Steel Bone glanced at Darkseid, who was still laughing wildly, then turned to Homelander. He sounded hesitant.
"The Pain Matrix uses the Father Box to cover the entire world, but its total output is constant. It's like a net spread across the nerves of a billion people."
"If... if we use the Mother Box as a terminal to redirect it..." Victor struggled to voice the brutal solution.
"...we can transfer all the Matrix's energy from across the world."
"...into one person."
"That person would need a body strong enough to withstand the massive influx of energy. More importantly, he'd have to endure everyone's pain... Only then could the others be saved."
The heroes nearby, who had fought through the agony to stay barely conscious, were stunned.
Bruce Wayne struggled to raise his head and shouted at Steel Bone, sweat pouring down his face.
"You can't do that, Victor... No living being could withstand that level of pain...
A billion people's pain, concentrated in one person?
What kind of torture would that be?
That wouldn't be salvation. You'd be sending someone into an abyss worse than Hell!
How is that a solution? It's an unimaginably cruel execution."
"That... that would be worse than dying..." Barry shuddered on the ground. Just imagining it terrified him.
"No... no..." Harley Quinn shook her head desperately in Homelander's arms. She was close to passing out from the pain, but she understood what Steel Bone meant.
"Don't listen to him... sweetheart... don't do anything stupid..."
Before Harley Quinn could finish,
Homelander shouted without a moment's hesitation.
"Let me do it!!"
"Use the Mother Box! Transfer all the energy, all the pain, to me!!"
His voice rang like thunder across the Metropolis square and through screens and radios around the world.
Steel Bone froze.
He had worked