General Zod didn't have many subordinates, and not all Kryptonians were warriors, but they did possess the necessary combat readiness.
The battle had broken out too suddenly earlier. They hadn't yet fully reacted when melee had already erupted, Zod was sent flying, and his second-in-command, Faora, was being pinned down and beaten.
Once they realized what was happening, the soldiers immediately responded.
They didn't worry about Ethan being too close to Faora, nor did they hesitate out of concern for possibly injuring their superior.
Their extensive combat experience and innate readiness told them this was the correct response: raise their weapons and attack Ethan without delay.
The group led by Zod wasn't a true warship force of elite soldiers. It was more of a Kryptonian refugee ship. It lacked abundant resources and heavy weapons. While the handheld energy blasters they carried were powerful, they were not enough to deal with Ethan.
Ethan gently raised his hand, and an invisible energy shield blocked all incoming attacks. However, that movement gave Faora a chance. The powerful Kryptonian woman used all her strength to throw Ethan off her, then leapt out of the shallow crater on the ground.
"I underestimated the strength of Kryptonians..."
Although Ethan's current body had already become divine in nature, it was still in the developmental stage. His strength hadn't returned to his former peak and still had a long way to go before reaching the full potential of this body.
As such, raw physical strength was currently his greatest weakness.
And Faora, the second-in-command capable of pinning down the newly awakened Superman and beating him into the ground, possessed not only rich combat experience and technique but also strength not inferior to Superman's.
Ethan, flung into the air, adjusted his posture midair and hovered there, descending slowly.
Although they were in space, Zod's spaceship had artificial gravity. Yet to Ethan, it now felt more like a zero-gravity environment.
Faora's expression grew increasingly serious. She kept observing Ethan, and finally asked the question that puzzled her most, "Are you really from Earth?"
Even though Zod and his group had only recently arrived on Earth and had arrogantly declared their intent to take it, Zod wasn't some brainless brute. He had already conducted detailed observations and could confirm that Earthlings were fragile, still at the lower end of the evolutionary chain. Their civilization was in its infancy, having only just emerged from a barbaric state.
However, the strength displayed by the woman claiming to be Earth's guardian and this youth in front of her didn't match that assessment. Especially the technique Ethan had just used to block energy attacks...
Ethan slowly landed, glanced at the Kryptonian soldiers surrounding him, and ignored them. He was considering whether to quickly eliminate the Kryptonian woman in front of him, or to spar with her a bit to test how much of his strength had returned.
If Faora had known what he was thinking at that moment, she wouldn't still be standing there asking questions. She would have launched a frenzied assault until one of them died right there.
However, for Ethan, dealing with these Kryptonians was just too easy. Not to mention, the one before him didn't even understand the yellow sun's significance to Kryptonians, having remained inside the ship all this time, and was protected by heavy armor.
More importantly, Kryptonians had almost no resistance to magic. That alone ensured they had no chance of winning today.
Because he was certain of victory, Ethan had the leisure to think about these things and check on Diana...
"Diana... don't hit too hard!"
Just during that short distraction, Diana's battle with Zod had already wrecked half the room. Even the walls had taken serious damage. It looked like one more good hit would blow open a large hole in the ship and give everyone an authentic space experience.
Ethan had only just been thinking that Zod's ship was somewhat useful. It had superluminal flight technology, and he really wanted to bring it back to study.
But if Diana went overboard and smashed the ship completely, its value would take a huge hit.
"What?"
Diana had just sidestepped Zod's attack and kicked him flying when she turned to look at Ethan, puzzled by his sudden comment.
"This spaceship is quite valuable. Don't smash it."
Only then did Diana understand Ethan had his sights on their ship. What had started as an act of justice to protect Earth suddenly felt like they were the villains.
Although she was used to Ethan's whims, Diana still felt speechless. So she chose to ignore him and continue fighting.
Boom!
She quickly caught up to Zod and slammed her shield into him, concentrating all her forward momentum into her round shield, which sent Zod crashing into the wall behind him.
Diana's strength was no joke, and Zod's armor was equally sturdy. The result was that the fragile wall of the spaceship shattered. Both Zod and Diana were sent flying out into space.
"..."
Ethan muttered to himself, "What a wasteful woman." With a wave of his hand, he pulled out Merlin's Book of Inheritance and casually tossed it aside like junk.
The nearby soldiers, seeing this, assumed he was throwing something dangerous and immediately scattered. But to their surprise, the dark object simply flew off and quickly vanished from sight.
Faora attacked again while Ethan was tossing the book. First she aimed a punch at his face, and when he blocked that, she struck at his ribs with the other hand.
Ethan noticed that Faora had raised her bubble-like helmet and showed no intention of sealing the breach behind them.
"Is she trying to use this environment?"
According to Kryptonian assessments, Earthlings were fragile and completely incapable of surviving in the vacuum of space. If the person in front of her was truly human, he wouldn't be able to keep fighting here, especially since he wasn't wearing any space gear.
"These Kryptonian warriors... are indeed excellent."
Calm under pressure, always seeking opportunities to turn the tide. The Kryptonian system of assigning roles at birth and focusing lifelong training on a single path was clearly effective at cultivating top soldiers.
"What a pity..."
None of it worked. Ethan didn't care about any of it, and Faora's attacks couldn't harm him. He was dressed in nothing more than a basic t-shirt and jeans.
Although Faora's attacks were faster and stronger, her heavy punches felt like hitting lifeless matter. They had no effect at all.
Eventually, Faora realized something was wrong. Ethan wasn't even bothering to block anymore. He just stood there, letting her punch and kick him, without so much as swaying.
At that moment, she panicked. She grabbed him with both hands, intending to throw him. But in the next second, she realized a layer of frost had formed on her hands.
Originally, Ethan had planned not to use magic and simply spar with her to test his current close-combat ability. Faora was an excellent benchmark.
But once the fight began, he unconsciously started to channel energy. Especially when Faora grabbed him, he instinctively released frost energy to freeze her.
"Sorry, once you grabbed me, I just couldn't help myself. Not doing it felt like insulting my intelligence..."
Faora leapt backward to create distance again, staring in shock at her hands now covered in thick frost.
She could feel that the properties of her hand armor had been altered by the cold. If she had been a moment slower, it wouldn't have stopped at just her armor.
"You are not from Earth."
The air was thinning, artificial gravity was vanishing, and even she had started to float. But Ethan was still standing there as steady as a rock. She refused to believe this man was from Earth.
"At this point, does it matter whether I am or not?"
Faora went silent. Of course, she knew the answer. The battle had already begun. It was enough to confirm that they were enemies of Krypton.
"It doesn't matter!"
"Exactly."
Faora suddenly realized that Ethan had disappeared. In the next second, she felt a wave of icy cold spread through her body, and then she lost consciousness.
Standing behind her, Ethan gently withdrew the hand that had brushed across Faora's cape and watched as she, like a statue of ice, slowly shattered into shards and was sucked into space.
"In the end, I just couldn't help myself..."
He had chosen to end the fight quickly, not because he got angry, but because he had sensed another Kryptonian rapidly approaching.
That guy... in this situation where they had the clear upper hand, would definitely intervene to stop him from killing another Kryptonian. And Ethan never liked letting enemies get away, so he had to finish things before that one arrived.
(To be continued.)
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◇ One bonus chapter will be released for every 200 Power Stones.
◇ You can read the ahead chapter on Pat if you're interested: p-atreon.c-om/Blownleaves (Just remove the hyphen to access normally.)