Whoosh!
Homelander's punch missed, breaking the sound barrier. The force of his fist tore through the air, striking the waves from afar and sending them more than ten meters into the air before they fell like rain, as if bombarded by torpedoes.
Ron became an afterimage, passing him at more than thirty times the speed of sound. A flash of blade light streaked out, the incomparably sharp edge shrieking as it slashed across Homelander's vital abdominal area.
The sensation traveling up the blade made his brow crease almost imperceptibly.
Bang!
In a flash, the two turned back, stomped the earth apart again, and became two afterimages charging at each other.
"Ever since I was little, I've always suppressed my strength, because everything on Earth—whether stone or steel—is too fragile to me, like sandcastles that collapse at a touch."
The force behind Homelander's fists grew ever more powerful. It began at only tens of thousands of tons, then climbed higher and higher, every punch like a hill crashing down with terrifying power.
"Under normal circumstances, especially in a city, I keep my strength to just a hundred tons. That's enough to deal with anything. But today, you'll witness my true power."
His face twisted viciously as he threw punch after punch, his fists as heavy as mountains, forcing apart layer after layer of air.
"You'll learn why there has only ever been one Homelander on Earth!"
Homelander's fists carried terrifying power.
But Ron was more than twice as fast as him, and Homelander landed only a handful of attacks on him.
Even when they hit, the force attached to Homelander's fists—equal to the explosion of hundreds or thousands of tons of TNT—was immediately absorbed.
Blade light flashed like lightning, hacking into Homelander again and again.
After dozens of exchanges, Homelander's suit was quickly reduced to tatters, but his body remained completely unharmed.
Rip!
Dozens of meters apart, the two suddenly stopped. Homelander rose into the air, casually tearing off the shredded, bulletproof upper half of his sturdy suit. His lean, powerful muscles and steel-forged body radiated a fierce and mighty presence as he said disdainfully, "There's actually a metal on Earth that I don't know about..."
"—But you're still far from hurting me."
"Just as I thought."
Ignoring him, Ron remained expressionless and did not even spare the Adamantium longsword another glance.
The next instant, he casually threw the Adamantium blade away as though tossing out trash. It tore through the air for hundreds of meters like a streak of lightning and plunged into a dark cliff in the distance on the island, burying itself to the hilt.
"If the blade won't work, I'll try my fists!"
Energy flames ignited around him. He bent his legs slightly and leaped forward to kill like an arrow released from its bow.
Boom!
The ground could not withstand the force. A crater more than ten meters wide appeared on the beach like a scar.
Moving at an inconceivable speed, the crimson figure arrived in an instant and threw a punch that smashed heavily into Homelander's head.
Homelander could not react in time. Like a baseball struck at high speed, he flew sideways toward the horizon with his head thrown back, forcibly breaking the sound barrier. In an instant, he pierced the clouds and shot straight up into the sky more than a thousand meters high.
Boom! Boom!
Under that blow, visible shockwaves violently spread upward and downward. The sea surface was pressed down, kicking up enormous waves.
Whoosh!
Crimson plasma energy wrapped around him and propelled him forward like a meteor with an elongated tail of flame.
Wind howled past his ears. Ron's gaze was cold as he pursued at extreme speed, breaking through dozens of times the speed of sound. With a flash, he appeared above Homelander and threw down another crushing punch.
Homelander raised an arm to block, only to be blasted heavily down onto the island.
Rumble!
The entire deserted island shook violently.
Homelander's body smashed a huge crater into the middle of the island's dense forest. The dirt waves kicked up rose more than ten meters high like a tsunami, burying and crushing the trees.
His speed was ultimately much slower than Ron's.
"Kid, you've pissed me off!"
The next second, a dirt-covered Homelander shot out from the bottom of the crater, flying before Ron at high speed. Enraged, he twisted his body and swung an arm at him.
The terrifying force in that fist was enough to split any aircraft carrier on Earth cleanly in two.
Ron threw a punch as well, the immense kinetic energy within him erupting like a raging tide.
Bang!
The two fists collided in midair, as if a fuel-air bomb had been dropped into the air!
Violent winds raged across several miles. The island's lush forest was bent and crushed by nearly tangible shockwaves, while the earth was ripped up as though a typhoon had swept through.
"Your fists don't seem as powerful as your anger makes them look!"
Having steadily received the punch, Ron remained cold-faced and threw another fist. He and Homelander exchanged blows continuously in the air, blasting apart the air and stirring up rolling shockwaves.
When Homelander's fists struck him, their kinetic energy was absorbed and felt like a light breeze. But whenever Ron's fists hit Homelander, they sent him flying like a baseball again and again.
Even in the air, Homelander was slower than him.
In the comics, Alex's ability could wrap him in plasma energy to propel him through flight, reaching the speed of light at maximum. The X-Men universe was not that exaggerated, but it could still reach a maximum of one hundred times the speed of sound.
His neural response speed had previously been unable to keep up, so he could only fly straight through open skies and could not use it in battle. But now that he had nerves with extreme-speed reflexes, that was no longer a problem!
Ron had abandoned the Adamantium blade and was battling Homelander barehanded.
He had tested it many times. Adamantium truly was not harder than Homelander's body.
It was like using a blunt plastic knife to cut high-density rubber—too tough to break through.
"Besides, using a blade isn't conducive to making full use of my ability."
Glancing at his fist, Ron charged forward at high speed once more and threw another punch, venting the kinetic energy he had absorbed. Though he appeared to have the upper hand and remained calm throughout the battle—
—it was actually because of his ability.
If he was not injured, that was one thing. But once he was injured, it would be a grave wound that tore his body apart, followed immediately by relentless attacks.
Even if I look relaxed, I can't let my guard down in the slightest.
The two figures clashed fiercely, shockwaves surging like tides as deafening booms echoed through the sky and across the ground, carrying far into the distance.
Vought International, eighty-second floor.
In Edgar's office, Vice President Adeline stormed in with several technicians and hurriedly said, "Mr. Edgar, the Investigation Department reported to me this morning that Homelander asked for Dark Star's address. According to the tracker on him, he went to find Dark Star.
"The two of them got into a conflict."
Madelyn quickly pressed the remote. A blurry street surveillance recording appeared on the large screen in the office. From the side, it vaguely captured Homelander on an upper balcony, angrily grabbing Ron by the collar and saying something, while Ron remained expressionless and utterly unconcerned.
"They started fighting?"
Edgar immediately set down his documents and quickly sat upright, his expression turning serious at once.
If it had merely been an ordinary verbal dispute, Madelyn would not have come to him in such a hurry.
"According to the tracker, Homelander and Dark Star later appeared on an uninhabited island in the Atlantic Ocean called Raysengol Island, covering nearly a hundred square kilometers."
Members of The Seven generally had trackers implanted in their bodies. Dark Star had refused, while nothing could pierce Homelander's skin, so Vought had installed the tracker in Homelander's belt.
Vought's technicians had long since located the two through the trackers.
"It's connected to the satellite, Ms. Madelyn."
The technicians rapidly operated the computers, connecting the satellite feed to the office screen.
Vought's satellite in Earth orbit focused on the deserted Raysengol Island in the Atlantic Ocean.
"Th-this is way too exaggerated!"
Once they saw the scene on the island clearly, the technicians could not help swallowing hard, their faces filled with disbelief.
Before you continue