Chapter 11: Butcher Comes to Threaten, But Can't Even Break the Protagonist's Defense
The door closed behind him.
The old latch clicked back with a dull thud.
The narrow hallway was as dark as an iron canister.
A faint heat emanated from the center of his forehead.
Clark knew without looking that it was the laser dot of an infrared sight, swaying slightly across his brow.
The air drifted with the bitter scent of cheap tobacco and the pungent, chemical acidity of gun oil.
The old fabric sofa opposite let out an unpleasant creak.
Someone in the darkness shifted their posture.
"Your taste in groceries is terrible, mate."
The dark figure on the sofa spoke.
The voice was coarse, carrying a thick London street accent.
"Lettuce that's about to expire? Is this the scrap Vought Corporation tosses to their lapdogs in the media?"
Clark stood still.
His left hand was still clutching the white plastic bag filled with discounted vegetables.
The handles dug into his fingers.
He deliberately switched fingers to hold it, and the plastic bag let out a harsh crinkling sound.
"Sir, did you walk into the wrong apartment?"
Clark pushed up the black-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose.
His voice held just the right amount of panic and confusion.
"I'm a reporter, not some lapdog. This is the apartment I'm renting."
"Shut it."
The person on the sofa was impatient.
Heavy combat boots were propped directly onto the glass coffee table, sweeping a few old magazines onto the carpet.
"I'm in the right place. Clark Kent, right?"
Butcher's face was hidden in the shadows.
Only the metal barrel of the large-caliber sniper rifle reflected the faint light from outside the window.
The muzzle rested steadily on his knee.
"The car accident scene on Sixth Avenue, you were there."
Butcher toyed with a metal lighter, the friction of the gears making a clicking noise.
"The abandoned heavy industrial zone, you were there too."
"You're just a rookie writing trash news, how are you faster at getting to the scene than a stray dog smelling blood?"
The lighter lid snapped open, revealing a cluster of ghostly blue flames.
By the light of the flame, Clark caught a clear view of that stubbly, disheveled face.
Butcher's eyes were as vicious as a wolf that had been starving for days.
"Where is that freak in the Red Cape?"
Butcher extinguished the lighter, and the room plunged back into darkness.
"Are you his contact? Or an undercover lookout planted by Vought Corporation?"
"Don't play dumb with me. Tell me where he is, and I'll leave you with one leg."
Clark felt a bit tired.
Not physically, but maintaining this disguise was mentally draining.
He looked down at the plastic bag in his hand.
He'd been bumped by a fat guy on the subway earlier, and the tomato at the very bottom had burst its skin.
A drop of sticky, dark red juice was trickling down the bag.
Splat.
The juice hit the old wooden floor.
"You've dirtied my floor."
Clark sighed softly.
"I really just got off work and still have to make myself some dinner."
He looked up at Butcher.
"That toy in your hand looks quite dangerous; if it goes off, we'll both be in trouble."
"A toy?"
Butcher was amused.
His laughter sounded like sandpaper grinding against a rusty iron pipe, revealing an unconcealable violence.
He sat up straight abruptly.
"This gun is loaded with special armor-piercing rounds."
Butcher reached out and patted the cold rifle stock.
"One shot can rip the roof off a military armored vehicle. You want to test your skull's hardness against it?"
Clark didn't answer.
He didn't even put down the bag of cheap vegetables.
He took half a step forward in his canvas shoes.
This half-step distance annoyed Butcher.
Years of intuition from fighting on the front lines told him that this kid wasn't right.
He was too calm.
No normal person, with a large-caliber sniper rifle pointed at their head, would still be worrying about a broken tomato.
Make an example of him.
The thought flashed through Butcher's mind.
He had to make this kid see blood and smell the bone marrow.
Only then would he honestly spill Vought's secrets.
Butcher pressed his wrist down.
The muzzle instantly left the center of Clark's forehead and shifted downward.
The infrared dot landed at the base of Clark's right thigh.
No countdown.
No ultimatum.
His rough index finger pulled the trigger directly.
Bang!
A massive explosion roared through the dozens of square meters of the apartment.
The deafening noise made the old glass windows hum frantically.
The gunpowder gas expanded instantly.
A half-meter-long orange flame erupted from the muzzle.
The bright light turned the entire room deathly white.
The pungent smell of gunpowder smoke flooded every corner like a tide.
The special alloy armor-piercing round tore through the air with lethal kinetic energy.
It was moving too fast to even leave a blur.
It headed straight for Clark's right leg.
Butcher didn't even blink.
He waited to see the spray of blood as the thigh flesh was blown open.
He waited to hear the kid's shrill scream.
Ping.
A strange, crisp sound.
It was like someone tapping a heavy steel plate with an iron spoon.
The sound wasn't loud, but in the aftermath of the gunshot, it sounded particularly jarring.
There was no image of flying flesh and blood.
No dull sound of shattering bones.
Clark didn't even bend his knees by a single millimeter.
He stood firmly in place, not even the plastic bag in his hand swayed.
The sharp bullet head, capable of piercing a tank, collided with the fabric of his khaki trousers.
Beneath that thin layer of cotton was a transparent Bio-field that completely ignored the laws of physics.
At the moment of contact, the bullet head withstood an immeasurable, terrifying reaction force.
The brass casing shattered into powder on the spot.
The high-hardness armor-piercing core, like a piece of soft clay thrown into a hydraulic press, was instantly crushed into a flat metal disc.
Clatter.
The scorching metal disc lost its kinetic energy and slid down his trouser leg.
It hit the synthetic carpet with a heavy thud.
The high temperature burned a charred hole in the carpet, emitting a wisp of foul-smelling white smoke.
The sneer on Butcher's face froze solid.
He remained in the stance of holding the gun, his finger still on the trigger.
Yet, he himself was like a stone frozen in a freezer.
Even his breathing stalled.
He lowered his head stiffly.
He looked at the smoking scrap metal on the carpet.
Then he raised his gaze to look at Clark's trouser leg, which didn't even have a single broken thread.
The room was deathly silent.
Only the sizzling sound of the carpet being scorched continued.
The string in his brain called "reason" snapped with a pop.
What the hell.
What the fucking hell!
What kind of monster is this?
Clark moved.
He turned around and slowly placed the plastic bag of discounted vegetables on the old shoe cabinet nearby.
His movements were very gentle, fearing he might bruise the remaining good tomatoes.
Afterward, he raised his right hand.
He reached for the bridge of his nose.
His fingers pinched the edge of those hard plastic black-rimmed glasses.
He slowly took them off.
As the glasses left his cheeks, that timid, clumsy, and easy-to-bully newspaper rookie instantly evaporated.
Replacing him was a terrifying sense of oppression that tore through all disguises.
A massive, suffocating pressure filled the room like solid lead blocks.
The air became incomparably viscous.
The surrounding temperature seemed to drop below freezing in that instant.
In the darkness, Clark looked down at the man on the sofa.
Those eyes, originally gentle and azure, were now as deep as two wells capable of swallowing light.
They revealed a glimmer that chilled one to the bone.
Butcher felt his lungs being gripped tightly by an iron hand.
He couldn't inhale a single bit of oxygen.
Cold sweat instantly soaked through the cotton vest inside his trench coat, trickling down his spine.
He finally realized what a stupid thing he had done.
He thought that by following the clues, he could catch a low-level guard dog of Vought Corporation.
Instead, he had kicked open the lair of a true god.
This person didn't need any contact for the Red Cape at all.
He was that god!
A strong desire to survive and the instinct of a special forces soldier forcibly overcame the fear in his body.
Butcher violently threw away the sniper rifle that had turned into scrap metal.
His right hand reached into the deepest pocket of his trench coat at an incredibly fast speed.
Five rough fingers clenched tightly into a fist.
His thumb felt a cold plastic shell.
It was the button for the remote detonator.
He bit down on his back molars, without any hesitation.
He pressed it hard.
Chapter 12: Do Explosives Work?
Frenchie watched the unscathed protagonist and knelt.
He pressed his thumb hard against the hard plastic button.
The plastic casing emitted a dull click.
The sound was insignificant in the quiet room, yet it sounded like a funeral knell.
Outside the door.
