Black Robe: Awakening of Kryptonian Bloodline, Shocking Vought
Novel SummaryThey are transported to a superhero world controlled by the Vought International, a world filled with hypocritical "heroes" who are promiscuous, drug-addicted, and disregard human life.
Carl, an ordinary person, just wanted to be a low-key intern reporter at the Global Times, but he unexpectedly awakened the [Kryptonian Template]!
Sunbathing makes me stronger? As long as there's starlight, I'm invincible!
While the Boys were still struggling to find the weakness of Compound V, Carl was already able to crush an aircraft carrier with his bare hands.
When Starlight was driven to despair by the unspoken rules, a figure in a red cloak descended from the sky, like a deity;
When the people of the motherland arrogantly declare, "I can do whatever I want," their eyes gleaming with heat...
Karl neither dodged nor avoided the heat gaze, which fell on his chest without leaving a single mark on his suit.
Carl's eyes flashed with a destructive red light as he coldly stared at the terrified Homelander:
"That's it? Your heat vision is only good for making me hot coffee. Now, let me show you what a true god is!"
——
Shatter the false idols and reshape the laws of the world.
I, Karl El, am the one true god of this world!
Chapter 1: Just Transmigrated to The Boys, and You Smash a Pedestrian to Pieces Right in Front of Me?
Twisted heat waves rose from the asphalt road.
The air in New York in July clung stickily to the back of the neck.
The pungent smell of car exhaust, mixed with the burnt mustard scent from a street corner hot dog stand, drilled straight into the nasal cavity.
Clark lowered his head, his fingers stiffly gripping a cheap paper cup.
A notch was unconsciously gouged into the rim of the cup by his fingernails.
Dark brown coffee sloshed out, dripping onto that pair of washed-out, old canvas shoes.
He hadn't fully regained his senses yet.
Deep in his brain, it felt like a roaring blender had been shoved inside, as two massive streams of memory fragments were being violently fused together.
One second ago, he was still an ordinary worker staying up late pounding on a keyboard.
This second, his field of vision was filled with those glaring posters hanging on the exterior walls of skyscrapers.
On the posters, a blond man wearing a Stars and Stripes cape was smiling brightly at the camera.
Homelander.
Vought Corporation.
compound v.
The Seven.
Clark took a deep breath, his chest emitting a muffled sound like a pulling bellows.
He had transmigrated.
He had come to that world of The Boys, which appeared glamorous on the surface but was filled with drug abuse, promiscuity, and the callous disregard for human life behind the scenes.
"Hey, kid, are you going to pay for that latte or not?"
The fat uncle running the hot dog stand nearby wiped his hands on his apron and tapped on the metal food cart with an impatient face.
"You've been standing there dazed for three minutes; if you don't have change, get lost, don't block my business."
Clark swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down.
He reached out to touch his trouser pocket, wanting to pull out a few small bills.
Just as his fingers touched the fabric of his trousers, his movements suddenly froze.
Something was wrong.
The feeling inside his body had completely changed.
Even through his thick clothes, he could feel the midday sun landing on his skin, just like a dried-out sponge being plunged into water.
Every cell was frantically gulping down the star's radiation.
A tingling, shivering sensation radiated from deep within his bones.
The noise in his ears suddenly amplified exponentially.
The friction of the subway train rolling over the tracks fifteen meters underground.
The sound of the fan blades on the air conditioner unit at the top of an office building two hundred meters away cutting through the air.
And the sound of a young couple holding hands and chatting at the crosswalk opposite him.
Even across dozens of meters of noisy traffic, the couple's conversation still sounded like it had been amplified right next to his ear.
"Hughie, we can't spend our whole lives living in that crappy studio apartment where even the windows are drafty, right?"
The girl with medium-length hair swung the bag in her hand and smilingly nudged the skinny young man beside her with her shoulder.
The young man named Hughie habitually hunched his neck, rubbed his fingers hard against the seam of his trousers, and his forehead was covered in sweat.
"I, I'll go talk to my boss about a raise tomorrow, really. Robin, I won't back down this time."
He stuttered, his eyes still somewhat evasive.
The girl chuckled, reaching out to hook her arm through his.
"Alright, you said the same thing last time, but when you saw the boss's face, you didn't even dare to breathe."
The two chatted and laughed, stepping onto the white lines of the crosswalk and taking a step forward.
In that very instant.
A wild wind suddenly whipped up.
It wasn't a natural wind; it carried a high-pitched, ear-piercing metallic screech, like an old chainsaw being dragged hard across a rusty steel pipe.
The air was instantly filled with a strong smell of ozone and the stench of burnt rubber tires.
Clark subconsciously narrowed his eyes.
The world suddenly hit the slow-motion button in his newly awakened Kryptonian pupils.
A blue afterimage came speeding along the crosswalk, bringing with it a trail of blurred airflow vortices.
It was a person.
Wearing a blue tight-fitting combat suit.
There was no deceleration at all, not even any movement to change lanes or evade.
Bang.
There was no ear-piercing screech of brakes, only a dull, stomach-churning sound of tearing fabric.
