Word Count: 8,326
Series: DC (Again, I do not know why, but I genuinely enjoy beating them up and bringing random chaos.)
Source: Chatgbt (revised and transformed into an aesthetically narrative novel)
My 'What if' I given idea: a mysterious force beyond the Multiverse that is large and unknown, but his right eye always glows in the shape of ∞ pupil
Original Characters: eye of ∞
The Justice League had been called in for a routine investigation—or at least, that's what Batman had labeled it. The alert came from a research outpost in Antarctica, where a team of archaeologists had stumbled upon something unusual. Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern (John Stewart), and The Flash arrived first, their breath visible in the freezing air as they stepped onto the icy ground. The outpost, a small collection of metal structures buried in snowdrifts, looked abandoned. No one came to greet them.
Superman scanned the area with his X-ray vision. "There's movement inside. Slow heartbeats. They're alive but unconscious."
"That's not a good sign," John Stewart muttered, creating a floating platform with his ring for them to step onto. They made their way toward the main building. The door was slightly ajar, a layer of frost clinging to the edges.
Inside, it was just as cold as the outside. Computers were still on, but the monitors flickered, their displays filled with garbled text. Papers were scattered across the desks, many of them covered in frantic, half-written notes. Some of the scientists were slumped over their workstations, still breathing but unresponsive.
The Flash zipped around, stopping beside a large metal crate in the corner. "Uh, guys? I think I found what they were working on."
The crate was open, revealing a thick, weathered book inside. The pages were yellowed with age, the cover was blackened and cracked. It was larger than a normal book, nearly the size of a small poster. But what caught their attention was the image embossed onto the cover.
A single, large eye.
The pupil was not circular—it was shaped like an infinity symbol.
Wonder Woman stepped forward, placing a hand on the cover. "This isn't Themysciran. And it doesn't feel magical." She opened the book carefully, revealing pages filled with text written in an unknown script. The letters were sharp, angular, but none of them recognized it.
Superman frowned. "I've seen Kryptonian. Martian. New God script. This is none of those."
John Stewart held out his ring. "Ring, translate."
The green energy flickered for a moment, scanning the text. Then, the ring responded.
"Untranslatable."
The Flash raised an eyebrow. "Okaaay, that's weird. This thing is ancient, right? Shouldn't your space-ring be able to handle it?"
"It should," Stewart said, narrowing his eyes. "Even if it couldn't directly translate, it should at least detect a linguistic pattern. But it's giving me nothing."
They flipped through the pages. The symbols repeated in some places, but there was no clear order to them. Some pages contained diagrams—circles, lines, what might have been maps. And always, the eye symbol appeared somewhere on the page.
Superman turned to the unconscious scientists. He gently tapped one on the shoulder. "Sir? Can you hear me?"
The man stirred slightly but didn't wake. His lips moved, barely a whisper.
Batman's voice crackled through their communicators. "I'm five minutes out."
"Good," Superman replied. "We found their research. And I think we need a second opinion."
Batman arrived in the Batplane, stepping into the research station with his usual unreadable expression. He barely glanced at the unconscious researchers before moving toward the book. His gloved hands carefully flipped through the pages. "Where did they find this?"
"Buried under the ice," Wonder Woman answered. "In a cavern. No signs of any civilization nearby, no artifacts. Just this."
Batman studied the writing. "I've run into over a hundred dead languages. This isn't one of them. If I had to guess, it's either artificial or entirely without precedent."
Superman gestured at the scientists. "Then why are they unconscious?"
"They must have tried reading it," Batman muttered. "And whatever they saw exhausted them."
"Hold up," Flash said, leaning against a desk. "So we have an ancient book, no magic, no tech, just... paper. But the moment these guys tried to read it, they passed out?"
"Maybe it's just too complicated for the human brain to process," John suggested.
"That doesn't explain why my ring can't analyze it," Stewart replied.
Batman turned another page. Then he stopped.
A full illustration covered the sheet. It wasn't just the eye symbol this time.
It was an entire structure—massive, pillar-like formations surrounding a central sphere. The structures had the same eye motif etched into them. At the bottom of the illustration, there were figures. Small, humanoid, indistinct. They seemed to be standing in front of the structure, looking up.
Flash leaned in. "So, what, a temple?"
"If it is, it wasn't built for humans," Batman replied.
Superman tapped his chin. "We should find the dig site. See if there's more."
"Agreed," Wonder Woman said. "This book came from somewhere."
The storm outside had worsened by the time they reached the site. The entrance to the cavern was wide, leading deep beneath the ice. Their flashlights illuminated smooth walls, marked only by faint carvings. The deeper they went, the colder it became—not from temperature, but from atmosphere.
They found it at the bottom.
A chamber, circular, with walls covered in carvings of the eye symbol. But at the center stood something more. A single stone slab, massive, with an identical infinity-eyed symbol engraved into it. The same as in the book.
No power. No energy. No mystery beyond what they saw.
Just a carving.
No one spoke for a moment.
Then Flash broke the silence. "Sooo... we came all the way down here for some spooky art?"
"Seems that way," John said, scanning the area with his ring. No readings. Nothing special.
Superman approached the slab, pressing a hand against it. Solid rock. No mechanisms. No hidden chambers. Nothing.
Batman stared at the carving. "Someone—something—put this here. But they didn't leave anything else."
