Chapter 107: Rao?

"It was a glorious battle." 

Diana said while dragging Faora along that she had previously tied up with her lasso. 

"She's the most stubborn one, and the others were unconscious." 

She let me know while casting glances at the bound Zod. 

"I helped all the people I could along the way."

"Diana, I never doubted you. What do you think of the Kryptonians? Those who attacked us."

"Hm, they are strong and fast, worthy warriors, but they are our enemies."

She concluded that she had seen me in my mask and costume and knew it was me. 

"Superman, I've seen what you're capable of, and I'm glad to meet such a warrior."

Diana extended her hand to shake, and Clark did so with some bewilderment.

"So, what do we do now?"

Kara asked while approaching us.

"Well..." 

I glanced around, and there was quite a bit of destruction, but then my gaze settled on the bound Kryptonians. 

I raised my hand, and a magical seal appeared next to General Zon, and all the other Kryptonians had already fallen out.

"Was it worth it?" 

I asked him while removing the gag from him.

"You will never break the will of one who desperately wants to save his kind!"

He immediately shouted. 

I brought all the other Kryptonians back to consciousness but magically silenced them next to him.

"You know, none of this would have happened if you had chosen another planet..."

I simply said that and looked at him. 

"There are other uninhabited planets near Earth..." 

After my words, we all felt earthquakes; the ship had accumulated energy.

"Ha-ha, now the transformation begins!" 

General Zod shouted when he realized what was about to happen. 

"These ships are needed for terraforming and changing the atmosphere, so you..."

"Quiet, why did you choose Earth? Why did you decide to conquer a new home here out of your military arrogance?" 

A large magical seal appeared above the ship and engulfed the entire vessel and transported it into orbit.

"Ship hacking has been completed. I'm taking control of it." 

"A connection has been established with the second ship on the other side of the planet."

"The terraforming protocol has been canceled."

I heard Cortana's voice in my earpiece.

"What? Impossible!" 

General Zod exclaimed while lying on the ground.

"I didn't know you were capable of this." 

Diana nodded, patting me on the shoulder.

"Did I miss anything?"

Shinoa asked who appeared nearby. 

She looked a bit tired and somewhat injured. 

It was very difficult for her to handle even the half-empowered Kryptonians, and she could only fight because of magic.

"No, you didn't miss anything."

I replied while sitting in front of General Zod.

"You arrived on an already occupied planet to destroy its inhabitants or make them slaves. Why are you so surprised that we resist? There are eight planets in the solar system, and you could have chosen any one of them or even beyond this system with your level of technology... but you can't think with your head."

"You don't understand..."

He said, clearly not himself.

"Oh, I understand everything." 

I looked at the only Kryptonian who had followed Zod into this fight.

"You're Faora, right? Do you also think the best solution is to attack an occupied planet instead of finding an empty one... of which there are plenty exist?"

"I follow my general."

She replied when she felt she could speak.

"I see... excellent plan. You screwed up, Zod."

I summed up and drew my sword.

"What are you going to do?" 

Clark asked with concern.

"Zod is our enemy, and he's not going to change." 

I said. 

"You understand that leaving him alive is not an option, right?"

"B-but... he's from Krypton... maybe if we imprison him..."

"Don't be naive." 

Kara said.

"He wasn't sent to the Phantom Zone for nothing, and he's a traitor and a criminal. He will also stab us in the back as soon as he gets the chance."

"Do you want to leave an extremely dangerous enemy alive so that when he eventually finds a way to escape, he'll first seek revenge on his enemies? He'll come after your current or future family and kill them?" 

I stood opposite Superman. 

"Is that what you want?"

"I... no... I just don't think we'll be any better than him after this."

"Oh, naive farm boy..."

I rolled my eyes. 

"Clark, sometimes you must make difficult choices for the greater good, not just for your own perceived sense of justice. Your strength apparently doesn't help you think rationally... only the truly strongest can make tough decisions and bear all their consequences for the rest of their lives. Any last words?"

I looked at Zod.

"... don't let Krypton die."

Zod finally said this when looking at me and realizing that I wouldn't let him go. 

There was still some sanity left in him. 

He would have been a good subordinate if he had followed me, and there was no real need to change his personality with magic. 

