The system began charging

The Deep had spent three full days and nights feeling around the bottom of the Hudson River.

Seventy-two hours, over two hundred kilometers of foul-smelling river. He had turned over every inch of sludge mixed with industrial wastewater and unidentified excrement. When a passing dolphin finally told him that a strange metal box lay buried in the mud beneath a bridge pier, he rushed over in excitement, hugged the dolphin, and planted two hard kisses on it.

By the time the box was recovered, it was already the evening of the fourth day.

Vought Tower, 91st floor.

Upon learning that The Deep had found the box, Homelander intercepted it immediately. Carrying the heavy box, he headed straight for Madelyn's office, his steps light, a trace of concealed excitement even touching his lips, like a child who had finally found the perfect excuse to prove to his mother that he had grown up.

Bang.

Homelander shut the office door behind him. The relaxed expression on his face vanished instantly, replaced by an icy gloom. He strode to the desk and slammed the grayish-white metal box onto it.

Madelyn had been buried in a pile of public relations documents and jumped at the sudden crash. Looking up, she habitually assumed her capable yet maternally indulgent manner. "Homelander, what happened?"

"The Deep found something. On the seabed at the harbor." Homelander braced both hands on the desk and stared down at her, a bone-chilling coldness seeping through his lowered voice.

He tilted his chin slightly toward the box.

Madelyn frowned faintly and gave the water-stained metal box a puzzled look. "What is this?"

Homelander did not answer. Instead, he slowly reached out, hooking his long fingers beneath the edge of the lid. With a click, he lifted it.

"Translucent." Homelander's voice held back anger on the verge of erupting. "Or rather, a few of his leftover 'parts.'"

Madelyn instinctively leaned over for a look. Just one glance made her suck in a sharp breath, her composed face turning deathly pale. Her body went rigid in the leather chair, her stomach churning.

"My God... is that?!"

"That's right." Homelander cut her off, a cold smile curling his lips. "Now take another look at what this box is made of, Madelyn."

Madelyn stared fixedly at the grayish-white box and swallowed with difficulty. "This is... zinc."

"My X-ray vision can't see through zinc." Homelander's gaze grew razor-sharp. He locked onto Madelyn's evasive eyes, stressing every word. "Whoever killed him knew that very well."

He snatched up the lid, turned its inner surface toward her, and thrust it in front of Madelyn's eyes.

Scrawled brazenly across the inside of the lid in blood-red letters were the words "COMING FOR YOU."

Madelyn's pupils contracted sharply. Forcing herself to remain calm, she tried to soothe this beast on the verge of losing control with her usual lines. "Whoever did this... they're challenging Vought. Challenging you."

"They didn't just kill a supe." Homelander's voice turned sinister, but his anger was only a surface disguise. His vivid blue eyes glittered with a hunger for power and a desire to show off in front of Madelyn,

"They killed a member of The Seven. Madelyn, this was aimed at me."

"We need to suppress this news immediately!" Madelyn rose urgently, trying to take control of the situation. "If the public finds out a member of The Seven is dead, our stock will plummet. Security and PR need to get involved right away..."

"No."

Homelander abruptly closed in, his towering frame blocking out all the light in front of Madelyn. He coldly and decisively cut off her arrangements.

"They aren't declaring war on Vought. They're declaring war on me." The muscles in Homelander's face twitched slightly as he revealed a chilling smile,

"I'm taking over this matter. I'll use every resource Vought has, every surveillance feed, every intelligence network. I'll personally find out who did this, then rip their guts out."

Madelyn looked at the man before her, who was completely disregarding the company's management procedures, her lips trembling. She suddenly realized that this "perfect product," whom she had always kept tethered with her maternal warmth,

was using this corpse to tear open his collar by force for the first time and reach for the true core of power at Vought International.

But faced with this situation, she had no choice but to swallow and nod in compromise.

Meanwhile, Lucian, still lying in the gymnasium, was jolted awake by an almost violent burning sensation inside his body.

