Chapter 138: The Dark Sun Descends
Kalpa opened his eyes. He was in a basement. His main body was here, its skin a deep bronze, his hair short, his face plain. He was only 170cm tall, but his body was a dense, powerful mass of muscle.
The moment he awoke, a blade was already at his neck. The Japanese woman who hadn't been with the main group, Kimiko, was now standing in front of him. She couldn't speak, and her expression was exceptionally cold.
Kalpa's eyes lowered slightly. He understood everything.
"When was it?" he asked, his voice calm. "When did you have that Cate girl alter my perception and memories?"
He should have realized something was wrong when Golden Boy had appeared with Butcher's crew. But for some reason, he hadn't. More obviously, as a sex addict, there was no reason he wouldn't have coveted a beauty like Cate. The only explanation was that he had already been captured. Before he had transferred his consciousness to Starlight's body, he had been in a weaker vessel, and Maeve or the Compound-V-enhanced Butcher must have subdued him.
From that moment on, he had been under Cate's influence. Cate, a character from the Gen V spinoff, was one of the most powerful and dangerous types of telepaths. Even while on supe-suppressing medication, she could still control people through touch. And without it, she could read the minds of anyone near her and control them directly. She could even alter their memories and perceptions.
Kalpa shook his head, the blade scraping against his neck with a sickening, leathery sound. "I really underestimated you all. Hahaha…" He laughed, a hearty, genuine sound, mocking both himself and that other fool, "Mercenary Tao."
The two of them, who had thought they were the master puppeteers, had both fallen into the trap of these mere plot characters. Now that he thought about it, a selfish bastard like Butcher would never have agreed to a plan that depended entirely on an unknown quantity like himself. It went against his very character.
His laughter grew louder. Suddenly, he remembered the last thing he had seen before Starlight's body had been destroyed: "Mercenary Tao" being sent flying by A-Train. His lips curled into a sneer.
"Oh, Tao… Tao… I was manipulated by Cate, but you? You saw Golden Boy and still didn't realize she was there? You deserved to die."
Kimiko frowned. She hated this dangerous man. She put more pressure on the blade, intending to take his head.
But Kalpa just looked up at her. "Hey, hey. I know you and I aren't a good match. You're one of those self-healing types I hate, and you're ugly. But I'd advise you to wait for Butcher's order…" He knew that if his main body was only being held here, it meant Butcher still needed him for something.
Sure enough, the phone rang. It was Mother's Milk. "Kimiko. Order the man to use that technique. Kill Homelander! If he refuses, kill him."
Kalpa shrugged and held up his hands, signaling for Kimiko to remove the steel bars that bound him. Kimiko put down the phone and roughly twisted the bars off. Her ability was also formidable, a low-rent version of Wolverine's, with a powerful healing factor that also granted her superhuman physical strength.
Kalpa, now free, walked out of the basement. He could hear the massive explosions from the battle outside. In the distance, Homelander was flying through the air, firing his heat-vision wildly. Butcher's heat-vision was firing back, but Homelander was too fast, and Butcher was taking a beating.
Kalpa's gaze swept the battlefield, looking for any sign of Kaito. But Kimiko was already pressing her blade to his heart.
Kalpa sighed. "You know, you don't have to do this. Once my own rival is dead, I was going to kill Homelander anyway. After all, a kill of that level brings great benefits."
WHOOSH!
Hughie, naked, teleported in. He stared at Kalpa, his face a mask of a thousand different agonies. But in the end, he just looked down and said, "That Mercenary Tao is already dead. He confirmed it. Heartbeat and pulse are gone, bones are shattered, organs are destroyed. Butcher says to do it now."
He kept his head down, to hide the rage in his eyes. But Butcher had promised him. After Homelander was dead, he would kill Kalpa, and avenge Annie. These Asian bastards who had brought so much chaos to their country had to be eliminated.
Kalpa pretended not to see their intentions. He knew that Butcher's crew, in their current state, had lost all other means of killing Homelander.
