(Davian's P.O.V)
Everything disappeared and I was left in a featureless white space.
The void. Oh great, I'm back here again.
Nothing existed for infinite distance in all conceivable directions.
I seemed to have been booted far away from the main DC Multiverse, as even the balls of universes I had grown accustomed to seeing were nowhere in sight.
My Reikaku could cover at least a hundred billion light years. But a single universe in the Multiverse was at least 10 times that.
//AN(TheDC universe has been stated to be bigger than our own universe which is 93 billion light years across)
Despite that, nothing living or dead existed as far as I could sense. It was all void, void and more void around me.
Speaking of, I was different as well. Differently dressed I mean.
Looking down at my body...I was wearing a black Metallica T-shirt, one I used to own before.
The t-shirt was paired up with grey khaki shorts and my old Nike Jordans covering my feet.
Where did the clothes even come from?
Using Reikaku to study them, I theorized what I had been wearing before had been destroyed, and Cosmic Authority had created these clothes from my memories as replacement.
Nice.
I brushed a hand over my Zanpakuto, not trusting my eyes. The familiar hard ridges of Chesha Neko's handle assured me.
Moving on, I noticed something strange.
There was a thin film of energy around my form, warping and glowing golden.
Probbing it revealed it was Cosmic Authority.
The combination of all my powers. The strange aspect was the restriction on its size.
Extending it out like before was impossible.
The white space simply pushed back with equal intensity.
I couldn't impose the field over the void, especially when there was a slight pressure coming from it, as if the void sought to eject me from this space of non-existence.
And the pressure was increasing. I suspected that without my Cosmic Authority, I would have gradually been crushed to nothing.
This presented a question, why hadn't we faced the same problem while traveling from the Bleachverse?
'It has to be the distance.'
Maybe I was too far away from habitable space.
Maybe it was the same concept as the Hyperbolic Time Chamber from Dragonball; the further in you walked, the more gravity increased and harsher the conditions became. (Thanks Nick for the memories of that anime, I wonder if one day I might fight Goku and the others.)
But fighting was sadly not a top priority now.
Note, that all of that was just conjecture.
But I suspected I was right. Especially with the force acting on me seeming to grow stronger the longer I stayed in one place.
To deal with it, I started moving, alleviating some of the pressure.
I kept Reikaku extended out as far as I could, searching not only to find out where I was but for my companions.
Where were Chase and the others? The million strong Soul Lanterns under my command, Manhattan and Grail.
Even looking within me yielded no results. I couldn't hear Chase's voice.
For the second time ever, his presence went missing.
The first time had been intentional on his part. I had come to rely too much on his power and so he stayed silent to teach me a lesson.
But this time, something was different. It was like the Void outside was reflected in me.
Empty.
I couldn't even sense my Inner World, or the Davi Star System, nor the Fourth World, Apokalips.
Wait...it wasn't that I couldn't sense them, it was that there was nothing to sense anymore. The realms seemed to have merged into something.
Something that sat at the center of my being. A dense core of swirling white energy that made even me wary.
It floated in the middle of my chest.
Right where my Saketsu was.
Probing the core with Reikaku revealed something noteworthy.
Potent energy. Compressed to an unbelievable extent. Energy that upon release would most likely destroy an entire universe.
Energy made up from 3 realms, 2 spirit dimensions and 1 physical one. Held together by Fullbring, given potential amd structure by the Hogyoku.
I stopped prodding it. Who knew what would happen if I accidentally made it explode?
I would probably die in the aftermath. All my senses pointed to this happening. Not even Cosmic Authority would save me then.
"Chase!"
I called out once more, just like I had done a few times before.
"Grail!"
Yet even with enhancing my voice, the sound travelled only a few inches away before disaapearring.
The Void rejected and ejected everything.
Then, could it mean that Chase and the others had been sent away before being crushed? Or maybe they were crushed into nothing to the point not even their souls remained. Not everyone had Cosmic Authority protecting them.
"You're worrying too much."
I slapped my face lightly.
Dr. Manhattan was with them. And given that we were the same level powerwise, (in terms of how much damage we could deal and how much we could take, we were equal) they were probably fine.
I needed to focus on something else.
I needed to figure out what all this was. I had a feeling I was 'Meant' to do something here but I didn't know what.
Oh well, time to tour the place. Maybe I can even get some training in. It's been long since I felt the gains.
(??? P.O.V)
My poor child.
He's been through so much.
What kind of mother am I? I made a promise to myself that I would be nothing like my own parents.
But, I still abandoned him, my own child.