Just like a water-filled balloon being smashed onto the concrete ground from the tenth floor.
Robin, who was teasing her boyfriend just a second ago, instantly exploded.
Not even a complete bone was left behind; she was shattered directly into a cloud of crimson blood mist.
Blood splashed everywhere, mixed with white fragments of internal organs, drenching the windshield of a yellow taxi nearby.
The windshield wipers swung frantically, but they couldn't scrape away that thick layer of blood plasma.
Hughie remained in the posture of holding hands, frozen on the spot.
But in his hands, there were now only two forearms severed at the root.
The ghastly white bone shards at the break point abruptly pierced through the skin, and the muscle tissue hung limply.
Warm blood dripped down Hughie's arms.
Drip. Drip.
Hughie's brain crashed.
He opened his mouth, a hissing sound like a leaking bellows coming from his throat, but he couldn't scream a single word.
His eyes stared straight at the severed limbs in his hands, then he slowly turned his head to look at the bloodstains all over the ground.
The blue afterimage screeched to a halt a dozen meters away.
It was a black man with an exaggerated letter A printed on his chest.
The speedster of The Seven, A-Train.
He was panting heavily, his chest heaving violently, his eyes bloodshot and bulging out neurotically.
"Fuck... fuck!"
He ripped off his windproof goggles and irritably shook the blood spatter off his gloves.
His ankles were still twitching uncontrollably; this was the typical withdrawal reaction from an overdose of compound v.
"Ro... Robin?"
Hughie finally found his voice, the sound of his chattering teeth clearly audible even from this side of the road.
He fell to his knees in the blood with a thud, trying to piece the two severed arms back into the pile of mangled flesh on the ground.
"Robin... don't scare me, Robin!"
"Hey! Buddy!"
A-Train turned around, holding his hands up in front of his chest in an innocent gesture of shrugging.
"I really couldn't stop! A robber ran north, and I was on official duty!"
He spoke at an extremely fast pace, his lips moving like he was playing the clappers, not daring to look at the tragic scene on the ground at all.
The screaming around them finally erupted.
A middle-aged woman buying groceries dropped her paper bag on the ground, sending tomatoes rolling everywhere.
A white-collar worker in a suit covered his mouth, holding onto a nearby utility pole and vomiting profusely.
The entire street was in chaos.
"It was you... yes, you suddenly stepped onto the road! This isn't my fault!"
A-Train was still frantically making excuses for himself, reaching out to rub his nose and looking around.
"Listen, buddy, stay right where you are."
He pointed at Hughie, who was kneeling on the ground wailing, his face full of impatience.
"The police will be here soon, and the legal department from Vought Corporation will come to talk to you about compensation. Don't talk nonsense to the media, understand?"
Hughie looked up abruptly, his face covered in Robin's blood.
"Call an ambulance... please, help me call an ambulance!"
He cradled the two severed arms, crying and rambling incoherently.
A-Train rolled his eyes, a sneer of undisguised mockery tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"An ambulance? You might as well keep it for her puzzle."
He put the blood-stained goggles back over his eyes and flicked his wrists indifferently.
"Mortals are just troublesome."
Across the street.
Clark watched all of this coldly.
A tiny droplet of blood that had splattered over landed right on the lens of his black-rimmed glasses.
The metallic smell rushed straight to his brain.
The fat uncle selling hot dogs had long since crawled under the cart in fear, trembling all over.
Clark's breathing completely leveled out.
There was no angry roar, no violent movement.
He just exerted a slight amount of force.
With a muffled bang.
The paper cup in his hand turned directly into tiny fragments.
The scalding coffee liquid poured onto the back of his hand, flowing through his fingers into the soil.
He felt absolutely nothing.
On the surface of that seemingly ordinary skin, a barely perceptible Bio-field faintly emerged.
A temperature that could scald an ordinary person didn't even count as bathwater for him.
This was the body of a Kryptonian.
The true, catalyst-free, limitless God Among Men.
Clark slowly took off the blood-stained glasses.
Loosening his fingers, the glasses dropped into the sewer grate beside his feet.
His vision became completely clear.
He looked up, and in those originally gentle blue eyes, it was now as cold as polar permafrost.
His gaze crossed over the panicked crowd, locking firmly onto A-Train, who was gathering power at the starting point.
After muttering that mockery, A-Train's calf muscles suddenly tightened.
Blue electric arcs exploded wildly at the bottom of his combat boots, and the air was compressed, emitting a dull, explosive sound.
Bang!
The asphalt road was instantly stomped into two half-meter-deep pits.
He transformed into a blue arrow off the string, speeding toward the end of the street.
One hundred yards. Two hundred yards. Three hundred yards.
The wind howled shrilly in his ears, and the buildings on both sides blurred into patches of color.
A-Train took a deep breath of the high-altitude air, enjoying this absolute sense of control that left everyone far behind.
"A bunch of losers who can't even walk, and you dare to block my path?"
He grinned, revealing teeth stained with tartar.
He turned his head sideways, habitually glancing at his rear-view field of vision on the right.
The arrogance on his face froze instantly.
His bulging eyes almost popped right out of their sockets.
