It was night in New York.
Lavish moonlight shone quietly over a private estate spanning dozens of acres.
Far from the city, it had a private helipad, stables, a wine cellar, and its own security system.
An ordinary person could work for ten lifetimes and still not afford a corner of a bathroom here.
On the second-floor terrace.
Vought board member Waynes held a glass of red wine, surveying his domain.
The night breeze blew past.
He was in a good mood, because he had mocked Soldier Boy in front of everyone in the conference room that day.
An old relic who had crawled out of forty years ago, a barbarian with a head full of war and profanity, actually owned ten percent of Vought.
Simply ridiculous.
At the thought, Waynes scoffed. "Soldier Boy? Just an advertisement from the last century."
He swirled his glass, the crimson wine slowly turning.
To Vought, superhumans had never been anything but products, Homelander included.
In Waynes's eyes, without capital, resources, or PR teams, these superhumans were nothing.
And him?
Underground casinos, arms dealing, human trafficking-he held stakes in all kinds of businesses that could never see the light of day.
The money he brought in every day exceeded what Homelander could earn shooting movies for a month.
He never considered himself a bad person, just a successful one.
Under the bright moonlight, Waynes could not help smiling.
Soldier Boy? Homelander?
Just two dogs Vought kept.
A roar sounded in the sky. Waynes paid it no mind. As one of the wealthiest men around, he often had fighter jets patrolling above his estate.
Just then, a low growl suddenly came from the lawn below.
"Roar!"
Waynes looked down. An enormous Bengal tiger stood inside an enclosure.
It was his pet and his pride, weighing over seven hundred pounds. It had once mauled three thieves who broke into the estate to death.
Even the fiercest hunting dogs would tuck their tails and run at a sniff of its fur.
Now the beast's fur stood on end as it growled repeatedly toward the estate's perimeter, as though warning something not to approach.
Waynes laughed. He noticed that it was trembling.
"What's wrong, baby? Seen a ghost?"
The tiger's animal instincts screamed warnings. It completely ignored him, staring into the depths of the darkness, its pupils shrinking to thin slits.
Snap!
The next second, every light on the estate went out at once, plunging the entire world into darkness.
Waynes froze for a moment. "A power outage?"
A few seconds later, the estate's backup power kicked in.
The lights came back on, but for some reason, he suddenly felt uneasy.
It took him quite a while to realize: it was too quiet.
The estate had over thirty professional security personnel. Normally, the sounds of radios and patrol vehicles could be heard everywhere.
Now there was nothing. Dead silence.
Waynes frowned and took the communicator from his pocket. "Charles? What's going on?"
There was no response from the communicator.
Unwilling to give up, he changed its frequency. "William?"
Still no response.
Waynes's frown deepened, unease rising within him.
Just then, a voice finally came through the communicator, but it sounded very strange, as though desperately suppressing some kind of terror. "S-sir."
Waynes sighed in relief. "What's going on?"
The other end fell silent. Only heavy breathing could be heard.
Several seconds passed before William spoke in a trembling voice. "It's haunted. There's a ghost here!"
Waynes froze. "What the hell are you talking about?"
With a crackle, the communicator suddenly dissolved into static.
Waynes's expression finally changed. Before he could react further, an even more frenzied roar came from below.
"Roar!!!" The Bengal tiger completely lost control. As though confronted by its natural predator, it desperately backed away, even knocking over the iron fence in its terror.
Waynes's pupils contracted slightly.
Something's wrong. Something's very wrong. This tiger has never acted like this.
What exactly did it see? What could frighten it so badly?
Could this place really be haunted?
Thump, thump, thump.
The entire world seemed to fall silent. Waynes could even hear his own heartbeat.
Then came a deafening boom.
The wall along the side of the estate exploded instantly. Bricks and stones flew, and dust billowed into the air like a small sandstorm erupting on the spot.
Waynes stumbled back in fright, unable to grasp what had happened.
The next instant, a figure shot out of the dust, moving too fast for the naked eye to follow.
Bang!!!
Flesh and blood flew everywhere.
The Bengal tiger weighing over seven hundred pounds simply burst apart. Half its head slammed down beside the fountain, and fragments of its organs hung from the treetops.
Crimson flesh and blood rained down. The entire process took less than a tenth of a second.
Waynes stood frozen. The wineglass slipped from his hand and shattered with a crack, spilling red wine all over the expensive carpet.
His mind went blank.
Where was the tiger? How had it disappeared?
Even now, he still had not figured out what had happened. He only knew that the tiger was in pieces scattered everywhere.
Fear finally crept into his heart. Waynes turned and ran, charging into the villa.
He stumbled through the corridors, the study, and the wine storage room, without a trace of a board member's poise.
The safe room was just ahead.
It could withstand rocket fire. Even a tank could not blast through it.
Waynes rushed inside and pressed the button. The heavy alloy door slowly closed.
All three layers of security doors locked shut. Waynes finally collapsed onto the floor, his entire body drenched in cold sweat.
Safe. I should be safe.
"Damn it, what the hell was that?" Waynes cursed under his breath, his heart almost pounding out of his chest.
Before one crisis had passed, another arose. He suddenly realized there was a second person's breathing in the safe room.
Waynes froze. His body stiffened bit by bit, and he slowly turned his neck as though it had rusted.
In the darkness, two points of crimson light slowly lit up.
Like the eyes of some savage beast from mythology, the red light grew brighter and brighter, gradually illuminating a face.
A face known to every household in America. Homelander.
He hovered in midair, his hands behind his back and his cape hanging down. Clearly, he had been waiting there for a long time.
Homelander wore that signature sunny smile from television, but his eyes burned with a dangerously suffocating light.
Still streaked with wet tiger blood, he looked like a vengeful ghost out of hell.
Waynes's heart skipped a beat. He trembled all over, unable even to scream.
The good news: there was no ghost. The bad news: there was Homelander.
Homelander tilted his head, smiling brightly. "Good evening, Mr. Board Member."
Ten minutes later.
The estate blazed, flames soaring into the sky. Before the firefighters could put it out, every piece of evidence would burn to ashes.
Before leaving, Homelander took one last look at an open patch of ground beyond the fire's reach. The other people from the estate lay scattered there. They had merely been knocked unconscious.
Meanwhile, at Vought International Tower.
"System, get the hell out here."
"Where's my damn mission reward?"
Soldier Boy rubbed his hands together. Thinking about being able to improve his speed made him feel a little excited for some reason.
(I scared myself writing this chapter. For an ordinary person, facing Homelander is pure horror-movie territory, with no way to fight back.)
Before you continue