There wasn't even a broken sensor light in the hallway; it was pitch black.
Frenchie crouched in a dark corner, chewing on a piece of gum that had lost its flavor.
He stared intently at the peeling security door, his palms slick with sweat.
A faint static sound came through the micro-earpiece in his ear.
That was the signal that Butcher had pressed the detonator.
Frenchie spat out the gum abruptly and flicked open the safety cover of the homemade detonator in his hand.
"Goodbye, Vought Corporation's lackey."
He muttered in a thick French accent.
He pressed the red button hard.
Two pounds of military-grade C4 explosive.
It was hidden in the package disguised as a pizza box that had been delivered to the room earlier.
The power was enough to flip an armored vehicle.
BOOM!
A deafening explosion erupted behind the door.
The entire old apartment building shook violently, and the glass windows let out a scream as if on the verge of shattering.
Plaster fell from the ceiling, hitting Frenchie on the shoulder.
The vibration from the ground traveled through the soles of his shoes to his knees, making his calves numb.
With this amount of explosives, that thin wooden door would definitely be blown to pieces.
The person inside would be torn apart instantly.
Along with the sofa and coffee table, they would turn into charred minced meat, splattering the surrounding walls.
Frenchie raised his modified short-barreled assault rifle.
He prepared to rush in and drag the potentially injured Butcher out of the sea of fire.
He stood up and kicked open the security door that was surprisingly still hanging on its frame.
The gun barrel poked into the room first.
A thick, choking smell of gunpowder smoke rushed at him.
Mixed with the pungent, acidic odor of burning chemical fuel.
Frenchie coughed repeatedly, tears nearly forced out, his vision blurring.
"Butcher! You didn't lose any limbs, did you? We need to hurry..."
Frenchie shouted as he rushed into the thick smoke.
The second half of his sentence stuck in his throat, as if he had swallowed a handful of thumbtacks.
He opened his bloodshot eyes wide.
The scene before him smashed his worldview to pieces.
There was no minced meat on the floor.
There were no collapsed load-bearing walls.
The flames were indeed burning, the firelight illuminating the entire living room in a deep red, with intense heat.
But this violent ball of fire was tightly contained.
An inverted, semi-circular, invisible Bio-field shrouded the center of the living room.
The flames, like an enraged beast, were crazily colliding, rolling, and roaring inside the Bio-field.
Yet they could not burn through that invisible barrier.
Not even a single spark splattered out.
Outside the Bio-field.
Butcher was pressed tightly against the back of the sofa, his chin almost dropping to his chest.
The muscles on his face were as stiff as a board, his eyes vacant.
Beads of sweat on his forehead reflected the light from the fire.
Less than two meters from the center of the explosion, not even the corner of his trench coat had been singed.
Inside the Bio-field.
Clark was sitting on a wooden chair with a missing corner.
The plastic bag containing vegetables was no longer in his hands.
That pair of cheap black-framed glasses was nowhere to be seen, revealing his sharp, well-defined face.
Flames with temperatures of thousands of degrees raged less than half a meter in front of him.
He even leaned forward slightly.
He stretched out his two large, bony hands, palms facing the rolling fireball.
He rubbed them up and down in a leisurely manner.
It was as cozy as warming oneself by a fireplace in winter on a Kansas farm.
The firelight shone on his calm face.
There was no fear, no anger, only a trace of helplessness at being disturbed.
Frenchie's kneecaps suddenly lost all support.
It was as if the tendons had been pulled from his thighs.
His legs went soft, and he fell heavily to the floor with a thud.
The assault rifle in his hand hit the wooden floor and slid half a meter away.
His whole body was trembling, cold sweat soaking his shirt on his back.
His teeth were chattering, completely uncontrollable.
"God... Mother Mary... what kind of monster is this..."
He made the sign of the cross over his chest incoherently, his brain completely shut down.
Explosives? Weapons?
Physics, in front of this man, didn't even count as a joke.
Compared to this man who could warm himself in a fire, those superheroes from Vought Corporation who mutated via injections were simply clowns in a circus.
This was a true god.
Clark turned his head.
His blue eyes looked at Frenchie indifferently through that invisible barrier.
There was no emotional fluctuation in that gaze.
Yet it made Frenchie feel as if an iceberg was pressing directly onto his spine, making him unable to breathe.
Clark lowered his hands.
A faint hum sounded in the air.
The semi-circular barrier instantly dissipated.
The flames, which had been raging, seemed to be suddenly gripped by an invisible hand.
The surrounding oxygen was sucked dry, and the air pressure changed subtly.
The fire was extinguished completely within a second.
Not even a wisp of smoke remained.
Only a pile of charred ash and the completely ruined coffee table remained on the floor.
"You really lack public morality."
Clark stood up and brushed off the non-existent dust on his pant legs.
"I only picked up this rug from a flea market last week; it cost me twelve dollars."
He pointed to the large black hole under his feet.
Butcher finally regained some ability to breathe.
He gasped for air, his chest heaving violently, like someone who had just finished a marathon.
His throat was as dry as if he had swallowed sand.
"You... you are that Red Cape."
He didn't use a question, but a declarative statement, his voice hoarse.
Clark ignored his words.
He walked to the old shoe cabinet by the door and took a tomato out of the intact plastic bag.
He casually rubbed it on his shirt twice.
He took a bite.
The sweet and sour juice exploded in his mouth, alleviating the lingering burnt smell in the air.
"Punishing Vought Corporation is my business."
Clark looked at Butcher on the sofa while chewing the tomato.
His voice was not loud, but every word carried a soul-shaking weight, hitting both of their hearts.
"This is the last time you will play these explosive games in front of me."
He paused.
He swallowed the food in his mouth, his expression turning completely cold.
"There are eighteen ordinary households living in this building. The old lady downstairs has a bad heart and can't handle such commotion from you."
"If any innocent person had been hurt by your low-life tactics just now."
Clark stared into Butcher's eyes.
"You wouldn't even have the chance to kneel here and listen to me now."
Butcher gritted his back teeth.
Having been in the underworld for so many years, he had seen all sorts of ruthless characters who lived on the edge of a knife.
But facing this young man eating a tomato, he couldn't muster even a shred of the desire to resist.
That was an absolute crushing on a dimensional level, the feeling of powerlessness when an ant looks up at the starry sky.
"Understood."
Butcher stood up.
His legs were still a bit stiff, but he forced himself not to show it, trying to stand as straight as possible.
He walked over and grabbed Frenchie by the collar of his trench coat.
He dragged the still-shaking Frenchman, who had even forgotten his gun, up from the floor.
"Consider it our mistake for going to the wrong door today, sorry for the disturbance."
Butcher pulled Frenchie and backed out of the door.
His eyes remained fixed on Clark, not daring to turn his back on this man for a second.
Backing into the hallway.
Frenchie tripped over the threshold and almost fell flat on his face again.
The two supported each other, stumbling as they ran toward the stairwell.
The chaotic sound of footsteps echoed in the empty hallway, fading further away.
Revealing a sense of relief at having survived the ordeal.
The apartment returned to silence.
Clark finished the last bite of the tomato.
He threw the stem into the trash can nearby.
He looked at the rug in the middle of the living room that had been burned with a large hole, as well as the charred wooden floor.
He sighed helplessly.
He would have to go to the second-hand market again tomorrow.
And he had to find a suitable excuse to explain to the landlord how this scorch mark came to be.
He bent down, preparing to pick up the armor-piercing round that had been crushed by the Bio-field and throw it away.
His fingers just touched the still-warm piece of brass scrap.
Clark's movements suddenly stopped.
He caught a slight, unusual movement in his ears.
Super Hearing was instantly activated.
His hearing crossed space, penetrating the plaster ceiling above.
Penetrating three layers of thick concrete floor slabs.
Automatically filtering out the car horns on the distant street, the whistling of the night wind, and the sound of flowing water in the sewers.
On the rooftop terrace above his head.
There was a slight friction sound.
It was the sound of some high-tech carbon fiber composite material rubbing against the rough cement floor.
Very light.
So light that even a well-trained military dog lying on the floor would definitely not hear it.
The intruder's breathing rate was as slow as a dead person's, and their footsteps were so soft they were almost weightless.
Clark straightened up.
