasis, convinced that no mind could endure such an expanse of time without breaking.
He had been wrong.
After emerging from the stasis Veridion had placed him under and spending millions of years as Galactus’s herald, Max had begun to understand that he no longer experienced time as a human did.
His sense of scale had simply changed. A century could pass while he explored a single region of space. A thousand years could disappear into research. Millions could be consumed by a task vast enough to hold his attention.
That was the secret his fellow Elders had discovered long ago.
Find something worth doing.
Then continue doing it.
For Max, that purpose had first been his service as a herald. He had searched for doomed worlds, evacuated civilizations, and explored unknown regions of the universe, mapping them so the knowledge could eventually be used for his Green Lantern Corps project.
Now, after all of that, his focus was on Oa.
He and Veridion had been constructing the system for a long time, although neither of them had felt the need to hurry.
They had begun with the star.
Max named it the Beacon.
It burned at the center of the system, shining white-gold. It would remain that way until the end of the universe, perhaps becoming the last star in existence to finally cease burning. Veridion had engineered it to remain stable for longer than any naturally formed star of comparable size.
Around it hung the worlds they had built.
The first was Oa.
It had begun as a rocky planet approximately three times the size of Earth. As Max’s plans expanded, so did the world. Veridion increased its diameter until Oa was nearly five times the size of Earth, though its surface gravity remained comfortable for the countless species Max hoped would one day live there.
Such a planet should not have existed.
A rocky world of that size would normally have collapsed under its own mass. Its gravity would have crushed most conventional life, while the pressure beneath its crust would have rendered the surface unstable.
Veridion and Max had regarded those concerns as engineering problems.
Celestial mechanisms buried throughout the mantle regulated the planet’s gravity, density, and internal pressure. Max had built vast structures surrounding the core, distributing stress and preventing the crust from folding beneath its own weight. He had learned how to create such mechanisms during his time with Galactus. Energy channels carried excess heat away from the interior and released it harmlessly beyond the atmosphere.
Beyond Oa, the entire system ignored normal orbital mechanics.
The eight planets did not circle the Beacon according to gravity alone. They remained precisely where Max and Veridion had placed them, held in position by Celestial gravitational anchors concealed throughout the system. Each world followed a controlled path designed to prevent collisions, maintain ideal climates, and provide clear defensive lines around Oa.
It was less a naturally formed solar system than a cosmic machine disguised as one.
At the heart of it all was Oa, which would one day become the home of the Green Lantern Corps. It would be the seat of the Corps’ government and command, as well as the location of the Central Power Battery.
It would also be Max’s home.
His center of power.
Two moons orbited the planet.
Neither had a name or purpose yet. The larger moon would likely become the system’s primary military installation. Max had not committed to the idea, but it remained the leading possibility.
For the smaller moon, however, Max was close to making a decision.
A memorial.
Every Lantern who fell in service to the Corps would be remembered there. Their names and deeds would be preserved until the end of the multiverse itself.
No one who gave their life protecting another would be forgotten.
Veridion approved of that plan.
The Celestial cared for life with a tenderness Max had not expected when they first met. Veridion had practically abandoned the rest of his species to remain here, preferring to help Max build an organization devoted to preserving life rather than continue whatever distant projects occupied the other Celestials.
During the long years they had spent repairing the ring, studying the Spectrum, and beginning work on the Central Power Battery, Max had come to know him properly.
Behind the glowing emerald armour and power beyond anything a mortal could comprehend was someone remarkably soft-hearted and kind.
Veridion loved life. That was what had drawn him to the Emotional Spectrum, which he believed was a central part of all living existence. Max agreed. The White Light was the fundamental source of all creation and the original state of the Emotional Spectrum.
Max still remembered the White Light he had encountered when he fell into the primordial void. The experience fascinated Veridion so much that they had spent years trying to understand it, though they had eventually reached a dead end.
Speak of the devil, Max thought.
He was pulled from his thoughts and looked through the wide opening at the front of the command centre.
Veridion stood several miles away, reduced to the size of a small skyscraper. His hands moved through the air as golden energy flowed into the landscape beneath him.
Mountains rose from the ground.
Stone folded upward into enormous ridges, the slopes breaking into sharp cliffs before settling into stable formations. Dust filled the sky around the Celestial as he shaped another peak and anchored it deep within Oa’s reinforced crust.
Inside the command centre, a holographic map covered most of one wall. The terrain changed in real time as Veridion worked. Elevations rose, valleys deepened, and rivers adjusted their projected routes around the new formations.
Max studied the display.
Something was wrong.
He narrowed his eyes.
The western range was too small.
He opened a communication channel.
“V.”
The Celestial stopped shaping the mountain.
“Yes, Max?”
“Make that range larger.”
