The world fell silent as the words were uttered. It wasn't loud or sharp. Nor was it overbearing.
But the voice carried through the wind like a physical force, reaching every corner of the battlefield and beyond. People who had been panicking and afraid—screaming, running, certain they were about to die, suddenly felt calm. Safe.
It was inexplicable. One moment, pure terror. The next, a warmth spreading through their chests as if all their worries faded away, replaced by a feeling of deep respect and safety.
Parents stopped mid-run, children stopped crying, even the wounded stopped groaning. All eyes turned toward the source of that voice.
As the brilliant golden light faded, revealing what stood at its center, everyone looked at the being who had manifested there.
He was tall. Impossibly tall, taller than two people standing on top of each other, easily over twelve feet.
He had a robust, powerful body that was covered by dazzling golden full-body armor that seemed to be forged from solidified sunlight itself. Each plate gleamed with an inner radiance that didn't reflect light so much as generate it.
His face was chiseled and handsome in an austere way, slightly tanned and weathered like aged bronze.
But despite the stern clenching of his jaw and the sharp angles of his features, his eyes held something unexpected, genuine compassion mixed with unshakeable strength. They were golden, burning with an inner fire that seemed to see through to the soul of anyone who met his gaze.
In the middle of the armor at his chest, and on each shoulder, there were three golden eagles carved with exquisite detail.
Each feather was distinct, each talon perfectly rendered. The eagle on his chest held a red gem in its talons—a ruby that pulsed with light like a beating heart. Symbolizing his grasp over over his dominion.
In his hand, held with casual ease despite its massive size, there was a blazing sword that burned with scarlet and gold flames. It was the Primarch Blade. The fire was so intense that the concrete beneath it melted into glowing slag, dripping and hissing.
Any person who had played or read about the Warhammer 40,000 universe would have recognized him instantly if they saw him. That presence is hard to forget.
It was the God Emperor of Mankind himself, the being worshipped across a million worlds as the savior of humanity, rendered not as the corpse on the Golden Throne but in his full, almighty glory.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
A strange phenomenon occurred at that moment. All the people of Earth who gazed upon his form fell to their knees. Not pushed, not forced—but compelled by something deeper than conscious thought.
It was as if every human instinct, every genetic memory carved into their DNA, recognized this being as something to be revered. His presence was that awe-inspiring, that absolute.
Even this world's Justice League felt it.
Wonder Woman, daughter of Zeus, found herself kneeling. Flash, who'd never bowed to anyone, was on one knee before he even realized it. Even Batman tried not to kneel but failed, though his legs trembled with the effort, his analytical mind fighting against the primal urge to kneel.
The little boy who had stood beside Edward, also knelt, but his fear had transformed into wonder. His eyes were wide, tears still wet on his cheeks, but now he was smiling and looking with awe filled eyes.
"Mr. Hero," the boy asked with the innocent curiosity only children possess, "who are you? How did you double in size? Is that your superpower? You look so cool!"
Edward looked down at the child. The stern expression softened, and he chuckled—a warm, gentle sound that seemed impossible from such an imposing figure.
He reached down with one massive gauntleted hand and pulled the kid to his feet with surprising gentleness.
As he did, the overwhelming presence receded like a tide pulling back from shore.
The crushing weight lifted. People could breathe again, think again. The compulsion to kneel faded, though the awe remained.
"You can say that, kiddo," Edward said, his voice still carrying that magnetic quality but now at a volume that didn't shake reality. "Now run along, your parents must be worried. I shall protect Earth and mankind, that is my duty after all."
He turned, his golden eyes finding the boy's parents in the crowd—a man and woman huddled together, their faces stricken with the terror of having watched their son nearly die.
Edward gestured, and the boy lifted gently off the ground, surrounded by a golden glow. He floated through the air like a feather on the wind, drifting toward his family.
They caught him, hugging him desperately, checking him for injuries. The mother was sobbing. The father looked back toward the golden figure and uttered two words of gratitude: "Thank you."
The others in the crowd slowly got to their feet, confusion written across their faces.
Many looked at their knees, at the ground they'd been kneeling on, wondering why they'd done it. Some remembered clearly and felt embarrassed. Others couldn't remember why they were kneeling, as if their minds had protected them from the memory of that overwhelming presence.
Batman was staring at the Emperor with an intensity that bordered on obsession. His tactical mind was racing, analyzing, cataloging every detail.
