DC: Rise Of The Kryptonian Tyrant

Bardi let out a deep, guttural snort, gritting his teeth as the whites of his eyes turned bloodshot, the pupils narrowing dangerously. The deep scar across his face twisted and writhed, giving his already fearsome visage the appearance of a furious giant rising from molten lava.

The electric current coursing through his hand left his body paralyzed, and for a fleeting moment, it dragged his thoughts back to the first time he arrived on Earth. His spaceship had exploded, crashing him to the planet's surface, where he was captured and imprisoned. He had been little more than a living specimen to them, his brain drained for knowledge and experimentation.

If he hadn't manipulated Jenny—willingly allowing himself to be paralyzed and even risking death just to seize a chance to bask in sunlight—he might still be trapped, treated as nothing more than a shell, drained and discarded.

The current racing through him now, however, was unlike the anesthesia used against him back then. It didn't numb him into submission. Instead, it ignited a primal fury deep within him, a rage that bubbled and churned from his very core.

His glare was ferocious, his bare eyes flashing with raw aggression. His powerful frame surged with tension, muscles swelling as blood pumped fiercely through his veins. The blue electric arcs snaked across his body but were swiftly overpowered by the unstoppable force of his raging blood. His body, teeming with vitality, resisted the paralysis, granting him full control of his movements once again.

This electric current, lethal enough to reduce an ordinary human to a lifeless husk, was rendered impotent in the face of Bardi's terrifying resilience.

At that moment, countless bullets screeched through the air, their red-hot trajectories streaking toward him like a relentless barrage of fiery needles. It was a hailstorm of death, a blistering salvo meant to shred him into an unrecognizable mass.

With a single step, a shockwave of white energy erupted from his body, creating an air barrier that distorted the space around him. Gripping the metal mesh of the barrier in front of him, he charged forward with an explosive burst of power. Each step rumbled like the stride of a colossal beast, the sheer force of his movements leaving massive spider-web cracks in the ground beneath him.

The relentless gunfire roared like a deafening drumbeat. Smoke bombs filled the air, but a single pulse of violent energy from Bardi's body dispersed the thick fog. Emerging from the haze like a primordial beast, his presence radiated pure menace, his aura alone seemingly capable of shattering bones.

Bullets tore through the air toward him, but his body barreled through the forest of projectiles, his thick arms raised to shield the most vital parts of his body. The bullets tore into his flesh, but they only penetrated an inch or two into his fibrous muscles before being stopped by his unyielding strength. His flesh seemed to devour the projectiles, his dense musculature rendering them powerless.

No bullet, no matter how many, could halt his ferocious momentum.

With a sudden, thunderous crack, Bardi appeared directly in front of a soldier. The man didn't even have time to process the massive figure looming before him before Bardi's fist collided with his head. The impact was catastrophic. The soldier's gas mask shattered, his skull exploding in a gruesome burst of bone and brain matter. The lifeless body was flung over ten meters away, spasming uncontrollably as it collapsed into death.

The metal mesh that had been clinging to Bardi moments earlier was now draped over the mangled corpse, partially covering its shattered torso, leaving only the bloodied remnants of a head exposed.

The relentless gunfire abruptly ceased.

Slade lying on the ground and the soldiers around him froze in stunned silence.

The acrid scent of gunpowder hung thick in the air, spreading rapidly from the barrels of their weapons. Yet no one dared to move.

Bardi shook his right arm. The motion sent bullets lodged in his skin like tiny plugs clattering to the ground one by one. The crisp sound of the falling bullets echoed in the unnerving stillness, startling everyone who heard it.

The wounds on his arm, where the bullets had penetrated, exposed white fibers beneath the mangled flesh. Despite the damage, only a few drops of blood dripped to the ground, painting a chilling image of his resilience.

Before their very eyes, the bullet holes began to close. The flesh squirmed and regrew, granulation tissue sprouting to repair the damage. The sight was grotesque, the itching sensation from the regeneration irritating enough to make Bardi want to claw at his own skin.

His arm, moments ago riddled with injuries, was visibly healing, leaving behind no trace of the destruction that had just occurred.

"Good."

A sneer tugged at the corner of Bardi's mouth. He hadn't realized that while his body wasn't as indestructible as Superman's, bullets still couldn't do him any real harm.

