Marvel's Kryptonian Scientist Chapter 148 148

The massive teor pinned the Ghost Rider beneath it completely.

Then Drex Valen altered the planet's magnetic field.

Invisible planetary forces converged onto the Ghost Rider's body, locking him in place under overwhelming gravitational and magnetic pressure.

A physical seal.

Unless the Rider sohow overpowered the force of an entire planet, escape was impossible.

The Ghost Rider struggled furiously beneath the teor, but it was like trying to lift a mountain with bare hands. The crushing magnetic pressure layered on top of the teor's weight made even moving a finger nearly impossible.

"Perfect," Drex said, admiring his work. "That should hold."

Honestly, it looked suspiciously close to so kind of mystical sealing formation despite being built entirely through physics.

Satisfied, Drex left.

The Ghost Rider remained trapped alone on the dead, frozen world.

Back on Earth, Drex finally decided it was ti to set a much larger plan into motion.

In so ways, he actually agreed with Lex Luthor's philosophy.

Lex Luthor wasn't just another billionaire supervillain. He was Superman's greatest enemy for a reason.

One of the most intelligent humans on Earth.

A man with near-unmatched strategic vision.

Corporate emperor. Political manipulator. Scientific genius.

Luthor had once been friends with Clark Kent long before Superman beca the symbol the world knew today. Back then, Clark was just another broke kid from Kansas, and their differences in status or wealth hadn't mattered.

They understood each other.

Until Luthor learned the truth.

After that, the friendship died.

Because Luthor saw sothing most people refused to acknowledge.

To him, Superman wasn't humanity's savior.

He was humanity's ceiling.

Every ti Superman solved a crisis, humanity beca more dependent. Less driven. Less adaptive. Civilization stopped evolving because one godlike alien handled every disaster personally.

Luthor genuinely believed Superman was weakening mankind.

And honestly?

Drex understood the logic.

Not the obsession. Not the pathological hatred.

But the core idea made sense.

He had no desire to beco humanity's babysitter.

In tropolis, construction workers barely bothered with safety harnesses anymore. Why would they? If soone fell, Superman would catch them before they hit the ground.

Firefighters grew complacent too. Fires rarely stayed dangerous for long when Superman could arrive in seconds and extinguish entire infernos with a single breath.

Even cri beca warped.

A mugger in tropolis practically needed a death wish. Victims only had to scream once and Superman would appear instantly, faster than the police could even answer dispatch.

People raised under that kind of protection stopped adapting.

Stopped evolving.

That was one of the reasons Drex created superheroes while simultaneously unleashing monsters upon the world.

Pressure forged progress.

And now ca the first true global escalation.

The rise of the Monster Association.

Without warning, major cities across the planet ca under simultaneous attack from waves of monsters.

Civilian casualties skyrocketed almost imdiately.

Military losses followed soon after.

Wolf-Level monsters could still be killed with conventional weapons, but Tiger-Level threats were already capable of shrugging off most light arms fire through sheer speed, resilience, or raw durability.

In cities where superheroes failed to arrive in ti, governnts were forced to escalate fast.

Heavy explosives.

Urban bombardnts.

Anti-armor weaponry deployed in civilian zones.

Even then, the death toll climbed at a horrifying rate.

For many nations, this beca the mont they truly understood how terrifying monsters really were.

And if creatures at the Wolf and Tiger levels were already this devastating…

Then what kind of organization repeatedly fought Demon-Level and Dragon-Level disasters head-on?

The answer terrified them even more.

The Hero Bureau.

Several world powers had secretly been planning ways to undermine or contain the organization. So mbers of the United Nations Security Council had even begun preparing covert operations against it.

Now?

Those sa governnts abruptly realized the Hero Bureau was indispensable.

Drex Valen might be arrogant.

Might be impossible to control.

Might openly ignore political pressure.

But he was also one of the only beings on Earth capable of stopping catastrophe after catastrophe.

The Hero Bureau itself had descended into total chaos.

Monster outbreaks were erupting worldwide.

The Skyfolk erged.

The Deep Sea Clan surfaced.

The Subterranean race launched attacks from below major cities.

Ancient tree giants appeared in remote regions.

Prehistoric reptilian humanoids rampaged through industrial zones.

Even bizarre creatures like ten-thousand-year cicadas started erging from underground ecosystems.

Superheroes everywhere were stretched to their limits, rushing from one disaster zone to another like human wildfire suppression teams.

As the Bureau's strongest asset and overall commander, Drex remained at headquarters directing global operations.

Not entirely by choice.

The upper ranks of the United Nations strongly preferred keeping him centralized. They needed constant strategic oversight, and more importantly, they wanted insurance.

If a situation beca truly catastrophic, they wanted Drex available for imdiate deploynt.

Drex understood exactly what they were thinking.

He simply didn't care.

Right now, the most critical battlefield wasn't Washington.

It was the Financial District.

Because the defensive line there was collapsing.

"Hold the line!"

"If those things break through here, the entire economy goes down with it!"

Ergency military forces poured fire into the advancing monster horde.

Apache helicopters roared overhead, unleashing chain-gun fire and Hellfire missiles into the streets below.

Explosions ripped through entire city blocks.

Smoke blackened the skyline.

So weaker monsters died under the bombardnt.

Most didn't.

The larger creatures simply charged through the storm of bullets and explosions, slamming directly into the front lines.

Panic spread through the financial district.

The executives and financiers sheltering inside fortified towers looked ready to collapse from fear.

Then salvation arrived in steel.

A full formation of Iron Mongers surged into the streets.

Mass-produced combat platforms.

Heavy armor.

Repulsor weapon systems.

Enough firepower to halt tanks.

"All the Iron Mongers in the country are here," one executive muttered through clenched teeth. "If even this doesn't stop them, then we'll have to pray the superheroes arrive in ti."

Another man cursed under his breath.

"We should've ordered more."

Funny how billionaires always discovered the value of preparation only after monsters started tearing through skyscrapers like wet cardboard.