Jason returned. That was what the demons sang. But where was he? They expected him to be with them, to emerge from the rift alongside the horde, to appear in the Pantheon space station with a grand declaration. He was nowhere to be seen.
Diana stood at the command center's main console, her hands gripping the edge, her eyes scanning every screen for a sign of him. Nothing. Just the empty void, the distant wreckage, the remnants of a fleet that had been torn apart by demons and now drifted in silence.
"But the demons said he's back." Her voice carried an edge of desperation she rarely allowed herself to show. "Are you sure you can't detect him at all?"
Batman stood at a secondary console, his fingers moving across the keyboard, his eyes fixed on the readouts. "Yes, I'm sure." His voice was flat, clinical. "He's either done something to hide himself... or the demons were wrong." He paused, his hands stilling over the keyboard. "I wish he was here too, Diana. Just as much as you do. But we can't seem to detect him."
Zatanna stepped up beside them, her arms crossed, her expression carefully controlled. "If he's going to show up, he'll do it in style." She glanced at Diana, her voice softening. "Don't worry too much about him. Let's just focus on our defenses."
.....
The fleet moved forward with Darkseid's orders, continuing on toward Earth.
They had officially lost more than half their forces. The WarWorld had taken two hundred ships. The Cursed Lanterns had taken forty more. The demons had torn through hundreds more, leaving only a fraction of the original armada intact.
To Darkseid, it didn't matter.
As long as the Paradooms existed. As long as he lived. No matter what Earth brought against him, he would face it head-on. This was the war he had longed for, planned for, prepared for over years. He would not stop. He could not stop.
And yet...
He felt worry.
Not once in his life had Darkseid felt worry. Why would he? He was a being above the rest, a New God, an entity that had crushed empires and extinguished stars. Worry was beneath him.
But now, he felt it.
It was all due to a singular human. One mortal. A special mortal. One who had done more than he had ever expected. One who had moved an entity like the Empty Hand.
And that human now stood in front of his fleet.
"How...?" Darkseid's voice was low, controlled, betraying nothing of the shock that rippled through him. "Where did he come from?"
Desaad's voice came through the comm, trembling. "I... I am not sure, my lord. He just... appeared."
Right there, in space. No suit. No ship. No visible means of survival. Jason floated in the void, his arms at his sides, his eyes fixed on the fleet before him. There was no sound, no visual cue to his existence. He simply was.
"ATTACK!" Darkseid's voice thundered across the fleet. "EVERYTHING! USE IT ALL!"
The fleet opened fire.
Rockets. Lasers. Heat missiles. Beams of concentrated energy. Every weapon in the fleet's arsenal was unleashed in a single, devastating volley. The void between the ships and Jason filled with light and fire and destruction, a storm of weaponry that should have annihilated anything it touched.
Jason did not move.
He extended his hand slowly—his open palm upward, his fingers relaxed. A small, mesmerizing yellow flame emerged in his hand. Yellow-orange, with a dark core. The same flame he had learned to control. The same flame that had burned away his enemies and forged his power.
He sent it forward.
The flame floated ahead of him, not far, not fast. It simply drifted into the path of the oncoming barrage. And then it began its work.
Every single attack—from every angle, from every ship—was absorbed by that ball of flame. Lasers bent toward it. Rockets curved in mid-flight, pulled by an invisible gravity. Beams of energy were devoured, consumed, added to the flame's growing mass. It expanded slowly, relentlessly, until it dwarfed the ships themselves. A mini-moon of fire, burning in the void.
The flame released its fury.
Lightning-like flames of frenzy erupted from its surface—not beams, not bursts, but something in between, something that moved with the speed of thought and the unpredictability of madness. The first one struck a ship. It vaporized instantly, its hull turning to ash, its crew erased from existence.
Then another.
And another.
And another.
Hundreds of them.
Darkseid's fleet died in front of him.
Ships that had survived the WarWorld. Ships that had survived the Cursed Lanterns. Ships that had survived the demon horde. They fell one by one, their hulls crumbling, their weapons useless, their crews screaming. The frenzy flames moved through them like a scythe through wheat, cutting down everything in their path.
Darkseid exited his ship immediately.
He flew into the void, his Omega Beams already firing, his eyes blazing with red light. He had to salvage something. Had to save something. He had to—
The Omega Beams connected with one of the frenzy flames.
They disintegrated.
Not countered. Not deflected. Disintegrated. The beams of cosmic annihilation that had never failed him simply... vanished. And Darkseid screamed.
His eyes turned yellow. His mind exploded with images, sensations, emotions that did not belong to him. The pain of a thousand thousand deaths, the fury of a universe that hated him, the madness of a flame that wanted nothing but to burn. He fell to his knees, clutching his head, his body trembling.
The pain lasted only a second.
It felt like eternity.
Darkseid looked up. His entire fleet was gone. Dead. Destroyed. Reduced to ash and debris that floated in the void like forgotten graves.
"How..." His voice was raw, broken. "What... was... that..."
A voice answered him. Not from outside. From inside. From the presence that had been lurking in the corners of his mind, waiting for this moment.
'I warned you, you fool'. The Empty Hand's voice was triumphant, gleeful. 'You should have taken my offer. Now... you will experience a death unlike anything you have felt before.'
Darkseid's eyes went wide.
"HAHAHAHAH."
The laughter echoed through his skull as the last of his fleet died around him.
Jason floated down slowly, descending through the void toward Darkseid. His expression was calm, almost bored, as if he had just finished a chore and was now moving on to the next.
Darkseid stood up, his fists clenched at his sides. His eyes burned with red light, his form swelling with power.
He was ready for battle.