The Black Racer's sudden betrayal drew a sharp collective inhale from the spectators on the outer plane—not out of any concern for Darkseid, but because every one of them was running the same calculation: what would I do if this happened to me?
Watching from outside, Thea caught the same moment. It wasn't her problem—either outcome was fine—but if she had a preference, she'd prefer Darkseid to win.
The Anti-Monitor's reserves were deep. And he was, by all evidence, completely compatible with the Anti-Life Equation. Even if he intended to sever that connection and separate himself from it, there was no guarantee he'd follow through. As a former God of Knowledge who had destroyed no small number of universes, he was the kind of ruthless, calculating enemy who'd been wronged by her once already. Having someone like that nursing a grudge was an unpleasant thought.
Still, she wasn't going to intervene. They were too far away. Old Darkseid was on his own.
The reversal came fast, but the Dark Lord stayed cold.
The Black Racer turning against him—he had not predicted that. At all.
For the godhood of Death, he had spent tens of thousands of years scheming—and Thea had dismantled every piece of it before it could begin. If his plan had produced any result at all, it was this: the figure riding those cosmic skis. The one who called himself the God of Death.
Which he wasn't—not remotely. Darkseid could thrash him unassisted. Steppenwolf, with a little preparation, could take him down cleanly. After so many years, anyone who'd survived this long had at least some way to slow a fast-moving target. The Black Racer's real problem was that if his title was the God of Death, that God of Death was embarrassingly weak.
Darkseid had spent the better part of ten thousand years puzzling over him. It was only after Thea took dominion over the Underworld that he understood: the Black Racer had been selling him nonsense from the start. He was no Death God.
Whatever the Black Racer's flaws, ten thousand years of study had given Darkseid a thorough understanding of his capabilities. Fast—genuinely fast. His touch inflicted instant death. Neutralizing him wasn't complicated—any defensive barrier, regardless of its divine attunement, would do. But without one ready in advance, the threat was real.
He had always intended to use the Black Racer as a trump card against the Anti-Monitor. He hadn't expected to get played with his own trump.
The Anti-Life Equation's compulsion had reached further than the Black Racer. His Parademons had defected en masse. Only Steppenwolf, his uncle by blood, was still standing—though barely, fighting against his own mind to hold the line.
The situation was bad. Not just the Anti-Monitor's forces to contend with—his own Parademons had turned their weapons on their former master.
Retreat or keep fighting?
Old habits said retreat now. Leave Steppenwolf to cover the exit. Whether his uncle survived was not a factor in the decision.
But today something had shifted—quietly, in a way that overrode everything else. His hunger for the Anti-Life Equation suppressed all other instincts, sharpened to fever pitch by watching the Anti-Monitor demonstrate its power right in front of him. He would have it. At any price.
Thea could spread her divine death energy across the laws of an entire world. So could Darkseid. The tide of malevolence that poured from him now—absolute, crushing—blotted out every competing law. A savage pressure radiated to every corner of the universe. Irritation. Dread. Every thinking creature felt it in the marrow: the feeling of sitting at the top of a volcano as it woke up.
The shock of that immense evil broke Steppenwolf loose from the Anti-Life Equation's grip. Parademons were swarming toward him from every direction. His instinct was to run—but he caught himself, glanced toward where his nephew was fighting not far away.
He's not pulling back. That's not how Apokolips handles things.
He didn't dare leave. He grabbed his axe and started clearing foot soldiers.
"Black Racer?" Cutting his way through, he finally registered what he was seeing—the supposed God of Death, supposedly on their side, was now the enemy.
"Hold him—buy me time!" Darkseid said it out loud, which meant he was genuinely rattled; the man never wasted words. He didn't stop moving as he said it—fists that could crack planets hammering the Anti-Monitor in a continuous barrage.
The Anti-Monitor's armor—forged in the deepest reaches of the Antimatter Universe—was completely gone by now, but he didn't care. Darkseid not running was exactly what he needed. He hadn't bet everything on the Black Racer; he was still fighting back hard.
Two multiverse-tier combatants were throwing everything they had at each other. Steppenwolf's heart was trying to escape his chest. The enemies surrounding him were infinite in every direction, with no visible edge—and somewhere in that sea was the Black Racer, moving like a ghost.
"Idiot!"
"Useless!"
Thea, watching from outside, and Darkseid, at the center of it, said it simultaneously. The Black Racer had used the Parademons and the Anti-Monitor's ranks as cover, threading through a gap past Steppenwolf.
His speed was absolute. Steppenwolf could saturate the surrounding space with his divine power of hatred to slow an incoming target—but the Black Racer ignored it entirely, pushing to maximum velocity and aimed straight for Darkseid like a thrown spear.
The Anti-Monitor's expression cracked into a cold smile. As a former God of Knowledge, he knew exactly how the Black Racer's attack worked. Both hands clamped onto Darkseid like iron, locking him in place.
In a split second, Darkseid managed one partial twist—and the Black Racer hit him square.
A slight figure slamming into a giant. The impact was like a car at full speed hitting a mountain range—except this time the car came through without a scratch, and the mountain was the one about to fall.
Darkseid was not Eclipso. He had no supreme divine being for a patron; instant-death attacks could still touch him, could still take his life. The Black Racer's cosmic skis left a massive wound across his ribs. Black death-energy began devouring his body immediately. He fought to contain the damage with everything he had—to minimal effect. His face was the color of ash. He looked like a man watching his last seconds count down.
The Anti-Monitor laughed. The sound was a ragged, grinding rasp—but he was genuinely happy. In his mind's eye, in that blurred moment, he could already see himself becoming a person again. Freedom had never felt this close. As for whatever multiverse turbulence would come from killing Darkseid—irrelevant.
A hand this good, and he played it like this. Darkseid, you absolute idiot. Thea cursed under her breath. She wanted to get back into Earth-3, but after Darkseid's power surge the evil World Will had reconstituted itself—stronger than before—and it remembered being suppressed by her. Now it was actively pushing back against her entry.
The Anti-Monitor glanced outward for a moment, as though curious to read the expressions on the watching crowd—then, guarding against any last surprise, fixed his eyes back on Darkseid.
The Dark Lord's divine domains were well-suited to him. To separate from the Anti-Monitor designation, to separate from the Anti-Life Equation, to become a person again—he wasn't going to settle for being ordinary. Darkseid's divine domains fit him as though they had been made to measure. He had no intention of giving up a single one.