Zod Sis had already reviewed the footage of the Shi'ar Empire's elite honor guard going toe-to-toe with Earth's superheroes.
After watching it through, he came away with one conclusion: he'd overestimated the aliens.
Setting aside those warships bristling with planet-killer cannons, it seemed that when it came to raw individual combat power, the Kryptonian Empire could flat-out demolish every other faction in the known universe.
The Angel Legion were Kryptonians too, sure, but they never left Krypton. They were Zod's personal army—and his harem. Package deal.
Since individual combat prowess was the Kryptonian Empire's strongest card, the only sensible move was to play it to the absolute limit.
As for the warships? His Kryptonian soldiers could handle those. Just fly straight in and punch them to pieces, same as that bullheaded Captain Marvel always did.
When it came to the Hulk, Zod Sis had stockpiled a mountain of experimental data. He'd always had a weakness for towering, absurdly jacked subordinates—there was something undeniably thrilling about a heavyweight who made the ground shake when he walked.
And since both Abomination and General Ross were his own handiwork, manufacturing Hulks wasn't exactly rocket science.
The mass-produced versions had a ceiling on their strength, admittedly. But they only needed to be strong enough to flatten rival factions, and that bar was comfortably cleared.
Every single one of these assembly-line Hulks came out as a Red Hulk, which gave Zod the uncanny feeling of commanding a horde of red-skinned orcs.
What's more, every soldier chosen for the Hulk program had been a member of the Serpent Society back on Earth. Zod Sis had pulled them through the Kryptonian Empire's Rainbow Bridge and put them through the conversion process on this side.
These mass-produced Red Hulks didn't come with any fancy special abilities. Zod Sis had spliced them with the Extremis virus and the genetic sequence of the mutant Pyro, granting them the power to generate searing heat and project thermal beams. With that stroke, he had rebuilt the Burning Legion.
*Now* it was a Burning Legion worthy of the name.
As a final touch, he saturated their bodies with vibranium atoms, reinforcing their resilience against heavy hits.
Then came the uniforms—woven from elastic vibranium fiber with enough give to survive a full transformation without shredding into confetti. Nothing worse than a ten-foot rage monster standing around in tatters.
Back on Earth, the sheer volume of missing mercenaries and retired soldiers had finally caught SWORD's attention.
An occasional disappearance here and there was nothing unusual in that line of work. But the numbers had grown impossible to ignore.
More troubling still, it wasn't just soldiers and guns-for-hire vanishing. Word had spread through the criminal underworld that gang members were going missing too, leaving entire organizations on edge. Whispers circulated about some kind of monstrous predator picking people off, and paranoia was spreading fast.
SWORD would have been perfectly happy to let every last thug disappear off the face of the earth. But if a genuine threat was responsible—a real monster—then it fell squarely under their jurisdiction, like it or not.
Zod Sis noticed the growing scrutiny but didn't lose sleep over it. He'd already scooped up roughly a hundred thousand souls. A hundred thousand Hulks meant a hundred-thousand-strong army, and he could afford to pause the abductions for now.
Sure, any one of those enemy warships could theoretically glass the entire force with a single planet-killer shot.
But until that happened, a hundred thousand Red Hulks marching under the banner of the Burning Legion were an unstoppable tide.
---
"Say that again. Kallark and his honor guard are *what*?"
In the Shi'ar Imperial Palace, Empress Lilandra stared at the officer delivering the report, her expression frozen in disbelief.
Kallark. *That* Kallark.
He was a god in the eyes of every Shi'ar citizen—the single most powerful being in the universe. And he had simply *vanished?*
"Our last readings tracked Lord Kallark and his vessel entering this small star system. After that—nothing. Complete signal loss."
The officer's voice trembled as he spoke.
If Kallark was truly gone, what did that mean for the Shi'ar Empire? Without their supreme deterrent, their ultimate shield against the dark, the empire's confidence would crumble overnight.
This was a universe without mutants. Cyclops's brother had never risen to become Emperor of the Shi'ar. The timeline had bent in ways no one could have predicted.
