The Kryptonian warriors led by Zod stood across from Harry and Clark, facing them in a tense standoff.
Zod cast Harry a wary glance, then stopped paying attention to this unknown powerhouse. Compared with him, Kal-El was far more important.
Zod's combat boots ground over the shattered concrete, and his mask let out a mechanical hum with every breath. He stared at the rising and falling "S" crest on Clark's chest, the emblem of the House of El gleaming coldly through the smoke.
He suddenly gave a scoff, but that sound was filled with anger. His voice was like metal scraping across stone.
"Kal-El, do you know what you are doing right now? You intend to destroy this machine? You think this is only a machine? Kal-El, that is Krypton's heartbeat."
He took a step forward, the joints of his armor rasping faintly.
"Kal-El, turn back. You are Kryptonian too. Hand over the Codex. The Codex contains the genetic code of all our people. It is Krypton's unborn children. It is the hope your father took away. With the Codex, that machine can let the seeds of Krypton take root on this planet. It can let our language, our bloodline, and our pride rise from the ashes."
Clark refused him directly. "General Zod, I can't let you kill billions of humans to bring Krypton back. If you go to another planet, terraform that planet into a Kryptonian environment, and restore Krypton there, I won't stop you. I'll even do everything I can to cooperate with you."
During his conversation with Harry, Clark had received a piece of good news from him. Harry could actually help him remove the Codex from his body without endangering his life.
So if General Zod was willing to spare Earth and cooperate with him, they would not have to keep fighting.
A faint flicker passed through General Zod's eyes, as if he was tempted.
But when he thought of the current energy reserves of the Kryptonian ship, and the odds of finding another suitable planet to terraform somewhere in the universe, his gaze turned cold again.
"We cannot give up Earth. The ship's energy reserves are no longer enough for us to search for another suitable planet."
Clark fell silent for a moment, then said firmly, "I'm sorry, General Zod. I have to stop you. I'm going to destroy this planet-terraforming device."
The wind swept Metropolis's smoke and dust across Zod's mask. Zod raised his hand, tore open the clasp, and revealed a face carved with the scars of war. The red light in his eyes was suppressed fury.
"You grew up on Earth, Kal-El, so you do not understand what we feel. The moment this machine stops turning, Krypton's last hope will vanish completely. Everything related to Krypton will become true nothingness."
He clenched his fist hard. "Are you going to bury your homeland with your own hands? Look at yourself now. Wearing a human shell, protecting lives that will one day turn to dust, while strangling the last breath of your own race with your own hands. Is this the 'mercy' you learned from Earth? Kal-El, if you destroy it, you will no longer be Kryptonian. You will not even be a man. You will only be an executioner who murdered his homeland. Think carefully. Will Krypton be reborn through you, or will Krypton die forever on this blue planet?"
Clark did not answer, but his silence was itself an answer.
Clark's attitude drove General Zod into a rage. Perhaps Clark understood what General Zod was thinking, but General Zod had no understanding at all of what Clark wanted to do.
In General Zod's mind, Clark was a part of Krypton. His actions were betrayal, not only of his homeworld, but also of his parents and kin.
As a member of Kryptonian civilization, how could he choose to destroy his own civilization for the sake of an alien one?
General Zod roared. His entire body instantly turned into a blur as he charged at Clark, punching him in the face.
"Kal-El, you deserve to die!"
The battle between General Zod and Clark erupted at that moment, and Harry's clash with the other Kryptonian warriors began as well.
Before the battle, the Kryptonians had already made a plan together.
To them, the key to victory in this fight was not defeating Harry and Clark. It was completing Earth's transformation and obtaining the Codex.
So General Zod, the strongest among them, would fight Clark, defeat Clark in the shortest time possible, then come back to support the other Kryptonian warriors and join them in surrounding and killing Harry.
The plan was simple, but as long as General Zod could defeat Clark quickly, it would be very effective.
