Chapter 26: Lamplighter Attempts to Burn People, Gets Turned Into a Snowman by Freezing Breath
Click.
The metal flint wheel turned under his rough thumb.
It didn't light the first time; his finger slipped from sweat, and his nail scraped against the copper casing with a dull thud.
Lamplighter gritted his teeth.
He shook the cold sweat from his palm and pressed down hard again.
A cluster of ghostly blue flames shot out from the pure copper lighter.
The faint light illuminated his lifeless face.
A pungent smell of butane gas wafted through the air.
The summer night was already sweltering, and the flame roasting his face made a layer of sticky sweat break out on his forehead.
Sweat ran down his eyebrows into his eyes, stinging painfully, and he irritably wiped it away with his sleeve.
He looked up.
The small two-story wooden building a dozen meters away stood quietly in the dark night.
Dim yellow light shone through the second-floor windows, and people could be vaguely heard talking inside.
Those were all confidential witnesses that Vought Corporation had sent him to silence.
Lamplighter's Adam's apple bobbed.
His stomach suddenly spasmed, and bile surged up his throat.
He remembered the fire from a few years ago.
Deputy Director Mallory's two grandchildren.
The sound of them desperately pounding on the door in the sea of flames was still spinning in his head to this day.
That sweet, fishy smell of charred flesh was something he hadn't been able to wash away, even after countless cold showers over the years.
"Don't blame me... I had no choice."
He muttered in a low, raspy voice.
The hand holding the lighter was shaking uncontrollably.
But he closed his eyes anyway.
His eyelids squeezed shut, forcibly suppressing the last shred of guilt in his heart.
The compound v in his body began to circulate wildly.
His ability was activated.
The flame in his palm, which had originally been only the size of a soybean, instantly let out a loud pop.
The firelight expanded violently, its brightness blinding.
The surrounding oxygen was instantly sucked dry.
A violent dragon of fire, dozens of meters long and carrying a heat that incinerated everything, roared directly out of his hands.
The grass didn't even have a chance to struggle in the high heat; it turned to ash on the spot.
The scorching heat wave baked the soil on the ground until it turned white and cracked.
The fire dragon opened its maw, rushing straight to engulf the wooden door of the safe house.
The paint on the wooden surface began to bubble and blacken.
Terrified screams came from inside the house, and someone was frantically pounding on the window glass.
Just at the moment when the tongues of fire were about to lick the wooden door, a dull sonic boom came from the sky.
A powerful current of air descended from the sky.
A red and blue afterimage, carrying terrifying weight, smashed heavily into the open space in front of the wooden door.
Mud splattered everywhere.
Two gravel fragments struck Lamplighter's cheek, carving out two bloody gashes.
He hissed in pain and opened his eyes.
Clark stood between the fire dragon and the wooden house.
The strong wind made the Red Cape behind him snap loudly.
Facing the flames capable of melting steel, he didn't even take half a step back.
He slightly bent his legs, planting his feet firmly on the ground.
Then, he took a deep, sharp breath.
The surrounding air pressure plummeted.
The heat wave swirled and poured into his mouth.
Clark's chest swelled high in an exaggerated manner.
The S emblem on the chest of his suit was stretched completely out of shape.
A brief pause.
Clark violently exhaled the airflow from his lungs at the dozens-of-meters-long fire dragon rushing toward him.
Super freezing breath.
A stream of absolute zero, ultra-cold air, like a tangible white storm, erupted from his mouth.
Cold.
A cold that exceeded the limits of human physical endurance.
The ultra-cold air collided with the violent flames.
There was no steam from the fusion of water and fire.
There was only a teeth-aching creaking sound of physical laws being forcibly twisted.
The roaring fire dragon stopped dead in mid-air.
The orange-red flames lost their temperature, their heat instantly sucked dry.
The rolling form of the flames was directly frozen in place.
Then, it turned into crystal-clear white frost that filled the sky, crashing onto the ground with a clatter.
The originally sweltering summer night saw the temperature instantly plummet below freezing.
A thick layer of white ice formed on the ground.
The air was filled with a chill that could freeze one's lungs; every breath felt like inhaling razor blades.
Lamplighter saw the most absurd sight of his life.
The fire dragon he had unleashed with all his might had turned into a pile of ice shards.
That man in the Red Cape was standing in the middle of the frost, watching him through the white mist.
Lamplighter's first reaction was to run.
He turned and took a step, wanting to dive into the woods behind him.
But because he was in such a rush, his left foot stepped onto the frozen turf.
His foot slipped, and he lost his balance, falling forward.
He didn't even finish the motion of bracing his hands on the ground.
The lingering ultra-cold chill of the freezing breath had already swept across his body with the night wind.
Lamplighter, in mid-air, instantly froze.
The blood in his veins stopped flowing.
His clothes, skin, and muscles were thoroughly frozen through in a very short amount of time.
A thick layer of solid ice rapidly congealed on his body, sealing him inside while maintaining that ridiculous falling posture.
He turned into a crystal-clear human ice sculpture.
He slammed heavily onto the frozen, hard mud, making a dull thud.
Lamplighter was not dead.
His superhuman physique allowed him to barely cling to life.
But he couldn't move his whole body; he couldn't even blink his eyelids.
Only his two eyeballs were frantically darting left and right inside the thick ice, filled with despair.
Clark slowly walked forward.
His boots stepped on the broken ice, making a crisp cracking sound.
White cold air swirled around his feet.
He walked up to the ice sculpture.
Clark lowered his head and saw the pure copper lighter that had fallen to the ground.
The casing of the lighter was already covered with a layer of white frost.
Clark lifted his foot.
His sole stepped on the lighter.
He applied a little force.
That hard piece of copper had become as brittle as glass in the low temperature.
It shattered directly into fine metal powder, mixing into the soil.
Clark bent down.
With one hand, he grabbed a piece of protruding ice on the back of Lamplighter's ice sculpture.
Like carrying a large frozen turkey, he lifted him up effortlessly.
The cold wind blew through the woods.
Clark exerted force with his legs, and with this heavy human-shaped block of ice, he shot up into the sky.
The people in the wooden house were still screaming for help.
But the murderous threat outside had been completely neutralized.
Brooklyn.
In the abandoned brick safe house.
Frenchie was still frantically typing on his keyboard, tracking the subsequent instructions from Vought Corporation.
Because the keyboard was too old, a key got stuck, and he irritably slapped it twice with force.
Hughie was pacing around the room anxiously, the sound of his soles rubbing against the floor was annoying.
A dull vibration suddenly came from the roof.
Dust fell through the cracks in the ceiling, covering Frenchie's computer screen.
Bang.
A huge block of ice, emitting white cold air, was thrown in from outside.
It smashed heavily onto the dilapidated wooden floor.
Two pieces of rotted floorboard broke on the spot.
The ice block slid two meters across the floor, knocking over a tin chair in the corner.
The temperature in the room dropped instantly.
Several people shivered and stopped their movements.
They stared blankly at the thing on the ground that was still emitting white air.
Clark walked in from outside.
He brushed off the bit of frost on his hands.
"The guy is brought back."
He pointed at the ice sculpture on the ground.
"He's not dead yet, but the ice layer is too thick; it might take some time to thaw."
Butcher stood by the table.
The half-cigarette dangling from his mouth had long since gone out.
He slowly turned his head, his gaze falling on the ice sculpture.
