Drex Valen had no intention of mass-producing Kryptonians.
Not even scientific specialists.
The reason was simple.
Kryptonian weaknesses still hadn't been exposed to the wider universe. If their population expanded too quickly, eventually soone would discover those vulnerabilities by accident.
Drex himself wasn't worried.
Esdeath, Tifa, and Lyra Yan were another matter entirely.
The mont the Kryptonian Empire appeared, the galaxy imdiately began speculating that the universe's three great empires might soon beco four.
Assuming the Kryptonian Empire could maintain its terrifying level of strength.
Technically, Asgard could have beco a fourth imperial power long ago.
Odin simply never cared enough to pursue it.
And unlike Drex, Odin still believed in restraint. Too much prominence attracted too many enemies.
Drex didn't think that way at all.
In his view, overwhelming strength solved almost every problem.
The Kree, Skrulls, and Shi'ar had dominated the cosmos for ages without being destroyed. Even Thanos only targeted weaker civilizations while carrying out his genocidal campaigns.
Why?
Because he didn't want a war with the major empires.
Small planets disappeared all the ti.
Powerful civilizations survived.
The Kryptonian Empire operated under the sa principle.
After witnessing Esdeath, Lyra Yan, and Tifa tearing apart fleets by themselves, even Thanos lost interest in provoking the Kryptonians directly.
Individuals capable of fighting entire armadas alone were exceedingly rare in the galaxy.
Every one of them ruled sothing.
Yet the Kryptonian Empire possessed several.
And their emperor, Drex Valen, hadn't even fought personally yet.
If his "consorts" were already that dangerous...
Then what kind of monster was he?
At that mont, the terrifying emperor of the Kryptonian Empire was soaking in a mountain hot spring with his three companions.
Strictly speaking, Kryptonians probably needed magma rather than hot water to feel actual heat.
But that wasn't really the point.
Esdeath settled herself comfortably against him, pressing close with absolutely no hesitation.
"So," she murmured lazily, "you beca an emperor overnight."
Drex exhaled sharply.
Kryptonian physiology was absurd.
Their bodies possessed imnse density and strength, which led to certain... practical consequences.
If Esdeath existed in a normal world, she'd probably qualify as industrial machinery.
Anyone without comparable durability attempting intimacy with her would likely die instantly.
Not that Drex minded.
At their level, betrayal was almost aningless anyway. There were too few beings capable of matching Esdeath, Tifa, or Lyra physically.
And among those few?
None were stronger than Drex.
He'd stopped spending ti with won like Urd or Ada Wong long ago. Compared to Kryptonians, ordinary enhanced humans felt frighteningly fragile.
Without biological force fields stabilizing things, the outco would probably resemble Holander or Hancock accidentally killing soone through sheer carelessness.
Eventually, even three Kryptonian won working together still failed to overpower Drex.
The battle ended decisively.
Afterward, the four of them rested together beneath the night sky.
The hot spring sat high within Imperium's mountains. Above them stretched an endless sea of stars so vivid they almost felt close enough to touch.
Lyra Yan stared upward quietly.
"When I was younger," she said softly, "I used to hate how far away the sky felt. The clouds. The stars. None of them could ever be reached."
She smiled faintly.
"Now we can fly among them... and sohow they still feel untouchable."
Her eyes reflected the starlight beautifully.
"Like always wanting to pluck the moon out of the sky," Tifa added, sounding thoughtful.
Drex looked upward as well.
"There's an old poem about climbing a tower high enough to reach the stars," he said. "Funny thing is... once you actually leave the planet, you realize the stars were never close at all."
Esdeath snorted dismissively.
"I prefer reality this way."
She leaned back against him comfortably.
"Every star is another battlefield. Another civilization. Another war."
A faint smile curved her lips.
"I could fight forever out there."
Unlike Tifa and Lyra, Esdeath genuinely loved conquest and conflict.
The endless expansion of the Kryptonian Empire thrilled her.
Tifa and Lyra, though?
Eventually they would tire of constant warfare.
Drex understood that already.
Still, it didn't matter much.
There were countless worlds in existence, countless potential companions, and not all of them needed to be peaceful personalities.
So people, like Esdeath, were born for battle.
And if necessary...
There were plenty of powerful male candidates too.
Take Heracles, for example.
He wasn't Kryptonian, but his combat performance remained exceptional.
anwhile, the captured Kree scientists had finally learned the truth.
The Burning Legion had transford into the Kryptonian Empire almost overnight.
Most of them found it absurd.
There barely seed to be any citizens at all.
How could that qualify as an empire?
Of course, outsiders had no idea how many Kryptonians actually existed. As far as the galaxy knew, the empire's true population remained completely unknown.
In reality?
There were barely one or two thousand people total.
With little choice left, the Kree scientists reluctantly began working for the Kryptonian Empire, assisting with technological developnt projects.
Two months later, the Kree Empire finally delivered the scientific archives and personnel Drex had demanded during negotiations.
Before allowing anyone access to Imperial systems, Drex personally inspected them for hidden conditioning, surveillance implants, or manipulations from the Supre Intelligence.
Only after confirming everything was clean did he fully integrate them into the Empire's research divisions.
At the sa ti, his own experints with the Power Stone had finally achieved results.
The Dark Elves created Kursed warriors using fragnts of the Aether.
The Power Stone, however, was far more volatile.
There were no stable fragnts to harvest.
The Orb itself existed largely because the Stone's raw energy was too violent to contain normally.
Extracting usable power from it was extraordinarily dangerous.
Several of Drex's experints nearly destroyed Imperium outright. More than once, he'd been forced to teleport himself into deep space just to prevent catastrophic detonation.
But eventually, persistence paid off.
He succeeded in isolating a controllable portion of the Power Stone's energy.
By implanting that energy into living subjects, he could create imnsely powerful super soldiers almost instantly.
Whether they surpassed the Dark Elves' Kursed warriors remained unclear.
There was one major flaw, though.
The Power Stone's energy was simply too violent.
Anyone enhanced this way had a drastically shortened lifespan.
The process produced unstable weapons rather than perfect creations.
Drex didn't particularly care.
For him, the entire project was little more than entertainnt.
The Kryptonian Empire's real purpose had never been building a vast civilization full of troubleso citizens.
What Drex actually wanted...
Was a kingdom filled with extraordinary companions.
Three thousand queens instead of three thousand bureaucratic headaches.
Why waste endless effort ruling ordinary people when he could spend eternity creating sothing far more interesting?
And now...
He already had another candidate in mind.
Drex studied the figure in his hands carefully, adjusting the miniature model piece by piece.
"Yeah," he murmured to himself. "Sothing like this should work."
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