When the bullets had struck his arm, he could feel the searing heat and kinetic energy from their rotation as they pierced his skin. Yet, his cellular structure was different, each cell carried a force field of sorts. When combined into blood, and further transformed into his dense, powerful muscles, the bullets were consumed by the fibers themselves, drained of their momentum and rendered harmless.

For years, he had assumed that his body was weaker than that of the average Kryptonian due to some genetic flaw, which made him cautious, unwilling to risk direct gunfire for fear of injury. But now...

He glanced at his arm, unscathed and already healed from the barrage of bullets.

He was indeed weaker than a standard Kryptonian.

But even so, Earth's weapons couldn't harm him.

And that realization—it thrilled him.

The tension in the air thickened. The acrid scent of gunpowder was suffocating, mixing with the stale smoke lingering from the firefight. The soldiers and even Slade, who lay nearby, couldn't believe what they had just witnessed.

"The bullets didn't hurt me nearly as much as I thought they would."

Bardi chuckled, his voice low and guttural. "It seems I've underestimated myself all this time."

His laughter grew, the grin on his face widening into something unsettling and unhinged. The soldiers watching him shivered, their fear deepening as Bardi suddenly discarded the M16 automatic rifle, M8 pistol, and the accompanying magazines in his hands. The weapons clattered to the ground with an air of finality.

He finally understood. Carrying these guns was nothing more than a burden.

This wasn't about human weapons anymore.

The atmosphere shifted, becoming colder, more stifling. The soldiers surrounding him felt a chill run down their spines. They were drenched in cold sweat as fear gripped them tighter than their trembling fingers could hold their weapons.

He was unarmed now.

Yet the sheer terror he inspired was greater than when he had been carrying firearms.

"What... what are you?" one soldier stammered, his voice cracking.

"What kind of monster is this?" another whispered hoarsely.

"An alien... an alien monster!" someone shouted, their voice quivering with disbelief.

The words rippled through the group, heightening their panic.

They couldn't believe their eyes. No creature on Earth not even the largest, most fearsome predators in history could shrug off bullets. A hailstorm of firepower like the one they unleashed would have turned a Tyrannosaurus rex into a pile of bloody chunks.

Yet Bardi...

He simply shook his arm, letting the bullets embedded in his flesh fall away, and his wounds healed almost instantly.

This wasn't a world where superheroes and supervillains had begun to emerge yet. This was still an era where bullets were the ultimate answer to power and destruction. And here was a man—a being—who could block bullets as casually as someone brushing away dust.

His ability to resist the firepower of modern weaponry was beyond imagination. In this world, he was already an unstoppable weapon, an existence that couldn't be eliminated by conventional means. Even missiles might not be enough.

The soldiers' guns trembled in their hands. What use were they now, when even their most destructive bullets couldn't penetrate his skin? What kind of monster was this?

"Is this... still a fight?"

Slade, still lying on the ground, stared at Bardi in disbelief. His mind reeled as he tried to process what he had just witnessed. Human weapons, hot lead designed to end lives had proven utterly ineffective.

The bullets had done little more than draw a few drops of Bardi's blood. Those same drops now stained the ground, mocking the very idea of resistance.

Slade's instincts screamed at him to run. Every nerve in his body was on edge, his heart pounding furiously as adrenaline flooded his system. Fear seized him completely, the kind of primal terror that made his pulse race and his body tremble uncontrollably.

"I'll grant you true fear."

Bardi's voice was low but carried an ominous weight, like the rumble of thunder before a storm.

With a single step, the ground cracked and caved beneath him, forming a web of fissures. In an instant, Bardi closed the distance between himself and a soldier who had fallen to the ground in terror. The man didn't even have time to react.

Bardi's right hand shot out, his fingers closing around the soldier's neck like an iron vice. Lifting the man effortlessly off the ground, he held him high, his grip tightening with terrifying strength.

"Devil!"

The word escaped someone's lips in a terrified whisper.

The other soldiers could only watch in horror as the scene unfolded.

The light from their flashlights shone from behind the soldier dangling helplessly in Bardi's grip, casting a long shadow over Bardi's face. His features were shrouded in darkness, but the cruel smile on his lips gleamed, revealing perfectly white teeth.

In one hand, Bardi held the soldier aloft like a ragdoll. His expression twisted with cold malice as he squeezed.