The surface of the ice was a bit murky.
But he could still clearly see the face inside, frozen blue.
And that familiar hooded fireproof combat suit.
Butcher's breathing suddenly stalled.
The air in the room seemed to become thin.
He vaguely smelled that charred flesh scent from years ago.
Deputy Director Mallory's two grandchildren.
Those two small corpses that had been burned down to nothing but charred remains were the work of this bastard.
That was the deepest scar in the hearts of The Boys.
Butcher's hands began to shake.
Not out of fear, but out of suppressed rage.
His eyes turned bloodshot instantly, red veins crawling all over the whites of his eyes.
The veins on his forehead bulged one by one.
A heavy, beast-like panting sound came from his throat when provoked.
He didn't speak.
He turned and walked to the corner of the room.
There was a rusty iron shelf piled with discarded car repair tools.
He reached out and rummaged through it.
The iron tools collided, making a harsh, grating sound.
Butcher felt a solid steel crowbar over a meter long.
The crowbar was covered in reddish-brown rust, and the front end was a bit pitted and uneven.
He grabbed the crowbar.
Rust flaked off, sticking to his sweaty palm.
He turned around.
He gritted his back teeth tightly, his facial muscles twisted and deformed by intense murderous intent.
Dragging the heavy crowbar in his hand.
The iron bar made a screeching friction sound on the concrete floor.
Step by step, he walked toward the ice sculpture on the ground.
Chapter 27: Stan Edgar's Trump Card? Sorry, Your Capital Is Worthless
Butcher swung the rusted crowbar with all his might.
Rust flakes fell in a flurry, landing on his black trench coat.
The solid steel bar tore through the air, emitting a dull whistling sound.
With the ferocity of smashing a watermelon, it headed straight for Lamplighter's frozen head.
It was an inch away from the ice block.
Bang.
A dull thud.
It wasn't the sound of iron smashing through ice.
Clark extended his right hand.
His index and middle fingers steadily clamped onto the tip of the crowbar.
The heavy momentum was instantly nullified before this man's two fingers.
Butcher gritted his back teeth.
Muscles on his arms bulged, and veins popped as if they were about to burst.
His face flushed red, and a beast-like low growl escaped his throat.
No matter how hard he pushed, the crowbar remained motionless.
"Let go! This bastard burned Deputy Director Mallory's grandson to death!"
Butcher's voice was severely hoarse.
His mouth was filled with the taste of rust and blood.
"I'm going to smash his brains out!"
"He's more useful alive than dead."
Clark's voice was flat, and he applied slight pressure with two fingers.
The rusted solid steel bar emitted a teeth-grinding creak.
Two deep nail indentations were forcibly pinched into it.
Clark released his hand and casually pushed the crowbar aside.
He crouched down.
He looked at the crystal-clear human ice sculpture on the ground.
Lamplighter's eyeballs were still frantically rolling within the ice, revealing a despair bordering on suffocation.
A faint red light lit up in Clark's eyes.
It was very restrained.
Two thin streams of heat shot out, hitting the solid ice encasing Lamplighter's head with precision.
Sizzle.
White steam instantly rose.
The ice quickly melted into water, flowing all over the floor.
As soon as Lamplighter's head was exposed, he opened his frost-covered mouth.
He let out a heart-wrenching cough.
He gasped for air, snot mixed with ice water running into his mouth.
His whole body convulsed frantically as if he had been electrocuted by high voltage.
"Frenchie, get the camera."
Clark stood up and stepped aside.
Frenchie hurriedly rummaged through a broken wooden crate and found an old DV camera.
He pressed the record button.
A red indicator light lit up next to the lens.
There was no need for torture.
Lamplighter's psychological defenses had long since been frozen into powder by absolute zero.
His teeth chattered frantically, clattering loudly.
"It's... it's Edgar! The President gave the kill order..."
He swallowed bloody saliva.
"He said to clean up all the evidence. The doctors in that wooden house were all core researchers involved in creating compound v babies."
Hughie, listening from the side, felt sick to his stomach.
He covered his mouth and took two steps back.
Lamplighter incoherently spilled all the dark secrets.
He even confessed the password to the safe house's underground vault and where the transaction records were kept.
Frenchie pressed the save button.
He pulled out a black data USB drive and handed it to Clark.
Clark took the USB drive.
He casually tucked it into a hidden compartment on his suit belt.
He didn't look at the people in the room again and slightly bent his legs.
Boom!
The already dilapidated roof was completely smashed through.
Broken wooden planks and blackened tiles flew everywhere.
A red and blue blur instantly vanished into the night, leaving only a gust of cold wind rushing in.
Vought Tower, 80th floor.
Stan Edgar sat behind a solid black desk.
He had just hung up the phone call to Russia.
He was picking up a custom-made solid gold fountain pen, preparing to sign a security transfer order.
Bang.
The ten-centimeter-thick explosion-proof metal door, along with its frame, was kicked away by a massive force.
The hundreds-of-pounds door panel slammed onto the Persian rug.
It slid seven or eight meters.
It knocked over two sets of leather sofas before stopping, and kicked up a cloud of choking dust.
Clark stepped on the door panel and walked in.
The soles of his shoes crushed the wood chips.
Edgar's hand holding the gold pen jolted violently.
The nib left an ugly black ink streak on the white paper.
He forced himself to stay calm.
He took a deep breath and capped the fountain pen.
"You must be that Red Cape."
Edgar looked at the man walking to his desk.
Facing this monster at close range, he felt the surrounding air become thin.
"Vought Corporation is a business empire, and the core of business is trade."
Edgar tried to use the rules he was best at to control the situation.
He leaned forward slightly, resting his elbows on the desktop.
"I'll give you ten billion dollars. Deposited in a Swiss bank account under an anonymous name."
Edgar's voice still carried the steadiness of a superior.
"Or, thirty percent of Vought Corporation's shares."
"As long as you stop, you will be the richest person on this planet. We can cooperate to create gods."
Clark looked at this suit-wearing tycoon.
He felt a bit of sorrow.
These people always think money can buy everything.
Clark's eyes lit up with a blinding red light.
No sound effects, no wind-up.
The priceless solid gold pen in Edgar's hand melted into a pool of scorching golden liquid within half a second.
The molten metal dripped onto the mahogany desk.
It burned several charred holes, emitting a pungent, burnt smell.
Edgar felt his fingers singed by the high temperature.
He pulled his hand back violently.
A glaring blister instantly formed on his thumb.
The mask of calmness he was so proud of finally cracked.
"Your capital cannot buy justice."
Clark's tone had no fluctuation.
He pulled that black USB drive from his belt.
Slap.
The USB drive was slammed heavily onto the desk in front of Edgar.
The plastic casing made a slight cracking sound under the immense force.
"Enjoy your last night in this position."
Clark turned around.
"Tomorrow morning, the whole world will see this."
After saying that, he flew straight through the floor-to-ceiling window.
Accompanied by flying glass shards, he flew into the dark night sky of New York.
The cold high-altitude wind poured in through the broken window.
It blew the top-secret documents on the desk into disarray.
Papers flew through the air.
Edgar stared at the black USB drive on the desk.
His breathing became faster and faster.
His hands began to tremble uncontrollably.
Vought is finished.
These three words bit into his brain like a venomous snake.
Decades of hard work.
Countless interest exchanges and political calculations.
In front of this piece of plastic, they became worthless.
