The battle was still ongoing at the scene, but for Fang Yuan, it was already over.
However, since he was putting on a show, he had to go all the way, especially since he was playing two roles at once.
He didn't have time to check his rewards for now. Instead, he pretended to be pushed into the distance by Homelander, and the strength in his hands grew weaker and weaker, as if he were truly being severely affected by Fang Yuan.
Seeing this, Homelander immediately fired his heat vision, intending to take the opportunity to heavily wound the Black King. Fang Yuan strongly condemned this behavior of not following the script.
Consequently, the Black King's strength suddenly surged, frightening Homelander into quickly stopping his actions.
By this time, they had already moved out of the range of the live broadcast cameras. Seeing that it was about time, Fang Yuan immediately said to Homelander, "John, kill him quickly!"
Homelander hurried to activate his 24K big eyes again, but after the Black King sensed his own strength dropping significantly, he actually gave up on self-destructing and used all his power to break free from Homelander's restraint.
Caught off guard, Homelander actually let the Black King break free. Then, the Black King erupted with waves of red Impact, repelling both Homelander and Fang Yuan. A laser beam flew straight towards Homelander's eyes, forcing him to shift his gaze away from the Black King.
By the time Homelander regained his senses, the Black King had already escaped.
"Damn it!"
Homelander was extremely frustrated and quickly apologized to Fang Yuan.
"Brother... I'm sorry..."
Homelander couldn't forgive himself for missing such a perfect opportunity to kill the Black King.
Although Fang Yuan also had a look of helplessness on his face, what else could he do? Of course, he had to comfort this foolish little brother.
"It's okay, John." He patted Homelander's head. "The Black King escaped, but in that situation just now, he must be seriously injured. He shouldn't show up again for a while."
Homelander thought about it and realized it made sense. The Black King had first attempted to self-destruct and was then attacked by their joint forces; his body must have suffered a massive burden.
Even though Homelander had no evidence, he believed it without hesitation because his brother said so.
Thinking this way, Homelander became happy again because it meant he had essentially fulfilled his deal with Stan.
By the time they returned to Vought Headquarters, the battle at the Seven Tower had also ended. Before escaping, the Black King hadn't forgotten to issue a retreat order to The Boys. All surviving members were looking for opportunities to flee.
Seeing this, Vought's B-list heroes almost thought they were capable again and rushed out to show off in front of the live cameras. However, after Cindy crushed two of them in a row, they immediately found various excuses for why they couldn't actually stop The Boys.
These excuses ranged from their outfits being too restrictive, their shoes not fitting right, or fear of being fired by Homelander because they stepped into the company with their left foot first this morning.
The smarter ones ran to "rescue their comrades." A-Train, who had just stopped to rest due to overusing his superpower, was supported by four B-list heroes.
In front of the live cameras, A-Train endured for a long while without swearing, but in his heart, he had already decided to seek a heart donation from Blue Hawk as soon as this was over.
On The Boys' side, because Cindy took it upon herself to handle the rearguard action, the few surviving members successfully escaped.
Starlight and Queen Maeve still wanted to stop them, but with a wave of Cindy's hand, a pile of metal shards flew toward the reporters outside, forcing Starlight and Queen Maeve to abandon the pursuit.
"So cool!"
The audience watching the live broadcast couldn't help but exclaim in surprise.
The two people who left the deepest impression during this attack were Homelander and Cindy.
Homelander was because he met the public's expectations of a Superhero, while Cindy was simply because of her heroic and valiant bearing.
Cold, powerful, and bloody.
Too many people in the United States had a taste for her style.
This was also intentional on Fang Yuan's part. Fame wasn't very useful for the Black King, and a disguise couldn't trigger rewards for Fang Yuan, but it was different for Cindy. It would make it easier for Fang Yuan to obtain her superpower later.
Seeing the battle end and Homelander return to the scene, reporters immediately swarmed him and began interviewing Homelander.
They were incredibly eager to know where the Black King had gone. Why was he constantly targeting Vought?
As for the wounded at the scene, they were cast aside by the reporters. Only the reporters who couldn't squeeze into the front started filming the injured and reporting on the situation on the ground.
Fang Yuan decisively slipped away, leaving all the spotlight to Homelander.
Dealing with this kind of situation was second nature to Homelander. He entered his acting mode in a second, loudly denouncing the Black King for being insane and disregarding the lives of the people.
However, he didn't say a single thing of substance.
Of course, Homelander didn't forget the part where he praised himself.
Meanwhile, Fang Yuan began to claim the Level 4 rewards from Homelander.
"I wonder what kind of halo little John will produce?" He was quite curious.
[Level 4 Reward: Obtained Superstar Halo (B-rank), I Don't Eat Beef Halo (B-rank)]
"Eh?"
Fang Yuan was extremely surprised.
Homelander actually unlocked two halos!
This was the first time this had happened.
