(General P.O.V)

The Presence looked up from the Pond of Reality.

The sky overhead was dark and gloomy.

"It is going to rain soon."

His unwanted guest made an observation.

For the first time, the soft expression on his face was gone. In its place was an impassive look. One born out of being the most powerful entity in existence and the worries that came with that.

Well most powerful was not completely accurate. At his level he could do anything. What limited beings such as him were their personal beliefs and ideals. When an infinite being fights another infinite being, the battle lasts infinitely.

That was why conflict was meaningless to beings above the 12th dimension. It served little purpose. They had evolved beyond that. They existed above such concepts of life. Wars and violence were best left to lower life forms.

He cast his gaze down at the pond, the clear waters were no longer taint free. A darkness from the deep was encroaching on the light. And the corners of the endless pond had a layer of oil on the surface.

The Presence's reflection snorted.

"How long will you keep on ignoring the obvious thing?"

The Presence looked down at his opposite.

"They have surprised us time and time again. Maybe this time, it won't be different as well."

He answered.

The Reflection scowled,

"You are wrong. I have foreseen how this ends. How 'I' end it, and my will shall be done."

The presence took his umbrella and dipped the pointed end inside the pool, disrupting the reflection.

"Arrogance is the bane of all. You will learn that lesson, I assure you. But it will be too late."

The darkness creeping up from the depths of the pond, receded and the edges of the boundless pool similarly lost their oily surface. The Great Darkness' influence was once again undermined.

The Presence looked up at the sky.

"Huh, he was right." He got up from the bench and opened his umbrella.

"It is going to rain."

An old man in a bowler hat started walking away, a light shower of rain pelting the umbrella he held overhead gently.

(Aden's P.O.V)

The Nerve.

"Come, boy. We do not have to fight. There is no need to waste time on a futile endeavor."

The absolute goddamn nerve of this creature.

Every attack I had thrown, planet bursting, star bursting, nut bursting... nothing had worked. Not a goddamn thing. It PISSED ME OFF! That he could stand so brazen inside my being, inside my metaphysical space and talk. Down. AT. ME.

"My power is incomprehensible." Empty Hand boasted.

"Our master's even more so. I offer you..."

And he just didn't stop talking!

"Shut your trap."

I finally said, fed up.

I had limits to break and power to achieve. This thing and whoever it worked for could kiss my divine arse. Empty Hand had lost the smug smile on his face. Now he looked positively mad. No more playing around.

Equity manifested in my hand. Due to it being a bonded weapon, I could bring it out here.

The moment the sword appeared in my hands, the world trembled. Air started roiling around the weapon as I held it up. Empty Hand narrowed his eyes at the weapon in my hands.

"That sword..."

"Is about to bring you a world of pain."

I said from his side, having covered the distance between us in a split second. He was immobilized and couldn't react as I leaned then flashed past his body once, twice.......a million times. The slashes were superimposed in reality in blue slashes.

I landed on the other side and slid a little across the flames. I looked back over my shoulder and watched as his body turned into fine black mist. I looked away to the front, spreading out my senses to see if the Darkness was still around. There was nothing left after my powerful move. Not many things could survive that.

The silver flames flared up at my urging, burning the fine mist into nothing.

Finally, I allowed myself a sigh of relief. He was gone. Gone but not dead.

Still...the revelations...I looked at my hand, I was from the Dark Multiverse. How was...how was it possible? It made no sense for my universe to have knowledge about the main DC timeline and it's changes written down in such detailed format, if it was part of the same multiverse in the first place.

I had thought that I was from the prime timeline. The true Earth. The earth that was the home of all the writers who came up with the characters and storylines that shaped DC comics. I mean, if the Darkness was to be believed...there was no 'Real' world. There was just my home, the dark alternate of the DC multiverse. And The Great Darkness was my...maker?

Something landed behind me. Or rather reformed from...the fire? What? How?

'IMPOSSIBLE!!' I thought, spinning around suddenly.

Nothing could survive my silver flames. Nothing.

Except, before my very eyes, black smoke rose up and formed into my adversary. The negativity came back. An aura that was vindictive and hateful. Empty Hand had an impassive look on his face.

"Your Efforts are meaningless."

He landed on a pitch black ground, that appeared when darkness pushed away my silver fire. How...

"Soul anihilation flames...can they burn that which exists beyond the concept of heat?"

He asked with a twist on the corner of his lips. Then his face changed to a malevolent one as he tightened his hand into a fist.

"You will pay for that, pest."

I crouched, Equity changing into a short serrated nodachi.

"You didn't leave when you could. That's a mistake. This time I'll kill you...and make it painful!"

I was still high on my anger, if I hadn't been, I would have paused first and came up with a suitable plan. It would have saved me a lot of headache.

In my current condition, I wanted to destroy something. And luckily, I wasn't short on that.

"I'm going to show you something I've been working on. Make sure you survive, because I won't be satisfied by your quick end!"

