Superman's life wasn't even visible.

Superman's eyes were wide open.

He could still feel the gash in his chest from Lex's bullet, still needing to feel the icy void of space consuming him.

His body floated.

His heart slowed as it beat.

He had never come this close to dying.

A small part of him whispered…

"Maybe this is it."

Maybe after all of this, after all these years of battling, saving, and enduring, maybe this is the one way it ends.

Maybe he wasn't enough.

Maybe nobody was enough.

His eyes blurred.

He saw a red and yellow flash.

He saw Lois.

Smiling at him.

Then

Darkness.

The League's Last Hope: The Failsafe Awakens

Deep in the Earth, far beneath the streets of Metropolis, a countdown ended at zero.

Alarms shrieked.

Red lights strobed.

And a vast steel vault adorned with Martian, Kryptonian, and Amazonian runes started to open.

Inside?

Something stirred.

Something awakened.

The walls shuddered as the chamber's security systems failed.

The air crackled with an otherworldly power.

Batman stared from the Watchtower, his face grim.

Wonder Woman stood with her fists clenched. "This is a mistake."

"We don't have a choice," Batman grunted.

Cyborg's voice crackled across the comms. "The vault is opening."

Flash still hurt, still barely on his feet, and stared aghast.

"You guys don't seriously think this is going to work, do you?"

There was no reply.

Because nobody knew.

They had never applied this before.

Because it wasn't a weapon.

It was a monster.

A creature so mighty that even the League was afraid of it.

And now?

It was awake.

Mark Grayson's Last Stand

Omni-Man stumbled, still carrying Mark's unconscious form.

He could hear his son's shallow breathing.

Feel his pulse weak and erratic.

Mark wasn't stirring.

Not opening his eyes.

Omni-Man's fists clenched.

This wasn't the way it was supposed to end.

Not for his son.

Not for him.

He turned towards the sky towards the floating, godlike figure of Imperium.

The creature that had destroyed his world.

"Enough," Omni-Man snarled, his voice raw with anger.

Imperium lazily turned his head.

"You still stand?" His voice was nonchalant.

Omni-Man carefully set Mark down on the ground.

Then he cracked his knuckles.

"You're not leaving this planet alive."

Imperium smiled.

"As if you could stop me."

And then

They fought.

The True Enemy: The Celestials Arrive

Above them, in space, something was in motion.

Beyond Imperium. Beyond Earth.

Beyond all.

A massive shadow fell across the stars.

A terrible presence, which made even the sun itself look tiny.

And then

A voice.

"Earth has failed the test."

It wasn't a sound that could be heard using ears.

It was something more.

Something that shook the soul.

Imperium stiffened.

For the first time

He was afraid.

The League was frozen.

Omni-Man froze in mid-punch, his breath caught.

Even Imperium the conqueror, the god-slayer, the unstoppable force, remained silent.

Because something greater than him had come.

A genuine Celestial.

A creature beyond understanding.

It spoke once more, its voice ringing through reality itself.

"The harvest starts."

And then

The sky darkened.

A black hole was starting to form over Earth, but it wasn't pulling things in.

It was warping reality itself.

Ripping through the very fabric of existence.

Superman, barely alive, felt it.

Mark unconscious, shattered felt it.

Every living thing on Earth felt it.

Something worse than death was arriving.

And there was nothing they could do to prevent it.

Yet.

Superman was drowning in the darkness.

Cold. Silent. Empty.

He drifted in the void, his blood streaming through space in thin, red ribbons.

The hole in his chest seared, but his body wasn't moving.

His mind flickered.

Glimpses of memories.

His parents. His childhood. His first flight.

Lois.

The Justice League.

The people he had sworn to protect.

The world he called home.

And now?

He was dying alone in space.

A warrior who had finally reached his limit.

Then

A voice.

"Get up, Kal-El."

Superman's breath caught.

He knew that voice.

It was his father.

Not Jonathan Kent.

No.

Jor-El.

The Kryptonian Dream

The gloom surrounding Superman changed.

Suddenly, he was in the center of a city made of gold.

Krypton.

Or at least… what it had been.

The skyscrapers reached toward the sky, shining under the light of a red sun.

And before him

Jor-El.

Tall. Muscular. Clad in white Kryptonian robes, his face inscrutable.

Superman lurched forward.

"Am I dead?" he asked.

Jor-El cocked his head. "No. Not yet."

Superman gasped sharply, his head shaking.

"I can't… I can't win this one."

His fists were shaking.

"Imperium is too powerful. He's too fast. Too."

Jor-El held up a hand.

"Enough, my son."

Superman said nothing.

Jor-El advanced a step, his eyes cold and piercing.

"Do you know what Krypton's greatest mistake was?"

Superman swallowed. "We didn't act."

Jor-El nodded.

"And now, your world is on the brink of destruction."

Superman's heart pounded.

Mark. Omni-Man. The League. The people below stared at the cracked moon, watching as fire rained from the sky.

His vision blurred.

"I don't know what to do," he whispered. "I've given everything."

Jor-El's hand rested on his shoulder.

