Chen Mo turned his gaze back to the damaged section of the cabin.
Inside, chaos reigned.
Gale-force winds rushed down the narrow aisle.
Heavy suitcases flew everywhere, thudding against seat backs.
Yellow oxygen masks had all dropped from overhead and were whipping wildly in the wind.
Passengers clung desperately to anything secure, their screams merging into a single cacophony.
A dark red figure pushed against the wind and strode through the damaged cabin door.
Maeve's knee-high metal boots pounded heavily against the aisle, giving her an imposing presence.
She looked more energetic than usual, and the weariness and disillusionment in her eyes had faded considerably.
Coming to rescue people had given her a little more energy.
Ahead in the aisle.
A hijacker in a black hood clung to a seat's armrest, barely managing to keep his footing.
His eyes widened at the sight of Maeve charging in, and he fumbled to raise his gun and fire.
A hail of bullets struck Maeve.
With a rapid series of sharp cracks, tiny sparks burst across her armor, but not even a white mark appeared on her skin.
Maeve suddenly pushed off, leaving two deep footprints in the aircraft-grade aluminum floor.
She became a blur, crossing more than ten meters in an instant. Her right hand, clad in a metal bracer, shot out and seized the hijacker's vulnerable throat.
His breathing stopped at once. His face turned bluish-purple as he dropped his gun and desperately beat at her unmoving arm of steel with both hands.
Maeve gave him no chance to struggle.
She casually twisted her wrist.
Crack.
The sound of his neck breaking was piercing even amid the howling wind.
The hijacker's head drooped at a bizarre angle.
The life left his body, and he went completely limp.
Maeve let go in disgust, allowing the warm corpse to crash into the aisle, then casually wiped her glove on the back of a nearby seat.
The screams in the cabin abruptly fell silent.
Passengers in the front rows stared at the twisted corpse in the aisle, so frightened they forgot to breathe.
Outside the cabin door, Homelander rode the raging wind and floated gracefully inside like a savior descending upon the world.
Even though he had only just made a desperate run for his life the night before, he dutifully summoned his trademark warm smile.
The expensive foundation on his face was as thick as plaster, barely covering the bruises left by Chen Mo's fists.
A brand-new Stars and Stripes cape flapped behind him.
Ignoring the mess all over the floor, Homelander swept his blue eyes over the cabin, enjoying the passengers' astonished and adoring gazes.
In a corner of the rear seats.
The last hijacker guarding the passenger cabin completely broke down.
He had watched his companion die horribly with his own eyes, then witnessed the arrival of the supposedly invincible Homelander. His psychological defenses instantly crumbled to dust.
His survival instinct overwhelmed his reason, and the hijacker raised his hands, trying to surrender.
Sizzle.
Two beams of high-energy Heat Vision shot out, crossing dozens of meters in an instant and striking the hijacker.
He died instantly without even managing a scream.
At the charred, severed edges, mangled organs and cooked blood mixed together and plopped onto the carpet.
The pungent smell of roasted meat mixed with the stench of burnt hair, instantly filling the cabin.
A deathly silence fell over the cabin.
Homelander stopped using Heat Vision, and the red glow faded from his eyes.
He strode forward with an arrogant expression and reached out to grab the cabin door.
With a burst of tremendous strength, he forced the open door shut, blocking the wind rushing inside.
The air pressure in the cabin finally returned to normal.
Homelander turned gracefully and spread his arms to the passengers, the brutality on his face instantly switching to a radiant smile.
His deep voice echoed through the cabin.
"Everyone, it's over! You're safe!"
After a brief moment of stunned silence.
An elderly woman with a deeply wrinkled face was the first to react, bringing her trembling hands together in applause.
"Thank you, Homelander!"
That thin applause seemed to flip a switch.
The entire cabin erupted.
The passengers who had narrowly escaped death burst into cheers loud enough to lift the roof off the plane.
Men in suits and dress shoes embraced strangers and wept with excitement.
A mother holding a baby waved a severed oxygen-mask tube with all her might.
Some fervent fans even knelt on their seats, frantically kissing the seat backs in front of them and shouting Homelander's name at the top of their lungs.
Their fervent adoration drowned out the fear caused by the bits of flesh scattered across the floor.
In the eyes of ordinary people, those brutal killings had now become heroic deeds.
As long as they could stay alive, who cared how disgusting a charred corpse was?
