Marvel: Extraordinary Comprehension

Chapter 144: Zod's Arrogance, The MagicNet's Warning! The World Tree Trembles!

Jean smiled. "If you're going, I'm coming too."

Lucci nodded approvingly, and with a thought, ripples of space spread around him. "Then let's go."

Placing the woman gently by his side, Lucci stepped forward and, in an instant, disappeared from the spot.

The feeling of spatial displacement had become familiar to Jean, Jane, and Diana by now. But this time was different—this was an intergalactic teleportation, majestic and overwhelming, leaving them in awe. Light and shadows of every color flashed by, weightlessness gave way to firmness under their feet.

When the three opened their eyes again, a fresh, vibrant breath blew towards them. It was a scent completely alien to Earth, invigorating every cell in their bodies with every breath.

"Is this … the divine realm?" Jane gasped, looking up into the distance.

What appeared before her eyes was a metropolis so grand it took their breath away. Massive golden domes gleamed in the light; spires stretched toward the sky; grand palaces extended endlessly. The heavens buzzed with countless shimmering airships, while a dazzling rainbow bridge spanned the horizon like a holy ribbon of light.

This was Asgard—the kingdom of gods, the legendary divine realm.

"Lucci, is this… is this where you grew up?" Even Diana, a demigoddess from the Amazon, was moved. Compared to Asgard, Themyscira was but a small village against a sprawling capital.

Jean's beautiful eyes sparkled with curiosity as she looked around. "The energy field here is so active. No wonder divine power can be born in a place like this."

Lucci stood there, quietly watching the women's astonished faces, a faint smile curling on his lips. "Let's go, everyone should be waiting."

He led the women towards the palace of the God King.

Along the way, countless Asgardian guards halted their steps, bowing their heads in reverence to Lucci. After all, the news that he'd slain Thanos had already swept through all of Asgard. By now, Lucci's status had surpassed even that of Odin at his peak.

…

Outside the Palace, Odin, Frigga, and Thor had long been waiting. "Lucci! You're finally here!" Thor spotted him immediately and gave him a bear hug. "With this battle, Asgard's might has been displayed to the entire cosmos!"

Lucci only smiled quietly.

Odin and Frigga approached as well. Frigga looked at Lucci with motherly affection, reaching out to straighten his collar. "It's good you're back. You've gotten so thin—were things hard on Earth?"

Lucci was slightly stunned. "Thin"?

Was he really?

But he replied obediently, "Don't worry, Mother. I did fine on Earth."

Frigga nodded with satisfaction, then glanced at the women behind Lucci. "And who are these people?" she asked, knowingly.

Lucci turned slightly, introducing the two. "Mother, this is Jean, this is Jane, and this is Diana. I brought them to see Asgard."

"Your Majesty the King, Your Majesty the Queen, we greet you."

The three women were nervous before the true king and queen of the gods, respectfully bowing their heads.

"Good, good, good—all wonderful children!" Frigga smiled warmly, quickly stepping forward to take their hands. "Don't be shy, just relax. Odin only looks stern—he's actually quite gentle."

Odin cleared his throat twice, stroking his beard a little awkwardly. "Frigga, show some dignity in front of the children."

Lucci looked at the scene and felt a warm feeling arise in his heart.

As everyone exchanged pleasantries, the sound of footsteps echoed from nearby. Lucci turned to see Hela and Loki walking side by side. Hela, armor-clad in black, exuded an icy and awe-inspiring aura; Loki wore green robes with his trademark sly smile.

They strode over, Hela pausing for a moment on Lucci's face, her expression flickering with reverence, curiosity, and hints of something more complicated. Loki sidled up and grinned, "I heard you stole Thanos's warship. Mind if I borrow it for a… say, a day?"

"Not a chance." Lucci dismissed Loki's request outright.

Odin watched all this with deep satisfaction. Hela, Loki, Thor—children who once gave him so many headaches—could finally stand together in peace.

"All right, now that everyone's here, let's begin the victory celebration!" Odin declared loudly, waving his hand.

"Get the wine! Strike up the music! Nobody goes home until they're drunk!"

"Until we're drunk!"

