Kara Awakens

"How long was I unconscious?"

After Pietro finished his thirty-seventh takeout box, Kara’s eyelashes fluttered slightly, and she slowly opened her eyes.

"Over an hour longer than me." Pietro smiled. Seeing Kara finally wake up eased much of his worry. "Want something to eat? I’m telling you, these pan-fried dumplings are incredible. Zhang, right?"

"They are, but there aren’t many left. Since this fast-food restaurant is now in another dimension, it’ll probably be hard for you to have them again in the future." Zhang Ye shrugged.

"Wait, Zhang, don’t tell me this food came from that polluted world!?" Pietro’s face went pale.

"Yeah." Zhang Ye nodded.

"What!? Why didn’t you tell me earlier!"

Terrified, Pietro hurriedly stuck his fingers down his throat, afraid the food might still carry some contaminant from an unknown entity.

Watching this, Kara couldn’t help but smile.

Having just awakened from unconsciousness, she still felt somewhat dizzy, but as she watched Zhang Ye and Pietro fooling around, all the confusion in her heart vanished.

Kara no longer knew how long it had been since she had felt this way—the feeling of waking up every day with family by her side.

"Stop digging around in there, Pietro. It’s disgusting. I still want to eat." Kara climbed up from the bedsheet spread across the ground and moved closer to the campfire. Though, as a Kryptonian, she was immune to heat and cold, she wanted to be nearer to the flames at this moment.

"Are you crazy? There might be contamination on it." Pietro turned around.

"Idiot, he was lying to you." Kara tore open a fresh takeout box, barely holding back her laughter.

Pietro’s eyes widened in disbelief as he stared at Zhang Ye in shock, seemingly unable to believe Zhang Ye had actually been messing with him.

Zhang Ye merely spread his hands.

"I didn’t expect you to react so strongly. What, is your super brain not working?"

"I’ll fight you!"

Pietro grabbed his Zeus Scepter.

"Enough, stop messing around. You’re both adults, and you always say your mental age is older than mine. If you ask me, you’re the one acting like a fifteen-year-old." Kara spoke up.

Kara had arrived on Earth when she was fifteen and had then been locked up by the Mao Country government for several years. Having had no contact with society during that time, the way she dealt with people had remained at the level of a fifteen-year-old. That was precisely why Pietro often tricked her into calling him big brother.

But honestly, after staying in that hellish, lightless place for so long, Kara might not have understood social interaction, but her actual mental resilience was absolutely beyond that of ordinary people.

"Men are boys until they die. Zhang taught me that." Pietro replied.

Hearing that, Kara turned to look at Zhang Ye.

Feeling Kara’s gaze, Zhang Ye hurriedly said, "He misunderstood it."

After fooling around for a while, Zhang Ye explained the entire sequence of events to Kara. During that battle, Kara and Pietro had experienced completely different things.

If Pietro had witnessed the fall of a polluted reality head-on, then Kara had undoubtedly witnessed the birth of a brand-new reality with her own eyes.

At the time, she had been fighting Magneto. Kara would not hold back just because her opponent was an old man, and Magneto had never met Kara before. To protect the mutant criminals under his command, he had spared no effort in fighting Kara.

On one side was a Kryptonian with a Man of Steel body; on the other was Magneto, who controlled magnetic fields. Their battle directly destroyed half of Manhattan. As a master of grand displays, Magneto only had to raise a hand for every magnetizable object to become his weapon.

In an instant, steel beams and entire skyscrapers whirled through the sky, while cars became hidden weapons Magneto wielded as easily as his own limbs. Even ordinary people far across the shore could see the scene of their battle.

It was also at that moment that the world was slowly reshaped and a brand-new reality was about to be born. Before that new timeline appeared, everything from the original reality was forced by an irresistible power into the cracks between realities.

The heavens and earth split apart, seawater surged backward, and everything in reality crumbled into ruin.

Kara’s final memory ended with a gigantic hand covering the entire sky reaching toward her. She closed her eyes without resisting at all, because she felt utterly safe.

Of course, for some reason, once Kara woke up, an inexplicable thought appeared in her mind: Zhang Ye should get a better pair of gloves. Leather was far too uncomfortable.

"Can that thing still be used? It looks broken." Kara curiously asked, shifting her gaze to the Zeus Scepter beside Pietro.

"The capacitor and transformer burned out. It should still work after some repairs. This thing can help me get some practice in. I’m planning to focus on technology lately. It’d be a waste not to make proper use of a super brain." Pietro replied. "Besides, I have a Vibranium arm now. That’s enough."

"A super brain…" Kara murmured. Back on Krypton, she had clearly been a scientist.

Seeing Kara fall into thought, Zhang Ye couldn’t help but say, "Kara, you can try doing some research too. It never hurts to learn more skills. With a gift as good as a super brain, you need to learn how to use it. Don’t be like your brother."

"Carl? What about him?"

Kara froze for a moment. She did not understand how the topic had suddenly turned to her cousin.

Seeing that, Zhang Ye had no choice but to tell her a joke about Superman.

"Kara, do you know? Whenever your little brother Superman thinks about how to defeat his enemies, his super brain tells him: Hurry up and use your super strength."

"Pfft." Pietro covered his mouth.

"…" Kara also fell silent, biting her lip as she struggled to suppress her laughter.

"This is actually a joke. The reason is that Superman is simply too strong. Before his invincible power, he does not need to think too much, because those enemies are not worthy of him wasting effort on such meaningless things. But what I mean is, Kryptonians aren’t invincible either, right?"

"Mm." Kara’s smile faded. "I gained a lot in the previous world. There are many powerful beings among humans on Earth, and when facing some even higher-level existences, a Kryptonian’s physique is nothing more than a durable toy."

"That’s why, if we want to live well, we still need enough strength." As he spoke, Zhang Ye seemed to recall something and asked again.

"Right, Kara, how do you feel now? Is this world’s sun familiar to you?"

Hearing that, Kara clenched her fist. After pondering for a moment, she slowly raised her head and spoke.

"Maybe because it’s nighttime, I still can’t clearly sense the changes in this world’s sun. But for now, I think my strength has been weakened somewhat…"