That mocking "Yay" was enough to push Homelander over the edge.

He snapped, and his eyes turned scarlet in an instant.

Seeing Homelander huffing with rage, Stormfront was about to try to calm him down.

But just then...

"BOOM!"

A shield gleaming with cold metal light smashed through the RV’s heavy bulletproof door from outside like a cannonball fired from a barrel.

The violent impact sent broken metal and splintered wood flying through the cabin.

The shield tore through the air before finally slamming into the metal wall between Homelander and Stormfront with a heavy thud.

...

Stormfront’s entire RV shook violently.

Inside the cabin, everything went dead silent.

Stormfront froze.

Homelander, whose eyes had just been glowing with terrifying red light, took several steps back the moment he recognized that shield.

...

A steady, powerful set of footsteps came from beyond the shattered door.

"Looks like while I was away for half a month, the members of The Seven have been getting along just fine."

A low voice rang out.

Then Benjamin slowly stepped into the cabin, dressed in a dark green Supersuit, his whole body carrying the hard, blood-and-gunpowder reek of someone who had just returned from the Syrian battlefield.

Behind him, Starlight followed quietly like an obedient personal attendant.

Benjamin glanced over the wrecked RV.

Inside, the silence was deathly.

The golden eagle shield embedded in the metal wall was still faintly trembling, letting out a chilling hum.

Benjamin walked forward with steady steps and slowly came to a stop between the two of them.

He ignored Homelander, who was looking at him with an almost pleading, wounded expression. Instead, he slowly turned his head and fixed his deep eyes on Stormfront.

Stormfront swallowed and was just about to force out one of her usual harmless smiles to explain herself.

But in the next moment, Benjamin’s thick right arm swung up hard, and a piercing sonic boom exploded through the air.

"BAM!!!"

A heavy impact rang out.

Benjamin’s fist slammed squarely into Stormfront’s left cheek.

"Pfft!"

Stormfront was sent flying as if she had been hit head-on by a heavy truck at full speed, spraying a mouthful of blood into the air.

Her body shot backward, smashed through the RV’s solid wood interior with a boom, shattered the liquor cabinet behind her, and finally lodged deep in a pile of broken glass and wreckage.

"Don’t think just because I’m not in New York, I don’t know what kind of crap you’ve been pulling behind my back..."

Benjamin slowly drew back his fist and looked down at Stormfront as she writhed in pain in the wreckage.

Without mercy, he tore away her mask, his voice ice-cold.

"Clara."

Just moments ago, Ashley, the current CEO of Vought International, had already reported everything that had happened inside the company to him in exhaustive detail.

Ashley had not only noticed Homelander’s recent extreme instability and violent mood swings, but had also told Benjamin all about Stormfront’s actions, the ones that looked on the surface like simple "power struggles."

After all, Stormfront had never been this eager before. There had to be a reason.

As a transmigrator with an omniscient perspective, and with Ashley’s report on top of that, how could Benjamin possibly fail to guess Stormfront’s real goal?

This female Nazi, who had lived for nearly a century, had never once given up on her little fantasy of "Supes ruling the world."

When Benjamin was at the company, Stormfront behaved like an obedient kitten. Every day, aside from warming his bed, she played harmless in front of the cameras.

But the second Benjamin left for Syria, she started stirring shit up.

On the surface, she was stealing the spotlight.

In reality, she was deliberately provoking Homelander.

She was trying to slip in when Homelander was at his weakest and angriest.

Then she would use that extremist ideology of hers to corrupt him.

"Listen, Clara. This is the last time I’m warning you."

Benjamin grabbed Stormfront by her messy hair and said, "Those stinking Nazi ideas rattling around in your head? I will never agree with them. And my son, no matter how stupid or brainless he is, would never agree with them either."

Even in the original timeline, Homelander had sneered at Stormfront’s racist ideology about ruling the world.

Later, when Stormfront was lying in bed and realized Homelander would not help her unite the world under Supes, she chose to kill herself.

...

"If I catch you pulling this kind of crap behind my back again," Benjamin said, pressing his thumb hard against Stormfront’s carotid artery, his voice freezing cold, "I’m not just kicking you out of The Seven. You fucking understand me?!"

Feeling the terrifying pressure at her neck, Stormfront’s badly swollen face twisted into an extremely complicated expression.

"I... I was wrong, Ben..."

Stormfront weakly held her face, her voice trembling.

That punch was the hardest she had taken in decades.

She felt as if her skull was about to crack open, and her brain was still buzzing.

Benjamin really did seem like he had wanted to kill her.

She kept feeling that Benjamin had changed.

Decades ago, before Vought International sold him out to the Soviets, Soldier Boy had been domineering and crude, but he definitely had not been this bad-tempered. Back then, even when she talked about those Nazi theories, Benjamin would at most snap at her impatiently or refuse to agree. He never would have reacted like this.

And yet that change brought Stormfront a twisted sense of submission through the pain.

So what if he had a temper?

He was the strongest, most perfect man in the world!

In Stormfront’s extreme, strength-worshiping mind, only violence like Benjamin’s, violence that could absolutely crush everything, was worthy of the word "Leader."

"I swear, Ben... I’ll never do it again..."

Stormfront lowered her head like a beaten bitch and meekly swallowed down all her ambition.

...

Meanwhile, Homelander stood not far away, watching it all.

The anger on his face vanished. The corners of his mouth lifted higher and higher until he could no longer hold back a smug smile.

He was thrilled.

He was so happy he felt like he could fly.

See that?!

Father hit her!

Father hurt that arrogant Stormfront, the one who kept stealing his spotlight, for his sake!

In Father’s eyes, he was more important than Stormfront!

Homelander felt utterly satisfied.

Even the suffocating frustration from Maeve’s betrayal vanished in that instant.

"Fantastic..."

Homelander took a deep breath and straightened his messy cape.

He put away all his hostility and put on the expression of a good son who had just been wronged and finally found someone to back him up.

He could not wait to take two steps forward, looking at Benjamin as he finished dealing with Stormfront and turned around.

"I knew you’d do it for me..." 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

But before he could finish speaking...

"Whoosh!"

Benjamin had just turned around, and he did not waste a single word.

The same right fist that had just sent Stormfront flying came swinging straight at Homelander.

The smile on Homelander’s face froze.

"BAM!!!"

In that instant, Homelander did not even have time to understand what was happening.

He only felt as if his left cheek had been hit dead-on by an armor-piercing missile.

No, that was too light.

Homelander slammed hard into the RV’s tough alloy floor.

Both Stormfront and Homelander had been beaten by Benjamin.

Starlight stood outside the door, so frightened that she covered her mouth and sucked in a sharp breath.

Inside the cabin, everything fell into dead silence again.

Only Stormfront’s labored breathing could be heard from the wreckage.

The punch had been powerful, but Homelander clearly had not been seriously hurt. Even so, he did not get up right away.

He stared wide-eyed with those deep blue eyes, his gaze filled with confusion and utter disbelief.

What the hell was going on?

Why would Soldier Boy hit me?

What did I do wrong?!

Homelander clutched his badly swollen left cheek, looking like a child who had been smacked out of nowhere and left stunned.

He slowly stood up, and the wounded look returned to his eyes as he gazed at Soldier Boy.