Viltrumite, Is Your Mightiest Chat Group Fake? Chapter 45

Excitement was impossible to suppress on his face. After a long while, he finally burst into laughter.

"This is exactly what I wanted to see!"

The man known as the world's smartest man put himself in Leon's place.

At that moment, he was throwing punches through the air like a child.

"My ideas and suspicions were right. This is what Superman should be doing! Acting without restraint and wiping out every enemy standing in his way."

It could be said that Leon's performance had struck him straight in the heart.

In his eyes, those who truly possessed power should be like himself—like that being in the video.

They should hold the fates of the weak in their hands. Whether to crush them or spare them should depend on a single thought.

Lex Luthor's reasons for hating Superman were complicated.

Perhaps, as a proud genius, he envied that body of steel which intelligence could never surpass.

Or perhaps, as a villain, he could not understand why Superman possessed absolute power yet humbly served those ignorant fools.

Or perhaps, before Superman, who possessed both strength and virtue, he felt inferior.

In any case, driven by this irreconcilable hostility, he had loudly promoted the theory that superhumans were a threat through the media.

He constantly devised schemes to shatter Superman's halo, even joining the government now to stab him in the back.

Gradually, his excitement faded. Luthor calmed down and began calculating the value of this footage.

"What a pity. It isn't very useful."

That was his conclusion.

Though he had not seen the outcome, Amanda was probably dead. Using this to strengthen the government's resolve would be useful enough.

But using it to publicly promote his theories would not mean much.

Luthor deduced that if he did so, there was a fifty percent chance it would stir the public's emotions toward Krypton rather than Superman.

Yet the plan approved by the government was compromise. During the first contact, they were to meet the other side's demands as much as possible, especially if they demanded Superman be handed over.

One wrong move, and releasing the footage could create resistance for them.

Afterward, Luthor kept analyzing every word spoken by the man in the video who called himself a deputy officer.

From it, he gained quite a bit more understanding of Kryptonian civilization:

"Kryptonians greet each other by beating one another up. Kryptonians do not appreciate cowards. Only showing strength and hostility during first diplomatic contact can earn respect..."

So they were just a bunch of warlike gorillas who completely failed to understand the charm of intelligence, exactly like Superman.

Luthor felt that with this information, he should be able to formulate a decent contact plan.

As for further analyzing the other side's strength, he had little interest. They did not seem stronger than my old nemesis, Superman.

If Superman cut loose, he would definitely be more powerful.

Still, necessary caution was required. He needed to rush the research on the collar and make it usable for his own purposes.

Thinking of this, Luthor once again took pride in his world-shaking intelligence.

"Heh. Only someone as farsighted as me would think to send Kara out while plotting against Amanda at the same time."

"As for those Kryptonians, how could they possibly find—"

A frantic call interrupted his self-praise.

After he answered, it was a report from his secretary:

"Boss, our laboratory has been attacked."

Under Batman's guidance, Leon broke into the laboratory.

Perhaps because it had been too rushed, there were no defenses worth mentioning here.

However, most of the scientists researching Kara Zor-El had been transferred here.

Naturally, Leon did not hold back.

The once pristine white laboratory had now been soaked in blood.

Crack!

Leon crushed another priceless head in a white coat. Even after the headless body collapsed to the floor, it continued twitching.

Those with some courage raised their guns and fired back. Leon merely glanced at them, then floated up and charged straight into them in a Viltrumite stance.

Organs, bones, blood... violently torn-apart bodies splattered through the air, while he still held a gun crushed into a ball in his hand.

With a casual shove at another person beside him, Leon sent him crashing into the cutting table used to study Kryptonian skin.

The lower half of the man's body remained where it was, while his upper half slid across the table and fell off the other side.

They were personally experiencing everything they had once studied.

Then, with their own lives, they completed the final measurement of their research.

"Please, spare me. I was only following orders."

At that moment, a scientist Leon had cornered begged for mercy.

Leon said nothing. He picked up the notebook beside the man and flipped through it.

It contained betting records organized by day, each one titled, "Guess what that monster..."

The records detailed bets these scientists had made on Kara's strength, speed, and endurance during various extreme tests.

Some had even enthusiastically drawn simple sketches to record the miserable scenes.

There was only the gray of pencil marks, but as Leon turned the pages, the blood on his hands added streaks of red.

