Chapter 51: Bekka is not dead yet? Butcher goes completely crazy
"She's not dead yet."
These three words were light as a feather.
They were spat out from Lynn's mouth without even the slightest unnecessary inflection.
But falling into Butcher's ears,
it was like a million-ton solid iron hammer, carrying a whistling wind,
slamming hard against his skull and mashing the brains inside.
"Bang!"
A crisp sound of shattering glass exploded in the basement.
The two cheap glasses Butcher was holding slipped from his hands and fell onto the concrete floor,
shattering into countless sharp shards.
Amber-colored cheap whiskey splashed all over the floor.
The liquid splashed up, a few drops landing on the edge of Lynn's leather shoes.
The strong smell of alcohol, mixed with the scent of moldy old newspapers, instantly filled the cramped room.
Butcher froze like a wooden statue.
The fanaticism on his face, the pleasure after revenge, vanished completely like receding dirty water.
Replaced by a death-like astonishment.
He opened his mouth, the stubble on his chin trembling along with his cracked lips.
He even forgot to breathe.
"You... what the fuck did you say?"
Butcher's voice completely cracked.
Carrying a wheezing sound like a broken bellows, his Adam's apple scraped up and down with difficulty.
He lunged forward a big step.
His heavy military boots stepped on the broken glass on the floor, making a teeth-grinding crunch.
Two large hands, full of calluses and scars, grabbed Lynn's shoulders tightly.
Ten fingers, like iron hooks, dug desperately into the suit fabric.
The veins on the back of his hands bulged one by one, blue and purple, looking terrifying.
"Boss... Lynn! Don't you dare joke about something like this!"
Butcher's breathing became thick and heavy, spit spraying into the air.
His eyes instantly filled with dense red bloodshot veins.
His eyes were bulging as if they were about to pop out, clenching his teeth hard, his cheeks puffed out high.
"I watched her disappear with my own eyes! It's been eight years! I've been looking for her for eight years!"
He roared so loudly that the dust on the exhaust fan in the corner fell down.
"You're telling me she's not dead?!"
Lynn, held by his shoulders, didn't move an inch.
The foundation of Primary Steel Body was simply not something an ordinary person could shake even the slightest bit.
He didn't pry Butcher's hands off, just coldly watched this man on the verge of losing control.
"I don't have the time to play games with you."
Lynn turned his head, his gaze crossing Butcher's broad shoulders, looking at the broken wooden table against the wall.
"Frenchie."
Lynn tilted his chin, his voice cold and hard.
"Plug in the data disk copied from the Vought basement archives yesterday, and open the encrypted database."
Frenchie was standing to the side, stunned, with a cigarette in his mouth.
Ash fell on his leather jacket, burning a hole; he only snapped out of it when he smelled the burning.
"Oh... right! Doing it now!"
Frenchie rushed toward the computer in a flurry, tripping over a chair leg.
He accidentally knocked over the pizza box nearby, smearing greasy tomato sauce over half the keyboard.
Frenchie didn't care to wipe it, just pulled his sleeve and gave it a quick swipe.
Ten fingers tapped rapidly on the greasy keys.
The keyboard made a dense clattering sound.
Hughie swallowed a mouthful of dry saliva and gathered the courage to lean behind the screen.
The basement was terrifyingly quiet, without even a cough.
Only the buzzing of the host fan remained as it ran under overload.
"Search keyword, Bekka Butcher."
Lynn added.
A long string of complex green garbled code jumped onto the screen.
Immediately after, a glaring red warning box popped up, bearing the Vought logo.
"Found it, but..."
Frenchie's fingers paused, his brows knitting into a knot.
"The encryption level is very high; it's an S-class top-secret quarantine file personally signed by Edgar. If forced to crack, it might trigger a self-destruct sequence."
"Break it open."
Butcher released Lynn's shoulders.
He stumbled to the table, hands supporting the greasy surface, his face almost pressing against the monitor.
"If something happens, I'll take the fall! Break it open!"
Frenchie bit his lower lip, no nonsense.
He typed in a forced-bypass script he wrote himself and pressed the Enter key heavily with his thumb.
The screen flickered twice.
The red warning box shattered, turning into a pitch-black video playback window.
The video had no sound, with the typical static noise of a surveillance camera.
The video began to buffer.
Butcher's breathing stopped completely, his eyes glued to the screen.
Two seconds later, the screen lit up.
It was a sunny suburban town.
The lawn was neatly trimmed, and a white wooden fence surrounded a two-story house with a yard.
It looked like the most standard middle-class life seen in TV commercials.
A woman was standing in the yard.
Holding a blue plastic basin, she was hanging washed white bedsheets on a clothesline.
She was wearing a plain gray knit sweater, with worn-out jeans on her lower body.
Her hair was casually tied in a bun at the back of her head.
Her figure looked somewhat thin.
A gust of wind blew, and the white sheets fluttered.
When the woman turned her head and reached out for a clothespin, the surveillance camera happened to capture her face.
There were a few fine lines at the corners of her eyes.
Her expression revealed a deep-seated, perpetual exhaustion and wariness.
But that face.
Even if she turned to ash, Butcher would recognize it.
It was Bekka.
The living Bekka.
"Bekka..."
A muffled sob rolled out of Butcher's throat.
He reached out with his rough, trembling fingers, wanting to touch the woman's cheek on the screen.
His fingertips touched only the cold, hard LCD monitor.
His fingers curled, leaving a sweaty fingerprint on the screen.
"She is living in... a cage built by Vought."
Frenchie pulled up the geographical coordinates and security layout next to the video, his voice very low.
"The whole town is fake."
Frenchie pointed at the red dots on the map.
"The neighbors, mailman, lawnmower, even the milkman, are all disguised mercenaries carrying guns."
He sighed and shook his head.
"The perimeter is surrounded by electrified invisible barbed wire, and there are thermal imaging drones patrolling 24 hours a day. Even a bird flying in would get shot."
Hughie stood by, breaking into a cold sweat.
"This is basically a super-prison... why would they spend so much money keeping her locked up?"
Butcher couldn't take in any of this analysis.
His gaze was locked onto the woman hanging sheets.
Watching her hair blown by the wind, watching her skillful movements as she stood on tiptoe.
That was his wife.
She breathes, she has body heat.
Living, truly and genuinely, in some corner of this fucked-up world.
"Thump."
Butcher's legs suddenly lost all support.
He was like a piece of rotten wood with its core hollowed out, kneeling straight onto the concrete floor.
His knees happened to land on the broken glass shards that had fallen earlier.
The sharp glass tips pierced through the thick denim fabric and dug deep into his flesh.
Blood seeped out, quickly staining his pant legs red.
But he didn't even grunt.
As if he couldn't feel the pain in his lower body at all.
This soldier who wouldn't even frown in a hail of bullets.
This tough guy who treated assassination, schemes, and revenge as the only faith of his life.
At this moment, covering his face with his hands, kneeling in the basement full of the smell of trash and vomit.
"Wu... ah..."
A suppressed cry leaked out from between his rough fingers.
At first, it was just low sobs, like a wounded beast licking its wounds.
Then, the emotions were like a burst flood, unstoppable.
Turning into an unbridled, wailing cry.
Crying like a child who had been lost in the dark for eight years and finally found home.
Tears mixed with snot, streaming down his stubbled cheeks.
Mixed with the black dirt on his fingers, smearing that fierce face until it was dirty and messy, wretched to the extreme.
His shoulders heaved violently.
Every wail seemed to want to squeeze out all the air in his lungs along with the grievances of these years.
Hughie stood to the side, his nose stinging.
He lowered his head, turned away, and quickly wiped the corners of his eyes with the back of his hand.
Frenchie silently turned around, his back to the screen.
He took out a flattened cigarette pack from his leather jacket pocket and pulled out a cigarette to bite on.
His hand holding the lighter shook twice, failing to light it.
Lynn leaned against the wall by the door.
Coldly watching the man on the floor crying his heart out.
He didn't urge him, nor did he go up to offer tissues for comfort.
The dead-silent obsession of revenge suddenly turned into living hope; this tearing of emotions was enough to snap a person's nerves and then reassemble them.
Let him cry it out, so this blade would be sharpened even more.
A full five or six minutes passed.
The crying echoing in the basement finally subsided.
Turning into heavy panting.
Butcher took a deep breath, his windpipe making a hissing, bellows-like sound.
He wiped his hands, stained with blood and tears, haphazardly on his pant legs.
Supporting himself with both hands on the table legs, gritting his teeth.