It felt as if someone had forcibly stuffed a handful of rusty nails into his throat, and he couldn't even let out a scream.
Half a meter away.
There was a man wearing a cheap plaid shirt and tattered canvas shoes.
His hands were in his trouser pockets.
No combat suit, no electric arcs, no starting movement.
He was just floating lightly an inch off the ground, maintaining an absolutely parallel speed with him.
The man turned his head.
The hair on his forehead was blown backward by the strong wind, and he flashed him a smile devoid of any warmth.
"With that speed, are you in a rush to reincarnate?"
Chapter 2: A-Train Breaks Down: I Actually Can't Outrun Someone Who Walks to Work?
The gale wind pulled his skin back, making it curl.
The air beside his ears had long since been crushed, turning into sharp files that drilled past his eardrums and into his brain.
Four hundred yards. Five hundred yards.
A-Train felt as if his windpipe were filled with shards of ice.
His chest heaved violently, and his eyes were covered in red, earthworm-like blood vessels.
He had escaped.
That annoying crime scene, that disgusting pile of mangled flesh, had all been left several streets behind.
He grinned, just about to let out a long breath, when he instinctively glanced at his peripheral vision on the right.
The arrogance on his face instantly froze.
A mouthful of cold air choked his throat, making him cough repeatedly.
Half a meter away, that man in the tattered plaid shirt was still right beside him.
His hands were shoved into the pockets of his faded jeans.
No supersuit, no electric arcs, not even a starting sprint stance.
"Cough, cough... What the hell are you!"
A-Train stumbled, nearly tripping over a manhole cover on the road.
Clark turned his head. The fringe on his forehead was blown straight back by the wind.
He even had time to reach up and push the black-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose.
"Watch the road, don't stare at me."
Clark surveyed the street scene receding around them. "You smashed into an innocent passerby and ran off without even an apology. The rules of your profession are quite interesting."
"Screw your rules! I'm a superhero!"
A-Train cursed loudly, but the saliva he sprayed was immediately blown back onto his own face by the wind.
He panicked, reaching into the tactical pocket on his thigh.
His fingers trembled as he pulled out a transparent glass vial filled with a faint blue liquid. compound v.
Clark raised an eyebrow, his nose wrinkling slightly.
The stench of cheap chemicals mixed with sour sweat made him feel physically nauseous.
A Kryptonian's super-smell was sometimes a real nuisance.
"The color of your potion doesn't look right. It looks all gooey. Did it expire?"
A-Train couldn't be bothered to reply.
His thumb popped the lid open, and he grabbed the syringe, plunging it into his carotid artery.
The blue liquid surged into his bloodstream instantly.
Thump. Thump-thump! The dull sound of his heartbeat felt like a heavy hammer striking his chest.
A-Train's pupils instantly constricted to pinpricks, and he began to snort heavily through his nostrils.
His thigh muscles expanded abnormally, tearing the seams of his blue bodysuit.
Six hundred yards. Eight hundred yards. The trees lining the street blurred into streaks of green light.
The soles of his shoes ground against the asphalt, kicking up clouds of acrid black smoke.
"Now... huff... eat my dust!"
He laughed wildly, white foam bubbling from the corners of his mouth.
The illusion of power surging through his body made him feel like he could outrun light itself.
"Your ventricular wall is about to tear."
Clark's voice pierced through the wall of wind without obstruction, drilling straight into A-Train's ears.
His tone was as steady as a weather report.
"Your heart rate is hitting two hundred, buddy. Keep running at this pace, and you'll drop dead before I do."
Clark opened his mouth wide, not even bothering to cover it, and let out a long yawn.
A couple of tears welled up in the corners of his eyes.
His new body was adapting well, but this speed was hardly exhilarating; it felt like taking a stroll with an old man.
He glanced down. The laces on his left canvas shoe had come undone, the tongue flapping noisily in the wind.
A-Train's laughter stopped abruptly. What the hell. What the hell!
This guy wasn't just keeping up—he was bored!
"Vought doesn't have anyone like you... absolutely not!"
His voice cracked like a broken gong, betraying an uncontrollable sob.
His composure completely collapsed. He didn't even bother looking at where he was going, just buried his head and sprinted forward desperately.
Ahead lay an abandoned heavy industrial zone. The ground was littered with rusted rebar and chunks of broken concrete, with foul, stagnant water pooling in the mud.
Clark couldn't be bothered to keep running circles with him. He stopped.
No deceleration, no coasting from inertia. He went from eight hundred yards to a dead stop without even stirring up the dust on the ground.
The laws of physics were like a bad joke to him.
A-Train was still sprinting with his head down, his mind consumed by a single thought: run.
Clark leisurely extended his right foot. The toe of his shoe was perfectly positioned in the path of A-Train's next stride.
"Oops, watch your step," Clark remarked dryly.
Bang! It was an impact that made one's teeth ache just hearing it.
A-Train's shin slammed solidly into the faded canvas shoe.
The canvas shoe didn't even wrinkle.
Crack. The sound of bone snapping echoed with unnatural crispness through the empty industrial zone.
A-Train's right lower leg bent at a grotesque right angle.