Although the names of these halos seemed a bit improper... Fang Yuan looked at the specific details of the rewards, starting with the [Superstar Halo].
[Superstar Halo (B-rank): An activation check is performed upon entering a new World. If the result is activation, the host can sign themselves in the current World to unlock employee rewards.]
"Ho, sign myself?"
Fang Yuan was immediately interested. He had long wanted to say that since only the fame of signed employees could unlock rewards, his own high fame was often wasted, such as in the X-Men World.
He didn't expect Homelander to give him such a surprise now.
"It wasn't in vain that I cared so much about Homelander's physical and mental health!" Fang Yuan thought triumphantly.
Then he looked at the second halo.
[I Don't Eat Beef Halo (B-rank): During combat, if the outside World perceives the host as having an evil inclination, one attribute can be temporarily increased by 1 level, with a cap of B-rank.]
"???"
Fang Yuan immediately sensed something was wrong. Another evil-aligned ability?
Following [Dark Affinity] and [Black Emperor Aura], now there was [I Don't Eat Beef]?
"I, Fang Yuan, am clearly a righteous person!" He complained in his heart.
Then he turned around and claimed the reward... protesting to the panel didn't stop him from taking the rewards he deserved; after all, he had worked hard to fool people into giving them to him.
After claiming the rewards, Fang Yuan prepared to temporarily conclude his actions in The Boys World.
He planned to take Vought's numerous experimental data to other Worlds to develop a suitable improved version of compound v before returning for experiments.
So in the past few days, the person Fang Yuan interacted with the most was Starlight. After all, he was leaving soon and had to say a proper goodbye.
It had to be said that Starlight, wearing her short Superhero uniform, was quite tempting.
It was just a pity for the light bulbs in Fang Yuan's room, which were replaced five or six times in three days.
And with three days left on the countdown, Kimiko's relationship with Fang Yuan also progressed rapidly, directly breaking through a layer... ahem.
After all, Kimiko had received too much care and help from Fang Yuan. Although her brother hadn't been found yet, Kimiko saw Vought's efforts and knew that if it weren't for Fang Yuan, she would never have been able to mobilize such a large force to find him.
So Kimiko had no way to repay him except by dedicating herself to him.
However, being Asian, Kimiko was always unwilling to accept being with Starlight at the same time... she was too greedy and insisted on having him all to herself every time.
On Homelander's side, his fame had skyrocketed because he repelled the Black King, so he became even more unscrupulous within Vought.
What he loved doing most now was waiting for school holidays to accompany his son, Ryan, everywhere, doing his best to make up for the fatherly love Ryan had missed.
Of course, at the same time, he was also consoling his own lack of fatherly love.
While accompanying Ryan, Homelander pushed aside everything, whether it was executive meetings or fan events, which inevitably affected some of Vought Corporation's interests.
But Stan let it all happen and had no intention of interfering.
Even if some shareholders expressed dissatisfaction, Stan would just help explain.
Because Stan Edgar recognized the situation: the Black King was only defeated, not killed. He still needed Homelander's help to deal with the Black King.
The more arrogantly Homelander acted in Vought, the more relieved Stan felt, because it at least meant Homelander was satisfied with the status quo, which was a sign of stability for Stan.
However, in this matter, the only victim might be Butcher.
Because when Homelander took Ryan out, it wasn't always just the two of them; sometimes Fang Yuan and Becca would go along too.
After all, Ryan was his nephew, so Fang Yuan naturally wouldn't ignore him.
When Becca came along, Butcher, as her husband, naturally couldn't rest easy. After all, Becca had a history. Although Becca repeatedly stated she wouldn't have anything more to do with Homelander, Butcher might have forgiven her, but he was definitely going to follow along.
But this made Butcher's position very awkward. Ryan's family of three was fine, and Uncle Fang was fine, but his presence was very out of place.
That wasn't the worst part; Butcher could overcome that. But they were with Homelander, the most popular Superhero, so the level of attention was high wherever they went.
So Butcher was inevitably photographed, and then inevitably seen by Frenchie and Mothers Milk while they were watching the news.
What? The three of us brothers agreed to take down Vought together, and you, Butcher, were the loudest, but then you turned around and went to the amusement park hand-in-hand with Homelander?
Faced with the questioning of Frenchie and Mothers Milk, Butcher couldn't face them and had to silently turn his back on his brothers... As for the Black King, because of the attack on Vought, the government finally declared the Black King and his subordinates an illegal organization, but they kept the MIB, as the MIB could still be useful to the government.
But this didn't affect the Black King's influence; instead, it made him even more sought after.
In just this one week, the Black King received secret recruitment offers from about a dozen radical organizations and financial groups around the World.
With great strength, one can get by anywhere.
Against this backdrop, the ten-day countdown finally ended. After Starlight fell into a deep sleep once again, Fang Yuan immediately awakened the panel.
"To the Marvel Universe!"
You will get 90 chapter ahead for this fanfiction.
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