Optical invisibility!

Butcher bent down and lifted Translucent.

After his mind went blank for a moment, Hughie had no choice but to accept reality.

"Oh, shit!"

He could only bend down, lift Translucent's legs, and help Butcher drag the body toward the car's trunk.

They had barely taken two steps when Butcher spotted Solomon standing quietly nearby and roared impatiently:

"Goddammit, Shen, how much longer are you going to fucking stand there?! Get over here and help!"

Solomon glanced at Butcher, then at Hughie, and immediately raised a hand.

"Wait, wait! This has nothing to do with me! Translucent came looking for you two. He doesn't even know I exist. I'm not getting involved. I want to live, okay?! I'll pretend nothing happened tonight. You do whatever you need to do. I'm leaving through the back door!"

With that, Solomon turned and headed toward the storeroom's back door, wanting only to extricate himself completely from this mess.

Butcher's cold voice suddenly came from behind him, freezing Solomon in his tracks and making his heart sink.

"Shen, what do you take Vought for? They'll soon find out what happened here. Sticking with us is your best option!"

Solomon stopped, his heart sinking sharply.

Butcher had a point. Being targeted by Vought International and Homelander meant certain death, without the slightest chance of turning things around.

With his current strength, he had no way of dealing with Homelander.

Solomon slowly turned back, his gaze growing cold.

"This had nothing to do with me in the first place."

Butcher straightened, his gaze fierce and direct, concealing nothing.

"That's right, but Vought won't listen to any of that."

Seeing this, Hughie spoke weakly from beside them:

"Butcher, this has nothing to do with him. Vought probably won't give him trouble, right?"

Butcher glared fiercely at Hughie and snapped:

"Hughie, get your head straight! Are you going to stake your life on Vought's mercy? If anything goes wrong, those fucking Supes will kill us and your family!"

Hughie opened his mouth but said nothing.

Butcher shook his head and turned his gaze back to Solomon.

"You think Vought can't find out? This isn't about you helping us anymore. We're helping you clean up this fucking mess and keeping you alive. Understand?"

Solomon stood in silence, rapidly weighing the pros and cons.

He had to admit that everything that lunatic Butcher said was true.

If he walked away now, Vought International's investigative capabilities would lead them to him sooner or later.

When he faced an enraged Homelander then, he would undoubtedly die.

Even if he was not the main reason Translucent had ultimately been killed, simply having taken part and attacked him was enough to bring death down on him.

After a long while, Solomon softly exhaled a stale breath, putting on a helpless expression.

Only then would Butcher refrain from suspecting him and let him join the team.

"Okay! Okay! I'll help!"

Solomon raised his hands in helpless surrender, stepped forward, and reached out to support Translucent's limp body, helping Butcher carry him toward the trunk.

When he finally agreed to join them, the hostility on Butcher's face instantly vanished.

"That's more like it. We're on the same side."

They hurriedly stuffed Translucent into the trunk, shut it securely, and quickly drove away from the scene.

Inside the car, Butcher rambled on casually, explaining things.

Solomon leaned against the window with an indifferent expression, letting it go in one ear and out the other, completely disinclined to pay attention to what he said.

Just as the atmosphere inside the car grew stifling and oppressive, a series of muffled thuds and sounds of struggling suddenly came from the closed trunk.

Translucent had woken up!

Solomon understood. Even though he had turned the stun baton up to its maximum voltage earlier, enough to instantly take down an ordinary person, it still could not kill a Supe outright.

The recovery ability of a superhuman physique far exceeded that of an ordinary person. He had merely delayed Translucent's awakening slightly compared with the original plot.

The other two men's expressions changed at once, their gazes simultaneously fixing on the trunk behind them.

Hope instantly flared in Hughie, and his taut nerves abruptly relaxed as he spoke rapidly and excitedly:

"Thank God! He's still alive! This is great, he didn't die! Pull over! Shen, let's get out!"

But Butcher's face instantly turned livid, and he sharply cut off Hughie's wishful thinking, his voice full of gravity and agitation:

"No, Hughie, don't you fucking get it? This is worse than him being dead! He saw all our faces!"

Hughie stiffened all over, instantly feeling as though he had plunged into an ice cellar, a layer of cold sweat breaking out across his back.

That was right. Translucent was not dead.

If he escaped and returned to Vought International, what awaited them would not be a simple reckoning, but Homelander coming in person to finish them off. Every one of them would undoubtedly die then.

Amid the deathly silence, Solomon spoke calmly, his voice steady and even:

"He didn't see me."

But that was all he said. He said nothing about leaving or anything of the sort.

Hughie dazedly came back to his senses. Under Butcher's unceasing analysis of the stakes and threats, he finally recognized reality, and the last trace of his naive hope for a lucky escape shattered completely.

He fully resigned himself to his fate, no longer mentioning walking away, silently accepting the fact that he was already mired deep in this mess.

The car sped onward, racing through the city's streets and alleys, driving for the entire night.

At daybreak, as the morning light began to brighten, Butcher finally drove to their destination and found his old teammate, Frenchie.

Frenchie was proficient in firearms, drugs, modifications, and all manner of interrogation techniques. Meticulous and exceptionally capable, he was an indispensable core member of The Boys' fighting force.

Butcher took the troubled Hughie inside. The two men in the room negotiated in low voices, concealing many secrets.

Solomon, who remained in the car, finally had a chance to be alone and could safely test the superhuman ability he had just unlocked.

He calmed his mind and focused, giving a slight mental nudge.

Before his eyes, the outline of his raised right hand gradually grew indistinct and faded, finally vanishing completely into the air without leaving the slightest trace.

This ability seemed like a cheat, able to conceal his form completely. Against ordinary people and even most ordinary Supes, it was an unbeatable ability for assassination and stealth.

Yet against truly top-tier powerhouses, it was particularly lackluster.

Optical invisibility only deceived vision. It could not mask his presence, breathing, or heartbeat.

Even if top-tier Supes like Queen Maeve could not see an invisible target with their naked eyes, their keen hearing alone could pinpoint the invisible person's location, allowing them to easily counter the ability and kill them.

He continued activating the ability, and in an instant, his entire body faded away, merging completely into the air and disappearing entirely from outside view.

Only his clothes and accessories remained unchanged. The empty clothes floated in the back seat, looking both eerie and comical.