Veridion turned his head toward the distant command centre.
“The current dimensions are sufficient.”
“They’re not.”
“The tallest peak already rises nineteen miles above sea level.”
“Exactly. Too small.”
There was a pause.
“If I increase its height further, I will need to reinforce the crust beneath the entire western region again.”
Max walked closer to the holographic map and expanded the mountain range with both hands.
“It won’t look right at that size.”
“The mountains serve no necessary function.”
“They serve an aesthetic function.”
“We should be working on the Central Power Battery.”
“We will.”
“You have said that for the last three hundred and fourteen years.”
“That isn’t very long.”
“You are deliberately postponing the work.”
“I am not.”
Max looked at the unfinished mountain range.
He was postponing it.
The Battery meant opening himself to Ion more fully than ever before. It meant creating a permanent channel into the Source and exposing himself to every entity within the Emotional Spectrum.
He had a plan.
Several plans, technically. He had considered how to deal with the other entities and how to ensure that he did not lose himself completely to Ion.
Yet he continued to put it off.
Max returned his attention to the map rather than acknowledge any of that.
The territory surrounding his future home had taken shape over the last several decades. Beautiful mountains encircled a broad green valley, their peaks rising above forests, lakes, and rivers fed by artificial glaciers.
It resembled Mordor.
A much prettier Mordor, but still with the mountains surrounding it on all sides it was basically Mordor.
Max liked mountain views. His love for them was what had killed him in his old life, after all. He had chosen this site because of the mountains and planned to build a vast palace surrounded by gardens that the Gardener himself had promised to maintain.
It would be a place where he could spend eternity with Firehair and Aurora.
He was certain they would love it here.
“You are postponing it,” Veridion repeated.
The Celestial rose from the landscape and began flying south.
“Where are you going?” Max asked.
“To the Battery site.”
“I thought we were finishing the mountains.”
“You may finish them yourself. I will be waiting for you.”
The communication channel closed.
Max stood alone before the holographic map.
Outside, the western mountain range ended halfway through its planned curve, leaving several unfinished peaks jutting awkwardly from the ground.
He sighed.
Max rose through the open roof of the command centre and flew south.
The unfinished mountains receded behind him as he climbed. From this height, Oa revealed itself to him. Green had begun to spread across much of the world, following the rivers and lakes Veridion had carved into its surface. Forests covered entire valleys, while broad plains stretched between mountain ranges still too young to have known their first winter.
Most of the plant life had come from the Gardener.
Ord had visited Oa several times since construction began, each time carrying seeds gathered from worlds across the universe. He treated every planting with the same care Max had seen him give his private gardens, studying the soil and climate before deciding where each species belonged.
Some forests had been designed to grow together. Others had been separated by mountains, rivers, or controlled climate zones to prevent them from competing. Oa was large enough to hold ecosystems that would never have existed beside one another naturally, and Veridion’s machinery allowed each region to maintain the conditions it required.
Ord intended to return in several years, once Max and Veridion began developing the other planets in the system.
Max passed over a forest whose trees had been brought from a world orbiting a red giant. Their trunks were pale blue and almost translucent, with wide silver leaves that turned toward the Beacon as he flew overhead. Beyond them stood another forest of immense black trees, their branches connected by sheets of golden moss that rippled in the wind.
Farther east, red grass covered a plain broken by shallow lakes. Herds of six-legged animals moved along the water, descendants of creatures rescued from a planet Galactus had consumed millions of years earlier. Max had preserved them on a world under Ord’s care, and now they had been brought here.
A flock of winged creatures rose from the grass as Max passed above. Their feathers caught the light and shifted between green, violet, and gold before they descended again.
The sky made the world stranger still. Light from the Beacon mixed with the cosmic radiance surrounding the centre of the universe, creating colours no ordinary atmosphere would have produced. Orange and yellow stretched across the horizon during the day, broken by bands of blue, violet, and green.
Night was even more spectacular.
Aurora would love growing up here, in this paradise.
As he neared the equator, the Central Power Battery became visible.
A vast lantern-shaped structure rose from the surface, its emerald frame surrounded by platforms, towers, and unfinished buildings. Even at this distance, it dominated the horizon. Its upper chamber alone was larger than several cities combined.
What stood above the surface was only a fraction of the full structure.
Most of the Battery extended underground. Max and Veridion had carved out nearly the entire equatorial region beneath Oa, creating a connected network of chambers that reached deep into the planet. The main energy channels followed the curve of the equator, forming a ring around the world before branching toward the poles.
The deepest sections descended almost to the core.
Every component had been constructed through painstaking work, using systems reverse-engineered from his damaged ring.
Every part required testing.
Then more testing.
They had spent centuries constructing the containment layers alone, and it would take many more to complete the Battery fully, let alone begin creating the rings.
