(Aden's P.O. V)

Light.

My eyes were closed yet I could still see the overwhelming rays of the explosion through the eyelids. The fact that I was at the center and was relatively unharmed was shocking.

For a few minutes, the light was all there was to the world. Even in my divine sense, no shred of the emptiness of space remained, just rays of super hot plasma.

I breathed out a sigh when I could not detect Darkseid. Finally, I thought, allowing the exhaustion to set in. My body felt mushy and heavy. I was about to open a portal to my dimension and sleep off the last 10 hours but something suddenly changed.

A smudge of darkness appeared inside the light. A persistent oily substance that was different from true darkness. Darkness' nature was to consume light. This darkness was tainted. Like a ravenous predator, it didn't just stop with the light.

Every person has those two extremes. Good and bad. This darkness fed on the good side and fed the bad side.

The Darkness had a name.

"I am beyond your linear perception of time. Far above your feeble understanding of reality."

"Darkseid Is."

"Existence itself demands it."

The darkness overtook the light, consumed it like a parasite wantonly feeding on the host for power. I grew dim, feeling the dread latch onto the only other thing around. Me.

I felt myself sinking.

I was a god but whatever Darkseid was, it wasn't anything I had ever faced before. There was a reason why this particular mission had a nightmare tag.

I didn't have any other choice now. I could not allow him to win. Whatever I'd done had let him pull more of his true self into the universe.

I didn't want to do this...

I looked deep within myself, making a connection with Equity and called out to my chaos side.

Something else answered.

(General P.O.V)

The scales of morality suddenly shifted. Good was trampled by bad as evil came out on top. Wars of conquest were won and wars of survival were lost across the wide expanse of the universe.

Kindness was turned to cruelty. Greed overtook selflessness. The light of good in the universe started fading.

The Endless felt it. Some of the sibling's influence grew too much to almost overshadow the rest.

Destruction shielded his eyes from the blinding sun, plunging the axe in his hands on the log next to him. He sat down on a rock looking out into a wide expanse of trees and snorted.

"Not my problem."

He wiped his face, got back up again and continued chopping firewood.

(Elsewhere)

Highfather took a knee, suddenly weakened.

"Father!"

Orion held him up.

"Orion...you did not join the others."

Highfather concluded.

"How could I leave you here, alone during this final crisis?"

Orion looked up at the dark sky and tightened his fingers into fists. A shimmering shield of white blocked the darkness from consuming New Genesis, held together by the Highfather. However it was just a matter of time. That was his fight dammit! But here he was... doing nothing. He sighed and let his hands go slack.

Orion held Highfather by the shoulders and lead him to his throne.

"The others?"

His adopted father asked.

"Under the protection of Infinity Man. They are in the Lantern corps headquarters."

The two stayed in the empty throne room looking through the open cavities in the palace. The darkness was spreading.

"Orion...I feel weak. My power...the balance between Uxas and I has shifted tremendously."

Highfather stared at his son intensely.

"Darkseid cannot succeed. I need you to take on my power and add it to your own. Maybe then..."

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Orion's face changed.

"You cannot be serious, father."

Anything Highfather would have said was interrupted when a pressure greater than anything Darkseid could exert made itself known.

The same scene as before repeated itself. However this time, the result was decided before it even happened.

Inside the all consuming darkness rapidly spreading across space, seeking out intelligent life to enslave, a glowing white figure with indistinguishable features grew from a pinprick of light.

The darkness tried to drown the light in its deep and massive form but the light persisted. That persistence grew until with an explosion, all darkness within a zone of the light was expelled.

In the fourth dimension, space was dominated by a temporal loop, causing the inhabitants to perceive the present, past and future simultaneously. A fight was, had been and will take place. Linear perception was merely a construct for 3d beings and lower.

2 massive figures roiled around each other, nonuniform and lacking a limited physical vessel. The first figure was Order. A bright light of epic proportions that would have overtaken the size of a galaxy and the second figure was Evil. It sought to dim out the good and spread, plunging the whole universe and remaking it into a copy of an universe in the dark multiverse.

No words were exchanged. Words were meaningless here. They communicated through thoughts. Tried to manipulate each other through thoughts. And when that failed, taunted each other. Distance was only as long or as short as you wanted it to be.

In the 3d physical world, a much tamer but still epic duel of power was taking place.

Order looked around. He was like an island in the middle of the storm. Tongues of darkness, speared out at him, only for him to break down or remake the laws of physics in a way that denied them purchase in the real world. It got to the point where the light was overtaking the darkness again!

