Darkseid and Anti-Monitor attacked him simultaneously.

Edward tried to dodge, to weave between the attacks. But they coordinated perfectly, cutting off every escape route, predicting every movement.

The Primarch Blade came up to block an antimatter blast. Darkseid's fist caught him in the ribs while his guard was occupied. Edward heard his bones crack like breaking glass.

He teleported away, gasping for air that didn't exist in this void. Blood floated around him in weightless droplets.

They gave him no respite. The Anti-Monitor tore open space, appearing beside him. A backhand sent Edward tumbling. Darkseid was already there, his massive hand closing around Edward's leg, swinging him like a club into a chunk of crystallized void.

The impact drove the air from Edward's lungs. Or would have, if there'd been air. His vision blurred, darkness creeping in at the edges. "Is that all you got!" He roared and pushed Darkseid back with a swing as he channeled all the powers possessed by the God Emperor of Mankind.

The Anti-Monitor's antimatter spears materialized—dozens of them, each one burning with destructive potential. They fired simultaneously.

Edward rolled, his body screaming in protest. Most of the spears missed. Three didn't.

One pierced his left leg. One his right shoulder. One his abdomen.

The antimatter burned, eating away at his flesh from the inside. His regeneration tried to fight it, but antimatter kept erasing whatever reformed.

Edward felt like screaming, pure agony ripping from his throat. But he held it in. He wouldn't give them the satisfaction.

Through the pain, through the haze, he tried to think. Tried to find a way out.

But there wasn't one. Two cosmic-level entities working in perfect coordination. Every time he focused on one, the other attacked. They gave him no openings, no breathing room, no chance to mount any real offense. They wouldn't allow him to unleash his Noble Phantasms.

Darkseid's Omega Beams and the Anti-Monitor's antimatter blasts worked in terrible synergy. Where the beams forced Edward to dodge, antimatter waited. Where antimatter made him teleport, Omega Beams tracked him through the dimensional shift.

Edward's blade flickered, the flames dying to embers. His power was running out.

A massive fist, Darkseid's, caught him square in the face. Something crunched. His vision went blank with pain.

He tumbled through the void, barely conscious. His regeneration struggled to keep up with the accumulating damage.

The Anti-Monitor appeared above him. His hand, wreathed in antimatter, drove down toward Edward's chest.

Edward brought the blade up weakly. The antimatter and golden flames met, and both forces fizzled, canceling each other out.

But Darkseid was already there. His boot came down on Edward's sword arm.

Snap.

The bones in Edward's arm shattered. The Primarch Blade fell from nerveless fingers, spinning away into the void.

Edward lay there, broken, bleeding, his regeneration barely keeping him alive. He couldn't move. Couldn't fight. Could barely think through the pain.

For the first time in his very long life, Edward Elric was truly overwhelmed.

Darkseid loomed over him, stone face impassive. "It seems your strength has limits after all, mortal."

The Anti-Monitor floated closer, his burning eye sockets fixed on Edward's prone form. "Not so confident now, are you, anomaly? Where is your wit? Your defiance?"

Edward coughed, blood bubbling from his lips. When he spoke, his voice was weak but carried the ghost of humor. "You know what... this feels like? High school all over again." He laughed wetly, painfully. "Getting jumped... by bullies... in the parking lot."

He coughed again, more blood. "Except this time... the bullies can... destroy universes."

But beneath the joke, beneath the pain, his mind was still working. Still calculating. Still trying to find a way to survive.

He had options. Terrible options, but options nonetheless.

He could reveal his true nature as an Endless. Let them see what he really was—Hope Incarnate, one of the fundamental forces of creation itself. That power would let him fight on even footing.

But revealing that would expose vulnerabilities he couldn't afford. Would mark him as an easy target for Perpetua who would knew his limits. Would put his family, his world, everything he'd built at risk.

Or... there was Lux Eterna.

The Emperor's ultimate Noble Phantasm. The manifestation of humanity's collective will to deny oblivion. The psychic might that could erase even Outer Gods from existence. It didn't kill them completely as those were truly immortal beings.

But against cosmic entities, it would bring absolte erasure of their existence. Even beings stong as Anti-Monitor or Darkseid.

