"I need to run!"
The second Robert figured it out, he decided to get out of there. This place was way too dangerous. Home was definitely safer.
"Correct answer, kid. Your prize is a one-day trip to an alien world!"
But the instant Robert turned around, he saw a man wearing a helmet marked with a giant X smiling at him.
"I..."
The moment Robert looked at the man, his head felt heavy. In the next second, he lost consciousness.
Half a year had passed since Jovian launched the Superhuman-for-All Initiative.
And the Great Expansion had also been underway for half a year.
At the same time Jovian had everyone injected with Compound X, he had also planted mental suggestions in them, telling them that once their powers awakened, they should first learn to control their abilities, then keep their heads down, and finally, on the designated day, all fly to an altitude of ten thousand meters and shout four words.
I am God.
At that point, Jovian would send people to collect them, then put them through a month of training. Under the leadership of one or two Viltrumites and S-Class heroes from the Hero Association who had also been injected with Compound X, they would be sent to attack life-forms on other planets, those alien races spread across the stars.
It was a drill.
Jovian was training his army so that one day, when they had to fight in other universes on hostile ground, his soldiers would actually be useful.
To be honest, the best performers so far were the Compound X recipients from the One-Punch Man universe.
In that world, people saw killing aliens, or monsters, as the most natural thing in the world. Monsters deserved to die. They never hesitated, never softened, never stopped. Blade down, another alien fell. Blade down again, another one. Entire waves of extraterrestrials dropped in heaps.
The Compound X recipients from the other three Earths, on the other hand, had been disappointing.
Put simply, in those other worlds, only a small minority of people who received Compound X had the mindset needed to fight alien species without hesitation. Most of them lacked that level of resolve. A lot of them ended up emotionally scarred. But in the One-Punch Man world, people were born with their anti-alien instincts maxed out. They did not feel guilt over killing aliens at all. At most they felt disgust, the same hardwired revulsion humans feel when crushing cockroaches or fire ants underfoot.
That left Jovian with no choice but to assign every unit its own morale officer and trauma counselor to help stabilize the fragile minds of his soldiers. As for doctors, well, the entire Imperial Legion barely had any. Not because doctors were unimportant, but because these flying, planet-crossing super-soldiers almost never needed them.
Under Jovian's command were a full five hundred million super-soldiers.
Even the weakest among them had combat power on Homelander's level.
That kind of force, combined with the mechanical exoskeleton technology from the One-Punch Man universe, was enough to sweep across the entire universe even without Jovian stepping in personally.
On top of that, Jovian had also assembled a personal guard made up entirely of Viltrumites, around one thousand strong.
Every last one of them had been given Compound X and awakened an X-gene.
The Viltrumites' incredible adaptability had pushed the entire guard to Beta-level mutant abilities, and a small number had even awakened Alpha-level powers. Unfortunately, none of them had developed Omega-level abilities, which left Jovian a little disappointed.
At present, Jovian only had four Omega-level mutants under his command: Magneto, Erik Lehnsherr, Storm, Ororo Munroe, Marvel Girl, Jean Grey, and Iceman... Iceman, that nerfed loser didn't even deserve a proper introduction. He could earn that once he finally realized his power was not making popsicles, it was controlling temperature.
"It's time to head to the world of Warhammer 40,000 and learn a few things..."
"But before that, I need to finish up one last detail. Somebody has to hold down the fort for me."
Jovian gave a slight wave of his hand.
At once, five people appeared before him.
They were Magneto, Erik Lehnsherr, Marvel Girl, Jean Grey, Professor X, Charles Xavier, Storm, Ororo Munroe, and the only non-mutant among them, Terrible Tornado.
"Hmph. Why'd you call me here?"
"Do you have any idea how busy I am?"
The moment Terrible Tornado appeared, she immediately started complaining to Jovian.
Jovian's brain automatically translated what she actually meant.
I'm so annoyed. You ignored me for this long?
Do you have any idea how bored I've been?
"Hm?"