He slumped back into the wide swivel chair.
His face was as gray as a dead person's.
After a few seconds of silence, Edgar lunged at the dedicated phone on the desk like a madman.
His fingers trembled as he pressed the red button that connected directly to Homelander.
As soon as the call connected, his hoarse voice cracked.
"John! Kill him! Go kill him!"
Edgar's facial features were completely distorted, saliva spraying onto the receiver.
"Even if you have to burn down all of New York! Force that freak out for me!"
Chapter 28: Homelander, in a fit of rage, decides to go on a killing spree in downtown New York.
In the telephone receiver, Stan Edgar's furious roar was still echoing.
"Kill him! Even if you have to burn down all of New York!"
The voice was distorted by its volume, accompanied by the crackle of electricity.
Homelander stood in the messy lounge.
His right hand was still swollen, the skin and flesh twitching slightly from the pain.
Hearing this, he paused for a moment.
Then, a slimy, low chuckle rolled out from his throat.
A smile slowly crept onto his face.
His lips pulled back to the sides, revealing blood-stained teeth.
His facial muscles twisted together in excitement, squeezing out several ugly lines.
This was a genuine expression, one that reeked of sickness and madness.
He finally didn't have to pretend anymore.
He didn't have to recite those disgusting PR scripts.
He didn't have to hold those dirty, snot-nosed kids who smelled of sour milk.
He didn't have to maintain that hypocritical savior mask in front of the cameras.
Snap.
He casually crushed the encrypted phone in his hand, and the plastic debris fell onto the carpet.
"Understood… Boss."
He tilted his head and muttered to himself.
Eight o'clock in the morning.
New York Times Square.
The streets during the morning rush hour were packed like a can of sardines.
The smell of mustard from hot dog stands mixed with car exhaust, making people feel nauseous.
The sound of leather shoes hitting the asphalt and the ringing of bicycle bells blended together.
The intersection was completely jammed.
An old yellow school bus was stuck in the middle of traffic, moving and stopping intermittently.
The bus was packed with elementary school students wearing yellow hats.
They were chattering non-stop.
A chubby boy threw a leftover apple core out the window.
The driver tapped the steering wheel irritably.
He shouted at the top of his lungs for them to sit still, and casually pressed the harsh horn.
Boom!
A loud explosion that tore through the air suddenly came from high above.
A powerful gust of air descended from the sky, blowing over the trash cans on the side of the road.
Rotten vegetable leaves and wads of waste paper flew wildly in mid-air.
Hundreds of passersby stopped and looked up.
The sunlight was a bit blinding.
Homelander hovered in mid-air, dozens of meters above the ground.
His Stars and Stripes cape flapped heavily in the murky air, making a snapping sound.
The crowd was silent for a second.
Then, bursts of cheers erupted.
Briefcases were tucked under arms, and mobile phone cameras were all raised.
The flashes lit up the scene even in the daylight.
They were used to that savior who was always sunny and always compassionate.
But today was different.
Homelander didn't wave, nor did he show his signature smile.
He lowered his head.
The muscles on his face were tight, his entire face filled with undisguised violence.
Looking at these mortals cheering like ants below, he felt incredibly disgusted.
These idiots had no idea what they were worshipping.
The capillaries around his eye sockets instantly became congested and hot.
Without any warning.
Two beams of maximum-power scarlet Heat Visionerupted directly from his eyes.
The light, brighter than the sun, illuminated the entire block.
The air was instantly heated, emitting a strong, strange smell of ozone and burning plastic.
The heat wave hit the passersby's faces, baking their skin red.
He didn't even aim at the pedestrians on the street.
Instead, he jerked his head, and the red light swept horizontally across.
The two beams cut into a sixty-plus-story glass office building like it was tofu.
The tempered glass instantly melted and shattered, turning into a rain of red-hot fire across the sky.
Large chunks of high-temperature glass debris slammed onto the sidewalk, burning through the soles of pedestrians' shoes.
Thick load-bearing steel bars let out a painful creak under the thousands of degrees of heat, and were burned through on the spot.
The Heat Vision sliced the building in half, right at the thirtieth floor.
The cut was smooth and red, and molten steel flowed down the exterior wall.
The white-collar workers in the building were vaporized by the high temperature before they could even scream.
Only human-shaped black shadows were left on the charred walls.
The cheers on the street were cut off as if by a knife.
There was a second of dead silence.
Immediately after, heart-wrenching screams tore through the morning in New York.
A man carrying a briefcase had just shouted for help when he was knocked over by people fleeing nearby.
The crowd scattered like ants from a disturbed nest.
High heels were broken, hot coffee was spilled on others' backs, and no one cared at all.
Someone fell to the ground and was instantly trampled by a dozen feet.
The dull sound of bones breaking mixed with wails, only to be drowned out by even louder screams.
The entire street turned into a living hell.
Homelander hovered in the sky.
He took a deep breath of the air, which smelled of blood and burnt debris.
The stifling feeling in his chest finally dissipated a little.
A hair-raising sound of metal tearing came from above.
The upper half of the sliced glass office building had completely lost its support.
It began to tilt slowly, carrying a terrifying weight of tens of thousands of tons.
The elevator shafts inside the building snapped, and the cables whipped against the exterior walls.
A huge shadow covered the sunlight.
Casting a deathly gray shadow on the ground.
Large slabs of concrete and broken glass began to fall.
A concrete block weighing several hundred pounds slammed onto the road, crushing a black private car into a pancake, its car alarm blaring frantically.
Directly beneath the collapsing building.
Was that yellow school bus full of elementary school students.
The driver was frantically stepping on the accelerator, his leg muscles cramping up.
The engine let out a desperate roar, and the exhaust pipe spewed black smoke.
But it was surrounded by abandoned cars, and the school bus was stuck dead in the middle of the road with nowhere to retreat.
The children in the bus huddled together.
They were too scared to even cry, and several children had wet their pants.
The smell of urine spread through the bus.
A little girl in the front row closed her eyes tightly, hugging her schoolbag to her chest with both hands.
The sky above was completely blocked by the falling steel and concrete.
Darkness completely engulfed the school bus.
The tens of thousands of tons of deadly weight came crashing down with a shrill whistling wind.
Just at the moment when the concrete structure at the base of the building was about to touch the yellow roof of the school bus.
There was less than a centimeter left from the car roof.
Not even a tenth of a second left.
Boom!
A terrifying sonic boom exploded above the roof of the bus.
The powerful shockwave shattered all the car windows within a few hundred meters.
Shards of glass flew everywhere like snowflakes.
A red and blue afterimage appeared out of thin air.
Without any external force, it hovered steadily above the school bus.
A strong sound of air colliding came from the air.
A tall figure stood in front, blocking the sky-covering ruined building.
Clark bent his legs slightly, his red cape flapping in the air pressure.
He slowly extended his right hand.
Supporting the sky with one hand.
His palm firmly pressed against the bottom of the falling load-bearing wall of the building.
The downward momentum of tens of thousands of tons stopped dead the moment it touched that hand.
Chapter 29: You Call This Invincible? The Protagonist Slaps Homelander Into the Depths of the Earth
Tens of thousands of tons of concrete and steel rebar pressed down overhead.
Clark supported the base of the building, and the asphalt road beneath his feet emitted a teeth-grinding sound of fracturing.
Thick, spiderweb-like cracks spread rapidly outward from his combat boots.
