Chapter 88: Punching Both of Them

That mocking "yay" became the final straw that broke the camel’s back. Homelander completely snapped, his eyes instantly turning a violent scarlet. Seeing Homelander fuming, Stormfront originally intended to appease him.

Yet at that exact moment, boom! A shield gleaming with a cold metallic luster smashed straight through the trailer’s heavy, bulletproof door from the outside like a cannonball! The violent impact sent shattered metal and wooden shards flying everywhere inside the cabin. Hurtling through the air, the shield finally embedded itself with a heavy thud into the metallic wall right between Homelander and Stormfront. The entirety of Stormfront’s trailer shook violently.

Inside the cabin, a dead silence immediately fell. Stormfront froze. And Homelander, whose eyes had just been burning with terrifying red light, instinctively backed away several paces the exact second he recognized the shield.

A steady, powerful set of footsteps echoed from outside the shattered door.

"Seems like the members of The Seven have been getting along swimmingly during the half month I’ve been away from home," a deep voice drawled.

Right after, Benjamin, clad in his dark green suit and radiating the grim, smoke-filled aura of someone fresh off a Syrian battlefield, slowly stepped into the cabin. Trailing behind him like an obedient, close-hand maid was Starlight, quietly following.

Benjamin swept a glance over the wrecked trailer. The cabin remained in a dead silence. The golden eagle shield embedded in the metallic wall was still vibrating slightly, emitting a chilling hum. Taking measured steps, Benjamin walked slowly right between the two. He paid no heed to Homelander, who was staring at him with a gaze that was almost placating and slighted; instead, he slowly turned his head, locking his deep eyes onto Stormfront.

Stormfront swallowed hard, preparing to squeeze out her usual harmless smile to explain herself.

But in the next split second, Benjamin’s thick right arm swung violently, a piercing sonic boom abruptly tearing through the air!

Crack! With a dull thud, Benjamin’s fist connected squarely with the left side of Stormfront’s face.

Pfft! Stormfront looked as though she had been struck head-on by a heavy truck moving at full speed, spraying a massive mouthful of blood mid-air. Her body launched flying backward, smashing through the solid wood interior with a loud crash, shattering the liquor cabinet behind her, and ultimately embedding herself deep within a pile of broken glass and debris.

"Don’t think that just because I’m not in New York, I don’t know what kind of underhanded little stunts you’re pulling behind my back..." Benjamin slowly pulled back his fist, looking down from his imposing height at Stormfront, who was convulsing in agony amidst the ruins. Ruthlessly ripping away her facade, his tone went freezing cold. "Clara."

Just moments before, Vought’s current CEO, Ashley, had already reported everything that had transpired within the company to him down to the absolute last detail. Ashley had not only acutely picked up on Homelander’s extremely unstable, explosive mood swings lately, but she had also exposed Stormfront’s seemingly power-hungry maneuvers to Benjamin. After all, Stormfront had never been this active before, so there was definitively a hidden motive.

As a transmigrator armed with a god’s-eye perspective, coupled with Ashley’s intelligence brief, how could Benjamin possibly miss Stormfront’s true objective? This female Nazi, who had been alive for nearly a century, had never once abandoned her pipe dream of Supes ruling the world!

When Benjamin was at the company, Stormfront was as docile as a well-behaved kitten; aside from warming his bed every day, she did nothing but act completely harmless in front of the cameras. But the exact second Benjamin left for Syria, she immediately started making waves. On the surface, she was just stealing the spotlight. In reality, she was intentionally provoking Homelander. She was trying to capitalize on Homelander’s vulnerability and rage to slide into his blind spot, intending to manipulate him with her brand of extremist ideology.

"Listen, Clara, I’m only warning you one last time," Benjamin said, snapping his hand down to bunch up Stormfront’s disheveled hair. "Those foul Nazi ideas packed inside your brain are things I will never endorse. And my son—no matter how stupid or brainless he is—will absolutely never endorse them either."

