Above the kilometer-long celestial arc.
The scorching sun beat down on the metal.
The entire Black Zero was shrouded in shadow, like a black coffin hanging in the sky.
Ahead of the bow, the crimson gold of the stars cascading down contrasts sharply with the deep darkness behind the stern, creating a distinct and stark boundary.
"Tap, tap."
Zod stood at the edge of the hatch.
Its body was covered with dense yellow stripes that looked like millions of miniature snakes writhing beneath its bluish-gray skin.
He lowered his bony claws, his fingertips slowly curling inwards.
The viscous, almost solid sparks drew out hissing, putrid smoke from the wreckage on the deck.
He tilted his head slightly, and his two murky eyes welled up with tears.
He stared coldly at John was suspended in mid-air dozens of meters away.
"To lift up the heavens for these muddy, worthless creatures... Son of El."
Zod's voice traveled through the fierce winds of the stratosphere, carrying a muffled sound with dozens of resonances.
"What you're carrying on your back is nothing more than a graveyard that could crumble at any moment..."
"How pathetic, how ignorant..."
John hovered in mid-air, a strange, mocking smile playing on his lips.
Then, he raised his eyelids and said casually:
"I wonder which old dog likes to wander around the universe begging for food on planets..."
If I'm not mistaken... you've been begging for food for thirty years?
As he spoke, John's Cloak billowed violently in the fierce wind, fluttering and rustling like blood-red wings.
"Begging for food for thirty years... and still haven't learned their lesson? Is your brain filled with shit?"
"Stubborn and incorrigible."
Zod let out two chilling laughs, his eyes suddenly turning ferocious!
"Boom--!!"
The entire warship trembled violently as Zod stomped his foot!
The almost endless fear shattered its ethereal mist in that instant, erupting like a volcano!
The blinding yellow torrent poured out from every one of Zod's millions of pores, transforming into solid torrents over ten feet thick.
Break through the atmosphere!
It let out an extremely sharp and piercing howl!
Where the light stream passes, all the air in the stratosphere is expelled, instantly creating visible collapses.
Those viscous, liquid-like rays of light intertwined and coalesced wildly, then—
fold!
In less than half a breath.
A gigantic phantom, over twenty feet tall and covered entirely in flowing energy heavy armor, solidified and took shape outside Zod's body!
Bang!
The heavy armor emanated a chilling yellow light, and it had two horns on its head and a face covered like a demon.
The shoulder armor resembled two severed horns.
Right in the center of his chest was a ferocious, worm-like face that was writhing, howling, and tearing at his flesh!
The armor was thick and solid, like a bronze Asura, protecting Zod's already massive body in its core.
It exuded a somber and oppressive aura.
While Zod chose to embrace fear, he was not completely assimilated by the yellow fear.
His consciousness remained, and as his obsession deepened, a part of his being gradually separated from his dominant state.
Not only that.
After being assimilated, Zod's composure, honed long ago amidst mountains of corpses and seas of blood, was also dramatically elevated.
The moment when yellow energy surged and condensed.
Using the repulsive force of the giant form, Zod's body was suddenly thrown backward.
Then it swept its massive, sun-blocking arm across the sky, creating a vacuum vortex.
It forcefully pulled on the violent cyclone and used the pulling force to crash back into the valve that had been blasted down earlier.
Then it plunged back into the dark, gloomy belly of the Black Zero!
He was about to lead John into the cabin.
Zod knew that the yellow star would provide an unparalleled boost to Krypton bloodlines.
Outside, there's the troposphere, tens of thousands of meters high, and overhead, an unobstructed, blazing yellow star.
Fighting here, John's cells greedily absorb radiation every second, possessing near-infinite self-healing and endurance.
He also possesses sufficient fear energy to support him, making it difficult to determine which is superior.
Therefore, it is necessary to control the variables.
Fortunately, the bulkhead of Black Zero was made of the densest superheavy element alloy on Krypton, which was enough to block 85% of stellar radiation.
He was backed by the "melting pot" of fear provided by nearly eight million people in the Metropolis, so his energy source was inexhaustible.