He slowly raised his head, his gaze penetrating the pitch-black ceiling.
Vought Corporation's top assassin.
That war machine who wore an all-black mask and never spoke.
Black Noir.
Had finally snuck over.
Chapter 13: Black Noir Accepts Assassination Mission, Thrown Back to Vought Tower Half an Hour Later
The night wind swept across the seventh-floor windowsill.
The wind carried the sour stench of the trash cans downstairs.
Black Noir, like an upside-down bat, had his feet firmly suctioned onto the rough brick facade.
His entire body was wrapped in a non-reflective black combat suit.
The mask filtered his breathing sounds completely.
He was adjusting his heartbeat, lowering his heart rate to forty beats per minute, which would keep his hands steadier when killing.
He held a specially made combat knife in his hand.
The blade's surface shimmered with a faint, eerie green light.
That was a neurotoxin purified by the R&D department; a slight scratch was all it took for the venom to sever all neurotransmitters in the brain within three seconds.
A faint static sound came from the miniature communicator in his ear.
"Execute."
Stan Edgar's voice was deep and devoid of any emotion. "Clean it up. I want him silenced forever."
Black Noir did not respond.
He rarely spoke in his entire life.
With a flick of his wrist, he aimed the tip of the blade at that old glass window.
The room still smelled of the burnt odor left by the previous explosion.
Clark stood beside the floor covered in ash, worrying about how to explain this black hole to the landlord tomorrow.
His Super Hearing had long since captured the slow heartbeat outside the window.
Crash.
The glass window, along with the wooden frame, was kicked to pieces in one blow.
Shattered glass mixed with the night wind poured into the room.
Black Noir swung into the living room, using the momentum.
Without any flashy opening moves, it was a pure and efficient killing technique.
The blade cut through the air, heading straight for Clark's throat.
The angle was vicious, sealing off any space for dodging left or right.
Clark was looking down, brushing ash off his pant legs.
He didn't even lift his head.
He simply exposed his neck to the sharp blade so casually.
Clang.
A crisp metallic sound that made one's teeth ache.
It wasn't the dull sound of cutting into flesh, but rather something like a hammer striking a solid steel ingot.
The moment that combat knife, polished from aerospace-grade alloy, touched Clark's skin, a tremendous reactive force snapped it right in half.
The broken blade fragment spun in mid-air before falling onto the damaged wooden floor.
Black Noir was stunned.
The web of his hand holding the knife split open on the spot from the shock, and blood dripped down his glove.
The killing machine that had walked the edge of life and death for years had his brain freeze in this moment.
"Do you people from Vought Corporation not like using the front door?"
Clark finally lifted his head.
He looked at the shattered glass all over the floor and the footprints on the floor, his brows furrowing.
The carpet that had been blown a hole in earlier was now covered in glass shards.
This room was completely uninhabitable now.
He didn't even have a place to sleep tonight, which made him a bit irritable.
Black Noir reacted quickly.
He discarded the broken knife handle and his left hand quickly reached for his backup weapon at his lower back.
But he was too slow.
In Clark's eyes, this speed of drawing a gun was like doing calisthenics underwater.
Clark reached out his right hand directly.
His five fingers, like iron pliers, clamped tightly onto Black Noir's neck.
Black Noir had no time to dodge at all; his entire body was lifted into mid-air by force.
His two legs lost their leverage and kicked wildly in the air.
His throat bone creaked under the pressure, and his trachea was completely sealed off.
Clark had no intention of using the door or the stairs.
He bent his legs slightly.
With a muffled bang.
The solid wooden floor beneath his feet was stomped into a web of cracks.
Carrying Black Noir, Clark smashed directly into the ceiling above.
The fragile plasterboard was smashed through, sending dust flying.
Then came the concrete precast slab upstairs, the waterproof layer, and finally the asphalt insulation layer on the roof.
This old apartment building was like a block of tofu being forcibly cut through in front of them.
Debris and steel bars exploded around the two of them.
The sleeping tenants only felt a slight earthquake and didn't even have time to open their eyes.
The two had already pierced through the roof.
Breaking out of the roof, they shot straight into the clouds.
A tear was ripped through the night sky over New York.
Clark's acceleration was too brutal.
In just a few seconds, he broke the sound barrier, pulling out a ring of white sonic boom clouds.
The gale let out a shrill roar in his ears.
Then came Mach five, Mach ten.
Black Noir was pressed to the verge of fainting by this acceleration.
The low temperature at high altitude and the intense friction alternately tortured his body.
Under the pull of dozens of times the speed of sound, his tough bulletproof combat suit split into countless tears.
Black Noir's eardrums ruptured the moment he broke the sound barrier.
Blood flowed down his ear canals into the black mask.
The high-altitude atmospheric pressure crushed his chest like a millstone.
His body, modified by compound v, could originally withstand high-speed truck collisions.
But in the face of such absolute speed, his muscle fibers began to tear inch by inch.
Excruciating pain spread throughout his body; he was even deprived of the strength to twitch by the airflow.
His brain was severely oxygen-deprived, and his vision began to fade to black.
Half an hour ago, he had just set off from the top floor of Vought Tower.
He spent over ten minutes planning the route and lurking outside that window.
And now, this long journey had been brutally shortened to a few dozen seconds.
The bustling night view of Manhattan blurred into a patch of light spots beneath his feet.
The eye-catching spotlight beam of Vought Tower was getting closer and closer.
That was a totem representing the highest power in the United States, yet at this moment, it appeared vulnerable.
At the same time.
On the top floor of Vought Tower, in Homelander's private lounge.
Homelander was pacing back and forth in the room irritably.
The high-end carpet beneath his feet was trodden with messy indentations.
He stopped from time to time to look at his purple, swollen right hand, his breathing very heavy.
What happened today completely shattered his perception.
That man's wrist was as hard as solid titanium alloy; no matter how he tried to break free, it was useless.
His proud Heat Vision struck the opponent's chest, not even burning a single hair.
This made him feel unprecedented frustration.
"A trick... it's all just little tricks to play me."
He muttered neurotically.
He grabbed a bottle of expensive red wine from the table, didn't even pull the cork, and pressed his thumb down hard.
The glass bottle neck couldn't withstand the pressure and shattered.
Dark red wine mixed with glass shards flowed all over his hand.
He had just brought the broken bottle mouth to his lips, wanting to use alcohol to suppress the panic in his heart.
The ceiling above suddenly emitted a deafening roar.
The thick reinforced concrete partition seemed to have been hit by a missile falling from the sky.
Boom.
Large chunks of concrete, carrying bent steel bars, crashed down.
The expensive crystal chandelier fell onto the floor and shattered into pieces.
White dust instantly filled the entire spacious lounge.
Homelander was startled, and the wine bottle in his hand dropped onto the carpet.
He instinctively took two steps back.
Clenching his fists, he stared fixedly at the huge hole in the ceiling.
A dark, shapeless thing fell out of the hole.
It slammed heavily onto the ground.
It rolled twice on the carpet due to inertia, stopping right in front of the toes of Homelander's military boots.
Homelander looked down.
It was Black Noir.
Vought Corporation's deepest hidden assassination trump card, the perfect machine for handling dirty work.
At this moment, Black Noir didn't even have half a life left.
His iconic black combat suit was torn into rags.
The mask was more than half shattered, revealing a chin covered in blood and vomit.
He didn't know how many bones in his body were broken.
Like a puddle of mud reeking of blood, he lay limp at Homelander's feet.
His body twitched uncontrollably from time to time, gasping for air, with more air going in than coming out.
Homelander's breathing stopped abruptly.
His heart even skipped a beat, and his palms were full of cold sweat.
He lifted his head stiffly.
Through the gaps filled with dust, he slowly looked toward the large floor-to-ceiling explosion-proof glass window.
In the night sky.
Clark was floating quietly outside the glass.
His red and blue combat suit was spotless, and the Red Cape behind him fluttered in the night wind.
His originally gentle blue eyes were now glowing with a chilling crimson light.
In the pitch-black night, the halo looked like two burning red blades.
Through the glass, he stared fixedly at Homelander inside the room.
Chapter 14: Homelander looked at himself in the mirror and felt fear for the first time.
