In the days that followed, Zodhis had it much easier.
Hadn't he forcibly snapped humanity's suicidal death wish? That was a good thing, wasn't it?
But recently, Zod also felt that something was off with his body.
This sensation was familiar. He'd felt it twice before, right before new superpowers awakened.
It was exactly this kind of feeling that made Zod deeply uncomfortable. He couldn't sit still, couldn't stand still.
It was as if his body was brewing something within.
"Zod, what's wrong?"
Tifa noticed his unease and asked with concern.
"Nothing."
Zod shook his head. This unpleasant feeling wasn't something Tifa or the others could help him with.
Tifa didn't press further. Instead, she guided his head onto her lap. She could tell he didn't want to share, perhaps because sharing wouldn't let her do anything anyway.
Still, Tifa treated him with gentle warmth. She felt this was all she could do.
Zod felt utterly at ease. Resting on Tifa's lap, he actually fell asleep, something he hadn't done in a very long time.
In his slumber, his body began to change.
The surrounding forces electromagnetic force, gravity, strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force—all began to shift.
And within Zod's dream, he saw a terrifying figure: a monster that had slaughtered an entire planet, destroying countless living beings.
The monster noticed him too. Zod engaged it in a desperate battle to the death. Their clash destroyed Earth's core, triggering a supernova explosion. Yet even that fearsome blast could not kill either the monster or Zod.
Zod survived thanks to his electromagnetic and gravitational force shields, combined with his arsenal of powerful abilities. The monster, on the other hand, simply died and revived.
After reviving, the monster grew even stronger. Zod realized he could no longer use the Shenron Force or the Phoenix Force—it was as if those powers never existed.
He could only rely on his own strength to fight the monster.
After the supernova, the gravitational balance at Earth's former position collapsed. Both of them struggled to escape that gravity well.
But the monster never stopped attacking.
Zod and the monster quickly tore free of the gravity field, then crashed onto the moon to continue their ferocious battle.
Boom! Boom! Boom! BOOOOM!
Every punch carried terrifying destructive power. The ground rumbled like a pounding drum, the terrain around them constantly sinking. Shattered gravel and debris burst outward like bullets, piercing the air or slamming down to gouge smoking craters.
Shockwave after shockwave swept across every direction, whipping up surging lunar dust. The surface was pulverized into fine powder by the aftershocks.
The already ravaged landscape, under one deafening impact after another, rapidly collapsed inward at the center.
The edges bulged upward while the center sank deep, forming a funnel-shaped landmass at odds against the gray lunar surface.
Scarlet heat beams shot from Zod's eyes, stabbing straight into the monster's face.
A thunderous BOOM erupted; the monster's face smoked. A huge hand clamped down on the heat rays, pressing its palm directly over Zod's face.
The palm quivered as crimson rays spilled from the edges and between the fingers, splashing wildly in all directions.
The monster curled its lips into a smirk. Its five fingers gripped Zod's head tightly, forcing his chin up to expose the more vulnerable throat.
Then it clenched its right fist, the wicked bone spurs on the knuckles jutting out, and drove a heavy blow straight into his throat.
BOOM!!!
Zod, protected by energy-absorbing superpowers, a bio-field, a steel-like body, and the lunar magnetic field, was practically indestructible. This strike didn't even merit a frown from him.
Since the battle had started, the monster had grown far stronger, and Zod was no exception. His energy-absorbing ability allowed him to drain kinetic energy from every punch the monster threw, permanently reinforcing his own body and keeping pace with the monster's evolution speed.
The monster prepared to strike again, only for Zod to counter with a back elbow that blasted it away like a cannonball, its body crashing far into the distance and gouging out a huge crater on impact.
Rising again, the monster's face twisted with savagery. Its right arm blazed with red light, terrifying energy coalescing around its fist as it met Zod's heavy punch at lightning speed.
Bzzzzt!!! Hummm!!!
Between their fists burst a scorching white torrent of lightning. After a heartbeat of stillness, the compressed energy shrank to its limit, then instantly expanded into a white sphere. A devastating shockwave, with the two at its epicenter, swept across the entire lunar surface in an instant.
Rumble...!
From a bird's-eye view, one could see the sphere's cross-section growing, spreading over the moon's near side and reaching all the way to the far side.
There was no time to question why the moon had air and sound. Both sides fought with everything they had. Their muscles bulged taut all over as they continuously unleashed power. A terrifying presence surged outward, shaking the ground with rumbling tremors. Stones and gravel of all sizes broke free of gravity and floated, finally crushed into dust under the unbearable pressure.
The horrifying force flowed through their feet into the ground. After a thunderous detonation, deep fissures split open, racing outward at a speed rivaling sound itself.
Craaack!
The crack widened and stretched longer and longer, like a demon's cruel grin, tearing the entire moon in two.
Zod ignored inertia completely. His movements flowed with flawless linkage; often by the time the monster threw one punch, Zod had already hammered him with a dozen or twenty.
He withstood the monster's attacks without flinching. Even the monster's exponentially rising strength couldn't shake him.
Under the monster's pressure, Zod even gradually grasped the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force. With the four fundamental forces shielding him, even Doctor Manhattan... well, forget it. Before a grand unified field came into being, he probably still couldn't take down Doctor Manhattan.
The interactive effects of the four fundamental forces made things harder and harder for the monster.
Eventually, the monster was completely overwhelmed by Zod. Zod didn't hold back. He could see that this monster seemed able to evolve countermeasures against any attack.
But these were the four fundamental forces. Even if it adapted, Zod could still produce infinite variations. Go on try adapting them all!
Zod beat the monster for an entire day and night. They dismantled the entire solar system. At Earth's former location, the solar core was pierced by their two monstrous forms and collapsed into a black hole. Relying on the four fundamental forces, Zod stood firm even before the black hole, as if rooted in place. The monster couldn't manage that; it was sucked in instantly, torn apart into countless quarks.
The monster was ripped into quarks, and then Zod woke up.
"Holy shit, that was Doomsday!"
The moment Zod awoke, he instantly recognized what the monster in his dream was.
Something's wrong. Why did I dream about fighting Doomsday? Do I even have a need to dream anymore?
And what's going on with my body? This endlessly surging sense of power...
"What's wrong?"
Tifa felt that Zod had only slept for a few hours before his eyes suddenly snapped wide open, as if he'd had a nightmare. She immediately asked with concern.
/-\
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