"Which means?" Wonder Woman asked.
"It means we don't have enough information," Batman replied, turning away. "Yet."
They left the cavern, taking only the book with them. There were no answers. No grand revelations. Just an image of an eye, watching.
And for now, that was all it would be.
The first discovery in Antarctica left them with more questions than answers. The book, the carvings, the symbol—none of it had any immediate explanation. It wasn't magic. It wasn't technology. It was simply there, existing without reason.
But mysteries like these had a way of leading to more.
Batman, with his endless network of contacts, began running quiet searches. Superman reached out to old Kryptonian records stored within the Fortress of Solitude, while Wonder Woman consulted the archives of Themyscira. John Stewart sent data back to the Green Lantern Corps, though even their vast intergalactic database provided nothing useful. The Flash, impatient as always, tried to find patterns—anything that could hint at a larger connection.
Then, something surfaced.
A scholar in Themyscira, one of the few entrusted with reading ancient records, came across a passage describing an old, ruined temple at the edge of the island. Unlike the grand, pristine halls of Themyscira's cities, this place had long been abandoned. Even the Amazons, known for their discipline and order, had chosen to leave it untouched for centuries.
Diana had never given it much thought before. Themyscira had its share of ruins—places destroyed in old battles or simply forgotten with time. But now, with the image of that eye still fresh in her mind, she felt a strange unease.
So the League gathered once again.
They arrived on the island in the dead of night, under a moonless sky. The Amazons gave them wary glances but said nothing as they made their way toward the temple.
It stood at the farthest edge of the island, overlooking the dark, endless sea. Its walls were crumbling, overtaken by nature, vines and roots breaking through the once-great structure. It wasn't large, not like the grand halls of Themyscira's more famous sites. But it was old. Ancient beyond even Amazonian memory.
And carved into the stone above the entrance was the same symbol.
A large eye.
With a pupil shaped like an infinity symbol.
No one spoke as they stepped inside. The interior was bare, stripped of anything valuable ages ago. The stone walls were covered in faded markings, most unreadable. There were no statues, no altars. Just a single pedestal in the center of the room.
And on it, a book.
It wasn't as thick as the one from Antarctica, but it was old—so old the pages looked like they could crumble at a touch. Dust layered its surface, untouched for what must have been centuries.
Diana reached for it first, carefully brushing off the dust. The cover was worn, cracked leather. No title, no embellishment. She opened it.
And immediately froze.
The others leaned in, their expressions darkening as they saw what lay inside.
Every page was covered in text. But it wasn't just one language. It was all of them.
Every language known to Earth. Greek, Latin, Egyptian hieroglyphs. Sanskrit, Chinese, Norse runes. English. Russian.
And not just Earth's languages.
Kryptonian.
Martian.
Interlac.
New Genesis script.
Even alien languages that John Stewart could recognize but had no way of reading. And at the very bottom of every page, scrawled in the same incomprehensible script from the Antarctic book, was the unknown language.
But every version of the text said the same thing.
Seven trumpets.
Bringer of Revelation will listen to the call.
The end bringer walks across the boundless worlds, seen everything, and destroy them, and resets them and begin a new genesis.
That was all. The same words, written over and over in every language imaginable.
The pages continued for hundreds of entries. No variations. No additional explanations. Just the same message, repeating endlessly.
The Flash took a step back. "Yeah, okay, I don't like this."
"Someone—or something—wanted this message preserved," Batman said, flipping through the pages. "Across cultures, across species. And they wanted it understood by anyone who found it."
"But what does it mean?" Superman asked, eyes narrowing.
Wonder Woman closed the book, her expression unreadable. "The Amazons never spoke of this place. I don't think they even knew the book was here. This temple was abandoned long before Themyscira became what it is now."
John Stewart hovered his ring over the book. "Ring, analyze."
The green light flickered over the text, scanning it, breaking down its structure. After a long pause, the ring spoke.
"Languages detected: 412 documented Earth languages. 17 extraterrestrial languages. One unidentified language. No temporal anomalies. No energy signatures detected."
"No anomalies," John repeated. "It's just… a book."
Superman's expression hardened. "That message. It isn't just a warning. It's a statement. A record."
Flash crossed his arms. "If it's a record, that means it already happened, right?"
"Or it's still happening," Batman said quietly.
No one spoke after that.
They took the book with them, though none of them wanted to hold onto it for long. Even though there was nothing unnatural about it, nothing beyond ink and paper, there was something unsettling about reading the same words over and over.
As if the book wasn't just telling them something.
As if it was waiting for them to understand.
That night, even Superman had trouble sleeping.
The book from Themyscira was taken to the Watchtower for further study, locked away in a secure chamber where no one would accidentally stumble upon it. But that didn't stop the creeping unease it left behind.
Because now, the League knew that there was more.
If a single book, untouched for centuries, carried the same message in every known language, then surely there had to be other traces elsewhere. So they searched.
And what they found wasn't another book.
It was fragments. Pieces. Scattered across the world, buried in ruins long forgotten by time.
The first was discovered deep beneath an abandoned temple in India, hidden in a sealed chamber that had never been opened. The walls were cracked, blackened by something that had long since faded. In the center of the room lay a tattered piece of parchment, fragile to the touch.
The writing was frantic, almost carved into the page rather than written.
It is 'it', it comes and kills us.
