There is a place beyond the Source Wall. Beyond the Bleed. Beyond the Monitor Sphere and the unimaginable machinery of the Sixth Dimension.
It is not a place of darkness, nor light. It is a place of potential. It is the white page before the ink touches it.
Here, time does not flow. Concepts like "beginning" and "end" are merely suggestions.
In this blinding, serene whiteness, an elderly gentleman in a simple grey suit sat on a park bench that existed simply because he wished it to. A small terrier sat by his feet, panting happily.
The Gentleman held a marble in his hand.
Inside the marble, nebulae swirled. Universes collided and reformed. Heroes died and were reborn. Crises occurred in infinite cycles of death and rebirth.
This was the DC Omniverse.
The Gentleman—The Presence, The Source, The One Above All—held it up to his eye, examining a specific flaw in the glass. A new crack that had healed over, but left a distinct, vibrant blue mark.
"Curious," The Presence murmured. His voice was the sound of a calm ocean.
The dog barked softly.
"I know," The Presence replied, scratching the dog behind the ears. "He is not of My making. He is foreign code. A narrative from a different publisher. A logic that operates on 'Cool' rather than 'Order'."
He looked deeper into the marble.
He saw the timeline shift. He saw the defeat of Darkseid—not by Destiny, but by a creature who simply refused to acknowledge the gravity of the situation. He saw the reboot.
Usually, when a foreign entity invades the Orrery of Worlds, the immune system of the Omniverse purges it. The Speed Force, the Emotional Spectrum, the magic of the Lords of Order—something usually corrects the mistake.
But this mistake had integrated.
Elias had become a Canon Event.
The Presence watched the current moment on Prime Earth. He saw the Blur racing the Kryptonian. He saw the joy in it. He saw the "Chaos Factor"—a probability wave that bent reality not to enslave it, but to liberate it.
"Darkseid seeks to control the story," The Presence mused. "He seeks to make all things one. The Anti-Life."
He tilted the marble, watching the blue streak tear through the clouds, leaving a trail of impossible physics in its wake.
"But this one... he reminds Me that the story is meant to be fun."
Elias was a paradox. He wielded the power of a chaotic god, the durability of a cartoon character, and the heart of a vagabond. He broke the Fourth Wall, not to destroy the illusion, but to wink at the audience.
The Presence closed his hand over the marble, protecting it.
"I could erase him," The Presence said to the empty void. "I could flick my finger and restore the continuity to its intended path. I could remove the blue anomaly."
He paused.
He thought about the rigidity of the timeline. The endless, somber wars. The brooding detectives and the tragic aliens.
Then, he thought about a hedgehog eating a chili dog in the middle of a battle for the fate of existence.
The Presence smiled.
It was a warm smile. The kind of smile an author gives when a character surprises them.
"No," He decided. "Let him run."
He leaned back on the bench, closing his eyes, content to listen to the distant, rhythmic thrum of sneakers hitting the pavement of a new world.
"Let's see where this goes."
[END OF VOLUME 1]