At least our mother tried to raise us before giving up, ( apparently she had better things to do) that's Mother Night for you, heart as cold and dark as the primordial edict of darkness she symbolized.
But at least she tried. I never did. I didn't get to hold him long enough to know if I even wanted to.
Raising an Endless was no easy task. Especially one sharing the same edict I did...
Death.
The mirror of life. Yet there was more...
Something he was yet to awaken from his father's side. The Lord of Balance was more powerful than I could ever hope to be.
Davian was only one boy out of his numerous powerful children. But out of them all, he was the one most like his Dad.
Which meant his potential was limitless.
What a strong child, within half a year he has transcended to heights unknown to creatures even older than I am.
He's clearly ready.
Worry not, son. I might not be able to talk to you but I'm always watching. Death is after all everywhere.
And for missing your birthday, I have a present...
(Davian's P.O.V)
How long has it been?
Honestly I had no idea.
Though it felt like a few months.
I'd been constantly on the move, never staying in one place for too long.
I had no need for food or sleep, my body could exist, powered by my own Power. Tairyoku to be exact.
I hadn't simply been idle, either.
Reikaku was still extended out as far as I could stretch it, covering hundreds of billions of light years. Yet nothing came up on it's radar.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
But that didn't discourage me. I looked at it as some form of training.
A few more months passed.
Due to constant use, I had refined the use of Reikaku, enough that I could even sense the microscopic layer of the Void.
However while reality was made up of 3 elementary components, time, space and particles...no matter the scale, the void was as empty as ever.
I ran a few more experiments.
By removing a few rations from my pocket dimension, detaching and weaving a few of Chesha Neko's threads and throwing the Rations into the void, they were instantly rejected and sent away.
I could still sense my threads afterwards, which meant the void wasn't destroying matter, just expelling it.
I couldn't teleport away on my own power but at least if I ever get desperate or tired of this place, I had a way to leave.
A few years passed.
By now I had figured out a way to tell time by studying the compressed ball of energy floating in my chest.
It kept on passively absorbing energy from me.
I noted the rate of the absorption and came up with a system to tell how much time passed.
That meant heavy and long calculations.
Nothing my mind couldn't handle.
But there was more. I started actively sending in more energy into the ball.
The ball grew even scarier. It's size remained the same but it's color changed.
The white sphere gaining flecks of different colored starlight.
Soon enough a decade went by.
I grew accustomed to Cosmic Authority, learning how to control my combined energies efficiently.
I had been wasteful before but now not a wisp of power was lost.
Despite a decade passing, the environment hadn't changed. It was all white everywhere I looked.
I even increased my flight speed to it's limit, remaining at a constant 100 times the speed of light.
A ray of golden energy, cutting through empty space, alone in the endless void.
I felt like I could go even faster.
I hadn't really thought about it but what was stopping me from pushing my limits?
So I begun to send all the energy I could spare,(most of it was being absorbed by the ball of compressed power in me) into improving.
The ball had grown in size as well.
After 10 years of shoving in enough potent energy to destroy dozens of universes, I guess it made sense it would get bigger.
Whoa. This is unexpected.
A couple of months later, I got the idea to pull in outside energy and guide it to the marble.
It was just something that occured to me as I was observing the energy composition of the golden marble. It wasn't made of a single energy.
My cosmic authority was the combination of Reiryoku, Fullbring, Tairyoku and the essence of the Seven Deadly Sins; demonic energy. The Hogyoku kept it all together.
The marble was a pot that contained all these different energies, swirling in a chaotic soup of potential.
I wonder what would happen if I added more various energies.
The plan worked.
A few weeks after getting the idea, I used my innate connection with the Speed Force to pull in its energy from the outside.
Remember, whatever my strings tapped into, a metaphysical connection would be created. One that couldn't be broken by distance or time.
It was just there. A phantom link.
I learned to harness the speed force in it's entirety, adding it to the marble in my chest while also improving my own speed.
Shunpo evolved in response to that. And golden streaks of lightning sparked and zapped the void around me.
My speed shot up even more. I was now moving a thousand times my previous speeds, making it 10,000 times the base speed of light.
Lightspeed was the universal speed limit. Anything with mass approaching this limit required an infinite amount of energy to maintain or exceed that speed.
This being the void, the energy requirements were even more outrageous.
For the first time ever, I felt a constant drain on my reserves.
This revelation spurred me on. It meant I could get stronger. By perceiving the limits to my personal power, I could work to break past that limit.
I increased my speed even more.
Time manipulation, dimension crossing, molecular vibration, osscilation, cloning...
All the base abilities of a speedster.
