In the brief moment he had, he knew he couldn't decipher the meaning of that string of characters.
So Karl stopped wasting time thinking about it, figuring he would eventually encounter the ancient language again.
He turned his attention back to the panel and tried to add points to Bio-Field, as that superpower was the most broken aspect of Superman's abilities.
As a result, he found that no matter how frantically he pressed the plus sign next to Bio-Field, the system didn't respond.
He had no choice but to try clicking on Steel Body, but Heat Vision, Frozen Breath, and other similar defensive or offensive abilities couldn't be upgraded either...
After a moment, Karl's face grew darker and darker, until suddenly he remembered something.
This was the order of Superman's superpowers.
Realizing this, he immediately tried to add points to Super Strength, and this time, the point allocation was unexpectedly smooth.
[Super Strength Level 0] → [Super Strength Level 1]
When he finished allocating the point, he felt as if something inside him had been activated, like a flame igniting.
A strength he had never possessed erupted from within him, and the sunlight weakly filtering through the canopy onto him felt warmer, his heart craving even more sunshine.
Karl looked at the Drowners gathered around him with ill intent.
He pressed his hands against the ground with a scornful smile, straining his muscles as he tried to stand.
At that moment, the ground supporting his right hand suddenly sank a little.
Karl noticed something was wrong, turned his head to look, and found that the ground he was pressing on had sunken by two or three centimeters, leaving palm prints with clearly visible indentations.
Surprise appeared on his face, and he lifted his dirt-covered palm to look at it.
He knew there hadn't been any rain lately, so the overall soil texture was hard.
Even if an adult male stood on it, jumping or stomping hard wouldn't necessarily make it sink, yet he had sunk it with a casual press.
It seemed his strength had grown too quickly, making it impossible for him to control it discreetly, which was affecting his surroundings.
The Drowned Dead's deep gaze fixed on Karl, and it suddenly let out a piercing hiss, clearly a signal to attack.
The surrounding Drowners moved in response, roaring and lunging from all sides, their claws tearing through the air, carrying a fishy wind.
Their movements, which might have been as fast as lightning in the eyes of ordinary people,
were, at this moment, pathetically slow in Karl's eyes.
He didn't retreat after standing up; he didn't even move a step, just watched them with a playful attitude.
When the claws of the first Drowner were about to touch his shoulder, Karl finally moved.
But he didn't choose to dodge; his left hand was as fast as a blurred afterimage, precisely grabbing the Drowner's wrist.
CRACK! A sickening sound of snapping bones exploded, like crushing a handful of dry twigs.
The bones of the Drowner's wrist, along with its forearm, were instantly crushed by Karl's grip into twisted mince and broken shards.
Seeing this scene, Karl's expression remained unchanged, but a flicker of surprise crossed his eyes, astonished by his own strength.
He quickly assessed in his mind that he was currently using about thirty percent of his strength, or maybe not even fully; what would happen if he used all his power?
With this thought, Karl launched another attack on the Drowner.
"Graah...!" At that moment, a pitiful howl escaped the Drowner's throat.
Karl's right fist, already swinging with a dull whoosh as if splitting the air, exploded into its chest.
And this time, his fist wasn't like a punch, but rather like a battering ram.
SPLAT-CRUNCH!
In an instant, the Drowner's relatively sturdy body collapsed inward like a burst leather bag filled with water.
Then, its entire chest cavity, along with its spine, was completely pierced and torn apart by the irresistible force!
Flesh, internal fragments, and shattered bone remnants scattered backwards and sprayed out violently.
The two Drowners following behind were hit in the face by the spray, and it also plastered the nearby tree trunks and ferns.
The upper body of the Drowner in front of Karl had almost vanished, leaving only its broken lower limbs, twitching weakly before falling down.
In an instant, the stench of blood at the scene intensified several times over.
Drowners aren't very intelligent and don't experience many emotions themselves, but at this moment, a sudden fear arose in them.
This extremely horrifying scene caused the movements of the remaining Drowners to freeze for a very brief moment, and even an instinctive fear overwhelmed the Drowned Dead's command over them.
However, Karl didn't give them time to think.
Earlier, he had been chased by a group of Drowners, and he hadn't forgotten that so quickly.
He bent down to pick up the corpse lying on the ground, which was nearly torn in two, and then swung it fiercely with his left hand.
The corpse carried a thousand pounds of force, smashing through the air like a huge flesh-and-blood wedge.
THUD! THUD! Two dull thuds sounded almost simultaneously.
The two Drowners on the left were heavily struck by this terrifying "Drowner cannonball."
Their already fragile bones emitted a dense crackling sound at the moment of impact, their bodies twisting and deforming as if hit by a fast-moving pack horse.
They screamed as they were smashed and crashed into a thick tree trunk, producing a jarring, heart-shaking crash.
Then their bodies slid limply to the ground, making no further sound.
Looking at the situation, nine out of ten, they wouldn't survive.
At the same moment the two Drowners were smashed, Karl's figure charged through the rain of blood.
He ignored the claws scratching at his sides, which, even after cutting through his armor and clothes, couldn't even break his skin.
Having confirmed that ordinary Drowners posed little threat to him, Karl grinned, his pace quickening slightly, his target fixed on the Drowned Dead behind the other Drowners.
Although the intelligence of a Drowned Dead was far higher than that of ordinary Drowners, almost the gap between a child and a teenager,
at this moment, with its intelligence, it couldn't understand why the prey that had been timid before, not daring to face the enemy and running away, and had no strength to resist in front of it,
was now, within just a few seconds, displaying a posture of overwhelming dominance over its companions.
But it clearly had no time to think, because it sensed an unprecedented threat.
Therefore, it let out a roar filled with anger and fear, no longer driving the remaining Drowners forward, but personally charging to meet him.
However, its roar now sounded like a feeble prelude to defeat in Karl's ears.
"What are you yapping about?! If you can still make noise later, I'll write my name upside down!"
The disproportionately thick muscles of the Drowned Dead's right arm bulged, wrapped in power surpassing its kind, and grabbed at Karl's face with a whooshing sound of howling wind!
If this grab connected, and it were an ordinary person, their entire face would be caved in and torn off by the Drowned Dead.
Facing an attack that could tear his face apart, Karl didn't even intend to block it with his dagger.