Roughly twenty minutes had passed.
Arias sat comfortably in the Leviathan Tower's main office, his body reclined into the plush leather of the chair, one leg crossed lazily over the other.
The morning light didn't quite reach this room—it never did. The walls were lined with steel-laced obsidian and matte black glass, absorbing the outside view until only the green glow of the embedded veins beneath the floor illuminated the space.
Across the room, on the far end, the guest lounge looked more like a private parlor than anything corporate. Two chairs, velvet-draped and lush enough to be thrones, were angled across from each other near a large mahogany bookshelf stuffed with everything from state doctrines to ancient scriptures.
In those chairs, Cheshire and Tala sat—neither reading. Instead, their focus was a tablet propped on a coffee table between them, the screen lit with a digital map of Gotham.
"I'm telling you, this route makes more sense," Cheshire said, her finger dragging across the screen from one red dot to another. "Here, to here. Clean, fast."
Tala frowned, arms crossed beneath her chest. "Vwhy not zee other vway? Zee guards patrol zhat path far less."
"Because," Cheshire snapped, her tone carrying that deliberately patient venom she was known for, "this route gives us more exits if something goes wrong. Unless you're into tight corners and no backup plans?"
"Maybe I am," Tala replied coolly, though her frown gave away more than she probably intended.
Arias didn't hear a word of it.
He sat still, eyes closed, lips barely curled into a faint smirk. To the outside world, he appeared lost in thought—disengaged. But beneath the surface, something far more intricate was unfolding.
His mind wasn't simply thinking—it was spreading.
Not metaphorically. Not mentally. Actually.
Within the folds of perception, his presence fractured and scattered like invisible spores, traveling along currents only he could recognize. They weren't bound by space. They didn't move through air or fiber-optics. They just were—everywhere he chose to be.
His gaze drifted through space and time until he was present inside Blackgate Penitentiary.
Not physically. Not astrally. Something between.
The concrete walls were soaked with the scent of rust and burnt insulation. Fluorescent lights flickered lazily overhead. Two men stood amid the scorched ruins of Cell Block D— present with the aftermath of Arias's most recent "visit."
Batman stood stoic, arms folded, his jaw clenched tight beneath the cowl. Beside him, Superman paced, agitated.
"This can't keep happening," Clark muttered, motioning toward the half-demolished cell behind them. "We're treating him like a variable when he's the damn threat."
Bruce didn't respond immediately. His gaze remained locked on the floor, where remnants of the people were scattered—in a way no one had been able to explain.
"He's not operating like any other villain," Batman muttered finally. "He's treating this like a proving ground. Everything seems like a controlled escalation."
Superman's fists clenched. "So what, we just keep letting him make his point?"
Arias, miles away, reclined deeper into his chair, a quiet smile on his lips.
Clark's anger was almost amusing now. The shift from hopeful mediator to bitter cynic was happening faster than expected.
'But they still know nothing.'
Satisfied, Arias pulled away.
The office remained unchanged. Cheshire was now leaning back with her arms behind her head, smirking smugly. Tala looked moments away from casting a hex on the tablet itself.
Still seated, Arias's presence surged again—this time across oceans, continents, borders. He crossed them all without moving.
He arrived in Bialya.
The throne room of Queen Bee was exactly what one might expect from a woman who styled herself a monarch and a goddess.
Gilded marble stretched beneath a sea of crimson velvet. The air carried notes of sandalwood and sharpened steel. Drapes the color of dried blood hung from the arched ceiling like the petals of some forbidden bloom.
The Queen herself lounged on a throne carved from obsidian and plated with gold. Her hair was coiled like a serpent's nest atop her head, her eyes predatory.
A servant girl approached—a tablet held out before her.
"Majesty," the girl whispered, kneeling.
On the screen: footage from Gotham. Broadcasts of attack. Media coverage. All of it playing on loop.
Queen Bee's gaze narrowed, not in confusion, but calculation.
At the far end of the chamber stood a man. Bald. Pale. Eyes constantly half-lidded as if perpetually bored. Psimon.
"This man," Psimon said, his voice echoing directly into her mind, "is dangerous, my Queen. I cannot see through him clearly. That is… rare."
Queen Bee tilted her head slightly, speaking aloud now. "So it seems… but fortunately, he isn't our enemy."
She waved the tablet away, her voice dropping low.
"Keep looking for Vandal Savage's location. If I can present that to him… perhaps we can gain something in return."
Arias's smile deepened.
Of course she would pivot. She wasn't stupid enough to pick a fight she couldn't win. Now she wanted to be useful.
'Something to consider,' he thought, pulling back once more. 'As for Savage… I can't sense his presence at all.'
The office was silent. But Arias no longer felt tethered to it.
Instead, he found himself standing on the edge.
Not metaphorically. Not emotionally.
The edge.
Where the solar system faded into stellar debris and radiation halos. Past the orbit of Neptune, even further than Pluto's lonely orbit.