Jagged white bone instantly pierced through his blue pant leg.
"Aaaaaah!" A shrill scream pierced the air.
He lost his balance like a discarded ragdoll, plunging headfirst into the mud.
His skin tore open. Carried by the terrifying momentum of hundreds of yards, he plowed a deep, tens-of-meters-long trench through the gravel-filled ground.
He smashed through three rusted iron pillars before finally slamming into the tracks of a scrapped excavator.
Blood, mixed with machine oil and mud, smeared across his arrogant face.
Dust billowed into the air, forcing Clark to cover his nose and step back.
Clark crouched down and slowly tied his loose shoelace into a tight knot.
Only then did he step over the broken glass and walk toward him.
The rustling of his shoe soles against the ground now sounded like a death knell to A-Train.
"Help... help me..." A-Train lay in the pile of scrap metal, his breathing shallow and labored.
His legs were twisted into a limp, mangled mess, blood dripping down the excavator's metal plating.
His fingers clawed desperately at the mud, trying to drag himself backward.
The arrogance he had shown when he smashed into the girl was completely gone.
"Know fear now?" Clark stood over him, looking down at the mangled mess.
He nudged a broken brick nearby with his toe.
"That girl didn't even have a chance to scream, but you're certainly loud enough."
He bent down, reaching out to grab A-Train by the collar.
A sudden, oppressive weight bore down from above.
The air tore open. The air pressure plummeted to freezing point without warning, and the pebbles on the ground began to dance, pressed by an invisible, immense force.
Boom. A figure slammed between them, the shockwave of a sonic boom rippling outward.
The concrete slab beneath them cracked into pieces.
Dust billowed outward like a tidal wave, forcing Clark to squint.
Blonde hair. A Stars and Stripes cape. The gaudy golden eagle on his chest glinted coldly in the sunlight.
Homelander.
He stood with his hands on his hips, his chin tilted up in an arrogant arc.
His facial muscles were taut, his signature fake smile completely gone.
Those blue eyes were locked onto Clark's face.
"B-Boss... save me..."
Seeing who had arrived, A-Train clutched at him like a drowning man grabbing a lifeline.
He reached out a bloodied hand, trying to grab that pristine Stars and Stripes cape.
Homelander frowned in disgust and stepped aside, neatly avoiding the dirty hand.
"Shut your mouth, you piece of trash."
He spat through gritted teeth, "You've completely embarrassed Vought."
After cursing, he turned back, his gaze cutting over Clark's cheap shirt like a knife.
There was no preamble. He couldn't even be bothered with pleasantries.
The capillaries around his eyes instantly engorged with blood. A terrifying dark red glow ignited beneath his skin, and the air around him began to warp and distort from the rapidly rising heat.
"I don't care what sewer you crawled out of—you dare touch my people."
Homelander's mouth twisted into a cruel arc as scarlet lasers erupted from his eyes. "Burn to ash, you subhuman."
Chapter 3: Homelander, is this all the temperature your Heat Vision has? It's only enough to heat coffee!
A crimson beam of light tore through the air.
It was pure high-temperature plasma, carrying the destructive power to slice through aircraft carrier steel plating.
The asphalt road didn't even bother with the process of burning; it melted directly into a pool of bubbling, dark red magma.
The acrid smell of burnt asphalt mixed with the strange odor of ozone, rushing straight to the brain.
The beam of light continued to output for a full three seconds.
Homelander curled his lips, revealing that standard sunny smile he used when facing cameras.
He even clenched his teeth, and the veins on both sides of his neck throbbed.
The heat wave overturned a tin trash can nearby, and the waste paper inside instantly turned to fly ash.
A-Train, lying in a mud pit, was trembling all over; he hurriedly used his elbows to protect his head, terrified of getting even a tiny spark on him.
He knew the power of this red light all too well.
That was absolutely not something a flesh-and-blood body could withstand.
The red glow in Homelander's eyes gradually faded.
He let out a long breath and straightened his slightly wrinkled Stars and Stripes cape.
He prepared to admire his masterpiece of black ash covering the ground.
A natural breeze carrying a fishy scent blew past.
The black smoke concentrated in the open space was blown away.
The smile on Homelander's lips suddenly froze.
His left eyelid twitched uncontrollably twice.
No charcoal, no ashes.
Not even a single burnt strand of hair was left behind.
The man wearing worn-out canvas shoes was still standing perfectly fine in the center of that bubbling magma pit.
Clark raised his hand and waved it in front of his nose with some disgust.
"Cough... What is this weird smell? It's even more choking than the firewood smoke on the Kansas farm."
He lowered his head and leisurely brushed a small pinch of black ash off his plaid shirt.
That cheap shirt, bought for ten dollars at a supermarket, didn't even have an extra wrinkle.
A layer of imperceptible transparent force field clung to the surface of the fabric, sliding away the thousands of degrees of high temperature as if blocking raindrops.
Clark lifted his eyelids and glanced at the stunned Homelander opposite him.
"Is this all you've got?"
He pointed to his own chest, "The temperature of this crappy laser is too slow even to heat my morning coffee."
