The back-and-forth dragged on for quite a while before Thea finally understood the situation: her timing had been impeccable. Darkseid was home. He wasn't sick, wasn't injured—he'd simply locked his door and gone to sleep. His subordinates didn't dare disturb him. The sheer absurdity of it nearly made her laugh.
Steppenwolf projected a "push us any further and we'll all go down together" stance, which gave Thea pause.
The Godhood of Death had brought her up to Darkseid's level. They were in the same tier now. But in an actual fight, Darkseid probably still had the edge—the Omega Effect alone was enough to make her wary. Her current power level was roughly comparable to Zeus or Highfather—a step below the blue fatso.
Already at a slight disadvantage one-on-one, and if these remaining New Gods piled on? That was a headache she didn't need.
Still lacking that reckless courage after all. She sighed, her striking eyes sweeping across Steppenwolf and the others. "I'll let you off this time. If Darkseid asks, tell him the Goddess of Death dropped by. If he wants reparations, he's welcome to visit the Underworld to discuss terms. Same goes for all of you. Ha!"
With that, she swept up the countless souls from the River of Death. A black gate rose behind her, its dark green corridor leading straight to another realm. Kanto and the two Female Furies took one last look at the planet they'd called home for eons, shook their heads quietly, and stepped through.
Thea waved at Steppenwolf, then crossed the threshold herself and left Apokolips behind.
The remaining gods stared at each other in stunned silence. It took a long time before anyone found their voice. Goddess of Death? Wasn't she Highfather's Goddess of Wealth?
Steppenwolf, as Yuga Khan's brother and Darkseid's uncle, had seen enough and lived long enough to understand what a top-tier godhood like Death truly meant. Yuga Khan himself held several godhoods of that caliber—which was precisely why Darkseid practically wet himself whenever his father showed up.
Reflecting on his own age and how spectacularly little he had to show for it, Steppenwolf let out a long sigh and ordered the cleanup.
The battlefield was almost too clean. The young lady had packed up every last corpse and soul—not a scrap left behind.
But that didn't mean the damage could be swept under the rug. Kanto was gone. Two Furies were gone. Kalibak was in a coma. Mantis was in a coma. Doctor Bedlam had pulled his robe back on and was sitting on the ground, aura unsteady, clearly nursing a serious wound. Darkseid would have to be blind to miss all of this.
What do we do? The question hung in the air.
As Apokolips's two pillars, Steppenwolf and DeSaad had no choice but to "set aside their differences."
"We repelled a powerful enemy!"
"Yes! The casualties were significant."
"But through our desperate fighting, we achieved victory!"
"Exactly! That's exactly what happened!"
They hammered out the narrative on the psychic channel in seconds, both privately applauding their own brilliance.
Never mind how we won. Whether it was by blade, by negotiation, or by waving a borrowed flag until the enemy walked away—at least we didn't lose.
Between the two of them—one military, one political—they held the most authority on Apokolips. The remaining gods... well, there weren't many left. Defectors had defected; the wounded were unconscious. Whatever Steppenwolf and DeSaad said was gospel.
They each dispatched subordinates to clean up, tend to the critically injured, and—in a rare departure from standard Apokolips procedure—Steppenwolf explicitly ordered that all wounded be treated with genuine effort. The last thing they needed was a few more "accidental" deaths during "treatment."
Under Steppenwolf's frantic cover-up, the freshly awakened Darkseid noticed nothing amiss when he finally emerged three days later.
The boss strolled out, hands behind his back, and noted approvingly that the streets looked clean. The usually mud-caked roads seemed like they'd been power-washed.
But his senses were sharp—even with Thea having taken the River of Death with her and Steppenwolf scrubbing the area twice afterward, the air still carried a faint trace of something... wrong. Not the usual restless evil of Apokolips. Not sinister malice. Something almost serene. Almost melodic.
His first thought: another spy from Highfather's side, spreading that insufferable "justice always prevails, good triumphs over evil" propaganda.
"Kanto. Investigate that residential block. Find out which old friend came to visit." Darkseid gestured magnanimously toward a cluster of squat buildings—unknowingly pointing at the exact spot where Thea had lingered longest.
Several seconds passed. The assassin who should have materialized from the nearest shadow didn't appear.
This was wrong. When he called Kanto's name, the assassin could hear it from anywhere in the multiverse. Shadow-plane hyperspeed jumps had always been Kanto's specialty. For years, Kanto had waited like a loyal hound for the summons. Where was he now?
Darkseid's legendary temper flared. He bellowed Kanto's name again.
The hound didn't come. Steppenwolf did—practically sprinting.
Steppenwolf hadn't even finished his report before Darkseid exploded. "I haven't even gone after her yet and she had the audacity to attack Apokolips alone?! This is infuriating! Where is she? The Underworld?! Mobilize the army! I'm razing it to the ground!"
Darkseid's tantrum aside, Thea's entry into the Underworld hadn't been effortless either.
Hades, Osiris, and the rest of the Old Gods who called the Underworld home couldn't openly oppose her—the rules forbade it. But they'd assembled a formidable welcoming committee anyway: legions of necromancers, dracoliches, and dark gods, all blocking her path. Thea cut through them seven times over, twin swords carving a bloody road, before she formally entered the Underworld and claimed the Death Temple as her own.
The temple was built entirely from Stygian stone—a material so rare in the Underworld that it bordered on mythical. The arrowhead that had killed Achilles was forged from Stygian stone. And here, that same material had been used to construct a building spanning over five hundred square kilometers (~193 square miles).
Twelve colossal pillars supported the temple ceiling. Each pillar was carved with depictions of mortal kings and alien emperors—all of whom, regardless of their living accomplishments, had ultimately fallen to Death.
The domed ceiling above was painted with portraits of every death god currently residing in the Underworld, along with a map of their territorial holdings.
Thea barely had time to look up before a deafening BOOM shook the entire structure. The instant she crossed the temple threshold, a subtle tremor rippled across the entire multiverse.
A gap in the cosmic order had been filled. Even the Spirit of Existence itself radiated something almost like joy.
Before this moment, the souls of the dead had followed their living faiths into whichever Old God's domain would have them—but that accounted for a minority. Most of the faithless dissolved into nothing, reabsorbed by the World Will. A smaller fraction drifted into Hell.
Now the Underworld was officially "online." Countless souls finally had a waystation—a place to pass through rather than being reabsorbed by the World Will.
Thea turned to greet her first visitor and went completely blank.
Red bodysuit. Deathly pale face. Deep, dark circles under his eyes. What was he doing here?
"Huh? I died again...? Oh! Boss, it's you! Ha ha—this is great—"