Homelander's unusual behavior deepened Soldier Boy's ominous premonition, until even the wind felt heavy.
Amid the unknown, that unresolved anxiety seemed ready to take tangible form and erupt at any moment.
Homelander gently rubbed his temples, his brow slowly relaxing. "Nothing... maybe it's from you beating me up."
Soldier Boy stared at him speechlessly, feeling the urge to smack him.
He could still crack jokes at a time like this.
"Okay, just kidding." Homelander smiled.
Then, under Soldier Boy's puzzled gaze, he looked thoughtful and said:
"Maybe the Original Compound enhanced my Super Vision and Super Hearing too much. But my brain wasn't enhanced, so it can't process that much information."
Soldier Boy understood. It seemed Homelander wasn't quite so perfect even after taking the Original Compound.
Their sparring session had lasted only five minutes, all told.
During those five minutes, Homelander had activated both his level 7 Super Vision and Super Hearing simultaneously, overloading his brain until it protested and rebelled.
Homelander seemed a little annoyed, too. "Shit, I'll have to be more careful from now on. I need to test where the limits are."
With that, like a newborn baby, he touched the dirt on the ground, sniffed the chill in the air, then pricked up his ears to listen to the sounds around him.
He appeared to be testing his enhanced super senses.
Soldier Boy puffed away on his cigarette. Amid his troubled thoughts, even the smoke grew listless, as though afraid of the late-autumn chill, scattering into wisps as soon as it rose.
Although his brain held his senses back, preventing Homelander from using them as freely as before, his offensive and defensive capabilities had become terrifyingly powerful in turn.
That heart-stopping level 8 Heat Vision had fired into the sky for over ten minutes and