That was all. Nothing else.
The second was found beneath an old fortress in Norway, a place untouched for over a thousand years. This time, the message was longer, though the writing was equally erratic.
Gods and goddesses alike must run.
The ink had been smeared in places, as if the writer had been trembling while writing it.
Then came another fragment, pulled from the ruins of an ancient city beneath the Sahara Desert. The structure had no record of ever existing, buried so deep that even archaeologists had no idea what civilization had built it. Inside, scrawled onto the crumbling stone walls, were more words.
Demons tremble from its existence.
John Stewart, upon seeing the message, had muttered, "That's... not normal."
More were found, each in older and more desolate ruins. Some in forgotten tombs, others in structures so eroded by time that they should have collapsed long ago. Each one carried a different phrase, yet they all spoke of the same thing.
It is it, the it, that it.
Mortal's can't run when they cease to exist.
No explanations. No context. Just desperate warnings from people long dead.
Then came the most unsettling discovery.
Deep in an abandoned underground temple, older than any other they had encountered, they found a piece of tattered parchment stained with something dark, something ancient. It wasn't ink. It wasn't normal blood.
Zatanna, upon seeing it, paled.
"This is divine blood," she whispered.
She barely touched it before the words became clear, the ink—or rather, the blood—glowing faintly for only a moment.
The Bringer of Revelation always hears the call, the call of the seven trumpets.
The writing changed after that, scattered, broken, as if whoever had been writing had lost control.
The eye! The eye! It comes! It will kil-
It ended abruptly, cut off mid-sentence.
Constantine, who had been dragged into the investigation after the first demonic reference was found, took one look at the fragment and let out a dry, humorless laugh.
"Yeah, no. I want nothing to do with this."
Batman narrowed his eyes. "You recognize something."
Constantine rubbed his face. "Mate, when demons are afraid of something? When gods themselves tell you to run? That's when you pack your bags and leave the bloody planet."
"That's not an option," Wonder Woman said firmly.
Zatanna, who had been examining the parchment closely, frowned. "I don't understand. This isn't a curse, it's not an omen. It's just… information. A record of what happened."
"Or what will happen," Superman muttered.
Constantine scoffed. "You lot are thinking too small. You're looking at this like it's some ancient boogeyman. But look at the phrasing. 'It is it, the it, that it'? That's not how normal things are described. That's not even how most cosmic horrors get described."
John Stewart crossed his arms. "So what? You're saying this isn't a thing? It's just a concept?"
Constantine shook his head. "No, I'm saying that whatever this 'it' is, it doesn't fit into our reality the way we think it should. And if it's tied to those seven trumpets..."
Zatanna's fingers clenched slightly. "In some mythologies, the seven trumpets signal the end. A final judgment."
"Not just on one world," Batman said grimly. "On all worlds."
The room was silent.
Then The Flash, arms crossed, exhaled. "So let me get this straight. We've got a bunch of ancient, panicked messages, written in places that shouldn't even exist, all warning about something that gods and demons are afraid of. And whatever it is, it doesn't seem to follow normal rules."
Constantine lit a cigarette, despite the Watchtower's strict no-smoking policy. "Yup. And if I were you lot, I'd be a hell of a lot more worried."
Superman's jaw tightened. "Why?"
Constantine exhaled a slow stream of smoke before speaking.
"Because if this 'it' always hears the call of those seven trumpets... and if those messages were left by people who already encountered it..."
He flicked his cigarette to the ground and crushed it under his boot.
"Then that means the trumpets have already been played before."
Silence followed Constantine's words. The weight of them pressed into the room, heavy and suffocating. No one spoke, because no one knew what to say.
If the trumpets had already been played before—if this so-called Bringer of Revelation had already walked across the boundless worlds, seen them, destroyed them, and reset them—what did that mean for everything they knew?
Superman was the first to break the silence. His voice was steady, but there was something beneath it. Something rare. Uncertainty.
"If it's already happened before… why is there still a universe?"
Batman, arms crossed, stared at the scattered fragments of parchment and stone carvings laid out before them. "Maybe that's the point. If this thing destroys everything and resets it, we wouldn't know. We'd only know what came after."
The Flash shifted uncomfortably, rubbing the back of his neck. "Okay, so, let's say this whole 'it destroys everything, resets it, and starts over' thing is true. Why would anyone remember? Shouldn't history just… start fresh?"
Wonder Woman's gaze darkened. "Perhaps not everyone forgets. Perhaps some leave behind warnings." She gestured to the fragments. "Like these."
Zatanna, arms crossed, kept her eyes on the piece of parchment written in divine blood. "I don't like this."
Constantine let out a dry, bitter chuckle. "You don't like this? Love, I'm ready to burn these bloody things and pretend none of this ever happened."
John Stewart leaned against the table, his ring pulsing faintly. "There's another question we're not asking." He looked at each of them. "If this has happened before—how many times?"
A cold chill ran through the room.
How many times had the trumpets sounded? How many times had worlds ended, erased without a trace? If these notes and carvings were all that remained from past realities, what did that mean for their own?
Superman's eyes narrowed. "We need more information."
Zatanna gave him a sharp look. "And what exactly do you plan to do, Clark? Go looking for a thing that gods run from? That demons tremble at?"
Superman met her gaze evenly. "If this thing exists—if it's out there—I won't just ignore it."
