Drex Valen had already watched the battle between the Shi'ar Empire's elite guard and Earth's superheroes.
After seeing it, he came to a clear conclusion.
He had overestimated aliens.
Aside from battleships armed with planet-destroying cannons, the Kryptonian Empire seemed capable of crushing every other faction in raw individual combat power.
The Angel Legion were Kryptonians too, of course, but they would never leave Krypton. They belonged to Drex alone, both as his private armed force and, in the loosest sense, his personal harem.
Since one-on-one combat was Krypton's greatest strength, there was no reason not to push that advantage to the absolute limit.
As for enemy warships, Kryptonian soldiers could deal with those too. If necessary, they could simply smash them head-on, the same way Carol Danvers liked to bulldoze through everything in her path.
Drex had already gathered a massive amount of experimental data on Hulk.
Truth be told, he rather liked hulking brutes as subordinates. Big bodies had an undeniable appeal.
On top of that, Abomination and General Ross had already been created by his own hand, so making more Hulks was not a difficult task.
Mass-produced Hulks would not be overwhelmingly powerful, but they only needed enough strength to tear through other factions. That was sufficient.
The Hulks he mass-produced were all Red Hulks, which gave Drex the amusing sense that he was marching around with a band of red-skinned orcs under his command.
And the soldiers selected for this mass-production program were actually members of the World Serpent from Earth. Drex had used the Kryptonian Empire's "Rainbow Bridge" to transport them here for transformation.
These mass-produced Red Hulks had no special abilities of their own, so Drex implanted them with Extremis virus traits and the gene of mutant Firestar, giving them high heat resistance and the ability to fire heat beams. In effect, he had rebuilt the Burning Legion.
Now that was a name that actually fit.
He also infused them with vibranium atoms to improve their impact resistance.
After that, he clothed them in flexible uniforms woven from vibranium fiber so their clothes would not split the moment they transformed.
On Earth, the sudden disappearance of large numbers of mercenaries and retired soldiers had drawn S.W.O.R.D.'s attention.
Mercenaries and retired soldiers going missing from time to time was not unusual. But this many vanishings was another matter.
More importantly, it was not just mercenaries and retired soldiers. Even gang members had recently started reporting that people were disappearing without a trace, and that had left a lot of people uneasy. Some had begun to suspect that some kind of monster was responsible.
S.W.O.R.D. would have been perfectly happy if all the gangsters dropped dead, but if a monster was involved, then it became their problem.
Drex noticed the situation, but he did not care much.
He had already taken roughly one hundred thousand people. That was enough to create a hundred thousand Hulks, which meant he had a ready-made army. For now, he could stop abducting more.
Granted, if a warship happened to fire a planet-killing cannon at them, that army could still be wiped out in one shot.
But before that happened, the Burning Legion formed from those one hundred thousand Hulk soldiers was an unstoppable force.
β¦
"What did you say? Kallark and his guard have gone missing?"
Lilandra, the current Empress of the Shi'ar Empire, stared in shock at the messenger before her.
Who was Kallark?
He was the god in the hearts of the entire Shi'ar Empire, the strongest being in the universe.
And now he was missing?
"We last detected Lord Kallark and his ship heading toward this small star system, and then they vanished," the subordinate said nervously.
If Kallark was gone, what would become of the Shi'ar Empire?
Without the strongest warrior to intimidate outsiders, the empire's confidence would collapse.
After all, this world had no mutants, which meant the brother of Cyclops had never become emperor of the Shi'ar Empire.
Although the Shi'ar had risen as the youngest and strongest space empire as the Kree and Skrull continued to decline, the dangers of the universe were far too many to handle through raw national power alone.
"Send people to investigate immediately. Even if they've disappeared, I want the ship's wreckage found!"
"Yes, Your Majesty!"
An investigation team could not be dispatched without orders, which was simply how the Shi'ar hierarchy worked.
"Your Majesty, you cannot send out an investigation team!"
Just after Lilandra issued the command, someone stepped forward to stop her.
The Shi'ar Empire was one of the most advanced and expansive civilizations in the universe, spanning an entire star system.
It was primarily a commercial federation, trading with other interstellar powers. Not every species in the empire enjoyed equal rights, and the Shi'ar held disproportionate influence within its power structure.
Imperial affairs were usually managed by the Supreme Council. Most council members were aliens from within the empire, yet in practice the true head of state, whether emperor or empress, possessed enormous authority and could issue decrees to shape policy.
The person who had stepped forward to stop Lilandra was a member of the Shi'ar royal family within the Supreme Council.
If it had been an outsider, Lilandra could simply have ignored their opinion. But a royal family member was another matter.
"Why not?" Lilandra asked, waiting for an explanation.
"Because that region is close to Kryptonian Empire territory," the other party said.
"The Kryptonian Empire?"
Lilandra was not hearing the name for the first time. The Kryptonian Empire had risen with terrifying speed.
Their Grand General, Esdeath, was especially formidable. Rumor had it she could take on an entire fleet alone, and there was even video footage to prove it. Anyone who had seen her concluded that the Grand General of the Kryptonian Empire might be strong enough to sweep across the entire universe.
What was more, the Kryptonian Empire seemed to possess extraordinarily advanced technology. Since beginning its campaigns, it had conquered thousands of planets, and their regular military had yet to suffer even a single casualty.
That meant the Kryptonian Empire possessed horrifying military strength. More importantly, they also had a miraculous teleportation technology that allowed them to jump directly to another civilization's homeworld without sending a fleet first.
For people accustomed to battleships and cannons, that style of warfare was deeply unsettling.
Recently, though, the Kryptonian Empire's expansion had slowed. They seemed to be consolidating the territory they had already seized.
Probably because there were not that many Kryptonians to begin with.
In order to emphasize the difference between Kryptonians and everyone else, Drex had branded the Earthlings he brought over, as well as the Kryptonians he created himself, with a golden sun-shaped mark on the forehead.
Then he declared it to be the natural symbol of Kryptonians, something anyone could recognize at a glance.
"How can that be Kryptonian Empire territory? Doesn't that mean they're too close to us?" Lilandra frowned.
Earth and the Solar System belonged to the Shi'ar Empire, at least by universal default, though Asgard refused to acknowledge that.
Unfortunately, Odin and Hela had caused enough disgrace in the past that Asgard's reputation had become rotten too. Not many people cared about Asgard's opinions anymore.