At the same time, Charles, Jean, Storm, and Erik all sensed something and looked at Terrible Tornado with obvious surprise.
"What are you staring at? Never seen a beautiful woman before?"
Terrible Tornado's senses were incredibly sharp. The moment everyone looked at her, she noticed it. She frowned and made her displeasure crystal clear.
"Heh, Miss Tornado, I think you may have misunderstood. We weren't targeting you. We just... haven't seen brainwaves quite so... vivid before."
Erik Lehnsherr furrowed his brow and searched desperately for the right word to use while speaking to her.
"Hmph. A bunch of amateurs."
Terrible Tornado gave a cold snort, full of arrogance.
"Hehehe..."
Erik traded a glance with the others. None of them said anything. They just smiled and looked at her the way indulgent parents might look at a talented but prickly child.
"Hm?!"
Terrible Tornado felt those warm, tolerant looks and immediately got uncomfortable. She could not shake the feeling that they were looking down on her.
"Enough. I called you here because there's something important I need to say. I need to leave this universe for a few days. While I'm gone, you five will protect my universe in my place. You cannot allow anyone to take advantage of my absence, conquer this place, and steal what's mine."
Jovian looked at the five standing before him and spoke plainly.
"Uh..."
All of them were stunned. None of them had expected Jovian to hand them a responsibility this enormous.
"We truly would like to help you guard this universe," Erik said after a pause, "but with only our own power, we're not enough to withstand attacks from outside the universe, especially from some of those powerful dimensional gods. Just imagining their bizarre methods is enough to make your skin crawl."
After years of working under Jovian, Erik Lehnsherr had seen things that absolutely shredded a person's sanity. From a distance, those horrors were bad enough. Up close, they would drive anyone insane.
"I know that asking you to manage this universe is too much. So I'm going to give part of it to you."
Jovian smiled at the five of them.
In the next second, crimson flames erupted from his body.
Screee!
The fire spread without end and took the form of a gigantic phoenix, declaring its presence before Erik Lehnsherr, Jean, and the others like some cosmic sovereign announcing itself to the world.
"The Phoenix Force?!"
Everyone stared at the enormous firebird radiating terrifying power, their eyes full of shock.
Jean was the most shocked of all.
She, of all people, had once been the host of the Phoenix. If anyone should have been least surprised, it should have been her. And yet she was the one most shaken by what stood before them.
"I don't recognize it..." Jean shook her head continuously as she stared at the great firebird, confusion, fear, and disbelief all visible in her eyes. "I don't recognize this power at all. What... what is this?!"
"Jean, that's the Phoenix Force."
Charles raised an eyebrow after hearing her say that.
"This..."
"This isn't the Phoenix Force I knew anymore!"
Jean shook her head. To Charles and the others, it might have looked no different from the Phoenix Force she had once carried within her. But Jean herself knew the truth.
This was not on the same level as the Phoenix Force she had known.
And it was not just a matter of power. Even its essence had become something else entirely.
Jovian smiled faintly as he looked at Jean's stunned expression.
Yes, it was exactly as Jean suspected.
The Phoenix Force had long since been reshaped in Jovian's image.
"Relax. Don't be afraid."
"I'm going to grant this great power to all of you."
Holy light shone from Jovian's body as he addressed the five of them.
"Do I... does the current me really have the right to wield this power?"
Jean's body trembled slightly as doubt crept into her voice.
"Jean, the you of today is nothing like the you of before. You are far beyond the person you once were. As far as I'm concerned, you're fully capable of mastering this power now..."
Jovian smiled as he spoke to her.
"But..."
Jean still hesitated.
"Trust me."
Jovian looked at Jean and softly gave her those three words.
"...All right."
After hesitating for a moment, Jean's eyes slowly turned firm. She agreed to accept Jovian's gift.
To Jean, Jovian was her benefactor, the kind who had literally saved her life. He was also a teacher who had guided her down the path she now walked. If it was Jovian, she was willing to believe.
"Calm your minds. Accept my power!"
The instant Jovian's voice fell, endless power descended upon Erik Lehnsherr, Ororo Munroe, Jean, Charles, and Terrible Tornado.
