"It's much faster than before... but it's still not enough."
John's eye bulged with a vein.
He forcefully pulled both arms away from his chest, his right fist also forming a hammer shape, thrusting straight through the air!
"When----!!!!"
A deafening roar!
The glass walls within a three-mile radius were shattered!
Zod immediately changed tactics, moving faster than a thunderbolt.
"Whoosh!!"
With a slight dip of his left elbow, he parried John's straight punch.
With his right palm and fingers pointing like a cone, he pressed against the lower edge of John's arm guard, aiming straight for his throat!
John bent his neck back half an inch, his fingers slicing open the collar of his shirt, leaving a faint mark on his pale skin.
Then, using the momentum of leaning back, John twisted his right foot into a long whip and violently flicked it upwards, his heel striking Zod squarely in the jaw!
"Crack!"
Zod was kicked so hard that his head was thrown back into the air.
But as he stood in mid-air, his body suddenly froze, and against the tide of motion, his arms reached out from his sides and locked onto John's calves.
Next, engage your lower back muscles.
Like a giant python constricting its prey, it slammed John down violently towards the churning ocean below!
"Splash----!!!!"
Thump!
The dark, murky seawater surged skyward, creating a ring-shaped formation hundreds of meters high.
"Boom!"
The seabed trembled violently, and the continental shelf disintegrated amidst the two violent descents, creating a jagged fracture.
The two, with their terrifying physiques, completely disregarded the immense water pressure.
Even more so... the movement was so fast that the seawater didn't even have time to close up and flood back in before a blind spot was created by the blast.
"Thump--!!"
Every punch lands squarely.
The surrounding ocean currents were crushed into tiny, scattered fragments.
Solid, ring-shaped air bubbles swirl and burst in the Deep, creating turbulent currents wherever the shockwaves pass.
The entire seabed transformed into a boiling, turbulent arena amidst the muffled roar.
Fish, shrimp, and even crab shells crawling on the seabed.
They were all shaken into a mixture of red and white powder, murky against the black background.
"Gurgle gurgle..."
Zod grabbed a broken piece of reef from the seabed and, carrying it with him amidst the raging undercurrent, slammed it down on his head.
John's eyes turned red, and he raised his hand to smash the dragon bone.
Using the chaotic, obscuring water, he grabbed Zod's cheek with one hand, dragged him by the back of his neck, and pulled him straight across the surface of the continental shelf.
Coral, pebbles.
Grind it all up!
Before long, the earth's crust cracked open, creating a trench several meters wide.
A panoramic telephoto shot!
Without warning, the sea rose high and tightened towards the sky.
Like a thin film stretched to its limit by tension, it's pointed and bulges outward!
Until...
"Boom!!!"
The vast sea was lifted into the air by the two strangled bodies.
The water column exploded straight out like a white python piercing through the sky and the sea!
"Splash--"
The violence applied to the water instantly crushes and vaporizes it, then bursts into sprays of water that resemble steam.
"Howl--!"
The instant it broke through the water's surface!
Two pure white sonic boom rings suddenly burst open behind the two, continuing to push outwards along the sea surface.
The receding giant waves were sliced flat!
Fast, not fast enough... fast enough!
The sky is so close.
Thick cumulus clouds crashed in head-on, only to burst apart in the blink of an eye.
"Thump!!"
The leaden clouds, spanning dozens of miles in radius, were violently shaken by the oscillating waves into spiraling, outward-spreading rings of air, leaving behind a huge, square void.
The vast sky is but a fleeting moment.
In the blink of an eye, they crossed the coastline and plunged into the heart of Nevada.
Desert wasteland.
Under the lens.
The blazing sun overhead was swept away by a streak of dark light.
"Thump--!!!"
Beyond the heavens!
Driven into the ground!
The violent kinetic energy instantly shattered the surrounding hundreds of meters of yellow sand into a cloud of powder that soared into the air.
The release of kinetic energy at extremely high temperatures even melted the surrounding quartz into a scorched red liquid.
Until a sandstorm suddenly erupted into the sky.
The sonic boom, delayed by a few seconds, crashed down through the gap in the clouds with a deafening roar.
It was like the drumming of a celestial being.
The earthquake shook the entire desert to its core.
"Splash--"
John straightened up from the fiery lava.
The suit jacket I was wearing was beginning to heal from its frayed state.
John's muscular physique was faintly visible within those exposed layers.
He raised his hand to wipe the sand from his cheek.
Deep within his pure blue eyes, two red spots began to churn.
"Thump--!!"
Another sonic boom.
Zod flew swiftly overhead, pouncing down to kill them.
Suspended a hundred feet in mid-air!
From his pupils, a long-accumulated surge of energy erupted like a torrent bursting its banks, striking directly at—
"Zzz--BOOM!!"
Two thick, dark golden beams shot out fiercely from Zod's eye sockets.
The advantages of genetics endowed Zod with instinctive abilities.
Where the evil light passed, the void twisted like boiling water, heading straight for John at the bottom of the pit.
John looked up, but remained motionless.
"Come!!"
John's eyes snapped open.
The azure blue instantly transformed into a fiery red, like lava.
Next second!
Two golden-red gazes, condensed and refined, shot against each other in the sky like unsheathed celestial swords!
Against this intense red backdrop, even the orange sky becomes a mere backdrop.
Two beams of light, each a thousand feet long, collided with a deafening roar!
"Boom boom boom boom----!!!!"
Heaven and earth fell silent.
At the very center of the collision, a fiery sphere several meters in diameter suddenly appeared.
Dark gold and golden yellow arcs of light clung to the surface of the desert, sweeping wildly outwards.
In the blink of an eye, it leveled and vaporized the sand dunes within a ten-mile radius.
"Die--!!"
Zod, suspended in mid-air, lowered his center of gravity, his veins bulging like raging snakes, as dark golden beams pressed forward inch by inch.
John stood at the center, his feet pounding the rolling paddles, his body unmoving.
Not only did it not fade, but the corners of his mouth curved upwards even more.
Immediately afterwards, the intensity of the Heat Vision surged by 30%, like a sea of blood overturning, forcefully withstanding Zod's dark golden beam of light.
From bottom to top, a reverse slash--!!!