Hush
(Wow! I've seen a lot of new faces lately, please give me your support!)
(This chapter is almost entirely action-packed from beginning to end. I wish someone would make an AI video of my novel; it would be so satisfying.)
Hundreds of meters above the White House.
The raging Heat Wave was confined to the ground area.
The space above was filled with cold air and strong winds, leaving only a frigid atmosphere.
John remained suspended in mid-air, his hands casually in his pockets, gazing straight ahead.
And dozens of meters away opposite him, another "self" was also suspended at the same level as him.
Unlike John, Homelander's expression grew increasingly ferocious.
He was draped in a Stars and Stripes cape, and the flesh on his cheeks was twitching violently, with veins bulging.
Turn the camera down to the street.
Dozens of news broadcast vans brought their high-magnification telephoto lenses to their limits.
Along Pennsylvania Avenue, several giant outdoor commercial screens, each tens of meters high, had their signals simultaneously cut off.
Then the media replaced them all with real-time close-up footage of the aerial confrontation.
On the screen, two figures suspended in mid-air were magnified infinitely, allowing every resident of Washington to clearly see their every move.
At this very moment.
The entire Washington, D.C., D. C. was instantly silenced.
The cars on the road turned off their engines in unison, and commuters stopped in their tracks.
There wasn't a single sound in the living room, on the street, or in the studio...
Hundreds of millions of viewers stared intently at the screen in front of them, barely daring to breathe.
On the giant screen tens of meters high, Homelander's face was gloomy, and beneath his crow's feet, two red eyes were fixed on the direction where John was.
Arrogance, anger, and guilt were all mixed together.
John looked at his "self" confronting him in the distance and felt only absurdity and ridiculousness.
At that time, he thought...
The "self" who successfully embarks on the path to godhood is ultimately rational, ruthless, and autocratic.
He was beloved by the people, second only to the emperor, above all others, reigning supreme over the parliament and ruling the world.
If he had such a luxurious setup in his past life.
Then all the hardships and obstacles are just trivial matters, and it's impossible to end up with your head blown off by a crowbar.
But now, it seems that "myself" is like an arrogant, angry, and exasperated idiot.
He had the ability and luck, yet he lived a shameful and disgraceful life.
He doesn't deserve the name " Homelander ".
"Let me wake you up first..."
As soon as he finished speaking, John moved.
In the air, a visible dent was forcefully stomped down, and the white shockwave exploded violently, tearing the surrounding air apart instantly.
"Whoosh--"
The shadow loomed large, and Homelander's pupils flashed with intense light, but he hadn't had time to focus.
John then appeared in front of him with a pursed lip and an expressionless face, and then threw a punch.
Thump!
The moment the fist pressed against his left cheek, the flow of time seemed to slow down.
The flesh at the point of impact rippled violently outwards from the fist like waves.
The muscles in the entire cheek were twisted and stacked under extreme compression.
The next second, the soft tissue cushioning ended, and the cheekbone beneath the skin suddenly caved inward, accompanied by a crisp cracking sound.
The flow rate returned to normal.
Homelander's head was knocked halfway back by the force of the punch, slamming violently to one side. A streak of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth, and two bloody broken teeth spun and flew out.
He staggered back several steps in mid-air, almost losing his balance.
Then, without giving Homelander a chance to react, John spun around in the air.
Immediately afterwards, following the downward momentum, the right elbow suddenly reversed, the elbow tip carrying the entire weight of the body, and solidly struck the top of the head of the Homelander.
(man!)
With a muffled thud, Homelander's neck snapped downwards, his eyes went unfocused for a moment, and he plummeted straight to the ground.
"Thump!!"
With a dull thud, Homelander plummeted from a hundred meters into the White House, turning into a streak of blood.
"BOMM!"
The iconic white marble dome of the White House was smashed through by the figure of Homelander.
The impact shattered tens of tons of stone into a cloud of stone chips and white lime.
After breaking the Ionic Columns in half, the body continued its momentum, chiseling straight through the second-floor roof.
The heavy oak flooring in the presidential office suddenly buckled and crumbled under the force.
The cave collapsed with a loud crash, creating a huge crater that emitted white smoke, scattered red fragments, and sawed flying wooden beams.
Thump!
The Homelander lay face up, trapped amidst the broken wooden planks and the ruins of the red carpet, his mind buzzing incessantly, his vision filled with a swaying double image.
The large hole in the collapsed ceiling was still spewing gray smoke downwards.
The Homelander gritted his teeth, about to sit up, when the gray mist above his head was suddenly filled by a falling black shadow.
Next second!