Boom!
In that instant, everyone except Jean felt as though a violent force was destroying every part of their body, only to reforge them from the ground up.
Power, enormous power, blazed inside them.
"Ah!"
Terrible Tornado had never felt her body so full before. She could not help crying out, and the sound that escaped her was enough to send certain thoughts racing through anyone's head.
In the next second, she opened her tightly shut eyes.
Invisible flames seemed to wrap around her body.
A Phoenix Apostle, no, more precisely, an Imperial Apostle, Terrible Tornado, had just been born.
Boom!
The second to awaken was Erik Lehnsherr.
The moment he opened his eyes, he felt as though he had grasped every force in existence. The strong interaction, the weak interaction, electromagnetism, gravity, the four fundamental forces of the universe felt close enough to touch. And once he understood those four forces, the concept of a unified field naturally formed in his mind.
For a moment, Erik Lehnsherr felt as though he held the entire universe in his hands.
"All things have spirit. I will rule every mind."
Charles was the third to open his eyes.
He removed his helmet. He no longer needed it.
Wherever he stood, he could now command the mental network of every living thing in the universe.
"Magic will answer to me!"
Storm was wreathed in lightning like a terrifying deity born from the heart of a thunderstorm.
In that moment, Storm took control of the universe's entire magical network.
"I am omnipotent!"
Just as the other four Imperial Apostles completed their transformations, the final apostle quietly opened her eyes, eyes that seemed capable of seeing through everything.
The instant Jean Grey opened them, it was as though light spread across the entire universe.
Every glowing object in existence seemed insignificant before that radiance.
If the others who received the Phoenix Force from Jovian could only be called hosts of the Phoenix Force, then Jean...
Jean was the Phoenix itself.
Emotion, life, the mind...
The line between birth and death, the microscopic and the cosmic, all of it lay under Jean's command.
The life and death of living beings, the life and death of matter, the life and death of universes, all of it was within her sight.
At that moment, Jean truly became the Phoenix.
Once the five of them merged with Jovian's power, their appearances changed as well.
Their original clothes vanished completely, replaced by white-and-gold battle suits styled after Jovian's own. Unlike Jovian, though, each of them still retained their own individual characteristics beneath the shared colors.
Charles kept his bald head.
Magneto kept his helmet.
Storm kept her long white hair.
Jean kept her stunning figure and long legs.
And Terrible Tornado kept her tiny shorts.
As Imperial Apostles, the five of them also came to govern five layers of Jovian's universe.
Terrible Tornado controlled the universe's entire psionic realm.
Storm controlled the universe's magical realm.
Erik Lehnsherr controlled the universe's material realm.
Charles controlled the universe's psychic realm.
Jean Grey became the overseer of everything within the Jovian universe itself, overseeing the other Imperial Apostles and watching for any chance they might be corrupted by outside invaders, foreign dark gods, or dimensional demon lords.
"Now then, I have three requirements for the five of you..."
"First, do not interfere in the war between humanity and alien entities within this universe. That war is a trial for the warriors of this universe."
"Second, if a powerful enemy invades, notify me immediately."
"Third, if the enemy is too strong for you to resist, and I'm being held up somewhere and can't return to my universe, then summon my chosen champion!"
"Fourth..."
"Fifth..."
The Five Imperial Apostles listened with solemn respect as Jovian spoke.
They were attentive, serious, and obedient.
Yet among the five of them, only Jean Grey heard the fourth and fifth rules.
Jean's eyes flickered.
She understood that by fusing with the Emperor's power, she had effectively gained a fragment of Jovian's own consciousness. That was why Jovian trusted her completely. It was also why, when it came to administrative authority over this universe, she alone held the largest share.
"We will defend this universe for the Emperor and for humanity!"
Once Jovian finished giving his instructions, all five apostles dropped to one knee at the same time and spoke with reverence.
"Good..."
"I'm leaving the universe in your hands."
Jovian smiled as his body gradually faded into nothingness.
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