Homelander relished the feeling of being worshipped by the masses.
He closed his eyes in rapture and took a deep breath of the air, thick with the smells of bloody roasted meat and cheap perfume, his grin stretching from ear to ear.
Even though he had suffered a crushing setback at the hands of that unknown monster the previous night, and had even been injured.
As long as he could still hear these people cheering, his wounded heart was healed.
Maeve leaned against a seat with her arms crossed, watching the absurd scene coldly. She curled her lip in disdain.
A woman began shouting again.
"Queen Maeve! Way to go!"
Homelander turned around.
"Everyone, come on, let's hear it for Queen Maeve!"
The cabin grew lively again.
Queen Maeve nodded along helplessly, then raised a hand and pointed at the tightly shut cockpit door at the front of the cabin, interrupting Homelander's self-indulgence.
A little basking was enough. The real trouble was still in the cockpit.
The plane was still veering off course, and that was the death sentence hanging over everyone's heads.
Outside, Chen Mo listened to the commotion in the cabin and yawned in boredom.
His wings beat sharply, and he moved silently toward the front of the fuselage.
His gaze pierced the cockpit's thick windshield, taking in what was happening inside.
The show was about to reach its climax.
Maeve walked up to the cockpit door and gave it an experimental tug.
"Captain?"
Homelander had no patience for knocking and negotiating, so he simply pulled the door open.
In the pilot's seat, the captain had already become a cold corpse.
A bloody gash had been cut across his neck. Blood had pooled on the floor and soaked through his white uniform.
In the copilot's seat.
A young copilot was trembling violently, his face covered in cold sweat and both hands raised.
The last hijacker stood behind him.
The whites of the hijacker's eyes were bloodshot, and he held a pistol in his right hand.
The cold barrel was pressed firmly against the back of the young copilot's head.
He watched the copilot and the two superheroes who had entered, visibly nervous.
Maeve immediately stopped and slowly raised both hands, trying to calm him down.
"Put down the gun. We can talk about any terms you want."
She knew very well that in such a cramped space, no matter how fast she was, she could not guarantee she would subdue the hijacker before he fired.
Once the copilot died, the plane would become a metal coffin high in the sky.
Homelander nodded too.
"Relax, relax. Put down the weapon and you won't get hurt!"
Unfortunately.
Reason was in short supply among madmen.
Bang.
The deafening gunshot exploded through the cockpit.
The bullet blew the top of the copilot's skull off.
Hot blood splattered everywhere, spraying Homelander in the face.
The bullet pierced the skull without losing momentum and slammed into the windshield ahead.
The glass shattered, and a violent wind swept into the cockpit.
Heat Vision came next, sending both the hijacker and the instrument panel to the afterlife.
Sizzle.
A chain of explosions rang out one after another.
The complex avionics short-circuited and burned out instantly under the destructive force of the Heat Vision.
Countless electrical sparks flew in every direction.
Red warning lights flashed wildly, and piercing alarms blared throughout the cabin.
The plane's main control screen went black in an instant.
The entire airliner's electronic control system was completely destroyed in that second.
Maeve's eyes widened as she stared at the instrument panel pouring out black smoke, her whole body trembling with anger.
She completely lost her composure, shoved the obstructing Homelander aside, and rushed to the copilot's seat, pulling on the hydraulic manual control stick with all her strength.
The control stick did not respond.
She hurriedly called the control tower, but there was no answer either.
The plane's enormous nose suddenly dipped, tilting toward the sea.
A powerful sensation of weightlessness struck instantly.
In the passenger cabin.
The passengers who had still been cheering their escape from disaster fell straight from heaven into hell.
Their bodies flew into the air and slammed hard against the ceiling.
Heart-rending screams erupted once more.
Listening to the anguished screams behind her.
Maeve closed her eyes in despair, then turned to look at Homelander.
"This thing's broken. Can you fly a plane?"
Homelander stared indifferently out the window at the sea rushing closer, without a trace of guilt on his face.
He waved a hand dismissively and pointed at the broken instrument panel.
"Even if I could, it wouldn't do any good."
Maeve stared at the instrument panel in despair. This incident seemed to have awakened a little of the sense of justice buried in her bones.
"What are we going to do?"
Homelander merely gave her an inscrutable smile.
"It's all right. We've already completed our mission, haven't we?"