"Ryan, hurry up. We need to get to class."
In the early morning, golden sunlight shone down. The lawn before the detached house was neatly trimmed, and the sprinklers spun, spraying a fresh mist of water.
It seemed like a beautiful morning when the mother's gentle calls came from inside the villa.
A little boy with azure eyes sat on the swing hanging from the large tree in the yard, playing with a toy car by himself. Immersed in his own world, he did not hear her.
Outside the house, on the white-painted wooden steps leading up to the balcony.
A handsome young man lay in a rattan chair, his feet casually propped on the railing. His deep eyes looked across the road with a faint, almost imperceptible contempt.
He showed no intention of responding to his mother's calls for his younger brother.
As though he had nothing to do with this family at all, like an outsider merely staying with them.
"Ryan, did you hear me? Go pack your things. You're going to be late."
After receiving no response, Becca opened the door and leaned half her body outside.
She was in her thirties, with a rather pretty face. She wore fitted pants and a white casual blouse, looking like a capable office beauty as she once again called gently to Ryan beneath the tree.
"Coming, Mom."
Ryan put down his toy car and ran over with a smile, passing the two of them as he hurried into the house.
"Don't forget your pencils this time. You'll need them for art class."
Holding the door, Becca watched her obedient son run past her and upstairs. A smile appeared on her face, her eyes full of maternal tenderness.
The warm scene between mother and son was abruptly ruined by an ill-timed voice from the side.
"Why not have the teacher come here?
Isn't it tiring to make the trip every day?"
The young man in the rattan chair turned his head slightly, his magnetic voice casual as he looked at his mother.
"Ron, having the teacher come here costs more money."
Turning to face her eldest son, who had been born alongside Ryan but was physically and mentally unlike any normal person, Becca's smile became less natural. There was a faint trace of unfamiliarity and nervousness in it.
"It costs money?
Whatever you want, they'll help you get it for free, won't they?"
Ron had long grown used to Becca's attitude toward him.
Although he was no longer an orphan after transmigrating again, his situation was hardly any different from that of one.
The family lacked a father figure, and his mother looked at him as if he were some kind of freak.
"Isn't this community, where we've lived for eight years, built specifically for us—a seemingly beautiful cage?"
He spread his hands as he spoke.
"Enough, Ron. I don't know what you're talking about. You're talking nonsense again."
Hearing that, Becca's expression changed. Pretending to be angry to cover it up, she sternly warned her eldest son.
"Ron, you are not allowed to say such things to your brother!"
A mother could be strong when it came to her child. The moment Ryan was involved, her attitude hardened.
"Whatever."
Ron shrugged and said nothing more.
After warning him, Becca returned inside with slightly flustered steps.
She had two sons. Her younger son was obedient and adorable, while her eldest son... had been different from ordinary people from the moment he was born. He grew far too quickly. By six, he was as tall as she was, and this year, at eight, he stood a head taller than his mother. He looked no different from a grown young man.
From childhood to now, he had never cried or fussed and rarely spoke. He was nothing like a child, always watching everything with cold indifference, giving people an eerie feeling.
Whenever she spoke with her eldest son, she instinctively thought of the father of her two children—that man whom the public regarded as the greatest hero, but who was actually a terrifying demon.
Screech.
The black sedan drove away from the house as Becca left to take her precious younger son to class.
"Becca, if you truly love your son, you shouldn't raise him in a greenhouse. After all, this is a false and utterly terrible world."
Lying in the rattan chair, Ron casually withdrew his gaze from the departing car and looked coldly into the distance.
His gaze seemed able to pierce through the cage disguised as a neat community, seeing the people constantly watching him from afar and the wall more than a mile away.
After transmigrating, the details everywhere, the excessive amount of superhero merchandise—Homelander, A-Train, Queen Maeve...
He discovered that he had transmigrated into the world of The Boys.
It was not his first transmigration.
"Compared with my last world, where danger was everywhere and Major Events happened constantly, this world wasn't much better."