In Homelander's azure eyes, that arrogance shattered inch by inch.
All that remained was incomprehensible absurdity.
He subconsciously took half a step back, his leather boots crushing a piece of concrete debris.
"You, what did you do? That piece of clothing... what the hell is it!"
He pointed at Clark, his voice cracking, carrying a bit of exasperated distortion.
Saliva even sprayed out.
"I can melt the door of a bank vault! What the hell are you!"
Before the words faded, Homelander stomped hard on the ground.
A sonic boom exploded by his eardrums.
He swung his right fist, his whole body turning into a blue cannonball, heading straight for Clark's face.
The strong wind blew away all the surrounding gravel and bricks, which clattered against the sheet metal of an abandoned excavator.
Bang. A dull thud.
There was no earth-shattering shockwave, nor were there any scenes of flying flesh and blood.
Clark only raised one right hand.
Five slender fingers steadily wrapped around Homelander's fist.
The huge kinetic energy was transmitted down along Clark's arm, and the ground beneath his feet silently collapsed into a three-meter-wide pit.
But he himself didn't even sway his shoulders.
Homelander's eyes widened instantly, his pupils contracting violently.
He tried to pull his hand back. It didn't budge.
It felt like his wrist was stuck in a solid hydraulic press, his bones emitting an unbearable creaking sound.
"This strength of yours, you usually just use it to lift weights and show off your muscles in front of the camera, right."
Clark sighed, his eyes revealing a bit of boredom.
"Too soft."
Clark's five fingers slowly curled toward his palm.
Crack. Crunch.
The crisp sound that chilled the spine echoed clearly in the empty abandoned factory area.
That was the sound of high-density superhuman bones being crushed by force.
Homelander gasped sharply.
Cold sweat poured out from his forehead like it was free, rolling down his high nose bridge and dripping onto the collar of his red suit.
His knees involuntarily went weak.
"Urgh! Let, let go! You piece of trash, let go of me!"
His facial features were twisted together, and that mask of a compassionate savior he usually wore was torn to shreds.
His lips were trembling, and even his basic breathing rhythm was disrupted.
This was the first time in his life he had experienced what physical agony truly meant.
"Know pain now?"
Clark looked at his face, twisted in pain, without a shred of sympathy.
"When you hit and killed that girl earlier, you didn't even blink."
He flicked his wrist casually. Like throwing away a bag of stinking trash.
The hundred-plus-pound Homelander was sent flying, his feet leaving the ground.
With a loud bang, he smashed into a rusty shipping container a dozen meters away.
The sheet metal dented into an exaggerated human silhouette, and the container rolled twice before stopping.
From inside came a painful grunt and the creaking sound of steel plates deforming.
A-Train, in the mud nearby, hurriedly closed his eyes tight.
He covered his head tightly with both hands, buried his face in the dirty water, and held his breath.
He only regretted now why he hadn't died in the crash earlier, instead of provoking this god of death.
Clark shook his hand with disgust.
Besides some dust on the back of his hand, there wasn't even a red mark left.
He looked up at the glaring sun, feeling the warmth of the light shining on his skin.
"Waste of time. My editor is still waiting for my news draft."
He muttered under his breath.
He bent his legs slightly. The ground surface suddenly sank, and spiderweb-like cracks instantly spread dozens of meters away.
Boom! A red and blue interwoven afterimage shot up from the ground.
The strong wind kicked up all the puddles on the ground into the air, turning into a sky full of mud rain.
Clark, in a posture that defied physical common sense, instantly climbed to an altitude of several hundred meters.
The clouds were punched through by this kinetic energy, leaving a clear circular hole.
Just at the moment he was about to accelerate back to downtown Manhattan.
His movements paused in mid-air without warning.
The Red Cape fluttered in the strong wind.
Clark's brows furrowed slightly, and a faint golden shimmer welled up in his eyes.
His X-ray vision peeled away the buildings, pipes, and soil beneath layer by layer.
Super Hearing instantly filtered out the sound of wind and traffic.
He captured a faint, yet thumping, heartbeat that sounded like a war drum.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
The frequency was terrifyingly fast, clearly in a state of panic.
Right in the dead corner of that broken brick wall below.
Clearly, there was nothing there to the naked eye, not even a ghost of a shadow to be found.
Yet the air had a trace of unnatural distortion.
In Clark's X-ray grid, a complete human skeleton and a cardiovascular system pumping blood frantically were floating out of thin air.
There was even half a hot dog in the stomach that hadn't been digested yet.
Clark slowly turned his head in mid-air.
His gaze, like a knife tip, was nailed tightly onto that empty void.
A mocking sneer curled the corner of his lips.
"You think that by holding your breath... others can't see you?"
He lowered his altitude, his voice precisely delivered into that patch of air,
"You invisible pervert hiding in the corner without even wearing clothes, yes, I'm talking to you, do you still intend to keep hiding?"
Chapter 4: Going Viral Across the Web! Who is that Red Cape who crushed Translucent with his bare hands!
A ripple like water appeared in the air at the corner of the brick wall.
A barefoot print crushed a half-bottle of beer on the ground.