The height. The armor's composition. The way reality seemed to bend slightly around him. The sword that violated thermodynamics by burning without fuel.
But most of all, he was trying to understand the presence. That moment when every instinct in his body had screamed at him to kneel, to submit, to acknowledge superiority.
Batman had trained his entire life to resist intimidation, to stand firm against fear. Yet this being's mere existence had driven him to his knees through sheer presence. And it wasn't evil or forceful, more like a warm, radiating authority that came from a ruler beloved by all.
'What kind of power commands obedience on an instinctual level?' Bruce thought, his jaw clenched. 'Not fear. Not threat. Just... presence. As if humanity itself recognizes him as something above.'
Edward turned away from the crowd, his attention shifting to the true threat. His golden eyes fixed on the Anti-Monitor, who hovered in the air above the ruined streets, his massive form crackling with antimatter energy.
The cosmic entity's lipless mouth twisted into something like a cruel smirk. His burning eye sockets studied the Emperor with newfound interest.
"Since you have decided to show your true strength," Anti-Monitor said, his voice resonating through multiple dimensions, "then allow me to—"
He never finished the sentence.
Slash!
Edward moved. There was no warning, no buildup, no gathering of energy.
One instant he stood on the ground. The next, he was directly in front of the Anti-Monitor's face, the blazing Primarch Blade already mid-swing, its edge touching the cosmic being's cheek.
Anti-Monitor's burning sockets widened in genuine shock. He hadn't seen the movement. Hadn't sensed it coming.
For a being who existed across multiple timelines simultaneously, who could perceive events before they happened, this should have been impossible.
His hand came up reflexively, wreathed in antimatter energy. He punched at Edward with enough force to shatter planets, his fist covered in destructive power that could unmake existence itself.
The blade continued its arc.
Metal met antimatter. The Primarch Blade, burning with the psychic might of humanity's collective will, cleaved through the Anti-Monitor's wrist as if it were made of smoke.
"AAAAHHGGGHHHHH!"
The roar of pain was unlike anything Earth had ever experienced. It wasn't just sound—it was a psychic scream that resonated across dimensions.
In the antimatter universe, entire worlds shuddered. In neighboring realities, beings of cosmic power looked up in alarm.
The Anti-Monitor vanished, teleporting instinctively, reappearing several miles away above the ruins of downtown Metropolis. He clutched the bleeding stump where his right hand had been, antimatter energy pouring from the wound like corrupted blood.
But there was no severed hand to reattach.
The limb that had been cut away was gone—not just removed, but erased. The golden flames of the Primarch Blade had consumed it entirely, burning away even the concept of its existence.
It would regenerate , but for some reason the healing was very slow even for a cosmic being.
The Anti-Monitor stared at his ruined arm, then at Edward who now stood on the ground where he'd been moments before. Understanding dawned in those burning sockets.
"What is that weapon? I've never seen something like this." he snarled, his voice distorted with pain and fury that made buildings tremble. "And how did you appear in front of me without me noticing it?!"
Edward didn't answer. He didn't gloat, didn't explain, didn't give the villain the satisfaction of a response. He simply vanished again.
Anti-Monitor's cosmic senses screamed a warning. He ducked instinctively , sensing an attack.
The blade passed through the space where his head had been a microsecond earlier, the heat from its passage scorching the air.
But even though he'd dodged the killing blow, the edge still caught something, his helmet.
The ancient helmet that had protected his head for eons sheared away like paper. The helmet spun through the air, bisected cleanly, before disintegrating into motes of antimatter that faded into nothing.
For the first time since arriving in this universe, the Anti-Monitor's true face was fully revealed.
Beneath the helmet was a nightmarish visage—a skull covered in dried up wrinkled skin, formed from crackling energy, with burning voids where eyes should be. He did not look happy.
Darkness writhed beneath translucent flesh, and reality seemed to distort around him.
"The hero sneak attacking the villain," Anti-Monitor spat, his voice dripping with venom and genuine anger. "How ironic."
Edward stood before him once more, the Primarch Blade held in a ready stance. He pointed it forward, both hands on the grip, weight balanced perfectly. His expression was neutral, almost serene.
When he spoke, his voice carried no mockery. Just absolute, undeniable certainty.
"You are evil. That's all the reason I need to draw my sword. There's no code of honor necessary when fighting someone like you."
The simplicity of the statement was more cutting than any elaborate speech could have been. No philosophical debate. No moral justification. Just fact, stated plainly.