"No, Kal-El," he said.

"You've been holding back."

The Impossible Awakening

The golden city shattered.

The vision disappeared.

And suddenly Superman was back in space.

His body was falling.

Bleeding. Broken. Weak.

And yet

Something was different.

His fingers twitched.

His heartbeat steadied.

His blood started to burn.

Not in agony.

But with strength.

A bolt of energy ran through his veins, quicker and more powerful than ever before.

His body clenched.

Then

His eyes flew open.

And they glowed.

Not red. Not blue.

White.

Like the heart of an exploding star.

Like something from beyond Kryptonian.

And Superman

Hung suspended in the air.

Earth's Last Hope—The Failsafe

Far beneath Earth's surface, hidden in the depths of a forgotten world, something stirred.

A machine.

A weapon.

A secret even the Justice League had never been brave enough to employ.

Batman stood before it, blood oozing from his lip, his breathing harsh.

The others gazed in horror.

Wonder Woman's hand clenched around her broken sword.

"We vowed never to engage in this," she breathed.

"We vowed," Batman concurred, inputting the final command.

Then he turned.

"And now we violate that vow."

A low hum filled the room.

The machine, a towering black monolith inscribed with ancient runes and alien technology, trembled.

The air grew heavy.

The ground trembled.

And then

It opened.

And something emerged.

Something not human.

Imperium's True Plan

In space, Imperium floated above Earth, observing.

He sensed it.

The change.

The alteration in the fabric of reality itself.

His searing white eyes blazed as he gazed into the void.

And then

A second voice echoed.

From the void beyond the stars.

A voice older than the universe itself.

"He has awakened."

Imperium breathed out.

"It took him longer than I anticipated."

The voice boomed like a dying star.

"Is he ready?"

Imperium's face clouded.

"No."

A moment of silence.

Then

"Good. Then we start."

And in the depths of space

Something moved.

Something greater than gods.

And it was on its way.

Superman's eyes blazed white.

Mark was in his father's arms, struggling to breathe.

The failsafe had been triggered.

Imperium had anticipated this.

And Earth?

Earth was poised on the brink of something much, much worse.

Because this wasn't just about one battle.

Not just about one war.

This?

This was about the end of the universe itself.

And Superman?

Superman had just become the sole thing in its path.

Superman floated.

His blood drifted in the chill of space. His vision blurred. His heartbeat grew slow.

He had battled gods. He had defied fate itself.

And now?

Now he was dying.

His fingers twitched.

He wasn't scared.

Not of death. Not of hurt.

But of failure.

If he shut his eyes now, Earth was lost.

Mark. Omni-Man. The League. All of them.

A last breath escaped his lips.

"Not… yet…"

Then

His eyes went dark.

The Failsafe Awakens

Deep within the Earth, in a realm never intended to be touched, the failsafe woke.

Red lights burst into flame.

Metallic tubes hissed apart.

Ancient computers whirred, calculating the impossible.

A voice spoke within the darkness.

"Failsafe activation confirmed."

Alarms sounded within the Watchtower.

Batman clenched his teeth, his eyes fixed on the screen.

"God help us."

Imperium's Warning

Imperium hovered above the Earth, his white-hot eyes fixed on the planet below him.

He could sense it.

Something was stirring.

The humans had opened the door.

Fools.

"Your desperation will be your downfall," he growled.

He turned, his eyes fixed on the shadows coalescing in space.

Something older than time itself was stirring.

And then, the voice came back.

"Harvest begins now."

The stars vanished.

No

Not vanished.

They were being held back.

Something massive was coming through the void.

And as it approached, Imperium, the entity that had just shattered Superman, Omni-Man, and Invincible

Stepped back.

The Arrival of the Celestial Monster

From the tear in space, a form coalesced.

Vast. Boundless. Reality warped around it.

Stars at the edge of the galaxy shattered just from its mere existence.

Its shape was impossible to describe: black tendrils extending to infinity, golden rings of searing energy moving and curling around a core as hot as a dying sun.

And then

It spoke.

A voice that shook the spirits of all living things.

"THE HARVEST BEGINS."

And then

It stretched out towards Earth.

The War for Existence

The Justice League was out of time.

The forces of Earth could do nothing.

This was no longer a war.

This was extermination.

Omni-Man's breath caught. His hands trembled.

"This… we can't win," he grunted.

Mark, hardly able to move, flexed his fists.

"Then we fight anyway."

Superman's Resurrection

In space, something shifted.

Superman's body was dead. His heartbeat ceased.

But then

A pulse.

A heartbeat.

One.

Then another.

Then

His eyes opened.

And they were ablaze with white.

A new power flared in his veins.

Something old. Something primitive. Something inexorable.

Superman breathed out.

And then

He moved.

Faster than light.

Faster than thought.

Faster than ever before.

One moment, he was in space.

The next

He was over Earth.

And then

He punched Imperium in the face.

Imperium stumbled back, shock flickering in his blazing eyes.

Superman's voice was thunder.

"You want to blow up my world?"

He balled his fists.

"Try it."

The battle wasn't finished.

It was only starting.