Clearly, whether birds of a feather flocked together or torturing Kara, who looked like themselves, had twisted their hearts, these people were neither moral nor professional.

Leon asked with obvious disgust:

"Not placing bets anymore? I feel like my stats would instantly crush Superman's."

"N-No more bets!"

"Then it's time for you to get on your way too."

Another hand chop. The man's head flew off smoothly.

At last, Leon stood before a suspended metal sphere.

Grasping the handle, he gently pulled it open.

The dim light from the room shone inside, and the curled-up figure within the iron sphere trembled.

She pulled her feet in, trying to hide herself in the darkness as much as possible, then fell into a daze again from excessive weakness.

Leon connected to the comms.

"I found Kara Zor-El. Remember to tell Clark so he can worry less."

"Received. Get Kara under the sun first. It will help her recover. Clark and I will be waiting for you in Gotham."

Leon remembered that when Superman had truly learned the test subject's name and realized she was his family, his bioelectric field had lost control once again.

If they had not needed to avoid exposure, he would have already gone over and torn Luthor's roof off.

Being a good person was not easy. There were too many restraints.

Afterward, Leon picked up some clothes from the ground and slung the emaciated woman over his shoulder.

She was light, so light he could barely feel her.

The journey back was tedious. Carrying a weakened Kryptonian, Leon could not cut loose.

He could only slow his pace and deal with the enemies rushing toward him one by one.

Hand chop, hand chop, then another hand chop.

Behind the screen, Luthor was nearly frantic. Having just praised Leon, he was discovering for the first time just how much of an eyesore someone like this was when they stood on the opposing side.

Superman, I miss you.

Once they reached the sunlight, countless mercenaries had already formed a defensive perimeter around the area.

As Leon chopped off another enemy's head, he noticed Kara waking up.

Turning his head, he saw the woman slung over his shoulder staring with sparkling eyes at his outstretched hand.

Then at the corpses on the ground, and finally at him.

"What is it?"

Leon was puzzled.

Could it be that she felt grateful because he had saved her?

No. That was weak thinking.

He noticed the muscles gradually filling out beneath her skin under the sunlight. Viltrumite wisdom allowed him to uncover the truth of the matter.

He looked at his hand chop and came to an understanding.

"Oh, you want to learn this?"

"Y-Yes?"

Kara's eyes widened as she spoke for the first time.

(There's still one more chapter, but it'll be later. Please wait a bit, everyone.)

Kryptonian Hand Chop

Kara Zor-El, Kal-El's—meaning Clark's—cousin.

When Krypton was destroyed, her parents had likewise used Earth's coordinates as a reference and placed the teenage girl into a spacecraft before launching her away.

Unfortunately, not only was she affected by the aftershocks of Krypton's destruction and failed to arrive on Earth at the expected time,

but before she could even leave the pod after landing, she was captured by the government and thrown into a laboratory without seeing even a glimpse of sunlight.

There, she endured ten years of torture and abuse, enough to completely destroy a person's mind.

At first, the scientists treated her carefully as a unique specimen.

Then, after noticing how Kryptonian cells reacted to a yellow sun, they began craving to replicate that power.

Especially after realizing that exposure to sunlight allowed her to recover extremely quickly, enabling them to operate on her more frequently.

And so, Kara was taken apart, restored, then taken apart again, over and over.

Until the scientists regretfully discovered that they could not replicate this miracle, she was stuffed into that giant iron sphere and preserved.

The ones who reactivated her were Amanda and the others.

This time, they brought something she feared even more: Kryptonite.

If the occasional exposure to sunlight gave her the illusion that she was alive, then that green glow was the nightmare that stole it away.

There was also the day-after-day fighting against those Metal Men, being beaten and mocked by them...

Then, immediately afterward, she was rescued.

If Kara in that state was seen as an infant who had regressed, then the giant iron sphere imprisoning her was a cold swaddle.

Someone carried her out of that cramped little world, allowing her to see a true sun for the first time.

Under the influence of what was called imprinting or the chick complex, the first thing Kara saw was—

Leon killing people with hand chops.

Separating the heads from the bodies of those familiar faces, those who had mocked and abused her.

What feelings she would naturally develop toward Leon was not difficult to guess.

Then, the man wearing a helmet from her home planet seemed to notice her gaze.