"And what if looking for it is what gets its attention?"
No one had an answer for that.
Batman finally spoke, his voice low. "For now, we need to focus on what we do know." He gestured to the fragments. "Whoever wrote these messages, they knew something. They experienced something." His gaze sharpened. "We need to find out who they were."
Wonder Woman frowned. "The Amazons never recorded anything about this. And from what we've seen, these fragments predate even the oldest civilizations."
Superman looked at John. "Could the Green Lantern Corps have records of anything like this?"
John Stewart's face was unreadable. "Maybe. But if they do, they've never mentioned it. And I'd think something like the destruction of entire universes would be a big enough deal to be in the archives." He paused. "Then again, if this thing is as old as these messages say, maybe even the Guardians don't remember."
That was a terrifying thought. The Guardians of the Universe were some of the oldest beings in existence. If even they didn't have records of this…
Flash sat down, rubbing his temples. "So, just so I'm keeping track here—we've got some ancient, reality-resetting horror that leaves nothing but creepy warnings behind, and we have no idea where it is, what it is, or how to stop it?"
Batman's voice was firm. "Yet."
Flash scoffed. "That's real comforting, Bats."
Zatanna turned to Constantine. "You're awfully quiet for someone who's usually running his mouth."
Constantine exhaled a slow breath. His usual smirk was gone.
"Because I don't like what this is pointing to."
Superman watched him carefully. "What do you mean?"
Constantine ran a hand through his hair, looking genuinely uneasy. "This thing—this 'it'—it's not some demon. It's not some cosmic god or eldritch horror lurking in the dark corners of the universe."
His eyes flickered to the fragments again, particularly the blood-stained one.
"The way these messages are written… it's not just fear." His voice lowered. "It's recognition."
Zatanna frowned. "Recognition?"
Constantine hesitated, then shook his head. "I don't know yet. But I know that whatever this is… it's not something that just 'exists.'"
Batman narrowed his eyes. "Explain."
Constantine sighed. "The way demons and gods work, yeah? They're forces. Concepts given form. But this thing—" he gestured at the fragments. "—it's described like something beyond that. Something that shouldn't exist but does anyway."
Zatanna's face paled slightly. "That sounds like something outside reality itself."
Constantine nodded. "Exactly." He looked at the group. "And if that's true, then whatever this 'Bringer of Revelation' is… it doesn't just destroy universes. It exists outside them."
Flash exhaled. "Well. That's worse."
Batman's voice was calm, controlled. "Then we find out what it is before it finds us."
Superman nodded. "Agreed."
Zatanna still looked uneasy. "I just hope we're not too late."
The Watchtower had never felt so still. The quiet wasn't just an absence of sound—it was the weight of understanding settling into every hero in the room.
For a long time, no one spoke.
The only sound was the faint hum of the station's systems, the distant murmuring of the universe beyond. It was vast. Eternal.
Or at least, that was what they had always thought.
Superman, arms crossed, stared at the map. His enhanced vision took in every detail—the jagged, frantic strokes of ink, the desperate attempt to capture something beyond comprehension. Someone—some thing—had made this, had documented it.
And they were gone.
Completely erased.
He finally broke the silence. "If this thing—if it—really does reset everything, why are we even here?"
Batman's gaze didn't lift from the map. "Because it doesn't reset everything. Not completely."
Zatanna's fingers traced over the symbols, her expression tight. "Some things always survive. The question is… why?"
John Stewart stared at the overlay his ring projected. "Maybe that's not the question we should be asking." His green eyes flickered to them. "Maybe we should be asking who survives."
That sent a chill through them.
Because if something—someone—had been here before, then that meant they weren't just dealing with a force of nature.
They were dealing with something deliberate.
Flash, usually the first to crack a joke, sat back, staring at the ceiling. "Okay, so let's say we're not the first people to be freaked out by all this. And let's say the people who left these warnings behind weren't the first, either." His foot tapped the floor, his brain moving as fast as his body. "How far back does this go?"
Constantine exhaled smoke from his cigarette. "Longer than us. Longer than our gods, probably."
Wonder Woman's eyes darkened. "Then where are their gods now?"
Silence.
The gods of Themyscira, of Atlantis, of Krypton, of Apokolips, of New Genesis. Even the celestial horrors that lurked in the dark corners of existence.
Where were they?
The pieces started coming together.
Some gods were eternal. Some gods should have always existed.
But what if they didn't?
What if there were gods before them, before any of them?
And what if those gods were gone?
Zatanna rubbed her temples. "This is insane."
Superman turned to Batman. "Bruce?"
The Dark Knight was quiet. Calculating.
Finally, he looked at the map again. His voice was controlled, but there was an edge to it.
"We need to find more of these."
Flash gave a weak chuckle. "Right, because this one wasn't terrifying enough."
Batman ignored him. "If this is real, then there has to be something left behind. If these notes survived, if this map survived, then something else might have, too."
Constantine let out a dry laugh. "Yeah? And what if the only reason these things survived is because whatever did all this let them?"
That thought hadn't even crossed their minds yet.
But now, it did.
What if these weren't mistakes? What if these weren't remnants that escaped destruction?
What if they were deliberate?
Messages, left behind like echoes. Not to warn—but to remind.
John Stewart shut off his ring's projection. "We have two problems now." He turned to face them. "One—we have no idea where to even start looking." His gaze flickered to Batman. "And two—what if looking is exactly what it wants?"
