Even with her aunt in her arms, little Kara still felt uneasy. The scene before her eyes was simply too overwhelming.
The level of Heisenberg's divine power far exceeded the energy tiers commonly used by Krypton. The infusion of that power made the ancient weapon systems of Fort Rozz blaze with a radiance nearly impossible to look at directly. The scholars of Fort Rozz struggled to keep pace with the data, making micro-adjustments to the energy streaming in from Heisenberg.
The process lasted a full two minutes before the scholars nodded with certainty.
"It's ready, Your Eminence. Please maintain the stability of your energy output!"
"Mm."
Heisenberg, still on Earth far away, nodded. Then he opened his eyes, a trace of excitement flickering within them. Through the virtual display used for communication, he could glimpse fragments of the Phantom Zone.
Fort Rozz's original near-orbit energy cannon grew increasingly active. The boundless divine power compressed continuously within the energy interaction center, and then—
"Fire!!!"
Astra gave the order. Her decisiveness made little Kara, still clinging to her leg, shudder violently.
At her command, the scholars exchanged glances and confirmed the launch sequence without hesitation.
The near-orbit energy weapon erupted. First, a massive concussive blast of energy surged violently into the omnipresent void of the Phantom Zone. The energy spread wider and wider as the launch distance increased, until it reached a threshold—then it rapidly interacted with every corner of the Phantom Zone's emptiness!
In the next instant, a steady, unending torrent of stable energy poured endlessly from the cannon's barrel, forming a chain of divine power two kilometers wide and stretching to an incalculable length.
The divine power roared along its conduit, colliding violently with the fabric of space-time within the Phantom Zone. As the intermediate vessel bearing that power, all of Fort Rozz began to tremble!
Amid the chaos, little Kara clung desperately to her aunt's leg, turning her face—tearful eyes still wide—to gaze at Heisenberg's countenance, calm as the sea.
Kara was terrified.
It wasn't the first time she had witnessed a cataclysm of this scale.
But the last time she had seen something like this, her friends, the city she lived in, a part of her family—they had all vanished in the midst of it!
Back then, she had hidden just as she did now, watching from afar as Brainiac's mothership tore Kandor, one of Krypton's seven great population centers, cleanly away!!!
But this time...!
Looking at Heisenberg's face, that expression hovering between a smile and something deeper, looking at the radiant and commanding sun-god emblem blazing upon his chest—
Kara stopped her trembling and quietly wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes.
She had to be strong!
If only for the sake of the divine eminence before her, who was countless times stronger than she was, she had to be strong!
Unlike Kandor, which no one had been able to save back then, a god was now saving her!
Having lost her friends, having lost her parents too—looking at Heisenberg's figure, Kara finally felt she had found something to lean on.
She and her Kryptonian people had, at long last, waited for their true savior!!!
Back on Earth, Bach was nervously monitoring the fluctuations of the data. His mind had long since surpassed Krypton's existing intelligent systems, and his observations were more precise than those of the twenty-plus scholars aboard Fort Rozz.
He raised his head excitedly and suddenly spoke to Heisenberg.
"It's a success, Your Eminence!"
At his words, Heisenberg suddenly felt his divine power draining away like a flood.
At the same moment, within the Phantom Zone, Fort Rozz shook with such violence that even the fully-alert warriors inside were thrown to the ground in droves. Astra braced her left hand against the command console, her right arm clutching Kara tightly as she roared at everyone present.
"Brace for impact! The crossing is happening now!!!"
...
"Prepare to receive them! Fort Rozz returns now!!!"
Maintaining his energy output, Heisenberg bellowed and then clenched his fist!
Within his grip, Gungnir materialized in an instant.
"Your Eminence, the passage is stable enough, but it still requires a force to shatter the boundary between dimensions. When Krypton first established the Phantom Zone prison, they detonated hundreds of stars in a single burst to open a permanent passage into the Phantom Zone!"