Black Noir lay on the Persian rug like a pile of sludge.
The black bulletproof fibers were shredded into rags, and blood mixed with chunks of viscera surged out through the gaps in his mask.
Homelander didn't even glance down at this top-tier killer.
His gaze was completely pinned by that pair of scarlet eyes outside the window.
The blast-proof glass blocked out the howling night wind from high altitude.
But it could not block out the terrifying pressure that made one's marrow run cold.
Clark hovered silently in the pitch-black night sky.
The red light around his eye sockets was not firing, just burning quietly in the night.
Like two red-hot steel furnaces, carrying an aura of absolute death.
Homelander's Adam's apple bobbed with difficulty.
His military boots crunched on the broken glass on the floor as he took a half-step back.
That single step crushed the pride he had spent his entire life building up in front of the cameras.
He had never looked up to anyone, but at this moment, the figure hovering outside the window was taller than a god.
The red light outside the window slowly extinguished.
Clark let out a cold snort through the glass.
This undisguised mockery pierced through the thick blast-proof layer and drilled straight into Homelander's eardrums.
Then, that flash of red and blue afterimage shot into the sky.
It instantly tore through the clouds and vanished into the depths of the New York night, leaving behind only a lingering sonic boom cloud.
Homelander stood frozen in place, holding a defensive posture.
After several seconds, he finally snapped out of it, preparing to let out a roar to cover up his embarrassment.
But his knees buckled at that moment.
He braced himself against the mahogany desk with one hand, barely preventing himself from kneeling like a coward.
His thigh muscles were spasming, completely refusing to obey him.
"Get out... all of you, get out!"
The hurried, dense footsteps of security personnel came from outside the door, and Homelander roared like a beast driven to a dead end.
He turned and smashed open the hidden side door of the lounge.
He stumbled into his own absolutely private, luxurious exclusive area.
Bang.
He slammed the heavy metal security door shut.
His hands shaking, he turned the deadbolt three times, the click-clack sound echoing in the room.
Still not feeling safe, he simply walked over and dragged the heavy, hundreds-of-pounds solid wood wine cabinet over to barricade the door.
After doing all this, he leaned against the wine cabinet, gasping for air.
The room was terrifyingly quiet.
All that remained was the sound of his own heavy, irregular breathing, like a broken bellows leaking air.
The warm light from the luxurious crystal chandelier hit his face, revealing a dense layer of cold sweat.
He needed to confirm that he was still the omnipotent savior.
Homelander stumbled over to the floor-to-ceiling mirror that took up half the wall.
He braced his hands against the cold marble vanity.
The person in the mirror looked somewhat unfamiliar.
His blonde hair was stuck to his forehead by cold sweat, and his usually perfectly pressed Stars and Stripes cape hung crookedly on his shoulders.
His face was deathly pale, and even his lips had lost all color.
"I am Homelander."
He muttered to the mirror, his voice weak.
"I am an all-powerful hero... no one in this world can defeat me."
He slowly increased his volume, clenching his hands into fists, his nails digging deep into his palms as he tried to use the pain to regain his confidence.
He raised his head, eyes locked onto himself in the mirror.
He wanted to shoot through this glass and burn a giant hole straight through the reinforced concrete wall behind it.
To prove that his power hadn't vanished.
Homelander gritted his teeth, the veins on both sides of his neck bulging one by one.
He tried hard to channel that familiar surge of heat within him.
Usually, with just a slight thought, the high-temperature lasers capable of slicing through aircraft carrier armor would instantly erupt.
But today, nothing happened.
Just as the capillaries under his eye sockets began to heat up and engorge with blood, that scene from the abandoned factory flashed in his mind.
That man in the plaid shirt, catching his full-force blow with one hand, looking bored.
The excruciating pain of having his bones crushed still seemed to linger in his swollen, purple right-hand knuckles.
And that pair of scarlet eyes from outside the window just now, carrying an overwhelming aura of destruction.
Fear was like a basin of dirty water mixed with ice shards, dousing all his heat instantly.
The red light in his eyes had just sparked with a faint glow, but like a faulty lightbulb with a bad connection, it flickered twice and went out completely.
"Move! Start glowing, damn it!"
He pounded frantically on the marble vanity, causing several thick, long cracks to appear in the stone.
He widened his eyes again, forcing himself to gather his power.
Nothing, still nothing.
After his invincible psychological defense, built up since childhood, collapsed, his physiological instincts were also locked down tight.
His Heat Vision, which he took such pride in, had completely misfired under the heavy psychological shadow cast by that man.
"Aaaaaah!"
Homelander completely broke down, letting out a hoarse, desperate scream.
He grabbed the solid gold soap dish from the vanity and smashed it hard against the floor-to-ceiling mirror in front of him.
The sound of shattering glass exploded in the room.
Countless glass shards sprayed out like a rainstorm, and a sharp fragment struck his cheek, leaving a small cut.
Like a crazed giant toddler, he began to smash everything in the room.
He tore the expensive leather sofa into pieces with his bare hands, white foam and down feathers flying everywhere.
The antique blue-and-white porcelain vase in the corner was kicked into powder, and the world-famous paintings on the walls were torn to shreds.
The heavy oak desk was overturned, smashing the wall-mounted lamp.
He vented for a full ten minutes.
Exhausted of strength and oxygen, he collapsed into a dark corner amidst the wreckage.
His tall frame curled tightly into a ball, his hands clutching his knees.
Tears, mixed with the cold sweat on his face, flowed down uncontrollably.
He buried his face in his arms, his shoulders heaving violently as he let out suppressed, neurotic whimpers.
"It's not my fault... he cheated, he's not even human..."
This super-god in the hearts of the American public now looked like a kindergartner who had been beaten up on the playground.
"Madelyn..."
This name suddenly popped into his chaotic mind.
At this moment, only that woman could soothe his manic emotions.
She could use that motherly, gentle voice to stroke his blonde hair and praise him as the best child.
Homelander scrambled up from the floor.
He wiped the tears and snot off his face with the back of his dirty hand.
He turned and pushed away the solid wood wine cabinet used to barricade the door, grabbed the broken lock, ripped the metal door panel open, and rushed out.
Security personnel and medical teams in the hallway were urgently cleaning up Black Noir's remains.
Seeing Homelander rush out with disheveled hair and a tear-stained face, everyone was terrified and scrambled to stand against the wall.
Homelander didn't have the heart to spare a glance at these mortals.
He moved like the wind through the long corridor, heading straight for the Vice President's office at the end of the floor.
The door to Madelyn's office was ajar, emitting a blinding white light.
Homelander didn't even knock; he shoved open the heavy mahogany double doors.
"Madelyn, I need you..."
His voice carried an obvious sense of grievance and pathological dependence.
He even spread his broad arms, preparing to embrace the woman who could provide him with a sense of security.
But Madelyn wasn't sitting in that large leather office chair at all.
She was standing at a makeshift lab bench by the window, with a portable high-power microscope set up next to her.
Hearing the door open, she didn't even turn her head.
Standing across from the desk was Dr. Vogelbaum, covered in sweat.
The old man was holding a sealed glass petri dish, his hands trembling, with a few drops of reagent staining his white lab coat.
Homelander froze in place with his arms outstretched.
The anticipated words of comfort and warm embrace never came.
Madelyn's attention was entirely focused on that small, transparent dish.
"What is this?"
Homelander slowly lowered his arms, his dry voice breaking the oppressive silence in the office.
"Black Noir's blade broke, but his suit gloves picked up a tiny bit of something due to intense friction when that guy grabbed his throat."
Madelyn finally turned around.
She was wearing white medical latex gloves and holding a pair of precision medical tweezers.
At the tip of the tweezers was a fabric fiber so small it was almost invisible to the naked eye.
Attached to that fiber was one ten-thousandth of a gram of human skin particles.
She looked at the tiny fiber, her eyes devoid of even a hint of the motherly tenderness she usually feigned when facing Homelander.
There was only a desperate fanaticism and an unconcealable fear.
She carefully placed the fiber into the glass petri dish, snapped the lid shut with a click, and shoved it directly into Dr. Vogelbaum's arms.
"Run an urgent test overnight."
Madelyn lowered her voice, her tone as urgent as if she were giving her last words.
