Brainiac Arrives!

(~˘▾˘)~~(˘▾˘~)

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The Mechanical Superman, modified by Brainiac, has forgotten his past memories and no longer possesses the calm wisdom and gentle tolerance toward his family as a famous scientist on Krypton.

He now acts with ruthless efficiency, like a real machine. Upon appearing, he wasted no time saying anything and swiftly moved to accomplish his mission objectives, attacking both David and Clark.

Whoosh! 

A blue alloy battle blade cut through the air, with a shrill sound. Clark narrowly dodged and avoided it, feeling a discomforting sensation against his skin as he widened his eyes.

The weapons General Zod brought could harm Kryptonians bathed in the yellow sun when used with enough force, and he felt that the blade made from this unknown guy's mechanical body was no worse than the daggers of Zod and others.

"Watch out for his weapons!" 

Clark shouted, alerting the others. As soon as he shouted, the Mechanical Superman backhanded him, sending him flying. His speed was greater than that of an ordinary Kryptonian, surpassing even Clark.

"With your emotions tied up in other things, you are distracted during the battle. This is an imperfect performance!" he taunted in a mechanical voice.

Swoosh! 

Bruce Wayne, in his Fenrir Armor, charges forward to attack. The Mechanical Superman's electronic eyes emitted a laser with terrifying intensity, along with a tremendous impact, which sent Bruce flying backward.

The Fenrir Armor, operating at maximum capacity, was still unable to resist the force.

"Anomalies in the surrounding gravity parameters detected."

As Mechanical Superman attempted to continue his attack, he suddenly felt an all-encompassing, crushing force, like a mountain, pressing down on him, causing his body to sink and plummet to the ground.

Jets of light emitted from his feet, stabilizing his body. He looked up, then, as David charged toward him.

David exerted a terrible gravitational force on the Mechanical Superman, rendering his movements sluggish, weakening his punches, and making every action a struggle against the immense gravity.

He flew up and punched the opponent, starting a fight with him.

"Zor?"

As Clark was about to move forward to assist David, his Green Lantern ring, with its cosmic communication function, suddenly lit up, projecting the holographic image of Jor-El. He looked at the mechanical Kryptonian with shock and confusion.

"Do you know him, Father?" 

Clark asked, watching the Mechanical Superman struggle against David's fierce attacks.

"He is Zor-El, my younger brother, and your uncle," Jor-El responded with a complex expression. He never expected to see his brother again, especially looking like this.

"He didn't die in the destruction of Krypton. Why has he turned like this?"

Jor-El's brother, Zor-El, was born into the El family, one of Krypton's three major families. Just like Jor-El, from a young age, he displayed exceptional intelligence and grew up to become one of Krypton's most outstanding scientists. 

Though Zor-El had a strong personality and always aimed to match or even surpass his brilliant older brother Jor-El, it didn't affect their relationship.

"What? 

My... uncle?" Clark looked in astonishment at the Mechanical Superman, who had just been punched by David.

No wonder when he first saw this man, even though they were on opposing sides, he felt an inexplicable affinity that made him stop and inquire about the man's identity.

"So, the 'S' symbol on his chest isn't a coincidence. It really is the emblem of our House of El that represents hope?" 

Jor-El had informed him that all their family members were dead and combined with Zor-El's ruthless control of the robots to destroy the Earth, he had some suspicions but now wasn't the time to delve deeper into it.

"Regardless, his condition doesn't look right. Let's take him down first!" Clark clenches his fist and charges forward.

Without saying it out loud, Zor-El seems much more like an android than an ordinary person, and was obviously not what an ordinary person should be, which made him wonder that his uncle might also be under someone's control.

"Red Solar Energy Wave Cannon, fire!" However, feeling the pressure from the three united against him, Zor-El no longer held back and fired the Red Solar Energy Wave, targeting the Kryptonian's vulnerability.

"I... I'm growing weaker..." Clark is sent flying by the energy wave. He looks at his hands, as if a machine that once had an endless power source had suddenly been cut off. His body sways for a moment, almost falling from the sky.

"Step back, Clark!" David reminds him.

In addition to Kryptonite, the Kryptonians' vulnerability is the light of a red sun, which weakens their powers. However, living under a yellow sun, there seemed to be no need to mention this matter.

But now, Clark had encountered one of the two things that has often plagued him in the comics: Kryptonite and the final vulnerability, the Red Solar Energy.

