The rest of the galaxy breathed a little easier after learning the truth.
Not every mber of the Kryptonian Empire was on Esdeath's level.
That was the good news.
The bad news?
The Empire's average soldier was still horrifying.
Their powered armor technology alone bordered on absurd.
The Grey Knights had already fought wars against ten separate civilizations without suffering a single casualty.
Not one.
And these weren't primitive planetary skirmishes. Any civilization capable of interstellar expansion possessed military forces numbering in the billions.
Normally, wars on that scale consud fleets, economies, and entire generations.
The Grey Knights had simply bulldozed through all ten civilizations.
Untouched.
Their armor seed nearly indestructible. Even when struck directly by heavy weapons, the massive armored soldiers would simply stand back up and continue advancing.
And slower heavy artillery often couldn't hit them at all.
Despite their bulky appearance, Drex had perfectly recreated the millisecond-level reaction speeds of Space Marines. The result was sothing deeply unnatural.
The Grey Knights looked like walking tanks.
They moved like predators.
Against enemies outnumbering them thousands to one, they fought without retreat, without exhaustion, without hesitation.
When ammunition ran dry, they drew thermal fusion blades and continued slaughtering their way forward at close range.
Rivers of blood followed them.
Entire armies broke psychologically before they were fully defeated militarily.
Even outside observers found the Grey Knights disturbing. Their combat discipline and sheer willpower felt inhuman.
To those actually fighting them?
They were nightmares made of steel.
Like jagged black reefs standing against an endless ocean, they endured wave after wave of assault without yielding even an inch.
That was the true reason so many enemies collapsed.
Not because they lacked numbers.
Because eventually they stopped believing victory was possible.
After conquering ten civilizations and seizing control of hundreds of worlds, Drex finally slowed the Empire's expansion.
He needed ti to consolidate resources and increase military production.
At present, the Grey Knights numbered only ten thousand.
Included among them were one hundred Black Knights.
That force now had to control hundreds of planets, suppress resistance movents, maintain occupation zones, and defend Imperial territory.
Without additional troops, long-term control would beco difficult.
Still, conquest brought advantages.
The recently conquered worlds were too terrified to refuse Imperial demands, allowing Drex to harvest enormous quantities of resources with almost no resistance.
Far beyond known star systems, deep within the cosmic void, a continent-sized realm floated through space.
It resembled a crystallized nebula shaped into a kingdom.
Azure oceans spilled endlessly over its edges in colossal waterfalls, vanishing into the darkness below. Towering halls and monuntal statues rose at the center of the realm, frad by majestic mountain ranges and crossed by brilliant rainbow bridges.
It looked less like a civilization and more like sothing torn from mythology.
Asgard.
In Norse legend, it was the realm of the gods.
In Marvel's universe, it was one of the most powerful civilizations in existence.
The so-called gods were simply an imnsely advanced extraterrestrial race.
Unlike ordinary planets, Asgard belonged to no star system. The entire realm had been moved into deep space, existing as a floating continental construct sustained by the fusion of impossible technology and ancient magic.
It possessed no planetary rotation.
Yet it still experienced day and night.
At the center of the realm stood the golden palace.
A one-eyed old man in gilded armor overlooked the endless city below.
Even with only one eye, forcing him to constantly turn his head to take in the entire view, his presence still radiated overwhelming authority.
Odin.
King of Asgard.
Once, he had been a conqueror.
Then he beca a wise ruler.
Soon enough, he would probably beco an old fool simply to make way for the next generation.
Unfortunately, his sons were both disasters in completely different ways.
In most royal families, princes fought each other for succession through sches and bloodshed.
Thor and Loki sohow managed to make the situation even worse.
Thor possessed trendous military prestige. Brave, powerful, charismatic in battle, adored by warriors across Asgard.
He also had one catastrophic flaw.
He solved every problem the sa way.
Violence first.
Thinking later.
Or, more accurately...
Never thinking at all.
After countless wars and campaigns, Thor had mastered exactly one strategy.
Charge directly at the enemy and hit them harder than they hit you.
Odin often suspected that if Thor beca king, Asgard would spend nine days out of every ten at war.
The tenth day would be dedicated entirely to drinking.
A few years later, there probably wouldn't be an Asgard anymore.
Loki, anwhile, was Thor's complete opposite.
He analyzed everything.
Planned endlessly.
Preferred manipulation over confrontation.
If deception worked, he used deception.
If sabotage worked, he used sabotage.
If a knife in the back worked, he saw no reason to fight face-to-face.
That didn't make Loki wise.
Quite the opposite.
His intelligence was wasted on petty sches and underhanded tricks. He lacked the dignity and presence expected of a king.
If Loki inherited the throne...
Asgard might not survive the week.
The Frost Giant King Laufey would probably laugh himself to death.
And beyond all of that, Loki was adopted.
No matter how capable he beca, Odin would never truly pass the throne to him.
At that mont, Odin had just finished reviewing footage of the Kryptonian Empire conquering ten civilizations.
And he knew quite a lot about Drex Valen already.
Because the Ancient One had spoken to him personally.
According to her, Drex was an anomaly beyond reason.
A man untouched by destiny.
She had attempted to observe his future ten million tis.
She received ten million different outcos.
Every single tiline diverged unpredictably around him.
Eventually, even the Ancient One gave up trying to fully control events. Instead, she focused only on preserving certain critical constants while allowing Drex's actions to unfold naturally.
Things beca even worse whenever she interfered directly.
Every attempt at intervention created millions of additional branching futures.
Trying to exile Drex was even more pointless.
He could simply return.
He had already mastered two of the universe's fundantal forces and was steadily advancing toward a unified field theory. Once he achieved full control over all four fundantal interactions, traveling between universes would likely beco trivial for him.
That was why Odin kept watching the Kryptonian Empire so carefully.
He needed to know whether Drex would eventually threaten the Nine Realms.
Or Asgard itself.
And the answer disturbed him.
Drex appeared indulgent.
Surrounded by beautiful won.
Obsessed with pleasure.
But beneath that surface, he was frighteningly rational and composed most of the ti.
That implied ambition.
The kind of ambition that never stopped growing.
Drex would've found the assumption hilarious.
He wasn't dissatisfied with reality.
He was dissatisfied with how few "figures" he still had left to collect.
What Odin didn't know was that Drex actively regulated his own hormonal state. Most of the ti, he deliberately maintained himself in an almost hyper-rational "sage mode."
Without that control...
The Doomsday-derived instincts buried inside him beca unbearable.
Infinite energy.
Infinite aggression.
An endless urge toward destruction, violence, domination, and conflict.
A constant desire either to kill or be challenged by sothing strong enough to fight back.
Suppressing those instincts kept him calm.
Kept him civilized.
And that uncertainty was exactly what troubled Odin most.
Because if Drex Valen ever truly turned the Kryptonian Empire toward Asgard...
Odin honestly didn't know how he would stop him.
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