In some ways, it was even worse—a false, ugly, and dangerous world!
The drug that could grant people superpowers was abused, and a considerable number of ordinary people were used as test subjects without even knowing it.
Superheroes were launched like carefully packaged products to attract fans.
Every one of them was hypocritical, corrupt, and false. Fighting crime was really just an act, a show, with money and fame placed above all else.
Homelander, the world's strongest superhero, possessed abilities similar to Superman's. His power was enough to destroy the world, yet he was actually a psychologically twisted, temperamental, and reckless walking bomb.
"Still, having that kind of power and doing whatever you want is only natural."
Ron grinned and licked his dry lips.
How many people, if they possessed Superman's abilities, would become Clark, the Superman who hid among ordinary people as a newspaper reporter whenever he wasn't fighting crime, rather than Homelander, who stood at the top of Earth thinking, I'll do whatever I want?
He slowly rose from the rattan chair, shut the door, went upstairs to his room, and drew the curtains.
He methodically packed the things he had prepared in advance.
He changed into clothes better suited for movement and slung a backpack over his shoulders.
Danger lurked beneath this world's peaceful surface. Homelander alone, liable to lose control at any moment, was a nightmare. And his own identity made it difficult for him to escape the vortex, so he had to gain power to protect himself.
"It's time for me to leave too and obtain power."
In the room, Ron fastened the buttons on his jacket cuffs one by one before the mirror, excitement hidden in his eyes.
In the original story, Homelander and Becca had only one illegitimate son, Ryan. Yet for some reason, there was also him, making them twins.
Calling them twins was not quite right, because Homelander's genes had mutated within him.
"I didn't inherit Homelander's abilities, but I received another surprise instead."
He summoned the familiar panel.
Ability Points: 21,000 Recorded Template: Homelander Physique (Ryan, adolescent state). Price: 300,000 points. World found: X-Men.
A few days ago, this thing had appeared and announced that it had detected the host's body had reached adulthood, officially activating itself.
By altering and influencing the fates of superheroes or supervillains, he could gain Ability Points, purchase other people's ability templates, and modify himself.
He had always believed that his own genetic mutation had gone in the wrong direction. Not only had he been unlucky enough not to inherit Homelander's abilities, but his lifespan had also been shortened by nearly two-thirds.
At eight, he looked about as old as someone else's eighteen or nineteen.
At this rate, by around twenty, when others were attending college, would he already be collecting a pension and enjoying retirement early?
But the appearance of this thing made him realize that perhaps it had not been a failure after all.
His shortened lifespan and ordinary physique had been exchanged for limitless genetic and physical carrying capacity. No matter what kind of genetic modification or ability infusion it was, his body could endure it.
It lowered the floor while making the ceiling nearly limitless.
It was a perfect match for this Template System.
Spend 500 Ability Points to travel to the X-Men world.
Yes.
Ron issued the command, activating the Template System's ability to travel to another world.
He could also interfere with people's fates and earn Ability Points in the world of The Boys.
For example, through his birth and growth over the past eight years, he had directly or indirectly influenced many people's fates and gained more than twenty thousand Ability Points.
But under the current circumstances, if he wanted to go outside and interact with others to quickly gain a large number of Ability Points, there were enormous obstacles.
He looked outside.
The perspective pulled back, looking down from above.
What appeared to be a free neighborhood ended at a tall gray wall. The wall was covered in electrical fencing, while elite troops outside sealed it off and stood guard, making it resemble a cold, cruel prison.
Vought International, the giant corporation that created Compound V and single-handedly shaped countless superheroes, needed Becca, Ryan, and him as a secret backup plan to control the world's strongest hero, Homelander, should he lose control.
So none of the three of them could go anywhere.
Outside were heavily armed special forces, while inside the neighborhood, other people disguised as ordinary residents watched them around the clock.
With his current strength, there was no way he could leave this place.
Since that was the case...
"Then I'll go to another world and gain the power to leave this cage!"
Before you continue