The road surface could not withstand this exaggerated weight, shattering inch by inch and turning into fine black powder.
Dust flew into his nostrils.
Clark tilted his head slightly and let out a small sneeze.
The single arm he used to support the building didn't tremble in the slightest.
Even the muscular contours of his wrist were as stable as a cast steel ingot.
The children in the school bus opened their eyes.
The carriage was filled with a pungent mix of gasoline and urine.
They looked up at the red and blue figure outside the window, forgetting to cry.
A heavy shadow still loomed overhead.
But the wreckage of the office building that was supposed to crush them had been brought to a dead halt in mid-air.
In mid-air.
Homelander watched this scene.
The muscles at the corners of his eyes twitched frantically, and his nostrils flared violently.
It felt as if molten lava had been poured into his lungs, burning away his sanity.
"Ha... Hahaha... Hahaha!"
He suddenly threw his head back and let out a burst of manic laughter.
There was not a shred of joy in the laughter, only ear-piercing jealousy and hysterical madness.
Spit sprayed into the air, blown away by the high-altitude wind.
The desperate disaster he had painstakingly created.
The savior script he had wanted.
It was all ruined by this damn Red Cape.
Ruined until not even a scrap remained.
Clark ignored the mad giant baby in the sky.
He turned his neck, and the X-ray grid on his retinas quickly scanned the surrounding blocks.
He was looking for a suitable open space.
Two hundred meters to the front right, there was an abandoned plaza under construction.
Except for a few excavators, there wasn't even a ghost in sight.
Clark pushed off with his toes.
Supporting the tens of thousands of tons of the half-office building, he slowly rose from the ground.
The load-bearing steel bars inside the building made teeth-grinding, twisting sounds due to the uneven stress.
Dozens of glass curtain walls fell down with a clatter, smashing into pieces on the ground.
Pedestrians on the street burst into terrified screams, scrambling to cover their heads and hide in shops at street corners.
Clark diverted a trace of his Bio-field to hold all the falling glass shards in mid-air.
Not a single fragment fell into the crowd.
He then swept the debris toward an uninhabited area.
He carried the building, moving horizontally through the air.
The movement was very slow.
It was as if he were manipulating a fragile Lego brick.
He was afraid that if he moved too fast, he would shake this fragile glass structure until it collapsed.
Reaching above the abandoned plaza, he controlled the speed of descent, lowering it bit by bit.
Thud.
The half-building landed steadily on the muddy ground, crushing two old yellow excavators.
A dull vibration came from the ground, kicking up clouds of yellow dust.
A fire hydrant by the road was shattered by the impact.
A white column of water shot into the sky, spraying onto the terrified crowd.
A man in a suit sat slumped in a puddle, his tie completely soaked.
He stared blankly at the intact half-building, forgetting even to breathe.
Yellow dust hit Clark's face.
He shook his wrist with distaste.
He had gotten a bit of cement dust on the spot where he had been supporting it, and he casually wiped it off on the side of his suit's thigh.
After brushing off the dust, he turned around.
He bent his legs slightly.
With a muffled bang, Clark turned into a red and blue afterimage, shooting straight into the high sky.
The airflow generated by his takeoff blew away all the yellow dust below.
He stopped less than ten meters away from Homelander.
The Red Cape fluttered slowly in the airflow behind him.
The two confronted each other through the murky air of a Manhattan morning.
Homelander's laughter stopped.
He stared fixedly at Clark.
His blue eyes were filled with worm-like bloodshot veins.
The expression on his face was twisted, looking even more hideous than rotten meat in a sewer.
"You... what are you!"
Homelander pointed at Clark, his fingers shaking violently.
His voice cracked from excessive screaming, carrying an unpleasant, broken tone.
"This is my city! I am the god they should be worshiping!"
His chest heaved violently, and his breathing was as heavy as an old, leaking bellows.
"You stole my position... you lowly alien mongrel!"
He couldn't even articulate his words clearly, spittle flying everywhere.
Clark watched him quietly.
He did not refute.
His gaze was as flat as if he were looking at a bag of stinking trash left on the side of the road.
This attitude of disregard.
This compassionate gaze as if looking at a lower life form.
It completely ignited the last fuse of dynamite in Homelander's brain.
Boom!
The air around Homelander was torn apart instantly.
With a speed that broke the sound barrier, he rushed over like a red and blue cannonball.
The ten-meter distance did not even need 0.01 seconds.
He concentrated all the strength of his life into his fists.
He wanted to smash this expressionless face.
He wanted to rip the heart out of this alien mongrel.
Bang!
The first punch landed solidly on Clark's chest.
The sound was ridiculously loud.
It was like a hundreds-of-tons hydraulic hammer slamming into a solid steel ingot.
A huge sonic wave exploded in mid-air.
The glass windows below buzzed, and several shattered directly.
Pedestrians covered their ears and crouched on the ground in pain.
But Clark did not even retreat half a step.
The S emblem on his chest didn't even have an extra wrinkle.
"Die! Die! Die!"
Homelander had gone completely mad.
He swung his arms, his fists turning into countless afterimages.
Like a rainstorm, they poured down on Clark's chest, shoulders, and face.
The deafening sound of iron-beating echoed densely in the high sky.
Clang, clang, clang, clang!
Each time a fist landed, a visible white shockwave rippled through the air.
That was the sonic boom caused by pure speed and force compressing the air.
Sparks flickered constantly where the fists collided with the suit.
That was the high-temperature friction generated on Homelander's fists.
Clark hovered in place.
He let these fists, which could smash through aircraft carrier armor, land on him.
He even blinked boredly.
A moment ago, a punch had grazed his nose tip, and the gust of wind it brought made his eyes feel a bit dry.
He didn't even bother to make a defensive move.
His hands hung naturally at his sides, watching the frantic giant baby in front of him.
Homelander's fists became faster and faster, and his power grew greater.
But his bones were the first to be unable to bear it.
His finger bones began to emit unbearable creaking sounds.
His flesh and skin were torn open on the spot by the reaction force.
Blood splattered out from between his fingers, spraying into the air.
The blue sleeves of his suit were completely stained red by the blood seeping out of himself.
But he couldn't feel the pain.
Jealousy and madness had completely paralyzed his pain nerves.
He just mechanically and frantically swung his fists.
One hundred punches.
Two hundred punches.
Three hundred punches.
Homelander's breathing became increasingly chaotic.
He couldn't draw enough oxygen into his lungs, and a sound like tearing rags emitted from his throat.
The speed of his punches finally slowed down.
His hands were already a bloody mess, with ghastly white bone shards piercing through the skin and exposed.
It was horrific to look at.
Thud.
The last punch landed softly on Clark's chin.
The power was pitifully weak.
Homelander gasped heavily for air, his arms hanging down weakly.
He was completely exhausted, and even hovering in the air was somewhat difficult.
Staring with bloodshot eyes, he looked fixedly at the man in front of him.
There wasn't even a scratch on Clark's face.
Even his hair, styled with hair wax, wasn't messy.
There were just a few drops of Homelander's blood splattered on his collar.
Clark frowned.
He looked down at the dark red stain on his collar.
Lois had just helped him wash this suit yesterday.
The bloodstain on the red and blue fabric was hard to wash off.
This made him feel a bit annoyed.
He raised his head again, looking at Homelander, who was panting like a dead dog.
"Are you done?"
Clark asked indifferently.