He stood up bit by bit.
Blood was still dripping from the broken glass in his knees; he didn't even bother to look down.
In those eyes that were originally swollen and unbearable.
Sadness, fragility, despair had been completely burned to ashes in those few minutes.
Replaced by.
A killing intent ten, a hundred times more vicious than usual.
Like a hungry wolf truly ready to eat someone, eyeing the prey's throat.
He turned around and grabbed the black short-barreled shotgun on the table.
His thumb pressed heavily on the bolt.
"Click," a crisp sound of metal colliding, was particularly harsh in this dead-silent space.
A golden slug was roughly pushed into the chamber.
The strong smell of gun oil drifted from the barrel.
"Boss."
Butcher, carrying the gun, strode up to Lynn.
The muscles on his face were tight, every word seemed to be bitten off and spat out from between his teeth.
"Tell me where she is."
A half-drop of tear still hung on his chin, but his eyes revealed a reckless madness and violence.
"I'm going to go blow those guards' brains out right now!"
Lynn straightened up.
He reached out to the back of the chair next to him and pulled over his dusty jacket.
With a flick of one hand, he put it on cleanly.
He raised his head, meeting Butcher's murderous gaze.
His eyes were still cold and sharp, without a hint of warmth.
"Bring your gear."
Lynn straightened his shirt collar, his gaze sweeping over the row of weapons on the table.
"We're going to go meet the little monster Vought has hidden deepest."
Chapter 52: Heading to the Secret Base, the Mother and Son Captives of Vought
Lynn flicked his hand.
The suit jacket, stained with a bit of dust, traced a sharp arc in the air and settled steadily onto his shoulders.
He straightened his collar and strode out the basement door.
Butcher's eyes were red as he grabbed the tactical vest filled with ammo from the table and pulled it over his leather jacket.
The Velcro ripped with a loud sound.
He shoved two sawed-off shotguns loaded with slugs into his waistband at the small of his back.
Frenchie, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, swept several micro-hacking terminals and signal jammers into a canvas bag.
Hughie was fumbling, frantically checking the bolt of the gun in his hands.
Because of his nerves, the magazine nearly dropped onto the floor tiles, making a dull thud.
Kimiko didn't bring any firearms; she crossed her two vibranium kukri knives and slid them into the sheaths on her back.
The five of them didn't say a word.
They climbed, radiating murderous intent, into the black armored SUV parked at the tunnel entrance.
Butcher sat in the driver's seat, his large hand twisting the mechanical key hard.
"Vroom!"
The V8 engine let out a beastly roar, and the exhaust pipe spat out a cloud of thick, black smoke.
The tires screeched violently against the concrete, leaving two charred rubber skid marks.
Like a black panther released from its cage, the SUV roared out of the underground garage with a stomp on the gas pedal.
The night was as thick as ink.
The SUV didn't even have its headlights on, only the chassis fog lights, as it sped wildly along the bumpy suburban road.
No one in the car spoke.
The wind squeezed through the gap in the half-open window, emitting a sharp whistling sound.
Butcher kept his foot pinned to the gas pedal, his right leg shaking uncontrollably.
He was biting down on half an unlit cigar, the wrapper shredded, tobacco leaves falling onto his chest.
His eyes were fixed on the darkness ahead, his breathing as heavy as a bellows.
"You're driving too fast, Butcher; the chassis just hit a rock."
Frenchie sat in the passenger seat, holding a glowing computer screen in both hands.
The car jolted violently, and his head slammed into the handle on the ceiling, making him hiss in pain.
Butcher ignored him, jerking the steering wheel hard to the left.
The tires screeched harshly against the gravel road as he turned onto an unnamed dirt path.
"What kind of place is this, anyway?"
Hughie sat in the back, his stomach churning from the bouncing.
He stared at the increasingly desolate woods outside the window, his fingers gripping the back of the front seat tightly.
"A Truman Show world."
Lynn leaned back against the seat, closing his eyes to rest.
No matter how much the car shook, he sat there as if nailed to the seat, completely motionless.
Frenchie tapped the keyboard twice and turned the screen toward the back seat.
The green glow illuminated the oily sweat on his face.
"Vought bought the entire valley and built a one-to-one replica of a typical American small town inside."
He pointed to the infrared security map on the screen.
"Don't let the map fool you with all those neighbors trimming their lawns, housewives pushing strollers, and early-morning newspaper delivery boys."
Frenchie lowered his voice.
"It's all fake, for God's sake."
Hughie swallowed hard.
"Every adult in that town is a retired special forces soldier or professional killer hired by Vought at a high salary."
Frenchie tapped his finger on the screen.
"There are pressure sensors buried under the grass, and high-definition facial recognition cameras hidden in the streetlights."
Butcher's breathing grew heavier.
The veins on the back of his hands gripping the steering wheel stood out one by one.
The SUV cut its engine at the edge of the woods, two kilometers from the town.
The roar of the engine ceased, leaving only the sound of autumn insects.
The group pushed the doors open and got out.
Their leather boots trampled the mud, which was covered in dead leaves.
The night dew was heavy, and the air carried the damp, cold scent of rotting wood.
"Blind every eye in this place for me."
Butcher pulled out his shotgun and ordered in a low voice.
Frenchie opened a black briefcase and connected several antennas.
His ten fingers tapped on the keyboard for several seconds.
The green progress bar on the screen reached the end.
"Done."
Frenchie closed the computer.
"I've flooded the town's local network with junk data. For the next fifteen minutes, their surveillance screens will only show a looped recording from the day before yesterday. The infrared alarms are also disabled."
Lynn led the way.
He didn't need night-vision goggles; a Kryptonian's vision could see the texture of a fallen leaf even in the dead of night.
The group moved like ghosts through the dense pine forest.
They climbed over a barbed-wire fence that had been made invisible.
Suddenly, the view opened up before them.
It was a town so quiet it was hair-raising.
The asphalt roads were smooth and clean, flanked by uniform two-story houses.
The streetlights emitted a warm yellow glow.
The palms of Butcher's hands, gripping his gun, were slick with sweat.
He stepped very lightly, afraid that crushing a single dead leaf would alert those disguised mercenaries.
A truck with "Fresh Milk" printed on it was parked by the side of the road, with a man smoking in the driver's seat.
Lynn made a gesture.
Kimiko silently circled behind the truck.
She climbed up the side of the vehicle, and the moment the man turned his head, she reached her hands through the half-open window, grabbed his neck, and twisted it sharply.
"Snap."
The milkman's head lolled limply to the side; the cigarette butt fell into his crotch, burning a black hole.
Having cleared a few outer sentries, they crept to the center of the town.
It was a white two-story house.
The lawn in front was perfectly manicured.
The curtains of the first-floor floor-to-ceiling window weren't drawn, and warm yellow light spilled out from inside, casting onto the dew on the grass.
Butcher stopped five steps away from the window.
His feet felt as if they had been welded to the ground.
That ruthless tough guy, who could kill without blinking, was now trembling like a short-circuiting motor.
His eye sockets instantly turned red, and tears welled up in his eyes.
Lynn walked to the window and looked inside, leaning to the side.
The interior of the house was cozy.
On the island of the open-concept kitchen, Bekka was wearing beige loungewear, her hair tied loosely behind her head.
There were a few fine lines at the corners of her eyes compared to eight years ago, and her complexion had the paleness of someone who hadn't seen the outside world for a long time.
She was holding a fruit knife, slicing a red apple on a cutting board.
The blade sliced through the flesh, making a crisp crunching sound.
Butcher's breathing became completely ragged.
He bit down hard on the back of his hand, terrified that he might cry out and alert the people inside.
That was his wife, whom he had missed and thought about for eight years.
The only reason he had clutched a bottle and wept in countless drunken midnights.
"Bekka..."
Butcher's voice was hoarse, only able to exhale the name as a breathy whisper.
He lowered his gun and stumbled forward a step.
He pressed his palm against the cold glass window.
Separated by a pane of glass, he greedily watched the woman inside.
Bekka finished slicing the apple and placed it on a white ceramic plate.
She turned around, carrying the plate, and walked toward the rug in the living room.
Lynn's gaze followed Bekka's movements, shifting to the center of the living room.
Sitting on the wool rug in front of the fireplace was a seven or eight-year-old boy.
He was wearing a plaid shirt and overalls, his blonde hair falling softly over his forehead.
The outline of that little face was practically carved from the same mold as that lunatic in the Stars and Stripes cape.
