Prologue

Zhou Xiao had never felt this exhausted before!

No, that wasn't right. This wasn't ordinary fatigue at all! The suffocating heaviness weighing down his entire body couldn't be explained by simply calling it "tired." His limbs felt as if they no longer belonged to him. He could feel their weight, but the helplessness of being unable to control his own body filled him with terror!

Also, though he wasn't sure if it was just his imagination, Zhou Xiao felt as if something had been added to his mind—or perhaps his soul. Strange and bizarre things, things that... seemed familiar and yet not. For instance, though he had never learned or seen them before, his body's cells reacted on their own, as if he had known how to do it from birth...

This sense of wrongness left him confused and panicked! With a thought, Zhou Xiao forced his heavy eyelids open. He thought he was dreaming. "What a strange dream..." Before he could finish, the sight of a vast expanse of orange-yellow in front of him stunned him!

"What's happening to me... Mm!" Zhou Xiao let out a string of bubbles in a panic. That was right: he suddenly realized that he wasn't in his familiar bed at all. He was underwater!

"Help... Hm?"

After only a few struggles, Zhou Xiao was startled to realize he wasn't drowning. The pressure and stinging in his eyes also vanished after he blinked a few times, leaving him to look around in alarm and unease.

"Oh, hell! Where am I?"

To his shock, Zhou Xiao realized he wasn't in the familiar, cramped home where he'd lived for more than ten years. Instead, he was in some strange place that looked like the bottom of a lake.

Zhou Xiao was too shocked—or frightened—to speak. Not only had his body become that of a baby, but all around him were densely packed incubation pods and infants who looked much like him!

"Am I dreaming, or..."

The enormous incubation chamber—don't ask how he knew it was an incubation chamber—was so eerily quiet that it filled him with dread. Everything seemed still except for Zhou Xiao.

"..."

Once he had calmed down a little, Zhou Xiao tried to control his body, only to find it was completely futile. He seemed to feel something connecting his body to the seaweed-like strands, delivering nutrients his body needed and carrying away waste from the nutrient fluid. The strands controlled his nerves, leaving him floating in a curled-up fetal position inside a bubble.

After trying for a long time, Zhou Xiao had no choice but to give up. The strand was far stronger than he'd imagined. No matter what commands he gave his body, his limbs wouldn't respond, as if he were paralyzed. All he could do was turn the only part of himself he could move—his eyes—and cautiously look around in fear.

In some kind of liquid, tens of thousands of sleeping babies were enclosed in their own bubbles, linked together by things resembling strands of seaweed. They hung in clusters, like bunches of grapes...

"Where am I?" Zhou Xiao struggled again in terror. "Help! I'm just a nobody! Whoever's playing this joke on me, there's no point in kidnapping me! I..." A large amount of strange liquid poured into his throat and stomach. Even so, Zhou Xiao didn't feel the slightest discomfort.

At last, a creature shaped like an electric ray but with eight legs was stirred by Zhou Xiao's movements. It stretched out its body and swam over.

Zhou Xiao froze in terror, not daring to move. But it was too late. The creature's small, cold-blooded eyes, yellowish and cold, met Zhou Xiao's frightened, panicked gaze. He stopped breathing, though he couldn't understand how he was still able to breathe underwater...

The creature didn't seem to care. Seeing that he was awake, it paused, then used its arms and legs to detach Zhou Xiao's bubble and carried him upward.

Because of his limited view, Zhou Xiao saw only countless incubation pods flash past before the eight-legged creature carried him ashore.

"Gurgle, gurgle." Zhou Xiao let out a few bubbles that meant nothing to the creature.

Without even looking at him, the creature simply placed Zhou Xiao in a stone basin resembling a cradle, then jumped back into the water and swam away.

Zhou Xiao breathed a sigh of relief and was about to look around when a string of footsteps startled him. He immediately shut his eyes.

Before long, he felt several people approaching.

"Gurgle-gurgle-gurgle~"

Some kind of creature spoke in a language Zhou Xiao couldn't understand, making him even more nervous.

Then he felt himself being lifted high into the air.

"..."

"Ha-ha!" A burst of loud cheering!

Zhou Xiao finally couldn't hold back and opened his eyes.

A muscular humanoid creature wearing armor came into view.

"Gurgle-gurgle~"

"?" Zhou Xiao.

The humanoid creature burst into laughter.

Several others nearby, apparently his companions, offered their congratulations. "..."

Though Zhou Xiao couldn't understand them, he could see the respect in their expressions, which eased his worries a little.

"..." The man at the front held Zhou Xiao's bubble and spoke happily.

Zhou Xiao blinked in confusion. The armored man's companions said, "..."

Their expressions finally turned strange. Zhou Xiao didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Damn it, have I been reincarnated or transported to another world?!!!

Years later, after Zhou Xiao had learned the language here, he finally understood what they had said at the time.

"Hahaha! The next generation of the Zod family has finally been born!" The armored man—who would later become Zhou Xiao's father, the Military Leader of Krypton, and the great villain and boss from the DC comics of his previous life—was General Zod. He laughed heartily.

"My son!" He held Zhou Xiao aloft. "Aeo Zod, son of Dru Zod, grandson of Phylos Zod! The new Military Leader of the Fortier Empire!"

"Long live the Empire!"

"..."

This was insane!

...,... .