Before them lay a scorched wasteland. Black, dried matter clung tightly to the ground like hard scabs over a wound. When tapped with a finger, it gave off a hollow sound and shed a little dust.
The air was full of a burnt stench, somewhat like burning rubber or plastic. The pungent odor crawled from their nostrils into their eye sockets, yet all they could see was a scant haze of bluish smoke.
Deathstroke and the others had landed in what might once have been a small border town. Some low, broken walls remained several dozen meters away, uneven blackened ruins poking up from the ground like a field ravaged by wild boars.
No bodies were visible for the moment, and Strangle found no residue left from burned human tissue outside the ruins. Yet this had undeniably been the site of a massacre; everything they saw and heard proved it.
There was good news as well. From outside, the entire planet had looked pitch-black only because it was shrouded in storm clouds. For now, it seemed the scorched region was not very large.
"Was it a fusion weapon?"
Grodd wore a full suit of metal armor, wrapped up like a robot. A circular energy reactor gleamed on his chest.
Though he looked like a robot, a gorilla's skeletal structure meant that when he stood upright, his large belly inevitably stuck out high enough to nearly press against the back of the man he was questioning—Luthor.
Upgrading the gorilla's armor had been part of Luthor's payment to him. Naturally, since Luthor had made it, the armor's alloy also contained Kryptonite powder, giving it a faint green tint.
The bald man did not rush to answer His Majesty's question. Instead, he fiddled with his portable terminal, and only spoke after obtaining scientific