Drex Valen raised a hand and shattered the massive stone door.
To a Kryptonian, the thick slab might as well have been brittle glass.
Inside the chamber, the Orb floated above an ancient pedestal, sealed within layers of dense energy barriers that completely isolated it from the outside world.
"So how are we supposed to take it out?"
Tifa Lockhart stared at the glowing energy lattice surrounding the Orb. It looked dangerous enough to vaporize anything that touched it.
Drex smirked.
"There aren't many things in this universe capable of hurting a Kryptonian, Tifa."
As he spoke, he casually reached forward.
The energy field lashed across his arm, but the destructive currents failed to leave even a scratch. Drex ignored the barriers entirely and pulled the Orb free from its containnt.
Then he squeezed.
The outer shell shattered apart instantly.
A brilliant violet radiance burst into the chamber.
The Power Stone.
"So beautiful…"
Purple light spilled across the ruins with an oppressive elegance. Noble. Mysterious. Violent.
Lyra Yan and Tifa Lockhart were captivated imdiately.
Not because of its power.
Because it was beautiful.
Only Esdeath seed largely uninterested in the gem itself.
Drex grasped the Infinity Stone in his right hand and tore it completely free from the remains of the Orb.
The mont direct contact was made, violent purple energy exploded outward.
Crackling lines of light spread rapidly up his arm as the raw cosmic force burned away his sleeve and drenched half his body in violet illumination.
Drex frowned slightly.
His veins burned.
His blood felt molten.
Compared to the Space Stone, the Power Stone was vastly more violent.
But that hardly mattered.
His body was practically a cosmic bug exploit at this point.
The adaptive evolution of his Doomsday-Kryptonian physiology imdiately began suppressing the invading energy. The raging power was steadily forced into submission until the violent reactions finally cald.
Monts later, Drex's arm returned to normal.
Then, just like the Space Stone before it, the Power Stone embedded itself into the center of his palm.
Two Infinity Stones now rested inside his body.
"If things go well," Drex said thoughtfully, "I should be able to grab the Mind Stone later too. Thanos practically hands that one away for free."
He still couldn't understand why Thanos trusted Loki enough to give him the scepter.
As for the Reality Stone, the Aether…
That still depended on Jane Foster.
Unfortunately, Jane hadn't yet reached the point in the tiline where she would encounter it. There was still a long wait ahead.
"Well then." Drex turned toward the others. "Ti to head ho, ladies."
And so they returned to the Mars base.
At this point, Mars Base had effectively beco the headquarters for the Burning Legion's core personnel.
anwhile, the prototype cannon-fodder combat armor Drex had developed earlier had already transmitted its data back to the Black Queen. Production had begun almost imdiately, and several finished units were already complete.
After examining the final products in person, Drex arranged live combat tests.
The results pleased him greatly.
These suits were hybrids of Kryptonian weapons technology and advanced Marvel-universe energy systems.
The armor operated through neural-wave synchronization, allowing weapons targeting and firing assistance to occur almost instinctively.
Still, Drex felt the original design lacked enough firepower.
So he modified it.
In addition to the dual palm-mounted energy cannons, he added two shoulder-mounted heavy cannons roughly the width of a human forearm.
Each handheld energy cannon operated at six hundred power units.
In raw destructive output, a portable cannon like that already rivaled many conventional Earth missiles, even if the blast radius was smaller.
The shoulder cannons were even stronger, reaching seven hundred power units.
For lee combat, each unit carried two high-frequency blades mounted on its back, capable of slicing through almost any known material.
Originally, Drex had considered designing individual laser rifles instead.
Single-soldier laser cannons were versatile weapons capable of switching between positive and negative energy states depending on battlefield needs. High-speed particle acceleration generated intense thermal destruction, while low-energy particle states absorbed surrounding heat and froze targets.
But after studying Marvel's energy technologies, Drex realized conventional energy cannons were simply superior.
The so-called "light beams" fired by energy weapons were actually streams of concentrated energy particles traveling at near-light speeds.
Fast enough that most enemies would never react in ti.
More importantly…
This wasn't the age of ballistic warfare anymore.
Space combat belonged to energy weapons.
Even for planetary ground battles, why carry rifles when you could carry artillery?
Drex's energy cannons weren't remotely comparable to Tony Stark's repulsors either.
His weapons fired energy beams nearly forty centiters wide, delivering catastrophic thermal attacks capable of vaporizing, ionizing, or outright disintegrating most forms of matter on contact.
With the armor finalized, the Burning Legion officially registered itself as a rcenary organization operating within interstellar space.
Drex still hadn't forgotten the humiliation of being unable to afford Kree scientists.
So he selected fifty enhanced super soldiers from Earth, equipped them with the cannon-fodder combat armor, and sent them into space to grind missions for credits.
He also recruited more than a dozen Tank-Class Supern to support the operations.
The Black Queen didn't comnt much on any of this.
Though internally, she remained convinced Drex was completely insane.
He constantly acted on whims, ignored conventional logic, and operated according to decision-making patterns she couldn't predict.
No matter how much behavioral analysis she perford, Drex's thought process refused to fit into any coherent model.
And yet…
What truly unsettled her was sothing else entirely.
Drex seed to possess an almost godlike perspective over both past and future, subtly guiding events toward outcos he already expected.
Especially his research directives.
The sheer number of projects he personally managed was absurd.
Hundreds.
Possibly thousands.
No scientist within the Burning Legion could keep up with the speed of his thinking or the scale of his research capabilities. Eventually, most of the organization's researchers beca irrelevant by comparison and were quietly pushed aside.
Technically, there was still one mind powerful enough to help him.
Doom.
But the threat posed by God Emperor Doom was too terrifying.
After extensive consideration, Drex reinforced Doom's frozen containnt coffin even further, layering it with atomic alloy, vibranium, true adamantium, and primitive kryptonite alloys to ensure he remained sealed indefinitely.
Fortunately, Drex's own super-brain kept evolving rapidly. Combined with the enormous quantity of cosmic scientific knowledge he'd absorbed recently, he was becoming increasingly capable of handling everything himself.
At this point, the Burning Legion's military structure had beco extrely diverse.
There were the super soldiers created through the Superman Serum.
Tank-Class Supern.
Battleship-Class Supern.
Symbiote-enhanced bio-armor divisions.
War Machines.
Iron Mongers.
And now the newly developed space-grade cannon-fodder armor units.
anwhile, sowhere in Africa…
…the Biobeast units were apparently still searching for the Antarctic Bear.
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