According to the Kryptonian scientists' analysis, they believed their odds of winning this battle were extremely high. They would win.
Harry looked around and realized that, before he knew it, he had already been surrounded by more than a dozen Kryptonian warriors.
Perhaps to get back at Harry, Faora stepped out from among the Kryptonian warriors and stood in front of him, sneering.
"Can you stand there and not move? That would make things easier for us. I think it would be more fitting to let General Zod deal with you."
Hearing Faora's words, Harry found it a little funny.
"Do you think I'm scared of you just because there are more of you?"
Faora was full of confidence. "What else?"
Harry shook his head. Perhaps Kryptonians had never encountered life-forms far stronger than themselves, so there was an arrogance in Kryptonian blood.
In their minds, as long as they were not facing high-tech weapons, there was no opponent they could not defeat.
Even if one person could not win, then two, three, or even a dozen should be enough.
But Harry was completely different from them. An ordinary Kryptonian's strength was only sub-Skyfather-level. Even Clark and General Zod were only weak Skyfather-level at present.
Perhaps they had not fully cashed in their potential, and perhaps they might become stronger in the future, but right now, they were no match for Harry. No matter how many of them there were, the result would be the same.
Just like before, Harry smiled at Faora and said, "Do you want to surrender voluntarily? That would make things easier for me. Maybe it would be better to let Clark deal with you."
When she heard Harry's words, Faora's face immediately twisted.
Even now, Harry was still this confident. Did he really think he alone could take on more than a dozen powerful Kryptonians?
Faora gnashed her teeth and said, "Attack. Bring him down. If you can't defeat him, then stall for time until General Zod returns."
Faora was the first to charge at Harry, but just as she approached, a foot suddenly enlarged rapidly before her eyes.
The next instant, Harry kicked Faora in the face and sent her flying. Her whole body shot hundreds of meters away, and she landed in the ruins of a building, lying there as she stared blankly up at the sky.
Although Harry had still defeated her in a single move, why did it feel like he was even stronger than before?
Faora could not help developing an illusion, that Harry seemed capable of growing stronger without limit. Whenever they thought they had figured out Harry's exact strength, Harry would always raise his upper limit again, leaving them unable to see even the slightest bit of hope.
Harry and Faora's first collision opened the curtain on the battle. The others rushed to attack Harry as well.
Harry had no intention of wasting much time with them. The electric current inside his body immediately began to rotate, instantly reaching 800,000 rotations.
For the skill Magnetic Field Rotation, the faster the electric current inside the body rotated, the greater the power it granted the user.
When Magnetic Field Rotation reached 800,000 horsepower, Harry's physical abilities had already far surpassed the Kryptonians before him.
At that moment, an electromagnetic field invisible to the naked eye covered the area around his body. He used this electromagnetic field together with the Shield Charm, forming an extremely powerful defensive spell.
More than a dozen Kryptonian warriors attacked him, but Harry did not move at all. He simply stood where he was. When the Kryptonians' fists, heat vision, frost breath, and other attacks reached a point five meters away from him, they abruptly stopped, unable to move forward even an inch.
Then Harry extended his palm and gently pushed forward.
"Almighty Push!"
A powerful repulsive force rapidly spread outward with him as the center, instantly enveloping the dozen-plus Kryptonian warriors.
Facing the attack Harry released, the Kryptonian warriors had no way to resist. They were quickly sent flying by the tremendous magnetic force.
At the same time, the air filled with the crackling sounds of bones breaking. In an instant, they lost their ability to fight back.
Harry did not stop. He slightly curled his palm and shouted, "Universal Pull!"
The Kryptonian warriors Harry had knocked away were once again wrapped and bound by an enormous gravitational force. Their bodies froze in midair, then flew toward Harry at shocking speed.
But when they reached the area five meters away from Harry, they slammed into the transparent barrier again. More terrifying sounds of bones cracking and skin bursting rang out. The dozen-plus Kryptonian warriors were thrown completely into a near-death state.
