dmims Chapter 373 The Man Who Repelled the End of the World
Chapter 373 The Man Who Repelled the End of the World
Chapter 373 The Man Who Repelled the End of the World
"Ha," Star-Lord chuckled awkwardly, sheathing his dual pistols in an attempt to salvage the situation, "I was just being silly, I was just joking around~"
As he spoke, he shifted his feet slightly, shielding Groot and Rocket in front of him. His rocket boots were ready to go, ensuring he could escape at any moment.
Then he found a cold, sharp object pressed against his neck: "Don't move! You stupid thief!" Gamora raised her knife and restrained the restless Star-Lord. She simply couldn't tolerate this greedy and cowardly thief any longer.
"How dare you say that to me!" Star-Lord was furious whenever he thought about it. Of all the people, Gamora, that green-skinned girl, was the least qualified to criticize him. "I don't know who insisted on killing and robbing people in the streets of Dahl's capital, causing us to end up in this prison!"
Star-Lord's retaliatory barrage didn't do much damage to Gamora, but it did break Rocket's spirits. After all, he and Groot were also imprisoned for the same reason: "The only reason we're in jail is because you're a loser, a noob!"
Rocket was simply randomly matched on the street and found Star-Lord, a high-value target with a $40,000 bounty on his head. He acted decisively and ended up being dragged into this mess.
Now that the plan has been exposed and the 400 million has been lost, the camaraderie that the man and the raccoon had built up in the past ten seconds has collapsed just as quickly. The scene has instantly turned into a heated blame-shifting session: "Who can't even handle disposing of stolen goods properly? They're not tolerant at all, just swaggering around on the street with the stolen goods in their pockets!"
"I am Groot!"
Groot meant, "Go ahead and argue, argue all you want. Argue until Ronan wipes out the outer garrisons, argue until Ronan boards the space station, then we'll all just go down together!"
But because of his strange language system, no one paid any attention.
Star-Lord was beyond reasoning; he was ready to switch to "I'll boil it—"
"Can't you two just shut up for a second?"
Seeing Star-Lord and Rocket relentlessly exchanging barbs, the two getting closer and closer until their spittle was practically spraying each other, Joey quickly grabbed Rocket by the scruff of the neck and lifted him up: "Stop trying to pull any more tricks! Anyone can see you're about to go and attack Gamora again!"
Star-Lord and Rocket's compatibility is ridiculously high. They're still up to no good and are trying to pull off something big together, even at this point.
"Let go of me!" Rocket, who had escaped from the laboratory, had always felt inferior because others didn't treat him like a human being.
"Believe it or not, I have cosmic rabies! Awooo!"
Being carried around like a pet by Superman again only fueled his rage. Always a self-proclaimed high-IQ genius, he immediately yawned and turned to bite Joey's hand: "—Ouch!"
Even with modifications, his tiny canines were still within the realm of flesh and blood. This bite nearly broke two of his teeth, yet it didn't cause Joey any harm.
"Listen up, Crispy Noodles, the four hundred million you're after isn't even worth as much to me as a set of Water Margin hero cards. I can give it to you without a second thought, but only if you can actually be of some use."
Joey retrieved their equipment not so they could turn on him and cause trouble: "Go and temporarily maintain order in the prison, organize them to take refuge on the lowest level, and prevent the guards and prisoners from fighting each other or getting hit by stray bullets from Ronan and the Nova Corps fleet!"
"I am Groot." Groot nodded in agreement.
"If they don't obey—" Among those imprisoned in this jail are some desperate and vicious criminals, and Star-Lord has serious doubts that these people will actually accept his command.
"Idiot!" Rocket raised his particle rifle and elbowed Star-Lord hard in the waistband where he was wearing dual pistols. "Are those two things on your waist made of brittle pistol legs?!"
Joey nodded in agreement: "If you encounter someone who's determined to die, then help them out while you're at it."
Star-Lord was finally relieved to have received Superman's explicit approval; this approach is known in the industry as "finalizing the details of the collaboration."
Don't end up shooting and killing a few people while trying to maintain order, only to be criticized by moral guardians and end up not getting paid—that would be a huge loss.
"So what are you going to do?" Star-Lord wondered why Superman hadn't mentioned anything about his own tasks after assigning a whole bunch of missions.
At this point in time, Star-Lord had not yet embarked on his own path to heroism; he was still thinking in the same way he had when he was surviving in the Marauder fleet.
He wondered to himself, "Surely Superman isn't just trying to trick us into helping the other people in prison to distract the Kree so he can escape?"
In other words, Joey doesn't have the ability to read minds, otherwise he would have given Star-Lord a good whack on the head to see if it was full of water.