"Hundreds—a joke. I alone am enough!"
Heisenberg laughed with heroic abandon and hurled Gungnir forth.
The spear pierced through the infinite cosmos in an instant, directly penetrating the membrane separating the Phantom Zone from the material world from Heisenberg's side.
In the next moment, countless cracks spread across the entirety of Fort Rozz.
But by then, the fissure-ridden Fort Rozz had already successfully appeared in the skies above the Divine Kingdom base in Metropolis!
Noticing the summer sun suddenly blotted out, even the people of Metropolis still busy with work rushed to their windows in astonishment to look up. When they recognized the distinctly Kryptonian-style vessel overhead, they promptly sat back down, utterly unimpressed.
"Oh. Another spaceship the Sun God dragged in from who-knows-where."
"Boring. I thought we were gonna have to evacuate again."
"Terrifying... where do these things keep coming from?!"
"I feel like Metropolis has basically turned into outer space!"
"This place really is starting to feel like a god's domain. Being born in Metropolis is such a blessing!"
"Thrilling!"
Amidst the scattered chatter, Clark flew out from the Divine Kingdom, heading straight for the underside of the colossal Fort Rozz. He caught the completely dead and near-disintegrating fortress on his shoulders. At the same time, thirty Kryptonian warriors shot out in unison, retrieving the fragments that kept splitting off and drifting away from the fortress.
Under Heisenberg's watch, Fort Rozz was absorbed, from large to small, into the Divine Kingdom's Möbius system, silently vanishing from the skies above Metropolis.
Inside Fort Rozz, Astra struggled to her feet and helped up the Kara she had shielded beneath her.
When Kara stood up, Astra was startled—the corners of the child's eyes and mouth were streaked with blood. Especially her nose; blood was streaming freely down her face. But before Astra could even reach out to wipe it away, she felt her own nasal cavity grow hot. A moment later, her own nosebleed flowed uncontrollably as well.
Without Heisenberg's intervention, Kara would never have sustained such injuries now. But consider this: in the original timeline, Astra and the others, having escaped the Phantom Zone by forcibly dragging themselves out with Kara's pod, had remained dormant for sixteen full years before making any moves! That alone said everything about the magnitude of damage they had suffered.
"Auntie, my head hurts so much!!!"
Kara couldn't hold back her cry of pain. Astra quickly pulled her into her arms.
"It only hurts this once, child. From now on, we will never have to endure such suffering again!"
"Okay. I can bear it. I still have to take care of my little cousin!"
Kara nodded resolutely. Astra, her face covered in blood, smiled.
At that moment, the gradually failing hatch of Fort Rozz burst open. A massive penguin-shaped robot, over four meters tall, entered through the doorway.
"I am the Divine Kingdom, central intelligence of Krypton's Earth Base. Permission to assume control of the Kryptonian Type-II Expeditionary Fortress, designation: Fort Rozz."
The moment the words were spoken, the Divine Kingdom, without waiting for Astra's reply, directly separated its enormous mechanical arms and infiltrated every corner of Fort Rozz's central control platform.
In the moments that followed, Fort Rozz rapidly disassembled, continuously breaking down into precious Kryptonian gravitational particles and integrating them into the Divine Kingdom base.
Deprived of Fort Rozz's physical support, Astra instinctively thought she would plummet downwards, but before she could even make a protective motion, she felt a gentle force envelop her.
Heisenberg extended his right hand. Even as he ceased his energy output, he controlled the force field to lower his people gently to the ground.
Before Astra could fully register it, Kara, who had just landed beside her, burst forward in delight.
"Auntie, Auntie, that's a Lo'ei'an flower!!!
By Rao, there's even Man'yiluo blooms and Qugen! And a Great Pa'terome Giant Vine!!!"
A child's eyes are always quicker to discover the world's beauty. With a speed far surpassing that of an adult Kryptonian, she took in the countless Kryptonian plants within the Divine Kingdom. Many of these plants Kara had only ever seen in inherited memory!