I learned them. I even learned how to incorporate the skills to my own catalogue of abilities.
In the end, I fused the Speedforce energy I was receiving into Shunko; a higher application of Shunpo and Kido.
I could say with absolute certainty, I was one of, if not the fastest speedster in all of creation.
The marble sphere within me was the size of a golf ball by now.
So I slowed down after decades of nonstop flight and power experimentation.
I stopped, settling in a meditative state and delved into the marble.
If before, the energy within was capable of destroying a universe, now it was potent enough to destroy an entire cluster of universes.
How terrifying.
I wonder...
I focused and then begun to compress it even more. Veins spread out across my body, waves of golden aura escaping into the void...and permeating it!
Even the void couldn't get rid of it.
More time passed and when I was done, the marble was back to the size of a watermelon seed.
I kept on flying and when that grew boring, I trained by using Shunko to clear massive distances.
When that got boring as well, I begun to work on my other abilities.
Mainly I focused on practicing my sword skills.
While Shiva had taught me her own style of fighting, it was mostly suited for someone with skills but not power.
I had more power than skills. To remedy that, I decided to create my own set of sword skills.
One that utilized my Cosmic Authority to it's fullest.
Surrounded by millions of my own clones, all wielding Chesha Neko, their bodies pulsing with Cosmic Authority, the fight begun.
Sword blades shot out, devastating demonic lightning painted the canvas of white space with purple brushes of energy.
Massive flesh constructs powered by the Speedforce and Tairyoku attacked me with impunity.
It was pandemonium.
And the result was not unexpected.
I lost.
Not once not twice.
Everytime I had these training sessions,
I lost and lost and lost and lost.
Time kept moving.
3 centuries went by. It was still only the void.
A few interesting things happened during that time.
I compressed the marble ball within me a couple more instances. Each time it grew more concentrated, the aura of danger coming off it increased.
And every second, I kept shoving in all the energy I could spare.
I had no idea how powerful it was now.
After using Speedforce energy for so long, something strange occured.
My Cosmic Authority begun to produce it passively. It just happened. Like Thawne's negative speed force, I could use the field of power to basically do everything a normal speedster could do.
This led to me wondering what else my Cosmic Authority field was capable of.
So I used the rest of my innate connections.
I was connected to demonic energy through the essence of the Seven Deadly Sins. But Demonic Energy was not as useful as Speedforce energy, so I left it alone.
That left me with a few more options.
Darkseid's Omega Sanction, The emotional electromagnetic spectrum and divine energy from the Hand of God and Devil Energy from the Hand of the Devil.
That said, the latter two were impossible to decipher. I spent 5 full years trying to understand the core intricacies of my Bankai but came up empty each time.
Even using Reikaku, all I got was the sensation of boundlessness. Things would be easier of Chase was around.
With that failure, I changed gears and decided to focus exclusively on deciphering the Emotional Electromagnetic Spectrum.
My connection came from Obsidian.
Having used Chesha Neko to tank his attacks, as well as undoing the damage caused by his fake Life Equation, a connection had been formed between me and the Lantern corps.
The Life Equation had corrupted every single Lantern Corp with the exception of the Orange Lanterns.
Deciphering these emotions was much easier than understanding how the Speedforce worked.
As a bonus, I gained connection to the Omega Sanction, a field of energy that basically had one job...destruction. It's destructive capacity was at level with Respira.
Unfortunately, thet made it's use in combat rather redundant.
The same could be said for the Emotional Electromagnetic spectrum.
None of the Lantern corps possessed abilities I didn't particularly already have.
Especially with Chesha Neko's string capabilities.
Once my Cosmic Authority field started passively producing the Emotional Spectrum, I felt a connection slot in place and 9 rings were created on my fingers.
Each one symbolized an emotion.
Blue ring for Hope, green ring for Will, Orange for Avarice, Yellow for Fear, Red for rage, Indigo for Compassion and Violet for the Star Sapphire's love.
The last two rings were...weird to say the least.
On the thumb of my left hand was a black ring. This ring felt like UnLiving energy. The less potent death energy from Nekron.
I had the most connection with this ring. Though it was the most redundant out of the others.
On the thumb of my right hand was a White Ring. It was on par with the black and a direct antithesis to it.
This ring felt like a combination of all the other rings excluding the black one. The energy it exuded was also similar to Tairyoku or rather, Raven who was a life entity.
All the power of the electromagnetic spectrum in my hands. Yay...
Was this what Darkseid had been going for? As expected of a loser.
Despite the cool factor, the electromagnetic spectrum added Zero to my abilities.