"What else can I do?" Joey thought it was ridiculous that anyone would ask such a question at a time like this: "Someone has to deal with the Kree battleships in outer space outside the space station, right?"
"You mean you have backup?" Star-Lord, after counting again and confirming that Superman was only one person, was quite incredulous: "Wait a minute, you're not thinking of—"
"Or what?"
"You really want to go and destroy that battleship? Do you know that it's not just one battleship?"
Ronan's undead battleship is a proper fleet flagship; when scanned from the space station into outer space, all that can be seen is a single, cross-shaped warship.
But Star-Lord, who grew up on the Marauder ship, is quite the expert in warship knowledge. Based on the principle that distant objects appear larger than near ones, Star-Lord conservatively estimates that the flagship must have a wingspan of at least a hundred miles.
What appears to be a solitary warship is actually a super military factory that integrates the functions of an aircraft carrier and a naval gun. The massive amount of carrier-based aircraft, ammunition, and energy reserves inside are enough to support an interstellar war for several years.
No matter how strong Superman is, he is still just a powerful human with a strong body that can fly. Let alone a body of steel, even real steel would be instantly vaporized under the firepower of that warship.
Star-Lord was still trying to persuade Superman, a country bumpkin who had only ever lived on Earth, to properly understand interstellar firepower: "You can stop rifle bullets, but that doesn't mean you can stop machine gun bullets from carrier-based aircraft. Even if you could stop machine gun bullets, do you know about the close-in weapon systems on Kree battleships? The diameter of those shell casings is bigger than our heads. Getting hit by one of those isn't just a bunch of bruises and marks, you get it?"
Star-Lord genuinely hopes that Superman won't try to move mountains, and that they can simply wait for the Nova Corps reinforcements to arrive.
Part of the reason is out of kindness; in this cesspool-like star field, Superman, who comes from his simple home planet Earth, is a rare good person.
On the other hand, what if Superman, who is courting death, gets vaporized by the Kree's firepower and no one pays him? Wouldn't that mean all my efforts were in vain?
But Gamora had already dragged Star-Lord away without a word, preparing to begin maintaining order according to their pre-arranged plan: "Mind your own business, Peter Quill!"
Joey vanished in a flash, leaving only Star-Lord struggling as he was dragged away: "You guys are so mean, just letting Superman go to his death?"
"You have no idea what Superman did on Earth, do you?" Gamora could only say as she dragged the reluctant Peter along, "If you knew, you wouldn't think that way."
"Of course I don't know! Because I was kidnapped by Yondu and brought to this shitty star system when I was eight years old!"
Mentioning this, Star-Lord felt a pang of guilt mixed with anger. His longing for his home planet Earth made him realize he might not have lied to Superman so many times: "If I hadn't been kidnapped, hadn't grown up among those Goshi people of the Marauders, and hadn't lived through so many Goshi years, I wouldn't have become such a trashy person who would ruthlessly swindle even a fellow countryman when meeting him!"
Gamora was more concerned about Star-Lord's next words than his sudden emotional outburst: "How many times have you tricked Superman before? You'd better hope Superman isn't someone who holds grudges."
Getting back to the point, Gamora, as Thanos's daughter and having worked for Ronan for so many years, has enough authority to access things Star-Lord would never know: "In your culture, are there any myths, legends, or religious texts that foreshadow an apocalypse that destroys everything?"
"Of course there is. There's some guy called God who sends fire rain down from the sky, causing floods on earth, and then he pulls out a chair and sits there to judge everyone, blah blah blah. I think it's called Doomsday or something like that —"
Having been kidnapped from Earth as a child and living with aliens, Star-Lord no longer believes in that stuff: "Honestly, if such a thing really existed, would God really have to travel halfway across the universe to find me and say, 'Hey, we had a super awesome party and forgot about you, now come back with me'?"
"Most of the specific descriptions of the end of the world in myths, legends, and religious texts are false, stemming from the fear of extreme natural phenomena in primitive times, but—"
Gamora didn't bring this up to discuss mythology and philosophy with Star-Lord; she simply wanted him to understand the true level of Superman: "The 'doomsday' in your culture doesn't exist in itself, but the concept of the end of the world is a tangible reality. It's a natural phenomenon in the universe, almost unstoppable and insurmountable."
"Once any planet in the universe is targeted by Him, no matter how advanced or powerful the civilization on that planet is, or how desperately it resists, all that awaits them is inevitable annihilation."
"And what I want to say is—you, fellow Earthling, Superman, not long ago, defeated the doomsday Japanese god I mentioned, Galactus, the Devourer of Planets."