Hearing Kara's words, Astra looked around, utterly losing her composure. In the next instant, she staggered forward and collapsed to her knees before a Lo'ei'an flower in full bloom.
With trembling emotion, she reached out, her hand brushing through the coarse, primitive Kryptonian sand and soil to gently stroke the crisp, delicate leaves of the flower.
In the generations leading up to Krypton's slow decay toward destruction, her people had not laid eyes on Kryptonian flora for far, far too long.
Watching his people, seemingly driven to near-madness, Heisenberg pressed his lips together in understanding. He took two steps forward and crouched down with a smile, facing Kara, who was delightedly fussing over the flowers.
Beside them, Clark raised his head with great difficulty and drew a deep breath.
As he inhaled, tears burst from his eyes.
It was only now that he was beginning to realize just how utterly desperate his fellow Kryptonians had once been. A patch of soil, a single flower—nothing more than plants—yet enough to make countless members of his race weep with joy, to drive them to wild celebration, unwilling to pause even for the sake of dignity or appearances.
Looking at his people now, Clark no longer harbored any resentment toward Zod. He finally understood that old general who had once resolved to reshape the Earth.
And at the same time, the scales within his heart inevitably tilted, just a little.
Because he finally realized that Krypton was never the strong, domineering force he had subjectively believed it to be. Nor was it purely a race of invaders, as he had always assumed. They were simply homeless souls, wretched people without a home...
Meanwhile, Heisenberg, still crouched on the ground, extended his right hand and gently ruffled little Kara's head.
"Child, will you tell me your name?" he asked softly.
Hearing Heisenberg's voice, Kara looked up in surprise. The moment her glistening eyes registered his face, her entire body trembled where she stood.
"Hei... no, no! The God! Your Divine Eminence!"
"No need for formalities, little one. Come, take my hand."
Heisenberg smiled and extended his hand, clasping the small, trembling hand Kara hesitantly reached out.
"I have never been some god. And if I am, then I am only your god. I am your kin. I am your elder. I am Heisenberg—nothing more. So, may I know your name, young lady?"
"Ah, ah, yes! Of course you can!!!"
Hearing Heisenberg's explanation, the tension on Kara's face rapidly melted away. With the acknowledgment of kinship and elders, and won over by Heisenberg's striking features, Kara found herself involuntarily curling up and nestling herself right into Heisenberg's arms.
"I am Kara Zor-El. I'm eight years old. My mother is Alura. Your Eminence, Your Eminence—have I come back to Krypton? I need to go to Earth. My mother told me to go to Earth to take care of my little cousin. His name is Kal-El. He's a child of Krypton stranded on a foreign world. I must take care of him. Can you take me to Earth? He needs me!"
The moment Kara finished speaking, Clark, standing nearby, was visibly shaken. He practically flew over to Heisenberg and Kara, dropping to one knee beside them. He reached out a hand, his expression one of utter disbelief, wanting to touch little Kara's face.
Startled by the face suddenly so close to hers, Kara flinched and instinctively shrank deeper into Heisenberg's embrace. She asked softly,
"Who are you? You're wearing a Kryptonian warrior's uniform, but why is yours blue? Doesn't everyone else wear black? Are you...?"
Halfway through, Kara froze. As if by resonance of bloodline, she seemed to sense something. Hesitantly, she reached out and wiped a tear sliding down Clark's nose, asking in a small voice,
"You're crying... Do you know my cousin? Has something happened to Kal-El? Is he..."
"He's fine... He's truly fine!"
Clark spoke as torrents of tears streamed unbidden from his eyes. He opened his arms wide and fiercely pulled both Kara and Heisenberg into his embrace.
Then, throughout the entire base, the sound of Superman's unrestrained, grief-stricken weeping echoed.
Within that sound, alongside the sorrow, there was also a note of guilt and regret.
/-\
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