Location: Watchtower – Omega Isolation Bay
The lights were dim. The chamber was sealed. Elias had requested privacy—more like demanded it—with the kind of tone that didn't require approval. The League didn't argue. Not after what happened to Stewart. Not after the slaps. Not after Elias tore truth from code like meat from bone.
He stood alone in the center of a containment field built for celestial threats.
It didn't hold him.
It never could.
He wasn't meditating. He didn't believe in peace.
He was scanning. Searching. Calculating.
[System Task: Cross-Galactic Signature Trace Initiated]
Status: Progress 91%
Signal Type: Omega Relic / Emotional Spectrum Seed / Apokoliptian Wormcode
Elias closed his eyes.
Felt the tension in his bones.
He wanted chaos. He wanted to break something — someone. Every word from the League echoed like gnats. Do-gooders trying to contain a god with red tape and protocol.
They were the disease.
He was the purge.
Then the chamber temperature dropped ten degrees.
The lights shifted from sterile blue to bleeding orange.
[System Alert: Unauthorized Access to Mental Core]
[Omega Channel Override Engaged]
[Incoming Transmission: Entity – DARKSEID]
Elias opened his eyes.
And there he was.
The shadow. The god. The living finality.
A towering holographic figure, built from anti-light, muscle, and inevitability. He stood at the edge of Elias's consciousness—not speaking, not gesturing, just existing.
And in that moment, Elias understood why even Superman had feared him.
But he didn't kneel.
He didn't flinch.
Instead, he smirked.
"So, the rock finally rolls uphill."
Darkseid's hologram tilted its head, slow and deliberate.
"You mock what you cannot grasp," the voice rumbled. "You are flesh. Decay with ideas."
"I'm evolution. Wearing a sarcastic T-shirt," Elias replied.
Darkseid stepped forward, his presence so immense that the Watchtower's shields trembled just from the residual Omega radiation.
"You wield a piece of my legacy. Not earned. Not forged. Given by accident. A child cradling the weapon of extinction."
Elias's Omega mark burned hotter across his chest. He clenched his jaw.
"You didn't give me anything. The System chose me. The Mother Box saw what I could become — and it spat in your name when it did."
Darkseid's voice was low, ancient, and without emotion.
"The Mother Box obeyed survival. You are a tool. A shard. Not a king."
Elias chuckled coldly. "Then why are you calling?"
Darkseid's eyes ignited.
"Because even a cracked mirror reflects truth. And you, Elias Kade, are a reflection I cannot ignore."
He raised one massive hand, and data streams burst into the chamber — images of war, planets falling, Galactic Empires bending beneath Omega fire.
"You will either bow to me," Darkseid said, "or become the path that leads others to kneel."
Elias stepped closer to the hologram, nose wrinkling at the ozone stench of anti-life energy leaking through.
"You threaten. I insult. We both waste time."
He raised a finger.
"Omega Override."
[Omega Override Activated – Holographic Layer Stabilized]
[Darkseid Consciousness Anchor – Invasive Mode Blocked]
The hologram flickered, then solidified — more focused, more real.
"I don't bow. Not to light. Not to law. Not to you."
"You wear my scar, human," Darkseid said, voice rising. "Every atom in you knows my truth. You fight the tide that made you."
"I don't fight the tide. I control it."
He slammed his fist into the ground — Omega energy split the chamber floor.
[System Unlock: Anti-Life Whisper – Passive Resistance Unlocked]
[Trait Acquired: Authority Defiance – Will Cannot Be Compelled by Cosmic Lords]
Darkseid went silent.
Then… he smiled.
Just faintly.
"Good," he said. "You're learning."
Elias frowned.
"I'm not your pawn."
"You were never a pawn."
A silence passed between god and heir.
"You are a question. And all of existence will answer."
The hologram began to flicker.
Darkseid's final words were colder than any weapon.
"When you are ready, Elias Kade... come to Apokolips. Bring your rage. Bring your defiance. Bring your arrogance. I will welcome you with open hands—then crush you with them."
The hologram vanished in a surge of black static.
The room went quiet again.
Elias stood alone, eyes glowing, skin steaming with heat.
His chest heaved with adrenaline, but his smile widened.
He'd just spoken to Darkseid himself…
And he made him blink first.
[System Update: Omega Protocol I Unlocked – The Right to Challenge Thrones]
[New Directive: Travel to Sector 666 – Locate Vault of the Forsaken Lanterns]
[Status: Dangerous – Unauthorized by Justice League]
[Suggested Action: Proceed Immediately]
Elias turned toward the door.
His voice echoed in the chamber, mocking and calm:
"Tell the League I'm going on vacation. If they try to follow, I'll slap Earth off its axis."