"No matter how much equipment you use or how much money it costs."
"I want to know this freak's cellular structure; I want to find a drug that can kill him."
Chapter 15 Madelyn's Terror: He Never Injected compound v!
The ninety-ninth basement floor of Vought Tower.
The top-secret biological laboratory was as cold as an ice cellar.
The ventilation fan emitted a monotonous hum.
Dr. Vogelbaum was hunched entirely over the thirty-million-dollar electron microscope.
The back of his white lab coat was already drenched in cold sweat.
The fabric clung tightly to his hunched spine.
Holding the edges of the eyepiece with both hands, his ten fingers, like withered bark, shook uncontrollably.
"Are you done looking yet? Speak!"
Madelyn paced back and forth on the stainless steel floor in her high heels.
The crisp clicking of her heels on the floor was incredibly annoying in the empty laboratory.
She irritably ran a hand through her somewhat messy blonde hair.
The doctor did not look back.
He looked as if someone was choking him.
A rattling wheeze came from his throat.
On the screen of the supercomputer next to him, long strings of gene sequencing code were frantically refreshing.
Red "No Match" pop-ups appeared one after another.
"This doesn't make sense... Oh my God."
Vogelbaum suddenly raised his head from the microscope.
His reading glasses had slipped all the way down his nose.
He reached for the water glass on the table.
His hand was shaking violently.
The glass knocked over on the metal tabletop, spilling water all over the floor.
He didn't even bother to wipe it.
"Doctor!" Madelyn rushed over in a few steps.
Slamming both hands heavily on the table.
"I don't want to hear about what makes sense! I just want results!"
She gritted her teeth. "What is the concentration of compound v? How long will it take to synthesize a specific inhibitor for him?"
This was the fundamental reason she had run down to the basement lab in the middle of the night.
Vought Corporation's ability to control The Seven relied on the compound v inhibitor they had secretly developed.
No matter how strong a supe was.
With just one injection, they would all turn into weaklings.
This was her absolute leash for controlling gods.
Vogelbaum turned around.
The old man's face was pale and defeated, looking as if he had aged ten years in an instant.
He looked at Madelyn's control-obsessed face.
And gave a bitter laugh.
"There is none."
The doctor shook his head, his shriveled lips parting slightly.
"What do you mean 'none'?" Madelyn didn't understand.
"There isn't a single trace of compound v!"
Vogelbaum suddenly raised his voice.
His voice boomed in the lab.
"This isn't our product at all! In that tiny piece of skin dander, there are absolutely no synthetic mutated genes!"
Madelyn froze in place.
Her fingers unconsciously clawed at the cold metal tabletop.
"No injection? Then how could he possibly be stronger than John... Could it be a mutation?"
"No, you don't understand."
The doctor turned the computer screen next to him around.
Pointing at the dense cell structure diagram on it.
"This is not a mutation; this is a life form so perfect it makes one despair."
"The density of this thing's cell structure is millions of times that of a human."
The doctor swallowed hard.
Pointing to one of the glowing cell nuclei.
"I just tried to use a high-energy laser to cut that bit of skin dander tissue."
"And guess what?"
"The probe of the laser cutter burned out directly, and that bit of skin didn't even leave a singe mark."
"What's even more terrifying is..."
Vogelbaum took a breath.
Pointing to the thick data cable next to him.
"These cells are alive. They are like plant chloroplasts."
"They are frantically absorbing the full-spectrum light in the lab!"
"As long as there is stellar radiation, he can endlessly convert it into energy. This monster's physical strength simply has no limit!"
Madelyn felt a buzzing in her head.
As if she had been hit hard on the back of the head with a sledgehammer.
Her legs instantly lost all strength.
She collapsed into the wheeled office chair.
The chair slid back half a meter and crashed into the metal cabinet with a thud.
"You mean..." Madelyn's voice trembled.
"I mean, the chemical inhibitor we've always been proud of is no different from a glass of plain water to him."
Vogelbaum leaned dejectedly against the lab bench.
"Madelyn, he is not controlled by our genetic serum."
"He cannot be countered."
"On a physical level, there is absolutely nothing we can do to him."
The laboratory fell into a dead silence.
Only the cooling fan of the supercomputer was still spinning frantically.
Madelyn stared blankly at the cold fluorescent light tubes on the ceiling.
All this time.
She was able to keep Homelander chained to her side like a dog because of the trump cards she kept hidden in the dark.
Now, a trump card had been slammed into her face.
Telling her the rules of the game had changed.
The other party wasn't even playing at Vought's table.
Fear crept up her spine inch by inch.
Madelyn suddenly shuddered.
This chill made her cold from head to toe.
But she was able to climb to the position of Vice President at Vought Corporation.
Relying on far more than just luck and her face.
After the panic subsided,
the malice inherent in politicians and capitalists surfaced.
"Since he can't be killed physically..."
Madelyn bit her red-lipsticked lips, biting so hard that traces of blood appeared.
"Then destroy his mind, destroy his foothold in this mortal society."
She suddenly stood up from her chair.
Grabbing the intercom phone on the desk,
she dialed directly to the medical department's highest-clearance hotline.
The phone rang twice and was picked up.
"This is Madelyn. Is Translucent in the ICU alive or dead?"
She spoke very fast, her voice laced with ruthlessness.
The medical director on the other end of the line was stunned for a moment.
He quickly flipped through the rescue records.
"His collarbone is completely shattered, and there is extensive internal bleeding."
"We injected him with a quadruple dose of pure compound v half an hour ago."
"His life is saved. The V serum is frantically repairing his broken bones, but the side effects are severe. His mental state is currently very unstable."
"As long as he's not dead."
Madelyn handed down a strict order without hesitation.
"Give him a shot of cardiotonic and tell him to get his ass up and work immediately."
She knew all too well how to play this superhero game.
No matter how strong you are,
as long as you're still walking the streets wearing clothes, you're bound to have a weakness.
You have a civilian identity disguised among the crowd.
Just dig up that identity, expose his family, his address.
Use internet trolls and public opinion to splash dirty water all over him.
Making a god is hard.
Destroying a god only takes a few narrative-spinning press releases and a few trolls hiding behind keyboards.
Half an hour later,
the electronic door of the ICU slid open.
A strong smell of medical alcohol mixed with the scent of blood drifted out.
Translucent stepped barefoot onto the cold floor.
The medical tubes on his body had all been violently ripped out.
Beads of blood were still seeping from the needle marks.
The high concentration of compound v put his metabolism into a violent state.
A ring of deformed bone hyperplasia grew where his collarbone had just been reset.
With the slightest movement, a grating friction sound that made one's teeth ache came from the gaps between his bones.
It hurt.
An excruciating pain.
But now, his mind was filled with nothing but the flames of revenge.
"Go follow him."
Ashley stood in the hallway holding a tablet.
She kept her distance, terrified of being tainted by the smell of blood.
"This is an order from the executive office. Use your invisibility to tail him."
"No need to make a move, just take secret photos. Dig up everything on him, understand?"
Translucent grinned.
His teeth were stained with dark red blood.
He let out a strange wheezing sound from his throat.
A transparent ripple like water rose on the surface of his body.
He instantly merged with the surrounding air.
Disappearing into thin air from the hallway's surveillance footage.
Leaving only a row of faint bloody footprints on the floor tiles,
walking toward the dark night outside Vought Tower.
On the streets of New York in the early morning,
the cold wind whipped up discarded newspapers on the ground.
A streetlamp flickered due to a bad connection, emitting a buzzing electrical sound.
In a dark alley two streets away from where Red Cape was last seen,
there was a narrow dead end piled high with smelly trash cans.
A woman wearing a heavy trench coat was leaning against the brick wall.
She wore a peaked cap, the brim pulled down very low.
Lois Lane breathed warm air into her hands.
And rubbed her somewhat frozen fingers.
As a badass who dared to sneak into a gang's den to take photos when she had just entered the industry,
she was much sharper than those old-timers in the newspaper office who could only write press releases.
While the entire internet was going crazy over the video of Red Cape sending Homelander flying,
she was the only one who noticed
that the naked man with the shattered collarbone in the corner of the video had been dumped next to a shipping container.
Vought's covert ambulance had taken away that pile of mush.