"I've given everything to Krypton. I live and breathe for it... Don't let it fall, I beg you!"

"I hear you, and I assure you, I'll help your people if they don't insist on being stubborn." 

I looked at the struggling Kryptonians and at Faora who closed her eyes in understanding of what was to come.

"It might not have been good to meet you, but you lived and died as a true general... in the service of saving your people." 

My sword pierced his heart, and I immediately used alchemy to destroy his body while his soul went into my amulet.

"That was just an execution..." 

Clark said softly while clenching his fists.

"Exactly, I'm protecting the planet from such threats, and I'm not alone, you see. It's time for you to grow up."

"What about the others?"

Kara asked, turning her gaze away from her cousin. 

It's possible that she wasn't entirely comfortable with such an execution, but she could understand that the consequences of letting him live could be much worse.

"Well... I'll set up a chamber for them on their ship and let them sit there for now. Afterward, if they come to their senses, we can help create a new Krypton or something similar. And yes..." 

I helped everyone who defended themselves to heal with magic.

"Thank you." 

Kara and Shinoa smiled.

"Are there many like you?"

Clark finally decided to ask me.

"Mages? Quite a few. Archmages? Not so many. Here, take this." 

I handed him a business card with a phone number.

"Call if you want to help people even more."

"What's this?"

He took the card.

"A phone number." 

I removed my mask while ensuring no one else could see or record me.

"You could really become a great protector of the planet, but you need... training. You're strong, but someone like Zod could defeat you through skill."

"Anthony Luthor..."

He exclaimed.

"I suspected... Kara spends a lot of time with you."

He said this while looking at Kara.

"And... how close are you two?"

"Clark!"

Kara immediately shouted while blushing. She appeared beside her cousin at lightning speed and covered his mouth with her hand.

"Shut up!"

"Ha-ha." 

Superman laughed.

"Okay, okay, sorry... Can you really help them?"

Clark looked at me more seriously now while referring to the still-bound Kryptonians.

"If you mean helping them with Krypton and a new home, then yes... I also wanted to help Kara with this. Maybe their ship can pick up signals from other Kryptonians still in the universe."

I said that, and Kara couldn't resist and hugged me. 

Meanwhile, Clark glanced at the spot where Zod's body had been not long ago, and then heaved a heavy sigh and relaxed his hands.

"Thank you-thank you-thank you!" 

Kara quickly chirped.

"I want to spar with you." 

Diana interjected into the conversation while looking pleased after the recent battle. 

"And I want to help protect the world of men and perhaps change it for the better."

"The world of men?"

Clark asked.

"Don't mind her. She's from an isolated island in the middle of the ocean..."

I shrugged while Diana looked at me with a slightly offended expression.

"And I have no right to stop you. If you want to help, I'm all for it. There are plenty of threats in the world."

I addressed herself.

There was indeed quite a bit of wreckage in the city center. 

The military had already started acting, but it would take time for them to mobilize their forces...

In short, it was all over, and they hadn't even arrived here yet.

The girls pulled people out of rubble or wrecked cars for about thirty minutes while I used magic to fix most of the damage to the buildings... 

I could have fixed everything quickly on my own, but I needed the drones to get more videos of people being saved because everyone involved in this fight was about to be publicly "bombarded."

"Now I understand why the gods sent me here..."

Diana said this after lifting a multi-ton chunk of concrete to extract a person from underneath.

"I doubt they care about ordinary mortals especially those who don't believe in them. "

I said this while healing the person whose legs were broken and whose knee was pierced by rebar.

"Alright, we need to leave... The military seems a bit jumpy."

I glanced in the direction where an armed battalion had just arrived, all of them aiming at us with obvious fear in their eyes.

At that moment, Cortana was in charge of all the Kryptonian ships in orbit around the planet. 

Those who stayed behind could only wait for me to arrive.

I teleported all the prisoners on Earth to my engineering department for the time being until I finished my preparations. 

The main Kryptonian ship looked similar to the one that had attempted to terraform the planet but was only larger.

"Cortana, did you find anything interesting in the ship database?" 

I was hovering about eighty kilometers above the Earth while looking at one large ship. 

Cortana had sent back the other two ships that were supposed to start altering the planet's atmosphere, and they had already docked with the main ship.