His tone was as flat as if he were asking a street vendor how much a hot dog cost.
This sentence was like a cold awl.
It pierced directly through Homelander's eardrum, stabbing deep into his already fragile self-esteem.
Homelander opened his mouth, full of bloody foam.
He wanted to retort, wanted to curse loudly.
But only a hoarse, unpleasant gasping sound came from his throat.
He couldn't even spit out half a word.
Clark didn't give him a chance to catch his breath.
He tilted his body slightly.
His right shoulder sank an inch.
His entire right arm pulled back into a simple, unadorned arc to gather power.
There was no extra flash of supernatural power.
No high temperature from Heat Vision, and no cold air from Freeze Breath.
This was just the most ordinary arm-swinging motion used when teaching disobedient bulls a lesson on the Kansas farm.
Yet, it contained the purest, unreserved physical strength of a Kryptonian.
The upper arm drove the forearm.
The right palm turned into an afterimage, brutally tearing through the air between the two.
The palm rubbed against the air at high speed, emitting a distinct burnt smell.
The resulting gale blew the blood on Homelander's face dry.
Slap!
A solid, unavoidable, heavy slap.
It landed directly on Homelander's left cheek.
The sound of this slap was completely different from the iron-beating sounds just now.
It was a dull thud of flesh bursting that made hearts stop.
The moment it made contact with Homelander's cheek, the air seemed to stagnate.
The skin rolled and tore violently like waves under the immense force.
Immediately following, a crisp sound of bone cracking.
In the bustling morning of Manhattan, this sound actually drowned out all the sirens and screams.
It made everyone's back teeth ache.
Homelander's left half of his face caved in on the spot.
His high nose bridge snapped directly, poking out through the skin from his right cheek.
His jawbone shattered into dozens of fragments under the terrifying physical force.
A mouthful of teeth mixed with large amounts of blood gushed out from his mouth like flowers scattering from the sky.
He didn't even have time to let out a scream.
His conscious mind was forcibly cut off by the intense pain the moment he was hit.
His entire body was like a golf ball struck by a professional player with full force.
Carrying a pale white shockwave that broke the sound barrier, he fell obliquely from mid-air.
The speed was so fast that it left a long, blood-red line on the retina.
Heading straight for the center of Times Square on the ground.
Boom!
Homelander's body, like a heavy bunker-buster missile, slammed hard onto the asphalt road in the center of Times Square.
The hard road surface didn't last even a millisecond.
A deep pit over a dozen meters wide exploded on the spot.
Crushed stones and black asphalt chunks were blown tens of meters into the high sky by the airwave.
Then they came crashing down like a hailstorm of mudslide.
That wasn't all.
The huge impact force carried Homelander's broken body to continue drilling downward.
It pierced through the underground city drainage pipes.
The body continued to fall.
It pierced through the thick reinforced concrete partition.
Finally, it heavily smashed through the tunnel ceiling of the New York subway station.
It was deeply embedded into the soil of the underground tunnel over a dozen meters deep.
The earth trembled violently.
Chapter 30: Global Live Stream Humiliation! HomelanderKneels on the Ground Weeping Bitterly
The violent tremors finally stopped.
The earth's aftershocks slowly faded along the asphalt road.
In Times Square, the crowds desperately fleeing slowed their pace.
Dust hung in the air like a thick fog.
The air was filled with the stench of sewage sludge and the acrid smell of burnt cables.
Some people tripped and fell to the ground, forgetting to get back up.
Everyone stared blankly at the center of the square.
A deafening roar of propellers came from overhead.
Three helicopters, painted with news station logos, were circling the massive crater.
The pilots kept their flight altitude very low.
The strong winds dispersed the thick smoke above the pit.
The cameramen leaned more than half their bodies out of the cabin doors, their safety ropes digging into their shoulders.
They carried heavy HD cameras on their shoulders, lenses zooming in and focusing frantically, locked onto that bottomless black hole.
Debris from the edge of the pit rolled down, striking the subway tracks below with a hollow echo.
Clark descended slowly from mid-air.
His red boots stepped onto a protruding concrete slab at the edge of the crater.
The concrete slab let out a dull cracking sound.
He made no move, quietly looking down.
At the bottom of the deep, dark tunnel, a rustling sound of rubbing gravel emerged.
A hand wearing a blue glove reached out from the darkness.
The glove had long since rotted into strips of cloth.
The flesh on the back of the hand was curled back, revealing the stark white finger bones inside.
This hand gripped the edge of a broken sewer pipe tightly.
Immediately after, a tattered figure crawled out from the pile of rubble.
It was Homelander.
He crawled upward on all fours like a stray dog run over by a truck.
That usually spotless Stars and Stripes cape was now covered in mud and sewage.
It had been torn into rags by steel bars, hanging behind him.
He raised his head.
The searchlight from the helicopter hit his face perfectly.
This face was instantly transmitted to billions of screens worldwide via satellite signal.
The left side of his face was completely sunken in.
His nasal bone was broken, and pale bone fragments poked through the skin on his right cheek.
His mouth was swollen high, and more than half of his teeth were shattered.
His chin hung loosely to one side.
He climbed with great difficulty.
His knees ground out two long bloodstains on the broken glass.
With every step he climbed, a mouthful of bloody saliva welled up and dripped into the black mud.
Clark took a step forward.
The rustling sound of his combat boots stepping on the gravel wasn't loud.
But in Homelander's ears, this sound was more terrifying than a thunderclap.
Homelander shuddered violently.
He looked up and saw that red and blue figure standing at the edge of the pit.
Physiological fear, like a thick iron nail, smashed directly through his fragile nervous system.
His movement of climbing upward stopped.
The muscles in his legs spasmed wildly.
He wanted to stand up, wanting to maintain the last shred of superhero dignity.
But the cowardice in his bones crushed him.
His knees went weak.
With a thud, he knelt directly on the slope covered in mud and broken glass.
His knees were pierced by the glass, but he didn't even flinch.
The whole world was watching this scene.
In a London bar, wine glasses dropped to the floor and shattered.
At a Tokyo intersection, tens of thousands of people looked up at the big screens, silent.
The man who had been worshipped on an altar, the true god who claimed he could do whatever he wanted, was now kneeling at someone's feet.
"No... don't kill me..."
Homelander opened his toothless, whistling mouth, his voice hoarse and ugly, carrying a heavy, tearful tone.
Tears mixed with the blood on his face, washing out two ugly stains that dripped down his chin.
He clawed at the mud with both hands, looking up at Clark, his face full of pleading.
"It's not my fault... really, it's not me!"
He stammered, his tongue even tangling.
"It's Vought Corporation! It's those bastards in white coats!"
"They locked me in a laboratory and experimented on me. They are the ones who drove me crazy!"
To save his life, he pushed all the blame away.
He wept bitterly like a child who had suffered every grievance.
Snot mixed with blood flowed into his mouth, and he swallowed it in big gulps.
"Vogelbaum... and Madelyn."
"They made me do it! I'm just a product, I'm just an obedient tool!"
He kowtowed in the mud, his forehead covered in black ash.
"Let me go... please, I'll listen to everything you say from now on."
Clark looked down at him from above.
There was no ripple in his blue eyes, only deep disgust.
This was the strongest weapon created by Vought Corporation.
Peeling away that shell of violence, inside was only a cowardly, selfish man-child.
Clark bent down.