Yet, there was absolutely no sound of glass shards piercing skin.
Translucent didn't even dare to make a sound while breathing.
He felt his scalp tingling, and every hair on his body stood on end.
That freak in the cheap plaid shirt was actually staring right at him!
"What the hell... you can see me? That's fucking impossible!"
A blurry humanoid outline twisted in the air, his voice cracking with uncontrollable panic.
"I have skin made of carbon meta-material! Even armor-piercing rounds can't penetrate it, so what the hell is the point of you seeing me!"
Before he finished speaking, the ripple suddenly surged forward.
Relying on his invulnerability, Translucent swung his fist at Clark's temple.
He didn't even wear a suit, all for the sake of absolute invisibility and impenetrable defense.
The accompanying stench of sweat, mixed with the sour smell of not bathing for days, hit Clark's face directly with the wind.
Clark wrinkled his nose and instinctively leaned back half an inch.
"Running around the streets naked—what kind of weird quirks do you people at Vought Corporation have?"
This sight was truly unbearable with X-ray vision—a white skeleton wrapped in a digestive system running wildly.
He didn't even have the interest to dodge, so he simply raised his right hand.
His five fingers steadily caught the incoming transparent fist.
The tactile sensation was cold and hard, like gripping a piece of polished stone.
Translucent was stunned for a moment, then grinned and laughed wildly, spit flying everywhere.
"Haha! So what if you caught me? My bones are harder than diamond—"
He laughed while pulling his arm back with all his might.
He couldn't pull it.
That hand, which looked devoid of muscle definition, was like it had been welded to an anvil.
Clark didn't even give him a glance, his thumb pressing down nonchalantly.
"Diamond? That stuff is in the mines back home in Kansas; you can dig up a pile with one shovel."
His five fingers suddenly tightened.
Crack... Crack-la!
A teeth-gritting sound of shattering exploded in the open space, like a sledgehammer smashing through thick ice.
Translucent's prized carbon-fiber shell erupted with dense white cracks from his wrist.
The fissures spread rapidly like a spiderweb across his entire forearm.
"Aaaaaah—my hand!"
The laughter instantly turned into a pig-like shriek.
The camouflage in the air failed completely, and a naked man with skin covered in eerie cracks revealed his true form.
He fell to his knees in pain, his chin covered in tears and snot, his other hand desperately trying to pry Clark's fingers open.
This so-called invincible setup was, before the Kryptonian power system, as fragile as a toy made of instant noodles.
Clark clicked his tongue in disgust.
His fingertips exerted force again, tracing up the opponent's arm and locking directly onto the collarbone.
"Next time you go out, remember to wear some clothes."
Snap!
An even crisper sound of bone breaking rang out.
The carbonized collarbone, claimed to be able to withstand explosives, was crushed into fine fragments.
Splinters of bone pierced into his flesh; Translucent rolled his eyes back, unable to even scream a second time, and passed out from the pain, collapsing into a limp pile of mush.
Clark shook his wrist.
He looked at his palm; not even a red mark was left.
Then, like throwing a dead cat, he tossed the naked body away.
The body traced a parabola in mid-air, accurately slamming in front of a rusty shipping container a dozen meters away.
Homelander, who had just climbed halfway out of the container, was knocked backward by the sudden heavy object.
His hair was disheveled, and two lines of blood hung under his nose.
Looking down, he saw the unconscious Translucent lying by his feet, his neck as limp as a boiled noodle.
The corner of Homelander's eye twitched wildly.
He bit down hard on his back molars, a wheezing sound like a beast cornered in a desperate situation coming from his throat.
Yet, his feet felt like they were filled with lead; he didn't dare take a single step forward.
Around the abandoned brick wall at the perimeter of the factory, a crowd of people had gathered at some point.
Holding colorful mobile phones, their cameras were all aimed at this clearing.
A young man wearing a baseball cap was shaking so hard with excitement that his voice cracked.
"Oh my god! He's soloing The Seven! This, this guy isn't even wearing a suit!"
"He knocked Homelander flying! He even crushed Translucent with one hand!"
"Who cares who he is! Good hit! I've been sick of Homelander's hypocritical act for a long time!"
Camera flashes blurred together, the clicking of shutters denser than hail.
The noisy chatter drifted over with the wind.
Clark pushed up the black-rimmed glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose.
He didn't want to stay and sign autographs for these people; he still had to report to the editor-in-chief today.
Going missing on his first day of work wouldn't be worth losing his intern salary.
He bent his knees slightly.
Bang!
Soil splattered, and a red and blue afterimage instantly shot up from the ground.
The wind whipped up plastic bags from the ground, slapping them directly into Homelander's face.
Under the flashes of the crowd, he stood there blankly, head tilted back, watching the shrinking red dot in the clouds.
His clenched fists dug his nails into his flesh, and fresh blood dripped down his palm lines.
...
Three hours later.
In an abandoned pipe repair room somewhere underground in New York.
This dilapidated room, where even stray cats usually wouldn't want to stay, was filled with the mixed smell of moldy pizza and cheap tobacco.