"I am a necessity!"

"None can deny me!"

Darkseid was steadily getting pushed back. The scales had changed stupendously. And he knew that every single second, his opponent was gaining more ground. So he decided to make one final impressive attack.

The dark rolled away from Order's position, clearing an area of over 1 light year. Then the darkness gained a reddish tint as Darkseid pulled on the omega force.

The darkness billowed out in size, gaining more mass and heaviness then at insane speeds, it plunged down at the Order Avatar's position like a tsunami.

Order saw it coming but instead of an overly panicked response, he merely raised a hand. On the palm of the feature less arm, a pure white sword manifested. It vibrated constantly, as if out of sync with the world.

Order swung it down.

Four white arcs, like pillars that held up the sky shot out of the sword, spreading across four directions at the same time.

A new sun bloomed in the sky and anyone with the capability of watching knew that the fight had been decided.

Order held something in his hands. A thin being with grayish skin and malnourished looking body. The 9 foot thin, squirming oily substance, tried to spread across his form but lacked traction.

"What are you?! Darkseid asked in fear that he had never felt before. Not ever since he used to be nothing but a lowly farmer.

"This is not how any of this is supposed to happen! I foresaw my victory! I shall not be done in by a..."

"Shut up."

Order stated calmly, his voice managing to sound like a multitude of voices. Given the way it was cocking it's white head to the side, one could tell whatever this being was, it clearly was not mortal.

"I am the victor and you the loser. Just as it should be. Any last words?"

Instead of replying, Darkseid begun to laugh.

"I see now...I understand. Just as well then that I will still prevail even when you destroy this body."

Order squezed the New God's neck.

"What do you mean by that?"

Darkseid choked a little.

"A measure. One that ensures mutual destruction in case any of them had decided to intervene...the earthen gods."

Aden would have been worried. Aden would have asked more questions, Order on the other hand wanted to bring the whole affair to a close. The logical thing was to end this for and prevent Darkseid from ever coming back and with Equity that was more than possible.

Darkseid must have felt the apathy in the gaze that was levelled at him. He quickly spoke up.

"My son Grayven is in control of the War World, a device capable of destroying an entire planet in just under seconds. Let me go or you can say goodbye to every human on earth."

Order took a chance to review the choices. It was either he allowed this enemy to walk away, therefore saving the earth or destroy the enemy and the earth would pay the price. It didn't even consider the chance that Darkseid was lying. Nothing could lie to order because the lie would be missing substance and the structure of truth.

So the choice cane down to one question. What was better for Aden in the long run?

If the earth was destroyed, many villains that would have posed a danger to Aden would die. Order was also not a fan of the Justice League.

They had meddled in his affairs time and time again. And on a larger universal scale, earth was only one planet, if he allowed Darkseid to escape, he would pose a danger to multiple galaxies, all with planets and intelligent lives of their own.

So according to Logic, taking out Darkseid was the first priority. Fuck the earth.

The sword in its hands seemed to gain more substance. Darkseid sensed his incoming death and struggled with all his might. For light years, one could see flashes of red that appeared around the white sun before losing form.

Order plunged Equity through the god of evil's torso and severed it's connection to the Omega Force.

"FEED."

He gave the order and Equity complied.

Darkseid's struggles grew anew and more panicked. A roar of pain exploded out from him. Across every universe of the DC multiverse, Apokalips was dying, Darkseid was dying. The sword had managed to cut into his true form. To cut into an abstract concept and steal away it's essence. From the fourth dimension, Darkseid was losing more than his life. He was losing his meaning.

"Mercy...mercy..."

The being that had been a threat towards the universe withered away visibly. Equity drank in its power without stopping and in the end, Darkseid's form started flaking off, piece by piece.

The last thing his red eyes focused on was the apathetic look in the gaze of Order.

"Curse you Aden Strong. Curse you..."

Order blinked as finally, the darkness was chased away.

He held Equity up and studied it. The sword had seemingly dulled but he could feel the power inside the blade. His bright white eyes were reflected in the blade's length. He blinked again and Aden's normal eyes appeared.

Aden was back.

The memories came down on him like a torrential downpour. He could hardly believe it. Terror gripped him. The decision he had made...was incredibly selfish! Aden blinked away in panic, clearing over billions of light years to appear in the Sol System.

His chest inflated in pain as he gazed at the results of his carelessness with his wide eyes.

'No... please oh god...'

Where earth had been, all that was left was floating debris and chunks of the rock. By choosing to destroy Darkseid, Aden had also caused the destruction of his home planet.