It's only use was the energy it produced. Energy I immediately sent to the marble in my chest.
Now that I had grown a bit more powerful, I decided to have another fight with my clones.
This time I added a million to the initial million.
Now I was facing a force of 2 million Davians. Each a master of death. Each with access to my abilities except for Bankai.
That meant Shikai, Cosmic Authority and Kido.
Thankfully they had no will of their own, just my combat skills and battle instincts.
I lost, miserably infact.
500 years had passed since I found myself in this place.
My Metallica T-Shirt, Khaki shorts and Jordans had long since worn away and broken down despite being creations of Cosmic Authority.
I blame the clones and their relentless attacks. Tch, bastards.
I weaved new clothes from Chesha Neko's strings and kept moving.
700 years in,
I created the foundation of my own personal sword skills.
After facing defeat for so long, I had had enough.
I called them, the Death God Sword Arts. A style that incorporated the pinnacle of my understanding of death, the ceasing of life and my Blade.
Using them, I won my first fight against 3 million of my clones.
One single slash...and the entire Void, at least the zone around us quivered at the power behind the strike.
The attack plowed through hastily created string shields, bypassed their fields of Cosmic authority entirely and turned them into nothing.
For Death is the absence of life. The final state of being...
Death God Sword Art first Stage:- Non-Existence.
I resolved to never use it in the real world, else I might split the Universe in two.
800 years in,
I had fought against 5 million of my clones...
But they all fell to the first stage of my Sword Art.
Not even 10 or 20 million could defend against it.
I changed tactics. It wasn't a number's game anymore.
What I medded was quality opponents. That desire led to me creating a measly thousand clones and then allowing them to use Bankai.
Oh boy.
It wasnt even a tough battle.
I lost almost immediately.
Bringing Bankai into the mix complicated things and I found myself barely keeping up.
It was clear the first stage of the Death God Sword Arts while powerful, was not enough.
The marble ball within me had grown back to the size of a golfball.
I spent a few years compressing it down.
At this point, I was following an instinct, one that told me to keep on pushing more power into the marble.
900 years in,
After losing several times, even against 100 clones, I finally understood why Bankai was the ultimate equilizer.
You need to understand something.
Cosmic Authority was a field of energy that allowed me to do anything.
I could break down air molecules and build them back up into an ice cream cone. I could turn my enemies into Earthworms.
I could create real life, with a soul, personality and past.
There was nothing I couldn't do. That said, Cosmic Authority could be stopped or negated by a being stronger than me.
Bankai was a different story.
I could control the web of existence using it. And even in this void where there was nothing, I could control my own strings of existence, making myself as powerful as I could imagine.
That was the true power of Bankai. And the Clones abused it with Impunity.
And without using it myself, nothing in my Arsenal could beat that.
So I created the Second Stage of the Death God Sword Art.
Death God Sword Art Second Stage: Void Thrust.
Void Thrust was as you guessed it, inspired by the void.
By thrusting out, I could create a beam of death energy that would pierce through everything, targeting the core of the soul.
The First Stage: Non-existence destroyed everything in it's path, shields, the body and soul
But it could be dealt with by my Bankai. The clones simply manipulated their threads of existence and tanked it.
Yeah...you heard me right.
The Second Stage:- Void Thrust targeted the core of everything.
Where all the strings of the target's existence converged.
There was no blocking it, only evading.
But how could you avoid an attack that was thousands of times faster than light?
Suffice it to say, I won.
Even against a thousand of my own clones with Bankai's active...
It was a tough battle that pushed me to my limits( still wasn't using Bankai)
But I won.
1000 years passed,
I finally came across something.
It was at the very edge of my Reikaku's range.
It just...appeared, shaking me to my core.
A collosal mountain of incredible size. For a second, I thought it was the boundaries of an Universe.
Then it started moving towards me, faster than even I could fly, covering millions of light years in a split second.
It was as if the void around us had no hold on this thing.
And whatever it was, the aura it exuded...
"Fuck...this is bad."
I muttered.
Even a billion Davian clones wouldn't stand up to it. It was just that strong.
The risk of dying if I fought this thing was high. So why was there a hungry smile on my face?
Why was my heart pumping with anticipation?
Why was my hand around Chesha Neko trembling with the urge to attack first?
Had staying in the void for a thousand years made me crazier than before?
As the being's humongous shape finally appeared in my vision, I found the answer to my questions.
I was a slave to getting stronger. And even against Insurmountable odds, there was no way I would ever retreat.
It had been a thousand years since I fought someone powerful...I was eager to see how much strength I now had.