Lois, relying on her intuition,
had staked out several medical back exits near Vought Tower for the entire night.
Her DSLR camera, hanging from her chest, was fitted with the highest magnification telephoto lens.
Even the lens cap had been taken off long ago.
Suddenly,
the air at the end of the dark alley distorted slightly,
like a piece of transparent plastic sheeting swaying in the wind.
The faint sound of footsteps splashing in puddles drifted over.
Lois immediately held her breath.
She raised her camera, not even bothering to focus carefully.
Relying solely on the direction of the sound and that slight shift in light and shadow,
she pressed the shutter without hesitation.
Click.
The flash tore open a blinding white light in the darkness.
Chapter 16: Translucent's carbon fiber skin? Like a sheet of paper in front of the Man of Steel.
It was 2:00 AM, and Brooklyn was filthy and chaotic.
Deep in the alley, there wasn't even a single streetlamp; both sides were lined with moldy red brick walls.
The puddles on the ground after the rain reflected the flickering neon signs from the distant streets.
A few stray cats were rummaging through trash cans for leftovers, making a rustling noise.
Clark walked forward, stepping through puddles.
The soles of his old canvas shoes were caked with mud.
He was feeling a bit irritable right now.
That move of throwing Black Noir away just now had certainly felt satisfying, but the consequence of punching a huge hole in the roof was that he had absolutely nowhere to sleep.
The little bit of rent money he had managed to save up over the last few days was completely gone.
He stuffed both hands into the pockets of his khaki jacket.
His pace was unhurried.
He was calculating in his mind whether he should head to a bench in Central Park to spend the night.
Just less than five meters behind him.
The air took on a strange, distorted quality.
It looked like a piece of crumpled transparent plastic film, constantly shifting light and shadow as it moved.
It was Translucent.
He was completely naked, barefoot on the oily concrete ground.
The effects of the high-concentration compound v were rampaging wildly through his body.
His veins were bulging, and his blood was flowing so fast it felt like it was boiling.
The collarbone that had been crushed earlier had not only completely healed.
But under the catalysis of the drug, it had mutated, growing a thick layer of grayish-white bone spurs.
This growth had fused completely with his prized carbon fiber skin.
Now, his skin was twice as thick as before.
As soon as he exerted even a little force, dark, black patterns resembling armored steel plates would appear on the surface of his body.
Madelyn and Ashley had sent him to take candid photos.
Going out with such a humiliating mission, Translucentwas already seething with anger.
But when he felt this explosive power inside him, capable of punching through load-bearing walls at any moment.
The thought of taking photos was thrown straight into the sewer.
He wanted revenge.
He wanted to smash the skull of this man in the plaid shirt from behind.
Translucent bared his teeth, grinning silently.
Saliva dripped down from between his teeth.
He felt that being crushed with one hand at the abandoned factory earlier was entirely because he had been careless and underestimated his enemy.
Now, with this enhanced version of his mutated carbonized armor.
He had absolute confidence that he could smash the other guy's head into a pulp like a watermelon.
At the corner outside the alley.
A cold wind swirled past.
Lois Lane stood pressed against the cold brick wall.
She pulled the brim of her baseball cap even lower.
A DSLR camera hung around her neck, her right index finger pressed against the shutter button.
Her fingers were stiff from the night wind.
She didn't dare to follow too closely.
She only dared to keep a distance of over ten meters, using the faint light from afar to stare intently at the puddles on the ground.
Ripples of footprints with no source would appear in the puddles from time to time.
Along with the occasional pebble being kicked away.
Lois's breathing was a bit ragged.
But the innate fervor of a journalist in her bones overcame her fear.
Her intuition told her that the back of the tall man ahead would definitely trigger some major news.
Deep in the alley.
Clark suddenly sighed.
The commotion behind him was too loud.
The heartbeat, forcibly induced by drugs, sounded in his Super Hearing like an old tractor roaring in his ears.
Not to mention the pungent, sour stench mixed with medical alcohol and the smell of someone who hadn't bathed in days.
It drilled straight into his nose, carried by the draft in the alley.
Clark stopped walking.
He didn't even turn his head.
"I've said it before, remember to wear clothes when you go out in your next life."
Clark's voice was calm.
With a hint of impatience at having his peaceful night disturbed.
Translucent's heart skipped a beat.
This freak had actually discovered him again.
But the wire in his brain had already been burned through by the drugs.
To hell with stealth!
A non-human roar erupted from Translucent's throat.
The camouflage in the air was instantly dropped.
He swung his right arm, which had grown a whole size thicker after the mutation.
His knuckles were covered in a layer of black, hardened keratin.
The hardness far exceeded industrial-grade diamond.
Carrying enough terrifying kinetic energy to flatten a bulletproof car, he smashed it down towards the back of Clark's head.
The force of the punch tore through the air, emitting a piercing whistle.
If this blow landed, never mind bones.
Even a half-meter thick steel plate would be smashed through on the spot.
Clark stood where he was, unmoving.
He hadn't even taken his hands out of his jacket pockets.
He just lowered his head slightly, the muscles at the back of his neck completely relaxed.
Letting that lethal fist smash towards his head.
Bang.
A dull collision sound exploded in the alley.
No blood splattered.
No screams of bone-shattering pain.
Clark didn't even sway.
It was as if what had just hit the back of his head wasn't some indestructible carbonized armored fist.
But a soft ball of cotton.
Immediately after.
A dense, hair-raising sound of shattering rang out.
The most basic physical law of reaction force was vividly displayed in that instant.
That massive kinetic energy, enough to flatten a car, hit Clark's Bio-field and was reflected back completely, without losing a drop.
Translucent's prized mutated carbon fiber arm.
Starting from the finger bones that touched Clark's hair.
Shattered inch by inch.
Palm, wrist, forearm, elbow.
The indestructible carbon-super material didn't even hold up for a millisecond.
It was directly shattered into fine powder.
Grayish-white bone fragments and black armored debris splattered in all directions like a fountain.
Finally, this destructive force traveled up along the muscles, exploding his entire right shoulder into a mist of blood.
"Aah—!"
The delayed, excruciating pain finally cut through his nerve reflexes.
Translucent let out a shrill, pig-like scream.
His entire right arm had completely vanished, leaving only half a mangled, bloody shoulder spurting blood.
He stumbled.
He fell heavily to his knees on the muddy ground.
His eyes bulged, and cold sweat mixed with tears covered his face.
This dimensional gap in power completely shattered his fanatical dream of revenge.
Clark turned around unhurriedly.
Looking at the mess of flesh convulsing on the ground.
He extended his faded, old canvas shoe and stepped directly onto Translucent's side profile.
The weight of the sole pressed Translucent's head firmly into the puddle.
Sludge poured into his mouth and nasal cavity.
Clark looked down at him.
His gaze was colder than winter permafrost.
"I gave you a chance to live."
Translucent struggled desperately, his only remaining left hand clawing randomly at Clark's pant leg.
A garbled sound of begging came from his throat.
He wanted to activate his invisibility field again to escape.
But Clark applied a little pressure with his toes.
His skull made a creaking sound as if it were on the verge of shattering.
That absolute fear rising from the depths of his soul made him completely abandon all thoughts of resistance.
Swish!
Just then, in the blind spot at the entrance of the alley piled with trash cans.
A bright white light pierced the darkness.
It flashed three times in succession.
The sound of the camera shutter was particularly clear in the quiet alley.
Click. Click. Click.
Lois poked half her body out from behind the brick wall.
She held the DSLR camera steadily with both hands.
The lens was aimed directly at the scene of Clark stepping on Translucent's head.
The moment that arm had turned into a mist of blood was also perfectly frozen on the film.
This was definitely the biggest news of the year that could nail Vought Corporation to the pillar of shame.
The white flash was a bit dazzling.
Clark's gaze crossed the dozen meters of darkness.
He turned his head and looked over.
He was still stepping on Vought's superhero under his foot.
Exuding that kind of aura of life and death.
If it were any other ordinary person, being stared at by those eyes right now, they would definitely be scared enough to drop their camera and run away.
But Lois did not.
She stood in the cold wind, the stray hairs at her temples blown into a mess.
