Time.
Space.
Reality.
They are not linear forces, but refracted prisms—each angle reflecting infinite possibilities.
Even the slightest alteration can ripple across existence, spawning countless parallel realities that might be called miracles. And at some unknown point in time, as if it were always meant to be, unfathomable forces from beyond began seeding their influence.
Influence that wasn't good or evil—but reached into the deepest layers of consciousness, corrupting free will and turning life itself into puppetry.
I was the first to notice this power.
I am the Watcher.
And within my gaze lies everything I saw beyond the fracture—images burned into me that I had never dared imagine. A world both familiar and terrifying, as if staring through a dark mirror. I saw faces I recognized—beings once hailed as heroes across their own universes—twisted into something… unrecognizable.
I saw entities not born of our multiverse descend like thunder, stripping souls from bodies with methods I could not comprehend, injecting black, tar-like constructs into the corpses to replace them.
I saw foreign beings—things not bound to any known cosmos—pour into these already fragile worlds, spreading their power without care or consequence.
I don't know who they were. I don't know where they came from. But even I… even I was forced to retreat from that power.
In a single moment—or was it millennia?—I watched. I watched until I could no longer bear it. And when I finally tore my gaze away and closed my eyes… it had already happened.
He had arrived.
The one who caused all of this chaos.
The one who opened the fracture and set it all into motion.
The intruder.
A being not of this universe.
A presence that hollows reality itself, turning the living into puppets, reshaping everything I thought I understood. And now… even my memories are eroding. My soul is being rewritten.
That's when I knew—I had to stop this.
I approached him. I earned his trust.
And now, it's time to bring this to an end.
My dear friends…
We've witnessed the collapse of universes—apocalyptic visions beyond reckoning—but what's about to come… even I…
Ha…
Maybe this world is a lie.
Maybe I am a lie.
Maybe you are too.
I never dreamed I'd converse with something from the higher realms—a being beyond even me. But I can't keep lying to myself.
I can't define what's real anymore.
But I know I'm still sane. And compared to my fellow Watchers, perhaps I'm one of the few who still is.
The multiverse I once understood is rotting.
This world… is sick.
And I—
—I will cure it.
-----------------------------------
Inside the Tavern
Alex stood calmly in place.
In front of him, there was nothing. The Watcher who had just been there had vanished without a trace—only a filled goblet of wine remained on the table.
Alex's eyes lingered on the glass for a moment before he exhaled a long, quiet sigh.
"So in the end…"
[Master…]
Sensing the shift in his emotions, Miss Minutes fluttered to his shoulder.
"I respect the Watcher's choice," Alex said, lowering the glass. His voice was steady.
"But I'm going to stop him."
Miss Minutes opened her mouth, paused, then spoke in a small voice:[Master… it feels like you've come to understand a lot lately.]
"That obvious?"
Alex's lips curled into a small smile as he turned his gaze to her, his eyes holding a deeper meaning.
Feeling the intensity of Alex's stare, Miss Minutes looked away awkwardly and continued:[You're the Lord of Time. I've never doubted your power. But—]
"I know what you're worried about, my lady. But for me, there are still secrets left unresolved—truths I need to confirm myself."
Alex gently shook his head, then slowly rose from his seat.
The bartender in the tavern remained slumped over the counter, half-asleep, completely oblivious to the intense exchange that had just taken place between Alex and the Watcher.
As Alex passed the bar, he glanced sideways and gave a subtle nod in acknowledgment. Without waiting for a response, he strode purposefully out of the tavern.
The doorbell chimed with a crisp ding, and a gust of icy wind struck him the moment he stepped outside.
The streets were now buried in thick snow. Fierce winds carried a dark sandstorm across the sky. The high-rises were coated in strange, black slime.
Pedestrians hurried past, each wrapped in their own world, oblivious to the collapsing reality around them. They walked forward mechanically, eyes vacant—like puppets driven by forgotten scripts, no longer aware of what was real.
Alex scanned the scene until his eyes fell on a familiar figure.
Happy Hogan.
He still remembered him.
Happy had been one of the first people Alex met after arriving in this universe—a scavenger scraping by in the streets. From their talks, Alex had learned Happy used to be a boxer in underground rings and even applied to work security for a major company. But ever since President X's authoritarian regime took control, his life had spiraled downward until he became just another drifter.
He looked like a brute at first glance, but once you got to know him, you'd see he was a decent, honest man. He never used his fighting skills to rob others. As he once told Alex, he refused to become like the thugs who ran the streets.
But now, his life was nearing its end.
Alex could see it. The man was sick—gravely so. Curled in on himself against the bitter cold, Happy's body was burning up with fever. Worse still, dark viscous matter was beginning to seep from his skin—symptoms unmistakable.
That same black sludge was rising skyward, unaffected by gravity—just like everything else around them.
This world had reached its final hour.
Reality was dissolving. Time was reversing. The future was being rewritten as the past, and the past was becoming the future. Those still alive didn't even realize it. They would vanish along with the collapse.
"Is this… the same fate as Dark Strange?"
Alex's expression tightened. He stared into the unraveling scene before him and let out a faint sigh.
After countless hopeless cycles, the Wasteland Universe had finally reached its conclusion.
As Alex stood in silence, the sky above suddenly erupted in a thunderous roar.
Hearing the sound, Alex slowly lifted his head—and what he saw made his breath catch.
The sky was dissolving.
Countless tendrils of black matter unraveled like threads, drifting upward into the void. Above, high in the celestial heights, a massive dimensional rift had opened—like a gaping, blood-red maw—gradually descending upon the world.
That was it.
A buried memory flashed through Alex's mind—something sealed deep in his consciousness.
He'd seen it before.
That first world where he met Miss Minutes. A corrupted, fractured archive that she barely managed to preserve. A world overwritten by madness.
A horrific rift blacking out the sky. Corrupted magma oozing over scorched ground. Countless shattered universes reduced to rubble, sucked into that nightmarish void.
Fragments of worlds floated like broken islands, drifting aimlessly in midair. There was no longer life or will, only unspeakable corruption infecting every grain of matter.
Twisted black worms writhed and reached out with grotesque tendrils, greedily devouring every sun that still emitted light. Legends, once alive with stories and purpose, now lay in heaps—nothing left but ruined armor and scattered bones.
There were no names anymore—no memories, no identity. Only death.
As the vision in his mind began to sync with the reality before him, Alex's breath grew heavy.
"I should've known..."
He shook his head.
And then, in the blink of an eye, he appeared high above the world—soaring into the skies to confront the monstrous, gaping rift face-to-face.
This was where it all began.
The moment the curtain was pulled back... the truth stood exposed.
"Born of emptiness. Rooted in the end. Mephisto, you really do love your riddles."
Alex stared into the dimensional wound with chilling calm. Though he couldn't see into the rift directly, just being near it was enough to feel the chaos stirring beyond—mutated thoughts, deranged wills.
This wasn't the work of one creator. Not even a handful of minds.
No—this was a storm of infected consciousness, a swirling amalgamation of countless Creators and Watchers, all pouring their impressions, fears, and impulses into a single malignant presence.
"The world beyond the rift is…"
His brow furrowed as the understanding crystalized.
"You guessed it, Time Bard."
A voice thundered from every direction—the voice of the Watcher. It echoed like rolling thunder, shaking the space around Alex.
"By now, you must have realized it, haven't you?
You are the cause of all this.
It was you who shattered the barrier between our worlds.
It was your arrival that carved this unhealable scar across the mirrored prism of realities.
And it was you who invited the corruption into our world.
You…are the invader!"
.....
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