"Where is your mother?"
Butcher's voice was hoarse with absolute terror, every word seemingly draining all the strength he had left.
The child slowly raised his head and looked at him.
Ryan merely trembled. He reached out a terrified little hand, pointing at the bloodstains on the floor, and then, shaking, pointed at himself.
"Mom... is gone..."
He spoke in broken fragments, every syllable laced with a sob.
Just as Butcher took a step closer, wanting to ask something else, it happened.
Boom—!
An invisible shockwave violently erupted outward with the child at its epicenter.
Butcher's virus-enhanced senses actually caught a bizarre sequence of images.
Shattered, twisted visions violently pierced his mind like the sharpest shards of glass!
It was the exact moment the worlds merged!
The sky tore open with blood-red rifts, the earth wailed, and a devastating energy swept through the villa.
The innate power of Homelander within Ryan, combined with the foreign Crossed virus, had detonated simultaneously!
He saw it!
He saw Becca rushing forward in terror, tightly embracing her son, trying to shield him with her own body.
He saw two uncontrollable, unrestrained crimson beams of light shoot from Ryan's eyes.
He heard Becca's final... short and agonizing scream.
That light tore her apart.
It took her... away from this world.
The illusion abruptly stopped.
Butcher stumbled backward, the world losing all its color in his eyes.
Silence.
Deathly silence.
The love and hope that had sustained him, that had pulled him out of the virus's madness...
The sole warmth he thought he had regained, the warmth that was enough to make him stand against the entire world—it was all gone.
His sanity snapped like a bowstring pulled to its absolute limit.
At the end of hope lay despair.
All that remained was a hatred potent enough to devour everything and incinerate his very soul.
Sizzle—!!!
The slanted, X-shaped blood-cross mark on his face seemed to have been splashed with boiling oil, resurfacing in a far more violent and hideous manner than ever before!
An eerie, blood-red glow seeped from the mark, illuminating half of his face like a malevolent demon.
He looked at Ryan before him.
The little bastard in front of him was no longer Becca's son.
All he saw was the vile spawn of Homelander.
All he saw was the monster that had murdered his wife.
All he saw was a "superhuman"—the very thing he hated with all his life and had sworn to eradicate completely.
All the pain, all the hatred, all the despair erupted in this single moment.
"Guh..."
A low, zombie-like growl rumbled from Butcher's throat.
He reached out his hand toward the terrified child, toward the monster that had killed his everything.
"Ah—!!!"
Accompanied by Ryan's final, agonizing scream that tore through the silence...
Everything returned to stillness.
Butcher had personally severed the last and only tie between himself and Becca.
In that moment, his humanity was completely obliterated.
He walked out of the villa and stood on the lawn by the lake.
The wind blew past, making his tattered black trench coat flutter wildly.
He raised his head, gazing up at the blood-red sky, his eyes devoid of even the slightest trace of confusion or pain.
Only a pure, cold, and crystal-clear objective remained.
Slaughter every single superhuman in this world.
Whether they were infected or not.
No matter who they were.
Boom!!!
Like a pitch-black meteor of destruction wreathed in blood-red flames, he shot into the sky, beginning his final and most deranged hunt.
He roamed the fractured lands of America.
He tore apart the few surviving degenerate heroes of Vought International who were indulging themselves in the ruins.
He hunted down the new superhumans who had accidentally awakened their powers due to the merging of the worlds.
The Temp V and the Crossed virus reacted violently and madly within his body.
With every superhuman he killed, the virus stimulated his body, making him stronger. But at the same time, his own life force was burning away at a terrifying speed.
Dense cracks began to appear across his body, like a piece of porcelain on the verge of shattering.
Blood-red light continuously spilled from the fissures.
After a brutally tragic battle, Butcher used his heat vision to burn a superhuman target into a charred husk.
Dragging a body that was practically falling apart, he could no longer fly and crashed heavily into a filthy, forgotten alleyway.
Freezing rain, mixed with the stench of rotting garbage, washed over his cracked form.
Leaning against the wall, he slowly slid down.
His life was rapidly slipping away.
In the final moment before his consciousness plunged into eternal darkness...
Becca's smile seemed to float before his eyes once more.
Not the Becca shrouded in fear and despair, but the purest Becca from deep within his memories, smiling at him under the sunlight.
A single, blood-red tear slid from the corner of his eye, blending into the rain.
Then, he grinned, letting out a silent, exhilarating burst of maniacal laughter.
Amidst his wild laughter, his body shattered inch by inch, ultimately crumbling into a pile of glowing red fragments on the ground.
...
In the Sky Base, inside the Main Control Room.
The massive holographic projection quietly finished playing Butcher's short and violent tragedy—a tale of hope turning to despair, ending in self-destruction.
The footage froze on the final scene of his death.
Silence filled the room.
Azure Dragon stepped forward, breaking the quiet.
His voice was as steady as ever, devoid of any emotion.
"Report. According to feedback from the global monitoring system, the infection frenzy sweeping the globe has passed its peak."
"The virus's activity is stabilizing, entering a symbiotic phase with the hosts."
"Preliminary statistics indicate that outside of Huaxia, the global population has plummeted by seventy percent. The surviving uninfected are cowering in the ruins and quarantine zones of major cities."
"Meanwhile, the massive number of infected have begun to spontaneously gather, forming new tribes governed solely by primal desires and absolute power."
Ian listened calmly, his gaze still resting on the empty air, as if reminiscing about that departed, obsessive soul.
Archangel Starlight stood a short distance behind him, her golden eyes revealing a deep, unconcealable compassion.
She looked at the devastated earth in the projection, at the survivors struggling to live in the ruins, and at the infected building a new order amidst the madness.
An intense urge to purify it all surged within her heart.
The wings of light on her back fluttered uneasily, radiating a soft and holy brilliance.
But in the end, she suppressed the impulse.
She turned around and looked at the calm back of the man standing with his hands clasped behind him in a military greatcoat.
Waiting for his decision.