Inside Kent Farm.
On the television screen, footage of Lex Luthor's arrogant, brazen press conference was still playing on a loop.
Clark stared at the news, dumbfounded, then slowly turned his head to look at Solomon, who sat perfectly at ease on the couch, his face full of shock.
"That Luthor who ran circles around the global media... he's actually working for you? The company you mentioned was Vought? Formerly LexCorp, which controlled the lifeblood of the global economy?! How on earth did you pull that off?"
LexCorp's sheer size and influence went without saying. He even wondered whether Solomon had used some extreme means of control to make that haughty tycoon obey.
Solomon merely nodded casually.
"To be precise, Luthor is working for me now. The man is an obsessive to his core, and he's been secretly researching Supes like mad all along. I merely went with the flow and gave him a few pointers. We reached certain agreements on extensive cooperation, that's all."
Clark nodded thoughtfully.
"So all we need to do now is wait for General Zod to show up tomorrow, then step forward and negotiate with him? Ideally, we reach an agreement, but if we can't... we go straight to war?"
"Bingo! Exactly!"
Solomon snapped his fingers crisply, a sharp gleam flashing in his eyes.
"If we can't talk them into submission, we'll beat them into submission! From what I know, Zod's group had about eleven people when they were exiled to the Phantom Zone. In other words, tomorrow we'll face eleven Krypton Warriors with formal military training. As their supreme military commander, Zod's combat skills are unquestionably top-notch. But our advantage is that they're newcomers. Their cells have barely absorbed any yellow sun radiation, so their base attributes are definitely a notch below ours."
Solomon's