John flashed out and slammed his legs into Homelander's chest.
"Snap--!!"
The oak floor beneath the Homelander couldn't withstand the second heavy blow, and the entire solid wood floor and the underlying joists collapsed with a crash.
Thump!
The shattered wooden beams scattered like bullets, and Homelander's upper body was trapped between the collapsed beams.
Several sharp, protruding stubble pierced through the battle suit and embedded themselves in the flesh on the side of the waist.
Then, John, his face half-covered in blood, expressionlessly bent down and reached out, his five fingers like iron clamps, firmly grinding down on his shoulder.
Twist your body, turn your torso.
He gripped her throat, his five fingers digging deep into her flesh.
He was pressed firmly against the pile of oak slag covered in sharp spikes.
"God... shouldn't be capable of this much..."
John stood on the ruins, looking down at the mangled flesh in his hands, unusually calm.
The Homelander's face was half-buried in the sawdust, his body twitching, and a faint creaking sound came from his throat.
"Who... who are you?"
John leaned down slightly, grasped his neck, and pondered for a moment.
"... If I told you... I am you, would you believe me?"
"Heh heh... get lost..."
Homelander let out a dying growl, his lips trembling:
"I am... unique... I am the true Homelander..."
His suffocating gaze darted around, then fixed intently on the giant commercial screen dozens of meters away.
In the center of the screen, ultra-high-definition cameras from dozens of drones were capturing his face from every blind spot.
That handsome face printed in textbooks across the United States, on the cover of Time, and on countless toy boxes.
At this moment, a dent appeared on his cheekbone, and blackened mud smeared around his mouth.
Like a stray dog with its spine broken, it was pinned down in the ruins by one hand, unable to move.
Whose face is that?
It was him.
No, absolutely not...
How could God possibly rot in the ruins, groveling like a stray dog with that damned Judas by the neck?
But... the word "LIVE" flashing in the corner of the screen was like a red-hot branding iron, forcing him to face the cruel reality.
He cried.
He knew that at this moment, hundreds of millions of people across the United States were sitting around their television sets, or huddled in air-raid shelters watching this scene.
Those "mortals" who once worshipped him, those commoners like ants, all witnessed his fall from grace.
In their eyes, there is no longer awe, only horror, fear, and even mockery; there is no reverence whatsoever.
Thinking of this, he suddenly felt a violent retching in his stomach.
This humiliation was like having scalding sulfuric acid poured onto his brain, completely carbonizing his remaining sanity.
We can't lose!
"Hehe..."
The veins on the forehead of the Homelander throbbed violently and bulged.
The V within his body boiled over under extreme suppression and rage.
At this moment, a morbid madness erased everything from his eyes!
kill...
As long as these "rebels" are all killed, the myth will not be shattered! All believers will eventually submit to its banner!
Homelander grinned maliciously, digging his ten fingers deep into John's wrist, letting his nails snap and break, bleeding profusely as they embedded themselves into the flesh.
He opened his mouth, which was full of blood and foam, and let out a demonic roar.
"I'm Stronger, I'm Better..."
"I'm, HOME--LANDER...!!"
Accompanied by a chilling sound of flesh churning, the muscles all over the Homelander's body suddenly swelled up, and purplish-black blood vessels bulged out from the skin.
Immediately afterwards, a line of blood gushed from the corner of his eye, and his eyeball was completely engulfed by the bloody light.
From then on, all pain was ignored.
"Die!!!"
The Homelander ground his foot on the pile of rubble, pushing against the broken bones, and suddenly launched an attack!
He gripped John's wrist tightly with his other hand, and using the force, twisted it, delivering a haphazard hook strike straight to John's chin.
"Bang!"
The sonic boom shattered abruptly.
Homelander's punch landed squarely on John's chin.
The violent impact snapped John's neck, lifting him off the ground and sending him flying half a meter into the air.
Before John could even twist his body, pull in his stomach, and regain his balance...
Homelander had already sprung up from the ground, pressing his entire body against him, then grinned maliciously and licked the blood from the corner of his mouth.
Using the momentum of his forward thrust, he suddenly swung his head, delivering a powerful headbutt to John's nose.
Their foreheads collided with a dull thud, and blood immediately gushed from John's nostrils.
The Homelander became even more excited, stretching his arms to their maximum bow angle, throwing out his left fist and hooking his right hand at his upper and lower jaws.
The force of the impact directly cracked the knuckles of the Homelander himself.
The skin on his fist tore open inch by inch, blood spurting out between his fingers, before he slammed his fist into John's forehead.
