Esdeath ford an energy sphere in her palm.
Saiyans and Kryptonians were fundantally different species.
Saiyans were practically battle mages. Their energy output was absurdly powerful, but their bodies themselves were comparatively fragile. Even Super Saiyan Gods could get killed by a lucky laser shot if caught off guard.
Captain Marvel drove a punch into the energy sphere.
Instead of absorbing it, the attack blasted straight past her and detonated in the distance.
The shockwave carved a massive trench through the landscape before erupting into a towering cloud of smoke and debris.
Plasma discharges and cosmic energy projectiles scattered wildly across the battlefield. Explosions erupted nonstop around the planet's surface, blooming into chains of miniature mushroom clouds.
"Stop fighting!"
"Please, stop!"
"We surrender! We surrender already!"
The planet's inhabitants finally rushed out in desperation.
At first, they'd believed Captain Marvel was their savior. She had killed an Ultraman and driven back the Kryptonian Empire.
But now?
This wasn't salvation.
It was apocalypse.
The battle between these two won had nearly destroyed the entire planet. If they'd known things would escalate this badly, they would've surrendered to the Kryptonian Empire from the beginning.
Esdeath ignored them completely.
Carol heard them.
But she couldn't disengage.
Esdeath pressed her relentlessly, refusing to give her even a second to breathe.
With a sharp shout, Esdeath unleashed another eruption of power.
Golden energy expanded outward in waves like a raging tidal surge.
The pressure alone distorted the surrounding atmosphere.
The civilians who had approached were instantly vaporized.
Energy storms twisted violently across the battlefield. Magnetic fields inverted chaotically while nearby space cracked apart under the strain.
The planet's end had arrived.
The continents and oceans shook simultaneously as tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions detonated across the world all at once.
The crust split apart piece by piece.
So tectonic plates rose upward while others collapsed into the mantle below. Lava surged through the fractures, flooding everything in molten fire.
RUMBLE—
Thunder exploded across the sky as the entire planet descended into chaos.
Space itself shattered.
Then gravity and cosmic forces violently corrected the damage, dragging Esdeath, Captain Marvel, and a massive section of planetary crust into fragnted extradinsional space.
A second later, Esdeath tore free through sheer force alone and charged directly at Carol again.
The two collided mid-flight and crashed back into the already-ruined planet.
Then they faced each other once more.
Their auras slamd together.
The ground trembled beneath them while grains of dust floated upward under the influence of their energy before being crushed into nothingness.
Carol's entire body erupted with golden radiance.
Her photon energy doubled.
Then doubled again.
Violent shockwaves burst outward like collapsing oceans, blasting Esdeath backward.
Or at least, they should have.
Esdeath slid less than a ter before stopping completely.
Carol stared.
"You freak…"
In all her years crossing the universe, she had never encountered soone like this.
No.
That previous incident with the Kryptonian Empire's technology didn't count.
This was different.
This was raw individual power.
Even Thanos, the Mad Titan of the Black Order, had once been chased down and beaten senseless by her.
And yet Esdeath had fought her this entire ti without a single visible injury.
Even her white uniform remained pristine.
Carol herself wasn't badly hurt either, but her suit was torn and battered from the exchange.
She was in Binary form.
And instead of overwhelming Esdeath, she was evenly matched.
The Kryptonian Empire's genetic engineering was insane.
Far beyond Kree science.
Esdeath's white military uniform might have looked thin, but it was woven from Adamantium fibers and Vibranium fibers layered together. Combined with her overwhelming bio-force field, even Thanos wielding Infinity Stones would struggle to penetrate her defenses.
When Carol looked around and saw the shattered remains of the planet she'd tried to save, rage finally drowned out restraint.
She lunged at Esdeath recklessly.
Esdeath sneered.
Her ki erupted violently as twin streams of heat vision fired from her eyes.
Carol ignored the attack completely and smashed a fist directly into Esdeath's face.
Esdeath didn't move.
Not even a centiter.
Instead, the recoil shattered every bone in Carol's hand.
Even though the damage regenerated almost instantly, the pain still made her grimace.
More than that, she couldn't understand why she couldn't move Esdeath at all.
"That all you've got?" Esdeath mocked.
She drove a punch into Carol's stomach.
Carol absorbed the kinetic impact itself, but the ki wrapped around Esdeath's fist still tore into her internally.
And then—
Soone appeared.
Captain Marvel's eyes widened.
She hadn't sensed his arrival at all.
Drex Valen stood there casually, as though he'd always been part of the battlefield.
He looked Carol up and down.
"Huh. You don't look anything like that round-faced movie version," he said thoughtfully. "You're way prettier."
"Don't interfere in my fight!" Esdeath snapped imdiately.
"If you keep going," Drex replied calmly, "she'll eventually beat you. That's enough for today."
Esdeath clicked her tongue in annoyance but didn't argue further.
anwhile, Carol's instincts scread.
In Drex's hand floated a black hole singularity.
Infinite gravity erupted outward instantly, locking onto her body.
Then the pull began.
Space.
Ti.
Matter.
Everything around the singularity twisted apart and collapsed inward under its gravitational force.
Carol watched entire sections of reality distort and disintegrate around it.
There was no room for optimism.
No delusion that she could survive being dragged inside.
Because she realized sothing horrifying.
The mass of this singularity exceeded every black hole she had ever encountered in the cosmos.
This wasn't rely a black hole.
It was sothing denser.
Heavier.
A gravitational anomaly beyond the normal laws of the material universe.
How could matter like this even exist?
Shouldn't sothing with that mass instantly destroy everything nearby the mont it appeared?
Carol couldn't comprehend it.
Then Drex reached toward her.
Suddenly, all the power in her body vanished.
Every ounce of strength disappeared instantly.
She collapsed onto the ruined ground, staring at the man before her in disbelief.
Drex Valen held the black hole singularity casually in one hand.
In the other, he grasped the power he had forcibly extracted from Captain Marvel.
He hadn't permanently stolen her abilities.
She would recover eventually.
But he had stripped away enough energy that rapid regeneration was impossible for now.
Carol looked up at him unwillingly.
"What… are you?"
A being like this…
A monster like this…
An existence that embodied destruction itself.
How could the material universe even permit soone like him to exist?
There was no one in existence who could defeat him.
Drex answered without hesitation.
"The Emperor of Krypton."
Carol closed her eyes bitterly.
Deep down, she had already known the answer.
But hearing it spoken aloud still hit differently.
No wonder the Kryptonian Empire had risen so fast.
With a ruler like this…
How could they possibly fail?
...
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