Death had existed since time immemorial, sitting on the same throne in a huge and empty room. Where black clouds swirled in the distance and no signs of life could be found anywhere. Her residence looked like the end of everything, with her throne seemingly put together with bones of every species in the universe. Everything was quiet here except for the fading whispers of inevitable death.
Such a life was bound to grow monotonous. It led Death to often seek entertainment through mortals.
Today, too, was another dull day of Death looking through the Multiverse for some amusement.
"Hmm…?" A glint flashed in her endlessly black eyes. A sense of familiarity beyond the universe disturbed her senses. It was Death in another universe, and the death of another universe.
She lightly swung her hand to reveal a rift. Within it, whole galaxies twisted, stars exploded and disappeared. The death of a universe didn't happen with a loud bang. No, it felt as if time itself seemed to freeze and shatter into pieces.
Death sat perfectly still, one leg crossed, her dark dress hanging like a shadow around her. Not a single emotion showed on her face. She had seen this so many times before. Universes died constantly. But one small spark caught her attention in all this emptiness. It was the soul of someone who didn't want to let go, who tried to hold on by some miracle.
It shouldn't have been possible.
Death smiled, not a cruel smile, but the kind someone might make when coming across something interesting.
She blinked through the rift and arrived at the collapsing universe. Her focus was only on the flickering soul. To Death, he was nothing special. Barely stronger than the average mortal, he had some martial arts and miscellaneous skills to his name. All of his strength amounted to nothing in the face of a mutant, much less the heroes who would soon emerge in her universe, Earth-169699.
Normally, she would have ignored such a being. Let him drift away like all the rest. But the peculiar situation was one that she couldn't wrap her head around.
"Why was this man chosen as the Nexus of his universe? And how did his death destroy reality this quickly?"
Every Nexus was of utmost importance since every one of them acted as the keystones of the Multiverse and were crucial to its ultimate coherence and stability. As such, the Time-Keepers and Time Variance Authority kept a close eye on Nexus as their actions could lead to big changes within the Multiverse.
Somehow, this man slipped past their gaze.
"He isn't summoned by the Queen of Nevers upon his death either… What could be the cause of this variability within this universe?"
Tapping into her cosmic powers, she peered into the secrets of this world and found her answer in an instant.
"This was… a normal world."
The discovery only puzzled her even more. Among the hundreds and thousands of universes, none was free from the conflict of superheroes and villains. Even the most mundane verse had clashes between the good and evil.
"Infinite realities exist within the Multiverse, but how could it be this isolated from the rest? Does this world exist outside the Multiverse?"
She turned her attention to the dying soul. The shell of mediocrity had an undeniably strong destiny to cling to life in such a form. She reached into his fractured mind and immediately felt a strong pushback.
"What?"
She felt a pulse beneath the soul. A tremor of dormant power. A power so deep and vast that it made her shiver.
"It can't be… Is this universe devoid of heroes and villains because of him?"
The power of an entire universe and all of its beings focused into one person—the thought rattled Death's mind. For all her endless ages, Death had grown numb to novelty. Not even she could grasp the totality of power within this man as it contained every ounce of talent countless heroes and villains were supposed to share. At its peak it would be vastly above hers, only matched by no more than five entities across the Multiverse.
Such a power existed harmoniously with one mortal soul.
Her sense of logic slipped away momentarily in the face of such a hypothetical. Then a slow, ecstatic smile touched her lips. "It would be a waste to let you perish here."
Reaching forward, she slipped her pale fingers through his immaterial chest. Flesh and bone meant nothing to her. She touched the core of him and shivered in the face of his restless power. Black runes flowed from her fingertips and coiled across him like serpents. They twisted and sank into every part of him, sealing the power so it wouldn't randomly explode. She would not let it run free and claim every soul in the universe she was about to drag him into.
She caressed his featureless face. "Your universe is gone. Your life is over. And you belong to me now."