Mind you, even in the original timeline, Homelander had thoroughly sneered at Stormfront’s racist ideology of global domination. Later on, when a bedridden Stormfront realized Homelander wouldn’t help her let Supes unify the world, she chose to commit suicide.

"If I catch you pulling these kinds of underhanded stunts behind my back again," Benjamin murmured, his tone deathly cold as his thumb dug viciously into Stormfront’s carotid artery, "I’m not just going to fucking kick you out of The Seven. Do you hear me?!"

Feeling the horrific pressure clamping onto her neck, an exceptionally complicated look surfaced on Stormfront’s heavily swollen face.

"I... I was wrong, Ben..." Stormfront whimpered, clutching her face as her voice trembled.

This punch was the heaviest blow she had sustained in decades. She felt as though her skull were about to split open, and her brain was still ringing violently even now. It felt as though Benjamin had genuinely harbored lethal intent!

She felt that Benjamin had fundamentally changed. Decades ago, before Vought International sold him out to the Soviets, the Soldier Boy of that era might have been overbearing and crude, but he never possessed a volatile temper like this. Back then, even if Benjamin heard her ramble about Nazi theories, he would at most bark a few impatient curses or dismiss it; he would absolutely never react like he did today.

Yet this shift triggered a warped sense of submission in Stormfront amidst her agony. So what if his temper was volatile? He was the most powerful, perfect man on the face of the earth! In Stormfront’s fanatically power-worshiping mindset, only absolute, crushing violence like Benjamin’s was worthy of the title "leader"!

"I swear, Ben... I’ll never do it again..." Stormfront hung her head, like a broken bitch beaten into submission, meekly swallowing every ounce of her ambition.

---<>---

Right now, Homelander, standing a short distance away, was staring dead at the scene. The rage vanished from his face, the corners of his mouth stretching wider and wider until he couldn’t resist breaking into a smug, triumphant grin.

He was ecstatic! He felt like he could literally fly out of his skin with joy!

Did you see that?! Father hit her! Father brutally injured that insufferable Stormfront—who was stealing my spotlight everywhere—all for my sake! In Father’s eyes, I’m more important than Stormfront!

Homelander felt an overwhelming wave of gratification. Even the suffocating humiliation brought on by Maeve’s betrayal evaporated completely in this exact moment.

"Spectacular..." Homelander took a deep breath, straightening his disheveled cape.

Discarding every shred of his volatile malice, he swapped his expression to look like a good boy who had just been wronged but had finally reunited with his protector. He eagerly stepped forward two paces, looking at Benjamin, who had just finished disciplining Stormfront and was turning around.

"I knew it, I knew you’d handle her for my sake—"

However, before he could finish his sentence, whoosh!

Having just spun around, Benjamin didn’t waste a single breath. That right fist, which had just sent Stormfront airborne, came hurtling straight for Homelander. The smile on Homelander’s face froze dead in that exact microsecond.

BOOM!!!

In that split second, Homelander didn’t even process what had happened. He merely felt as if his left cheek had been directly impacted by an armor-piercing missile! No, an impact far greater than that. Homelander crashed heavily onto the hard alloy floor of the trailer! Stormfront and Homelander—both of them had been laid out by Benjamin.

Starlight stood outside the door, gasping as she clapped her hands over her mouth in sheer fright. The cabin descended once more into a dead silence, broken only by the sound of Stormfront drawing labored breaths amidst the wreckage.

Despite the extreme force behind the blow, Homelander obviously hadn’t sustained any real physical damage, yet he didn’t pick himself up immediately. He widened his deep blue eyes, his gaze overflowing with pure bewilderment and utter incomprehension.

What the hell is going on? Why did Soldier Boy hit me? What the fuck did I do wrong?!

Clutching his heavily swollen left cheek, Homelander looked exactly like a child who had been abruptly struck senseless. As he slowly stood up, a look of profound slighted grievance surfaced in his eyes once more as he looked at Soldier Boy.

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