Several old computer screens flickered with a ghostly blue light, illuminating the walls plastered with photos of Vought Corporation executives.
On Homelander's headshot, someone had drawn a heavy, forceful X in red ink.
Billy Butcher sat on a swivel chair missing a leg.
He was wearing that black trench coat that hadn't been washed in a thousand years, unshaven, with deep-set eye sockets.
Between his rough fingers, he held a half-smoked Marlboro.
On the computer screen, a shaky mobile phone video was playing on a loop.
It was that scene from the abandoned factory.
The view count had already broken 80 million, and the comment section below was rolling crazily every second.
Butcher stared fixedly at the center of the screen.
Watching that man crush Translucent's collarbone with one hand.
Watching the arrogant Homelander hiding in a broken metal box like a stray dog, not daring to make a sound.
He didn't even blink, his breathing long and steady.
The cigarette burned bit by bit.
The orange spark crawled up the cigarette paper, burning away the last bit of tobacco, and scorched his calloused index finger directly.
Sizzle.
A faint smell of scorched flesh drifted out.
"Fuck."
Butcher snapped back to reality, sucking in a cold breath.
He quickly flicked away the cigarette butt and stuck his scalded, red finger into his mouth to suck on it.
The walkie-talkie on the table next to him crackled.
Frenchie's impatient voice with a thick French accent came through.
"Butcher! D-did you see the stuff online? Oh my god, that guy is a monster! A monster even more terrifying than Homelander!"
In the background, there was also the sound of a cup shattering; he was clearly scared out of his wits.
Butcher spat out the cigarette ash from his mouth.
He casually grabbed a crumpled tissue to wipe his hands, the corners of his mouth slowly curling upward.
That smile looked even more sinister than a cry, revealing a sense of desperate madness.
He reached out and pressed the talk button on the walkie-talkie, his Adam's apple bobbing.
"No, Frenchie, that's not a monster..."
He paused, his eyes still fixed on the Red Cape soaring into the sky in the video, his voice squeezed out from between his teeth.
"This is our fucking nuclear weapon to kill Vought Corporation. Go check on that unlucky bastard who got his hand smashed; I want to dig up every secret about this Red Cape before dark!"
Chapter 5: The Boys in Shock: Has Physics Failed on This Guy?
Butcher stuck his burning fingertips into his mouth and sucked on them for a moment.
The taste of rust mixed with the bitterness of cheap tobacco spread across the back of his tongue.
He blinked his dry, bloodshot eyes hard, the eyeballs covered in cobweb-like red veins.
The basement was as stuffy as a rusted tin can.
The cooling fans of three assembled computers were screaming desperately, spitting out scorching exhaust.
The sour smell of moldy pizza made one feel nauseous.
"Frenchie! Crank the processing power of that pile of junk to the max!"
Butcher slammed a hand onto the greasy desk, making the coffee cup wobble.
"Frame by frame! Extract this video for me! Hurry!"
The disheveled Frenchman beside him jumped.
Frenchie hurriedly dropped the half-eaten baguette in his hand, his ten fingers flying over the keyboard, leaving afterimages.
The image on the computer screen was magnified over a dozen times, the entire screen filled with coarse mosaic pixels.
Mother's Milk (MM) frowned and leaned in.
He pulled a disinfecting wipe from his pocket and, as if suffering from an OCD episode, wiped the cigarette ash off the corner of the table.
"Dude, where did you get this Hollywood-style special effects composite? The light refraction is pretty realistic."
"Shut up and watch," Butcher snorted coldly.
Frenchie's face was practically pressed against the screen.
A near-neurotic fanaticism welled up in his eyes, his nostrils flaring as he huffed.
"Good God... Holy Mother Mary, this, this is definitely not a composite!"
He turned his head sharply, his forehead covered in glistening cold sweat.
"This is fucking unscientific! Physics has completely paralyzed itself on this freak!"
"Speak English," Butcher said, reaching for the cigarette pack in his trench coat pocket.
Frenchie grabbed his messy hair, his fingernails scratching red marks into his scalp.
"Look here! This frame where he takes off!"
The screen froze at the moment Clark broke the sound barrier, the Red Cape stretched into a blurred line.
"I've calculated it; his initial acceleration when taking off is at least Mach 10!"
Mother's Milk froze, the disinfecting wipe dropping to the floor.
"Mach 10? Are you kidding me?"
His exaggerated pectoral muscles bulged as he gasped.
"Taking off from a standstill at that speed, the resulting sonic boom shockwave would turn the internal organs of everyone within fifty meters into mush!"
Frenchie nodded frantically, like a drug-addled bobblehead.
"Yes! Yes! Even that fanboy hiding by the wall filming the video would be bleeding from seven orifices!"
He pointed at the young man in the baseball cap at the edge of the screen.
"But look, that kid's hat didn't even fly off! Even the dust splatter trajectory on the ground is wrong!"
The basement fell into a deathly silence.
Only the buzzing struggle of the computer fans could be heard.
"Unless..." Frenchie swallowed, his Adam's apple moving with difficulty, "Unless he has an invisible Bio-field around him that absorbed all the kinetic energy and destructive sound power."