I snarled in anger.

The first step between us took me over one trillion miles away towards my back, then I used space to slingshot me back at high speeds which added to my divinity as the god of speed, caused time to get wonky. Space cracked and then stitched itself back together forcibly.

Inside my mind, a clock that begun to tick backwards as time reversed, appeared.

This was as a result of the initial little success I achieved with time manipulation while meditating. It was not reliable in the real world due to the damages in the timeline I could cause just by moving at such speeds.

My space of being was more malleable than the real world however, so I could use that to my advantage and pull off neat moves like these. The world fractured as I found myself two seconds back in time, then 5 seconds.

At the 1 minute mark I saw my past self, throwing numerous attacks towards Empty Hand. A field of nullification covered him, causing all the attacks to simply die out. Swords of flames and other constructs meant nothing to him. Beams of supercharged energy fizzled out into nothing.

Well, two could play that game.

"When are you from?"

My past self asked me telepathically, the connection between us slotting itself together.

"1 minute into the future."

I sent him the mental recording of our fight.

"Keep up the pressure."

I told him and he complied. The attacks coming in increased in both size and quantity.

Now it was my turn, I held out my hand and squeezed space, connecting with the film of the nullifying sphere and then eliminated the infinite corners around the space surrounding the spherical shape of the field, only leaving four corners to his back.

There was a brief twist and pop and the nullifying sphere was turned into a two dimensional square that was to his back. Empty Hand's eyes widened when every attack from my past self landed. The torrent of elemental and divine attacks drowned him under, pushing him towards the ocean of fire on the ground.

A dragon made up of silver flames erupted from the sea and swallowed him whole before exploding apart in one massive blast.

"I'm guessing the reason you're here is because that isn't enough to put him down?"

Past Aden told me the second I floated closer, eyes on the flames dying out in the sky.

"Not even close. You distract, I attack."

He gave a curt nod and instantly split into two forms, Air godly form and Fire godly form. He could use Homunculi puppet? How? They both shrugged.

"Didn't know I could do that. Went with my gut."

I blinked.

"Cool."

"Get ready."

His Flame God form said, both it and the Air God billowing up in size to a gigantic skyscraper size.

"That hurt my pride, you little brat. Now I'll have to get serious."

Empty Hand yelled, landing on the ground in one fell swoop.

"You're going to hurt much more after I'm done."

Then I was off, shortening the distance between us again, faster than he could react. With my first attack I managed to come out of the clash with his right arm clasped tight in my hand. Then bones broke under a heavy fist, collapsing his right chest side, I appeared before him and kicked out with my foot landing on his cheek.

Empty Hand was lifted off his feet towards my Air form. An air construct in the shape of a hammer was swung down with full force, slamming onto his flying form and digging it into the ocean of flames. The fight entered a lull.

"Is he dead?"

The Flame God wondered.

We were answered a second later.

The creature released a wide burst of sonic scream that caught me unaware. Following the scream, a cloak of darkness erupted out in a wave that pushed my past self's air god form away.

However, my own aerokinetic abilities nullified the attack and I was able to land more hits in the time it took my Past Self's flame god to make a single step.

I streaked over a dark scythe and popped behind his back, throwing a punch... wait. I paused in midair, a shockwave blasting out into the surroundings from the sudden stop.

WAIIIITTTT!!!!!

I hadn't completely gotten rid of the biggest problem with time reversal, I was actively changing the past in real time without it affecting my memories or splitting the time line into two.

With that realization came an unreasonable amount of fear. Everything froze in midair. My past self's divine forms were similarly frozen in place. Then they faded away into a dark cloud as the world around us rapidly changed or in other words, revealed that I had not taken another step after the fist instant, I thought I had killed him.

"I see you finally noticed my trick."

My adversary pointed out from my front.

My eyes never left his beaten form.

He was missing a hand, his spine was broken from my actions, both his eyes had exploded from a timely blast and his left side was covered by slowly encroaching ice.

However...none of that was real.

I stiffened in place, my body betraying me. Every single action I had taken turned out to not...be real. It all turned out to be a mental illusion. A lie.

The ground started to fracture into a sea of silver flames. Only they were tainted black and burned with an oily slowness. The sky above was dark and very gloomy. And this thing was standing behind me, not infront. And it's sharp nail was digging into the back of my neck, slightly.

From that single point, my body was covered by black spider web like veins. I couldn't move. Calling on my divinities was futile. There was something actively blocking me.

"Oh no you don't."

He clutched my neck from the back in a vice grip, his huge face, coming to rest a little over my shoulder.

"Give up."

"Fuck you."

There was a wall separating my powers from me. The same field of nullification only, it went deeper into the conceptual.

"You thought you could fool me with a mental illusion..."

I gasped in pain as my words trailed off. Looking down at my chest, a black arm with sharpened nails had pierced right through. I was in painful disbelief while spewing out blood.

How...how the fuck was he hurting me in my space of being?!