The sun hung high over the golden fields of Smallville, Kansas, bathing the Kent farm in warm, gentle light. Birds chirped from the nearby trees, their melodies blending with the rustling of wheat swaying in the summer breeze. The sound of a hammer striking wood echoed from the barn, where a young man wiped the sweat from his brow.
His name was Alexander Kent, the second son of Jonathan and Martha Kent.
To the world, he was just another farm boy, the younger brother of Clark Kent, a mild-mannered reporter who occasionally visited from Metropolis. But Alex had always felt… different.
It wasn't because of his brother. Clark's abilities, though extraordinary, were an accepted part of his life. No, Alex's strangeness was something else entirely. A creeping feeling that the world around him wasn't quite right. A sense of displacement, as if he didn't truly belong.
And then, on one fateful day, everything changed.
A World Frozen in Time
It started with a simple task—feeding the cattle. Alex carried a bucket of feed across the field when, suddenly, the world stopped.
The wind halted. The rustling of leaves ceased. The birds were frozen mid-flight. Even the clouds above hung motionless in the sky.
Alex dropped the bucket. His breath came in short gasps as his mind screamed at him to move, but his body refused to obey.
Then, he heard it.
A whisper. A voice from nowhere and everywhere, echoing within his mind:
"You do not belong here."
A flood of memories crashed into him. Memories that were not his own.
In that instant, he remembered everything.
He was not just Alexander Kent. He was someone else, someone from another world. A man who had lived a completely different life—one filled with cities that stretched toward the heavens, technology beyond imagination, and stories written in ink and paper.
Among those stories, one stood out.
"Lord of the Mysteries."
Alex's eyes widened as realization struck. The words, the names, the concepts—all of it had been real. The Beyonders, the Sequences, the hidden paths of godhood—it was all real.
And he was now one of them.
The Awakening
Pain exploded in Alex's mind. He clutched his head as knowledge flooded his thoughts, ancient and forbidden. The world around him shimmered, reality twisting as symbols of an unfathomable language carved themselves into the air.
Then, it stopped.
The world returned to normal. The birds flew, the wind whispered, and time resumed its flow.
But Alex was no longer the same.
He could feel it—something within him had changed. Something powerful.
A single word came to his mind.
Beyonder.
His body trembled as understanding settled in. He had awakened as a Sequence 9 Beyonder—not of just one Pathway, but of all of them.
He flexed his fingers, feeling the unfamiliar yet exhilarating rush of power coursing through his veins. He wasn't just an ordinary man anymore. He had stepped onto a path that defied fate itself.
And this world—this DC Universe—had no idea what had just been unleashed.
End of Chapter 1.