The boy was sitting with his back to the window, holding several colorful wooden blocks in his hands, intently building a tall tower.
Bekka placed the apple plate on the coffee table and reached out to stroke the boy's head.
She was saying something, her face filled with a complex tenderness.
Butcher watched this scene from outside the window.
He didn't want to care who that boy was, or rather, subconsciously, he refused to acknowledge the boy's lineage.
He had only one thought in his mind now.
Rush in.
Take Bekka home.
Butcher's eyes were bloodshot, his chest heaving violently.
He stepped back half a pace, his right hand gripping the barrel of the sawed-off shotgun again.
He prepared to use the butt of the gun to smash through the glass blocking his way.
A long, powerful hand reached over from the side.
It pressed firmly onto Butcher's shoulder.
The force was astonishing.
Like an iron clamp, it forcefully pinned Butcher's forward-leaning body right where he stood.
Lynn didn't look at Butcher's angry and confused face.
His eyes, cold in the dead of night, were fixed intently on the little boy on the rug inside.
Ryan.
Inside.
The boy was placing the last triangular red wooden block.
His hand shook.
The block didn't sit steadily.
"Crash."
The tower he had spent so long building collapsed instantly, scattering everywhere.
Ryan froze for a moment.
The calmness on his little face vanished instantly.
An inexplicable irritation and anger crept onto that tender face.
He furrowed his brows, staring intensely at the pile of junk wood on the floor.
In that very instant, a crimson glow lit up, without warning, in the boy's originally bright blue eyes.
Two weak but scorching red laser beams shot out directly along his line of sight.
"Sizzle."
The red light swept across two long wooden blocks on the floor.
The solid wood blocks were sliced clean in two, as if cutting through butter.
The cut edges turned charred black, emitting a wisp of acrid white smoke.
The smell of burning wood drifted out through the window gap.
Bekka was startled, quickly dropping the plate and pulling her son into her arms.
She covered his eyes desperately.
Only then did the red light extinguish, reluctantly.
Outside the window, Butcher froze completely.
He looked at the smoking wood blocks and felt as if a basin of ice-cold water had been poured from the top of his head down to the soles of his feet.
He was all too familiar with this superpower.
"Calm down, Butcher."
Lynn tightened his hand on Butcher's shoulder a little.
He looked at the child, a meaningful expression playing on the corner of his mouth.
"This kid is a more troublesome bomb than his father."
Chapter 53: Homelander Wants to See His Son? I've Welded the Door Shut for You.
"A bomb?"
Butcher followed Lynn's gaze and looked inside.
Through a layer of glass, he happened to catch the red light in the boy's eyes that hadn't yet fully faded.
It looked like two cigarette embers that hadn't finished burning.
The building block, scorched black by high heat, was still emitting wisps of white smoke.
Butcher's mouth hung open, the stubble on his chin trembling.
A wave of intense nausea surged up his esophagus.
That face—that small face that looked seventy percent like Bekka—was actually flowing with the blood of the enemy he hated most in his life.
His wife had given birth to a son for that animal wearing the Stars and Stripes cape.
This realization was more lethal than any bullet.
Butcher's breathing became ragged, as if his lungs were stuffed with broken glass.
His rough fingers dug fiercely into the wood on the edge of the window frame, not even noticing the splinters piercing under his nails.
He was shaking.
Half from hatred, half from a breakdown over not knowing what to do about the mother and son inside.
Lynn didn't bother with Butcher's twisted internal conflict.
His ears suddenly twitched.
The Kryptonian's super-hearing instantly pierced through the night wind and the woods, capturing an unusual noise coming from the underground safe house in Manhattanhundreds of kilometers away.
It was the snapping sound of high-strength metal being forcibly torn apart, followed by an uncontrollable, beast-like roar.
The elephant tranquilizer Frenchie had prepared was wearing off faster than expected.
That mad dog, Homelander, had woken up.
Not only had he woken up, but driven by that pathological obsession with his own flesh and blood, he had forcefully broken through the Vibranium chains.
Lynn heard the sonic boom of the air being violently torn apart.
That commotion was approaching this direction in Pennsylvania at a terrifying speed.
"Trouble's coming."
Lynn turned his head, grabbed Butcher by the back collar of his leather jacket, and yanked him away from the window.
"Put away that useless disgust. Your wife is inside. If you don't want her to die, get moving."
Butcher froze for a moment, his eyes still glazed.
Lynn raised his foot and kicked the front door of the white house directly.
"Bang."
The solid wood door, along with the electronic lock, slammed onto the entryway floor.
The massive commotion startled Bekka inside, and she let out a scream.
She scooped up Ryan from the carpet and stumbled to hide behind the sofa.
She was still gripping the apple-cutting knife tightly, veins popping on the back of her hand.
Butcher rushed into the house after Lynn.
He looked at the woman trembling behind the sofa, his lips moving several times, but no sound came out.
"Be-Bekka..."
His throat was as dry as if he had swallowed sand.
Hearing this voice, Bekka froze completely.
She poked half her head out from behind the sofa back, and by the warm light of the living room, she made out that face weathered by time.
The fruit knife in her hand clattered onto the carpet.
"Billy?" She covered her mouth, tears instantly welling up.
"No time for a family soap opera."
Lynn interrupted them with a cold expression.
He walked to the window, watching an unnatural layer of white mist beginning to rise on the distant skyline.
It was the water vapor produced by supersonic flight compressing the air.
"That rat in the cape has broken his chains. He'll be here in three minutes at most."
Butcher snapped out of his daze.
He strode over and grabbed Bekka's hand.
The movement was so forceful that it nearly made Bekkastumble.
"Go! We're leaving here right now!"
Ryan was terrified and struggled desperately, trying to bite Butcher's wrist.
"Let go of my mom! Bad guy!"
The little guy's teeth broke Butcher's skin, and blood seeped out.
Butcher didn't let go; instead, he tucked Ryan under his arm.
"This little brat's got some strength." He hissed in pain.
Lynn pointed to the wooden door of the basement behind the kitchen.
"There's a ventilation tunnel underneath that leads directly to the sewage pipes on the outskirts of town. Frenchie is waiting on that side."
He pulled over a single-seater sofa and sat down with a bold, imposing air.
"Take them and go. I'm staying here."
Butcher paused.
"Boss, that monster is completely insane now. You, by yourself..."
"Stop the chatter."
Lynn waved his hand impatiently.
"Get out."
Butcher gritted his teeth and dragged Bekka and her son into the basement.
The heavy wooden door closed, and the house fell completely silent.
Lynn leaned back on the sofa and let out a long breath.
The living room clock ticked away, the sound of the second hand perfectly clear.
His gaze swept across the coffee table; the red apple Bekka had half-peeled was still sitting on the white porcelain plate.
Beside it was the fruit knife that had fallen onto the carpet.
Lynn bent over and picked up the knife.
The handle was plastic and still held the lingering warmth of the woman's palm.
He picked up the apple, pressed his thumb against the back of the blade, and began to peel the remaining skin in a leisurely manner.
The red peel fell onto the glass coffee table in intermittent strips.
The air pressure began to feel wrong.
A pungent smell of ozone poured in through the broken door frame.
The sonic boom from afar finally slammed overhead.
"Boom—"
The entire white house shook violently.
Plaster from the ceiling fell in cascades, landing on Lynn's white shirt.
The soil on the lawn outside was overturned by the shockwave, grass clippings flying everywhere.
"Ryan!"
A blood-curdling roar exploded outside.
Immediately after, an even louder crash came from the door frame Lynn had just kicked down.
Homelander charged in like a cannonball, bringing down half the wall with him as he collided.
Red bricks and wood fragments rained down, clattering onto the carpet.
His Stars and Stripes suit was torn to shreds.
The scorched, bloody hole in his chest hadn't healed yet, seeping yellowish tissue fluid.
His eyes were as red as if they were dripping blood, the lasers in his eyes not yet fully retracted.
He looked like an evil spirit that had just crawled out of hell.
He scanned the dust-filled living room frantically.
His gaze pierced through the flying plaster dust, but he didn't see his son.
He only saw Lynn.
Lynn was sitting on the single-seater sofa.
In his left hand, he held the half-peeled apple; in his right, he gripped the fruit knife.
The blade sliced off a small piece of flesh with a hint of red.
He popped that small piece of apple into his mouth, chewed twice, and swallowed.
"Looking for your son?"
Lynn looked up and flipped his wrist.
He drove the fruit knife straight into the remaining half of the apple.