That thought settled into them like ice.
Zatanna folded her arms, her fingers twitching. "If this thing's as old as we think, it means no one's stopped it before."
Superman's expression hardened. "Then we have to be the first."
Zatanna scoffed, but there was no real humor in it. "And how exactly do you plan on fighting something that wipes out entire universes? I doubt punching it will work."
Superman's hands curled into fists. "Then we figure out how to stop it before it happens again."
Batman was already moving. "We start with what we have." His gloved fingers tapped the ancient parchment. "This wasn't written by a single person. It wasn't written in a single time period. That means we have traces to follow."
Wonder Woman stepped beside him. "Then we go to the oldest places. The lost ruins. The hidden worlds. The places untouched by time."
Constantine muttered, "If any of those are still there."
Flash sighed. "Great. Love a good apocalyptic scavenger hunt."
But there was no sarcasm this time.
Just the weight of realization.
If this was real, then they weren't just trying to stop another villain, another cosmic war, another great darkness.
They were trying to stop something older than time itself.
And the worst part?
They didn't even know if they could.
The temple—or what was left of it—was barely standing.
The structure had eroded into the mountain itself, its walls cracked and devoured by time. What once might have been a grand hall was now an open ruin, its stone pillars leaning like dying trees, its carvings worn into unrecognizable scars.
The League moved carefully, their footsteps echoing against the hollow silence.
It was Wonder Woman who noticed it first. A device—if it could even be called that—buried beneath the rubble.
It was small, barely the size of a human head, made of a divine material that no one recognized. It should have been reduced to dust, and yet, here it was.
Zatanna stepped forward. "It's broken," she murmured, her fingers barely grazing the surface.
And then—
A mist.
A sudden eruption of swirling colors—red, gold, violet, deep abyssal blue. It filled the ruined temple in a wave, spilling from the device like a dying breath.
The mist churned. Shifted. Solidified.
An illusion. A vision.
And as it took shape, the League realized—
This was a memory.
The world around them transformed, no longer a ruined temple, but something else entirely. A kingdom above the stars, a realm beyond mortal understanding.
And in that kingdom—
Debauchery. Corruption.
What they saw shouldn't have existed.
The gods—beings of divinity, creatures of legend—were no better than the worst of humanity. Worse, even.
The once-revered deities, the celestial entities of ages past, were draped in excess. They took and indulged without consequence, virgin maidens stolen and impregnated without mercy, their cries ignored beneath laughter.
The demons—twisted horrors—feasted on flesh, their hands soaked in the blood of the innocent. They consumed not out of necessity, but out of perverse delight, tearing through bodies with savage joy.
And the mortals—humans, aliens, all forms of intelligent life—were no different.
They reveled in madness. Killing for pleasure. Betraying, torturing, indulging in every imaginable sin. There was no order. No justice. No morality.
Only hunger.
Only excess.
The air stank of sweat and blood, of burning flesh and twisted desire. Screams and moans blended together into an indistinguishable cacophony.
The League stood frozen.
Flash had gone pale. His normally restless energy was completely still. John Stewart's hands curled into fists, his ring flickering as if instinctively trying to protect him from something unseen. Wonder Woman's expression was unreadable, but her grip on her blade was white-knuckled.
Superman clenched his jaw, his chest rising and falling with controlled breaths. Even he—who had seen horrors across the universe—felt something deeply unsettling settle in his gut.
This was wrong.
Not just evil. Not just chaos.
Something fundamentally wrong.
This wasn't a war. This wasn't a conflict between good and evil.
This was what happened before.
This was the world before it was reset.
And then—
The vision cut off.
The mist swirled again, retracting, dissolving back into the broken device. The ruined temple returned, its silence more deafening than ever.
And the League was left standing there—staring, shaken, horrified.
And worse than that?
They understood.
The moment the mist began to swirl again, thick and suffocating, the League instinctively tensed. Whatever they had just witnessed—whatever horror had been recorded in this ancient device—wasn't the end. It was only the beginning.
The temple vanished once more, swallowed by the mist, and the illusion resumed.
The debauchery, the carnage, the corruption of gods, demons, and mortals alike continued for a fraction of a second. But then—everything changed.
A sound.
No, not a sound.
A force.
The air itself shook.
Seven trumpets—loud, deafening, ringing not from a single location, but from everywhere. It was not played from an instrument, not sounded from any physical thing—it was part of the universe itself. It was the voice of reality crying out.
And in response—
Something came.
The sky, the stars, the fabric of existence itself ripped open.
A tear in reality, splitting like a gaping wound.
From within, two hands emerged, stretching outward, gripping the edges of the universe itself as if it were no more than fragile cloth. The tear widened, forcing its way apart, and from within—
It stepped through.
No description could be formed. No single shape could define what emerged. It was beyond sight, beyond understanding, a concept forced into visibility only through sheer necessity. But there was one thing the mind could grasp—
The eyes.
Two vast, incomprehensible orbs, one dull and empty, the other glowing.
The right eye burned with an unfathomable light, and at its center—an infinity-shaped pupil.
It descended.
Not floated. Not drifted. Not entered.
It came down.
Fast.
Faster than anything that should have been possible, so fast it did not just move through space, it ignored it.