The Anti-Monitor's rage exploded outward like a supernova. His aura flared, antimatter energy crackling around him in violent, chaotic waves. "Is that so?"
The ground beneath him didn't just crack, it ceased to exist, matter unmaking itself in his presence. Reality itself struggled to maintain cohesion near him, space-time warping and twisting.
"Very well, Then let me show you what true evil is!" he roared, his voice shaking the heavens. "Behold what true destruction really is!"
Dark particles began gathering in his remaining hand. These weren't normal antimatter—they were something worse, something that made the antimatter look gentle by comparison.
The energy pulsed with wrongness that went beyond physics, beyond natural law. Each pulse sent out waves that erased whatever they touched—not destroyed, not atomized, but erased. Buildings touched by the waves simply stopped existing, leaving smooth voids in reality.
Space itself cracked around the gathering energy like fractured glass. Time stuttered, moments repeating and skipping. The very concept of existence seemed to recoil from what the Anti-Monitor was creating.
This wasn't an attack meant to kill. This was annihilation manifest—an attempt to remove Edward from every timeline, every possibility, every universe simultaneously.
But Edward wasn't going to allow him to finish charging.
"I don't think so."
Edward's free hand rose, fingers spreading. He poured his limitless Psyker energy into the Primarch Blade, the psychic might of ten thousand years of accumulated power flooding into the weapon. The sword blazed brighter, gold flames turning white-hot, then transcending color entirely to become pure radiant force.
His other hand made a grasping motion, fingers curling as if clutching something invisible.
Anti-Monitor tried to move. His muscles tensed, his will commanded his body to teleport, to dodge, to escape.
Nothing happened.
His body locked in place mid-motion, frozen as if he'd been encased in invisible amber. Not paralyzed—he could still feel everything, still think, still channel power. But he couldn't move.
The space around him had become rigid, reality itself compressed into an unbreakable cage by the Emperor's psychic might.
"What have you done to me?!" he snarled, struggling against bonds that didn't exist in any physical sense. Every ounce of his cosmic strength pushed against the invisible prison, but it held firm.
Edward's's voice was calm, almost gentle, carrying the weight of a judge pronouncing sentence.
"The Emperor has judged your existence. It's no longer necessary. For the safety of mankind, perish."
He swung the Primarch Blade.
The sword grew physically. It's dimensions increasing by the second, its aura expanded until it was a mountainous size.
The blade descended like the hand of an angry god, trailing fire that burned away the darkness itself.
"Be purged from your sins." He spoke solemnly.
"You think that's enough?!" Anti-Monitor's roar shook dimensions. He reached deep into his armor, into the reserves of power stored from a thousand dead universes.
Energy from worlds that no longer existed, from realities he'd personally erased, flooded through his life shell. "I am the end of everything! The ruler of the antimatter universe! Nothing can stop me!"
The psychic bonds shattered like glass.
Anti-Monitor moved just in time. The Primarch Blade, descending with the weight of absolute judgment, struck his chest armor and stopped, instead of cleaving him in half.
The impact was tremendous—a sound like reality breaking echoed across the galaxy.
A deep gash carved across his life shell, the armor that contained his unstable antimatter energy. Golden flames poured into the wound, burning deeper, trying to reach the corruption within. Sparks flew, and the cut glowed with holy fire that made the Anti-Monitor scream in pain.
He teleported before the blade could dig deeper, reappearing behind Edward. His hand blazed with antimatter energy,not the controlled blasts from before, but raw annihilation unleashed in desperation.
"Die Anomaly!"
The blast erupted at point-blank range, a wave of antimatter that could have erased a continent from existence.
Edward vanished.
Not just teleportation, a dimensional warp. He stepped through a tear in space-time, emerging behind the Anti-Monitor in the exact same instant the attack was launched.
The antimatter wave passed through empty air, continuing into the sky where it would eventually dissipate harmlessly in deep space.
This time, Edward didn't use the sword.
He used his mind.
The Anti-Monitor's roar of fury became a groan of pain as invisible force gripped him from all sides. Not touching his body, compressing the space around it. Every direction, every dimension, squeezing inward with impossible pressure.
His armor creaked lightly, a sound like dying stars. Cracks spread across the surface of his life shell, glowing lines of stress appearing in the ancient metal.
The antimatter energy he'd been channeling flickered and destabilized as the pressure mounted, disrupting his ability to control it.
