Rhael accelerated.
There was no strain in it now—no mechanical thrust, no visible propulsion. His body moved because he willed it to move. The vacuum offered no resistance.
Ahead, the remaining Kree warships scrambled.
"Full barrage!" General Kasper roared from the flagship. "Do not let him close!"
The void ignited.
Laser arrays, particle lances, heavy plasma cannons—every weapon in range opened fire. Streams of light converged on a single figure cutting through space like a meteor.
Rhael adjusted vector by fractions of degrees.
Insight Vision tracked trajectories before they completed their arcs. Enhanced hearing mapped weapon charge cycles through hull vibration patterns. His body responded in advance, not reaction.
He slipped through the barrage.
Several blasts struck him directly.
They dispersed across his surface in rippling flashes.
Energy Conversion Active
The impact fed him instead of slowing him.
"Pathetic," he murmured.
He didn't break stride.
A Kree cruiser attempted to interpose itself between him and the flagship.
Rhael angled downward and drove straight through its dorsal armor.
The collision was catastrophic.
Enhanced Strength — Tier 14Structural Resistance: Negligible
His body punched through composite plating, bulkheads, engine compartments—exiting the opposite side in a storm of metal and venting atmosphere. The cruiser's spine collapsed inward before secondary detonations tore it apart.
Debris scattered like shrapnel across the starfield.
On Kasper's bridge, disbelief hardened into fear.
"What is he?" a Kree officer whispered.
Another ship veered off, trying to gain distance.
Rhael's eyes burned icy blue.
A cryogenic beam lanced outward—precise, surgical. It pierced the fleeing vessel from bow to stern. Internal systems flash-froze in sequence. The reactor destabilized moments later, exploding in a bloom of orange flame.
The beam didn't stop.
He adjusted mid-discharge, slicing diagonally across a second ship.
Hull integrity failed instantly.
Two more ships vanished in cascading detonations.
The crescent formation was gone.
Only scattered survivors remained.
Kasper's knuckles whitened around the command console. "Distance! Maximum thrust!"
The flagship surged, engines roaring at full burn.
Rhael tracked it calmly.
Larger hull. Reinforced plating. Command signature.
Primary target.
He accelerated again—faster than before.
Not suit-driven.
Innate.
Autonomous flight had matured in real time during combat.
He struck the flagship like a kinetic projectile.
The impact folded the forward armor inward. Shockwaves rippled along the superstructure as if the ship had been hit by an orbital mass driver.
Rhael tore through layers of alloy and internal compartments, landing amid the central command deck in a rain of molten fragments.
Kree officers froze in place.
For a fraction of a second, silence.
Then Kasper roared and lunged.
As a general of the Kree Empire, he wasn't untrained. He drew an energized blade, its edge humming with contained plasma.
"You die here, Kryptonian!"
Rhael didn't retreat.
He raised his fist.
No flourish.
No dramatic wind-up.
Just a forward strike.
Kinetic Projection Initiated
The air within the flagship compressed violently. A concussive wave detonated from his knuckles before physical contact even occurred.
Kasper disintegrated mid-charge.
The shockwave didn't stop there.
It propagated through the flagship's internal structure, tearing bulkheads apart, snapping support columns, rupturing energy conduits. The entire vessel fractured from within.
Rhael pushed off the collapsing deck and exited through the breach he had created.
Behind him, the Kree flagship imploded under cascading reactor failure.
A final explosion swallowed it whole.
Silence returned to the sector.
Fragments of warships drifted in slow arcs against distant starlight.
Rhael hovered alone among the debris.
Internal systems stabilized.
Energy reserves were elevated but controlled. Cellular matrices vibrated with residual charge.
No visible damage.
He scanned the battlefield.
No remaining hostile signatures.
The Kree strike fleet had been erased.
He turned toward the distant silhouette of the Aquarius.
From the bridge, Todd stared at the tactical display in stunned silence.
Lilith lowered her hand from the console.
"It's over," she said quietly.
Out in the void, Rhael's eyes dimmed from icy blue to their natural shade.
This had not been a battle.
It had been a demonstration.
And somewhere beyond sensor range, another Kryptonian fleet—led by General Zod—would have witnessed the same spectacle.
Rhael adjusted course and flew back toward his ship.
If Zod wanted to test him—
He was welcome to try.