Chapter 82: Poor Butcher

Staring at the completely broken Becca, the lingering sliver of hope in Butcher’s eyes vanished. As it turned out, throughout these eight years, he was the only one who had remained frozen in place.

But... this was Becca’s decision. He respected her choice. Butcher’s gaze instantly hardened, turning lethal and resolute.

Without a shred of hesitation, he stepped forward, firmly shielding Becca and offering his own chest to Homelander’s Heat Vision, which threatened to erupt at any second. Butcher didn’t utter a word, but his actions provided the answer. Since you can’t choose, I’ll choose for you.

Looking at the mortal standing defiantly in front of him, the crimson glow in Homelander’s eyes flickered slightly.

"Wow..." Homelander applauded, staring at Butcher as if admiring a rare treasure. "It seems this great husband of yours has made the decision for you. William Butcher, I’m genuinely finding myself respecting you more and more. Giving up your life so willingly for my child, and for the mother of my child? Truly touching..."

Homelander stepped up to Butcher until their noses were practically touching. In a low murmur meant only for the two of them, he whispered, "But killing you so quickly would be far too easy on you. And far too boring."

"No! Don’t kill him! Don’t kill my husband!"

Behind them, whether out of a desperate desire to have it both ways or pure guilt, Becca scrambled forward on all fours, reaching out to grab Homelander’s cape. Homelander quickly stepped back, refusing to let her hands brush against the fabric. His cape was strictly reserved for his own touch, his father’s, and his son’s.

"I beg you, if you spare him, I’ll do anything for you! Anything!!!"

At those words, Homelander raised an eyebrow, the corners of his mouth carving into a sinister arc. "Anything?" Naturally, Homelander wasn’t thinking of some depraved, taboo scenario; given his current mindset, his head was entirely preoccupied with family, not things of that nature.

Suddenly, a massive rush of air shattered the quiet, a violent gust of wind instantly whipping up blades of grass from the ground. Butcher’s vision blurred as a powerful backdraft forced him back two steps. By the time he stabilized himself, Becca, who had been collapsed on the lawn, had vanished into thin air along with Homelander.

He was left entirely alone, as if abandoned by the entire world.

"Becca!!!" Butcher roared like a madman, but received no response.

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Thousands of meters up in the sky, Homelander held Becca by the collar, dangling her over an absolute abyss. The moment he let go, she would be smashed to pieces. Yet Becca didn’t beg for mercy; she merely stared dead at him.

"You just said you’d do anything, right?" Homelander’s voice cut clearly through the roaring wind. "Excellent. I can be merciful enough to spare your husband. But in exchange, from this day forward, you will play only one role: Ryan’s perfect mother."

Leaning close to Becca’s ear, Homelander continued, "I will allow you to keep raising Ryan. But if you ever dare to run away with him, or try to corrupt his mind... if I catch even a single bad word about me being spoken in front of him..." His grip around Becca’s neck tightened slightly. "...I will slice the meat off Butcher’s bones, piece by piece, right in front of your eyes. Understood?"

Deprived of oxygen, Becca’s face turned a violent crimson. Yet without a shred of hesitation, she nodded frantically, her tears swept away by the howling gale. She accepted. To buy Butcher’s life, she chose to forfeit her own. Even without Butcher by her side, at the very least, she still had Ryan.

---<>---

Scarcely three minutes passed before Homelander and Becca dropped back down in front of Butcher with a sharp thud. Her legs entirely weak, Becca collapsed onto the ground, gasping heavily for breath, not even daring to lift her head to look Butcher in the eye.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Truly touching." Adjusting his cuffs, Homelander stepped up to Butcher, eyeing him with extreme pity. "What a tragedy, William. You crossed oceans and continents, driven by raw passion to hunt down your beloved. And the result? Your precious Becca betrayed you and cast you aside without a second thought, all to safeguard my son."

Wasting no more breath, Homelander snagged Butcher by the collar again. With a sharp whoosh, the two vaulted straight into the heavens, vanishing into the skyline instantly.

High up in the stratosphere, the crushing atmospheric pressure threatened to rupture Butcher’s internal organs. Homelander maintained a velocity engineered to torment Butcher without outright killing him. Flying him across oceans and continents, Homelander finally went into a steep dive, slamming Butcher heavily onto a desolate, barren expanse of earth like a piece of garbage.

Cough, cough... Butcher hacked up a violent mouthful of blood, feeling as though every bone in his body had shattered. This was a no-man’s-land within some remote, war-torn nation in Africa. Homelander touched down slowly before Butcher, hovering inches off the ground, not a single speck of dust clinging to the soles of his boots.

"Beautiful scenery, isn’t it? Perfect for you to sit here and contemplate your life choices. Oh, right, I almost forgot to mention the little agreement your wife and I just reached. She swore to be a perfect mother to my son forever, and vowed never to lay eyes on you again, all to buy your miserable life. Listen to that, how noble!" Homelander chuckled.

"Butcher, you’re pathetic. Your eight years of vengeance, your eight years of searching—in the end, it only proved one thing: in your wife’s heart, my son is ten thousand times more important than you, her husband! Your entire life is nothing but a colossal joke!"

Butcher was consumed with fury, but there was nothing he could do, because Homelander was speaking the absolute truth. Becca had chosen Ryan over him.

"That’s the look! God, I love it!" Homelander smiled, his tone dripping with sincerity. "Though, William, I genuinely hope you manage to claw your way out of this desert alive. Keep picking fights with me just to win back that unfaithful wife of yours. After all, if you die this easily, it’s going to be far too boring."

Armed with a father, a son, and a respectable adversary, Homelander felt like his life was finally looking up. Before long, he launched skyward, converting into a red-and-blue meteor that vanished into the horizon. He left Butcher entirely alone, crouching in the dirt to re-examine his life.

---<>---

Meanwhile, ten thousand miles away inside Vought’s secret community, Becca had returned to Ryan’s bedroom.

Squeezing Ryan tightly in her arms, she bit her lip hard, swallowing every ounce of grief, terror, and soul-crushing guilt toward her husband. She knew she had to keep her emotions completely in check.

Because starting today, she was no longer William Butcher’s wife. She was simply a mother who had surrendered everything to protect her loved ones from harm, living solely for her son.

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