Although her hand holding the camera was still trembling slightly.
She still stubbornly lifted her chin, across the distance of over ten meters.
Meeting Clark's gaze unyieldingly with her own equally cold eyes.
Chapter 17: Lois Lane Drops into the Newspaper Office; Is This Female Reporter Not Afraid of Death?
The white flash of the camera was exceptionally blinding in the darkness.
The alley was so quiet that only the sound of dripping rain could be heard.
Clark turned his head.
His gaze traveled across a dozen meters, landing on the woman holding a DSLR camera.
If he wanted to,
within a tenth of a second, he could crush that plastic Japanese-made camera,
and crumple the film into a ball of useless scrap.
But he didn't move.
In Lois's eyes, reddened by the night wind, he saw a stubborn determination.
It was a mortal's frantic desire to unearth the truth.
This world needed people who weren't afraid of death far too much.
Otherwise, no one would ever dare to expose the rotten-to-the-core Vought Corporation.
Clark retracted his foot,
releasing Translucent, who still had his face buried in a dirty puddle, spitting up bloody bubbles.
The air was suddenly torn apart by a colossal force.
A dull sonic boom exploded between the narrow brick walls.
A wild wind whipped up where Clark had been standing, instantly drying the puddles on the ground.
A red-and-blue afterimage soared into the sky.
Pushed by the blast of air, Lois fell flat on her butt in the muddy ground.
Her baseball cap flew far away.
She gasped heavily, her chest heaving violently.
Yet, her hands seemed welded shut as she tightly clutched the camera to her chest.
"I got it... I really got it."
She looked down at the camera's display screen.
The dim glow of the screen illuminated her pale face.
In that photo of a god stepping on a Vought hero, the image was so clear that even the texture of the carbon fiber fragments was visible.
At nine o'clock the next morning,
the office lobby of the Daily Planet was in complete chaos.
Old printers frantically spat out paper, and the beeping of fax machines blended together.
Editor-in-Chief Perry stood on the central editing desk.
The half-smoked cigar he usually kept in his mouth had fallen to the floor.
Holding a freshly printed proof sheet in both hands, he roared at the top of his lungs,
"Look at this! Everyone, look at this!"
Perry sprayed spit in his excitement, the flesh on his face trembling.
"This is what fucking news is! This is a headline!"
The front-page headline of the proof took up an entire half-page.
The high-definition photo had an incredible visual impact.
Beside it was a bold headline in white text on a black background:
"The Lie of Vought's Deification: The Dark Side of The Seven."
"E-Editor-in-Chief... This story is too big. Vought's legal department will definitely sue us into bankruptcy."
A bald veteran editor wiped the sweat from his forehead.
"Screw their legal department! With an exclusive like this, even if the paper gets shut down tomorrow, I'm going to sell out every copy today!"
Perry slammed his hand down on the solid wood desk.
He turned his head and looked at the woman standing beside the desk.
Lois wore a crumpled khaki trench coat, and her leather boots were still caked with dried mud from the alley last night.
Massive dark circles hung under her eyes.
Yet her hand holding the black coffee was steady, and a sharp, undisguised edge showed in her eyes.
"Lois! Beautifully done!"
Perry announced loudly, "Starting today, you are the paper's Chief Investigative Reporter!"
"All you idiots who only know how to write celebrity gossip, learn from her!"
In the corner of the office,
Clark sat on a creaking, broken chair.
He pushed up the black-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose.
Picking up a cheap ballpoint pen, he absentmindedly drew circles on a piece of scrap paper.
This female reporter really wasn't afraid of death.
Not only did that article expose the photo, but it also directly listed several atrocious things Translucent had done in the past using his invisibility.
Every single word was backing Vought Corporation into a corner.
Clark sighed; he could hear the sound of executives smashing glasses inside the Vought Tower several blocks away.
At two in the afternoon,
the temperature on the streets of New York rose.
The asphalt road emitted an unpleasant smell of tar.
Lois stood at the intersection below the newspaper office.
She clutched a manila envelope under her arm.
Inside were more paper backup files regarding Vought's dirt.
She was preparing to hail a taxi to deliver these materials to a certain hardline congressman in Washington.
Street traffic was heavy.
A heavy black SUV parked fifty meters away suddenly erupted with the frantic roar of a V8 engine.
Its tires screeched against the ground, kicking up white smoke.
The SUV, with its windows fully tinted black, paid no heed to the traffic light.
It crossed directly over the double yellow lines,
carrying several tons of terrifying momentum, charging straight toward Lois like a mad rhino.
It was so fast that nearby pedestrians didn't even have time to scream.
At the same time,
in the breakroom on the second floor of the newspaper office,
Clark was holding a chipped mug, filling it with hot water.
His Super Hearing had long since bypassed the noisy street chatter,
locking onto the abnormal heartbeat inside the SUV's cabin.
The driver-assassin's pulse was frighteningly steady, clearly a veteran who had handled countless such "accidental car crashes."
The hot water from the tap was still running.
Clark freed up his left hand,
lightly scraping the concrete wall on the outside of the marble windowsill.
His fingernail pried off a hard pebble only the size of a soybean.
He pinched the pebble between his thumb and middle finger,
aimed at the speeding SUV down on the street,
and flicked his finger.
The airflow was instantly pierced,
making a faint, hissing sonic boom.
On the street,
the SUV was less than five meters away from Lois.
Lois could even feel the heat wave blasting from the car's front. Her mind went blank, and her legs felt as if they were filled with lead, pinning her to the spot.
Bang!
A tire blowout louder than a gunshot echoed.
That inconspicuous little pebble, carrying supersonic kinetic energy, directly pierced the SUV's front-right run-flat tire.
It even punched a hole right through the steel wheel rim inside.
The multi-ton SUV instantly lost balance.
The front-right side of the vehicle slammed violently onto the asphalt,
sparks flying everywhere.
The massive momentum caused the entire vehicle to roll sideways across the road.
The heavy steel body smashed onto the road, making a teeth-gritting sound of tearing metal.
Window glass shattered all over the ground.
The SUV slid right past the edge of Lois's coat,
finally crashing heavily into a fire hydrant on the corner, sending a geyser of water shooting into the sky.
The chassis faced upward, its four wheels still spinning uselessly in mid-air.
A strong smell of burnt rubber spread through the air.
The manila envelope in Lois's hand fell to the ground.
She stared blankly at the nearly totaled assassination vehicle.
Her knees buckled, and she slumped onto the curb.
Panicked screams and calls to the police finally erupted from the surrounding pedestrians.
In the second-floor breakroom,
Clark picked up his mug filled with hot water.
He blew on the steam rising from the rim,
then turned and slowly walked back to his workstation, keeping his heroic deed a deep secret.
By evening,
on the top floor of the Vought Tower, in Madelyn's office,
Homelander sat on the leather sofa.
His fingers dug tightly into the sofa's armrest, clawing several deep tears into the leather surface.
The bloodshot veins in his eyes had not faded at all.
He was on the verge of a manic episode.
"You can't even kill a single female reporter? A bunch of useless trash!"
Homelander bit his thumb nail.
Biting too hard, blood seeped from his nail bed, which he licked away with his tongue, not caring in the least.
Behind the desk, Madelyn's face was grim.
"The tire blew out, and the assassin died inside the car from a fractured cervical spine. The woman is lucky."
She flipped through the latest intelligence brief in her hand.
"Our spies reported that she booked a flight to Washington at eight tonight."
"She wants to hand those files over to those politicians on Capitol Hill."
Homelander's movements froze.
He slowly lowered his bleeding finger, a sickly excitement flashing in his deep blue eyes.
The fear of being pinned to the ground and crushed by Red Cape last night still gnawed at his nerves like a venomous snake.
He needed a shot of adrenaline.
He needed the American public to chant his name once more.
The thrill of being the center of attention was his only antidote to alleviate his fear.
"The flight..."
A low, neurotic chuckle escaped Homelander's throat.
He stood up abruptly, his Star-Spangled banner cape whipping out in a sharp arc behind him.
"I'll deal with her."
Homelander walked over to the French window, looking down at the city of New York.
"How could a minor car accident showcase a hero's value?"
"Madelyn, prepare the highest-spec PR team for me."
