Although the outside world breathed a sigh of relief upon learning that not every member of the Kryptonian Empire was a powerhouse on Esdeath's level, the news wasn't much better. The individual combat capabilities of the Kryptonian Empire were still absurd.
Their powered armor technology, in particular, seemed terrifyingly advanced. The fact that the Grey Knight Legion had fought ten civilizations without losing a single member was proof enough. This was interstellar war, where the forces committed numbered in the hundreds of millions. Any civilization capable of leaving its own star system was not to be trifled with. And yet, the Grey Knight Legion had swept through ten civilizations in one breath without sustaining a single casualty. Their mecha suits appeared indestructible—even when struck by heavy weapons, they would simply rise again as if nothing had happened. Worse, the slower heavy weapons couldn't even land a hit.
Zod, after all, had perfectly replicated the millisecond-level reaction speed of the Adeptus Astartes. As a result, the Grey Knights' mecha looked bulky and sluggish, but in truth, their neural reflexes were enough to crush most species. Facing enemies that vastly outnumbered them, the Grey Knights carved a path of slaughter, routing their foes. When bullets ran out, they switched to melta knives and went into melee, turning the battlefield into rivers of blood and driving the enemy into utter collapse.
Even bystanders found the willpower and combat prowess of these mecha warriors beyond reason, to say nothing of the enemies who had to face them directly. They were like reefs standing firm against a raging current, battered by wave after wave yet never yielding. They gave off the impression of being indestructible, impossible to defeat. As a result, even when hostile forces still far outnumbered them, those forces broke.
After conquering ten civilizations and gaining dominion over hundreds of planets, Zod did not continue his expansion. He needed to digest his resources and expand his forces. Currently, the Grey Knights numbered only ten thousand, and among them just a hundred Black Knights. They had to govern hundreds of planets, many of which were still in rebellion. Without expanding his forces, maintaining control would be difficult. But there was an upside: freshly conquered, these civilizations dared not refuse the Kryptonian Empire's demands, so Zod acquired massive amounts of resources.
In the vast, abyssal depths of space, a nebula-like mass had condensed into crystal. A foundation of immense scale supported a landmass from whose edges a deep blue ocean cascaded, forming a spectacle like a waterfall. At the ocean's heart, great halls and statues stood tall and imposing, with a backdrop of towering, majestic mountains. A rainbow of resplendent colors spanned the entire realm. To step into it was to walk into a fairy tale wonderland.
Asgard!
In Norse mythology, it was the celestial palace of the Allfather Odin, but in the world of Marvel, Asgard was a major power of the cosmos, and its gods were extraterrestrials. This celestial palace, not bound to any star system, had been moved into the void of deep space, becoming a floating continent. High technology and magic had together nurtured this miraculous land. Without a planet's rotation, it still had day and night. This was Asgard.
At the foot of the mountains, a golden hall stood solemn and majestic, radiating an aura of might. An elderly warrior in golden armor gazed down upon the dense clusters of golden structures below. He had only one eye, which made taking in the full panorama a strain—he had to constantly turn his head—but this small flaw did nothing to dampen the overwhelming kingly dominance he exuded.
The Allfather Odin!
After seizing his empire, Odin had transitioned from a tyrant into a benevolent ruler, and was now about to begin his descent into senility to clear the way for the next generation. The problem was, neither of his two sons was a suitable heir.
In any other kingdom, two princes might beat each other's brains out over the throne. But his two sons... one was a brute, the other a schemer. Their style was nothing like the palace intrigue dramas of other realms.
The eldest, Thor, was courageous and battle-hardened, commanding immense prestige within the military. Nearly everyone supported his succession. Yet he had one fatal flaw: he showed no mercy to enemies, acted on impulse without any sense of the bigger picture, and disliked using his brain when faced with a problem—or rather, he had no brain to use. After countless battles, big and small, he had learned exactly one tactic.
Smash!
Thor: "What do I need brains for? Just smash!"
Odin mused that if Thor became the next Allfather, Asgard would spend nine days out of ten at war, and the remaining day in a drunken stupor. Within a few years, there would be no Asgard left.
The second son, Loki, was Thor's complete opposite. He would think thrice before acting. If he could use his mouth, he'd never lift a hand. If he could talk trash, he'd never throw a punch. If he could backstab, he'd never fight head-on. This was not meant as praise for his intelligence. On the contrary, Loki's mind was sharp, but he never used it for honest purposes. He favored underhanded tricks unfit for the light of day, his methods lacking all honor, utterly devoid of a king's grand, upright bearing. If Loki succeeded the throne, Asgard... would cease to exist that very same day. Laufey, King of the Frost Giants, would literally die laughing.
An adopted child—leaving aside his character flaws—even if Loki were a peerless enlightened sovereign, Odin would never pass the throne to him.
At this moment, the Allfather Odin had just finished reviewing the war in which the Kryptonian Empire swept through ten civilizations. He knew the "Emperor" of the Kryptonian Empire well, because the Ancient One had told him about Zod Hess.
A man not bound by fate. So inscrutable that when the Ancient One peered into ten million futures, she saw ten million different outcomes. It left even the Ancient One dumbfounded. She had no choice but to forcibly preserve certain critical elements unchanged and leave the rest to Zod Hess's own devices. Because, much to her dismay, the Ancient One discovered that any time she intervened, the number of possible futures increased by several million more, each branching into millions more different futures.
Banishing Zod would only make things worse. Zod could return on his own. He had already mastered two fundamental forces, was deducing all four, and would soon achieve a Grand Unified Field. By then, Zod could travel to any universe he wished and return just as easily.
The reason Odin was paying attention to Zod and his Kryptonian Empire was simple: he wanted to know whether Zod would threaten the Nine Realms, or rather, Asgard.
The situation was very bad. Although Zod appeared to be a man addicted to lust, he was, most of the time, frighteningly rational and calm, which proved he possessed great ambition and would not be satisfied with the status quo.
Zod: "You misunderstand. The only thing I'm not satisfied with is that I still have too few figurine waifus."
What Odin didn't know was that Zod could control his own hormone secretion, so he spent most of his time in sage mode. Naturally, that made him rational, calm, and exceedingly wise. Otherwise, he would be consumed at all times by destruction and lust. The overwhelming, inexhaustible physical power and energy of Doomsday were agonizing—he was desperate to vent, to destroy something, to be struck, or to strike others dead. In sage mode, those feelings simply didn't exist.
Odin did not know how he would deal with it if Zod Hess truly turned his military might toward Asgard.
/-\
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