"Zod, I know you're anxious about this situation, but if the Superhero Association really does that, then we'll go from gray to black overnight. You have to understand, to the people in Congress, public opinion is something they can take or leave."
Tony Stark shook his head.
Right now, superheroes were a beacon in the public's eyes, pure white in their hearts, and only gray in the eyes of politicians and capitalists. That was still within an acceptable range.
But if superheroes chose to carry out justice across national borders, then things would be different.
Because politicians and capitalists were extremely sensitive to something like that. If today you could cross a border and wipe out terrorists in the name of justice, then tomorrow, could you use blackmail material to eliminate the president too?
Even though the Superhero Association currently had overwhelming public support, and Zodhis would probably have a very real shot at winning if he ran in the next presidential election, the truth was that politicians and capitalists treated so-called public opinion as optional at best.
Once the line was crossed, the retaliation would be merciless.
Zodhis nodded, then left.
In the end, it really had come back to this road after all.
Whether it was because of the local civilians who would be punished, or the possibility that the Zandara tribe would retaliate against Dark Knight Zod later on, Zodhis had no desire to see another suicide truck incident.
If superheroes could not make a move, then the devil would do it instead.
Zodhis returned to the base in high spirits, and with atomic reconstruction, he quickly created the role he needed.
Heracles!
His appearance was modeled one-to-one after Berserker from the Type-Moon world.
During the process, Zodhis added Green Hulk's blood, along with the genes of the mutant Gaia.
Gaia was a mutant gene that had been discovered by accident, and it was a very interesting one. It could draw power from the earth, granting three superpowers: super strength, super durability, and super regeneration. As long as the user was touching the ground, the power would flow endlessly, even continuing to grow stronger.
It sounded very much like Antaeus, the son of Poseidon and Gaia in Greek mythology.
Antaeus was the son of Poseidon, god of the sea, and Gaia, goddess of the earth. He never grew tired, and the moment his body touched the earth, he could draw strength from it. As long as he did not leave the ground, he would never run out of power.
Even before that, the Heracles forged from Green Hulk and Red Hulk had already been a war machine of overwhelming strength and indestructible durability. But once the Gaia mutant gene was added, this enormous black giant became an unstoppable god of war, capable of smashing through anything in his path.
Zodhis also wrote memories into Heracles.
The taciturn Heracles slowly rose to his feet.
"Go. Wipe out that so-called Zandara tribe for me. All of them."
Zodhis teleported himself and Heracles to Benghazi, Libya, in Africa, then gave the order.
At that moment, Chief Zandara was still thinking about how to retaliate against Dark Knight Zod. The earlier suicide truck attack had given him a very good idea.
He was standing before the floor-to-ceiling windows, admiring the scenery outside and feeling pleased with himself for coming up with such a brilliant plan, when a pickup truck suddenly flew up from below, spinning several times through the air before smashing straight into his window.
"What the hell?"
Chief Zandara was left stunned, his body cut all over by the shattered glass. But that was a pickup truck, and he was dozens of floors above the ground. How in the world had that thing flown all the way up here?
At that moment, he heard thunderous gunfire and explosions erupt outside. When he leaned toward the window and looked down, he saw a gigantic black brute charging into the Zandara Tower that he was so proud of.
An Apache that had no time to take off was smashed apart by the black giant on the spot, and Chief Zandara's heart instantly sped up. Damn it, that Apache had not been easy to buy at all!!!
He watched as his men set up heavy machine guns and unleashed a storm of fire at the monster.
The heavy machine gun used large-caliber .50 BMG ammunition, giving it tremendous firepower, a stable trajectory, and extreme range, with a rate of fire of 450 to 550 rounds per minute.
It operated using a short-recoil barrel system and a locking structure with a falling metal wedge.
The weapon used a one-way feeding, two-stage ammunition system. The guide post at the end of the feed lever fit into the curved groove on top of the bolt, and as the bolt moved back and forth, the feeding cycle was completed.
It used a simple blade front sight and an open rear sight, both mounted on the receiver.
This thing hit harder than the famous Barrett heavy sniper rifle. It was basically a fully automatic anti-materiel rifle.
Most heavy machine guns had not even been designed primarily to kill people. They were meant to hit targets behind cover or clear obstacles out of the way.
Not to mention that this time it was eight heavy machine guns against a single body of flesh and blood?
And yet the result was absolutely jaw-dropping.
The black giant ignored the rain of bullets entirely. The .50 BMG rounds struck his body without even breaking his skin, and the moment he got close, he destroyed the vehicle and the machine guns with a single punch.
"RPG!"
Three Zandara soldiers raised the age-old rocket launchers in their hands and aimed at the black giant.
The screaming rockets were dodged by the black giant with an agility so outrageous it defied imagination. Then he kicked a nearby vehicle, sending it flying dozens of meters through the air. The force alone stirred up a blast of wind. The vehicle tore through a wall before finally coming to a stop, and as for those three Zandara soldiers, it was already impossible to tell which fragments of bone belonged to whom.
"Damn it, he actually dared attack us!"
Chief Zandara stared in disbelief. In his eyes, the black giant was probably about the same level as the Superhero Association's S-Class hero, Hulk. After all, they looked fairly similar. Zodhis had done an excellent job keeping things secret, and the military files had been destroyed too, so the outside world had always believed Hulk simply looked like that. No one knew of Bruce Banner's existence.
That madman, Dark Knight Zod!
How dared he, how dared he let a superhero do something like this!
Chief Zandara had always believed that his own courage and madness far exceeded that of ordinary people. Otherwise, he never would have beaten out more than fifty siblings to become chief.
But at this moment, he realized that compared to Zodhis, he was nowhere close.
Was he not afraid that the five major powers, no, the United Nations, would jointly sanction him?
What exactly was he trying to do?
Was he trying to place superheroes, and himself, above both law and nation???
For a moment, Chief Zandara felt his entire body go cold.
With trembling hands, he hurriedly reached for the phone.
He had to tell the big boss behind him.
Zodhis had gone mad!
/-\
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