"We're clear, Boss!"
"I've never felt this sharp in my life!"
"Hell, I think I could solve calculus now!"
The Beast Soldiers had been beaten back into sanity the hard way.
Drex's overwhelming display of force had permanently carved one truth into their minds:
Their creator was untouchable.
Fear beca reverence.
Reverence beca worship.
Then ca the greater shock.
"My arm..."
"It's back!"
"My leg!"
As their transford states receded, the soldiers stared in disbelief.
Lost limbs had regenerated.
Broken bodies had been fully restored.
They weren't disabled veterans anymore.
They were whole.
Healthy.
Reborn.
Drex stood before them like a black-clad architect of evolution.
"The Super Beast Serum doesn't just restore you," he said calmly.
"It enhances you. Disease resistance, physical superiority, regeneration."
He let that sink in.
"But all of you are rely baseline Beast Soldiers."
The room fell silent.
"Only those who earn distinction within World Serpent will gain access to superior enhancents."
Superior.
The word alone ignited hunger.
Most of them already felt powerful enough to tear apart armored vehicles.
And yet...
There was more.
Drex continued.
"Right now, each of you carries only one biological genetic template."
He paced slowly.
"Imagine what happens when two... or three... superior species are fused together."
Understanding dawned quickly.
More genes.
More power.
More monstrous potential.
The implications were intoxicating.
This wasn't empty motivation.
Drex genuinely intended to create higher evolutionary classes.
Multi-geno Beast Soldiers.
Elite monsters engineered beyond conventional biological limitations.
His ambitions were escalating rapidly.
Still...
Drex knew power alone wasn't enough.
Loyalty mattered.
Absolute loyalty.
And so, with his increasingly advanced Kryptonian intellect, Drex soon perfected another critical technology:
Neural reconditioning.
Mind control.
Brainwashing.
Each Beast Soldier underwent cognitive restructuring.
False histories were implanted.
World Serpent beca, in their minds, an ancient and powerful secret organization.
They believed they had been raised by it.
Trained by it.
Forged by it.
Their transformations were not experints.
They were sacred ascensions.
Drex wasn't rely their leader.
He was their supre architect.
Their loyalty beca absolute.
Unshakable.
To betray World Serpent would be like betraying their own existence.
Only then...
Did Drex finally feel secure.
For the first ti since arriving in this universe, he had sothing resembling a true foundation.
A hidden empire.
At present, these Beast Soldiers were roughly ten tis stronger than peak humans.
Not enough to rival future Avengers.
Not enough to challenge cosmic threats.
But in this early era?
Before superheroes and supervillains fully erged?
They were terrifying.
An army like this could destabilize nations.
If Drex were certain this world followed a predictable tiline, he might have already launched strikes against Hydra itself.
But uncertainty bred caution.
Marvel's universe had too many variables.
So instead...
He chose patience.
He would grow in shadow.
Quietly.
Like a serpent beneath the floorboards.
anwhile, Vitamin Infinity continued generating extraordinary profits.
Arica's supplent industry remained gloriously underregulated.
No clinical bottlenecks.
No aningful oversight.
Just sales.
Cash.
Expansion.
Drex wasn't rely accumulating wealth for comfort.
He had a larger play in mind:
Stark Industries.
Tony Stark's future decisions were public knowledge to Drex.
When Stark eventually shut down his weapons division, company stock would crater.
That would be the mont.
Drex planned to buy aggressively.
Factories.
Machinery.
Personnel.
Infrastructure.
Patents might complicate production, but Drex wasn't worried.
Compared to Kryptonian science, ballistic weapons were museum relics.
He could innovate beyond Stark's arsenal.
The weapons sector would beco his gateway into legitimate industrial power.
Until then...
World Serpent needed inco.
So Drex deployed his Beast Soldiers into the Midnight Hotel's ecosystem.
Assassins.
rcenaries.
Contract killers.
Their enhanced bodies, even without transformation, surpassed elite human standards.
They quickly beca highly effective operatives.
And highly profitable ones.
Soon, whispers spread.
A new faction of ruthless killers had erged.
Highly disciplined.
Exceptionally lethal.
Mysterious.
They stole contracts.
Eliminated competition.
And anyone attempting retaliation...
Vanished.
Other assassins assud a powerful organization backed them.
They were correct.
They just had no idea how deep the serpent's coils truly ran.
Those captured rivals weren't always killed.
Many were instead brought back to Drex's compound.
Reconditioned.
Modified.
Transford.
Plastic surgery altered their appearances beyond recognition.
Families couldn't identify them.
Past identities were erased.
World Serpent expanded in silence.
Far deeper in secrecy than even Hydra.
Back at the ranch, Drex allowed himself rare luxury.
Beside the artificial lake, he constructed a transparent glass relaxation chamber.
Bulletproof.
Insect-proof.
Half over water.
Half on land.
A solar throne.
There, under blistering Texas sunlight, Drex reclined with near-boiling cola at his side.
He exhaled lightly.
The drink instantly frosted over.
Cryonic breath.
Another power fully awakened.
He drank deeply.
Cold perfection.
By now, Drex had unlocked the full classic Kryptonian powerset:
Flight.
Heat vision.
Freeze breath.
Super senses.
Bioelectric field.
And unlike Superman's often clumsy early years...
Drex's scientific mindset gave him exceptional control.
That mattered.
Because Drex's vision for himself was evolving.
He wasn't content being rely Superman.
Nor rely Batman.
Nor Iron Man.
He intended to beco sothing worse.
Or better.
Depending on perspective.
His strategy was brutally elegant:
Build increasingly advanced combat armor.
Make enemies believe the armor was his true strength.
Let them focus everything on overcoming the suit.
And once they succeeded...
They would face a fully powered Kryptonian underneath.
Fresh.
Untouched.
Smiling.
His first suit, the Solar God Armor, was designed as an ergency failsafe.
Anti-weakness insurance.
A contingency against red sunlight, magic, or catastrophic debilitation.
His second project...
Was different.
The War God Armor.
This one would maximize pure offensive capability.
More weapons.
More systems.
Greater battlefield devastation.
Drex wasn't just building armor.
He was engineering layered supremacy.
And World Serpent was only the beginning.
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