After a little discussion, they came to the fastest route for Bruce to gain power. But there are a few complications.
The spirit of the Remaker Ring stepped forward.
"Your biology is augmented. Kryptonian. Infinity-enhanced. But even that might not be enough."
The spirit of Zero, an icy figure with skin like cracked glacier glass, chimed in, voice cold as the void, "Pouring us into your mind is like shoving stars through a needle's eye. Most would shatter long before the end."
Bruce stared into the center of the ring.
"Pain?" he asked, voice flat.
"More than pain," answered The Liar, a shadowy specter with no mouth but a hundred whispering voices. "It will burn through your thoughts, reshape your sense of self. You may forget who you are. You may want to forget."
Bruce closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again. "I've already forgotten who I was more than once. But I've never forgotten why I fight."
He stepped forward. "Do it."
The Nine Spirits looked at one another.
Then Spectral, the disintegration ring, turned toward him and extended a glowing hand. "So be it."
And it began.
Phase One: Knowledge Injection
One by one, the spirits reached toward him. Their forms glowed with ancient power as they extended wisps of pure arcane data, energy compressed into thought, and concept compacted into experience.
The moment the streams touched Bruce's forehead...
"AGGHHHHHHHH!!"
The scream tore from his lungs, involuntary. His body convulsed. His eyes rolled back. He felt as if someone was pouring molten lava into his nerves.
His veins glowed with pure light, gold, blue, red, and black, as the rings' collective knowledge poured into him like molten plasma through a shattered skull.
Phase Two: Memory Overload
He was drowning in realities.
One second, he was on a battlefield where the Remaker twisted matter, turning solid stone into mist, and then reconfiguring that mist into weapons of war.
Then, his mind snapped to Spin, the Vortex Beam. Cyclones that bent gravity. Atmospheres compressed and launched like bullets. Wind as sharp as blades.
Then Influence... Impact beams that shattered tectonic plates. Compressed force that ignored armor and mass alike.
His bones vibrated under phantom pressure, each lesson felt in his flesh.
Then Nightbringer... Darkness so dense it ate light, sound, even thought. Bruce saw the void... and the void stared back. He felt his mind start to fray but he clung to memory. To laughter. To faces.
His family, friends... Everyone... He held onto those sweet memories.
His anchor.
Then came Daimonic, the ring of white light. It seared his soul. Not with pain but clarity. He saw visions. Futures. Deaths that hadn't happened. Lives yet to be lived. His own gravestone. His friends crying over a casket. Alternate timelines.
"You must protect more than just this world," Daimonic whispered. "You must protect what could be."
Then came the flame.
Incandescence.
Fire that could scorch the surface of the sun. The knowledge of how to summon flame without fuel. To shape plasma like a sculptor. To burn through the void between atoms. It ripped through his nerves, screaming in every cell.
Then came Zero, the Ice Ring.
For a brief moment, it gave him relief, cooling his burning thoughts, but then came the weight. The understanding of cold so absolute it could slow time. Freeze gods. Stop entropy.
But the worst came last.
The Liar.
A rush of thoughts not his own. Emotions that weren't his. Paranoia. Grief. Regret. Love that wasn't real. Hatred that felt too real. He couldn't trust his own mind.
"You can shape thought. Project illusions. Control the psyche." The Liar whispered in every voice Bruce had ever known. "But you must never lose track of the truth."
Phase three: Integration
Bruce fell to his knees.
His armor was cracked, his skin glowing with conflicting energies. One arm twitched with heat. The other glistened with frost. His heartbeat skipped, then surged like a god's war drum.
But he hadn't broken.
The spirits surrounded him.
Remaker: "You endured."
Spin: "You understand."
Daimonic: "You believe."
Liar: "You remember who you are."
And slowly, Bruce opened his eyes.
They glowed with radiant energy. Each color of the rings surged through his veins.
'So much power.' He thought feeling the insane energy flowing through his body.
Phase Four: Ascension
One by one, the rings began to lift from his fingers.
They hovered in the air around him, spinning in a slow, hypnotic orbit. Energy arced between them like threads of reality-defying light, each ring humming with its own unique frequency.
The spirits spoke in unison, their voices now part of the wind, part of the air, part of him.
"The rings have been awakened."
"They are extensions of you."
"Of your will."
"Of your purpose."
Bruce rose to his feet.
He didn't force it. He didn't command it. He simply willed it.
And the rings obeyed.
Each ring erupted into a stream of energy, shifting, stretching, folding, and changing form. It was even more versatile than what he could do before.
Phase Five: The Tenfold Armor
Remaker (Matter) pulsed red, breaking apart into thousands of nanoscopic shards that wrapped around Bruce's shoulders and chest, forming a semi-fluid mantle that constantly shifted shape, iron to wind, stone to light... an armor of possibility.
Influence (Impact) crackled gold, slamming itself into his forearms. From the wrists down, his armor thickened, laced with kinetic vents designed to release compressed force. Micro-pulse detonators lined his gauntlets... he could punch with the force of mountains.
Spin (Vortex) flowed like liquid silver around his back, splitting into a layered thruster array resembling folded wings. This will allow him to bend air, twist gravity, and command wind.
