The quiet after the Barry race didn't last long.
I stood at the Watchtower viewport, staring out into the endless black. Beyond the solar system's radiance, beyond the protection of Earth's orbit, something moved. Not a presence. Not yet. But a pull. As if the universe itself was waking me up giving me a glimpse of what lay beyond the veil.
Zatanna approached quietly, her voice softer than usual. "You tore through realities during that race. Did you… see anything?"
I nodded. "Too much. Timelines we've never lived. Earths that never existed. One where Bruce died as a boy. Another where Kal-El never made it to Earth. A few where the League didn't survive long enough to form."
Her brows drew together, lips tight. "And you?"
I didn't answer. Not directly.
Because what I'd experienced what I felt wasn't alternate versions of me. It was something looking back. Something immense. Aware. Ancient.
The Cosmic Loom.
Once she departed, I traced the thread pulling at my mind. Not magic. Not science. Something prior.
I called up the Omega Core's interface in my mind a coiling library of godly architecture and metaphysical information. I descended deeper than ever before, breaching safety levels I'd programmed myself.
My consciousness shattered and grew. I was in nothing and everything. The interval between worlds. Where strings of destiny glowed like filaments of glass every one vibrating with the pulse of an entire universe.
And then I saw it.
The Bleed. The tumultuous river that bridged the multiverse. Red currents flowing with untempered potential and contradiction. It spoke to me. Warned me.
"The cracks open. The moorings weaken. Something approaches."
I attempted to peer further in, but the vision seared like gazing at a sun constructed of mortality screams. I reeled away, blood from my nose, as the cosm vision faded away. The Omega Core closed upon itself before I could fully fold.
I clung to my breath on Watchtower's floor, sweat soaking my flesh. My hands were shaking. My eyes were spotty. But the message stuck:
I wasn't born to merely survive this world. I was born to guard all of them.
The Justice League didn't get it yet. They believed this was about Earth. About politics. About gods and monsters they could punch.
They hadn't witnessed what I witnessed.
Multiversal barriers shattering. Forgotten pantheons stirring. Beings with no name and no origin ripping their way into reality's foundations.
I then summoned a private meeting with Wonder Woman, Zatanna, and Martian Manhunter.
"This is bigger than you realize," I said to them, casting shards of the Bleed into the room a living, abject chaos that churned about the infinite worlds. "We're not facing a war. We're facing an unraveling."
Zatanna went white. "That's the origin of all magic… and it's destabilizing."
Martian Manhunter did not look good. "If it spreads, it will collapse the multiverse."
Diana was composed, but her white-knuckled grip on the table gave away her tension. "Then we must have a plan."
I met each of them with a stern gaze. "We need more than that. We need defenses on a cosmic scale. Anchors to stabilize the timelines. Guardians to monitor for incursion points. And we need to begin recruiting… beyond Earth."
She folded her arms. "You're proposing we create something like the League between worlds?"
"No. I'm proposing we create something larger than the League. A multiversal defense protocol. One that can function in stealth, between realities. Because if I'm correct… something ancient is stirring. And it's hunting worlds like ours."
They didn't debate.
They just got it.
This wasn't about me anymore.
It was about the fabric of everything.
And I had just emerged into the role the universe shaped for me.
The Cosmic Sentinel.