I'll Laser You All to Death!

The cabin depressurized once again. Freezing wind howled, oxygen rapidly drained away, and everyone sank into utter despair.

They were finally certain that Homelander really was leaving. He was going to abandon the 123 lives aboard the plane!

Maeve's gaze fell on the two little girls in their seats. They clung tightly to each other in terror, sobbing their hearts out, their eyes filled with fear and pleading.

Maeve felt as if her heart had been brutally squeezed. Unable to bear it, she hurried over, took the two little girls by the hand, and led them toward Homelander, hoping to save at least these two innocent children.

Seeing this, the passengers behind her seemed to grasp at their last lifeline. They broke free of their seats and followed Maeve, desperately pushing forward as they pleaded incessantly:

"Take me! Please, take me!"

"Save me! I don't want to die!"

"Take these two with us, please!"

Holding the two little girls' hands, Maeve walked up to Homelander, her voice almost begging, her eyes full of pleading.

Homelander refused without a second thought, his voice icy:

"No! You want these two to live and tell the whole world we left the other 121 people to die?"

He turned and saw the passengers swarming toward them. His expression instantly turned vicious. He raised a hand, pointed at them, and roared:

"All of you, stay back! Don't come any closer! Stay back!"

But the desperate passengers could no longer listen. They frantically pushed forward, wanting only to seize this final chance to survive.

Homelander's temper erupted completely. His eyes instantly blazed crimson, and he snarled, his voice filled with murderous intent:

"I'll say it one more time! All of you, stay back! Or I'll laser you! Goddammit! Take one more step forward, and I'll laser every last one of you to death!"

The searing red light shone on everyone's faces. That bone-chilling murderous intent instantly froze every passenger in place. Those who had been pushing forward fell to the floor in terror, no longer daring to move. They could only curl up on the floor and sob quietly, their faces filled with despair.

But Homelander failed to notice that someone in a distant seat was recording everything on a phone and had told the camera that Homelander had abandoned them.

After berating the passengers, Homelander turned and fixed Maeve with a vicious stare, his voice cold.

"We're leaving!"

Maeve looked at the two little girls trembling beside her, then at the passengers desperately begging behind her. Listening to their heartrending pleas for her to stay, her eyes reddened completely.

All she could do was tell them over and over, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." Her voice was filled with guilt and helplessness.

She raised her head and looked at Homelander. The viciousness had already vanished from his face, replaced by calm.

In the gentlest voice, he spoke the cruelest words:

"Don't die here with them."

Maeve's heart abruptly stopped. She knew Homelander wasn't joking.

If she insisted on staying, Homelander would absolutely attack her without hesitation. Then she would not only fail to save anyone, but lose her own life as well.

She looked at Homelander's outstretched hand and hesitated for a long time. Finally, she gritted her teeth, released the two little girls' hands, and took his.

The next second, the two vanished from the cabin and hovered ten thousand meters in the air. They silently watched the out-of-control plane fall little by little like a kite with its string cut, until it finally plunged into the vast Atlantic Ocean, throwing up an enormous splash. Just like that, 123 lives were lost.

Vought Tower, 99th floor.

Several of Solomon's clones worked together to adapt to his powerful hearing. Unlike a surge in strength, which he could quickly adjust to, superhearing was far more difficult to control.

Piercing noise, faint vibrations, distant sounds-all constantly battered his senses. Even with his clones working alongside his original body to adjust, it took him an entire day and night before he finally gained a tenuous grasp of how to control it.

Now, although his hearing range still far exceeded what it had been before, covering most of Vought Tower's 99th floor, he could control it freely, precisely filtering for the sounds he wanted to hear and shutting out all irrelevant noise.

Solomon flopped heavily onto the bed. His nerves, taut for an entire day and night, finally relaxed, and his eyes were filled with exhaustion.

Before he had gotten his hearing under control, he couldn't sleep peacefully for even a moment. The noise in his ears clung to him like maggots burrowing into bone, leaving him restless.

He had said he would go to the club last night, but hadn't made it. He would have to go tonight instead.

The most important thing now was to get a good night's sleep. Once he woke up, he would find Ashley and see what kind of Supe she had prepared for him today, so he could continue improving his strength.

Homelander and Maeve should be back from the Atlantic Ocean by now, right?

At that thought, he instinctively activated his superhearing, probing the apartments of several nearby teammates.

But after listening, he found that only A-Train's apartment had any activity. Everyone else's rooms were empty and silent.

Just as he was about to rein in his hearing and settle down to sleep, a sentence from A-Train's apartment instantly banished his drowsiness and snapped him fully awake:

"What? You know something about that Frenchman? Tell me!"

A Frenchman?

Could it be Frenchie?

Judging by the timing, Butcher and the others should indeed have found that Supe who could read memories through touch.

It was because that Supe tipped them off that Homelander discovered Butcher and the others' whereabouts and began hunting them down.

No!

It's too early!

I helped Butcher and the others capture Kimiko ahead of time. To get to the bottom of her background, they must have already gone to Mesmer.

From the look of things, Mesmer is planning to inform Vought!

But Butcher and the others haven't found Ezekiel yet, nor have they figured out which hospital the Compound V is being shipped to. Nothing can go wrong at this point.

I can't keep passively waiting for them to act. They're too slow. I have to intervene myself.

He concentrated on the conversation in A-Train's apartment. Once he had a rough idea of where the two had agreed to meet, he lingered no longer and lay back down on the bed.

Outside Vought Tower, Solomon's original body had already run naked to the place where A-Train and the Supe had agreed to meet, in a secluded alley.

Dressed in his signature blue suit, A-Train was questioning a short, stout, heavily bearded man in a low voice, his tone filled with urgency.

The reason A-Train had been frantically searching for Frenchie and Butcher was that he had hidden a camera in The Female's doll, which happened to capture footage of those two threatening her.

It was those two forcing The Female to reveal information about A-Train that had led to Kimiko being rescued by Butcher and the others.

To keep Homelander from taking his anger out on him, A-Train had hardened his heart and killed The Female, the woman he loved most, shifting all the blame onto her.

To him, those two had not only nearly ruined his future, but had also caused his lover's death. He wanted revenge, but more than that, he needed to capture them, give Homelander an explanation, and secure his place in the Seven.