The dark red figure shot toward the airliner's belly like a meteor flying in reverse, striking it with unerring precision.
The muffled impact carried far through the howling wind, and the cabin shuddered.
Chen Mo gripped a slightly raised section of the aircraft's outer skin with one hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. The brittle metal crumbled.
Holding up a tin can this big with nothing but his bare hands was pure nonsense.
The area bearing the force was too small.
If he tried to lift it by force, his arms would punch straight through the entire cabin framework in an instant, like spears through tofu.
He needed a different approach.
Chen Mo's lips curled into a reckless grin.
"Woo-hoo, I've wanted to try this for ages!"
The muscles in his right arm suddenly swelled as he fully awakened the Blacklight Virus.
Hundreds of thousands of dark red fibers gushed from his palm.
Like magma bursting through a breached dam, the fibers spread wildly over the cold metal shell, bringing a terrifying power of assimilation with them.
A continuous, grating scrape set teeth on edge.
These tentacles were not only exceptionally tough, but also capable of mimetic fusion.
Their sharp fiber tips tore effortlessly through the plane's skin and plunged deep into its internal keel.
Flesh fibers and cold machinery fused together in that instant.
In the space of just three breaths, the Boeing airliner's entire massive lower fuselage had been covered in a thick layer of constantly writhing dark red biological armor.
From a distance, it looked as if a deep-sea monster had opened its enormous jaws and swallowed the plane whole.
The show was only just beginning.
The airliner's original steel wings groaned under the crushing force of the flesh-and-blood tentacles, finally snapping off with a crash and falling into the sea as scrap.
In their place came a new marvel formed by the Blacklight Virus.
Two terrifying flesh-and-blood wings, with a combined span of over a hundred meters, burst out from either side of the fuselage!
The vast dark red wings blotted out the sky and sun.
A chilling metallic sheen flowed over their tough fascia, enough to make hearts tremble.
Every steady, powerful beat whipped up visible storm vortices high in the sky, instantly shredding the thick clouds around them.
Flesh grew wildly over the nose of the plane, forming a fierce dragon's head that raised itself and roared at the sky.
The terrifying sound waves instantly tore the clouds apart.
A plane once doomed to crash had, through Blacklight's overwhelming intervention, become a gigantic flesh-and-blood dragon worthy of a name even in ancient myth!
Chen Mo had completely merged into the center of its belly, becoming the fearsome beast's sole heart and brain.
Its enormous wings spread steadily, forcibly arresting the deadly plunge caused by gravity.
Inside the cabin.
One moment, the 123 passengers had been experiencing the soul-leaving terror of free fall at high altitude.
The next, the sensation of falling stopped abruptly.
A balding middle-aged man by a window had his eyes tightly shut and was confessing his lifelong sins to God as fast as he could.
Suddenly, he felt the fuselage shudder, and to his surprise, it stopped falling.
He plucked up the courage to open one eye and peek outside. Both eyes bulged, his pupils shrank to pinpricks, and his heart skipped half a beat.
The view outside was completely blocked by a dense mass of dark red flesh-and-blood tentacles.
Thick biological tissue clung tightly around the window frame like ivy, while thick bundles of muscle continued to rise and writhe rhythmically.
"Monster!"
The man let out a shrill scream and scrambled under his seat, so oblivious that he didn't even notice his head slamming into the armrest.
His scream was a fuse that instantly ignited panic throughout the cabin.
More and more people saw the horrifying sight outside their windows.
Several business executives in suits and leather shoes were so frightened they lost control of their bladders and bowels, curling up with their hands over their heads.
They had just been scared half to death by Homelander's coldheartedness, only to plunge straight into a monster's mouth.
What kind of cursed, godforsaken flight was this!!!
The desperate cries rose to a new pitch, the uproar almost shattering the remaining soundproofing panels.
Above the clouds, several kilometers away.
Homelander held Maeve around the waist with one arm.
He had been watching with a look of pleasure, ready to enjoy the fireworks of the coming plane crash.
Suddenly, A-Train's distorted roar erupted from his earpiece.
The cracking voice of his report struck Homelander on the crown of his head like a sledgehammer.
His perfect smile instantly froze on his face.
His neck turned stiffly, like a rusty gear, and his gaze pierced through layer upon layer of cloud to lock onto the indescribable colossus below.
The familiar dark red coloring.
The wildly violent aura of life.
The unabashedly arrogant bearing.
The floodgates of memory burst open deep in Homelander's mind.
The utter humiliation of being ground into the mud the night before and beaten until his nose bled for the first time in his life flooded back into every brain cell like a tsunami.
The indestructible muscles beneath his suit began to spasm and tremble uncontrollably.
Bloodshot veins rapidly spread through his blue eyes.
It really was that damned demon again!!
Why did this bastard have to jump out and ruin things right now!?
Extreme fear and impotent fury tangled together, pushing his reason to the brink of collapse.
Homelander clenched his teeth, his facial muscles twisting into vicious furrows.
He absolutely couldn't leave any witnesses alive.
Once the people on the plane landed alive, his coldhearted conduct today would become public knowledge, and Homelander's perfect image would be utterly shattered.
Blinding scarlet beams flared in his eyes.
Destructive, high-energy Heat Vision compressed and boiled fiercely in his eyes, scorching the surrounding air until it crackled.
Chen Mo hung beneath the enormous flesh-and-blood fuselage, his red compound eyes catching that dangerous red glow with precision.