"David, he's actually my uncle. Please don't kill him." Realizing his own unusual state and remembering the weaknesses of Kryptonians he had seen in the Fortress of Solitude's database; Clark hurriedly stepped back and reminded David.

Seeing Batman immediately looking in their direction, he awkwardly coughed in embarrassment.

It's not hard for Clark to guess what Bruce was thinking. The man who is about to destroy the world is his uncle, and any connection to Clark only makes the situation more complicated. Bruce is likely to suspect that he is at the root of all the trouble.

"I understand."

David, who had known Zor-El's identity from the beginning, delivered a relentless punch to the Mechanical Superman's side, altering the weight of his steel body.

Whoosh! 

The blade of the Mechanical Superman's counterattack stagnated, his body swayed, and his movements became distorted as David struck him, sending him flying.

"The body is receiving unidentified attacks and is recalculating the attack method. Calculation in progress..."

With varying weights applied to different parts of his body, the greater the force, the more unbalanced and distorted the Mechanical Superman's movements became. He was defenseless against David's tactics.

This is the recent method David has learned to use his powers.

'It worked pretty well for the first time.'

David's energy laser struck the Mechanical Superman's chest, now with clumsy movements, and blew him away. Clark and Bruce seized the opportunity to launch a fierce attack, trying to subdue him.

The Mechanical Superman, whose body had been reconstructed based on the already powerful Kryptonian physique, was far more formidable than an average Kryptonian. He even has a record of defeating Superman in the comics, and he was a challenging opponent to subdue.

'Furthermore, his body has been almost entirely rebuilt. The effectiveness of Kryptonite is limited against him. We can only try to defeat him head-on!'

"Calculation complete!"

The blue-red steel body, showing some signs of wear, appears slightly disheveled. After calculating the computer body parameters, the Mechanical Superman regains the ability to fight with the appropriate level of strength, and his movements and speed become fluid once more.

"Body anomaly..."

However, during David's battle with him, he rapidly changes the weight of a part of his body once again, throwing off the calculations in the algorithm of the Mechanical Superman.

"Establish a model and conduct an analysis."

The skeleton robots, under the control of the Mechanical Superman, swarmed the three of them like a frenzied horde, but they posed no threat at all in the face of David and others, even to the weakened Clark.

As they gather together, they become even easier to destroy!

"Your attack has been deciphered!"

"Life form known as the Beyonder, do you have any other tricks up your sleeve?"

However, this gave him a short respite. In that short time, the Mechanical Superman constructed a program in his mind, after detecting the corresponding changes in body weight and immediately matched the appropriate algorithm, launching a fierce counterattack.

"I am the perfect Kryptonian made by my Creator. I am invulnerable."

David's tactic of altering the weight of his body to disrupt his abilities gradually became ineffective.

"Oh, is that so?"

However, David's tricks don't end there.

"Give this a try."

David alters the gravity field surrounding the Mechanical Superman, turning it into more than a simple oppression. The Mechanical Superman seemed to have plunged to the depths of a vast ocean, his body battered by surging undercurrents, rising and falling, getting pushed from one side to the other.

This is the simplest gravity manipulation. David's powers are fully at play, and the machine-like appearance of the Mechanical Superman, while he seemed like a drunken man, flipping upside down in the air, unable to resist.

Gravity does not distinguish between friend and foe; Clark and Batman turned their attention to the remaining skeleton robots.

Crash! Bang! Smash! 

The two combatants exchange blows from the sky to the ground, dispersing the clouds in the ten-thousand-meter-high sky, splitting the earth with winding fissures.

At this point, Metropolis has been packed away, there is nothing on the ground. Otherwise, the intensity of their battle would have caused far more casualties in Metropolis than when Zod arrived.

At least half of Metropolis would have been reduced to rubble!

Shockwaves rippled out, the atmosphere buzzed, David's fist was like a violent storm, and the Mechanical Superman seemed to have become nothing more than a punching bag, defenseless.

Crack! 

There was a sound of steel shattering in the air.

The Mechanical Superman's jaw was broken and dislocated, emitting sparks of energy. However, his strange appearance didn't affect his ability to speak. After all, his voice no longer relied on the vibrations of fragile vocal cords, but there was only a slight lag.

"Your resistance is futile.

I am but a messenger of my creator.

If you defeat me, it will only bring about his personal arrival, and then your world won't even leave behind a speck of dust."