He placed his hands together, his thumbs touching, the mudra held before his chest. The Crown Chakra at his forehead began to glow. At the same time, he began to chant, a high-pitched, sacred sound that could not be perceived by normal hearing.
This was the moment. The moment to guide everything to a broken, final end. The Dark Sun would descend.
"I will spread the radiance of the Peerless One…" His chanting grew louder, and the golden light from his body grew more intense. At first, it was just a glow, but soon, it began to emit an unbearable heat. Hughie was the first to fall back, feeling as if he were standing before a furnace. The temperature was beyond what a human could withstand. It wasn't just him. The nearby windows and steel railings began to smoke, then burst into flame.
The Asian man was still chanting, his voice rising in a crescendo.
FWOOSH!
Flames erupted from his clothes, and then the entire house was ablaze. Kimiko was also forced to flee.
A massive torch of fire rose into the sky. The deep red flames were far hotter than any normal house fire.
Homelander, at first, didn't notice. He was still busy beating on his opponents. With his power fully unleashed, he was in a league of his own. He was not only faster than A-Train, but his control of his flight was on another level. His strength completely overwhelmed Queen Maeve. And while Butcher had similar powers, he was gradually losing ground in both strength and speed.
Homelander had lost his mind. He was no longer distinguishing between friend or foe, lasering anyone who appeared in his vision into a pile of melted flesh.
SPLAT!
He finally punched clean through Butcher's abdomen. The arrogant man who had been hunting him for so long finally coughed up blood. Homelander impassively pushed him away.
"Who's next?" He looked at A-Train, whose ribs were broken, and at Maeve, who was bleeding from a wound on her chest (the wound Kaito had given her, which hadn't been as serious as it looked).
Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ!
A strange mantra suddenly echoed from the sky itself. Homelander turned and saw, in the massive pillar of fire, a Dark Sun slowly rising. In a blink, it was high in the air, blotting out the real sun. Black flames began to radiate from it. Homelander squinted. He had the strangest feeling that the sun had actually turned black.
He shook his head. The next moment, he saw the Black Sun begin to fall. His expression changed, and he shot into the sky to meet it. No one could use a cheap trick like this to fool him. He could fly up and look at the real sun himself.
But in the next instant, his blue suit began to smolder. He looked down and saw that his entire body was now covered in small, black flames.
"AAAGH!"
Terrified screams rose from the ground. Bobby, his body trembling, was now completely broken. No matter how much he believed in Homelander, this sight had shattered his courage. "The sun… it's falling…"
Everyone was forced to the ground by a terrifying pressure. The Black Sun descended. The immense pressure and heat filled everyone with a primal terror, like ants on a cliff before a volcanic eruption. The direct, visceral fear of death was absolute.
I'm going to die. We're going to die. We must die…
Homelander also looked up at the Black Sun, which was now thousands of meters in diameter. He knew now this was no illusion, no trick.
"What is this… ability…?" Even the proud Homelander, in this moment, felt a flicker of fear.
His eyes glowed, and his heat vision shot out, but it just fizzled out in the black mass, kicking up a few black flames. That strange chanting was still echoing, making him uneasy. He looked down at his followers, who were all crushed on the ground, and turned to flee.
But a strange wave of power pulsed from the Black Sun, and Homelander found that he was frozen in place, unable to move, forced to watch as the Black Sun fell upon him.
"I won't die…" he roared, his face a mask of terror. "NOTHING CAN KILL ME…!"
He was swallowed by the Black Sun. The world went silent, and then a massive wave of light and heat erupted. A black flower bloomed over the state of New York, its dark petals swallowing several city blocks in black fire. The ground began to sink, the earth itself collapsing.
Kalpa, at the moment the Final Sun fell, felt a wave of exhaustion. But suddenly, his heart leaped. A presence. A breath on the back of his neck.
"It seems," a voice whispered, "the spot you're standing in… is the safe zone for this technique."
It was Mercenary Tao. He wasn't dead.