The tip of the blade pierced through the core and stabbed into the white porcelain plate underneath, emitting a harsh, scraping sound.
He tugged at the corner of his mouth, letting out a cold sneer.
"Sorry, this visitation channel has been welded shut by me."
Chapter 54: Ryan's Talent, This Child Is Mine Now
"Welded shut?"
Homelander stared fixedly at the fruit knife still wobbling on the coffee table.
The tip of the blade was stuck in a white porcelain plate, emitting a faint, buzzing vibration.
Half a sliced red apple was dripping juice, and next to it were a few drops of black blood he had spat out when he first entered.
He slowly raised his head.
His bloodshot eyes locked onto Lynn's face.
He gasped for air, a wheezing sound like a broken bellows emanating from his chest.
The bloody hole in his chest, burned through by Heat Vision, expanded and contracted with his breathing.
Yellowish tissue fluid oozed from the charred edges of his skin, trickling down his abdominal muscles.
The air was thick with the stench of rancid, roasted protein.
This smell was amplified by the high temperature, making one feel nauseous.
"Where... did you hide my son?!"
A wheezing roar rolled out of Homelander's throat.
He clenched his hands into fists, his knuckles turning white.
Violent killing intent, like a pot of boiling water, instantly filled the small living room.
His mind was in complete chaos.
Madelyn was dead, The Seven were gone, and the whole world was hunting him.
The only thing he had left was that son who carried his bloodline.
That was his last anchor in this world.
Whoever dared to touch his anchor would die.
"Still playing the doting father with me?"
Lynn leaned back in the armchair, not even shifting his position.
He lifted his eyelids and glanced at Homelander.
"With your pathetic, stray-dog demeanor, do you even deserve to mention your son?"
This sentence was the final spark that ignited the powder keg.
"I'll kill you!"
Homelander completely lost his sanity.
He stomped violently on the wooden floor, charging forward like a mad bull.
The floorboards shattered with a boom, wood splinters flying everywhere.
He couldn't even maintain a flying posture, charging forward purely on the brute force of his legs.
He swung his right fist in a full arc, accompanied by a sonic boom that tore through the air.
It headed straight for Lynn's head.
If this punch landed, it could even smash through the armor of a main battle tank.
But it was too slow.
With Lynn's super speed ability and dynamic vision, this movement was full of flaws.
Lynn sat on the sofa, leaning his upper body slightly to the left.
The fist grazed past the outline of his right ear.
The air current stirred up by the punch blew Lynn's hair back.
"Bang!"
Homelander missed, smashing directly into the load-bearing wall behind Lynn.
The bricks and plasterboard instantly exploded into a basin-sized hole.
Dust fell in showers, covering his head and face.
Before he could pull his arm back,
Lynn moved.
He pressed his left hand on the sofa armrest, using the leverage to spring upward.
He bent his right knee and delivered a vicious strike to Homelander's side ribs.
"Crack."
The crisp sound of breaking ribs echoed in the living room.
This blow landed right next to the charred, rotting flesh on Homelander's chest.
"Argh!"
Homelander saw stars from the pain and let out a scream.
His massive body lost its balance, tilting to the side and crashing heavily onto the wooden coffee table.
The tempered glass tabletop shattered instantly.
The half-apple and the fruit knife flew out and landed on the carpet.
Glass shards pierced into Homelander's arm.
He scrambled to try and stand up.
Lynn's leather shoe was already planted on his back.
The force wasn't great, but it pressed down like a mountain, preventing him from lifting his head.
Homelander braced his hands on the floor, a beast-like growl rumbling in his throat.
He turned his head, his eyes bloodshot again, trying to force Heat Vision.
A glimmer of red light had just emerged in his sockets.
Lynn ground his right foot down hard.
"Behave."
Lynn bent down and grabbed Homelander's dust-covered blond hair.
He dragged him toward the other end of the living room like a dead dog.
A sharp, tearing pain shot through his scalp.
Homelander clawed wildly, but could only scrape a few white marks into the floor.
Lynn dragged him to the island in the open-plan kitchen.
He swung his arm.
And smashed Homelander's face hard against the marble countertop.
"Boom!"
The marble countertop collapsed halfway.
Pots and pans fell everywhere, and broken ceramic shards splattered all over.
Homelander was covered in blood, his nasal bone completely shattered.
He tried to punch back, but his fist landed limp on Lynn's suit jacket, leaving not even a mark.
He was still severely injured, his stamina long since pushed to the limit.
In his current state, he wasn't even as good as a street thug.
Lynn grabbed his cape and hoisted him up.
He backhanded him across the face.
"Are you awake now? God?"
The sound of the slap was crisp and loud.
Homelander was spun half a circle, his back slamming into the refrigerator, denting it deeply.
He slid down the refrigerator door to the floor.
He spat out mouthfuls of blood foam.
His eyes were unfocused, and he could barely muster the strength to resist.
Lynn walked over slowly, as if taking a stroll in his own backyard.
This one-sided beating didn't even count as a warm-up.
It was purely walking a dog.
Meanwhile.
In the underground bunker tunnel beneath the White House.
The air was cold and damp, with water droplets seeping from the walls.
A few emergency lights emitted dim yellow light, illuminating a long stretch of concrete path.
Butcher walked in the lead.
He held the sawed-off shotgun, watching the corner ahead vigilantly.
Bekka held Ryan's hand tightly, following behind.
The tunnel was deep, and usually, one wouldn't be able to hear any commotion from outside.
But Ryan suddenly stopped.
The boy let go of his mother's hand and covered his ears tightly with his small hands.
"What's wrong? Come on, Ryan."
Bekka was anxious and reached out to pull her son.
"We have to leave here immediately."
"It's too loud..."
Ryan buried his head between his knees, curling into a ball.
The expression on his face was very painful, his brows knitted tightly together.
Butcher turned back, urging them in a hushed voice.
"Don't dawdle! What's wrong with this brat now?"
"He... he's screaming so miserably."
Ryan's voice was trembling.
His super hearing was uncontrollably amplified by panic.
Passing through over ten meters of earth and concrete layers.
He clearly heard the commotion in the living room above.
The crack of bones breaking.
The roar of marble shattering.
And the miserable wails emitted when that man was pinned to the ground and beaten.
Although Ryan didn't have any feelings for Homelander,
but that strange sensation brought about by their shared bloodline, combined with the 'father is a superhero' concept instilled in him by Vought Corporation over the years,
caused a violent conflict in his cognition.
The noise surged into his ears like a tide.
Pressing against his fragile nerves.
"I can't hear... stop hitting him!"
Ryan suddenly shouted, grabbing his hair tightly with both hands.
An abnormal high temperature radiated outward from the boy's body.
The air in the tunnel instantly became sweltering.
The seeping water on the walls was baked by this high heat, turning into white steam that drifted upward.
The emergency light overhead flickered twice and exploded with a 'bang'.
Glass shards fell all over the floor.
"Ryan! Look at Mommy!"
Bekka panicked and lunged forward regardless of everything, wanting to pull her son into her arms.
But just as she got close,
a scorching heat wave pushed her directly away.
Bekka fell onto the damp concrete floor, scraping her palms.
Ryan slowly raised his head.
Those blue eyes, originally clear, were now filled with a rich crimson.
Red light spilled from his eyes, illuminating the dim tunnel.
The fear on the boy's face vanished, replaced by an out-of-control mania.
The temperature in the air was still soaring.
Butcher smelled the scent of leather being scorched.
He looked down and saw that the leather on the edge of his jacket had already curled and blackened.
"Damn it..."
Butcher cursed and instinctively took two steps back.
He raised the shotgun in his hand.
Aiming the muzzle at the little monster glowing with red light.
His finger slowly pressed onto the trigger.
"Billy! Don't touch him!"
Bekka screamed, scrambling over and hugging Butcher's thigh tightly.
"He's a child! He just can't control it!"
"He's a bomb!"
Butcher gritted his teeth, his eyes full of wariness and killing intent.
"Once those two beams from his eyes shoot out, we'll all be roasted to charcoal in this sewer!"
Ryan couldn't understand what they were arguing about.
He only felt a ball of fire in his head about to explode.
He wanted to release this fire, wanted to destroy everything making noise.
The red light became increasingly blinding.
The concrete walls on both sides of the tunnel began to glow red, and the flaking lime powder vaporized directly in mid-air.
Just at this critical moment.
The heavy explosion-proof iron door at the end of the tunnel suddenly emitted a 'creak'.
The hinges turned.
The iron door was pushed open unhurriedly from the outside.