He reached out his right hand and grabbed the collar behind Homelander's neck.
Like holding a stinking dead rat, he lifted this man, who weighed over 180 pounds, out of the crater with one hand.
Homelander hung in mid-air, not even having the thought of struggling.
His legs dangled limply.
Clark turned and walked toward the police line that had set up a cordon dozens of meters away.
Those police officers held their pistols, their legs trembling uncontrollably.
Seeing Clark walking over, they retreated one after another.
Thud.
Clark tossed him aside casually, throwing Homelander at the feet of a few policemen.
Homelander fell onto the asphalt, rolled twice, and groaned, clutching his broken ribs.
He lay there like a lump of rotten meat.
The lead fat police sergeant swallowed a mouthful of saliva.
He looked at this big shot on the ground, someone he usually could only look up to on TV.
His palms were full of sweat.
He slowly reached toward his lower back and took out a pair of ordinary steel handcuffs.
The chains clinked with a crisp sound.
The fat sergeant stepped forward two paces and squatted down.
His hands were shaking so much he couldn't even find the keyhole.
He grabbed Homelander's bloody, mangled right hand and pulled it behind his back.
Click.
The metal handcuffs locked onto Homelander's wrists.
The cold touch made Homelander flinch.
But he had completely lost the will to break free.
The chains, which he could snap with just a little effort, now felt like a mountain pressing down on him.
He stared listlessly at the cracks in the ground.
He let two policemen hoist him up from the ground.
His legs dragged on the ground, the tips of his shoes carving two lines on the asphalt.
Like a dead man, he was shoved into the back seat of a police car.
The car door slammed shut, isolating that broken face inside the iron shell.
The roar of the helicopter propellers was still deafening overhead.
The reporter carrying the camera gathered his courage and aimed the lens at Clark.
Clark stood in the sunlight.
He slowly raised his head.
His gaze precisely crossed the distance of dozens of meters, staring directly at the lens at the helicopter cabin door.
That was the screen that billions of people were watching.
The expression on Clark's face was calm, but his voice clearly overpowered all the noise, transmitting precisely into the microphone.
"The false god has fallen."
He paused for a second, his gaze sweeping over the distant Vought Tower.
"It is time to settle the score for the sins."
The feed cut instantly.
Dozens of kilometers away, inside the Daily Planet office building in downtown New York, Lois sat in front of her cluttered desk.
On the desk sat a cup of leftover cold coffee.
She stared at the computer screen, her eyes slightly red.
On the screen was the final image of the live broadcast just now.
She took a deep breath, her lungs full of the smell of printer ink.
Her fingers hovered over the keyboard.
The Vought dirt she had obtained from Annie, plus Lamplighter's confession video, had all been packaged in the backend.
The upload progress bar was stuck at the last step.
Lois bit her lower lip.
Her right index finger pressed down hard, striking the Enter key heavily.
The keyboard made a crisp click.
The data progress bar filled up instantly.
The scheduled release command was activated.
These secrets, enough to wipe the Vought Empire off the face of the earth, began to rush across the fiber-optic network to the whole world.
Chapter 31: The Seven Fall from Their Pedestal, Vought Corporation Stock Plummets Ninety Percent in One Day
Click.
The plastic key sprang back into place.
Lois lifted her finger from the Enter key, her fingertip still tingling slightly.
The data transfer progress bar on the screen filled up instantly.
A second later.
The backend servers of The New York Times, CNN, and Fox News received this massive data packet simultaneously.
A scheduled Trojan program forcibly hijacked the homepages of major portals.
The layout of the front-page headlines refreshed instantly.
The live broadcast footage of Homelander, face covered in blood, kneeling in a crater of rubble and begging for mercy in Times Square, was pinned to the top.
Next to it was a low-quality video recording.
In the video, Lamplighter was shivering, his entire body turning blue from the cold.
Snot mixed with blood hung from his chin.
His teeth chattered uncontrollably as he stammered out all the secrets of compound v to the camera.
"It is a drug... there is no such thing as a chosen one."
Lamplighter sobbed in the video, "Vought Corporationbribes nurses in hundreds of hospitals across the country. They inject newborn babies with mutant serum."
"Those stillborns who died from accidents were all burned as medical waste."
Next to this video were thousands of pages of encrypted shipping manifests that Annie had stolen.
Every single illicit transaction.
Every death report from human experimentation.
Stamped with glaring red seals, they were laid bare on the screens of internet users worldwide.
The internet backbone faced an unprecedented surge in traffic.
Twitter crashed completely.
The server room at Facebook emitted overload alarms, and several mainframes literally started smoking.
Even the beat-up phone of a roadside mechanic, which could barely load webpages, was flooded with pop-ups.
A nuclear-level scandal had detonated.
9:30 AM.
Wall Street, the New York Stock Exchange.
The opening bell had just rung.
The trading floor lacked its usual greedy clamor.
It was deathly silent.
Hundreds of traders in high-end suits stared blankly at the massive electronic display in the center.
Next to the stock ticker for Vought Corporation, a glaring red arrow lit up.
The first second of trading.
The stock price curve did not even struggle; it plummeted in a vertical, ninety-degree nosedive.
"Sell! Sell it all!"
A bald fund manager suddenly snapped back to reality and roared at the top of his lungs.
His voice cracked.
He knocked over the coffee cup in front of him, and the brown liquid splashed onto the keyboard, sizzling.
The entire hall erupted in chaos.
Phones rang incessantly.
Traders hammered their keyboards frantically, shouting into their phones, spittle flying.
The air was thick with the smell of sweat and desperate gasps.
Just five minutes into trading.
The decline exceeded thirty percent.
The exchange's safety mechanism triggered automatically.
The first circuit breaker.
During the fifteen-minute trading halt, no one went to the bathroom or drank water.
Everyone was glued to their phones, watching the Vought Corporation scandal continue to ferment.
Trading resumed.
In the second second, it crashed through the circuit breaker floor again.
A fifty percent decline.
Seventy percent.
Ninety percent.
This massive empire, which had dominated the United States for decades with a market value of trillions of dollars.
In less than an hour.
Its stock had completely plummeted into worthless scraps of paper.
Some retail investors could not handle the shock, clutching their chests and collapsing in convulsions beside the trading desks.
Ambulance sirens wailed incessantly on Wall Street.
The top floor of Vought Tower.
Stan Edgar sat in the CEO's office.
Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows came the dense roar of helicopter rotors.
Five black Black Hawk helicopters, marked with FBI logos, surrounded the top floor of the building completely.
SWAT team ropes descended from the sky.
Bang.
The security door was smashed open by a battering ram.
Dozens of automatic rifles equipped with tactical flashlights swept the office with infrared laser dots.
Finally, they all landed on Stan Edgar's bespoke suit.
"Hands on your head! Get on the desk!"
The FBI team leader aimed his gun, his boots crunching on the shattered glass covering the floor.
Stan Edgar did not resist.
His face was pale.
His usually meticulously combed hair had a few loose silver strands hanging down.
He slowly raised his hands.
His fingers were trembling slightly.
The agent rushed over and slammed him onto the wide mahogany desk.
His cheek pressed against the cold desktop.
The cold, hard steel handcuffs clicked shut, locking his wrists.
"You are under arrest, Mr. Edgar. The charges are crimes against humanity, illegal human experimentation, and murder."
The agent pressed down hard on the back of his neck.
He hauled him up from the desk.