His faceplate quietly split open, revealing a cruel, mocking smile.
He showed no fear.
He flexed a thick tentacle, twisting it nimbly in midair and raising an outrageously huge middle finger toward the figure above him.
The middle finger wasn't enough.
Chen Mo also intended to utterly destroy his opponent's mental defenses.
Amplified by the Blacklight matter, his ultrasonic ability turned rolling waves of sound into invisible heavy artillery, blasting across a kilometer to strike Homelander's eardrums.
"Well, well, isn't that the savior who ran faster than a rabbit!"
Chen Mo's voice dripped with utter laziness and contempt, every word dancing wildly on the other's nerves.
"What, couldn't hold up this tin can, so now you're standing up there waiting to watch the fireworks?"
"Why are your eyes so red? Didn't cry enough last night, so you want to cry again in front of the whole world today?"
"Come on! Shoot right here! Cut this plane in half if you've got the guts!"
"Just a friendly reminder: last night, someone couldn't even take a piece of skin off me."
"If you dare attack today, I'll drop this plane right now and come up there to play with you!"
"I guarantee I'll beat the shit out of you in front of Maeve! Then I'll beat you into the shit."
The red light in Homelander's eyes flickered violently, flaring and dimming.
His chest heaved so violently that his lungs felt ready to burst.
His lofty pride had been trampled into the mud again and again.
Yet this superhuman couldn't even manage a single threat in return.
He couldn't beat him, and there was nothing he could do about it. Homelander had never encountered anyone he couldn't beat before.
Last night, he had played every card he had, even using every last ounce of strength.
Even so, he had accomplished nothing and had instead been the first to be injured by his opponent.
If they kept fighting, he might end up being eaten like Translucent!
If he attacked now and his opponent came charging at him, he would be doomed ten thousand meters in the air with nothing to hide behind.
Homelander clenched his fists, his nails digging deep into his palms.
The scarlet light flickered wildly in his eyes for a full ten seconds.
At last, it faded as he gave in, stifled by unwilling frustration.
Utter humiliation!
"Maeve, we're leaving. We have to get the company ready in advance."
Inside the cabin, things were very different.
The violent, deathly turbulence had come to an end.
The fuselage had become unbelievably steady.
Oxygen masks hung motionless, and overturned suitcases lay still on the floor.
The balding man who had been scared out of his wits was now staring fixedly out the window, his mouth wide enough to fit an ostrich egg.
Only after looking carefully did he realize.
Those seemingly revolting and menacing dark red tentacles had no intention of tearing into the cabin to feed.
On the contrary.
They were woven into an impenetrable shield, perfectly keeping out the bitter cold and fierce winds at high altitude.
The immense dark red flesh wings outside the windows were beating rhythmically, carrying the whole airliner in a steady glide against the wind.
"It's not here to eat us!"
The balding man's face flushed red with excitement, his voice trembling uncontrollably.
"It's holding up the plane! It's saving us!!!"
His hysterical shout was like a spark landing in a pile of dry kindling.
The entire cabin erupted.
All 123 passengers scrambled to the windows on both sides.
Faces pressed flat against the glass, they gazed greedily at the vast, soul-shaking structure of flesh outside.
Their overwhelming fear vanished in an instant like a receding tide.
Surviving a brush with death gave rise to overwhelming fervor and frenzy.
The little girl with pigtails in the front row reached out a chubby hand and touched the writhing biological membrane outside through the glass.
Far from being afraid, she giggled.
"Mommy, is that a red angel?"
The little girl's clear, youthful voice echoed through the spacious cabin.
Her mother, her face streaked with tears, hugged her daughter tightly, too choked up to speak as she nodded frantically.
"Yes! That's an angel! A blood-red angel sent by God to save us!!!"
Those words became the ultimate fuse that set their fervor ablaze.
Homelander, handsome and polished, with justice always on his lips, had casually discarded them like garbage.
Yet this creature before them, as terrifying as a demon from hell, had shouldered the entire plane in a seemingly hopeless situation.
Who was the savior?
Who was the hypocrite?
At that moment, the answer was carved into their bones.
Inside the cabin.
Voices of gratitude and prayer, along with heart-rending cheers, joined into an overwhelming torrent.
Some fell to their knees in the aisle, pressed their palms together and bowed frantically toward the tentacles outside.
Others, tears streaming down their faces, blew kiss after kiss at the dark red expanse.
At the boundary between life and death.
No one cared how terrifying their savior looked.
As long as they could live, they would put even a deep-sea monster on a pedestal without hesitation.
Chen Mo hung from the very bottom of the fuselage, letting the fierce winds at altitude wash over him.
His eardrums picked up the fervent praise coming from inside the cabin, and his lips curved upward.
Being worshipped as an angel by this group of ordinary people was a little bizarre, but the pleasure of showing off before an audience was far stronger than being a monster hiding in the shadows.
With a thought from Chen Mo.
The immense flesh-and-blood wings beat with a sudden surge of force.
A deafening sonic boom tore through the sky.
The incredible flesh-and-blood dragon carved a sweeping dark red trail through the thick sea of clouds, gliding steadily and arrogantly toward the distant coastline like a king surveying his territory.
Several kilometers behind.
Like a frightened child, Homelander stiffly carried Maeve through the air toward the company.
Maeve turned her head to watch the dragon flying away, a measure of relief appearing in her eyes.