Esdeath formed an energy sphere with her bare hands. Saiyans were different from Kryptonians—Saiyans were essentially mages, their ki immensely powerful, but their bodies extremely fragile. So fragile, in fact, that even after transforming into a Super Saiyan God, one could still be caught off guard and killed by a laser gun.
Captain Marvel slammed a punch into the energy sphere. The sphere did not absorb her blow; instead, its momentum carried it hurtling into the distance undiminished.
Along its path, the energy's aftershock carved a deep trench into the ground, finally detonating far away and sending a sky full of dust and smoke billowing upward.
Plasma and cosmic energy spheres flew in every direction. Explosions erupted one after another at the edges of the battlefield, and small mushroom clouds rose into the air.
"Stop fighting! Stop!"
"Please stop! We surrender!"
The people of this planet came running over. They had originally thought Captain Marvel was their savior—she had killed the Ultraman and repelled the Kryptonian Empire. But they never imagined she was no savior at all. She was clearly a calamity.
The destruction caused by the two women's battle had nearly destroyed the planet already. If they had known this would happen, they would have been better off surrendering from the very beginning.
But Esdeath turned a deaf ear. Captain Marvel heard them, yet she could not break free—she was tightly entangled by Esdeath.
With a low shout from Esdeath, a vast and boundless energy radiated outward. Golden light, in the form of waves, transformed into surging tides that roared in all directions.
A powerful aura churned the surrounding air, and the people who had come running were instantly vaporized and vanished.
Energy cyclones swirled and churned. Magnetic fields inverted into chaos. Space itself was wrenched and torn into shreds.
Doomsday descended upon this planet. The ground and oceans shook violently in unison. Tsunamis, storms, earthquakes—every natural disaster erupted simultaneously, and the planet's surface dissolved into utter chaos.
The crust split apart piece by piece. With the fissures as boundaries, some sections rose while others sank. Magma climbed and surged upward, flooding into every crack.
RUMBLE———
A thunderclap exploded without warning. The entire planet became a murky, shapeless mass of chaos.
Space was crushed, then under the influence of gravity and other forces, it reformed—banishing Esdeath and Captain Marvel, along with a small half of the planet's crust, into exile.
But very quickly, Esdeath simply shook off all the forces acting upon her and shot straight at Captain Marvel. The two collided, and both plunged into the already shattered planet.
Then they faced off against each other once more. Their powerful auras clashed, the ground trembling. Tiny grains of sand, pulled by the energy, broke free from the planet's gravity, slowly floating upward before being ground into fine powder.
Captain Marvel's entire body blazed with light. Her photon energy doubled and erupted. A ferocious shockwave surged outward like a landslide, blasting Esdeath backward.
Esdeath flew back less than a meter before coming to a steady stop, which made Captain Marvel curse her as a freak.
She had roamed the universe for so long, and this was her first time... well, not counting that previous occasion. The Kryptonian Empire's technological might was formidable, but in terms of individual powerhouses, Esdeath was the first person she had ever encountered who was this strong.
After all, even Thanos—the Mad Titan of the Black Order—had once been hunted down by Captain Marvel and beaten until he was running for his life.
And the result now?
Esdeath had fought until this point without so much as a scratch. Even her clothes showed no damage. Captain Marvel herself had no real injuries either, but her suit was already battered and tattered.
She was in her Binary state, and she still couldn't overwhelm Esdeath—instead fighting her to a draw?
The Kryptonian Empire's bio-modification technology was just too powerful. Far stronger than the Kree Empire's, at the very least.
Esdeath's white military uniform looked thin and flimsy, but in truth it was anything but. Woven from Adamantium alloy fibers and Vibranium fibers into a dual-alloy garment, combined with Esdeath's own powerful bio-field, even Thanos wielding the Infinity Stones would have a hard time breaking through her defense.
Captain Marvel looked at the planet she had wanted to protect—now nearly exploding from their battle. Even if it didn't explode, it had become a dead zone where no life could survive. Extreme fury made her charge at Esdeath without regard for anything else.
Esdeath sneered coldly. The ki in her body erupted, but what she unleashed was her heat vision.
Captain Marvel ignored the heat vision blasting into her face and drove a punch straight into Esdeath's face.
Esdeath didn't budge an inch. She didn't retreat even a single centimeter. But the powerful recoil shattered every bone in Captain Marvel's five fingers.
Even though she recovered in the blink of an eye, she still felt the searing pain.
At the same time, she was baffled as to why she couldn't budge Esdeath at all.
"Is that all you've got?"
Esdeath threw a punch at Captain Marvel. The kinetic energy was completely absorbed by her, but the ki wrapped around Esdeath's fist still injured her.
Just then, Zod-Hiss appeared.
Captain Marvel was startled, because she hadn't sensed Zod-Hiss's arrival at all.
"She doesn't look like that big flat-faced woman from the movies. Much prettier."
Zod said, looking at Captain Marvel.
"Don't interfere in my fight!"
Esdeath tried to stop Zod.
"If you two keep fighting, she'll defeat you. Let's call it a day for now."
Zod-Hiss said to Esdeath.
In his hand, he held aloft a black hole singularity. The infinite gravitational pull captured Captain Marvel's body in an instant, dragging her rapidly toward the singularity.
Space, time, all matter—none could escape the fate of being disintegrated and devoured under this singularity's gravity. Captain Marvel could see all of this with perfect clarity, and naturally, she held no illusions that she could survive unharmed under such gravitational force.
Because she realized that this black hole singularity's mass was far greater than any black hole celestial body she had ever seen in the universe. It was a supergravity mass far beyond any black hole!
How was this possible... matter with a mass greater than a black hole?
Could the material universe even withstand such a thing? Shouldn't it have destroyed everything around it the instant it appeared?
Captain Marvel couldn't comprehend it. Then she saw Zod-Hiss reach out his hand toward her, and all the strength in her body seemed to be stolen away, instantly vanishing into nothing. She collapsed to the ground, staring at this unimaginable existence before her.
Zod-Hiss held the black hole singularity in one hand, and with the other, he gripped the power he had seized from Captain Marvel's body.
It wasn't that he had permanently stripped Captain Marvel of her power—she could still recover. Zod-Hiss had simply done it thoroughly enough that it would be very difficult for her to recover quickly in the short term.
"Who exactly are you?"
Captain Marvel asked, unwilling to accept defeat. Such an unimaginable existence, the undisputed god of destruction of the material universe—why was he allowed to exist?
There was simply no one in the material universe who could possibly defeat him.
"The Emperor of the Kryptonian Empire."
Zod-Hiss didn't mind answering Captain Marvel's question.
Though Captain Marvel had long suspected the answer in her heart, hearing it still made her smile bitterly despite herself.
No wonder the Kryptonian Empire had developed so rapidly. With an invincible emperor like this...
/-\
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