Chapter 34: Kryptonians are the biggest cheats

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"Listen, I believe in you. More importantly, though, you need to have faith in your own abilities."

– Mutsuki, (Kantai Collection!)

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"I am sorry ma'am but I don't know anything about any growth code or whatever you just said. But I am afraid that I cannot let you continue hurting innocent people. So, either willingly surrender yourself to the legal authorities or I'll be forced to make you surrender." Clark said with a serious frown that expressed he was ready to do exactly what he said.

The woman however didn't respond to his warning at all and just began to slowly walk toward him.

"Well the way you are walking toward me doesn't look like you are coming here to surrender, so I guess I'll have to use force after all. But remember ma'am that I am much stronger than I loo..." Clark could not continue as he felt one of the strongest punches he ever felt in his life land on his face catapulting him away like a mere ragdoll.

He went through a couple of walls and even a wooden farmhouse and finally landed on a corn farm which more or less destroyed most of the corn in it.

"How are you this strong?" Clark could not help but ask as he felt an aching sensation still traveling through his cheek as a result of the punch.

He had never met someone as strong as himself before. He had faced his fair share of bad people, some of them with quite tricky abilities but none of them were even close to him in raw physical attributes. This unknown woman was the first one who managed to make him feel real pain with just a single punch when he was not even under the influence of any type of Kryptonite.

"I am Aethyr-Ul. I was a field Captain back on Krypton, boy. Do you think an untrained rookie like you can even hope to defeat a seasoned warrior like me?" The woman named Aethyr used her incredible speed which was equal to Clark's to zoom to the location where Clark landed from her blow and smiled condescendingly at him.

"Wait, you are a Kryptonia..." Once again Clark was unable to complete his words as two beams of red hot laser were directed at his face shutting the young hero up.

"Aaaaaah... OH, MY FACE. Can you please stop targeting my face ma'am?" Clark asked as he grunted at the sizzling pain on his face.

"Interesting. As I thought, you are a Kryptonian as well. Are you the one who has the growth codex? Perhaps if I present you to the General, I'll be rewarded for my valiant services to the empire." She said as she balled her fists to give the boy in front of her the beatdown of the century.

She began to punch him in rapid succession in a bid to break his bones and knock him out creating minor sonic booms but weirdly for her, Clark was able to block most of them with his hands. Although some of her punches landed on his chest, they still seemed to be more or less equal in strength.

This was almost unbelievable for her since she was sure that she was not only much older than him but also much more trained and fit than the supposedly teenage Kryptonian. So, the reason why she was not being able to overpower him in pure raw strength was a mystery to her.

But unfortunately for Clark, his advantage in his raw physical abilities could only take him so far. With each move that Aethyr made, Clark was being pushed back slowly as he even felt minor bruises forming all over his body due to her hits.

"I have to say you are surprisingly strong for a teenage Kryptonian but that would only take you so far. You could have been a good soldier for the New Kryptonian army that the General is going to establish but it seems you must die before that." She smirked at Clark as her eyes again lighted up and fired red beams of heated energy directly at Clark's own eyes momentarily shocking and blinding him and thus creating an opening in his novice defences.

She immediately took this chance and stuck his stomach with a full-powered punch sending him flying into a nearby pond.

"This... heat vision is really useful," Aethyr muttered to herself as she took out a small dagger from her belt buckle intending to end the currently knocked-out young Kryptonian who dared to challenge her.

But just as she was going to take another step, a small ball the size of a baseball rolled towards her on the ground and stopped at her feet, a soft buzzing sound coming from the ball in rapid succession.

"What is thi...?" *Boom*

This time Aethyr, the Kryptonian soldier was the one who was taken by surprise and could not complete her words as the ball suddenly exploded and released dense grey-colored mist all around her.

*Cough Cough* The female Kryptonian coughed for the first time after coming to Earth as she could not help but inhale the gas released by the bomb which had taken her by surprise spreading a distinct itchiness around her throat making her worried about the type of chemical she might have inhaled.

She was worried that this might be some chemical or biological weapon designed by the native species on the planet to kill her and she was mostly right as she felt a certain thirst for anything liquid overcome her. This was the first time she was feeling thirsty after arriving on the planet and she didn't believe it to be a good thing.

"AAAHH." She yelled in pain. It was not because of the steadily increasing thirst but because all of her senses were slowly going out of her control. Her vision, hearing, smell everything suddenly increased to their absolute limits covering the entire town in her perception range and thus giving her the biggest headache she had ever experienced. But this also made her aware of a certain figure quietly standing in the shadows observing her from the distance like a predator silently observing his prey.

"So you finally noticed me. That took you a lot of time." A smooth somewhat attractive voice came from the hidden figure.

Everything that happened till now wasn't much of a surprise. Even though I was only able to watch the final moments of Clark's fight with Aethyr before he was knocked out because unfortunately, hoverboards aren't as fast as Kryptonians, I still learned a great deal of things from it, especially the Kryptonian fighting style and strategy that Kryptonian soldiers seem to use.

The female Kryptonian named Aethyr didn't seem to be a gifted soldier but she was probably better than the average Kryptonian fighter. Even though she was physically equal to Clark probably because of the larger amount of time he had spent absorbing solar energy compared to her, she still made up for it in pure skill. She was a cold and merciless warrior who always went for the weakest points of her target to end the fight in her favor as quickly as possible.