An extreme, shudder-inducing heat. Starting from the very center of his chest, this wave of heat spread madly through every part of him like magma bursting through a dam.

He could feel his bones heating up, his blood vessels swelling and throbbing, every cell in his body clamoring excitedly, desperate to release that energy.

His eyes snapped open, a faint streak of dark red flickering deep within his pupils.

Luke was still lying in the same spot, his snores steady and drawn out. A full six hours had passed, and this star student of Godolkin University had not even changed his sleeping position.

A virtual panel appeared on Lucian's retinas.

[Thermonuclear Manipulation (LV4) copied. Ability permanently secured.]

[Thermonuclear Manipulation (LV4)-Control and release ultra-high-temperature flames, trigger localized explosions, immunity to fire damage, Thermonuclear Flight.]

Lucian took a deep breath, slowly sat upright, and lowered his head to inspect his hands.

Completely different.

This feeling was fundamentally worlds apart from Starlight's "light energy manipulation." Ultimately, Annie's ability was only a "relay station," borrowing light and electricity from outside, passing them through her body, then firing them back out. Once the power was cut and the lights were off, her superpower could not even light a bulb.

But "thermonuclear manipulation" was different.

Lucian could clearly feel that something new had appeared inside him.

It was like an energy core undergoing continuous nuclear fusion.

His body itself was an inexhaustible fuel depot.

Lucian slowly extended his right hand, giving only the slightest mental nudge.

Whoosh-

A tongue of flame instantly rose from his fingertips.

He turned his palm like a conductor waving a baton. The flame changed shape at his will, as easily as moving his own fingers-compressing to the extreme into a point of light the size of a match head, abruptly stretching into a whip of fire, then perfectly reforming.

Immense heat radiated from his palm. Two meters ahead of him, the edge of a thick engineered-plastic seat in the stands softened silently before it even had time to smoke, bending before finally dripping a string of thick, scorching droplets of plastic.

Without any outward reaction, Lucian withdrew his hand and extinguished the last deadly flicker at his fingertips.

Releasing ultra-high-temperature flames, triggering localized explosions, near immunity to fire and heat damage.

And-flight.

Thermonuclear flight. Using high-pressure energy expelled by the core within his body to forcibly propel himself into the air. This was entirely different from Homelander's physics-defying levitation; it was closer to an ignited human missile. Brutal, direct, but absolutely lethal and effective.

Just as Lucian was silently digesting this new sense of tremendous power, another notification suddenly appeared on the system panel, making his heart skip a beat.

[System charging...]

[Current charge: 0.5%]

[Charging source: thermonuclear energy within the host]

Lucian abruptly froze.

The system was charging?

His mind raced. When had he last seen the system charging? On his eighteenth birthday, at the moment his past-life memories awakened and the system activated. After that, the charge bar had never risen.

Why had it resumed charging today of all days?

Lucian stared hard at that line of text, and a question long buried in his mind finally became clear.

The initial activation had been caused by the immense energy contained in the Compound V inside his body,

and now there was only one reason the system had begun its second lengthy round of charging: a thermonuclear core had been born inside him. A super engine capable of supplying energy without end.

Apparently, it could only absorb the innate energy his own body could generate independently. The system could not absorb Starlight's "passing current" borrowed from a socket;

"So after all that, I've become a dedicated power bank." Lucian watched the slowly rising number. "A picky one that only accepts power from its own plant, at that."

Although reaching 100% seemed impossibly far away, once charging was complete-myriad worlds traversal!

That was his path forward!

Lucian turned his head and glanced at Luke, who was still asleep. The guy smacked his lips, mumbled something unintelligible in his sleep, then rolled over and went on snoring.

Luke, oh Luke.

You really are my lucky star. Not only did you hand me a top-tier LV4 combat ability for free, you even accidentally helped fire up the engine charging my system.

Lucian stood and casually loosened his wrists and neck. Dawn had yet to break, and an oppressive, deep-blue sky hung outside the windows. He had to get Luke into an empty training room before he woke up.

But before that, he needed to find something to wear.