"Clatter."
A patrolman, his face covered in blood, loosened his grip, and his gun fell into the muddy water.
Immediately afterwards, his knees buckled, and he collapsed heavily to the ground.
Citizens on the roofs of nearby cars, white-collar workers emerging from shops, and even the crowds stranded on the entire cross-sea bridge...
At the same moment, both knees lost their support.
They all faced the silhouette in the sky, collapsing into a dark, oppressive wave.
And above 1,000 meters.
John's face was expressionless, his eyes closed, and the blood seeping from his nose slid down his nose before being slowly dispersed by the wind.
"Crack!!"
He raised his left hand, roughly grabbed the wrist of his right hand, and then twisted it inward.
The shattered joints began to heal themselves under the infusion of the star's energy, emitting a faint, grating sound like silkworms gnawing.
Just then, John seemed to realize something.
His head tilted to the side, and his ear swayed.
[ Super Hearing ]
All phonemes are instantly filtered through the brain's rapid processing.
He ignored the tedious tremors and shouts from the ground...
He was already tired of hearing those things.
Instead, they used all their senses like probes to suddenly pierce into the interior of that still black ship.
Deep within those heavy compartments.
Suddenly, a thick, heavy sensation came over me.
Accompanied by the scraping sound of metal being violently torn apart.
There was another heartbeat pumping blood... and another, slightly weak.
"Thump----!!"
As expected.
On the side of the warship, a hatch that had long been deformed was suddenly kicked open from the inside by a brute force.
A steel plate weighing several tons flew out in a whirlwind and then crashed heavily to the side.
Thick, black smoke, mixed with intense sparks, billowed out from the breach like a burst dam.
"Da, da, da."
The heavy boots clattered as he stepped out.
soon.
A massive, imposing figure pierced through the billowing smoke and gradually came into view.
It's Zod.
In his right hand, he was tightly gripping a body that had already lost consciousness, dragging it along the ground as he walked.
It's Faora.
At this moment, her breastplate was completely shattered, and her mask was gone.
His armor was tattered and worn from head to toe.
His pale face was also stained with dried black blood.
His arms and legs hung limply downwards, and his heartbeat was extremely weak.
He was in a deep state of shock.
"Clatter."
Zod didn't even glance at her, casually loosening his grip.
He casually tossed her limp body onto the edge of the suspended deck like a tattered sandbag.
at the same time.
The smoke and dust were slowly dispersed in the wind, revealing Zod's chillingly menacing appearance.
His heavy armor had long since crumbled and peeled away, leaving only a black bodysuit clinging to his body.
But that body... is no longer normal.
At the tear, large patches of bluish-gray skin were exposed.
It was writhing wildly, with dense, dark yellow energy patterns that looked like living things.
Those veins of light formed from fear.
Like bursting spider webs, they spread from his jaw and neck all the way down to his chest and arms.
They were throbbing and flowing violently under the skin.
It emitted a foul odor resembling sulfur.
Not only that.
Half of his face revealed stark white bone, but his eyes were sunken deep beneath his brow ridges.
Two pale yellow flames spun wildly like a kaleidoscope within the viscous halo.
His entire being resembled a yellow demon crawling out of the abyss.
"Despair."
And that was exactly the moment he stepped out of the cabin.
Zod suddenly stopped in his tracks.
He ignored John and instead slowly raised his head, which was covered in yellow stripes.
Facing the gusts of air rushing towards me from the entire Metropolis, my chest slowly expanded outwards—
"Hiss--whoosh--!!"
He took a deep breath.
Is it oxygen?
no.
Zod closed his eyes, his mouth involuntarily stretching towards his ears, revealing his gleaming white teeth.
On his distorted, inhuman face, a look of ecstasy and madness, almost as if he had been addicted to ice cream, emerged!
Then, a chilling scene unfolded.
"Sizzle sizzle..."
On Zod's face, where the charred wounds had been burned through by the Heat Vision, large plumes of blinding yellow mist rose up.
The ruptured muscle fibers, like frenzied granulation tissue, intertwined and tore wildly.
Within seconds, the shattered cheekbone closed and healed.
Even the half of the dough that was burned was being infused with the surging yellow energy.
It scabs over and falls off at a speed visible to the naked eye, restoring the skin to its original state, which is covered with fine scales and has yellowish skin!
Not only that.
His aura began to slowly rise over time, and then climbed steadily.
John's pupils contracted slightly at Zod's strange behavior.
[ Insight ]
Just a brief exploration.
John came to a really lousy conclusion.
"This is fucking persistent..."
The temperature in his eyes plummeted to freezing point.
At first, he thought that Zod's Kryptonian Physiology was gradually adapting to Earth's atmospheric environment.
There are also benefits from the yellow star... which might bring him "self-healing" and "compensation" effects.
But John was wrong.
Because the answer given by [ Insight ] is that Zod's recovery was not due to his so-called Kryptonian Physiology or environment.
It was fear.
Thinking about it this way...
Just seconds ago, the entire Metropolis, with its eight million inhabitants, and indeed, much of the North American Continent...
They all witnessed this natural disaster, which could be described as the end of the world.
That kind of extreme, panicked, and horrified feeling of being on the verge of extinction.
The accumulation of quantitative changes leading to qualitative changes is an immeasurable and terrifying statistic.
This was a different story for Zod, who had become Parallax.
The fear emanating from this planet right now is an inexhaustible treasure trove of exquisite cuisine.
The fear that gripped the entire continent became Zod's best food.
Every minute he stays here, he absorbs a greater share of the fear of the eight million people on Earth.
Theoretically speaking...
Zod's power will rise endlessly, and then--
Until death do us part.