Chapter 64: Death
Orin Vale had more or less guessed the woman's identity.
A female Kryptonian, most likely having followed Kara to Earth. After eliminating the prominent Kryptonians from the source material, there weren't many options left.
Her name was Astra. Yes, that was it. Coincidentally, she shared a name with the Senior Astra that Orin Vale knew.
She was Kara's aunt and a General of Krypton, her military rank seemingly on par with the more infamous Kryptonian villain, General Zod. She had also been imprisoned in the Phantom Zone for crimes against Krypton long before its destruction, which allowed her to escape her doom.
She was cruel, belligerent, and would do anything to achieve her goals—a natural-born warrior. In short, she was a bit like a gender-bent Zod.
However, it was clear that even for a natural-born warrior, there was little room for her to shine at the moment.
From the moment she landed, Astra had been completely outplayed, hit with a relentless combo that kept her completely stun-locked. She had no opportunity to use her abilities and techniques.
Eight-Split Light Wheel!
The highly concentrated slicer of Spacium Energy flew toward the Kryptonian who had been blasted into the ground, cutting through the air with a piercing shriek!
Astra roared, raising her right arm to block the Light Wheel. The spinning energy saw scraped sparks from her steel-like skin, cutting through flesh and sending blood flying. With another roar, she violently swung her arm, using her monstrous strength to forcefully deflect the Light Wheel's trajectory.
As expected of a Kryptonian, her durability was top-notch. But this wasn't entirely surprising. After all, there were plenty of monsters a Light Wheel couldn't cut, and Orin Vale knew his own skill intensity wasn't on par with the Ultra Brothers. At the very least, this enriched his data on the physical strength of Kryptonians in this universe.
It was impossible to get a clear grasp of a Kryptonian's abilities just by relying on memories of the source material; you needed hands-on experience. As the saying goes, man is iron and food is steel—but if you ignore the established lore, you'll be starved for consistency. The lore over in DC Comics is the kind of stuff writers seem to pull out of thin air when they're on the toilet and have forgotten to grab paper—it gets flushed away every other day. The already incredibly abstract combat power of Kryptonians was a particular disaster zone.
When they were strong, Kryptonians could tow planets like it was child's play, but when they were weak, they struggled to even lift an overpass. Orin Vale could still vaguely recall a scene from the TAS cartoon he watched as a child, where Superman nearly failed to lift a crane even with all his might.
As the saying goes, practice is the only path to truth. The source material was for reference only; combat power had to be backed by data.
Boom!
The explosion of a sonic boom.
A transparent shockwave erupted behind the black-clad woman. The moment Astra moved, she broke the sound barrier, launching a fierce punch straight at Orin Vale's face!
Perhaps it was due to her natural warrior genes, but she recovered quickly. It seemed her vision was already starting to return, as she had located Orin Vale's position and thrown a punch.
She was clearly about to explode with rage, which was understandable. In any competitive game, if you ran into an opponent whose first three skills were all stuns, who could lock you down completely just by rolling their face across the keyboard and send you back to base in a coffin, anyone would be furious.
However...
Orin Vale calmly raised his hand, splaying his five fingers.
*Pa.*
The woman's fist slammed into his open palm. A shockwave burst forth from the point of impact, and the terrifying blast nearly overturned everything inside the factory building. Even the dust was sucked from the air, creating a dust-free vacuum with the two of them at its center.
Orin Vale steadily caught her fist, standing his ground without moving an inch.
Astra's pupils contracted. Staring at the composed alien before her, a storm raged in her heart.
Impossible!
After emerging from the Phantom Zone and being exposed to a yellow sun, she had quickly come to understand her own terrifying power. She could punch through the armor of a Kryptonian warship, so how could anyone possibly take her punch head-on without budging?
Wait a moment.
A thought struck Astra.
She had been under the blinding and deafening debuff this entire time and hadn't noticed, but now she realized... she had grown weaker?
After her vision had partially recovered, she finally noticed that a strange red light had appeared nearby at some point.
