Starting the next day, Vought International's stock plummeted the moment the market opened.
The shocking numbers seemed to declare the crumbling of a business empire.
"This is a forgery! It's malicious slander from the East!"
"The superhero Homelander is currently overseas hunting down a dangerous terrorist organization. The Homelander in this airplane incident was an imposter!"
"He has been heartbroken over failing to save the hostages. He needs our support, not our doubts!"
All media channels under Vought International began full-scale crisis public relations.
Ashley's PR team worked around the clock, packaging their well-rehearsed excuses into various versions and frantically feeding them to the public.
Despairingly, this rhetoric actually worked.
Brainwashed by decades of idol worship, a significant portion of the public still chose to believe the "truth" they wanted to believe.
However, once the seeds of doubt were planted, they grew wildly.
A global wave of boycotts and class-action lawsuits against Vought International crashed against the precarious tower like a relentless tsunami.
Vought Tower, top floor.
The atmosphere in Madelyn's office was as stagnant as a grave.
*Ding—*
The elevator doors slid open silently.
Homelander stepped out. His Stars and Stripes suit was stained with the salty stench of seawater and some dried, dark red substance.
He exuded an aura of pure, undisguised brutality and madness.
All the employees along the way froze in place, not even daring to breathe.
"John!" Madelyn finally mustered the courage to approach him. "We have to talk! The current situation..."
Homelander didn't look at her, walking straight past.
His goal was clear as he headed directly for the secret elevator leading underground.
He pressed his finger heavily onto the "B1" button.
The B1 laboratory was cold and oppressive.
The researchers in white coats lost all color in their faces upon seeing Homelander return.
Homelander's scarlet gaze swept over their terrified faces.
"Subject Zero," he spoke, his voice as raspy as sandpaper. "That natural awakener. Take me to him."
A researcher who looked like a supervisor went weak in the knees, nearly collapsing to the floor.
With a trembling hand, he pointed toward a special isolation ward at the deepest part of the lab.
Through the thick bulletproof glass, Homelander saw a gaunt figure bound to a metal bed by countless tubes and shackles.
The figure's face was covered in horrifying, scarlet cross-shaped blisters.
"We extracted and replicated a special viral protein from Subject Zero's blood."
"It fuses perfectly with Compound V. In theory, it could bring... bring unknown enhancement effects."
The researcher's voice stuttered with fear.
"But the side effects... the side effects are completely unknown! We've never tested it on a living Supe!"
"Inject me."
Homelander turned his head and calmly spat out the command.
Beneath that calmness lay a madness that froze everyone to their very souls.
The researcher could no longer hold himself up and slumped to the ground.
Homelander ignored him, walking straight to a nearby examination table and lying down on it.
"Do it," he ordered.
Two researchers tremblingly picked up a specially made syringe, its tip fitted with a high-strength alloy drill.
*Screech—!!!*
The ear-piercing friction sounded exceptionally sharp in the dead silent laboratory.
The drill spun frantically against the skin of Homelander's arm, kicking up a dazzling shower of sparks.
It took a full ten minutes and several replacements of their strongest drills.
Accompanied by a crisp, faint click, that indestructible skin was finally pierced.
The deep red enhancement serum, fused with the Crossed virus, was slowly injected into Homelander's body.
*Boom—!*
In that instant.
Homelander felt as if a nuclear bomb had been dropped into his body.
An indescribable, terrifying power—a mixture of extreme agony and supreme euphoria—exploded within every cell of his being!
The patch of blood-red cross blisters on his forehead seemed to ignite.
Countless blood-red threads spread outward from the blisters at a visible rate.
In the blink of an eye, they intertwined across his face to form a complete, hideous bloody cross!
"Ahhhhhh————!!!"
An inhuman, heart-wrenching roar erupted from the depths of his throat.
*Thump! Thump! Thump!* The sound of a violent heartbeat echoed.
He felt an unprecedented surge of power coursing madly through his veins.
But at the same time, the sadistic urge in his mind to tear everything apart and destroy everything was magnified a thousandfold!
His scarlet gaze slowly swept over all the white-coated researchers present.
These pale faces, these cold instruments, this pungent smell of disinfectant...
They perfectly overlapped with the dark, hopeless memories of his childhood, imprisoned in a laboratory.
New grudges and old hatreds.
Catalyzed by the virus, they transformed into a carnival of slaughter.
*Sizzle—!*
The blazing red heat vision swept across the laboratory like the scythe of the Grim Reaper.
Fists howled through the air, accompanied by deafening sonic booms.
In just a dozen seconds, the entire underground laboratory was reduced to a gory living hell.
Homelander brutally murdered every "white coat" he could see in the most cruel ways that brought him the greatest pleasure.
Finally, in the corner of the lab, only an elderly female scientist remained, collapsed on the floor and shivering.
Homelander was very familiar with this person. She was the only one who had shown him fake "warmth" during his childhood.
Homelander didn't kill her immediately.
He slowly walked up to her and crouched down.
He dragged her in front of him like a dead dog, forcing her to look at the hideous bloody cross on his face.
"Why?"
"I just wanted to be loved... I just wanted all of you to love me..."
He began to morbidly and incoherently recount his "grievances" and "pain."
His voice sounded like a helpless child one moment, and a demon from hell the next.
Afterward, he began to repeatedly torture the already broken old woman, both mentally and physically, venting his utterly twisted desires.
He didn't stop until the old woman completely lost her human shape.
Even after doing all this, Homelander's tyrannical heart did not feel the slightest bit of satisfaction.
He returned to the top-floor office.
Madelyn was curled up on the sofa in absolute terror.
Homelander walked over without a word and pinned her down, just as he had done countless times before.
Then he suckled greedily, like an insatiable beast.
But at the moment his desire reached its peak.
The scarlet light in his eyes suddenly flashed.
*Sizzle.*
A soft sound.
Madelyn's chest was completely burned through from the inside by his heat vision, turning into a pile of charred ash.
Looking at the familiar, still-twitching corpse before him.
The madness in Homelander's eyes seemed to recede slightly.
A brief, cold trace of "reason" surfaced on his twisted face.
He realized that he still needed to deal with that bullshit Huaxia Super Seven, and right now, he needed helpers.
He needed a team that was completely loyal to him, just as fallen and insane as he was.
He summoned A-Train, The Deep, and the other "heroes" still remaining in Vought Tower.
Queen Maeve had sensed the danger and was already nowhere to be found.
When A-Train, The Deep, Translucent, and the others saw Madelyn's corpse and the terrifying bloody cross on Homelander's face, they were scared out of their wits.
Homelander didn't give them a choice.
He forced them to also inject the enhancement serum fused with the Crossed virus.
Amidst agonizing screams, the powers of A-Train, The Deep, and the others were enhanced.
But the reason in their eyes was similarly replaced by bloodlust and volatile madness.
Homelander stood before the floor-to-ceiling window he had shattered himself, the cold wind blowing against him.
He felt the evil and powerful force within his body growing continuously alongside his desires.
He looked at the distant giant screen, watching the globally revered figures of the Huaxia Justice League.
A deranged plan, one capable of dragging the entire world into the abyss, slowly took shape in his mind.
He was going to use a "game" to take back everything that rightfully belonged to him.