Stan Edgar did not argue.
He was dragged out of the office, his arms held by two heavily armed SWAT officers.
When passing the PR department lobby.
He saw Ashley.
The PR director who had been so arrogant just a few days ago.
Now had a bald head covered in scratches she had clawed into herself.
She was pinned against the wall by a female officer being searched.
Snot and tears streamed down her face as she shrieked hysterically.
"I do not know anything! I am just an employee! I did not participate in those murders!"
The entire Vought Corporation headquarters had completely fallen.
Executives were lined up and escorted into police cars.
The crowd of protesters below the building erupted in deafening cheers.
The Seven had also fallen apart.
In the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
The scorching sun was overhead.
The Deep was soaking in the briny seawater.
His green scale suit had long since faded from the sun, and a layer of white sea salt had crystallized on its surface.
He held a tattered fishing net, struggling to fish out an old, discarded tire floating on the water.
The skin on his back was sunburned and peeling, stinging with pain.
Not far away, a passing ocean-going freighter was playing a satellite broadcast.
"Vought Corporation CEO arrested... Homelander begs for mercy in the street... Superheroes are all test subjects created with compound v..."
The anchorwoman's voice on the broadcast was very clear.
The Deep froze.
The tattered fishing net in his hand fell into the sea.
The discarded tire spun away into the distance.
He opened his mouth wide, staring blankly at the sea surface.
He inhaled a mouthful of bitter seawater, choking and coughing repeatedly.
"It is over... it is all over."
He covered his face and wailed in the vast ocean.
His crying sounded as ugly as a seagull with its neck being strangled.
He did not even have the thought of running away.
Because other than talking to fish, he could not do anything.
Without Vought Corporation's packaging, he was not even qualified to do odd jobs at an aquarium.
In a high-end private hospital in New York.
The smell of disinfectant in the intensive care unit was very strong.
The electrocardiogram monitor emitted a monotonous beeping sound.
A-Train lay in the hospital bed.
His two legs were covered in thick plaster casts, suspended high by traction ropes.
He held a remote control, staring fixedly at the television screen hanging on the wall.
When he saw the footage of Homelander kneeling and kowtowing for mercy at the feet of that Red Cape.
The remote control slipped from his hand and landed on the quilt.
Heavy footsteps of leather shoes came from outside the ward.
Along with the static noise of police walkie-talkies.
"Ward 6, secure the suspect named Reggie." The police officer's voice came through the door panel.
A-Train shuddered in fear.
He gritted his teeth, enduring the excruciating pain of his broken leg bones.
He pulled the white sterile sheet over his head with both hands.
He closed his eyes tight, forcing himself to slow his breathing.
Trying to lower the frequency on the ECG monitor.
Pretending he was still in a deep coma.
He did not dare to run and could not run, so he could only bury his head in the quilt and play dead like an ostrich.
Meanwhile, at the entrance of the Brooklyn Federal Court.
Security personnel had set up a long cordon.
Countless flashes went off, so bright it was blinding.
Annie and Queen Maeve stood side by side on the steps.
They were not wearing those skintight, revealing superhero costumes.
Annie was wearing a plain denim jacket.
Maeve had on a loose black sweater, her long hair tied back casually.
Her hangover had not fully worn off, and there were dark circles under her eyes, but her gaze was surprisingly bright.
Dozens of microphones from news stations were set up in front of them.
"Yes, all the evidence I submitted is real."
Annie took a deep breath and spoke into the microphone.
Her hands were still trembling slightly, but her voice was steady.
"Vought Corporation has deceived the whole world. I am willing to serve as a witness for the prosecution and testify to all their crimes."
Maeve stood beside her.
She took something wrapped in cloth out of her pocket.
It was the broken half of the longsword hilt from the server room.
She threw the hilt onto the table in front of her.
"We are not gods."
Maeve looked coldly at the cameras below.
"We are just a bunch of freaks created by drugs, packaged by capital as money-making tools."
"True heroes do not need this hypocritical skin at all."
The whole world was cheering.
Celebrating the overthrow of this mountain of capital that had been pressing down on their heads for decades.
In Times Square, people popped champagne, the sprayed foam refracting halos in the sunlight.
Bars were serving free beer, and the streets were filled with people hugging and celebrating.
But in a corner that no one noticed.
A crisis was quietly brewing in the shadows.
In the suburbs of New York.
A stretch of barren hills and woods enclosed by barbed wire.
The weeds grew taller than a person, and rusted, abandoned warning signs were everywhere.
Deep within the mountain, a Cold War-era nuclear bunker that had been abandoned for decades was hidden.
The half-meter-thick lead door was covered in moss.
A damp, musty smell seeped out from the door cracks.
Boom.
A muffled sound suddenly came from inside the bunker.
As if something had exploded deep underground.
The ground shook violently, and leaves rustled down.
A few seconds later.
A thick bolt of purple lightning.
Struck out from inside the bunker without warning.
High-temperature plasma instantly pierced through the heavy lead door that claimed to be able to withstand the shockwave of a nuclear bomb.
A blinding white light from melting metal flared up.
The heavy door was blown into two halves by the violent current, falling to both sides.
Hitting the muddy ground and kicking up a sky full of dust.
The air was instantly filled with a pungent smell of ozone.
And the acrid, burnt smell of metal being melted.
A woman stepped out of the dark bunker tunnel, treading on the molten iron.
She was wearing a somewhat retro black skintight suit.
Faint purple electric arcs flowed across the surface of the suit, emitting crackling static noises.
A cold wind blew by.
An old newspaper, blown from who knows where, swirled and stuck to her combat boots.
The front page of the newspaper had large red characters printed on it: "Vought Corporation's Hypocritical Gods Fall".
The woman stopped.
She looked down at the newspaper on her foot.
She sneered.
She lifted her combat boot and ruthlessly stepped the newspaper into the mud, crushing it to pulp.
She slowly raised her head.
In her eyes, there were no human whites.
Only violently leaping purple electric arcs.
Stormfront had awakened.
Chapter 32: The Truth About compound v Exposed by the Newspaper, Nationwide Crusade Against Vought
The discarded newspaper printed with Red Cape was crushed into the mud by a muddy combat boot.
The photo of Superman on the newspaper was shredded into pulp.
Stormfront raised her hand.
Purple electric arcs on her fingertips darted back and forth like small snakes.
Making crackling, explosive sounds.
She looked back at the pitch-black nuclear bunker.
She sneered and kicked off hard with her legs.
The muddy ground was stomped into a half-meter deep crater.
Her whole body transformed into a blinding purple bolt of lightning, smashing directly through the thick clouds.
A bright streak was torn across the gloomy sky.
A thick, pungent smell of burnt ozone remained in the air.
The next morning.
It was raining heavily.
The entrances to Vought branches across the country were blocked by angry crowds.
Outside the Vought Biological Research Center on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.
Hundreds of parents holding umbrellas pushed the iron fence until it was on the verge of collapsing.
Rainwater streamed down their cheeks, making it impossible to distinguish from tears.
A middle-aged man held up a wooden sign with a photo of a baby pasted on it.
"Give my son back to me!"
The man's voice was hoarse from shouting, and the veins on his neck were bulging.
He grabbed a broken red brick from the ground and smashed it hard against the research center's glass door.
The brick hit the explosion-proof glass, creating a ring of white cracks.
The crowd's emotions completely exploded.