But Lux Eterna required sacrifice. One thousand psykers worth of energy. Approximately one hundred thousand normal human souls.

Edward carried those souls within him—remnants from his original world, from his original universe before the Presence brought him here. People who'd died in that diseaster that was world war 3, their essence preserved within his being, given purpose as fuel for when he had no other choice.

He'd sworn never to use them unless absolutely necessary. Sworn that their deaths would only be invoked to save billions more.

Was this that moment?

Edward looked up at the two cosmic entities looming over him. At Darkseid, who sought the Anti-Life Equation to enslave all free will. At the Anti-Monitor, who would help him do it just to weaken the multiverse for Perpetua's return.

If they succeeded... if they claimed the Equation...

His family would be in danger. His daughters Diana and Cassie. His wives—Hera, Hippolyta, Death, Grail. His sons Alphonse and Soph. Earth itself. Every world, every reality.

Darkseid spoke arrogantly. "Just give up and accept your end. You are just like the rest of your race, flawed and doomed to fail. You consider them as your equal, but they are not."

Edward spat out some blood and stood up once again. ""I have no equal, not because I am greater — but because I am the sum of all who ever lived."

He steeled himself. His hand moved to his chest, fingers pressing against his own soul. He began channeling power, drawing from those stored souls deep within, feeling them respond.

'Forgive me everyone', he thought to the hundred thousand dead. 'But this is what I promised you. That your sacrifice would save worlds. This is that moment.'

Darkseid felt it first. His eyes narrowed, sensing the massive surge of power beginning to build. "What are you doing?"

The Anti-Monitor's sensors flared in alarm. "He's gathering energy from somewhere! We have to kill him before he can try something!"

They both attacked simultaneously, trying to disrupt whatever Edward was preparing. Omega Beams and antimatter blasts rained down.

But Edward poured more power into the gathering storm. The souls within him sang, screamed, cried out as they were consumed, transformed into pure destructive force.

The Primarch Blade, floating in the void, blazed back to life. It shot toward Edward's hand as if called, and he caught it despite his broken arm, teeth gritted against the agony.

The blade grew brighter. Brighter than it had ever been. The golden flames turned white, then beyond white into something that transcended visible light entirely.

Edward's broken body floated up, lifted by the power surging through him. His wounds began to close, not regeneration but the hundred thousand souls lending him their strength.

"You want to see my full might?" Edward's voice echoed through the void, overlapping. "You want to see what humanity's will truly looks like? I'll show you."

His voice slightly distorted, as if thousands of people spoke at once.

"For the sake of mankind, I shall bear all burden."

The void around them began to shake as if reality itself recognized what was about to be unleashed.

Edward's cold voice echoed throught the void, even as he merely whispered.

"Hear me, abyss beyond comprehension.

You who were born from nothing and seek to return all to nothing—

Know this truth:

Man imagines, therefore Man exists.

And that which Man cannot imagine—

Shall not be."

His blade erupted into a sun that span across the void. Even the everlasting darkness screamed as it was being extinguished.

The void was suddenly filled with a radiant golden light. It was comforting, warm. The drakness was fading away slowly.

But to Darkseid and Anti-Monitor, it felt like the cold grasp of death.

Darkseid and the Anti-Monitor both took involuntary steps backward, cosmic entities feeling genuine shock for perhaps the first time in millennia.

But before Edward could unleash Lux Eterna, before the hundred thousand souls could be sacrificed—

The void shook. It shuddered as if it was afraid.

As if existence itself had been grabbed by something impossibly vast and rattled like a child's toy.

All three of them froze. Edward's building power stuttered, confused.

Darkseid and the Anti-Monitor looked around, their sensors trying to identify the source of this impossible phenomenon.

The void couldn't shake. It was nothing. You can't shake nothing.

But reality proved otherwise.

Cracks appeared in space that didn't exist, in a void that had no structure. Jagged lines of pure white light tore through the absolute darkness like lightning frozen in time.

Then two delicate hands appeared in those cracks, holding it open.

They were feminine hands with perfectly manicured nails painted in black that somehow stood out even against the void.

They gripped the edges of the tears in reality and pulled.