"There's a lot of information here about Kryptonian technologies, some of which I already knew from the Kryptonian capsules you retrieved. There's also a map of the universe with some markings, so we know the locations of other inhabited worlds."

"Why didn't Zod go there then?" 

I asked.

"Those planets could have put up a fight, and the Green Lanterns are watching over them, but they considered this world weak and suitable."

Cortana replied. 

"I found information about the city of Argo and attacks by Brainiac, a conqueror aiming for technological dominance. Krypton defended his attacks several times."

"Hmm, so Kara's city might still exist... in the clutches of that deranged AI or whoever he is. He's quite a serious problem as he can penetrate the Source Wall and become very powerful... very."

I remembered that Earth's gods weren't the only serious threat, and I couldn't afford to relax. 

I knew that before, but... now this threat loomed nearby not the gods.

I pondered all this and listened to additional information from Cortana. 

Kara flew up to me and hugged me immediately.

"Thank you for helping me..." 

She said it quietly.

"Hey, we're friends, aren't we?" 

I gently patted her back while feeling Kara's trembling.

"Besides, Cortana found out that just before the planet was destroyed, Brainiac arrived... and there's a chance he managed to seize at least one city."

"Brainiac?" 

She quickly asked and hugged me even tighter.

"Mom talked about him... about how he attacked Krypton a couple of times and wanted to steal an entire city from the planet, but they always fought him off."

"Yeah, that's the one." 

I nodded.

"So we'll run into this Brainiac sooner or later."

"Kara, you left without saying goodbye to your parents."

Superman flew up to us.

"Oh, I forgot... I was too excited about beginning the search for one of my relatives."

She said this while quickly backing away from me and then explaining to Superman who Brainiac was.

"Alright, are we done talking? Let's fly to the ship now." 

I soared upwards at a tremendous speed, and Kara and Clark followed me immediately. 

Cortana opened the entrance to the ship for us with a protected energy field around it to prevent air from escaping.

"There are still thirteen Kryptonians on the ship. They are locked in the following compartments..."

Cortana named the places where they were located.

"I feel weak..." 

Clark began to clench and unclench his fists.

"It's because of the atmosphere. It's like on Krypton... isolated from the influence of the yellow sun. There is also a lot of Kryptonite on the ship, a mineral left over from the explosion of the planet... which they picked up for some reason."

I told them.

"So, are we just ordinary people now?" 

Kara asked.

"No, you are all still much stronger. After all, the accumulated photon energy in your body hasn't disappeared. Send the rest of your people to the same room. We need to gather them all together for a disciplinary talk."

"They followed General Zod, and everyone sent to the Phantom Zone were criminals and traitors... I wouldn't want them to be able to freely travel around the planet."

Kara shared her thoughts.

"Don't worry about that because no one will be released now for sure."

The ship was large enough, and I teleported to the necessary compartments and retrieved the Kryptonians from there. 

There are some of them immediately grabbed weapons when I appeared while others shrank in fear. 

In the end, they all ended up in the prison compartments on the ship. I also teleported those who remained on Earth to them.

"I think that's all..."

I said this when creating an additional magical barrier where I placed the found Kryptonite... just in case.

"For now, think about your behavior... Faora, I'm counting on you."

I glanced at her who could become their new leader as she was Zod's right hand.

"General wanted the Kryptonians to have a new home and rise from the ashes... I'm ready to help you, but only if you're willing to cooperate. Earth is under my protection, and I advise you not to think about another genocide plan."

I unleashed my aura and immediately made armor out of Eighth Metal, but now it began to glow brightly, and my hair even turned golden because there was much more photon energy in my body.

After that, the Kryptonians standing before me suddenly opened their eyes in shock, and some even fell to their knees... 

Apparently, my aura had too strong of an effect on them, but it shouldn't have as I restrained my power not to overwhelm them too much... 

Faora's gaze abruptly changed...

"What's happening to them?"

I glanced at Kara who also looked at me with some shock from the side. 

She didn't answer but blushed quite quickly... so I had to remove the armor and aura. 

Closing the prison compartment, I turned to her.

"You... Tony... Rao?"

She muttered something incomprehensible.

Clark just stood aside clearly impressed by what had happened.

...

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