"Click--"
Under the enormous impact and reaction force, Homelander's right middle and ring fingers were fractured and dislocated on the spot.
The white bone fragments quickly exposed the flesh beneath.
But he continued to laugh maniacally, ignoring everything, clenching his deformed, bloodied fist and pounding it relentlessly, again and again.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
A series of sonic booms rang out.
Homelander kicked off with both feet, propelling himself into the air by pushing against John's chest.
Amidst the whooshing sound of air being torn apart, the two engaged in a fierce battle amidst the air currents dozens of meters high.
John slashed Homelander's neck with a backhand chop, while Homelander, using the momentum, slammed his right knee into John's abdomen.
The two bodies tumbling at high speed ignored everything around them.
In the midst of the stalemate, it violently cut into the airspace where the broadcast camera was filming live.
A helicopter had no time to dodge; its high-speed rotating rotor sliced head-on into the backs of the two entangled figures.
However, faced with the two individuals' abnormal physical strength, the composite material blades were completely unable to penetrate their defenses and broke off directly.
The wildly flying propeller blades whistled through the cockpit window of another helicopter to the side.
The unbalanced fuselage spun violently, its tail boom snapping off in mid-air, spinning and whistling as it plummeted to the ground, billowing black smoke.
Thump!
In mid-air, Homelander pressed his entire weight onto John, his arms gripping John's shoulders tightly, and his legs clenching around John's waist like iron rings.
Then, it fell.
Then it burst through layers of sound barriers.
"Thump!!"
The instant the two shadows touched the ground.
The thick asphalt road surface arched upwards like a surging wave, then cracked, and the concrete subbase and water pipes beneath the roadbed shattered on the spot under the heavy impact.
"Boom----!!"
After breaking through the strata, the two, with terrifying momentum, carried soil and rocks, and smashed straight through the top of the Line 6 tunnel.
Meanwhile, ten meters underground, a train full of commuters is speeding along the tracks at nearly 100 kilometers per hour.
Inside the carriage, some people were wearing headphones, while others were dozing off while holding onto the handrails.
But just as the two figures crashed through the tunnel, the entire subway train suddenly activated its emergency brake.
Something fell down!
"Brake! Brake!!"
Passengers screamed and tried to grab the handrails, but instead of loose stones, they were met with something else.
Instead, they are two Man of Steel with extremely high hardness.
(Alright, this is a tribute to the Invincible.)
"Buzz--"
The speeding train inevitably collided with it.
"Boom!!"
The train engine, weighing hundreds of tons, was compressed into a flat, solid lump of scrap metal at the moment of impact.
The violent kinetic energy transformed into a meat grinder, squeezing backwards frantically.
The train carriage folded horribly, like a fragile soda can, as if an accordion had been folded up and stored away.
Standing passengers were violently thrown forward by the immense inertia within a fraction of a second.
Fragile flesh slammed against the hatch and windows like rag dolls, then burst open like red berries.
More than a dozen passengers, unable to react in time, were instantly crushed into mincemeat in the twisted crevice.
Warm, thick blood, mixed with pieces of internal organs, sprayed onto the stark white car roof and windows like a high-pressure water jet.
The broken and deformed steel pipe of the handrail burst out like a spear, pinning several rear passengers, along with their seats, to the side wall of the carriage.
"Buzz--"
After derailing, the train flew diagonally sideways.
The heavy undercarriage plowed a wide, charred scratch into the concrete ground, and sparks flew wildly to both sides like a waterfall.
The truck's front end smashed and crushed rows of concrete pillars along the way, turning them into stone powder, and the roof of the entire structure collapsed in a chain reaction.
"Splash--"
A few seconds later, the momentum propelled it forward by nearly a hundred meters.
The vehicle came to a complete stop only after it was completely twisted and deformed, embedding itself in the base of the load-bearing wall, and then burst out with thick black smoke.
Deep within the wreckage.
The smell of burning and the pungent, strong stench of blood permeated the thick smoke, churning and swirling like a scene from hell.
"Ha ha ha ha..."
The smoke of battle has cleared.
"See that... You're just a lowly imposter, thinking you can kill a god?"
"Waaaah, poor John, why aren't you saying anything..."
"Let our people be our witnesses!"
Homelander knelt on one knee amidst the pile of shattered corpses, wiping the blood splattered on his face with his backhand.
Then, laughing and crying, she grabbed John's throat with both hands like iron clamps.
Then, using his rampaging strength, he dragged John's body across the entire bloodied and mangled platform.
Then it broke through the arch of the subway station and shot back into the sky.
He had a crazy, exciting idea.
He was going to twist John's head off in front of everyone.