On the beach along the coast.
The perimeter was sealed off with yellow-and-black police tape.
Cameras with lenses of every size formed an impenetrable metal jungle.
Hundreds upon thousands of reporters, like hungry great white sharks scenting blood, stared at the gray sky and the horizon, not daring to blink.
Aviation radar showed that the missing Flight 37 was heading toward the coast-or rather, crashing toward it.
A few minutes ago, Vought International's public relations department had released a statement, sorrowfully declaring it a horrific terrorist attack and claiming that not even the invincible Homelander had been able to save the plane from the terrorists.
By now, those unscrupulous media outlets had even drafted their press releases mourning the dead.
All they had to do was wait for the wreckage to hit the sea and snap a few exclusive, high-resolution photos of mangled flesh. Then tomorrow's front-page headlines and next month's generous bonuses would be in the bag.
A fierce wind sprang up.
A violent roar thundered through the sky, making everyone's eardrums ache.
A huge hole suddenly burst open in the center of the dark clouds.
A colossal creature that simply defied human description came roaring through the air, bearing a terrifying, world-ending pressure as it swept into everyone's view.
It was a flying dragon of flesh and blood.
Its terrifying wings, spanning over a hundred meters, blotted out the sky.
Sinews as thick as ancient pythons writhed and rippled across the surface of the plane.
Every flap whipped up a violent hurricane visible to the naked eye.
The crowd instantly erupted into chaos.
A female reporter holding a microphone went weak at the knees and collapsed onto the wet asphalt. She didn't even notice her expensive stockings tearing, and a large wet patch immediately spread across her crotch.
A cameraman abandoned his camera, worth tens of thousands of dollars, and scrambled desperately beneath a police car. He slammed his head against the exhaust pipe hard enough to draw blood, but didn't stop.
The officers manning the perimeter all hid behind their patrol cars, frantically calling on their radios, their teeth chattering audibly.
The media elites who had just been shouting about winning the Pulitzer Prize for Journalism had all turned into desperate quails awaiting slaughter.
What terrorist?
This was clearly Lucifer coming to destroy the world!
The entire East Coast was doomed!
The enormous dragon of flesh paid no attention to the people falling apart on the ground.
Its vast, dark red wings of flesh suddenly folded inward.
The huge, cumbersome fuselage glided lightly onto the runway like a falling leaf, with an incredible steadiness that defied all common sense and physics.
There was no deafening explosion.
No flames shooting into the sky.
Even the sound of the landing gear scraping violently against the rough runway was perfectly cushioned and absorbed by the thick layer of biological tissue.
The moment it came to a stop.
The dark red fibers covering the fuselage rapidly shriveled and peeled away like the last snow under a blazing sun, turning into a flurry of black-and-red ash that scattered on the fierce wind.
The airliner emerged in the sunlight once more.
The tightly shut cabin door was kicked violently open from the inside with a bang.
Every camera poking out from beneath a police car was trained on the dark doorway.
Everyone was imagining a blood-soaked slaughterhouse inside.
The first person to rush out was a balding middle-aged man with a beer belly.
He wasn't missing any limbs, nor had he turned into a disfigured zombie monster.
The balding man raced down the stairs and fell heavily to his knees on the hard runway. He pressed his palms tightly together above his head and kowtowed frantically to the empty air, his voice already hoarse from shouting.
"Blood Angel! Thank you, Blood Angel, for your merciful salvation!"
A mother and daughter followed close behind.
The little girl still clutched her doll tightly in her hand. She lifted her tear-streaked face, smiling more brightly than a spring flower.
"Thank you, big brother Blood Angel!"
More than a hundred disheveled passengers poured out of the cabin one after another.
Not one of them cried for help.
Not one of them broke down in tears.
Everyone was caught up in an intensely fanatical, uncontrollable state of religious worship. Several business elites in suits even lay flat on the ground, frantically kissing the Blacklight ash that had yet to completely disperse from the cracks in the runway.