His body began to shrink gradually, compressed by psychic force that warped reality itself around him. What had been fifty feet tall was now forty-five, then forty, still shrinking as the Emperor's power crushed him like a tin can.
"You... What is this vile power!" Anti-Monitor gasped, his voice strained and distorted. "This power... you're not just manipulating matter... you're compressing space itself around me..."
Edward's golden eyes glowed brighter, burning with psychic might. His voice was calm, almost conversational, as he explained what he was doing to his enemy.
"Your armor contains your unstable energy made form. It's a shell, holding back the chaos within. Remove the container..." his fingers clenched tighter, "and you'll collapse into yourself. Simple physics."
Anti-Monitor's body continued to shrink, compressed by forces he couldn't resist. Forty feet. Thirty-five. His outer shell cracked further, antimatter leaking through the fissures in glowing streams.
Each crack threatened total destabilization—if the life shell failed completely, the raw antimatter within would consume him from the inside.
Pain. Humiliation. Rage.
These emotions had been distant concepts to the Anti-Monitor for eons. He was beyond such things, above them.
But now, compressed and bleeding, feeling his armor failing, they returned with overwhelming force.
"You have made me truly angry!" he roared, his voice resonating across the multiverse. "I will rip you to shreds along with this universe! You can mourn for those pathetic humans as you die with them!"
He stopped caring about control. About strategy. About the careful application of power. He simply released everything.
All the antimatter within his core, all the absorbed energy of dead universes, all his cosmic might—unleashed simultaneously in one massive explosion of destruction.
The blast erupted from him like a supernova.
A shockwave of pure antimatter energy expanded outward at faster-than-light speed, growing, spreading, consuming. It would destroy everything within range—planets, stars, the fabric of this dimension itself.
The nearby galaxies would be erased from existence.
And Earth stood directly in its path.
Edward saw it coming. Saw the wave of annihilation spreading outward, saw Earth behind him—fragile, precious Earth with its billions of lives completely unaware of how close they were to ceasing to exist.
His expression didn't change, but something shifted in his golden eyes. A decision made in a fraction of a second.
"The universe can perish, as long as humanity survives," he said, his voice quiet but carrying across the battlefield. "That's what I believed once."
The shockwave approached, reality unraveling before it.
"But how can I let an evil creature destroy a universe when I am here!"
He moved both hands in complex patterns, drawing power from reserves that hadn't been tapped before. This wasn't just psychic might—this was reality manipulation on a cosmic scale, the power of humanity's will made manifest.
Black holes tore open around the Anti-Monitor. Not one or two, but dozens, each one precisely calculated and positioned. Their event horizons overlapped, creating a gravitational field so intense that even light couldn't escape.
The antimatter shockwave hit the field and stopped. Not slowed—stopped completely. The black holes absorbed the energy, drinking it in, their combined pull strong enough to overcome even antimatter expansion.
The Anti-Monitor found himself at the center of this gravitational prison, trapped by forces even he couldn't easily overcome. He thrashed against it, his newly regenerated hands clawing at space, trying to tear his way free.
"How ridiculous!" his voice boomed, strained from the effort of fighting the black holes. "With such power, why would you waste your time protecting those ants?!"
Edward stood firm, both hands maintaining the gravitational field. The Primarch Blade burned in his grip, growing brighter as he channeled more power into it.
"It's not rational!" Anti-Monitor continued, his voice carrying genuine confusion beneath the rage. "You would stand against my Mother, against the multiverse shaper herself, to defend these flawed insects?! The creatures so ignorant that they will bring their own destruction! Why?!"
The black holes wouldn't hold forever. Edward could feel them destabilizing, the antimatter within the Anti-Monitor fighting to break free. He had a minute, maybe less.
But a few seconds were all he needed to power up his Noble Phantasm.
Edward looked at the Anti-Monitor without any emotion. The Primarch Blade blazed with power that made the previous displays look like candle flames. He gripped it with both hands, the weapon humming with gathered might.
Then he smiled. Just slightly. And his voice shifted, overlapping. Edward's modern tone blending with the Emperor's deep voice of ancient authority as he handed over full control to the God Emperor of Mankind.
"It's rather simple really, foul creature."
The blade raised higher, power gathering to critical mass.
"Because the Emperor protects."
The smile widened, becoming something fierce, proud, absolute.
"And the Emperor is absolute."