The spray froze his arm to stop the bleeding, but that hand was ruined anyway.
"Alright. I've already called an ambulance for him," Zod said. With American ambulances… that thug would probably feel like dying.
Jessica followed Zod home in a daze. She sat on the couch without saying a word.
"Relax. You did a good thing. No one's going to blame you," Zod told her.
"No. I just… I feel sick. Like I'm going to throw up," Jessica said. That bloody scene had terrified her.
"Your strength basically starts at 3030 tons now. That's like getting hit by a heavy truck. A result like that isn't strange," Zod Heath said. "It's not like someone takes your punch, flies away, then stands up like nothing happened. If he could do that, he wouldn't be some random thug."
"Zod… what if I accidentally kill someone?" Jessica asked, unable to stop herself.
"Depends. If you didn't do it on purpose, then stay where you are and call Uld. She'll handle it. If you did it on purpose… then we'll have to see what American law says," Zod said after thinking it over. He had killed plenty of people himself and didn't hold some rigid view of good and evil. This world was not black and white. The chaotic gray zone was far bigger than either side.
Jessica hugged Zod.
He felt a solid impact, but with a biological force field and a magnetic field, the strength was perfectly neutralized.
"I'm not your father. Are you sure acting spoiled like this is appropriate?" Zod asked calmly.
Then he saw Jessica trying to kiss him. He immediately laughed, reached out, and flicked her on the forehead, pushing her away.
"Try that again when you're twenty. Right now it only makes me want to laugh," Zod said, looking at Jessica holding her forehead. Jessica had curves already, sure, but Zod wasn't interested in unripe fruit. He liked mature women, though not someone else's wife.
Jessica watched Zod leave with a sullen face. Am I really that bad? At school, tons of people want me to go to their parties. Even that big dumb football guy wants to ask me out…
Of course, a lot of people asked Wanda out too.
Zod wasn't in a hurry to fish out the Purple Man. Also, today in Hell's Kitchen, he sensed someone else.
Daredevil!
Also called the Devil of Hell's Kitchen.
Matt Murdock!
A lawyer who fought cases for poor people by day, and a vigilante nicknamed "the Devil of Hell's Kitchen" by night. To put it simply: Daredevil!
As a side note, Daredevil was one of Black Widow's many ex-boyfriends, and he himself had many ex-girlfriends too.
Daredevil: Everyone knows I'm blind, so the reason I have lots of girlfriends isn't because I'm lusting after their looks. As for why we broke up, it's because after spending time together we realized we weren't compatible, so we parted on good terms.
Because of an act of bravery in childhood, Murdock got radioactive material in his eyes and went blind, but he gained special abilities because of it.
Aside from his eyesight, all of Murdock's senses reached superhuman levels.
After extremely brutal training, Murdock developed an ability like a radar. Even sitting quietly at home, he could clearly "see" any corner of New York City.
That was a bit exaggerated, but scanning Hell's Kitchen was effortless. All objects and living beings appeared as blurry outlines in his brain, very much like a 3D projection.
In the Marvel world, many superheroes had powerful perception abilities.
Spider-Man's spider-sense warned him before danger happened. Wolverine's animal senses couldn't seek profit, but they could avoid harm.
But Murdock's perception was different from theirs. It was more like an electromagnetic energy emission caused by a change in the brain, a 360360-degree, blind-spot-free coverage of the things around him, collecting information and presenting a "visual" effect.
It was just that Daredevil's abilities were too ordinary, so Zod had no interest at all.
"Zod…"
Uld, his little secretary, pushed the door open and walked in, then saw Zod doing something in front of a human-shaped mannequin.
"What is it?" Zod asked.
Zod noticed that Uld didn't call him Boss. Since he understood his secretary well, he immediately realized this was probably personal, and probably important. Otherwise, Uld wouldn't talk about personal matters at the company during work hours.
"Today is my birthday, so…" Uld looked at Zod.
"Oh. I didn't know today was your birthday. Pick whatever you want as a gift," Zod said, pulling out a bank card.
He wasn't like Tony Stark, the kind of person who needed Pepper to remember his card PIN. Besides, this card was from Zod's own bank.
Yes, he had opened a bank himself, purely to make things more convenient when serving his own needs.
Though being a banker wasn't as fun as people imagined.
"I don't mean that. I mean… can you have dinner with me tonight?" Uld shook her head quickly. Gifts and all that, a genius who only cared about research probably wouldn't come up with anything special. If Zod could normally give her a bouquet of flowers, she'd already be pleasantly surprised. She was more afraid Zod would give her something she couldn't even understand.
"When you say dinner together, how many people are we talking about?" Zod asked, going straight to the point.
"…Just the two of us." Uld brushed her hair back, revealing the delicate, charming lines of her face.
Zod understood the subtext. Just the two of them, huh.
"Sure," Zod said with a nod. Then he planned to buy out the best restaurant in Los Angeles to have dinner with Uld, and prepare a birthday gift while he was at it.
As for the gift, it was a bit俗, but Zod felt gemstones would be a good choice.
Uld left happily. Zod watched her back and shook his head.
Then the mannequin in front of him cracked open.
"Finally got to this step. Sigh," Zod said.
Just now, he had been doing something taboo: human transmutation!
Of course, that was the alchemy term. Zod was simply using atoms like building blocks to assemble a human body.
Even so, this was already behavior that blasphemed the domain of the gods. And without a soul, Zod's plan was to activate brainwaves and see if he could create a person.
If it succeeded, that would be Artificial Human Number One!
"A taboo that blasphemes the domain of the gods. An act of extreme evil…" Zod murmured as he began reconstructing the body again. Atoms were bound by his magnetic field, controlled as they combined little by little.
/-\
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