He was going to manufacture a massive disaster tens of thousands of feet in the air.
He would tear that damn female reporter, along with the entire plane, to pieces.
And then,
he would land on the tarmac in Washington covered in wounds, carrying two or three survivors,
to receive the worship of the entire world.
Chapter 18: Homelander Wants to Hijack a Plane? Sorry, I'm Carrying It Back to the Airport with One Hand
8:15 PM.
The boeing 747 airliner flew through the clouds over the Atlantic Ocean coastline.
Dim reading lights were lit inside the cabin.
Lois leaned against her window seat.
Having pulled two consecutive all-nighters, her head felt as if it were stuffed with wet cotton.
Her neck ached terribly.
But she couldn't sleep at all.
She tightly clutched a black backpack in her arms.
Inside the backpack's compartment was a portable hard drive.
It was filled with all the dirty laundry of Translucent and Vought Corporation.
As long as the plane landed in Washington, this evidence could be delivered straight to the Congressional hearing's inquiry desk.
In the row behind her, a three- or four-year-old boy was making a fuss,
kicking the back of Lois's seat over and over.
Lois sighed, lacking the energy to turn around and argue with the parents.
She picked up her lukewarm instant coffee from the tray table and took a small sip.
The coffee was bitter and astringent.
It was pitch black outside the window.
Only the anti-collision light on the wingtip flashed red.
Lois pinched the bridge of her nose and turned to look out the window.
She wanted to see the city lights on the ground.
Just as her eyes met the thick glass pane—
her breath instantly caught.
Outside, at an altitude of thirty thousand feet,
in the minus-forty-degree freezing environment, a human figure was flying at a speed perfectly parallel to the plane.
His blonde hair whipped wildly in the airflow.
His star-spangled banner cape slapped against the fuselage in the darkness, making a dull thudding sound.
Homelander.
Through two layers of explosion-proof glass, he tilted his head and looked at Lois.
The corners of his mouth curled up into a manic grin.
His lips were moving.
Lois couldn't read lips,
but she could feel the malice penetrating right through the glass.
Her stomach churned violently.
She instinctively hugged her backpack tighter, her knuckles turning white.
Homelander didn't waste any more time.
He raised his hand and tapped his eyes with his index and middle fingers.
Two crimson beams of light erupted from them.
The beams weren't aimed at the passenger cabin at all.
Instead, they shot straight toward the two turbofan engines under the right wing.
Under the intense heat, the metal alloy casing was sliced open like butter.
Boom!
A deafening explosion drowned out the howling wind.
A fireball exploded violently on the right wing, lighting up half the night sky.
The pungent smell of burning aviation fuel poured into the cabin through the air conditioning vents.
The plane tilted violently to the right.
A sudden sense of weightlessness hit them.
The coffee cup in Lois's hand overturned, spilling the brown liquid onto her trench coat.
The entire cabin plunged into apocalyptic chaos.
The overhead oxygen masks dropped down amidst blaring alarms.
The cabin depressurized.
Raging winds flipped the food carts in the aisles, sending sodas and meal boxes crashing into the cabin ceiling.
The little boy in the back who had been kicking her seat burst into a heart-wrenching wail.
The screams of the adults merged into a chorus of terror.
Lois was pinned tightly to her seat by her seatbelt.
A sharp pain shot through her ears due to the sudden drop in air pressure, as if someone were stabbing her eardrums with an awl.
She opened her mouth wide, desperately trying to suck oxygen into her lungs.
Blood rushed to her head, and her vision began to go dark.
Outside the window,
Homelander had already stopped his Heat Vision.
He didn't chase the falling plane, instead hovering in the stratosphere.
The night wind blew away the firelight reflecting on his face.
He looked down at the steel behemoth plunging toward the ocean, trailing thick smoke.
His mood was unprecedentedly cheerful.
The humiliation of being pinned to the ground and crushed by the Red Cape last night was morbidly compensated for at this moment.
"This is what happens when you cross a god,"
he muttered under his breath, his voice quickly swept away by the wind.
He was even in the mood to adjust his messy cape collar.
At this rate of descent,
in another two minutes, this plane would crash into the sea and shatter into a pile of scrap metal.
He planned to fly down once the plane dropped to ten thousand feet.
He would casually catch one or two screaming survivors mid-air.
Preferably that kid who was kicking the seat.
The public loved nothing more than seeing a superhero cradling a child and weeping amidst the ruins.
As for that female reporter who knew too many secrets,
she would be burned to ashes along with that hard drive.
Perfect.
Homelander closed his eyes and took a deep breath of the cold high-altitude air.
He could already hear tomorrow's morning news anchors tearfully singing his praises.
He could feel the fanatical gazes of countless people looking up to him as their savior.
He opened his eyes,
ready to enjoy the final burst of fire before the plane disintegrated.
His gaze pierced through the thin clouds.
The smile froze on Homelander's face.
He rubbed his eyes, thinking he was hallucinating.
The burning boeing 747 was not spinning downward like a broken kite.
It was suspended at the bottom of the cloud layer.
Its nose had been forcibly leveled out.
The downward kinetic energy had vanished into air, and the entire plane was floating steadily in the sky in a posture that completely defied aerodynamics.
Inside the cabin,
the violent turbulence came to a grinding halt.
The debris that had been floating in mid-air due to weightlessness clattered back down onto the floor.
Lois's tightly shut eyes snapped open.
The weightless sensation that made her internal organs churn was gone.
The plane felt as if it had been placed in a cradle,
so stable that there wasn't even a hint of unnecessary shaking.
The oxygen masks were still dangling,
but the passengers' screams had turned into disbelieving sobs.
"What's happening?"
The fat man in the adjacent seat clutched the armrest tightly, his teeth chattering.
"We're not falling? Didn't the engine explode?"
Lois pressed her face against the cold window pane,
trying hard to look down.
Aided by the darkness of the night and the faint light of the wing's anti-collision lamps,
she couldn't see the belly of the plane.
But she could feel a massive lifting force coming from directly beneath the fuselage.
High in the sky,
Homelander's breathing grew rapid.
He dived down, piercing through the charged clouds.
The scene before him made his scalp tingle with numbness.
Beneath the vast belly of the boeing 747,
the man in the red-and-blue suit was hovering.
Without the aid of any aircraft,
and without any fire thrusters,
Clark was supporting the strongest part of the plane's underside, the center wing box, with just one hand.
A single hand.
A metal fuselage weighing hundreds of tons, plus dozens of tons of aviation fuel,
felt like a plastic toy model in his hand.
This defied all common sense.
Homelander's mind was in utter chaos.
According to the laws of physics, the aircraft skin could never withstand such a single point of force.
That hand should have pierced straight through the belly like an awl, skewering the plane.
But he didn't know what a Bio-field was.
The force field radiating from Clark's body perfectly enveloped the entire fuselage,
evenly distributing those hundreds of tons of weight across every inch of the metal skin.
Homelander hovered less than a hundred meters away from the plane.
He felt as if his throat were stuffed with sand.
Why was it him again?!
Vought's radar network hadn't even detected this freak taking off! Where on earth did he come from?!
The little bit of confidence he had just regained was instantly shattered to pieces.
The fingers on Homelander's right hand, which hadn't even fully healed from the swelling, suddenly began to twitch.
It was his body's instinctive reaction to the memory of intense pain.
Supporting the plane, Clark
slowly raised his head.
The cold high-altitude wind made that Red Cape flutter noisily.
Those deep blue eyes pierced through the clouds and mist, locking precisely onto Homelander in mid-air.
Their eyes met.
There was no extra movement, nor was a single word spoken.
But Homelander could clearly read pure intent to kill in that gaze.
It was the kind of look one gave to a pile of dead meat,
warning him that if he dared to take another step closer, his neck would be snapped on the spot.
Terrified, Homelander backed away a distance.
His combat boots kicked up a small trail of white vapor in the air.
He didn't even have the courage to light up his Heat Visionto provoke him.
Clark withdrew his gaze,
not bothering to pay any attention to this buffoon who had already been scared out of his wits.
Holding up the giant passenger plane filled with passengers with just one hand,
he smoothly turned it around.
Braving the night, he flew in the direction of New York's Kennedy Airport.