The entire universe shuddered as it landed, its fist striking into existence itself, shaking not just the world, but the very foundation of reality. The laws that governed the cosmos bent under its presence.
And then, it looked at them.
For a moment—just a moment—the corrupt gods, the demonic lords, the maddened mortals hesitated. They were powerful. They had ruled. They had thought themselves untouchable.
And yet, when it gazed upon them—
They knew.
It was not just power. Not just divinity. Not something to be fought or conquered.
It was absolute.
Still, they fought.
They unleashed everything.
Weapons crafted from the bones of the First Titans, from the flames of dying stars, from curses so foul they had never been spoken aloud. They cast their most forbidden spells, invoked eldritch horrors that should have been beyond the reach of even the gods.
And yet—
It was nothing.
Each weapon, upon making contact, ceased to exist.
Not destroyed. Not broken. Not countered.
They simply never were.
The moment their might reached it, they were erased from history itself.
Still, they fought.
And still, it stared.
And then—
They ceased to exist.
With no gesture, no action—nothing but a simple gaze—it erased them.
One by one.
Entire armies. Entire pantheons. Mighty celestial rulers who had existed since before the first galaxies were born. All of them—undone, wiped clean from existence as if they had never been there to begin with.
And then it moved.
It did not attack. It did not wage war. It did not battle.
It was a storm.
A massacre.
A purge.
It struck, and in a single blow, entire worlds were obliterated. Cosmic beings who had enslaved galaxies were crushed into nothingness. Demonic hordes that had feasted upon civilizations were wiped out in an instant. No struggle. No effort.
They tried to run.
Some begged.
Some prayed.
Some tried to slip into the fabric of time itself, to hide in the past, to erase themselves from fate to escape.
It did not matter.
A single stare, and they ceased.
But then—
Something strange.
Some did not die.
Those who had not been part of the corruption, those who had not been powerful enough to change the fate of their universe, those who had been insignificant—
It simply ignored them.
It did not gaze at them. It did not acknowledge them.
It simply continued its work.
And when there was nothing left—when every last remnant of the twisted world had been erased—
It reshaped it.
The hideous, foul, wretched husk of a universe was remade. The barren wastelands were turned into lush forests, the polluted skies into clear heavens, the seas once stained with blood now shimmered with life.
It remade the world as it should have been.
And then, without hesitation, without hesitation or grand proclamation—
It turned.
It stepped back to the wound in reality, back to the tear it had made.
And before it left—
Its eyes moved.
Not looking at the world.
Not looking at the sky.
Not looking at the ruins of the past.
But directly at the ones watching this memory.
For a fraction of a second—so fast it could have been imagined—the League felt something.
A presence.
A recognition.
And then, it was gone.
The tear sealed shut, repaired as if it had never been there.
The mist swirled again, the illusion dissipating into nothingness.
The temple returned, silent once more.
The League remained where they were.
Still. Frozen.
Because they all felt it.
That last moment. That last glance.
It had seen them.
No one spoke.
The silence was suffocating, thick with something heavier than fear—something primal. Even among the strongest of them, no words came.
Flash was the first to break. His breathing was rapid, his chest rising and falling like he had just run across the universe in a single breath. His hands trembled as he took a step back, his body twitching like it wanted to run, to get away, but there was nowhere to go.
"…Okay," he said, voice shaky. "Okay—so—so what the hell was that?"
No one answered immediately.
Batman's hand was still clenched into a tight fist. He was known for being unreadable, for being in control no matter what he faced, but right now—his jaw was tight, his eyes narrowed but unfocused. He was thinking, processing, but there was something else. Something he wouldn't say.
Wonder Woman's grip on her blade was still white-knuckled. Not from battle-readiness, not from anger—but from something deeper. Something buried.
John Stewart exhaled, slow, controlled, but his ring flickered again. It wasn't glowing with power—it was dim, as if even the willpower behind it had been shaken.
Superman turned his head slightly, his eyes scanning over them, but his own expression was unreadable. His arms were crossed, but the tension in his shoulders betrayed him.
Zatanna?
She wasn't even looking at them. She was still staring where the vision had played, her fingers twitching like she wanted to cast something—anything—to see if it was still there.
"…That wasn't a god," John finally muttered, his voice low. "That wasn't… that wasn't a demon. It wasn't even a force." He swallowed, the reality of it sinking in. "That was something else."
Superman's voice came next. "We've seen universe-ending threats before," he said, but it wasn't a reassurance. It was a statement. One that sounded hollow even to him. "We've seen beings who could unmake reality."
"But that wasn't an enemy," Wonder Woman cut in. Her voice was sharp, but not in anger. It was sharp because it had to be, because she was keeping herself steady. "That wasn't a destroyer. That wasn't something we could stop."
"It didn't fight," Batman said, his voice low. Calculating. "It never fought. It didn't defend. It didn't attack in retaliation. It just…" He hesitated. "Moved."
"And things stopped existing," Zatanna finished.
Another silence.
Then—
"…You felt that, right?" Flash's voice was quieter now. More shaken. "At the end. When it looked at us."
They had.
They all had.
For a single, fleeting moment—it wasn't just a recording. It wasn't just a vision.
It had seen them.
And that meant—
"—This isn't just the past." Batman's eyes narrowed, his mind clicking through possibilities, analyzing, understanding. "This isn't just something that happened. This isn't just some forgotten event in time."