Lynn walked down the steps.
His leather shoe soles hit the concrete stairs, making a steady tapping sound.
His white shirt was covered in quite a bit of dust, and the sleeves were rolled up to his forearms.
He looked a bit disheveled, but his pace was exceptionally composed.
The scorching heat wave in the tunnel hit his face.
Lynn didn't even frown.
As if he had just walked into a sauna with the heat turned up too high.
He ignored the gun barrel Butcher was pointing, and also ignored Bekka, who was trembling on the floor.
He walked straight to Ryan.
The blinding red light shone on Lynn's face, casting his features in a somewhat terrifying light.
Ryan looked up, staring fixedly at the tall man walking over.
The high-temperature rays in his eye sockets were about to burst out, unable to be suppressed.
Lynn stopped.
He extended his large right hand, reaching directly into the scorching red light.
His palm was not burned through.
Instead, it was placed steadily on top of Ryan's golden head.
His rough fingertips pressed against the boy's scalp through his soft hair.
"Hold it back."
Lynn's voice was not loud.
But it carried a sense of command from a superior that brooked no question.
Like an iceberg, it slammed directly into Ryan's boiling consciousness.
The violent energy instantly stalled.
The crimson light in Ryan's eyes flickered twice, like a lightbulb with the power cut off.
With a'swoosh', it went out completely.
The high temperature in the tunnel began to subside.
Ryan's body went limp, and he nearly collapsed onto the floor.
Lynn's large hand was still pressed on his head, steadying him.
Butcher stood frozen, holding the gun.
Bekka covered her mouth, tears hanging on her eyelashes, staring blankly at this scene.
Even this lawless little monster had to obediently lower his head in front of this man.
Lynn withdrew his hand and brushed the dust from his palm.
He turned his head, his gaze sweeping over the bewildered Butcher and Bekka.
His mouth set in a straight line, his tone cold and firm.
"His talent is too dangerous."
Lynn looked at Butcher.
"From today on, this child is mine to look after."
Chapter 55: Reshaping Ryan's Worldview, Your Dad Is a Total Scumbag
Lynn's large hand pressed firmly onto Ryan's golden hair.
The temperature radiating from his palm was scalding, causing the surrounding air to distort.
But Lynn didn't care at all.
That absolute sense of oppression traveled down the scalp and burrowed straight into the boy's skull.
Ryan shrank his neck in fear, his shoulders collapsing tightly, like a kitten being held by the scruff of its neck.
The lingering red glow in his eyes was like being doused with a bucket of ice-cold water.
With a "hiss."
It was completely extinguished.
The sweltering heat that had been about to roast everyone in the tunnel rapidly dissipated as well.
Only the cold, damp scent of moss from the corners remained.
Bekka scrambled over.
She didn't even care that the rough concrete floor had scraped her knees raw.
She grabbed Ryan around the waist, pulling him desperately into her arms.
"Don't... don't touch him!"
She looked up, her hair disheveled and sticking to her sweaty cheeks.
Her eyes were filled with terror as she looked at Lynn, her voice trembling with a distorted, tearful tone.
"He's only eight years old... I beg you, he doesn't understand anything, please don't hurt him!"
Butcher's hand, holding the shotgun, froze in mid-air.
He looked at his protective wife, his jaw clenched until it turned white.
The muzzle pointed toward the ground, but his finger remained hooked inside the trigger guard.
Reason told him this child was a disaster, but Bekka's sobbing made him stop in his tracks.
Outside the iron door at the other end of the tunnel, a burst of hurried footsteps echoed.
Frenchie and Hughie ran down, panting.
Hughie was moving too fast, and the soles of his canvas shoes slipped on the mossy steps.
"Oh, shit!"
He stumbled forward half a step, palms bracing against the muddy ground, falling hard.
The flashlight rolled far away, its beam swinging wildly against the wall.
Frenchie stepped over Hughie, breathing heavily.
"Boss, outside... the situation outside is wrong."
He clutched a hot signal receiver in his hand, rubbing his bruised shoulder.
"A radar signal just slammed right on top of us, and it's going crazy right now."
Lynn ignored Frenchie's chatter.
He glanced around and walked to the door of an abandoned guard room nearby.
Lifting his leather shoe, he kicked open the ajar wooden door.
He dragged out a rusted iron folding chair.
The metal legs scraped against the floor, emitting a harsh, screeching sound.
Lynn pulled the chair in front of Bekka and her son and sat down with a commanding presence.
His legs were spread apart, elbows resting on his knees.
He didn't strike anyone, nor did he draw a gun.
He reached into his suit's inner pocket and pulled out a small, black, specialized metal block.
This was a holographic projector used internally by Vought Corporation to play classified briefings.
Lynn pressed the metal block twice with his fingers.
"Hum."
A blue beam of light shot from the top of the device, hitting the wall of the dim tunnel.
The image spread out instantly.
Light and shadow flickered on the wall, dispelling the darkness in the corners.
Ryan huddled in Bekka's arms, looking up timidly.
Everything Vought Corporation had shown him over the years were cartoons about The Seven saving the world.
He had always thought his dad was a glowing, great hero.
But the image on the wall was definitely not a cartoon.
The video footage shook violently.
It was a recovered black box recording filmed by a passenger on a hijacked flight.
The cabin was filled with fire and thick smoke.
The piercing alarm and the desperate screams of hundreds of civilians instantly flooded the entire tunnel.
Homelander stood by the cabin door, arms crossed.
Facing those civilians who were kneeling on the floor, faces covered in blood, begging for help.
He didn't save anyone; he didn't even offer an extra expression.
"Shut up! You useless things!"
In the video, Homelander's voice sounded extremely impatient.
A red light flashed in his eyes.
Two lasers sliced a man who had rushed over to beg for help into two pieces.
The upper body slammed onto the seat, intestines spilling all over the floor.
"Ah!"
Ryan screamed in terror, covering his ears tightly.
His whole body trembled as if he had been electrocuted.
Bekka's face turned pale, and she suddenly reached out to cover her son's eyes.
"No... don't show him this! He's still a child!"
She turned and roared at Lynn, "Are you crazy?! You'll destroy him!"
A greasy hand reached out from the side and gripped Bekka's wrist tightly.
Frenchie, biting on an unlit cigarette, forcibly pulled the woman's hand away.
"Ma'am, avoidance won't save your life."
Frenchie's voice carried the coldness of the underworld, his grip surprisingly strong.
"If this little guy doesn't recognize reality, he'll blow us all to the sky sooner or later."
Bekka struggled desperately, kicking her legs against the ground.
"Billy! Stop them!" She cried out, begging her husband for help.
Butcher turned his face away.
He bit his lip until it bled, yet he didn't move an inch.
He knew in his heart that the boss was doing the right thing.
Bekka could only watch helplessly as her son faced those bloody images head-on.
The light and shadow on the wall shifted.
It was the scene from Madelyn's villa a few days ago.
A helicopter spotlight shone on the ruins.
Homelander knelt in the debris of broken glass and bricks.
He was holding a headless female corpse in his hands.
Blood stained that iconic Stars and Stripes suit, and even his blonde hair was splattered with bits of flesh.
His face, which usually wore a perfect smile on posters, was twisted like a demon from hell.
"Get out! All of you, die!"
In the footage, he used his laser eyes to sweep the helicopter in mid-air into a ball of exploding fire.
The burning wreckage crashed onto the lawn, and the police officers rolled on the ground, covered in flames.
Screams, explosions, blood.
These cold, cruel, real images were like a giant sledgehammer.
They shattered the fairy tale that Vought Corporation had woven for this eight-year-old boy, piece by piece.
The video finished playing, and the image went dark.
In the tunnel, only the sound of water dripping onto the ground remained.
Ryan was shaking all over.
Not because of anger, but out of pure fear and collapse.
He looked at the lingering shadows on the wall.
That blood-stained face was exactly the same as the one he saw in the mirror every day.
"No... this isn't real..."
The little boy spoke with a heavy, tearful voice, his teeth chattering, making a clicking sound.
"They said Dad was a good person... a savior."
He clutched the plaid shirt on his chest, his breathing so rapid it was as if he were about to pass out.
"That's just PR garbage to fool idiots."
Lynn turned off the projector.
The blue light vanished, and the tunnel fell back into dim yellow light.
He tucked the metal block back into his pocket; the metal clinking against the fabric made a faint sound.
Lynn leaned forward.
He reached out his right hand and pinched Ryan's chubby chin.
His finger bones applied pressure, forcing the boy to lift his face.