All that's needed is to drag John into this ship and strip him of the sun's nourishment.
Then, this damned traitor will eventually become a lonely lamp that has run out of oil and fuel!
After making a huge commotion, Zod glanced wistfully in the direction of John.
Then, he transformed into a streak of yellow shadow and vanished from the spot.
"Trying to run away?"
John's eyes darkened.
I don't know what this stubborn old dog is up to...
But we can't let him get away.
"Thump--!!"
Stepping on the void.
John lowered his body slightly, pressed forward aggressively, and then transformed into a sharp, piercing arrow that fiercely tore through the air.
In an instant, he pierced through the smoke and chased into the huge gap in Black Zero.
The moment I entered the cabin, all the light went out.
The dim light and the pungent heat instantly enveloped John's keen senses.
All around were twisted pipes, and underfoot were red-hot metal fragments.
The sun's warmth diminishes by more than 70% the moment it penetrates the outer shell, and a chill creeps in.
[ Insight ]
John's retina switched from polar day to complete darkness in the blink of an eye.
Pure blue pupils gleamed with a cold light like a hawk's in the darkness.
But we could see it several tens of meters directly ahead.
Zod nestled inside the abdominal cavity of his energy armor, his arms violently crossed in front of his chest, his body writhing in yellow flames like living worms.
Immediately afterwards, a wicked smile appeared on his lips.
The next second, the Parallax source within his body trembled violently, then activated the properties of yellow Parallax—
Fear Projection.
It can project the root of people's deepest fears, causing them to manifest and turn against them.
soon!
A blinding yellow line pierced the darkness, heading straight for John's forehead.
Less than half a millisecond.
The yellow line precisely struck John's mental barrier, and then, like a brain-eating worm, aggressively probed into the depths of John's memory.
And it was after these things penetrated John's consciousness
The tangible scene has arrived.
In the void, there should have been concrete images of corpses, Carnage, or even the collapse of stars.
But no.
The image, however, resembled a CRT television older than the Queen of England, which began to flicker and vibrate violently.
Then, a bunch of twitching, twisting... colored cubes appeared.
The three primary colors of red, green, and blue; broken and intersecting geometric layers; large areas of jittery gray and white noise.
It created a rough Marseille.
"Buzz----!!"
A massive, absurd, and completely illogical string of gibberish that transcends the causal logic of the universe.
Following the Parallax's probe, it suddenly poured into Zod's mind.
"... Aaaaaaah!!"
Zod's energy began to convulse violently, producing a popping sound like cold water hitting oil.
Those distorted Marseille blocks cannot be reanalyzed by fear, nor can they be projected into reality.
Because... they cannot recognize and manifest matter that does not exist in this universe.
So, it exploded.
"Bang!!"
The entire illusion collapsed in mid-air, turning into countless flying debris!
"What the hell is this?!"
Zod pressed his stinging temple, the yellow flames in his eyes flickering erratically.
"Trying to peek into my memories again, huh..."
The wind suddenly picked up!
John, enveloped in a destructive aura, burst forth from the shattered fragments of light from his self-destruction!
"You probably don't know, but the last time that snot on your body peeked into my memory..."
You're still living on welfare outside of Earth...
Seeing that John was unaffected, Zod was startled, but his seasoned instincts allowed him to suppress the backlash in the blink of an eye.
Then, turning a clever trick into a clumsy one, they used the brute force of their external light armor to intercept and kill him.
"Die!!"
Zod roared, his mind controlling the arms of his light armor, and pulled them outwards with a fierce force!
"Clang! Clang! Clang!!"
A series of resounding clangs exploded!
Two grinding wheels, each five meters in diameter and covered with serrated teeth, materialized out of thin air beside the light armor!
"Buzz--"
In a single thought from Zod, the millstone accelerated to a thousand revolutions.
The rapidly spinning saw teeth rubbed against the confined atmosphere, whipping up terrifying white flames as they hurtled along the charred deck!
They split into two groups, left and right, to encircle and annihilate John.