Sparks flew in the cockpit.
A pungent smell of burning filled the air.
The sophisticated main control panel had been reduced to a heap of scrap metal billowing black smoke.
Every indicator light had gone out, leaving only the loudspeaker blaring a desperate emergency warning.
The entire airliner had become a giant hunk of metal, plunging toward the sea at a forty-five-degree angle.
A violent sensation of weightlessness swept through the cabin.
Maeve clung to the back of the copilot's seat, veins bulging on the back of her hand.
Her knuckles had gone deathly white from the strain.
Her eyes were filled with utter despair and fury.
Homelander's two casual blasts of Heat Vision had not only burned the last hijacker to ash, but also burned away the last chance of survival for the more than a hundred people aboard.
Homelander stood to one side, looking relaxed.
Faced with the catastrophe he had caused with his own hands, this god among men did not show the slightest trace of remorse.
He even brushed nonexistent dust from his chest with a look of distaste.
Maeve clenched her teeth and roared.
"How are we supposed to clean up this mess?! There are still 123 people out there! Are we just going to watch them fall into the ocean and become shark food?"
Homelander shot her a cold glance.
"Clean it up? We can just dust ourselves off and leave."
Who could pin the blame on the invincible Homelander, high in the sky in the middle of nowhere?
Back home, they could release an official statement pinning all the blame on the terrorists and say the Seven had arrived too late.
Maeve shook with anger and suddenly pointed out the window.
"Go outside! You can fly underneath the plane! Use your strength to hold it up!"
Homelander's body of steel was more than strong enough to carry a plane.
Homelander looked at Maeve as if she were insane.
His face showed undisguised mockery and contempt.
"Hold it up? This fragile aviation aluminum alloy can't withstand that kind of pressure. The moment I exert a little force, my hands will punch straight through the entire frame. In the end, this heap of scrap will still crash to pieces."
Maeve's eyes were bloodshot with anxiety when another idea occurred to her.
"Calm down. Take the passengers out one by one. At your speed, you can easily save more than half of them before the crash! You just need to make a few more trips!"
Homelander's face darkened instantly.
"And then what? Make 123 round trips? Maeve, use your brain."
Homelander lost the last of his patience.
He gave Maeve no chance to argue further.
He turned, left the cockpit, and strode into the passenger cabin.
The cabin was like hell on earth.
Suitcases flew wildly through the air.
The passengers were pressed hard against their seatbacks by the sensation of weightlessness, screaming and crying their hearts out.
When the figure draped in the Stars and Stripes appeared, pair after pair of desperate eyes lit up with fervent hope.
In the eyes of the ordinary people in this desperate situation,
that flash of red was their only lifeline.
Homelander ignored the eyes pleading for survival.
He walked straight to the damaged forward cabin door.
Gripping the edges of the door with both hands, he tore it apart.
The reinforced metal ripped to pieces in an instant.
A violent high-altitude gale, carrying frigid clouds, poured unchecked into the cabin.
Maeve staggered out of the cockpit against the wind.
She seized Homelander's arm and held on tight.
Her eyes were filled with humble pleading.
Almost at the breaking point, she shouted.
"At least take those two children! Even if you only save two people!"
In the direction Maeve was pointing,
beneath an overturned seat in the front row,
two little girls with pigtails clung to each other, trembling.
Their little faces were as pale as paper, and their voices had grown hoarse from crying.
Homelander gave them an indifferent glance.
There was no pity in his eyes. Instead, a vicious killing intent rose in them.
He flung Maeve off in disgust.
"And then what? They tell the whole world we left everyone else to die?"
Maeve stood rooted to the spot, her whole body stiff.
It was as if, after all these years, she was seeing her old partner's true face for the first time.
Beneath that dazzling, hypocritical mask was no human being, but an utterly selfish, cold-blooded demon.
Several male passengers nearby heard their argument clearly.
Their instinct to survive overcame their fear of the height.
They frantically unbuckled their seat belts and scrambled down the sloping aisle toward the cabin door.
They reached out with trembling hands, desperately trying to grab Homelander's legs.
"Take us with you!"
"Please don't abandon us!"
Intense disgust flashed across Homelander's handsome face.
It was as if the most revolting flies in the world had come near him.
He spun around.
His eyes lit up scarlet in an instant.
Scorching rays of destruction pulsed violently in his eyes, burning the surrounding air until it warped and smoked.
"All of you, get back!"
Homelander's voice exploded like thunder in the howling wind.
It carried an unmistakable threat of death.
"If you dare take so much as half a step forward, I'll send you straight to God with my Heat Vision!"
His violent killing intent instantly bore down on the entire forward cabin.
The men who had rushed forward froze in place.
Their eyes bulged in terror.
They stared blankly at those scarlet eyes, on the verge of unleashing destructive lasers.
Their brains lost the ability to think.
Why was the superhero who had come to save them pointing his lasers at them?
The sheer shock and the collapse of their worldview left the passengers in the front rows speechless.
Only the howl of the wind pouring into the cabin remained.
Homelander was pleased with the effect of his threat.
He gave a cold snort.
He wrapped an arm around Maeve's waist.
His legs burst into motion, crushing the metal floor beneath his feet.
A deafening sonic boom shattered every remaining pane of glass around the cabin door.
The two became a streak of red and blue, shooting out of the plane and vanishing into the icy sea of clouds.
Just like that, the more than a hundred people in the cabin were abandoned high in the sky.
After a brief, deathly silence, cries ten times more anguished and desperate than those they had uttered when facing the hijackers erupted.
High in the sky.
Homelander hovered thousands of meters above the ground, holding the distraught Maeve.
He looked down at his handiwork.
He watched coldly as the powerless airliner fell toward the Atlantic Ocean, accelerating at a terrifying rate.
In another dozen seconds at most,
the steel behemoth weighing hundreds of tons would make fatal contact with the sea.
The violent impact would tear the entire fuselage into countless pieces.
Not one of those bothersome stains inside would survive.
A smug smile curled Homelander's lips.
What a flawless way to handle it.
No survivors.
No stains.
Once he got back, he only had to have a sentimental statement released and shed a few fake tears for the cameras. He might even win another wave of sympathy.
As long as the dead could tell no tales, the god would forever remain that perfect god.
Maeve hung in midair like a soulless rag doll.
She closed her eyes in anguish, warm tears blown from their corners by the wind.
She could not bring herself to look at the horror about to unfold below.
Deep within the clouds.
Chen Mo watched the two figures in midair coldly.
A deeply mocking smile appeared on his lips.
This boring hero show was over.
Next came the monster's stage.
His broad, dark-red wings of flesh swept out, tearing through the clouds.
Chen Mo became a dark afterimage, accelerating wildly in a vertical dive, several times faster than the falling plane.
In an instant, he circled precisely into position beneath the airliner's broad metal belly.
At that very second.
On the miniature communications channel in the collar of Homelander's suit.
A burst of piercing static suddenly sounded.
Immediately afterward.
A-Train's cracking roar, filled with terror and disbelief, erupted over the shared channel.
"Captain!"
"Can you hear me, Captain?!"
"The base station radar shows an ultra-high-energy reaction over the Atlantic Ocean!"
"That monster! The black-armored monster from last night has appeared again!"
"He's directly beneath you! He's trying to hold up the falling plane by sheer force!"
Homelander's pupils trembled.
"What did you say?!"