Ryan's tears dripped down, plop, plop.
They landed on the back of Lynn's hand, warm and slightly salty.
Lynn looked into those blue eyes filled with terror and confusion.
His gaze was sharp enough to pierce through a person, without any hint of comfort.
"Do you see it clearly now?"
He let go and pointed toward the ceiling.
"You have the blood of a scumbag flowing in your veins."
Ryan bit his lip, his shoulders heaving.
He didn't even dare to cry out loud.
He looked at Lynn as if he were looking at an insurmountable iceberg.
"But how this power is used, that's up to me."
Lynn stood up and brushed the dust off his trouser legs.
Looking down at the mother and son from above, his tone was unquestionable.
Just as these words fell.
Suddenly.
"BOOM—!!!"
A heaven-shaking explosion came from the bunker ceiling above.
The massive shockwave traveled down the load-bearing walls.
Several large cracks appeared directly on the concrete walls of the tunnel.
Fist-sized chunks of dirt and rubble rained down like a storm.
Chapter 56: Homelander Forcefully Breaks into the Base, Only to Be Kicked Away by Lynn
"Boom—!"
The thick, blast-proof ceiling let out a dull groan.
The massive shockwave traveled down along the load-bearing walls.
Tons of dirt, mixed with large chunks of concrete debris, rained down around Hughie's canvas shoes.
Dust billowed up instantly.
"Cough, cough... cough, cough, cough!" Hughie covered his nose, retreating repeatedly as he choked, tears streaming down his face.
The ventilation system in the tunnel was completely destroyed by this monstrous force, making the already murky air even thinner.
The temperature was visibly skyrocketing.
The special steel plate above, a full half-meter thick, had a basin-sized bulge protruding from its center.
A dark red, intense heat was spreading out from the center of that bulge.
"Sizzle, sizzle..."
The sound of melting steel set one's teeth on edge.
Viscous molten iron, like red syrup, dripped down along the edges of the steel plate.
It landed on the waterlogged concrete floor, splashing up clouds of white steam.
The pungent smell of scorched metal mixed with the earthy stench of burnt soil, assaulting their nostrils.
Frenchie wiped the dirt from his face; the signal receiver in his hand had long since been tossed to the ground.
"Merde! Are there welders working up there?" He gasped for air, cursing.
Butcher ignored him.
He gripped the sawed-off shotgun tightly with both hands, the stock pressed against his shoulder.
Due to the exertion, the veins on the back of his hands bulged high, and the muzzle was aimed at the hole in the ceiling that was about to be melted through.
"Click."
A drop of scalding molten iron landed in front of Butcher's leather boots, searing a smoking black hole into the muddy ground.
He didn't even blink.
The steel plate finally could no longer withstand the terrifying heat.
With a "crash."
The entire ceiling broke open, and semi-molten metal chunks poured down along with the dirt.
A figure fell from the steaming hole.
"Thud."
The heavy body slammed into the damp floor tiles, smashing several broken wooden planks.
The person who arrived was none other than Homelander.
His current appearance was a hundred times more miserable than a homeless person on the street.
That Stars and Stripes suit was already in tatters, and the bloody hole in his chest, burned through by Lynn's Heat Vision, was still oozing yellowish fluid.
Most horrifying was his face.
Half the skin on his face had already been scraped off by Lynn against a stone wall, and now, in order to melt that half-meter-thick steel plate, he had forcibly overdrawn his vitality.
Two lines of thick, bloody tears flowed down from the corners of his eyes.
They traced across torn flesh and flowed into his gaping, mangled mouth.
He gasped with his mouth wide open, a wheezing "hiss-hiss" sound coming from his throat, his chest heaving violently.
Every breath was accompanied by a spray of bloody foam.
This madman had been beaten so badly above that he couldn't even crawl.
Driven by some morbid obsession, he had somehow drained the very last drop of Compound V from his veins, clawing through dirt and digging through steel to drill his way here.
Homelander braced his hands against the muddy ground and lifted his head with difficulty.
Those eyes, matted with blood, darted frantically in the dim tunnel.
He didn't look at Butcher, who was pointing his gun at him, nor did he look at Lynn, who was standing in front.
His gaze pierced straight through the flying dust.
It was locked firmly onto the little boy hiding in the corner.
Ryan.
On Homelander's mangled face, he forced out a smile that was uglier than crying.
His dislocated jaw made it impossible for him to close his mouth, and his smile made him look like a slit-mouthed demon.
"Ry... Ryan..."
He reached out his mud- and gore-stained gloves, his voice raspy like sandpaper grinding against glass.
"Daddy... is here to pick you up."
As he spoke, he crawled forward using his hands and feet.
His knees scraped two bloody trails across the concrete floor.
"Good... come here, son... come to Daddy."
Ryan huddled in Bekka's arms, his little face deathly pale.
He stared at the man on the ground who was waving at him while bleeding tears of blood.
The boy's head was buzzing.
Only minutes ago, the holographic projection video Lynnhad played was still looping frantically in his mind.
In the video, it was this very face.
This man stood in the ruins, covered in blood, holding a headless female corpse in his arms.
He used red lasers to slice a plane in half and burned pleading civilians to ash.
Those screams overlapped with the sinister grin of the bloody figure before him.
Fear, like a cold, giant hand, gripped the boy's heart tightly.
"No... don't..."
Ryan shook his head repeatedly, tears streaming from his eyes.
He broke free from Bekka's arms and scrambled backward desperately.
His heel tripped on a piece of broken brick, and he fell, landing hard on his bottom.
He scrambled and crawled to hide behind Lynn's long legs.
His two little hands gripped Lynn's suit trousers tightly, bunching the fabric into wrinkles.
His small body trembled like a leaf in the autumn wind.
"Monster..."
Ryan poked half his head out, his voice thick with tears, pointing at Homelander on the ground.
"You're a murderous monster! I won't go to you!"
These words were not loud.
But they were like high-explosive armor-piercing shells, exploding directly inside Homelander's brain.
Homelander's hand, reaching out in mid-air, froze.
His fingers twitched unnaturally twice.
The chilling smile on his face collapsed, bit by bit.
The surrounding air seemed to solidify in this instant.
Even the sound of water leaking from the vent could be heard clearly.
Homelander stared blankly at his son hiding behind Lynn.
That was his only blood relative in this world, the last bit of solace in his heart.
He had dragged his falling-apart body and risked his life to melt through the steel plate to find him.
All he got was the word "monster."
Furthermore, his son was hiding behind the enemy who had just stomped him underfoot.
That man named Lynn, without even moving, had stolen everything from him.
Madelyn was dead.
The Seven were gone.
Now even his son found him disgusting.
Homelander lowered his head, looking at his own trembling red gloves.
His Adam's apple bobbed up and down with difficulty.
"Monster..." he repeated the word in a murmur.
The last string of his sanity, after being stretched for so long, finally snapped with a "click."
"I am not a monster!!!"
A roar of ultimate agony and rage erupted from Homelander's mangled throat.
This roar, filled with endless frustration and fury, made the tunnel echo with a buzzing sound.
Hughie covered his ears in pain, feeling as if his eardrums were about to be pierced by the distorted sound wave.
Homelander lunged up from the ground.
The Compound V in his body, like boiling water, frantically stimulated every inch of his dying muscles.
His previously atrophied muscle groups, driven by his overdrawn limits, suddenly swelled up in defiance of physiological logic.
The remaining shreds of his Stars and Stripes suit ripped apart.
A large spurt of black blood gushed out from the bloody hole in his chest.
The bloody tears in his eyes flowed even more fiercely, turning even the whites of his eyes dark red.
"Give Ryan back to me!"
Homelander was completely insane.
Now, only one thought remained in his mind.
Smash this bastard in the white shirt and take his son back.
He kicked off the concrete floor hard.
"Boom!"
The floor tiles beneath his feet shattered instantly, gravel flying backward like bullets.
Homelander, carrying an indelible scent of blood and scorched flesh, was like a heavy high-speed train with failed brakes.
He barreled straight toward Lynn.
His speed was so fast it created a sonic boom that tore through the air.
Butcher didn't even have time to pull the trigger; he only felt a blur before his eyes as a gust of wind rushed toward him.
"Boss, watch out!" Frenchie yelled.
Lynn stood his ground.
He felt the trembling little hands on his pant leg.
Looking at the incoming, ferocious-looking Homelander.
Lynn didn't even have the intention to dodge.
He let out a cold snort from his nose, filled with a condescending mockery.