He exhaled.
"This is something that can happen again."
That realization settled.
None of them spoke.
Because that?
That was the worst part.
The weight of that thought pressed down on them, heavy and suffocating.
Superman's gaze was still locked on the space where the vision had faded. His arms were crossed, his face unreadable, but internally? He was sifting through memories—through every single universe-shaking event they had ever encountered.
Doomsday. Darkseid. The Anti-Monitor.
Even Mxyzptlk, in his chaotic, godlike absurdity.
None of them compared.
Not even close.
Because they all played by rules. Rules of existence. Rules of being. Even the worst threats still belonged in some way to the reality they existed in.
But this?
It didn't belong. It didn't fight. It didn't win.
It simply removed.
Flash swallowed hard. "I hate this. I hate this. I hate what we just saw, I hate how I feel, I hate the fact that we're standing here talking about this like we actually know what to do, because I have no idea what to do."
Zatanna was still staring, still unmoving.
She was digging deep, deeper than she ever had before.
Trying to feel for something.
There was always something. Some trace of magic, some echo of energy, some leftover imprint of what once was. The universe never forgot completely.
But here?
There was nothing.
Not just silence. Not just emptiness.
A void.
It wasn't that it had happened so long ago that the traces had faded. It wasn't that time had worn the memory thin.
It was that there was never a trace to begin with.
Like the universe itself had refused to record it.
She spoke, finally, her voice quieter than usual. "This isn't… a force that can be countered," she said. "It's not divine, it's not demonic, it's not cosmic. It's something else entirely."
"…Then what the hell is it?" John demanded. "You're telling me the universe has something this big walking around that can just remove things from existing and nobody remembers it? Nobody warned us?"
A pause.
And then Wonder Woman—who had remained unnervingly quiet—spoke.
"Maybe they did."
All eyes turned to her.
She glanced at Batman, then at Zatanna, then back to the mist where the vision had been. "The writings. The scriptures. The ones we've found scattered across different worlds." Her grip on her blade was still tight. "The ones in languages even I couldn't recognize."
Her expression hardened.
"They knew."
"They all knew," Batman said darkly, his mind running through the evidence again. "The ones who left those writings behind—whether gods, mortals, or something in between—they weren't just recording an event. They were warning the future."
Superman exhaled sharply. His eyes flickered with something unreadable. "…Then why didn't they fight it? Why didn't they try?"
A beat of silence.
And then Flash let out a hollow laugh, but there was no humor in it.
"They did," he said. "We just saw it."
They did.
They tried.
And every single one of them had been erased like they were nothing.
Batman's mind raced, going through every possibility, every angle, every scenario. What they had seen. What it had done. It was almost mechanical, the way his thoughts moved—analyzing, adjusting, understanding.
And then—
Something settled in his chest.
Cold.
A realization.
"…This thing doesn't just destroy," he said quietly. "It doesn't just wipe things out at random."
Superman turned toward him. "What do you mean?"
Batman's voice was calm. Deadly calm.
"It cleanses."
Another heavy silence.
He continued. "It didn't remove everything. It didn't erase all life. Only those who had corrupted, twisted, or destroyed the balance of what was meant to be." He looked at Wonder Woman. "You saw it. It ignored those it deemed untainted."
Zatanna's breath caught.
"…The writings," she murmured. "The one in divine script. The Bringer of Revelation always hears the call."
"The call of the seven trumpets," Diana finished.
It clicked.
It all clicked.
It wasn't random. It wasn't mindless.
It had a purpose.
And worse—
It could be summoned.
Flash took a step back, running both hands through his hair. "Oh my God. Oh my God. This isn't just a warning, this is a—this is a countdown. This thing doesn't just show up. It comes when it's called."
John's ring flickered again. "So what does that mean?" His voice was sharper now, but there was something deeper beneath it. Something uneasy. "That if the universe gets too corrupt, this thing wakes up and just starts hitting the reset button?"
"…Not a reset," Batman said.
Superman's jaw tensed.
"No," he agreed. "A judgment."
And suddenly—
The weight of it all settled.
The fractured writings. The frenzied messages. The terrified scribbles left behind across countless worlds, civilizations, and pantheons—
They hadn't been trying to understand.
They had been trying to warn.
Because if those trumpets ever sounded again—
Then it would return.
And this time?
They had no idea if they would be spared.
The silence stretched between them, suffocating in its weight. None of them moved, not even Flash, who usually couldn't stay still even in the face of cosmic threats. But this wasn't just a threat. This wasn't something they could measure, something they could put in a box labeled "enemy" and start planning countermeasures against.
This was something bigger. Something beyond their understanding, beyond the rules they had known and relied on. The universe itself had seemed to erase any record of it, leaving behind only the desperate scribblings of those who had survived long enough to try and warn others. But even that had been fractured, broken into madness, as if the minds of those who had seen it had shattered under the weight of what they witnessed.
Superman exhaled slowly, deliberately controlling his breathing. His arms were still crossed, his stance firm, but his mind was spinning. He had faced beings who could tear the very fabric of reality apart, who could bend time and space to their will, who could rewrite history itself. But none of them—not Darkseid, not the Anti-Monitor, not even the so-called New Gods—had ever wielded the kind of absolute, indifferent erasure that this thing had.
