Homelander cursed and ran away. Jordan was in hot pursuit.
The two maneuvered in the air for nearly half an hour, passing several cities below.
When Homelander was once again restrained by the chokehold, he suddenly grinned menacingly and struck with lightning speed. His fingers like knives aimed straight for Jordan's eyes.
Homelander's sudden attack was blocked by Jordan's force field shield immediately. He looked up and felt a terrifying force that almost broke through the force field coming from his fingers. A cold glint flashed in his eyes, then golden light surged in them.
A dazzling golden beam of light blasted into Homelander's eyes at close range. A loud scream echoed through the sky.
A second blazing sun appeared in the sky. When its light faded, Homelander's eyes had become two bloody, charred holes, looking utterly miserable.
"You damn thing... Awoooooo!"
The excruciating pain of losing his eyes allowed Homelander to break free of Jordan's control once again. But a deliberate knee strike between his legs completely shattered his counterattack.
No man can withstand the pain of losing everything. If someone is unharmed, it must be because the force wasn't strong enough.
A visible shockwave rippled outward from his lower body. Homelander's vision went black—even though he'd already gone blind before—he trembled and curled up in pain, his curses turning into gnashing groans.
In this state, it was clearly impossible to fly. Homelander fell straight down like a meteorite.
Although Vought Corporation's idol-making project was very successful, Homelander was not above all others.
Ultimately, he was not a true god.
When faced with even greater power, he was still just a mortal who felt pain and bled.
"Let's go. It's time to end."
Jordan chased after the falling Homelander, his tone indifferent.
Upon hearing this, Homelander's humming subsided. Suddenly, following the sound, he charged toward Jordan.
Even now, he didn't want things to end so tragically.
Seeing that Homelander was still struggling, Jordan thought for a moment that it would be too difficult to physically control this bull, so he decided to try a new method.
"Kakuan Entering Society with Bliss-Bringing Hands!"
A massive amount of chakra surged into Jordan's right hand. Countless complex sealing techniques converged into a square "seat" character, condensing in his palm, then descended through the air toward Homelander's head.
As it turned out, Homelander couldn't withstand the sealing technique that even the Nine-Tails couldn't.
Homelander's forward momentum suddenly froze, as if his energy had been drained. His head tilted to the side, and he continued to fall to the ground.
Jordan's figure left a black trail as he grabbed Homelander's left foot mid-air. A series of airbursts rang out as he carried Homelander toward New York.
New York
"No, you can't—"
Amidst the pitiful pleas for mercy, a black afterimage flashed past at high speed. The head of the community hero wearing eagle wings suddenly exploded. The headless corpse knelt forward and fell to the ground with a thud.
The whistling sound stopped. Butcher, dressed in a black coat, appeared behind the corpse, kicking up a cloud of dust.
The phone rang. Butcher grabbed the other man's torn hero suit and wiped the blood off his gloves.
He then pulled a hamburger from his shirt pocket, violently tore open the wrapper, and took a big bite.
"Hello... who is this?"
Butcher paused for a second while chewing. Then his jaws snapped shut, grinding the food in his mouth into crumbs and swallowing it in a second.
"...Are you the boss?"
"Of course, I'm working... Recruiting is still ongoing, and you know how hard it is to find reliable team members these days."
At the top of Vought Tower, Jordan glanced at the pile of Homelander at his feet and interrupted Butcher, who was spouting nonsense.
"Listen, you have five minutes to get here."
"That's right, the person you're looking for is right now at the top of Vought Tower."
There was a full five-second silence on the phone from Butcher, before he seemed to take a big bite out of something and mumbled, "Coming right away!"
A sonic boom echoed through the alleyways. A black figure moved with lightning speed, rushing toward the heart of Manhattan in the east.
Jordan stood atop Vought Tower. He'd destroyed all the building's surveillance cameras. The walls and the door leading to the rooftop had been reinforced and locked by a force field.
Even if someone discovered what was happening on the rooftop, they wouldn't come up.
A black blur leaped across the rooftops at high speed, then suddenly jumped, creating spiderweb-like cracks in a building, and soared high onto Vought Tower.
Then, defying the laws of gravity, it continued its mad dash upward along the nearly 90° glass curtain wall.
Butcher made no attempt to conceal his actions. Many employees of Vought Corporation noticed this outrageous scene.
Naturally, someone contacted the building's security.
Chris was ordered to lead the security team to the rooftop, but they crashed into an invisible wall in the last stairwell and fell flat on their faces.
Jordan ignored the commotion inside the building and looked at Butcher, who was standing on the edge of the rooftop, panting heavily.
"Boss, you still look so healthy."
Butcher gave Jordan a forced, unpleasant smile and complimented him. His gaze then locked onto the large white-bellied man lying at Jordan's feet.
"This is... Homelander?"
Jordan followed his gaze and looked down. The man at his feet was lying face down on the ground, wearing only a pair of blue shorts with floral trim. His once handsome blond hair was burned into jagged, unruly pieces of straw. If you didn't look closely, you wouldn't recognize him as Homelander, the man who'd captivated countless fans with his smile.
"You can call him John, but he really is Homelander."
Jordan used his toes to turn the unconscious Homelander over. Even though he looked completely different now, Butcher's eyes instantly turned red.
"It's him! It's him!"
"Even if you turn to ashes, Dad will still recognize this ugly, disgusting face!"
Butcher's fists were clenched so tightly they cracked. He looked as if he couldn't wait to rush forward and tear his long-cherished enemy to pieces, grind his bones to dust.
"Wait... he's not dead, is he?"
Meeting Butcher's questioning gaze, Jordan really wanted to step forward and slap that bastard twice.
But it wasn't his fault. Given Homelander's miserable state, it was hard to believe he was still alive.
"Maybe if you give him a loving CPR, he'll come back to life."
Leaving the old rogue with a middle finger, Jordan walked toward the edge of the rooftop.
He patted Butcher on the shoulder as he passed by.
"I'm leaving this to you. If you still haven't got it sorted by the time I come back up, I'll take matters into my own hands. Is that alright?"
"Don't worry, boss."
Butcher's bearded face broke into a benevolent smile.
"Before you get up here, I promise I'll shove the shit out of his head!"
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