The Power Stone and Mind Stone had accelerated the process considerably, but their greater purpose lay within the finished Battery itself. The Power Stone would serve as the Battery’s primary power source, giving it enough strength to project green light across the entire universe. The Mind Stone would act as an amplifier and control system. It would take the stream of green light drawn from the Source and direct it, allowing the Battery to recognise every connected ring, maintain its bond with each bearer, and regulate countless flows of power simultaneously. Together, the Stones would allow the Battery to contain, organise, and propagate that energy across impossible distances.Without them, the process would have taken far longer.For these reasons, both Infinity Stones would remain permanently housed within the Battery, protected by systems designed to prevent anyone other than Max or Veridion from removing or misusing them.
Max continued toward the Battery, then slowed as he spotted something on the ground.
Someone stood on one of the hills below.
A woman.
Her skin was a pale shade of purple, and a thin veil covered her head and fell across her shoulders. The clothing beneath it revealed much of her arms and torso, as well as her generous assets.
She was watching him.
Max stopped in the air.
She was a cosmic being, or perhaps something even greater, on the level of Eternity. That much Max immediately realised.
He blinked.
The woman vanished.
“What the…”
Max descended.
He landed where she had been and extended his senses through the surrounding area. Everything appeared completely normal.
“Huh.”
He looked toward the distant trees, then up at the sky.
Whoever she had been, she was gone.
Later.
Veridion was already waiting, and Max had delayed long enough.
He rose from the hill and resumed his flight.
The upper entrance of the Central Power Battery opened as he approached. Max descended through the central shaft, flying past platforms and machinery that extended into the depths, before entering the central chamber.
Veridion stood near the far side. He had reduced his size and was now only slightly taller than Max.
Between them stood a transparent container.
His ring floated inside it.
Several instruments surrounded the chamber, directing narrow beams into the ring.
Veridion studied the results as they appeared in the air around him.
Max walked toward the cylinder.
The ring looked almost whole. Damage still remained within its deepest systems, particularly the pathways that housed its intelligence, but most of it had been repaired. Its surface was no longer completely blackened. It now looked much as it had before being damaged during the fight with Doom.
“Soon, Jade,” Max murmured as he stared at it.
They had managed to reactivate her one week earlier.
One Oan week, which was longer than Earth’s. Jade had remained conscious for less than three seconds before the damaged pathways failed and forced Veridion to shut her down.
Once Jade returned, their work would accelerate. She understood the ring better than either Max or Veridion ever could. More importantly, she would become the caretaker of the Central Power Battery and help oversee the corps and create the AI in the new power rings.
Max looked away from the ring and faced Veridion.
“We had a visitor.”
Veridion’s attention shifted fully toward him. “Who?”
“I don’t know. She left before I could identify her, but she was powerful.”
“Where?”
“On a hill north of here.”
Veridion was silent for a moment as he searched the planet’s systems.
“No unknown presence was detected.”
“Of course not.”
“We should investigate.”
“We will. After this.”
The Celestial watched him carefully.
“Are you ready?”
Max looked at the floating ring.
“No.”
Veridion waited.
Max held out his hand. “But let’s do it anyway.”
The containment cylinder opened.
The ring flew from the chamber and settled around his finger. Emerald light moved across his hand, then spread briefly through the lines of his armour.
Veridion stepped closer.
“To power the Battery, you must establish a gateway to the Source. The opening must remain small and controlled.”
“How small?”
“At first, no larger than the connection already maintained by your ring.”
Max nodded.
“The gateway must be opened within the core chamber. Once established, the Battery will draw a continuous stream of energy from the Source and distribute it through the equatorial conduits.”
Max turned toward the passage leading deeper into the structure.
“Let’s do this.”
He stepped from the platform and descended.
The central shaft narrowed as it approached the planet’s interior.
Veridion’s voice entered his mind. “The connection must be opened gradually.”
“I know, V. You just told me.”
“If another entity attempts to enter through the gateway…”
“I know, Veridion.”
A short silence followed.
“Proceed.”
Max reached the core chamber.
It was a vast spherical space. The planet’s molten core moved beyond the transparent barriers, filling the chamber with red-gold light. Thousands of channels extended from the chamber in every direction, running across the walls before disappearing into the larger structure of the Battery.
This was where the gateway would be opened.
Max landed on the platform at the centre of the chamber and sat in a lotus position.
He rested his hands upon his knees and closed his eyes.
Ion.
Max breathed out and reached for it.
Emerald light flowed from the ring and spread around his body. It entered the platform beneath him.
One by one, the channels began to glow.
Max closed his eyes.
For several moments, nothing happened.
Then he reached inward.
Ion answered.
The core chamber vanished.
Max opened his eyes inside the Source.