As the guards cheered, the massive palace doors opened, revealing a grand feast already prepared. The tables groaned under endless delicacies, and the scent of fine wine filled the air. Asgardian warriors raised their cups and drank heartily, laughter pealing through the king's palace.

…

Out amidst the vast starry sea, silence and cold are the eternal themes. But in this vacuum long undisturbed for millions of years, a fleet of cold, metallic behemoths, with fierce and brutal outlines, tore through the fabric of space at faster than light speed, charging into the solar system.

This was Krypton's final glory, the exile fleet led by General Zod.

As the flagship Black Zero's colossal hull breached the fold of space and formally entered the solar system, the previously silent command room erupted in frantic, shrill energy alarms.

"Warning! Detected high-energy stellar radiation!"

"The radiation belt is extremely stable, spectral analysis: yellow star!"

General Zod stood at the command platform, his face rough and bloodstained from past battles, usually cold and indifferent. But when a blazing golden light spilled through the cabin window, his eyes suddenly widened.

"Yellow star light?"

There was a husky, uncontrollable tremor in Zod's voice. At that moment, not only him, but Faora, his adjutant, and every Kryptonian warrior on board, all stopped what they were doing. They could all feel their bodies beginning an astonishing transformation. It was as if a parched desert, dry for eons, was suddenly drenched by torrential rain.

Under this golden light, every Kryptonian cell cheered and leapt!

Zod closed his eyes, bones creaking, blood boiling—he could literally hear it. Unprecedented, overwhelming power gushed from every pore, converging into a torrent that could crush worlds.

Crack!

Zod instinctively clenched his fist—and the command platform, made from Krypton's strongest alloy, crumpled like powder under his grip!

"General!" Faora's face snapped up, eyes flickering with fanatical red light. "My ears…I can hear the sound of dust drifting from miles away! My strength is soaring! This is—divine power!"

"Haha!" Zod laughed, wild and arrogant. "This is what Kryptonians are meant to feel! In the face of such power, bloodlines and tradition are jokes!"

At that moment, a subordinate reported urgently. "General, we have intercepted massive Earth signals!"

"We've triangulated Kal-El's coordinates—he's in a city called Metropolis! And…General, we've intercepted a ton of visual feeds."

The screen flashed footage of Superman fighting.

Zod glanced at it, then dismissed it outright. "That bastard Kal—lived a few years on this planet, and the natives call him a god? Ridiculous!"

"His mediocre genes still wield such destructive force? Yet we…are the ultimate warriors, hand-selected by Kryptonian genes over millions of years! Now, each of us is beyond even the gods!"

"This planet should kneel before its new gods!"

"All ships, full speed ahead—destination: Earth!"

The Kryptonian fleet accelerated like a pack of blood-hungry sharks, heading straight for Earth.

However, as the fleet crossed the lunar orbit and approached Earth's outer atmosphere, the Black Zero's alarms blared again, this time with a sharp red light.

"Unknown energy barrier detected! Entire planet is shielded!"

"Running detailed analysis…analysis failed! This energy network does not match any known tech sequence!"

Zod frowned. "What…is that?"

To Zod and his lieutenant's eyes, it was as if an invisible but titanic net wrapped expertly around the whole Earth, each strand reaching deep into the void, drawing immeasurable energy from the multiverse.

This was the magical net Lucci himself had spun to shield Earth.

"General, this network is scanning us!" Faora's face changed minutely. "It's scanning our energy fluctuations—not just that, seems it's scanning our intent… Is it alive?"

"Can it detect hostility?" Zod sneered in contempt, his body radiating a powerful bio-force field. "Only the weak need turtle-shell detection nets! Against absolute power, all defense is an illusion!"

He dismissed the so-called MagicNet entirely. To him, it was nothing but a primitive early warning measure devised by the natives.

"Activate the World Engine!" Zod ordered coldly.

At his order, a titanic black engine platform equipped with gravity generators detached from the mothership. One platform plunged toward the Indian Ocean, another locked onto Metropolis.

"When the World Engine activates, gravity and atmospheric composition will begin to change. They want to make Earth into a second Krypton!"