However, because of the Kryptonians' unique and powerful recovery abilities, their lives were not in danger for the time being. Still, they had completely lost the ability to resist for a while.
Harry snapped his fingers, stacking countless portals inside a section of space and forming a cage unique to portals.
Then he threw the dozen-plus Kryptonian warriors into the portal cage. Unless they possessed spatial teleportation abilities, there was no way they could break free from that portal cage.
Of course, the Kryptonians before him had no spatial abilities whatsoever, so until Harry released them, they could only remain inside the portal cage.
At the same time, on the battlefield in Metropolis, the fight between Clark and General Zod still had not produced a winner.
Suddenly, Harry's gaze shifted toward a street in Metropolis. There, he discovered two special individuals.
One of them was a young man with super-speed abilities, while the other was an ordinary person with a body so strong he seemed almost superhuman.
Harry decided to make contact with them. The feeling they gave him was like Tony and Captain America from the multiverse.
Concrete fragments rained down on the corner convenience store like a storm. The glass curtain wall shattered into razor-sharp shards under the shockwaves from the Kryptonians' collisions.
Barry Allen's boots scraped across the ground as he slid, racing through the ruins of the buildings and rescuing innocent civilians one after another.
Not long ago, he had been struck by lightning and accidentally discovered that he had awakened the Speed Force. He could increase his speed in a completely unscientific way and run very fast, at least several times the speed of sound.
But even if his speed reached several times the speed of sound, he still could not save every innocent civilian. The battle between Superman and the Kryptonians was far too intense. Every punch they threw was like several tons of TNT detonating. Faced with tens of thousands of civilians in danger, he was powerless to save them all.
"Move!" he roared at a family of three curled up behind a freezer, his voice warping from his super-speed.
Zod's heat vision swept across the upper floors of a building. The red glow of melting steel beams had already lit up Barry's pupils.
Barry's pupils suddenly contracted. In his eyes, the world abruptly slowed down.
Shattered glass hung in midair. The woman's terrified scream stretched into a long hum. The lollipop in the child's hand was slowly falling.
This was not because the flow of time had slowed. It was the visual effect caused by Barry's greatly increased reaction speed.
Barry Allen rushed through that perception and saved the family of three who had almost been crushed.
But at that moment, he discovered that several hundred meters away, dozens more pedestrians were about to be smashed by falling chunks of building debris. At his current speed, he could only save one-third of them. Any more was beyond him.
His own powerlessness filled Barry Allen with anger, but he had only just obtained his superpower. He could only reach his current speed and could not go any faster.
Just as Barry Allen was full of unwillingness, a voice suddenly sounded beside his ear.
"Do you want to save them?"
At that moment, Barry Allen froze in astonishment. He realized that even though the world had been close to standing still, it had still been moving slowly, but now it had completely stopped. Beside him, at some point, a young man with a faint lightning-shaped scar on his forehead had appeared.
That voice just now had come from this young man.
Barry Allen was confused and wary as he said, "Who are you? What do you want? And what did that question just now mean?"
Without a doubt, with his reaction speed, it was impossible for him to completely freeze the world before his eyes.
The reason the world before him had gone completely still, as if time throughout the entire world had stopped completely, was because of this mysterious young man.
Then why had this young man appeared before him? Why did he possess such powerful abilities? What was his purpose?
All of this made Barry Allen unable to trust the man before him, and made him hold the highest level of caution toward him.
Then he saw this young man staring at him with curiosity, reaching out to rub his chin as if thinking about something. Finally, the young man's eyes lit up, and he decided.
"I think you have pretty good talent. Would you like to become my Lender?"
Barry Allen: "???"
"What the hell? What's a Lender?"
Harry looked at the young man with special abilities and smiled as he explained, "As long as you can pay a certain price, I can grant you corresponding power. For example, I can double your speed again."
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