Everyone pushed inside frantically, and umbrellas dropped on the ground were trampled to pieces.
The security guards behind the door didn't even dare to draw their batons; terrified, they threw away their hats and ran toward the back door.
After the secret of compound v was exposed.
Those parents who had been deceived by money finally woke up.
They had thought their children had died of illness or were sent to special institutions for training.
Who knew they were all injected with drugs and treated as lab rats that could die at any moment.
Social order was being reshaped in a tragic way.
Every sign bearing the Vought logo was spray-painted by the public with the word "murderer".
Those once high-and-mighty superpowered individuals now didn't even dare to step outside.
Terrified of being recognized on the street and pelted with rotten eggs.
In the office hall of the Daily Planet.
The ringing of phones and the noise of printers mingled together.
The air was filled with the strange smell of cheap coffee and wool coats dampened by the rain.
Clark sat at his workstation.
He had changed back into that red and white plaid shirt.
Perched on the bridge of his nose was that pair of newly bought hard plastic black-rimmed glasses.
The frames were a bit tight, causing a slight ache behind his ears.
His fingers tapped on the old-fashioned keyboard.
The keys made a clattering sound.
Because he was typing too fast and hit a wrong letter, he helplessly pressed the backspace key twice.
On the computer screen, a follow-up report was being edited.
The content was news about Congress launching a comprehensive antitrust investigation into Vought International.
Clark stopped typing.
He reached out to rub his sore neck.
He turned his head to glance at the wall-mounted television.
The news was showing footage of the public rushing into the Vought building and carrying out boxes of confidential files.
An old lady was crying on camera, thanking the hero called Superman.
Clark picked up the cold instant coffee on the table.
He took a big gulp.
It was bitter and astringent.
But he felt the air today smelled better than ever before.
No need to be on guard against those perverted giant babies flying around in the sky.
The public had taken back their own rights.
This was the ordinary life he wanted.
In a run-down bar in Brooklyn.
There wasn't much business in the middle of the day.
Only a dim yellow overhead light was on.
The whole room was filled with the sour smell of overnight beer and low-quality tobacco.
Butcher sat at the bar.
He was holding a piece of paper stamped with the Department of Justice's red seal.
The paper was crumpled in his grip.
It was a comprehensive amnesty issued by the government.
"This thing... does this actually work?"
Hughie sat on a bar stool.
He wasn't wearing that old, never-washed T-shirt today; he had changed into a clean white shirt.
The collar was buttoned a bit tight, making him tug at it constantly.
"Don't be stupid."
Butcher slapped the paper onto the bar counter.
He picked up his glass and downed a mouthful of whiskey, coughing twice from the strength of the alcohol.
"With Vought having fallen, we fugitives are now state's evidence."
Frenchie was fiddling with an old radio nearby.
He didn't reply, looking down at his own hands.
No need to make bombs anymore, no need to hide in trunks in fear.
This feeling of sudden idleness made him feel an itchy ache in his very bones.
Mother's Milk was on the phone in the corner.
His voice was loud, carrying an irrepressible smile.
"Yes, honey, I'm coming back now... I want to see Monique, I can take her to the amusement park."
He hung up the phone and wiped his face with his thick arm.
His eyes were a bit red, but he pretended nothing had happened and walked back to the bar.
The Boys could finally disband.
They lived the lives of normal people.
Butcher took out his lighter and lit a cigarette.
He took a deep drag and exhaled a bluish-gray smoke ring.
Just at this brief moment of peace.
The broken TV in the corner of the bar, which had been playing a talk show, suddenly froze.
It emitted a sharp electronic screech.
The frequency was high enough to pierce the eardrums.
Hughie covered his ears.
"Is this broken TV broken again? Boss, adjust the antenna!"
But it wasn't just this TV.
At the same time.
All the computer screens in the newspaper office hall.
The huge electronic billboards in Times Square.
Even the smartphones in the hands of pedestrians on the street.
All went black in an instant.
A few seconds later, countless screens lit up simultaneously.
The entire network was forcibly interrupted by a hacker broadcast signal from an unknown source.
The image was shaky, as if filmed by a hovering drone.
The background was a stretch of gloomy clouds.
A woman appeared in the center of the frame.
She was wearing a black retro combat suit.
Her short hair was blown wildly by the high-altitude wind.
Purple electric arcs danced in her eyes, chilling to the bone.
"Fellow citizens of America."
Stormfront spoke.
Her voice spread throughout the world via the internet.
Her tone carried a highly inflammatory fanaticism.
Clark sat at his workstation.
The coffee cup in his hand paused in mid-air.
He stared at this woman on the screen, his brows furrowing tightly.
One could feel the malice rushing toward them even through the screen.
"Look at yourselves now."
Stormfront sneered, her fingertips rubbing together to create a string of purple sparks.
"Incited by a few reporters hiding in the shadows, by some lowly peasants."
"To destroy our great Superhuman Empire."
She flew forward a short distance, her face filling the entire screen in a close-up.
"compound v is not a sin!"
She suddenly yelled, her voice cracking slightly.
"It is the key to evolution bestowed upon us by God! It is meant for us, with our superior bloodline, to rule over these swine who don't even have fully developed brains!"
In the bar.
The cigarette in Butcher's mouth fell onto his crotch.
The burn made him jump up suddenly, frantically slapping at his pants.
"Which basement did this crazy bitch crawl out of?"
He patted out the sparks and cursed.
On the screen, Stormfront's speech continued.
Her tone shifted, and her expression became twisted.
"But now, there is an alien bastard."
She gritted her teeth as she uttered these words.
"He wears that piece of red rag."
"Putting on a compassionate act, trampling our true pure-blooded brethren under his feet."
Stormfront spread her arms.
The thunderclouds behind her began to churn wildly.
"He is afraid! Afraid of our pure superhuman bloodline!"
"He is destroying us!"
"All warriors with compound v flowing in your blood, stand up!"
This Nazi-tinged speech.
Was like a rat dropping falling into a water vat that had just cleared up.
Those superhumans who were hiding in dark corners, trembling because of Vought's fall.
Those perverts who were never willing to lose their privileges and were full of superiority complexes.
Had their nerves completely stirred by these words.
The live feed continued.
The sky in the background turned completely black.
Queens, New York.
This was an old neighborhood inhabited by ethnic minorities.
The streetlights were in disrepair, and the light was very dim.
Stormfront floated dozens of meters high in the air.
Beside her, dozens of masked superhuman extremists flew or jumped up one after another.
These people held various weapons, some with flames or strange acid emitting from their bodies.
The residents below heard the commotion and opened their windows to look out.
Stormfront lowered her head.
Looking at the civilians below dressed in cheap pajamas.
A hint of cruel pleasure appeared in her eyes.
Crack!
A thick purple lightning bolt descended from the sky.
It struck a three-story old apartment building at the street corner directly.
Bricks shattered, and flames shot up to the sky.
Piercing screams tore through the silence of the night.
Rubble crashed onto the street, crushing a few old cars parked on the roadside.
The purple lightning illuminated the entire night sky.
And illuminated Stormfront's face, which was excited because of madness.
She grabbed the drone camera hovering in front of her.
Thrusting it into her face.
"Make that Red Cape inferior being come out!"
Stormfront screeched hysterically at the camera.
Spit sprayed onto the lens, leaving a few blurry spots.
"Let him come and see what a true pure-blooded god is!"