My Ex-Girlfriend and My On-Screen Girlfriend Both Like My Son, But I'm...

Stormfront's strength was undoubtedly immense.

Beyond her ability to generate powerful plasma currents, she possessed Super Strength, Super Durability, Self-Healing, and, most importantly, Immortality.

In terms of raw power, Stormfront—having been injected with the Original Compound V—had absolutely nothing to fear from anyone, save for Homelander and Soldier Boy.

Yet, she still lost.

From the moment she confidently conspired with Edgar to manipulate Ryan, hoping to drive a wedge between Ryan and Homelander to create a power vacuum, she had already fallen into a disadvantageous position of information asymmetry.

Trapped within the scheme, she remained oblivious, and even when death finally arrived, she did not know where she had gone wrong.

Stormfront, her head ripped away along with her cervical spine, died with her eyes wide open in disbelief.

Homelander, clutching that wide-eyed, severed head, suddenly snapped out of the strange, deeply unsettling emotional state that had gripped him.

He was about to discard the remains, but his hand went limp the next moment.

As Stormfront's spine dragged along the ground and Azu turned around, his expression shifted directly into a complex mask of lingering rage mixed with a trace of bewildered helplessness.

"Son... Daddy killed the people who were bullying you."

Ryan just stared at him, somewhat dazed.

Thinking he had been terrified, Azu hurriedly tossed the head aside and strode over, the fury on his face vanishing completely.

All that remained was caution and trepidation.

It was so similar!

It was truly identical to that scene from the original plot in his memory.

Joy exploded in Ryan's mind.

In the original show, during that grand spectacle where his mother Becca died and Stormfront was crippled, Homelander had slaughtered an entire squad of soldiers in the cabin after discovering his son had been taken.

Yet, when he went to find his son, he hadn't cleaned himself up. If he had time to kill them methodically, how could he not have had time to wipe away the blood?

Therefore, in that moment, Homelander had done it on purpose.

He was using his bewildered and helpless appearance to solicit his son's pity, rationalizing his own bloody massacre.

The underlying message was: it wasn't that I am bloodthirsty; it was that they were plotting against us, father and son. I had no choice but to act; I was protecting you.

He desperately craved for his son to stand by his side and acknowledge that his violence was a means of protecting their family—that is, protecting Ryan.

That was why he needed his son to see him as he was after the killing.

So, did the scene before him now overlap with the events in his memory?

"Daddy..."

Ryan spoke with a slight tremor in his voice, glancing somewhat nervously at Stormfront's head.

Ever since he realized Azu's emotions were being manipulated, he had been thinking about how to restore Azu to his original self.

Furthermore, he needed to eliminate the factor that triggered the deepest fear in Azu's heart: the influence Edgar had instilled in him that "your son is different from you."

So, what could Ryan do to achieve these two things?

Ryan had pondered this for the two weeks he spent refining his script; he had even once thought it was an impossible task.

Until Stormfront inadvertently gave him the inspiration.

He remembered Raven telling him that Stormfront harbored deep malice toward him.

It was indeed only after that that he planned to kill Stormfront, and the key to his plan was the "Dad Pager" he had been waiting for.

And at this moment, an idea naturally formed in Ryan's mind.

Why not let Azu kill someone in front of him?

Why not tear away that layer of Azu's facade?

And why not expose a part of himself to Azu?

Returning to the plot of the original show, when Homelander brazenly appeared before his son covered in blood, there was an implicit test in his actions.

He was using a gruesome, bloody scene to test his son's bottom line.

He wanted to see if the child would be repulsed by him because of the blood.

And as long as the Ryan in the show revealed even a hint of sympathy, it meant that Homelander's logic of violence could be accepted by his son, allowing him to continue using more extreme methods to bind Ryan to him in the future.

Thus, Homelander craved love, yet he did not know how to love others.

All he knew was how to use his paranoia and madness to destroy everything, to destroy himself!

Was that version of Homelander not overlapping with the Azu before him right now?

They were both covered in blood before their son, both frantically testing him after a killing, and both equally anxious, terrified of being completely abandoned by their only kin.

The only difference was...

The Homelander in the show was truly abandoned by his son, and then he gradually spiraled toward destruction.

Yet, standing before Azu at this moment was Ryan, who had transmigrated here and truly felt the boundless, bottomless love he had to offer.

Who wouldn't want a father who was peerless in the world, feared by all as a tyrant, yet doted on them alone?

Not to mention Ryan, who had been an orphan in his past life.

"I, I'm not afraid!"

Despite saying that, Ryan still glanced nervously at Stormfront's wide-eyed, lifeless corpse before immediately turning his head away.

He didn't even dare to look at Azu.

He simply said in a trembling tone, "Dad, I... I'm actually very smart."

"I told you, I realized a long time ago that the place I was living in was fake."

"Of course, son, Dad knows. What, what do you want to say?"

Azu, already crouching before Ryan, stared intently at his son, both anticipating and fearing what he would say next.

Ryan finally turned to face him directly: "I'm very smart. I discovered that the bad person Stormfront had very, very bad intentions toward me, and I also discovered that assistant was secretly plotting against you."

"Your temper was very bad back then. Although you never lost your temper with me, you looked so scary sometimes. Ashley was always secretly losing hair, and her heart would always beat so fast, thumping away."

Pausing for a moment to give Azu time to process and buffer, Ryan continued, sounding a bit dejected: "So I didn't tell you. I wanted to investigate secretly. I thought I could help you catch all these bad people, and I even deliberately brought Maeve along."

"I had Mitchell check; Maeve and Starlight both like me, and they will protect me."

Azu's expression stiffened for a split second upon hearing this.

Maeve? Starlight?

Of these two, one was his ex-girlfriend, and the other was his screen partner.

What they had in common was that he was bullying both of them.

Ryan acted as if he didn't see the expression on Azu's face, suddenly changing the subject: "Dad, I'm not afraid!"

"Huh?"

"Yes, Dad, I'm not afraid of you killing people, because they are bad, and they are people who wanted to harm us!"

Although the son's tone was full of childishness, the meaning behind his words was glaringly obvious.

Azu's entire body instantly relaxed from its tense state, and genuine joy flickered in his eyes.

And at this moment, Ryan began to tighten the leash.

Ryan looked at him with a firm gaze: "But I don't like you killing people either! Dad, can you promise me that you will spare those who haven't bullied us?"

"Of course, I will."

Azu clearly wasn't paying much attention; he agreed without a second thought.

But that was enough.

Ryan didn't demand too much of him; as long as he could remember this promise for even a split second when he felt like killing someone in the future, that would be enough.

It was the same principle: he didn't expect Azu to become a good person, but he shouldn't be so evil that he ended up abandoned by everyone.

With the conversation between father and son reaching this point, Ryan brought up the thing he wanted to say most.

"Dad, I have one more thing to tell you, and one more thing you have to promise me."

"There's more? Alright, son, go ahead. I'll promise you anything."

Ryan narrowed his eyes, finally revealing a smile for the first time since summoning Azu.

He said, "I saw Mom on set. You have to promise me that you'll let me have dinner with her. I miss her."