Black Superman

Viltrum's brutal brand of Elite education had taught Shane one thing countless times.

Viltrumites had to dare to throw punches at any opponent.

Not only when facing the weak, striking without a shred of mercy in their hearts.

Even when facing a powerful foe they could scarcely match, they still had to dare to throw a punch!

This bizarre educational doctrine made Viltrumites fight like psoriasis—steady and calm, yet utterly reckless with their lives.

For example, whenever the future Regent wanted sparring partners, plenty of Viltrumites would raise their hands to volunteer. Even if they might lose their lives in the "sparring session," they still wanted to demonstrate their incomparably resilient fighting spirit.

Of course, they might simply have wanted to fight the strong.

And even in death, they wanted to tear a piece of flesh from someone far stronger than themselves.

Thus, even young Thragg, who was already vastly stronger than ordinary Viltrumites long before becoming Regent, never took more than four Viltrumites as sparring partners at a time.

It was not out of fear, of course. Thragg simply had greater ambitions, and did not want to die so foolishly before reaching them.

Because an assault by five ordinary Viltrumites truly had a high chance of killing him, no matter how badly their faction needed Thragg to lead them in the civil war.

If one could be beaten to death in a sparring session, it only proved that they had been too arrogant in assessing themselves, failed to recognize reality, and were weak.

Yes.

As long as you were beaten to death, then you were weak.

It did not matter how grueling the training you had endured before was, or how tenacious a will you had once displayed.

What was more, Shane had been born during Viltrum's civil war. What he had endured was an even bloodier, crueler version of the usual Viltrumite education.

Heaven knew how devastating the educational ideals of Viltrumites in that era had been for Shane, who had lived in a peaceful society in his previous life.

So although Shane had endured it, and had even displayed the talent in his bloodline, being exceptionally promoted at the age of fourteen to join seventeen-year-old Viltrumites in that Bloody Coming-of-Age Ceremony.

For more than ten years, he had dreamed every moment of returning to Earth and escaping the Viltrumite nightmare.

At his core, he was still stained with a trace of Earth's blue.

So he did not throw a punch at "Immortal" right away.

Shane pondered bitterly for a while, unable to understand why Immortal, who had been bisected by Omni-Man in the original work, was so powerful that merely seeing him from afar made him feel suffocated.

"Unless, after the Scourge Virus Incident, the survivors on Viltrum underwent another incomprehensible evolution..."

"So I misjudged the gap between Omni-Man and me, and I also misjudged Immortal's strength."

Memories from his distant previous life reminded him that he still had a way to survive.

That was to completely abandon the Viltrumite mindset and humbly beg at the feet of the strong. Even if Immortal was suspicious, someone similarly colored by peace surely would not simply kill him without a care.

Earth had its own laws of survival.

Just as he had understood Viltrum's laws of survival at the age of five, he had to first completely cast aside the values and way of thinking he had brought from a peaceful society.

Do not struggle, do not suffer, do not hesitate.

Do not reveal even the slightest weakness.

Then he could survive on Viltrum.

Live until the day he saw hope.

"Immortal" finally arrived outside the Escape Pod.

His overly long black hair hung loose, and his thick beard concealed any outward expression on his face.

Yet the wariness and suspicion in his eyes were unmistakable.

Immortal at this point might not necessarily have been a hero. He was merely a powerful being on Earth who could live forever.

The passage of endless years was enough to change a person's heart countless times. A shift in spiritual beliefs that might happen only once in an ordinary person's lifetime was perhaps commonplace for an immortal.

No one would fail to be wary of a strange, unfamiliar alien Spaceship, especially when it was headed straight for their homeland.

Perhaps the thought that humility could secure survival was merely an escape for the weak.

In the end, Shane's knees did not bend.

Everything he had done had been for this day. Changing his beliefs and abandoning his past should originally have been effortless for him.

Yet he still clenched his fist and began drawing upon the strength in his already utterly ruined body, as though wringing a tattered rag tight.

Tighter still.

The coarse fibers shattered along with years of accumulated dust. The act of gathering strength drove his life toward the abyss of death.

His brain began to grow hazy from excessive blood loss.

The longing buried in his subconscious for fourteen years made Shane cast one final, lingering gaze toward that azure homeland.

Though she might not have been the same homeland.

Blood continually burst from his wounds. Accompanied by the teeth-grinding creak as the Escape Pod was torn open, a great amount of blood floated through the weightless environment like a scarlet ribbon.

He leaped lightly toward the pitch-black figure tearing apart specialized aerospace metal as easily as tissue paper.

He threw a punch.

Shane's pupils had turned somewhat gray from the excessive strain placed upon his broken body. With blood loss and long-term freezing damage, this punch was so weak that it was even feebler than when he had been five.

He was too badly hurt. Perhaps his entire plan and fantasy of fleeing home had been a dream.

Perhaps he had never possessed the stamina to fly to Earth in the first place?

The newcomer effortlessly caught his fist.

The disparity in strength was like a hydraulic press clamping down on a brittle old matchstick forgotten in a corner for decades.

No matter how careful the other party was, Shane's bones still gave a sound of unbearable strain.

Why was he so powerful?

Shane's lips had long since lost their color. As his pupils dilated, one final thought erupted from within him.

But immediately afterward, a warmth several times more vast than the warm aura from before forcibly froze Shane in place just as he was about to die.

His pupils slowly contracted again.

There was no trace in the Bearded Man's eyes of the wariness he had shown when he first flew to the Escape Pod.

Instead, there was an emotion Shane had long forgotten—an emotion no Viltrumite would ever show him.

"I'm sorry for tearing apart your Spaceship, but you probably wouldn't have lasted until I pushed both you and the ship back."

Warm, large hands wrapped Shane into an even firmer, broader chest.

"Your injuries are severe. I need to stay close against you to use my biological Force Field and extend your life by roughly a dozen seconds."

A certain keyword that should not have appeared stirred Shane's lingering consciousness. His still somewhat unfocused pupils moved blankly before locking onto a symbol on the other man's chest, one that absolutely should not have been there.

At the very least, it should not have appeared alongside the comic world where Viltrum was located.

An S, imprinted on a black undersuit and gleaming silver.

The lights and shadows of the stars stretched into countless fragmented streaks of color in an instant, and the next second, the world changed as he appeared in a dimly lit room.

The familiar gravity was so reassuring, without the cramped, oppressive sensation of Viltrum.

It was Earth.

A figure reflecting a brilliant glow swayed into the final few seconds of light reflected in his pupils.