Shen You had more or less already guessed the woman's identity.
A Kryptonian female—most likely one who followed Kara to Earth. When you rule out the well-known Kryptonians from the original work, there really aren't many left.
Her name was Astra. Yep, just so happened to be the same name as the senior Astra Shen You knew.
She was Kara's aunt, a general from Krypton, and from her rank alone, she seemed to be on par with the more famous General Zod. Like Zod, she had been imprisoned in the Phantom Zone before Krypton's destruction for crimes against the Kryptonian people, which ironically saved her from the planet's annihilation.
She was ruthless, combative, and willing to do whatever it took to reach her goals—a born warrior. In a way, you could say she was a gender-swapped Zod.
But clearly, even if she was a born warrior, she had no room to demonstrate it here.
From the moment she landed, Astra had been completely outplayed—locked in with a combo that had no gaps. Her powers and skills had no chance to shine.
Eight Light Wheels!
A high-concentration slash of Specium energy roared through the air toward the Kryptonian, who had just been blasted into the ground!
Astra let out a roar, raised her right arm to block the energy disk's slash. The spinning saw of energy sparked violently against her steel-like skin, slicing open flesh and spraying blood. With a shout, she swung her arm, forcibly redirecting the energy disk with sheer brute strength.
Credit where it's due—Kryptonian durability really was top-notch. But then again, not entirely unexpected. There were plenty of monsters that could tank the Light Wheel, and Shen You knew he wasn't on the same level as the Ultra Brothers in terms of skill strength. Still, this gave him valuable new data about Kryptonian physical durability in this universe.
Because understanding Kryptonian power through memory alone, without practical experience, was pretty much impossible. As the saying goes: man is iron, food is steel—can't live on lore alone. DC's settings were always changing depending on which writer ran out of toilet paper. The Kryptonians' power levels were especially prone to disaster.
When they're strong, they can tow planets like toys. When they're weak, they can barely lift a freeway bridge. Shen You could still vaguely remember watching the TAS animation as a kid where Superman almost failed to lift a crane with all his might…
There's wisdom in the saying: "Practice brings true knowledge." Lore is for reference only. When it comes to power levels, you need hard data.
Boom!
A sonic boom cracked the air.
A transparent shockwave exploded behind the black-clad woman. Astra broke the sound barrier the moment she launched, hurtling straight at Shen You's face with a thunderous punch!
Maybe because she was a born fighter, she recovered quickly. It looked like her vision was already starting to return, and she had managed to lock onto Shen You's position for a direct hit.
She was clearly furious—understandable, really. It's like getting hit by three stuns in a row in a competitive game, face rolled across the keyboard, completely helpless and carried straight back to base—anyone would rage.
But—
Shen You calmly raised his hand, fingers spread.
Pa.
Her fist slammed into his open palm. The shockwave from the impact blew through the entire factory, nearly toppling everything inside. Even the dust was sucked away, creating a vacuum around the two of them.
Shen You stood firm, not moving an inch.
Astra's pupils shrank as she stared at the calm alien before her, heart turning to utter turmoil.
Impossible!
After escaping the Phantom Zone and absorbing the yellow sun, she'd quickly understood the terrifying scope of her powers. She could punch through the hull of a Kryptonian warship. How could anyone possibly take her punch head-on without budging?
Wait.
Astra had a sudden realization.
She hadn't noticed before due to the blindness and deafness from the earlier attacks, but now she saw it—a strange red light glowing from somewhere nearby.
It came from the red-and-silver battle suit that had ambushed her. The unmanned armor hovered nearby, both palms extended, emitting an intense red radiation.
It reminded her of Krypton's red sun.
Her power was weakening!
The horrifying thought chilled her anger into fear.
Just who is this guy?
He hadn't just planned everything perfectly—he clearly knew Kryptonians inside and out. If the sensory bombardment was standard tech, then this red radiation was obviously designed specifically to counter Kryptonians!
First of all, he couldn't be human. No way. With this level of tech and the ability to go toe-to-toe with a Kryptonian physically, she wouldn't believe it even if you fed her a pound of kryptonite.
So when the hell did Krypton offend this kind of terrifying alien race?
She had to destroy the source of the red radiation first!
Thinking that, she immediately turned her head, eyes glowing with red heat vision, ready to fire!
Then—bang.
Her head snapped to the side from a powerful blow.
Of course Shen You wasn't going to let her finish charging her laser. He interrupted her casting with a clean punch to the face.
Astra shouted and swung a counterpunch. Though hasty, her strike was still sharp. After all, she was a general of Krypton. Even if her combat skills weren't on Zod's level, they wouldn't be far off. She was proficient in every form of Kryptonian martial arts and was a top-tier hand-to-hand combatant.
But Shen You was no stranger to close combat either. In the Land of Light, hand-to-hand was a core curriculum. He had literally trained for thousands of years.
After thousands of years of day-in, day-out training, even a pig would learn to climb trees.
He read her move instantly. With a slight tilt of his head, he dodged effortlessly and countered with a throat strike.
Despite their superhuman physiques, Kryptonians shared a similar anatomy with humans. The throat remained one of their most vulnerable points.
You just needed enough power behind the hit.
The blow to her throat had the intended effect—she staggered backward, clutching her neck, eyes wide, mouth open in a silent cry, blood in her throat.
It wasn't just the physical strength—the precision of the attack caught Astra completely off guard.
A perfect trap for Kryptonians. A strategy that was low-key despicable. And on top of that, such absurd strength and skill?
It's not scary to fight a pro. It's not scary to fight a cheese player.
What's scary is when the pro is also a cheese player.
There's no room to breathe. How do you even fight that!?
Astra had seen countless battles. She knew—when facing an overwhelming opponent, even a millisecond of hesitation could mean defeat. She forced herself to ignore the pain and swung again.
But under the red sun radiation, her strength had been greatly diminished. Add in the recent blow, and her punch lost even more speed and power. Even the technique behind it was weak.
Kryptonians rarely relied on technique—they just steamrolled most enemies. But against someone on their level, technique suddenly mattered a lot.
Shen You casually parried her punch with a smooth inner block. Then came a two-hit counter: a jab followed by a mid-body punch. Both strikes landed cleanly. The transparent shockwaves burst against Astra's body. Under the red glow, she staggered backward, feeling as though her organs and bones had shifted from the impact. Blood gushed from her mouth.
She forced herself to stand. When she looked up again, the red-and-silver alien had already risen into the air and was swinging a punch down at her.
That one punch, as it descended, radiated a divine white light that seemed infinite.
And right before her eyes, his fist rapidly expanded, growing larger and larger—until it eclipsed her entire field of vision, growing even bigger than her whole body.
In that instant, it felt like the entire world was consumed by that glowing silver fist.
And from that overwhelming punch, she seemed to read one single word.
Death.
BOOM!!!