The moment the livestream signal cut out, the world's viewers were gripped by fear.
But in orbit around Ego's Planet, the battle raged on.
The crimson storm fueled by all of Homelander's fury and thirty million Popularity Points burned every minute did not slow in the slightest,
mercilessly carving through the blue torrent Ego had unleashed.
It was a crushing display of raw power.
Driving upstream, the blast punched straight through the massive stone face that stretched thousands of kilometers across the planet.
The monstrous face collapsed in an instant. A hole thousands of kilometers wide pierced the center of Ego's Planet, its rim still bubbling with molten rock.
From a distance, it looked like a doughnut coated in syrup.
Homelander hovered in space, his chest heaving.
Then a familiar system notification sounded in his mind:
"Warning: Current host popularity points have fallen below the current level maintenance threshold." "Popularity level is about to drop..."
Homelander's brow twitched. Before he could mourn the loss, another notification followed.
The host possesses a Popularity Level Penalty Exemption Token. Exemption activated. Penalty negated. Token uses remaining: 2/3.
The notifications hit Homelander like a bucket of cold water, dousing his near-mad urge to destroy.
"Stop! Deactivate Injustice Form!"
Homelander slammed on the brakes in his mind.
The loss made his heart ache.
That was over a hundred million Popularity Points! Gone, just like that...
As Injustice Form deactivated, his ink-black suit quickly faded back to its original red, blue, and Stars and Stripes colors.
The savage dark-red glow in his eyes gradually subsided too.
The terrifying power that had filled his body, making him feel capable of destroying anything, ebbed away like a tide, leaving a deep emptiness behind.
He looked down at his hands and remembered those final few