He lingered there—among the scattered cold. Space here was not black, but dark blue, textured with specks of ice and dust.
And beyond that—nothing.
'He's beyond the scope of what I can currently see…' That thought lingered. But then, something changed.
He felt… stretching.
Not like muscles.
More like… awareness. Not expanding like a circle. Not blooming like a flower.
It folded outward in every direction—like a fourth-dimensional breath. As if each second was a new limb forming.
If a human child begins life seeing only shadows and sounds, slowly learning the difference between pain and warmth, Arias's perception was taking a similar shape—only cosmic. Only metaphysical.
Each new thought, a new nerve. Each observation, a new organ.
And his world?
It no longer looked like cities, or countries, or planets.
It looked like… networks of stimuli. Like insects trapped in molasses. Struggling to comprehend the nature of their cage.
To him, a bustling metropolis was just a dense neuron firing—bright, chaotic, brief.
He opened his eyes.
Hhnn— A faint exhale left him as the galaxy shimmered faintly in his irises. A reflection. Not an illusion.
He then wondered. "Is this what you meant, Apeiro?"
Arias received no answer.
The thought he cast into the abyss—a simple question, more curiosity than demand—came back empty. Not denied. Not ignored. Simply… unanswered.
He tried again.
But instead of reaching outward, he reached toward her. Toward Apeiro.
That was when things broke.
Not with sound. Not with flash. Just—fracture.
He found himself looking at… himself.
Not once. Not mirrored.
But hundreds of times. Thousands. From every angle, every possible dimension. And yet, it was the same instant. Not moments across time. Not a montage. Just now—repeated endlessly.
The tilt of his head. The exact breath. The subtle curl of his fingers on the armrest. All replicated. All preserved. All layered on top of one another like reality had a stutter and refused to progress.
He blinked. Every version of him blinked.
He exhaled. They exhaled.
The loop was perfect. Pointless.
So he stopped.
His perception retracted like a hand pulling out of cold water. No ripple. No mark left behind. Just withdrawal.
And then, he looked again.
This time, somewhere small. Human.
Washington D.C.
The White House.
Not the parts featured in guided tours and documentaries, but the floor buried two levels beneath the Situation Room. A private, pressure-sealed war chamber known officially as Sub-7. Known unofficially as the gray box.
There was no decor here. No symbolism. Just concrete walls and a ceiling shaped to deflect signal interference. A long table dominated the center, surrounded by reinforced chairs coated in matte black finish. At the center, a floating screen displayed a paused image: Arias standing before the Gotham press.
Around the table sat six men and women. All high-clearance. All weary.
President Pete Ross occupied the head seat. He looked like he hadn't slept in two days. His tie was undone, and his shirt clung with patches of sweat beneath his suit jacket. One hand braced his temple as he stared at the screen.
"I still can't believe we did it," he muttered. "Too many innocent people died."
From across the table, the Secretary of Defense leaned forward, elbows on the steel, fingers intertwined.
"It was necessary," he said flatly. "If we want the public to understand what we're dealing with, if we want to slow Arias—or Markovia—this was the only play. It's a decision we'll live with for the rest of our lives, but I assure you it was the right one."
Another voice—female, firm—spoke up. The Director of National Media Control.
"Once the next phase is complete, the American people will hate him even more than they already do. That hatred buys us time. Unity. Control."
Someone else nodded. "There's already social media outrage. Our plants have guided the narrative—questioning his legitimacy, speculating about the 'real' cost of his power. By morning, his approval in key districts will drop below thirty percent."
The table hummed with numbers. Casualties were mentioned. Spin tactics. Possible foreign sympathizers. One of them laughed quietly about turning "heroic dissidents" into unknowing scapegoats.
Arias listened.
He observed.
And for a brief moment, he almost couldn't believe what he was witnessing.
No, not in disbelief of their actions—that was expected. But in the depth of their conviction. The sheer banality of the discussion. Like they were reviewing quarterly losses instead of engineered mass deaths.
He opened his eyes fully now, back in the office. His body hadn't moved. Neither had his smile.
Not rage. Not grief.
What he felt was harder to name.
He may have only recently crossed the threshold into the world of near omnipotence—but he was already starting to realize the obvious.
No secrets would remain secrets for long—unless he wished it so.
No power on Earth could oppose him. That much had been clear for some time. But now, even the veils of politics and shadow were beginning to seem paper-thin.
Like a child learning to walk, he was experiencing something new. Not happiness. Not quite that.
Something close.
Like discovering color for the first time.
'So this is what it means to grow in all directions.'
**Knock knock**
The sound of a knock at the door brought him out of his thoughts.
Wonder Woman and Dr. Moone had arrived.
Arias didn't speak.
But he stood.
His hand drifted along the edge of the chair as he moved toward the door. He had originally planned a few...standard uses for them. Especially June.
But now?
He had a far better idea.