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The battle below, or rather...

Under Pero's gaze, finally took a turn.

Pinned to the ground and battered by three women, Storm's once fairly pretty face was now covered in dirt and blood.

Her uniform had long since been reduced to tatters.

"You goddamn bitches!"

Overwhelmed by humiliation and rage, Storm let out a hysterical scream!

Boom-!!!

A dazzling burst of violent lightning erupted with her at its center! The blinding electricity seemed out of control.

It instantly blasted Starlight, Queen Maeve, and Kimiko away!

Seizing the brief opening as the three were driven back, Storm didn't even dare leave a threat. She immediately scrambled to her feet on all fours and became a streak of light.

In an almost pathetic retreat, she charged in the direction Billy had fled without looking back.

She left in such a hurry that she completely failed to notice a pair of indifferent eyes quietly watching her from the sky nearby.

On the ground, Starlight and the other two struggled to their feet, covered in dust from the blast.

"Fuck! She got away!" Nearby, Frenchie slammed his custom rifle onto the ground in frustration.

"We need to get out of here!" Hughie looked around nervously.

But before he finished speaking, Mother's Milk suddenly raised a hand and pointed at the sky, his voice brimming with barely contained terror.

"Guys... look... what's that?"

Everyone instinctively raised their heads, following his finger.

Against the dim sky, a black human silhouette hovered silently, its cape stirring despite the absence of wind.

That posture, that outline, that terrifying pressure that seemed to freeze the air through its mere presence...

"No... no... it can't be..." Hughie's face instantly turned as white as paper. His legs began trembling uncontrollably, his teeth chattering.

"H-Home... Homelander..."

The name was like a curse from hell. In that instant, an invisible hand seemed to clench every heart there!

It's over.

The same despairing thought surfaced in everyone's mind.

They looked around. The plains stretched endlessly, without a single place to hide.

Their only means of transportation, that battered truck, had already been blasted into a heap of burning scrap by Storm's lightning during the fight.

They were trapped here.

Frenchie and Mother's Milk instinctively raised their weapons, but they knew perfectly well that against that monster, these things were no different from sticks for stoking a fire.

Queen Maeve and Starlight instinctively stepped in front of the others, but despair was written all over their faces too.

They knew better than anyone how terrifying it would be if Homelander discovered their betrayal.

The figure in the sky began descending vertically toward them, slowly and unhurriedly.

As he drew closer, that suffocating pressure grew stronger.

Hughie could already imagine those scarlet laser eyes, capable of piercing anything, burning every one of them to charcoal in the next second.

He closed his eyes and waited for death.

"What are you doing? Cosplaying ostriches together?"

A male voice speaking English, tinged with amusement and curiosity, suddenly sounded above their heads.

"Am I that ugly? Do you need to close your eyes to protest against me?"

The expected death rays never came. Instead, there was this faintly teasing question.

Hughie, Frenchie, and the others froze.

They cautiously opened one eye.

The man hovering in the air before them wasn't the blond, blue-eyed demon draped in a stars-and-stripes cape they had imagined.

Instead, he was a young Asian man with black hair and black eyes who looked barely into his twenties.

He wore long black robes that seemed completely out of place in this world, and smiled as though watching an entertaining play.

The despair in everyone's hearts was instantly replaced by even greater confusion and wariness.

Supes capable of flight were few and far between in this world.

And every single one, without exception, was among Vought International's top products, a monster among monsters.

"Who are you?" Mother's Milk was the first to react. Suppressing his fear, he asked in a low voice while shielding Hughie and Frenchie behind him.

Pero raised an eyebrow and slowly landed.

"Just passing through." His gaze swept over Hughie, Starlight, Queen Maeve, and the others in turn.

"There are so many of you here. Shouldn't you introduce yourselves before asking someone else questions? That's basic courtesy, isn't it?"

He had only just arrived in this world, but through super-hearing and his super-brain, he had already mastered the language's grammar, vocabulary, and even its various slang terms and accents.

If learning English had been this easy in his previous life, he wouldn't have scored only sixty on the English section of his college entrance exam and ended up driving a bus.

Hughie was about to say something when Starlight quietly tugged at him.

Starlight gave him a meaningful look, then pursed her lips toward the direction Storm had gone.

Her meaning was clear: this guy's timing was too convenient. Vought International had very likely sent him to back Storm up.

"Need a hand?" As though seeing through their thoughts, Pero glanced in the direction Storm had gone and gave them a friendly smile.

"My fee is simple. You just need to answer a few questions."

Not far away.

A figure descended from the sky with a savage air and slammed down in front of them!

It was Storm!

She looked at Butcher, then at Becca and Ryan behind him, and smiled.

She reached out, seized Becca by the throat, and pinned her hard against a tree.

"Mom!" Ryan cried out in terror.

"Let her go! You goddamn Nazi bitch!" Butcher's eyes bulged with fury.

He drew his pistol and fired wildly at Storm.

But the bullets couldn't leave so much as a mark on her.

He threw away the pistol, grabbed a nearby crowbar, and swung it at Storm's back with all his strength, only to produce a dull metallic clang.

Becca's face flushed red from lack of oxygen, and breathing grew harder and harder.

"Let go of... my mom..." Ryan's eyes filled with tears and fear as he watched his mother struggle in pain.

An emotion unlike anything he had ever felt erupted within him.

"I said let her go!!!"

With a roar that was young yet filled with boundless rage!

Two scarlet, searing beams suddenly blasted from Ryan's eyes!

It was the first time he had used the power he was born with!

Squelch-!

The uncontrolled heat vision instantly sliced across Storm's body.

Her legs were severed at the hips like butter beneath a hot knife!

Then the beams swept across her chest, scorching it black!

Storm let out an inhuman scream and collapsed heavily to the ground like a broken doll, barely alive.

But Ryan's uncontrolled power had also struck his mother.

One beam grazed Becca's neck.

Blood instantly gushed out.

"Mom!" The red light faded from Ryan's eyes as he stared in horror at the scene before him.

"It's... not your fault, Ryan..." Becca summoned the last of her strength, turning her gaze toward Butcher, who had gone completely still.

"Billy... promise me... keep him safe..."

With those words, the light in her eyes dimmed forever.

Just then, a figure descended from the sky like a god.

It was Homelander.

He looked at Storm, burned beyond recognition on the ground, then at Becca lying in a pool of blood.

Finally, his gaze settled on his son, whose eyes still held a lingering red glow.

A complicated expression of shock, wild joy, and a trace of sorrow appeared on his face.

But before he could speak.

Another figure silently drifted down from the sky on the other side.

His bearing was even more composed than Homelander's, even more... arrogant.

It was Pero.