"You never learn."
Lynn kept his left hand behind his back, steadily shielding the shivering Ryan.
He stepped his right leg back slightly.
His thigh muscles tensed instantly; beneath that ordinary suit fabric, there was a terrifying, monstrous strength capable of shattering a mountain.
Eyeing the trajectory of Homelander's charge.
Lynn's right leg whipped up like a steel lash, accompanied by a sharp whistling sound.
It was three times faster than Homelander.
"Bang!"
A deafening, thunderous sound.
It was like a heavy siege hammer striking a battered bronze bell.
The tip of Lynn's polished leather shoe kicked squarely into Homelander's mangled face.
The rubber sole of the shoe embedded itself directly into his broken nose bridge.
The terrifying kinetic energy poured into Homelander's body through the point of contact.
The hundreds of tons of force from his forward momentum were abruptly halted by that kick, then rebounded with even more violent force.
Homelander couldn't even let out a scream.
His entire body folded in mid-air into a ">" shape.
Like a baseball being hit, he flew backward.
He crashed directly into the heavy bunker metal door behind him.
"Clang!"
The reinforced steel door frame, along with the door panel, was shattered into pieces by his massive body.
Homelander, along with the door, flew more than a dozen meters away.
Chapter 57 Finale Part 1: Ultimate Obliteration, the Ashes of the Old God Scatter in the Wind
"Clang!"
The reinforced steel door frame, along with the door itself, was smashed to pieces by Homelander's massive body.
Hundreds of pounds of scrap metal slammed into the narrow tunnel, sending sparks flying everywhere.
A large patch of moss was scraped off the wall, revealing the grayish-white concrete underneath.
Homelander flew out over a dozen meters like a broken sack.
His back slammed hard into a load-bearing wall at the end of the tunnel.
"Boom!"
The wall caved in, forming a massive crater, with spiderweb-like cracks covering the entire surface.
His entire body was embedded in the rubble and rebar, sliding limply to the ground.
Muddy water splashed all over his face.
That blond-haired, blue-eyed face was now so mangled that even his own mother wouldn't recognize him.
His collapsed nasal bone had pierced through the skin, exposed and white.
His jaw was dislocated, his mouth hung wide open uncontrollably, and thick, black blood gushed out from the corners of his lips.
He lay on the ground, his fingers digging desperately into the rough concrete floor.
His fingernails were torn back, and his fingers were a bloody mess.
He wanted to stand up.
But the moment he hit the iron door, his spine had been completely shattered by the terrifying recoil force.
He had completely lost all sensation below his waist.
His legs, like two useless pieces of rotten wood, dragged limply in the puddles.
Lynn lowered his right leg.
He rubbed the sole of his leather shoe against the ground, scraping off a bit of blood splatter.
He slid his hands back into his suit trouser pockets.
He strode forward with his long legs, walking unhurriedly down the tunnel.
The "crunch" of his leather shoes stepping on broken glass and mud echoed through the deathly silent underground bunker.
The sound was like a rusty saw blade, grating back and forth against Homelander's nearly collapsing nerves.
"No... don't come over..."
Homelander let out a wheezing sound from his throat.
He clawed desperately at the muddy water on the ground, trying to drag his crippled lower body backward.
But behind him was a dead end.
Lynn walked up to him and stopped.
He looked down at the stray dog struggling in the mud.
"Aren't you a god?"
Lynn tilted his head, his voice so cold it seemed to drop shards of ice.
"Do gods also crawl on the ground like worms?"
Homelander jerked his head up.
His bloodshot eyes were filled with the madness of someone pushed to the brink.
"I am... I am the savior!"
He roared, his eye sockets forcibly gathering a crimson glow once again.
Even if his optic nerves were about to burn out, he was determined to cut the man before him into two pieces.
The red light had only just begun to glow.
Lynn raised his right foot, his sole carrying the weight of a thousand jin, and stomped fiercely onto Homelander's face.
"Bang!"
The back of his head slammed heavily into the concrete floor, creating a dent.
The red light in Homelander's eyes was forcibly extinguished by that stomp.
Several broken teeth mixed with blood sprayed from his mouth.
Lynn ground his foot against his cheek.
Pressing that face, once printed on countless posters, firmly into the filthy mud.
"Save your energy."
A heart-stopping dark red glow welled up in Lynn's eyes.
The high temperature instantly distorted the surrounding air, and a foul stench of burning flesh began to spread.
"The stupidest thing you've done in your life was truly believing you were something special."
Lynn's voice carried through the heat waves.
"In the face of true power, you don't even qualify as a defective product."
Dark red Heat Vision erupted from Lynn's pupils.
Without the slightest hesitation.
Two blinding beams of light pierced directly through Homelander's skull.
"Ahhh!"
The shrill scream lasted only half a second before being replaced by the sound of searing flesh.
The indestructible skull was as brittle as a cracker in the face of Kryptonian Heat Vision.
The high temperature instantly vaporized his brains and ignited his blond hair.
The red light swept across.
Homelander's head completely vanished.
Only a headless corpse wearing a tattered Stars and Stripes suit remained, the severed neck charred black.
It gave off a strong smell of roasted meat and the pungent odor of chemical agents.
Lynn retracted his Heat Vision.
The red glow in his eyes slowly faded, returning to a deep blue.
He pulled back his foot and glanced at the black ash on his sole with disgust.
The tunnel was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
Butcher held his shotgun, staring blankly at the headless corpse.
The enemy he had been hunting for eight years.
That arrogant monster had just turned into a pile of smoking, rotten meat.
He swallowed a mouthful of dry saliva, and the gun in his hand slowly lowered.
Bekka covered Ryan's eyes tightly, her whole body trembling like a leaf in the autumn wind.
Ryan did not struggle; he hugged his mother's neck tightly, his little face buried in her shoulder.
Lynn turned around and looked at Butcher, who was still stunned in place.
"The vengeance is taken, and the person is found."
He adjusted the cuffs of his white shirt.
"Take your wife and child, get back to the safe house, and clean up your tracks."
Butcher snapped out of it, opened his mouth, and spoke in a hoarse voice.
"Boss, what about you?"
"Me?"
Lynn twitched the corner of his mouth, his eyes looking toward the pitch-black night at the end of the tunnel.
"I'm going to handle some resignation paperwork."
"And by the way, I'll send that bunch of blood-sucking old geezers upstairs at Vought down here to keep this headless piece of trash company."
An hour later, Manhattan.
Vought International Tower, the 82nd-floor executive private chamber.
The main lights in the room were off.
Only a vintage desk lamp on the office desk emitted a dim, yellow light.
Stan Edgar sat in his leather executive chair, holding a cup of freshly brewed black tea.
The aroma of Darjeeling black tea permeated the air.
He held the porcelain cup, brought it to his lips, and blew on the steam.
The expression on his face remained like stagnant water; there was no hint of panic about the company's impending bankruptcy.
"Creak."
The bulletproof door to the private chamber, which required both fingerprint and retinal authentication, was roughly pushed open from the outside.
The alloy door hinges twisted and deformed, emitting a harsh metallic grinding sound.
Lynn strode inside.
His leather shoes made no sound as they stepped on the carpet.
His white shirt was stained with a bit of mud, the collar open, exuding a casual aura of murderous intent.
Edgar didn't even raise his eyelids.
He took a sip of black tea and placed the cup steadily on the coaster.
It made a faint sound of porcelain clinking.
"You arrived ten minutes slower than I imagined, Lynn."
Edgar crossed his fingers, resting his elbows on the desk.
"Why didn't the security outside stop you? Oh, I forgot, they couldn't even stop that cape-wearing experimental subject."
Lynn walked to the office desk.
He pulled over a guest chair and sat down imposingly.
Crossing his legs, he looked at the composed old black man opposite him.
"They are asleep."
Lynn's tone was flat.
"The kind that will never wake up."
The muscles on Edgar's face twitched uncontrollably.
But he still maintained the composure of a politician.
"Where is Homelander?" he asked.
Lynn pulled out the blood-stained fruit knife and threw it onto the mahogany desk with a clang.
"His head is burned to ash, and his corpse is rotting in the suburbs."
Edgar fell silent.
He leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath.
When he opened his eyes again, a trace of undisguised defeat finally showed in those cloudy eyes.
But he did not beg for mercy.
In the bones of a capitalist, there is always the belief that everything can be traded.
"You won."
Edgar pulled open a drawer, took out a thick stack of paper documents, and pushed them in front of Lynn.
