The paynt process went very smoothly.
The blue-skinned humanoids of the X-System civilization, each sporting brightly colored mohawk crests, stared at the combat footage in complete disbelief.
Then they looked at Esdeath with imdiate respect.
As for Drex, Tifa Lockhart, and Lyra Yan...
The aliens clearly assud they were subordinates tagging along behind an overwhelmingly powerful female warrior.
No one questioned it.
A being capable of exterminating an entire swarm of Giant Bat Void Beasts alone was not soone sane people offended over accounting delays.
The X-System officials paid imdiately.
One hundred and thirty million credits.
Apparently, the number of Void Beasts Esdeath had slaughtered was far larger than Drex initially estimated.
To him, it simply hadn't felt like very many.
Perspective mattered.
Drex could have earned money in other ways too.
Selling vibranium.
Selling adamantium.
Selling proto-kryptonite alloys.
Advanced materials were priceless everywhere in the universe. Only energy technologies could rival them in value.
But Drex had zero intention of selling any of it.
Material science was one of the foundational bottlenecks of civilization.
Once a species advanced enough in that field, every branch of technology accelerated with it. Weapons, propulsion, dicine, computing, energy systems... all of it.
There were probably countless civilizations trapped behind material limitations right now.
Selling vibranium or adamantium to them would basically amount to empowering future enemies.
A betrayal of Earth for pocket money.
No chance.
After securing the credits, Drex imdiately purchased every piece of knowledge and technological data he wanted.
Then he vanished into study.
Completely.
While he buried himself in research, Esdeath, Tifa, and Lyra spent their ti exploring nearby worlds.
Drex wasn't worried about their safety.
Each of them carried his psychic imprint. If sothing dangerous happened, he could lock onto them instantly and teleport across space without hesitation.
Inside the lab, Drex absorbed mountains of information at terrifying speed.
"Interesting. So that equation behaves differently in the Marvel universe…"
"This reaction pathway completely diverges from the DC model…"
The deeper he went, the more fascinated he beca.
After digesting the newly acquired knowledge, Drex began designing sothing new.
A true space-combat war machine.
His personal nano-armor no longer needed upgrades. Its offensive and defensive capabilities were already absurd.
What mattered now was improving the individual combat strength of the Burning Legion.
Originally, Drex had considered several directions.
Space Knight systems.
Bio-boosted armor.
Nanobiological combat suits.
Thor-style powered armor.
Gundam-style giant chs were imdiately discarded. They didn't fit the overall technological ecosystem of the Marvel universe and would probably get blown apart by specialized anti-ship weaponry anyway.
The new design required direct biological modification of the user in order to withstand the machine's performance output.
The armor massively enhanced speed and strength.
Traditional firearms were abandoned entirely in favor of energy weapon systems.
Three magnetic-confinent fusion reactors were mounted in the chest in a triangular configuration, creating a stable and extrely powerful energy core.
The palm cannons received major upgrades as well.
Drex adjusted the energy frequencies personally, producing beams powerful enough to penetrate virtually any armor on Earth.
Even secondary kryptonite alloys would struggle to withstand direct hits.
Then ca the real breakthrough.
Energy shields.
Once activated, the shields converted raw energy consumption directly into defensive output, neutralizing incoming attacks almost absolutely.
Of course, shields still had upper limits.
If a single attack exceeded the shield's maximum output threshold, penetration was possible.
But even then, the attack would already be weakened significantly before reaching the armor beneath.
And unlike traditional shields, energy shielding didn't simply "break."
Even after overload, subsequent attacks striking the sa location would still suffer energy reduction effects.
The entire outer fra was constructed from secondary kryptonite alloy.
For lee weapons, Drex selected high-frequency blades.
Efficient.
Affordable.
Deadly.
As for coloration, he painted the armor gray.
Because in his eyes, these were still disposable frontline troops.
Cannon fodder.
The color suited them perfectly.
Even if one of these "fodder units" could probably defeat ninety percent of Earth's superheroes and supervillains.
After finishing the prototype armor, Drex gradually lost interest in biological engineering.
The reason was simple.
Within the Marvel universe, the undisputed masters of genetic bioengineering were the Kree Empire.
Captain Marvel.
Ronan.
The empire produced monsters like those.
And yet even the Kree only managed to create a handful of truly elite super soldiers.
Drex had originally been very interested in Kree biotech.
Unfortunately, that level of knowledge wasn't sothing money could buy.
The Kree weren't idiots.
They would never openly sell their true core technologies.
Most of the information Drex purchased throughout the black markets consisted of outdated, obsolete, or near-obsolete research.
Sure, so fools occasionally sold valuable secrets.
But not many.
Still, the universe ultimately ran on the law of predators.
And predators could always be hunted.
Drex eventually discovered sothing interesting.
Kree scientists for sale.
Entire living scientists.
The Kree Empire was one of the three great empires feared across the cosmos, but that fear also attracted greed. Countless civilizations wanted pieces of Kree technology badly enough to commit atrocities for it.
The Kree understood this perfectly.
But the universe was too vast to police completely.
Their military couldn't intimidate everyone simultaneously.
So they allied with so civilizations and suppressed others.
anwhile, their greatest enemy, the Skrull Empire, consud enormous resources in endless war.
That conflict kept the Kree too busy to eliminate every hidden threat targeting them from the shadows.
The marketplace handling these transactions was located sowhere Drex knew very well.
And not at all.
Knowhere.
He'd seen it countless tis in comics and movies.
But this would be his first real visit.
Knowhere, the domain of the Collector, Taneleer Tivan.
A lawless civilization constructed inside the severed head of an ancient cosmic being.
Kree scientists were openly traded there.
Others willingly sold themselves into employnt contracts.
Unlike hidden black markets, Knowhere displayed everything openly.
Which probably ant the Kree Empire tolerated it to so degree.
So scientists ca from Skrull capture operations. Others were victims of internal Kree political struggles. So were simply refugees fleeing the empire itself.
Not every Kree wanted to kneel before the Supre Intelligence forever.
Drex leaned back in thought.
"If I robbed Knowhere blind..."
His eyes narrowed slightly.
"…would Tivan finally stop pretending and beat the hell out of personally?"
The Collector in the movies looked pathetic.
The real Taneleer Tivan absolutely was not.
One of the Elders of the Universe.
An ancient being with immortality, temporal abilities, and future sight.
The kind of entity that smiled politely while standing on top of civilizations older than stars.
Which only made Drex more curious.
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