"Even gods must answer for the tremors they cause."
---
The Gathering Storm
The Watchtower hung in orbit like a blade of glass cutting through the black.
Below it, Earth burned in the slow birth of catastrophe.
The Black Zero separated and descended through the clouds, splitting the sky with twin beams that hammered the crust — one in the Indian Ocean, another in Metropolis.
The World Engine had begun its song of annihilation.
Every monitor screamed red warnings.
Wonder Woman's voice came through the comms. "Metropolis is collapsing! The beam's turning gravity itself against the city!"
Red Tornado's voice crackled in. "The signal's Kryptonian. Frequency matches the ship we tracked leaving orbit. Zod's gone nuclear!"
Batman's jaw tightened. "Then the war's begun. Have all the civilians been evacuated?"
" Yes." Answered Superman.
King stood at the observation deck, silent, watching the swirling maelstrom of destruction below.
His expression was unreadable. Calm, yet heavy with thought.
"He doesn't understand restraint," King murmured. "He only knows victory through ruin."
Superman appeared beside him, cape fluttering in the artificial wind.
" I'll stop him." He said. "Whatever it takes."
King finally looked at him, eyes deep as tectonic plates.
"Then proceed as you deem fit, Kal-El. The Growth Codex is yours. Its fate and the fate of both worlds, lies with you."
Superman frowned. "You're not coming?"
King turned back to the planet below.
"I will ensure the world still has a sky to return to. Go. End the war."
Without another word, Superman shot downward — a streak of red and blue through the atmosphere.
The Descent
The Indian Ocean boiled as the World Engine pounded the crust, its gravitational field bending the sea into impossible shapes. Waves rising like mountains, storms spiraling in unnatural rhythm.
Then... a thunderclap from nowhere.
King descended through the storm, every droplet vaporizing before it could touch him.
His landing cracked the sea floor, stabilizing the pressure in an instant.
The machine roared, ancient and mechanical, crushing the ocean floor under its invisible weight.
It felt like a living thing. A god forged in steel, rewriting gravity to crush a planet into a new cradle for Krypton.
King stepped forward, unbothered by the weight pressing against him. Every molecule of air bent, twisted, screamed.
"You are a parasite," Je said softly, addressing the machine itself. "Feeding on a world that never consented."
The World Engine responded by increasing its gravitational surge and unleashing its liquid metal tentacles trying to ensnare inevitability itself.
King simply exhaled.
The King Engine awoke.
The ocean vaporized into mist — not from heat, but from sheer pressure displacement.
The water bent around him like a curtain of glass, parted by a force no equation could define.
The machine's core began to warp under the distortion, its own field destabilizing.
"You can terraform a corpse," King said, raising his hand, "but not the world I stand upon."
He pressed his fist against the beam and then punched upwards
The World Engine collapsed in on itself — its frame folding into singularity for a heartbeat before bursting into ash and vapor.
The beam ceased.
The ocean went quiet. The clouds of despair parted by the might of King's fist.
Battle for Metropolis
Meanwhile, above the burning skyline of Metropolis, Superman and Zod clashed — sonic booms splitting clouds, shockwaves tearing through skyscrapers.
The Black Zero fell toward the city, spewing debris like meteors.
The League mobilized, Wonder Woman deflecting wreckage with her bracelets, Flash evacuating by the remnants by the hundreds, Batman coordinating through comms.
Then, a streak of light cut through the chaos — King, ascending from the horizon, silent as judgment.
He appeared between Superman and Zod, catching Zod's punch midair.
The shockwave shattered glass for miles but King didn't move an inch.
Zod snarled. "You again! You think you can stop me?"
"No," King said. "I think I already have."
Zod screamed, charging and King vanished.
In less than a breath, Zod was on the other side of the city, embedded into a concrete pillar, the King Engine's aftershock still humming through the atmosphere.
Superman caught his breath, eyes wide. "King—"
"He's yours to finish, Kal." King said. "He is your shadow. You must end what your world began."
Superman nodded, determination burning through exhaustion.
He flew off to confront Zod once more, their battle now framed by purpose rather than vengeance.
The Silence After
Hours later, Metropolis stood in ruins but alive.
The Black Zero lay in molten fragments over the ocean.
Zod's body rested in the crater that once was a building, his war finally ended.
Superman stood in the rain, breathing heavily, the weight of his choice pressing upon him.
King stood beside him, watching the horizon.
"He wanted a world that never was," Superman said quietly. "I had to stop him."
King nodded.
"And in doing so, you chose the living over the lost. That is the burden of all who build rather than destroy."
Superman looked at him. "Would you have done the same?"
King gave a faint smile.
"I do not deal in hypotheticals, Kal-El. I deal in absolutes. But mercy? That, I will always understand."
Lois ran to Superman, embracing him. King turned, giving them space.
As he walked through the smoke and rain, the shattered city seemed to calm — as though gravity itself bowed to his passing.
From above, Batman's voice crackled in his earpiece. "It's over then?"
King looked up toward the clouds.
"No," he said softly. "This was merely the first whisper. The universe remembers what power looks like and it never forgets."
King stepped onto the air itself, rising effortlessly toward the stars.
Below, Earth exhaled — its saviors, mortal and immortal, bound by the same truth:
That mercy is the only thing stronger than destruction.
Read 40 chapters ahead on P.A.T.R.E.O.N
patreon.com/Danzoslayer517
New tier available. For 14 dollars you get access to all my stories in Patreon.