He collapsed into his chair, his legs feeling weak.
"Vought Corporation can't create a mechanism like a god; compound v can't achieve this."
The corners of Butcher's mouth slowly curled upward.
It was a dangerous smile, full of madness and excitement.
He felt the stomach acid that had been dormant for years churning again; the thrill of being about to flip the table made his fingertips tingle.
"It's not over yet."
Mother's Milk leaned over to pick up the wipe and threw it in the trash, then pointed to another image on the screen.
It was a close-up of Translucent having his collarbone destroyed with one hand.
"Internal files record that Translucent's carbon-metamaterial shell is harder than diamond, it's absurd."
Mother's Milk pushed up his black-rimmed glasses, his brow furrowed in a tight knot.
"We previously thought about using large-caliber armor-piercing rounds against him; simulation results showed it wouldn't even leave a white mark."
Butcher spat out a mouthful of tobacco-flavored saliva.
"And today, he was crushed like a wafer biscuit."
"This is pure crushing grip strength; no high heat, no acid corrosion."
Mother's Milk felt a chill run down his spine.
"Even Homelander... he uses Heat Vision to cheat. Where the hell did this monster come from?"
"No, this isn't a monster."
Butcher grabbed the black trench coat from the back of the chair and shook off the dust.
"This is our nuclear weapon, the nuke that can blow those bitches at Vought Corporation to hell."
He casually stuffed a fully loaded revolver into his inner coat pocket.
"Frenchie, check the background of the footage; where did this happen?"
Frenchie swiped his fingers across the trackpad, pulling up a few news pages.
"It matches. There was a major traffic accident on Sixth Avenue this morning; A-Train lost control and smashed into a girl named Robin."
He pointed at the black man in the corner of the video, wailing in the mud with a broken leg.
"Look at the suit color and this miserable state; the timeline matches perfectly."
Butcher buttoned his trench coat and strode out.
"Let's go."
"Where to?" Mother's Milk hurried to follow. "Vought Corporation's PR department must be scouring the world for this god, why are we getting involved? To die?"
Butcher stopped at the iron stairs and turned back with a scoff.
"Looking for a god? We're just flesh and blood; we aren't worthy."
He rubbed the stiff stubble on his chin.
"We're going to find that blood-covered mortal. He saw the whole thing from start to finish. Vought Corporation is in chaos right now; they surely haven't had time to shut him up yet."
...
In a narrow, cramped studio apartment in Brooklyn.
Cheap blackout curtains blocked out the sunlight, making the room as dark as a coffin.
Hughie sat blankly on the edge of the bed.
His T-shirt, printed with a cheap rock band logo, was covered in large, dark brown stains.
The scabs had dried, and with his shallow breathing, they cracked into tiny fissures on the fabric.
The room smelled of an inescapable, rancid stench of rust.
That was the last warmth Robin had left in this world.
Hughie's eyes were bloodshot, his gaze fixed intently on a clump of dust in the floor cracks.
His brain was like a jammed projector, replaying those few seconds of footage over and over.
Robin's smiling face.
A blue afterimage.
The sensation of warm blood splattering on his face.
And those two arms, severed at the roots.
He slowly lowered his head, looking at his own trembling hands.
His fingertips were covered in dark red marks that wouldn't wash off.
There was still a bit of flesh left under his fingernails.
He wanted to cry, but his throat felt like it was stuffed with dry sand, unable to make a sound.
He wanted to smash things, wanted to run into the street and scream, but his body felt like its bones had been removed; he didn't even have the strength to lift his arms.
For someone used to being cowardly, even despair felt so silent and soundless.
"I can't do anything..."
Hughie bit his lower lip, his teeth sinking into the flesh, tasting the fresh metallic tang of blood.
But just then, another image forced its way into his chaotic mind.
That back wearing a plaid shirt.
That man floating effortlessly above the road.
That man looked at A-Train, his tone mocking and indifferent.
Hughie's breathing stopped for a moment.
For the first time in his life, he saw that a high-and-mighty superhero could also fall into a mud pit and beg for mercy like a stray dog.
It was also the first time he saw someone able to toss Homelander aside like trash.
Who was that Red Cape?
Why did he teach A-Train a lesson?
Deep in his heart, a tiny, almost invisible flame sparked quietly amidst the ashen despair.
Click.
The old door lock suddenly clicked.
Immediately after, three rough, muffled thuds came from the door panel.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The force was so great that the peeling white plaster from the door frame fell off in showers, hitting the doormat.
Hughie trembled all over, shrinking into the corner of the bed like a frightened quail.
His Adam's apple bobbed up and down, and his dry lips moved.
"Who, who is it?"
His voice was trembling uncontrollably.
It was quiet outside the door for two seconds.
The light leaking in from the hallway cast a tall, sturdy shadow on the floor through the crack in the door.
Then, a rough, low voice, carrying a thick London street-tough accent, drifted in through the crack.
The tone carried an undeniable firmness.
"Open the door, kid."
A shoe outside kicked the door panel impatiently.
"I heard you witnessed some epic clash of gods this morning? Stop hiding; we need to have a proper chat."