"This is the complete equity transfer agreement for Vought International, along with the list of high-ranking officials in Congress."
He took out a solid gold fountain pen and pressed it onto the documents.
"Sign it, and this empire is yours. I will immediately arrange a helicopter to leave the United States and never return."
Lynn looked at the priceless documents on the table.
He didn't reach for the pen.
Instead, he reached out his right hand and picked up Edgar's unfinished cup of black tea.
The steam warmed his chin.
Lynn toyed with the exquisite porcelain cup, a mocking sneer curling the corner of his mouth.
"Mr. Edgar."
Lynn's voice was very low, carrying an unmelting chill.
"Do you think that as long as the chips are big enough, any sin can be wiped clean?"
Edgar frowned, his heart skipping a beat.
"Lynn, smart people don't make losing deals. If you kill me, you won't get the secret key to the Swiss bank account."
"I don't need the password."
Lynn loosened his five fingers.
"Crash!"
The exquisite porcelain cup hit the carpet and shattered into pieces.
Amber-colored tea splashed onto Edgar's trouser legs.
Before Edgar could react.
Lynn suddenly stood up, his upper body leaning over the wide office desk.
His left hand grabbed Edgar's collar, yanking him straight up from the executive chair.
"Ugh..."
Edgar's neck was constricted, and a distressed wheezing sound came from his throat.
His face, which was always as calm as an ancient well, was finally torn apart by fear.
"You... you're crazy!"
Lynn clenched his right fist, the monstrous strength of his Primary Steel Body instantly gathering.
His knuckles turned a stark, bone-white.
"I told you already."
Lynn stared into his dilated pupils.
"I don't accept negotiations."
His fist, carrying the sound of tearing air, slammed down fiercely.
"Bang!"
A muffled sound like a watermelon shattering exploded in the private chamber.
Blood and red-and-white gore sprayed radially onto the wallpaper behind.
Lynn let go.
The headless corpse, dressed in a high-end tailored suit, slumped limply back into the executive chair.
Pressing down on those equity transfer agreements.
The dark red blood quickly soaked through the paper, blurring the printed text.
Lynn grabbed a velvet cloth from the desk and wiped the blood off his hands.
He threw it onto the corpse.
He turned around and walked out of the blood-soaked private chamber.
The bulletproof door behind him stood wide open, welcoming the complete end of the old era.
Chapter 58: The Grand Finale (Part 2): The Execution Never Ends, I Am the Absolute Truth.
The first rays of the morning sun tore through the smog of Manhattan.
Golden light streamed through the shattered floor-to-ceiling windows, spilling in great swaths into the CEO's office on the top floor of the Vought building.
The room was as cold as an ice cellar.
The crosswind from last night had howled all night, scattering documents across the floor in a chaotic mess.
Ashley knelt on the carpet.
She was still wearing that ill-fitting high-end business suit, her legs long since numb and devoid of sensation.
Her forehead pressed against the cold floor tiles, and she didn't even dare to breathe.
Lynn sat in that leather chair, which symbolized absolute power.
He had changed into a brand-new, pure black bespoke suit, without a tie.
The collar was unbuttoned, revealing a sense of languor and condescending authority.
He held a freshly lit cigarette between his fingers.
The blue-grey smoke spiraled upward, blurring his cold blue eyes.
"Stand up."
Lynn tapped his cigarette-holding fingers on the edge of the desk, producing a dull thudding sound.
Ashley shuddered and scrambled up from the floor using her hands and feet.
Her legs were too weak to stand, so she had to brace herself firmly against the desk with both hands.
Her bloodshot eyes didn't dare to look at Lynn's face at all.
"Bo... Boss."
Her throat felt as hoarse as if she had swallowed a razor blade.
Lynn took a drag of his cigarette and exhaled slowly.
"Notify the executives downstairs who haven't run away yet."
His voice was flat, yet every word carried the scent of blood.
"Within half an hour, gather in the underground garage. If you are one minute late, you can go keep Edgar company."
Ashley's pupils constricted sharply, and she nodded repeatedly.
"Yes! I'll get it done right away!"
She scrambled toward the door, not even bothering to pick up the high heel she had lost while running.
The office was quiet.
Lynn turned his chair to face the massive floor-to-ceiling window.
The entire city of New York was waking up beneath his feet.
The wailing of police cars and ambulances rose and fell from deep within the streets.
This city had just experienced a crazy night where faith had collapsed.
"Creak."
The solid wood door was pushed open.
Butcher, wearing his signature black leather jacket, strode in.
Behind him followed Hughie, Frenchie, and Kimiko.
And Annie, dressed in casual clothes, her eyes red and swollen.
The Boys lined up and stood in front of the desk.
They looked at Lynn, who was sitting in the boss's chair; their eyes no longer held the initial defensiveness, but only awe.
"Boss, the inventory of the armory on the fourth basement level is complete."
Butcher pulled over a chair and sat down, resting his long legs on the coffee table.
He was beaming now, and even his yellow teeth looked much more pleasing to the eye.
"The security guards who didn't manage to run away have all been tied up in the basement by Frenchie. How should we handle them?"
Lynn stubbed out his cigarette in the crystal ashtray.
"Dismiss the security guards and pay them hush money."
He looked up, his gaze sweeping over the group.
"However, as for those third-tier superpowered individuals with murder cases on their hands, leave none of them alive."
Annie's body trembled slightly, and she bit her lower lip, remaining silent.
She had seen through the true nature of Vought last night; her pathetic saintly heart had long since been crushed by reality.
"Annie."
Lynn called her name.
"You will lead the establishment of the Super-Powered Crime Investigation Bureau. From now on, those guys who have taken Compound V must either register or die."
Annie looked up, took a deep breath, and nodded heavily.
"I understand."
"Butcher, you will be the captain of law enforcement."
Lynn looked at Butcher.
"Hughie will be responsible for administrative work and intelligence, and Frenchie will handle the equipment."
He turned his gaze to Kimiko, who had been silent the whole time.
"You will follow me and serve as my personal bodyguard."
A flash of light flickered in Kimiko's pitch-black eyes, and she obediently walked over to stand behind Lynn's chair.
Like a cold, emotionless weapon.
Butcher grinned.
"I like this job."
He stood up and clapped his hands.
"Guys, let's get to work. Let's go clean up the trash in this city."
The Boys turned and walked out of the office.
Hughie walked at the very back, closing the heavy door for Lynn.
"Click," the lock engaged.
Lynn was the only one left in the office.
He stood up and walked to the shattered floor-to-ceiling window.
The cold wind poured into his collar, causing the hem of his suit to flap loudly.
[Ding.]
Deep in his mind, that mechanical voice that had accompanied him throughout his journey of slaughter suddenly rang out.
Carrying a strange, ethereal quality.
[Ultimate Main Quest: Overthrow the Vought Empire, Eradicate the Old Gods. Completed.]
[World line has been reset.]
[System permissions are being transferred... Transfer complete.]
A flow of information, so vast it was indescribable in words, instantly rushed into Lynn's brain.
He felt no headache; instead, he felt his mind was clearer than ever before.
All the lottery interfaces and fear value progress bars collapsed in his mind like shattered glass.
They turned into specks of golden light, thoroughly merging into every inch of his flesh and blood.
He no longer needed to harvest any emotions, nor was he limited by the cooldown of any skill bar.
He felt he could hear the sound of a butterfly flapping its wings on the other side of the Earth.
He could see the trajectory of meteorites gliding outside the atmosphere.
That was a kind of absolute omnipotence, the power to control the life and death of all things.
The last shackle of the system had been undone; he was now, in the true sense of the world, the Creator God.
Lynn lowered his head.
He looked at the dense streams of traffic and crowds of people below, looking like ants.
This world did not need those fakes wearing colorful spandex, posturing in front of cameras.
It did not need that hypocritical justice packaged by capital.
It only needed a cold-blooded warden.
A Damocles sword hanging over everyone's heads in the dark night.
Lynn raised his right hand.
A ball of dark red Heat Vision light ignited out of thin air in his palm.
Without relying on any external force, pure energy danced between his fingers, as docile as a toy.
He closed his fingers, crushing that ball of light.
Sparks drifted away in the wind, scattering into the morning light of Manhattan.
"I am the true Homelander."
A cold, arrogant, and defiant smirk tugged at the corners of Lynn's mouth.
He turned around, his leather shoes crushing a piece of remaining explosion-proof glass.
He strode back to that boss's chair.
The execution never ends.
And he, is the only absolute truth in this world.
(End of Book)