"Homelander is nothing! The angel is the supreme miracle!!!"
"Those high-and-mighty wastes of space at Vought International don't mean shit! This is a real guardian angel!!!"
The people on the ground, who had been braced for the worst, were dumbfounded.
What happened to the horror they had been promised?
What happened to the terrorists' merciless slaughter?
Had these unfortunate survivors been so badly deprived of oxygen at high altitude that their brains were completely fried? They were actually calling that flesh monster, which could drain your sanity with a single glance, an angel?
In a blind spot directly beneath the airliner.
Chen Mo withdrew the last strands of Blacklight fiber spreading across his fingertips. Leaning against the battered landing gear, he casually rubbed his chin.
Listening to the waves of fervent praise rising and falling on the runway outside, Chen Mo nodded.
"Not bad. Saving them wasn't a waste."
The impact of that public display had been surprisingly good.
More than a hundred walking, talking loudspeakers were enough to spread an embellished account of what had happened today across the world.
But Chen Mo had no interest in holding a meet-and-greet to thank those overly fervent fans.
He bent his legs slightly, and two faint, radiating cracks appeared instantly in the thick concrete beneath his feet.
His entire body became a dark blur too fast for the naked eye to catch. He darted close to the ground through the layers of security, and even the breeze he stirred failed to alert the devout passengers still kowtowing frantically.
A radar station on the Atlantic coast.
The piercingly cold sea wind was still howling.
The double painstakingly fashioned from Blacklight fibers was leaning against a rusty iron railing, utterly bored, occasionally chewing a couple of times on air that wasn't there.
A gentle breeze stirred.
Chen Mo appeared behind the double.
He raised his right hand and casually patted it on the shoulder.
The lifelike muscular body instantly collapsed into a pool of viscous dark red fluid, which rapidly flowed back into him along his fingertips. All the monitoring data and visual memories from that time synchronized and merged perfectly in his mind.
During those few hours, not even a seagull had flown past the remote station.
Everything had been as normal as could be.
Chen Mo stretched his arms and rolled his neck, his joints cracking in a continuous series of crisp pops.
Those crafty old foxes at Vought International had thought themselves clever when they sent A-Train away, only for a raging fire to break out in their own backyard and leave them with a ridiculous spectacle they had no way of cleaning up.
By now, the arrogant Homelander was probably flying into a rage and pacing wildly around Vought Tower.
Vought Tower.
The luxurious, expensively carpeted hallway outside the top-floor conference room.
Chewing a freshly unwrapped piece of mint gum, Chen Mo strolled down the hallway with his hands tucked casually into his pockets.
He had just rounded a corner decorated with an art sculpture when he ran straight into Ashley, the public relations director, who was as frantic as an ant on a hot pan.
Ashley's carefully styled curls, which she normally spent two hours tending to every day, now looked like a chicken coop ransacked by wild dogs.
She gripped two hot satellite phones tightly in her hands, their screens flashing a glaring red in turn.
When she saw Chen Mo appear in his blue-and-black suit, she lunged at him, her bloodshot eyes red as if she had rabies.
"A-Train! Where the hell have you been? Why couldn't I get through to the station's internal line?!!!"
Chen Mo stopped and spread his hands innocently, then pursed his lips and blew a big pink bubble.
Pop.
The sticky bubble burst around his mouth.
"Lady, the signal tower at that godforsaken radar station rusted and broke down ages ago. Did you expect me to send you reports from afar with my brain waves?"
Chen Mo curled the remains of the gum back into his mouth with his tongue, his voice full of gleeful mockery.
"Besides, the higher-ups ordered me to go to the coast and provide that completely useless ground tactical support. If I wasn't supposed to stand there in the cold wind looking at the sea, should I have stripped off and gone in to catch you a couple of sharks for dinner?"
Ashley had no time to take offense at his sarcastic nonsense. She stamped her feet anxiously.
"Cut the wisecracks! Something huge has happened! Come on!"