Yes, with the Kree and the Skrull in steady decline, the Shi'ar had emerged as the youngest and most powerful spacefaring empire in the galaxy. But the cosmos was riddled with threats that brute national strength alone couldn't answer.
"Dispatch a search team immediately. Even if he's gone, I want the wreckage of his ship found!" Lilandra commanded, her voice sharp as a blade.
"Yes, Your Majesty!"
No expedition could launch without a direct imperial decree. Such was the rigid hierarchy of Shi'ar governance.
"Your Majesty—you *cannot* send a search team!"
The moment the order left her lips, a voice cut through the chamber.
The Shi'ar Empire was one of the most advanced and sprawling civilizations in the universe, its territory spanning an entire galaxy. At its core, it functioned as a vast commercial consortium, trading with every other interstellar power it encountered. Not all species within its borders enjoyed equal standing—the Shi'ar themselves wielded disproportionate influence over the machinery of government.
Day-to-day imperial affairs were managed by the Supreme Council, whose membership was drawn overwhelmingly from the empire's subject races. In practice, however, the true head of the Council—the Emperor or Empress—held sweeping authority to issue edicts and shape policy by decree alone.
The figure who stepped forward to block Lilandra's order was a member of the Shi'ar Imperial Family seated on the Supreme Council.
Had it been a representative of a subject race, Lilandra could have dismissed the objection without a second thought. But royal blood demanded a hearing.
"Why?"
Lilandra fixed the councilor with a steady gaze, waiting.
"Because that region borders Kryptonian Empire territory."
The words landed like a stone in still water.
"The *Kryptonian* Empire?"
Lilandra had heard the name before. Everyone had. An empire rising at a terrifying pace.
Their Grand General, Esdeath, was rumored to be strong enough to take on an entire fleet single-handedly—and there was footage to prove it. Everyone who had seen the recordings came away with the same chilling thought: this woman could likely sweep the universe clean.
And the Kryptonian Empire's technology was staggeringly advanced. In their campaign across the stars, they had conquered thousands of worlds, yet not a single casualty had been reported among their regular forces. Not one.
The implications were staggering. It spoke of a military machine of almost incomprehensible power. More frightening still, they possessed a teleportation technology so advanced it bordered on the divine—no fleets required. They could simply materialize on an enemy's homeworld.
For civilizations that had waged war with broadsides and orbital bombardments for millennia, it was deeply unsettling. Recently, though, the Kryptonian Empire's expansion had slowed. They were likely consolidating their conquered territories.
After all, by all appearances, there weren't actually that many Kryptonians.
Zod Sis, keen to set his people apart, had branded every Earth-born recruit and every Kryptonian he created with a golden sun sigil on their foreheads. He declared it the innate mark of Kryptonian heritage—anyone could identify a true Kryptonian at a glance.
"How can that be Kryptonian territory? That puts them far too close to our borders," Lilandra said, her brow furrowing.
Earth and its solar system fell within Shi'ar sovereign space. That was the accepted consensus across the galaxy—everyone acknowledged it.
Everyone except Asgard.
But after the stench of Odin and Hela's old atrocities had lingered for so long, Asgard's reputation had rotted along with them. These days, no one had much appetite for listening to what Asgard had to say.
---
**Translation Notes:**
- **Kallark** (卡尔拉克): Rendered as the Marvel character Gladiator's true name, consistent with Shi'ar lore.
- **Rainbow Bridge** (彩虹桥): Kept as-is to preserve Zod's repurposed Asgardian terminology.
- **SWORD** (神剑局): Standard Marvel English acronym.
- **Serpent Society** (世界蛇): Established Marvel organization name.
- **Burning Legion** (燃烧军团): Preserved as the in-universe name Zod gives his forces, carrying the deliberate Warcraft-adjacent humor.
- The casual, slightly irreverent internal voice of Zod (e.g., the orc comparison, the harem aside, the quip about shredded uniforms) has been maintained to match the author's web-novel register.
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