Batman stood stiffly, eyes locked on the remnants of the illusion, his mind churning through every fragment of information they had. His brain was a machine, constantly piecing things together, analyzing, dissecting. But this? This wasn't something he could break down into logic. It wasn't something he could reduce to a strategy, a predictable threat with exploitable weaknesses. There was nothing to exploit. Nothing to fight. Nothing to stop. It simply was, and when it arrived, things ceased to be.
Wonder Woman's grip tightened around her sword. She had seen destruction before, had fought against gods and demons alike, had battled forces that could snuff out entire civilizations. But she had never encountered something that even the divine feared. The writings—scattered across different worlds, different eras—had all painted the same picture. The gods had run. The demons had trembled. The mortals had begged.
And none of it had mattered.
Zatanna clenched her fists, her nails pressing into her palms hard enough to leave marks. She had spent her life studying magic, understanding the tapestry of the universe, the way energies wove together to create the foundation of all things. But this—this—was something that had left no imprint, no scars, no echoes. It was as if the universe itself had turned its head away, refusing to remember what had happened.
Flash let out a shaky breath, running his hands through his hair. "So—so what now? What the hell do we even do with this?" His voice was unsteady, and it was clear he was trying to keep himself together. "Do we just—what? Pray? Hope? Try not to be too bad so we don't set off the damn trumpets?" He let out a nervous, humorless laugh. "Oh man, we're so screwed."
John Stewart shook his head slowly, the green glow of his ring flickering like a candle in the wind. He was a soldier, a man who had been trained to face the worst, to always keep fighting no matter how hopeless the battle seemed. But this? This wasn't a war. It wasn't even a battle. It was a judgment. And how did you fight against judgment? How did you stop something that didn't conquer, didn't rule, didn't desire anything—only acted?
Superman finally turned, his gaze sweeping over the others. "We need more information," he said, his voice steady, but just barely. "There has to be something we're missing. A record, a survivor, something. The universe remembers everything—it has to. This thing may have wiped away its traces, but there has to be a way to understand it. To know why it comes."
Batman nodded slightly, his expression unreadable. "Agreed. But we're not just looking for history. We're looking for a pattern. If this thing comes when the trumpets sound, then we need to know why. What triggers it? What crosses the line?" His voice dropped slightly, a grim edge to it. "Because if we don't know that, then we won't see it coming."
Wonder Woman inhaled sharply through her nose. "And if we don't find answers?" she asked, her voice quiet but firm. "What then?"
No one answered.
Because they all knew.
If they didn't find answers, then the only thing left to do was wait.
And hope.
Hope that when the trumpets did sound, they would be among those who were spared.
The room was silent as they stared at the last piece of the puzzle. The final fragment.
It had been buried deep beneath the ruins of what was once a grand temple—though calling it a temple now was almost laughable. The place had been reduced to little more than dust and broken stone, the echoes of whatever faith had once existed here long since wiped away by time and decay. The walls, what little remained, were covered in the same desperate, frenzied markings they had seen before. The same phrases, the same frantic scrawls of those who had lived just long enough to try and leave a warning.
But this was different.
This wasn't just a warning.
This was finality.
The last record of those who had seen what was coming.
The words were written in blood—dark, dried, long since turned to a stain upon the ancient stone. The letters were jagged, uneven, as if the one who wrote them had been in agony. Had been dying as they carved the words into history.
"It comes, It moves, It kills, It Erases."
The words clawed at them, sent a shiver down their spines.
And below it—below the last, desperate warning—was the symbol they had come to know too well.
The Eye.
That ever-present, ever-staring Eye, carved into the stone with a hand that had surely trembled in its final moments. The pupil—shaped in that unnatural infinity symbol—was scratched so deeply into the rock that the stone had cracked around it.
And beneath the Eye, in letters more jagged than the last, was the final declaration. The final truth.
"The End Bringer. The Bringer of Revelation. The Eye of Infinity."
The blood was smeared at the end, as if the writer had collapsed mid-sentence.
As if the hand that had written it had never finished.
As if they had ceased to exist before they could complete their thought.
Superman felt something cold settle deep within him. A feeling he never felt. Not when facing Darkseid, not when standing before the unknown, not even when he had glimpsed the raw chaos of the multiverse itself.
This was different.
This was something primordial.
Something wrong.
Batman stared, silent, his mind running through every possibility, every angle, every explanation. But there was nothing. No solution. No strategy. No countermeasure.
Because this wasn't a battle.
This wasn't something they could stop.
This was a promise.
Flash took a step back. Then another. His breath was unsteady, his fingers twitching slightly at his sides. "I—I don't—" He stopped himself, shook his head. "I don't wanna be here anymore. I don't wanna look at this anymore."
Zatanna swallowed hard. "It's not coming," she murmured, trying to reassure herself. "Not yet. The trumpets haven't sounded. There's still time."
John Stewart exhaled, his ring flickering dimly in the darkness. "Time for what?" His voice was low. "Time to prepare? Time to pray?" He shook his head. "Nothing we do will matter. When it comes, it comes. And that's it."
A long silence.
And then—
Batman spoke.
Quiet.
Steady.
Certain.
"…Then we make sure we're ready."
No one responded.
Because they all knew.
They could be ready.
They could be prepared.
They could plan and hope and fight with everything they had.
And it still wouldn't matter.
Because when the trumpets sound—
There would be nothing left to fight.