Marvel's Kryptonian Scientist Chapter 255 255

Impossible.

Gladiator couldn't believe it.

He knew exactly how much power he had put behind that punch. Maybe it wouldn't outright shatter a planet, but any normal world taking that hit would have been devastated.

And yet Drex Valen caught it one-handed.

Then an uppercut slamd into Gladiator's jaw.

The impact detonated through his skull hard enough to blank out his consciousness for a split second before his body blasted backward through the warship's hull.

Drex followed him into open space.

As he passed through the damaged sections of the vessel, electromagnetic forces rippled outward from his fingertips, instantly repairing the torn tal and fractured structure.

The heroes' spacesuits had already been heavily damaged during the fight.

Without repairs, they would suffocate before long.

Gladiator recovered quickly.

His fighting spirit surged hotter than ever.

And with his species, confidence translated directly into power.

His energy swelled again.

Drex floated motionlessly in space, arms relaxed at his sides, clearly waiting for the next attack.

Gladiator didn't hesitate.

He already understood he was weaker than Drex.

Even if he had grown stronger since the beginning of the battle, that fact hadn't changed.

As Gladiator charged forward throwing another punch, Drex's eyes suddenly burned crimson.

Gladiator halted mid-charge.

Then his own eyes ignited red as well.

Twin streams of heat vision erupted simultaneously.

The beams collided head-on.

According to basic energy interaction principles, opposing energy blasts didn't simply cancel each other.

They exploded.

The collision between their heat vision attacks produced a detonation vastly larger than either beam individually.

Space itself seed to ignite.

But the two figures at the center of the explosion ignored it completely and crashed directly into each other again, their battle dispersing the expanding firestorm through sheer force.

Gladiator gradually realized sothing terrifying.

No matter how much stronger he beca...

Drex always stayed ahead.

Not by a massive margin.

Just enough.

Always enough.

How was that possible?

How could a remote little planet like Earth produce a monster like this?

A backwater world protected under Asgard's influence sohow housed a warrior this terrifying?

anwhile, Drex was becoming increasingly interested.

What exactly had Gladiator's species evolved from?

The man genuinely was growing stronger in real ti.

His durability improved.

His power increased.

His body adapted continuously.

Drex estimated the crushing force of his own grip had long surpassed the output of eighty-thousand-ton hydraulic presses.

Probably well into the million-ton range now.

And his striking power exceeded even that.

More importantly...

He wasn't just Kryptonian anymore.

He was effectively a Doomsday-enhanced Kryptonian.

Gladiator's confidence-based power system was absurd, but even that had limits.

Compared to Doomsday?

Not enough.

The fact that Gladiator could continue fighting while being constantly overwheld already spoke volus about his ntal resilience.

Gladiator possessed nearly every classic "superman" ability imaginable.

Super strength.

Super speed.

Extre endurance.

Regeneration.

Heat vision.

Freeze breath.

Near-light-speed flight.

He ranked among the physically strongest beings in Marvel's universe, capable of shattering asteroids and surviving supernova-level forces.

Theoretically, his upper limits were imasurable...

As long as his confidence held.

But he had weaknesses too.

Radiation could affect him.

Psychic attacks could bypass his defenses.

And most importantly:

If his confidence faltered, his power collapsed with it.

At full confidence, only a handful of beings in existence could rival him physically.

Without it?

His strength plumted dramatically.

He could survive in deep space.

Even inside stars.

He could battle Hulk and Thor head-on without injury.

The more confident he beca, the less damage he perceived.

He possessed microscopic vision down to the molecular level and trendous combat training as commander of the Shi'ar Imperial Guard.

Reed Richards had even once designed special equipnt allowing Gladiator to lift massive structures without damaging them. He had carried an entire thirty-five-story building intact.

Compared to Kryptonians, however, Gladiator lacked one crucial cheat code:

The bioelectric field.

And Drex Valen surpassed him comprehensively in almost every category.

Especially in control.

Quark-level microscopic vision combined with direct matter manipulation allowed Drex to dismantle kinetic force at its source.

That was why Gladiator's earlier planet-breaking punch produced no shockwave.

No collateral damage.

No catastrophic impact.

Drex had dismantled the force itself on a microscopic level.

At first, Drex treated the battle almost like an exhibition of technique.

A demonstration.

But after realizing Gladiator couldn't even perceive what he was doing, he stopped bothering.

Instead, he simply began absorbing Gladiator's kinetic energy directly.

Honestly, Gladiator made a much better living battery than Hulk ever had.

At the start of the fight, Gladiator burned with confidence.

His willpower climbed endlessly.

His strength continued increasing.

But then...

An hour passed.

Then another.

And despite all his growth, Drex still suppressed him effortlessly.

Eventually Gladiator began questioning whether he had actually grown stronger at all.

Except the shattered asteroid field around them proved otherwise.

Their battle had devastated everything nearby.

Gladiator had reached levels of strength even he had never imagined possible.

Only because Drex existed as a target had he managed to climb this high.

And even then...

The Dark Knight still felt bottomless.

Infinite.

That was the true flaw in Gladiator's power.

Confidence was both his greatest weapon and his greatest weakness.

Drex originally expected the fight to continue much longer.

Then suddenly...

Gladiator weakened.

Like a receding tide, his power began collapsing as doubt crept into his mind.

"What's wrong?" Drex asked, genuinely puzzled.

"You giving up already?"

Honestly, Drex found it hard to understand how soone with such a broken power system could lose confidence this quickly.

Gladiator lowered his head slightly.

"I can't defeat you."

The words sounded hollow.

Defeated.

Drex sighed faintly.

Then casually knocked him unconscious.

He dragged Gladiator back to the ship.

The Shi'ar crew stared in disbelief.

Their undefeated champion...

Had lost.

anwhile the superheroes relaxed imdiately.

Of course.

Drex Valen was still Drex Valen.

"You guys head back to Earth first," Drex said to Tony and the others.

"I need to talk with them."

"Works for ," Tony answered.

None of the heroes seed remotely worried about leaving Drex alone with an alien empire.

That level of trust was almost absurd.

Thanks to his incredible physiology, Gladiator regained consciousness quickly.

The first thing he saw was Drex sitting silently with one hand supporting his chin.

Behind him, fundantal particles assembled themselves into a massive throne.

Drex sat upon it calmly.

Then he looked directly at Gladiator.

"Submit to , Kallark."

Gladiator's eyes narrowed instantly.

That was his real na.

"Who are you?" he asked slowly.

By now, he fully realized sothing was wrong.

The identity of this so-called "Dark Knight" clearly wasn't simple.

Drex answered without hesitation.

"I am Drex Valen."

"Emperor of the Kryptonian Empire."

Silence.

Absolute silence.

Every Shi'ar aboard the ship stared at him in stunned disbelief.

The Kryptonian Empire.

A civilization that had existed only briefly...

Yet had already been acknowledged across the cosmos as a rising power comparable to the universe's three greatest empires.

...

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