Also, how the hell does she know English? I thought Kryptonians speak... Kryptonian or Kryptonese or something. You know what, I don't even care, I'll find out the reason later.

Truthfully, I was having a lot of fun just watching the fight. It was like watching an anime super fight live in front of your own eyes but unfortunately for Clark, he was knocked out sooner than I hoped and I had to step in to make sure that the beacon of hope doesn't die before he even reached his late teens. Well, this was actually a favorable result for me since now I would be able to do whatever I want without Clark ever knowing that I was here in the first place.

That's why I attacked her immediately when she was distracted and used a Bat-ball... Bat-bomb the Bat-gasser the Bat-knocker? Shit, I can't think of any good bat-themed names for it.

Anyways, as the bomb exploded, it released a modified and strengthened gaseous version of the mummifying liquid or what I called the Thirst virus around her. The gaseous electrolytes released in the air would become harmless in a couple of seconds but once inhaled by someone could kill the target with dehydration in only a matter of minutes.

But unfortunately, as I observed the workings of Aethyr's body using the White world aspect of my power, I noticed her body actively fighting against the virus and even winning. Her lungs were working in full tandem as they exhaled the remaining amount of gas inside her system while her heartbeat doubled as blood from different parts of her body rushed toward her chest and heart area probably fighting off the electrolytes that were mixing with her blood.

Kryptonian physiology was truly amazing. I guess I would either need much MUCH stronger poisons or some alien viruses to do some substantial damage to it.

"You will regret this." She screamed with her red rage-filled eyes directed at me. She was probably having trouble breathing due to the overwhelming thirst she was feeling due to the gas but that was quickly dying down due to her immunity slowly destroying the virus from within.

"Nah I won't. Although I might regret wearing this stupid costume" I muttered the last part to myself as I felt like a delusional chunibyo while wearing my current 'vigilante' costume which I had made by basically ripping off the design of Red Hood. It was made of a particular bulletproof fabric four times harder than Kevlar but much thinner and lighter. It wasn't anything special and I had only made it as a temporary costume before I design any serious armor or super suits.

It was a simple suit composed of some black body armor made of the special fabric I designed, a fireproof black jacket, and a black full-face mask similar to that of Red Hood in the comics. It was minimal, yet efficient. And best of all, didn't restrain my movement at all.

I did not waste any more of my time monologuing in my mind and instead took out my bat-tool and activated its sonic gun function which used the same principle as the sonic weapon in my combat drone. It was the best possible weapon against a Kryptonian or any metahuman with superhuman hearing capabilities.

"Let's rock," I declared with a snicker as I targeted her and fired the thing at a high frequency before she could have the chance to use her speed to get closer to me.

A high-frequency almost visible wave of mind-crushing sound hit the Kryptonian warrior like a freight train as it instantly drew a shrill painful scream from her throat making her drop her knife and forcing her to stagger back a couple of steps.

But I had no intention to stop. I would only consider stopping once she was knocked out but unfortunately for me, knocking her out seemed like a pipe dream since she immediately recovered from the initial shock somewhat and began to approach me with a slow yet steady pace despite the sound waves hitting her at the highest possible frequencies which should have blown her brains to unrecognizable bits if she didn't have such a literal hard head.

"AAAAH. I will k-kill you. For Krypton. For the glory of General Zod..." She screamed as a single drop of red blood flowed down her nose.

"Come on," I murmured to myself as I felt her reaching near where I was currently standing. A year full of research on the most advanced sonic weaponry and the best this can do is give her a nosebleed? God, Kryptonians are really underestimated, aren't they? In front of their absolute beast-like OP physiologies, even my cheat seems somewhat worthless.

"You think you can defeat a loyal soldier of the General? No, I will make sure that you and your fellow little species understand the superiority of KryptoniaAAHH..." She shrieked in pain as her own knife pierced through her chest.

"you have super senses yet you do not use them to sense people sneaking up on you? How pathetically useless a soldier were you?" A figure wearing a dark tight Kevlar suit and a unique orange and black patterned mask said as he pulled the knife from the wound on her chest and reinserted it into her stomach from her back, possibly severing her spine in the process.

"Slade? I told you not to interfere. I thought that I made it clear that I wanted to do this alone." I said, subtle anger leaking into my tone.

"Sorry 'young master'. But my job is to protect you not to let you do things alone. Personally, I wouldn't have cared if you had lost an eye or an ear but Alfred would eat my heart if I let that happen. And as I had said before, nothing scares me more than that butler whenever he has that fake smile on his face. The last time I let you get hurt during training, he actually shot me in the balls." Slade Wilson gruffed as he shivered at his memory of Alfred giving him the most intense death stare he had ever gotten in his life.

"*Sigh* Fine just shut up. Now we will have to save her life since we need more info from her. So let's, not waste time and get to it before Clark wakes up." I muttered in annoyance.

"Huh? Who's Clark?" He asked.

"Long story, you don't need to know. But perhaps you will meet him one day in the future." I mostly dodged his question as I wondered to myself if I should save the half-dead Kryptonian in front of me or just try to forcefully glean any intel I could from her mind.

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