The sound that followed was the sensation of something fundamental breaking. Reality ripped open like tissue paper, the void itself tearing apart to allow passage for something that existed on an entirely different level.

A figure stepped through the tear, and the temperature—despite there being no air, no matter, no anything in this place, dropped to absolute zero.

She was beautiful in the way a violent storm looked breath taking,—wrathful, pretty, and absolutely terrifying.

Black hair floated wildly around her , defying the lack of atmosphere, moving to some cosmic wind only she could feel. Her skin was pale, luminous, seeming to glow with inner light.

Her eyes, normally warm and gentle, burned crimson with a fury that made even Darkseid, the Lord of Apokolips, and Anti-Monitor, ender of worlds, take an involuntary step backward.

Her simple black gown somehow seemed more regal than any armor, and around her radiated an aura of death so dense that the void itself began to die around her.

Not cease to exist—that implied existence to begin with. The void was dying, and that should have been impossible.

Edward's face, bloodied and broken as it was, split into a relieved grin despite his injuries. The building power of Lux Eterna dissipated, the hundred thousand souls returning to their rest within him. He wouldn't need them after all.

He pointed at Darkseid and the Anti-Monitor with his unbroken arm, his voice taking on an exaggerated tone of grievance .

"These guys trying to kill me, honey. Kick their ass!"

Darkseid looked at Anti-Monitor with genuine shock. "You FORGOT to tell me that he was related to DEATH herself!"

Anti-Monitor was equally nervous. "I had no knowledge of this! I must inform Mother!" He was confused at the sudden development just as he was about to claim victory.

Death of the Endless stood in the void beyond the multiverse, and when she spoke, her voice carried the weight of every ending that had ever been and ever would be. It resonated directly into their very concepts, into the fundamental idea of what they were.

"YOU LOWLY INSECTS!"

The word 'insects' carried such contempt, such absolute diminishment, that both Darkseid and the Anti-Monitor actually flinched. The beings who commanded armies, who destroyed universes, who shaped reality—were being called insects. And they didn't have the guts to refute.

"YOU DARE HARM MY HUSBAND?! YOU DARE TRY TO KILL HIM?!"

The void trembled crazily. It had no voice, but if it did, it would have screamed.

Her hair whipped more violently, defying physics, defying logic, defying everything. The crimson in her eyes blazed brighter until it seemed her gaze alone could end existence.

Anti-Monitor's empty sockets widened. "He's her what!!??"

"I shall deal with you later." Darkseid gritted his teeth at his former ally. He was already looking for an exit. Even he knew better than to challenge the one being that can truly end him.

"I WILL RIP YOU APART UNTIL THERE'S NOT EVEN A MOLECULE LEFT OF YOUR PATHETIC EXISTENCE!"

Darkseid felt something he hadn't felt in eons—genuine, primal fear. This wasn't a threat. This was a promise from one of the Endless themselves, from Death Incarnate, from the entity that would exist until the last thing died and then outlive even that.

The Anti-Monitor's sensors went haywire, unable to properly analyze what stood before them. His antimatter, which could unmake existence, seemed to recoil from her presence. Because what good is unmaking existence when standing before the entity that defines the end of existence?

Edward, despite his injuries, despite the pain, couldn't help but grin smugly at his two attackers. His voice carried satisfaction and more than a little smug vindication.

"You guys might be strong," he said, blood still on his teeth but grinning anyway. "But my wife is stronger!"

Death raised both hands, and in them materialized two daggers—not physical weapons, not magical artifacts, but conceptual weapons forged from the fundamental concept of ending itself.

They pulsed with power that made the Anti-Monitor's antimatter look like a child's sparkler by comparison.

These weren't tools that ended life. These were tools that ended the concept of being. They could end ideas. They could end possibilities. They could end time itself if she willed it.

She launched them forward with a gesture that seemed almost casual.

The daggers moved with impossible speed, each one capable of ending not just life, but existence, concept, the very idea of having-been-at-all.

Darkseid's eyes widened—actual, genuine fear flickering across his stone features for perhaps the first time since he'd become a New God. His Omega Beams, which could erase anything, suddenly seemed inadequate. What good was erasure when facing the entity that defined what erasure meant?