Spectral (Disintegration) flickered violet and etched its mark into his right hand. The gauntlet on that side thinned, sleeker, more dangerous. A focused energy line ran down the forearm to his fingertips... he could erase matter at will.
Nightbringer (Darkness) spread from the base of his spine, coating the armor in subtle, shadowlike tendrils. They weaved into the gaps between plates, absorbing light and sound. He could vanish in the open. Be unseen. Be fear.
Daimonic (White Light) forged a radiant core at the center of his chest plate, like a star burning within. From there, energy radiated outward in precise, sacred lines... armor that pulsed with clarity, with purpose.
Incandescence (Flame) burst from his left arm, forming a gauntlet etched with glowing runes. Plasma veins coursed beneath it, and vents on the knuckles hissed with solar heat. He could project flame, shape it, wield it like a sword.
Zero (Ice) cloaked his legs and boots in smooth, glacier-like plates. White mist trailed every step. Every movement could freeze molecules in place, bringing even time itself to a crawl.
The Liar (Mind) circled his head last, forming a glowing crown of thin, pulsing threads, like a neural lattice of thought. The filaments wove into his skull, his brain, without pain. Only truth. His thoughts sharpened. He felt everyone. He could see through lies. Plant fear. Twist perception.
And finally…
Lightning. Skylar.
She was already part of Bruce. Even beyond the veil of two multiverses, she could channel her power due to her connection to the Ring.
The lightning ring, crackled through the armor like a nervous system, binding it all together with raw power. The final thread.
Bruce stood at the center of the crater.
His armor gleamed in a kaleidoscope of elemental energy. A design unlike anything seen before.
It had no seams. No weaknesses. It was alive, moving, and breathing with him. A battle suit forged from rings that had seen galaxies burn and rebuild.
He clenched his fist.
The crater around him responded, the ground trembling.
The sky above rumbled from the sheer intensity of his energy.
Final Phase: Immortality
The sky above Mars burned with color, auroras of lightning, ribbons of flame, and clouds that hissed with frost. The crater beneath Bruce glowed with elemental residue, each ring leaving its mark across the shattered terrain. And at the center of it all, Bruce Wayne stood transformed, not merely armored, not merely empowered.
Ascended.
And yet…
There was one final step.
The Ten Rings had been mastered.
But to wield them was not the same as to embody them.
The spirits encircling him shimmered brighter, their forms beginning to fade... no longer spectral teachers, but fragments returning to their source. Bruce's source.
Remaker's spirit spoke first, its voice now deeper, part of him.
"You have shaped the world, but now you must shape yourself."
Zero, calm and cold:
"Become the still point in chaos. The eye in the storm. The frost between every breath."
Incandescence, burning bright:
"Your flame cannot flicker. You must burn forever."
And finally, The Liar, whispering like thoughts behind the veil:
"To carry us... you must be more than a vessel. You must be eternal. Not just alive... but beyond death."
Bruce took a slow breath. The wind on Mars had stopped. The world was holding its breath with him.
Immortality... not as myth, not as mythos.
But as reconstruction.
The spirits moved in unison now, swirling around him. They merged.
The threads of light, ice, fire, matter, thought, gravity, darkness, and more coiled into a single helix—a spiral of origin, wrapping around Bruce's body, sinking into his veins, stitching into his DNA.
His Kryptonian cells flared with light. The Infinity Power within him surged, reacting, syncing, accepting.
And then…
The final step began.
The knowledge of each ring didn't just live in his mind anymore.
It became instinct.
Their power didn't course through his armor.
It fused into his soul.
His cells began to restructure, energy rebinding on the quantum level, rewriting his very existence. Every atom in his body began to hum with multiversal frequency. He was no longer tethered to just one reality, one lifespan, one timeline.
His biological age paused.
His Kryptonian cells, already functionally ageless under yellow suns, were enhanced further, reprogrammed by Remaker's matter mastery and Daimonic's clarity. He could adapt forever. Repair forever. Learn forever.
But the cost...
It wasn't physical.
It was mental.
Every emotion, every thought, every fear, began to echo inside him, magnified. Time slowed. Space folded. He was feeling too much... too fast.
Memories clashed. All of them. Not just his.
He saw lives he never lived.
He saw futures where Selina died. Where Harley died. Where Morgan cried over his grave. Realities where Earth fell. Where he turned into a tyrant. Where he walked away.
The burden of infinite choices.
He gritted his teeth.
"No."
He remembered Selina's smirk when she saw through his armor.
Harley's wild laughter.
Morgan's proud smile when she called him "dad."
Sue's playful threats. Ami's mischievous grace. Nat's unwavering loyalty. Diana's shy smile. Pamela's eyes filled with hope. His children in DC universe, sad, yet hopeful to reunite one day. His parents... Everyone...
He remembered why he fought.
The spiral of power surged inward.
His aura exploded.
BOOOOOOMMMM!!!
A massive shockwave swept across the Martian surface, flattening mountains and carving canyons in its wake.
The sky lit up as a wave of light burst into space, reaching Earth in moments. Satellites lost connection. Cosmic readings spiked. And every sensitive being across the universe felt it.
The birth of something new.
Something eternal.