What surprised Zod was that some kind of mutation seemed to have occurred on his side, causing Emma to retain her telepathic ability even while in diamond form. And then there was something else.
"It looks like diamond, but the hardness is more than a hundred times that of diamond. What kind of material is this?" Zod was genuinely interested. More importantly, the harder something was, the more brittle it tended to be. Yet Emma's diamond not only reached an absurd level of hardness, it also possessed toughness. Even if she took blunt force or a heavy удар, she would not shatter like glass.
Emma stared at the changes in her body, disbelief written all over her face. Was this what the Black King meant, that she had the potential to become one of them?
"Congratulations on becoming one of us, Emma. Looks like your aptitude is decent," Zod said.
"What exactly are we?" Emma felt she could not keep stumbling along in confusion forever.
"We are Jormungandr, the World-Encircling Serpent," Zod replied.
Jormungandr? Just hearing that name made Emma feel like this was not some righteous organization.
The moment he sensed her thoughts, Zod spoke up. "Listen to you, like Leviathan in Russia is some kind of official, upstanding group. Honestly, I was going to call it Quetzalcoatl, or Behemoth, Kraken, Fenrir, Cerberus, Xiangliu, Taotie, that sort of thing."
"You can read my mind too?" Emma jolted, then asked.
"Just telepathy. It's practically everywhere these days," Zod said. He was not lying. He could let everyone in Jormungandr have telepathy whenever he wanted, but doing so would interfere with his use of thoughtwaves, so he usually did not bother.
"Come on. I'll show you Jormungandr," Zod said, leading Emma out of the lab.
Emma saw a massive room. Inside, two monsters were beating the hell out of each other.
"This is…" Emma was shocked beyond words.
"These are Jormungandr's Beastform Troopers," Zod explained. "They can grant people the ability to transform into monsters. They're also our standard combatants."
Then Emma watched as one of the monsters was defeated and reverted back into a human.
It completely overturned her imagination. But Emma was not some soft, innocent type either. Fear did not take root in her. That was exactly why Zod had brought her straight to World Serpent's headquarters.
"Do I have to become like that?" Emma asked uneasily.
"You? Of course not," Zod shook his head. "They don't have potential, so they need to become Beastform Troopers. You might not necessarily be stronger than them, but your ability is special. You can serve as an elite member."
To be honest, Zod was no longer that enthusiastic about producing Beastform Troopers. After personally experiencing the power of a Skyfather-level being, he felt that no matter how many Beastform Troopers he made, they would probably be wiped out in an instant. It was a complete waste of time and effort. He might as well do what Thanos did and gather a bunch of beasts. For the high-end ones, there was the Black Order. Beasts could die by the thousands and no one would care.
Right now, among Zod's people, those who could be considered roughly Black Order level were probably Morgan, who was studying at Kamar-Taj, Super Abomination Blonsky, Wanda who had not yet grown into her full strength, and Esdeath with Kryptonian soldier genes. The rest, even if they all went at once, might be able to handle just one of the Black Order.
So Earth's potential was not bad after all. Whether in the movies or the comics, the Black Order were powerful warriors Thanos only found after conquering countless planets, yet Zod had found comparable pieces on Earth.
Of course, Morgan and Esdeath never appeared in the original storyline.
As for Red Hulk, General Ross was not on Zod's side. Even though Zod had planted thoughtwaves in him, Zod still did not count him as part of his own fighting strength.
After touring Jormungandr's headquarters, Emma felt as if the world had suddenly become far larger than she had ever imagined. At this moment, she did not regret her choice in the slightest. If anything, she felt lucky, grateful she had chosen correctly.
Then Zod arranged combat practice for her, training her fighting ability, including how to use her powers in real combat.
After that, Zod headed to the lab. Blonsky was already lying on the operating table.
Zod had found a way to further refine the Hulk serum. He had just sent someone to Ross for a huge tank of blood, preparing to push Blonsky's enhancements even further.
Blonsky was thrilled, because he had seen the资料 Zod showed him on the Green Hulk and Red Hulk.
Green Hulk could grow stronger without limit through anger, both in strength and defense. Red Hulk could absorb energy to strengthen his power and durability. His own Abomination form felt like a castrated version in comparison, nowhere near those two. It left Blonsky unwilling to accept it.
But now, the boss said he had found a way to upgrade his Hulk serum.
Once Blonsky was ready, Zod injected him with a massive amount of Ross's blood. For an ordinary person, that kind of blood would be lethal. Even Blonsky's immune system reacted at full speed. His whole body began to burn with fever. The Extremis virus even started generating extreme heat to wipe out the powerful invading cells.
Zod protected those cells, giving them time to develop and multiply.
There was simply too much inside Blonsky's body: Extremis virus, his own mutated Abomination cells, Beastform Trooper genes, and all sorts of messy additions. Now Zod stripped all of it away, leaving only the Abomination cells.
Red Hulk cells and Abomination cells tore into each other. Zod watched the entire process. Whenever one side started losing, he immediately erased part of the stronger side, keeping them balanced at all times.
In the end, the two types of cells invaded each other and fused into a brand-new cell type.
And at that very moment, Blonsky transformed into a giant. As his body expanded, his skeleton mutated as well, growing and pushing outward through the flesh, forming an exoskeleton-like structure. His entire body bristled with bone spurs. His facial bones protruded so much that it looked like a skull.
Massive, savage, and terrifying.
"Way more stylish than the original Abomination," Zod clicked his tongue. With his super vision, he observed the transformation in detail. The naturally formed exoskeleton granted Blonsky even greater resistance to impact. Everyone knew how sturdy an arthropod's exoskeleton could be in nature.
Beyond that, Blonsky finally obtained the enhancement he had dreamed of: kinetic energy absorption. Any attack carrying kinetic energy would be absorbed and converted into his own bioenergy, making him stronger and more powerful.
The bone spurs protruding from his back, elbows, wrists, and other places no longer had the previous thermal blade property, but in terms of hardness and toughness they far exceeded the old spines. Combined with Blonsky's own fighting skill, his close-quarters lethality would become brutally vicious.
/-\
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