Holy Blood

The Boeing airliner crashed into the terminal, the building collapsed, and armed men hijacked the plane.

Everything that had happened had already driven the trapped passengers and staff into despair.

Unexpectedly, at that moment, the debris was cleared away, and a figure with a Stars and Stripes cape fluttering behind him drifted inside.

At once, light began to return to people's numb eyes.

They reached up toward the sky, toward the figure flying over their heads.

Tears of excitement filled their eyes.

No one knew who shouted it first: "Homelander!"

Then—

"Homelander!"

"Homelander!"

Cry after cry merged into a thunderous roar, as if it would tear the ceiling off the terminal.

Amid those cheers, Azu flew over the crowd and landed on the terminal floor.

Then he turned and pointed at the opening.

"Get out. There are troops outside to receive you."

Only then did the people look toward the opening. One after another, they ran toward it.

"Homelander, thank you!"

"Homelander, I'm your fan—your biggest fan!"

"Homelander, I love you! My phone number is—"

They shouted as they left.

In their eyes, that tall figure slowly walked toward the Boeing airliner.

At that moment, seeing the people escape, one of the armed men roared and raised his rifle, about to fire.

Suddenly, a dagger flew out of the darkness and plunged into his neck.

Another armed man had just raised his pistol when a flash of steel flickered in the darkness behind him.

Then came the sound of a blade entering flesh, together with a scream.

Black Noir then somersaulted down in front of the one-armed armed man, his longsword held level.

The armed man froze stiffly. Then his head rolled off his neck.

Inside the Boeing airliner.

Edie Orr shouted, "What's going on? Why wasn't I informed when they came right to our doorstep?!"

His subordinates looked at one another, unable to speak.

Outside, a booming voice rang out.

"Edie Orr."

"As long as you hand over Edie Orr, you can all go home."

"Yes, I'm in a good mood today. Don't miss such a fine opportunity."

Edie looked out through the porthole. The one speaking was Homelander!

At that moment, he felt several gazes sweep across his face.

A fierce light flashed in Edie's eyes as he looked at the others. "What, do you really want to hand me over?"

The soldiers all shook their heads.

Seeing no response from inside the Boeing airliner, Azu shrugged, nodded to Black Noir, then contacted another teammate over the radio. "The Deep, where are you?"

"I'm behind the plane, boss. I see the Senator's family."

"Damn it, the hijackers have guns pointed at the Senator."

Azu immediately used Laser Eyes' scanning ability to scan the scene inside the plane, wanting to see whether the one holding a gun on the Senator was the target of this operation, Edie Orr.

Earlier, he had opened the breach and given the trapped people a chance to escape in order to eliminate the possibility of Edie Orr slipping away among the crowd.

Now that Edie Orr was still inside the airliner, if he personally escorted Senator Hope out, Azu wouldn't mind rewarding him with a blast of Laser Eyes immediately.

If that could save Hope and his family, all the better.

If it couldn't—

Azu didn't particularly care.

He had never come here to rescue the Senator's family in the first place.

However, the scan results left him somewhat disappointed.

The one holding a gun on the Senator was merely an ordinary hijacker.

After thinking for a moment, Azu said, "I'll cut open the plane. You and Black Noir go in and save them."

The Deep froze.

He was just about to say, "That's too risky," when the middle section of the plane suddenly turned red and glowed. Then a flash of red light split the Boeing airliner in two.

A sharp screech of metal grinding against metal rang out. The cut edges glowed red, sparks dancing across them.

The fuselage shook violently.

The two armed men guarding the Senator in business class, along with Hope himself, lost their footing and fell to the floor.

Edie braced himself against a seatback and stared at the severed opening, gritting his teeth. "They never intended to negotiate."

"Kill the Senator!"

Before the hijackers could act, two figures suddenly flashed in through the breach in the fuselage.

One was a man in a green combat suit who shouted, "The Deep is here!"

Black Noir was far more low-key. The moment he entered, he threw two flying knives, sending them into the necks of the two figures beside the Senator.

Then he rolled low across the floor. His longsword rose and fell once, slitting the throat of a hijacker nearby who had raised his rifle.

In the blink of an eye—

Black Noir had killed three men.

The Deep looked a little awkward. Then he roared and pounced on a hijacker, slamming him with all his strength against a porthole until it shattered.

The Deep twisted both hands, snapping the man's neck. Then he pointed at the Senator's daughter. "Don't be afraid, miss. The Deep is coming to save you right now."

Before his words had faded, his chest suddenly jolted violently.

Rat-a-tat-tat.

A hijacker opened fire on The Deep with a light machine gun, driving him back again and again until he fell to the floor.

The hijacker took out a grenade and was about to pull the pin when two dark red beams suddenly shot into his eyes, bursting out through the back of his skull.

They passed over Edie's head and vanished deep inside the fuselage.

The beams disappeared.

Two holes had already been punched through the hijacker's head. He didn't even have time to pull the grenade pin before he collapsed to the floor along with the corpse.

The Senator's daughter, the beautiful blonde, blue-eyed girl, saw the steel ceiling of the cabin violently torn open. Then Homelander descended with a smile, his cape fluttering behind him.

She immediately cried out excitedly, "Look, Dad!"

"Homelander has come to save us!"

Edie saw Azu as well. The scar-faced man shouted, "Inject the Holy Blood!"

He took out a syringe himself. Inside the vial was a tube of black-red liquid.

Threads of white light occasionally drifted through it.

"Long live Vought!"

Edie shouted and plunged the syringe into his neck, injecting every drop of the liquid into his body.

The remaining seven soldiers followed suit, injecting tubes of black blood into their bodies.

Azu made a gesture.

Black Noir charged forward, ignoring the hijackers as he grabbed Senator Hope.

His wrist flicked, his longsword flashing.

He opened a breach nearby, then jumped down through it.

Azu flew past The Deep and said, "If you're not dead, take these people out."

Then, with a whoosh, he flew down the central aisle, passed the Senator's daughter, and crashed toward his target.

Edie Orr!

The wind howled.

Rita looked utterly bewildered.

She couldn't understand why Homelander hadn't even glanced at her.

Am I not pretty enough?

At that moment—

The Deep climbed to his feet from the floor, clutching his chest. A man who could move freely in the sea was no ordinary person.

His body density far exceeded that of an ordinary human; otherwise, he would never have been able to dive into the deep sea.

A few light machine gun bullets were nowhere near enough to kill him.

But they really hurt.

The Deep roared and lunged at the nearest armed man, hammering him with a heavy punch.

He smashed the man's head to a grotesque angle. The hijacker staggered and slumped into a seat.

But in the next moment, he reached up, gripped his own head, and twisted it back into place before standing up and rolling his neck.

The Deep was instantly dumbfounded.