The Anti-Monitor's antimatter field flared desperately, maximum power, trying to create a barrier. But he could feel it—the daggers would pierce through. Would end him. Would erase even the memory of his existence from every timeline, every reality, every universe.

But they weren't stupid. They had both witnessed Edward fighting alone and nearly winning. Had seen his power, his skill, his determination.

But Death? Death was clearly on an entirely different level. This wasn't a cosmic entity. This was one of the Endless. This was something fundamental to all existence.

"This is a misunderstanding!" Darkseid's voice carried none of its usual authority, only urgent survival instinct. Pride meant nothing against nonexistence.

the Anti-Monitor was already tearing open an escape portal with desperate speed.

They didn't wait for a response. They didn't try to fight. They didn't attempt any last stand or brave defiance.

But Death is swift.

Her dagger managed pierce through Anti-Monitor who separated his soul to escape. He will have to form a new body which will take time. But it's better than being erased. Heescaped barely as his body turned to dust.

Darkseid's hand got stabbed as he tried to deflect it somehow. He gritted his teeth and and cut off his arm before the concept of death consumed his entire being

He also tore through reality to escape. But he remembered this new information for future.

The Lord of Apokolips, and the Destroyer of Universes, two of the most powerful beings in all of creation, ran away in fear and injured.

Death stood in the void, her hair still floating wildly, her eyes still blazing red. Her entire form radiated such overwhelming killing intent that the void itself seemed to be dying around her.

Then she felt two arms wrap around her from behind.

Edward had transformed back to his regular form, and pulled her into a gentle embrace, his chin resting on her shoulder despite their height difference.

He whispered in her ear, his voice soft and intimate. "Honey, you look so sexy right now. It almost put me in the mood for some snu snu."

The terrifying aura vanished instantly. The crimson faded from Death's eyes, replaced by her usual warm darkness. Her hair settled back down to normal floating rather than violent whipping.

She blushed and shoved him away gently, though her hands lingered on his chest. "Dear, You're hurt! Don't try to distract me with flirting!"

Her hands moved across his body, checking his injuries with professional concern. Cracked ribs. Bruised organs. Fractured bones. Burns from antimatter exposure. It almost made her wrathful again.

She touched each injury gently, and with each touch, they healed. Simply the removal of harm from his timeline, as if the injuries had never existed.

Her eyes began to blaze red again as the full extent of his injuries became clear. "They hurt you this badly. I'm going to chase them down and rip their, hmphh..."

Edward kissed her affectionately stopping her speech, warmly caressing her face.

When they parted, he smiled at her. "I'm here, I'm safe, it's okay."

She hugged him tighter. " I've never seen you so badly hurt. I should have killed them both."

"Forget about them, dear. I'll deal with them later. My plans have to change drastically because of this new development. Anti-Monitor beung here shows I' exposed.

Right now, I just want to go home and relax for a bit. It's supposed to be Diana's birthday in a couple days."

Her anger vanished completely, but her eyes still held concern. "Are you sure you are alright honey? You don't have to act strong with me."

Edward grinned and whispered in her ear. "Then how about we find a secluded place and I show you that I am prefectly fine."

But contrary to his expectations of being shoved away or being chided, Death shyly held his hands. "Alright. I'm going to check how fine you really are after that brutal beatdown."

Edward grinned foolishly, thinking about the new ideas he wanted to try in bed, then looked offended. "Hey! I didn't get a beatdown! I was holding back! It was tactical."

Death rolled her eyes. "Yeah right. You were on the ground bleeding out like a Gotham thug after being beaten by your disciple."

Edward held his heart. "Ouch! That emotional damage hurt more than the fight itself."

Death chuckled and pulled him to leave the void. "My poor baby. Come now, we need get your 'Checkup' done before we can see how they are holding up."

Edward gave her a light spank, making her gasp and glare at him. But he smirked evilly. "I'll be definitely paying you back , dear wife."

The two of of steeped through the crack in void, entering the multiverse. The crisis averted, and apparently, it ended with Edward getting a rather happy ending.

*****

I mean, if you got a wife that can Thanos snap Darkseid and Anti-Monitor out of existence, who wouldn't flex a little ? xD

But this will also cause a problem later down the line. All according to keikaku!