The Despicable Homelander

It looked as though he had destroyed the lightning with a mere squeeze.

Jeremy was already dumbfounded!

Th-this was still a human?!

He had thought gaining the power of lightning had made him powerful enough, but there was someone even more monstrous!

"You gained the power of lightning—or rather, high-voltage electricity—through mutation. And this mutation is clearly related to Kryptonite. How did you do it?"

Eric asked Jeremy, who was still standing there in a daze.

"I..."

Jeremy swallowed, stammering without knowing how to answer.

"Eric...?"

Clark's weak voice drifted over from the distance.

Eric released Jeremy and turned toward Clark.

A perfect opportunity!

Seeing Eric distracted, Jeremy immediately cried out in his heart.

Silver arcs of electricity surged across the surface of his body.

Whoosh!

Empowered by lightning, he vanished without a trace in an instant.

His combat ability might have been pathetic, but his running speed exceeded Eric's expectations.

Eric shook his head, fixed his hair, took off the jacket that had been mostly destroyed by the lightning, and walked toward Clark.

"E-Eric."

Seeing his younger brother approach, Clark, who had been tortured on the wooden frame for so long, let out a long breath.

"It's painful, isn't it, Clark?"

Eric did not hurry to let Clark down. Instead, he studied his brother's bedraggled state with great interest.

Clark was starting to regret it.

Why did it have to be Eric who came to save him?

His brother with that twisted sense of humor would definitely mock him mercilessly.

He would have been better off pretending to be mute and not calling for his brother's help.

"Whitney did this, right?"

Seeing Clark lower his head in silence, Eric reached out and touched the Kryptonite necklace around his neck.

"No, don't touch it, Eric!"

Clark knew his brother had the same constitution as him. Touching that green stone would leave him incredibly weak.

"This little meteor rock isn't enough to threaten me."

The moment he touched the Kryptonite, the muscles in Eric's arm immediately began trembling uncontrollably, visibly deforming at the same time.

Eric's template was Homelander. By all rights, he should not have feared Kryptonite, but since he was playing the role of the "Son of Krypton," he naturally would not miss such a loophole.

Using "psychological suggestion," he had planted the subconscious fear of Kryptonite in his mind, causing his body to display unnatural reactions upon encountering it—twitching, spasms, muscle deformation, and the like.

To support that subconscious suggestion, whenever his body displayed unnatural reactions under Kryptonite's influence, he would even deliberately hold back and make it seem as though his combat strength had been severely weakened.

If nothing unexpected happened, he would have to face plenty of shady people in the future.

Rather than let those people rack their brains trying to find his weakness, it was better to fabricate a false weakness himself and confuse his enemies.

That was why Eric had gone to such lengths.

"This is Lana's necklace, right?"

Holding the necklace in his hand, Eric ignored the "damage" Kryptonite was inflicting on his body and looked at Clark with a half-smile. "I never expected that after you saved Lana's boyfriend, the two of them would join forces to mess with you. Does that count as repaying kindness with ingratitude?"

"Lana doesn't know about this. Whitney and those football players did it."

Freed from Kryptonite's suppression, Clark regained his strength. He tore through the ropes in a few motions, jumped down from the cross, caught his breath, and explained to Eric.

"Is that so? Do you need my help? For example, I could teach those football players a lesson and ruin their careers, or let them experience what it feels like to be a 'Scarecrow.'"

Eric started teasing his bargain-bin older brother again.

Of course, it was not entirely a joke. Clark was family, after all. By choosing Clark as the Scarecrow and humiliating him, those football players might not have been trying to provoke Eric as well.

As someone who was not particularly broad-minded, he did not like being provoked.

"No! Eric, I can handle my own problems."

Knowing what his brother was capable of, Clark immediately refused.

After calming himself down, he noticed that his brother, like him, was bare from the waist up. He asked Eric suspiciously, "Your clothes... What happened just now?"

He had seen lightning in the cornfield in the distance and felt the air violently tremble.

"Nothing. I just ran into another unlucky guy like you. Clean yourself up before going home. Looking like that will make Dad and Mom worry."

As soon as he finished speaking, Eric activated his super speed.

Boom!

The air rippled outward violently.

Eric's figure swiftly disappeared before his eyes.

Clark stood there in a daze for a while, wiped the paint from his chest, and let out a dejected sigh.

Pete had really called it. He had become this year's "Scarecrow."

The next morning.

At the entrance to Smallville High School, Pete nervously pulled Clark into an empty corner. After looking around, he asked in a low voice, "You're saying you became the 'Scarecrow' last night?"

"Yeah, Whitney and his group did it." Clark nodded helplessly.

He had not wanted to say anything, but Pete, his best friend, had kept complaining that he had not shown up with Eric at their meeting place yesterday afternoon.

To explain himself to his friend, he could only reveal why he had broken their appointment.

"All right, I agree with Chloe now."

"What?"

"You shouldn't have stopped Eric from beating up Whitney yesterday. Even though you helped me win five dollars, Clark, I still have to say it."

Pete looked as though he were standing up for Clark.

"Hey!"

Chloe, a reporter for Torch, greeted the two of them.

With a canvas backpack slung over her shoulder and a coffee cup in one hand, Chloe seemed to be in a good mood. "Clark, Pete, I heard another piece of news about the football team. Apparently, Coach Watt supports the players cheating on their midterms. One of the players reported it to the school and was threatened by Coach Watt as a result."

"That sounds pretty newsworthy." Pete nodded.

"How about we call this report 'Football Team: Coach Watt's Cheating'? What do you think?"

"I think you should cut back on your cappuccino dependency."

Rather than answer directly, Clark pointed at Chloe's coffee cup and teased her.

As they chatted, Chloe's phone rang.

Still smiling and joking, Chloe opened her phone, but the instant she saw the text message, she froze in shock!

"Hey, Chloe, what happened?"

Seeing that something was wrong with Chloe's expression, Pete hurriedly asked.

"Dan Brown is dead."

"Dan Brown?"

"Dan Brown, one of the football players—the guy who threw a football at me yesterday and got hit by Eric's Sweetheart Punch. He was found murdered at home this morning!"

Thank you to "Reader1455147117727412224" and "HGY" for the donations, thank you to "BlankAnJing" for the monthly ticket, and thank you all for your votes. Bowing! This little unknown newcomer is truly grateful to everyone.