Under the series of attacks capable of tearing the earth apart and leveling mountains, the Mechanical Superman's body seemed to have malfunctioned, and his movements, along with his voice, became choppy.

David grabbed the Mechanical Superman's neck, rendering him helpless.

"This is the downside of a mechanical body. The more precise it is, the higher the chances of errors. 

If you were still made of flesh and blood, you might have had a fighting chance now."

David has long since figured out who is behind him. Ignoring the threat, a hint of cold mockery flashes in his eyes.

"Messenger?"

"Who is this creator you're talking about?"

Bruce Wayne's face darkens as he asks.

"It's Brainiac."

Seeing his brother being captured, the Green Lantern ring once again projected the image of Jor-El, who had a complicated expression as he answered.

"Who is that?"

Both Bruce and Clark in the room looked at him with puzzled frowns.

"He is a rogue artificial intelligence with a Level 12 intellect, the highest in the universe. He can absorb the knowledge of an entire galaxy in a matter of hours and possesses the most advanced technology in the universe. He is incredibly powerful and enjoys destroying any civilizations he comes across, leaving only one city as a collection."

Jor-El looked solemnly at the colossal pit left behind in the thousands of square kilometers of Metropolis, which had been removed.

Before, he didn't recognize the infamous cosmic collector in the universe, but the unique modus operandi of the city's disappearance made him realize who was behind it.

So, it seems that his brother, Zor-El, was most likely transformed by Brainiac.

"The most advanced technology in the universe?!"

Batman was shocked.

"Your planet's technology can't compare to his?"

Batman, as an ordinary human, effortlessly subdues gunmen and even intervenes in global crises involving extraterrestrial powers. What does he rely on? 

Apart from his formidable willpower and exceptional combat experience, it's advanced technology that others don't possess, and he knows and respects the power of technology the most.

Jor-El shook his head.

"Your World Engine can't compare to him?"

Bruce Wayne's face shifted between darkness and uncertainty.

The World Engine is a machine that can reshape planetary terrain and environments, something that only exists in science fiction. If Brainiac possesses even more advanced technology than that, what could he not do?

Destroy the Earth with a single shot? 

Turn billions of people to ashes in an instant? How to prevent this?

"So, when he said that there would be no dust left on the Earth, it was not an exaggerated threat?"

"Brainiac does have that ability."

Jor-El was silent for a moment and answered.

"So, when will your creator arrive?"

Just like Clark, Batman's face changed drastically as he impatiently looked at the Mechanical Superman, demanding an answer.

"Right now!"

The Mechanical Superman replied.

"What?" Clark, who is still feeling weak from the exposure to the red sun, was taken aback. He looked at David, his throat feeling dry for some unknown reason.

"What does he mean by 'right now'?"

The three of them fought hard and defeated the powerful enemy. Before they could recover, an even more terrifying enemy appeared. An existence called the Creator by the extremely powerful Mechanical Superman?

Jor-El glanced at the spaceship outside the Earth's atmosphere, his expression grim as he vaguely guessed what was happening.

"Brainiac is an artificial lifeform. He doesn't have a physical body, or you could say he has countless bodies. 

He can absorb the knowledge of thousands of living planets in an instant, allowing him to exist in multiple places simultaneously, or not, depending on his choice."

David, not particularly surprised, joined the other two and looked up at the spaceship in Earth's orbit.

Inside the skeletal spaceship, a tall figure with numerous nutrient tubes plugged into its back, like a slumbering god, opened its eyes with a strong sense of displeasure.

"Zor-El, you have disappointed me greatly. 

But, considering the slight surprise this planet has given me, I'll spare you this time."

On the Steel Throne, Brainiac, who came here across the universe with his consciousness, calmly displayed a series of images and information regarding David's battle. He rubbed his chin, as if he were a scientist about to dissect a lab rat, showing an inhuman lack of compassion.

"Formidable physique, the ability to absorb energy, manipulate gravity. 

A powerful unknown race in the universe, or a miraculously evolved postnatal mutation? 

Perhaps my biological shell can undergo another upgrade."

Brainiac stood up and the belt around his waist shone for a moment. He instantly disappeared from his location, performing a spatial jump, and reappeared in the skies above Metropolis.

"Release my creation. 

He is my only remaining Kryptonian experimental subject, a precious sample."

David, who was still squeezing the Mechanical Superman's neck, suddenly heard a cold and commanding voice from above him.

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(~˘▾˘)~Don't forget to send your power-stones!~(˘▾˘~)