It was coming from that red-and-silver battlesuit from the earlier sneak attack. The unmanned battlesuit was hovering to the side, both palms held out flat, continuously projecting a scorching beam of red radiation at her.
It reminded her of the Red Sun on Krypton.
Her power was weakening!
As this terrifying thought emerged, her boiling rage began to turn into fear.
Who on earth was this person?
Not only was his plan flawless, but he also clearly had an incredible understanding of Kryptonians. If the sensory bombardment could be explained away as a conventional weapon, then this red radiation was definitely targeted specifically at them, the Kryptonians!
First, she ruled out him being human. That was a joke. With this level of technology and the physical constitution to go toe-to-toe with a Kryptonian, she wouldn't believe he was human even if someone fed her a pound of Kryptonite.
So when did we Kryptonians provoke such a terrifying race?
She had to destroy that source of red radiation first!
With that thought, she immediately turned her head. A red glow lit up in her eyes, and heat vision was about to erupt!
Then came a *bang*.
Her head was knocked sideways.
Of course, Orin Vale wasn't going to give her a chance to use a skill. A single punch interrupted her cast.
Astra shouted, throwing a backhand punch in retaliation. Although it was just a casual counterattack, its path was quite tricky. After all, Astra was a Kryptonian General. Even if her close-quarters combat skills weren't as good as Zod's, they wouldn't be far off. She was proficient in all of Krypton's martial arts and possessed top-tier fighting skills.
But Orin Vale was also well-versed in combat. It was a required course in the Land of Light, and he had literally practiced for thousands of years.
After several thousand years of practicing day and night, even a sow should be able to climb a tree.
He saw through her punch's trajectory in an instant. With a slight tilt of his head, Orin Vale easily dodged it and countered with a crushing blow to her throat.
Although Kryptonians had heaven-defying physical attributes, their anatomy was still similar to humans. The throat was likewise one of their most fragile weaknesses.
You just needed a strike with sufficient force.
The heavy blow to her throat produced the expected hit-stun effect. The Kryptonian's pupils contracted. Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open as she clutched her throat, staggering back two steps.
It wasn't just his physical strength; the sophistication of her opponent's moves also took Astra by surprise.
A perfect plan targeting Kryptonians, tactics as despicable and shameless as a scheming ghost from the underworld, and on top of all that, such immense power and technique!
You don't fear an expert, and you don't fear a cunning old fox. What you fear is an expert who *is* a cunning old fox.
There was no room to even maneuver. How the hell was she supposed to fight this!?
She was a veteran of a hundred battles and knew she was facing the strongest enemy she had ever encountered, where even a millisecond's hesitation could lead to defeat. Thus, she forced herself to ignore the pain and launched another punch.
However, her power was already greatly diminished under the red sun radiation, and she was forcing a punch right after taking a heavy blow. The power and speed of this punch plummeted, and even its form was lacking.
Kryptonians rarely needed to use technique in their fights; they usually just steamrolled their opponents. But once they faced an opponent of a similar caliber, technique instantly became critically important.
Orin Vale casually deflected with his left palm. An inside block easily brushed her punch aside, followed by a swift two-hit combo: a jab with his lead hand and a powerful straight to her body. Transparent impacts exploded across Astra's body. Under the red glow, the Kryptonian retreated repeatedly, feeling as if her internal organs and bones had been displaced by the two punches. She opened her mouth and coughed up a mouthful of blood.
Forcing herself to stand her ground, she looked up again, only to see the red-and-silver alien soaring high into the air, swinging a fist down at her.
But in the instant that fist was thrown, it bloomed with a boundless, sacred white light.
Simultaneously, its size expanded at a visible rate, growing larger and larger, filling her entire field of vision until it was more massive than her entire body!
For a moment, it felt as if the world itself was filled by that single, silver-clad fist wreathed in brilliance.
Somehow, from that overwhelming punch that blotted out the sky, she seemed to read a single word.
Death.
BOOM!!!
(end of chapter)