Zod stood by the porthole, watching the warships ram savagely into the MagicNet.

Boom—

Even with their powerful biofields and reinforced hulls, the Kryptonian warships only just broke through the web's defenses. The magical net was strong, but Lucci wasn't manually controlling it just now; the automatic defense system couldn't withstand Krypton's brute force.

"See? This contraption the natives built can't stop us at all!" Zod laughed, eyes bloodthirsty.

…

Back in Asgard, the victory feast was in full swing, the air still filled with wine and heavenly music.

At Asgard's heart, Lucci was leading Jean, Jane, and Diana on a tour of the World Tree.

At this moment, the women were rendered speechless. Even Jean and Diana—who had seen the ruins of Olympus—were stunned before the World Tree, which stretched across nine dimensions and upheld the order of the universe.

Great roots sprawled across the earth like sleeping dragons. Each leaf shone with the brilliance of galaxies, the branches stretching into the void, each line seemingly depicting the birth and death of star systems.

Abundant energy took form as a visible rain of green light, gently falling on their hair and shoulders.

"This is… the legendary World Tree?" Jane Foster softly reached out, catching on her fingertips a drop of pure life essence, emerald as jade.

"In scientific terms, this shouldn't exist at all. It's a lifeform that transcends all dimensions."

Diana, for once, adopted a solemn tone. As a demigoddess, she felt the weight of the ancient more keenly than anyone. "My father Zeus said the World Tree was the foundation of Asgard, but I never imagined its power. It's as if it's breathing… in unison with the Nine Realms."

Lucci looked back at the astonished women and smiled gently.

"Asgard is called the land of gods not for its splendid buildings, but for the blessings brought by the World Tree," he explained, his voice calm but captivating. "Here, cultivation takes half the effort for twice the result. But its beauty and power will always attract unwelcome flies."

No sooner had he finished speaking than Lucci's gaze turned toward Earth. The MagicNet was sending him an alarm. This was an "extremely hostile" incursion—a signal that an alien civilization was forcibly breaching the planetary defense web.

"What's wrong?" Jean noticed Lucci's change at once. Beneath his handsome appearance, she sensed a chill cold enough to freeze the void.

"A new group of alien visitors has arrived on Earth," Lucci said quietly. With a sweep of his finger, a swirling, watery vision appeared in the air.

In it, several black Kryptonian warships battered through the magical net's defenses and plummeted rapidly toward the blue planet below.

"What?" the women cried in unison, shocked both by the alien invasion and Lucci's awareness.

Here in Asgard, across countless lightyears and spatial nodes from Earth, Lucci could monitor the planet's situation in real time.

"How… how did you know?" Jane was incredulous.

"Not even the most advanced quantum communications could maintain zero-latency early warning in interdimensional conditions," she said.

Lucci smiled calmly. "I've woven a 'MagicNet' across Earth. It's not just a conduit for magic, it's an extension of my senses. If someone approaches Earth with malice or brings mass destruction weapons into the atmosphere, the net immediately sends feedback to me."

"In short, Earth is now my domain—whatever happens there, nothing escapes my eyes."

The three women exchanged shocked and perplexed looks.

Lucci studied the insignia on the ships, a touch of amusement in his eyes.

"General Zod… Krypton's last soldiers, a pack of strays who lost their home. They've arrived a bit earlier than I expected."

"Kryptonians?" Diana frowned. "Clark's people? I heard they become nearly invincible under this solar system's yellow sun."

"Power?" Lucci smiled cryptically, confidence in every word. "Before the absolute laws of reality, so-called biological abilities are no different from ordinary superpowers. But they are persistent… and mad. Left unchecked, Metropolis would soon be a ruin."

"So what are we waiting for?" A faint crimson flame shimmered around Jean. "It's time everyone learned Earth's not a playground for interstellar bullies!"

"That's exactly what I was thinking," Lucci agreed softly.

He reached out and touched the air with his fingertips. At that instant, a massive spatial portal opened beneath the World Tree.

"Let's go greet our new guests."

Lucci stepped into the portal first, the women following. With a flash of distorted blue light, they vanished from the spot.

…