American comic book: Absolute Spider-Man

Chapter 116 The Butcher Beats Homelander

"You, you stay away! Didn't you also inject Compound V? You're a superhuman too, you can't kill me, we're the same kind of people!"

“I’m not a superhuman,” Butcher said. “I’m just a man whose family you destroyed, a penniless avenger.”

He clenched his fist, his knuckles making a crisp sound, and walked toward the blond man huddled up by the railing.

When Homelander saw Butcher approaching, he began to kick the concrete in vain, trying to pull himself a little closer to the railing.

His back was already pressed against the cold iron bars; there was nowhere left to retreat.

"Billy Butcher," Peter's voice came from the edge of the rooftop, "former CIA Special Operations agent, Royal Marines combat instructor. Your opponent, John Vogelbaum, former leader of the 'Super Seven,' has no record of unarmed combat training and no close-quarters fighting experience."

Peter added, "Every fight he's ever had in his life relied on heat vision and superhuman strength, and now he has neither. Mr. Butcher, you can begin."

Butcher walked up to Homelander and looked down at the man who had once called himself God.

Homelander raised his head and uttered a string of broken, trembling syllables: "Please, William. I've let you go so many times, now it's your turn to let me go this time."

Butcher's left fist slammed into his right eye socket, and Homelander's head hit the iron railing with a dull metallic thud.

But this time he didn't collapse like before. He realized that the person in front of him wouldn't let him go just because he begged for mercy.

His fingers gripped the railing behind him so tightly that his knuckles turned white. He let out a hoarse roar and then lunged at Butcher.

This lunge was completely haphazard; it was the act of someone who had never learned how to fight with their fists, desperately using their entire body as a weapon to smash their opponent.

His right fist swung toward Butcher’s face, his arm outstretched too straight and his shoulder raised too high, exposing his entire right ribcage at an unprotected angle.

Butcher turned his head to avoid the punch, and at the same moment, his left hand gripped Homelander's wrist, while his right palm pressed against Homelander's elbow joint, gently pushing him away with the momentum of Homelander's lunge.

Homelander's entire right arm was locked in a reverse joint lock. He let out a sharp scream and was forced to turn around. His face was pressed against the iron bars, and his blond hair got stuck in the gaps of the rusted iron bars.

"You can't even fight," Butcher said in his ear, his voice hoarse and deep.

"Every fight you've ever been in your life has only required you to open your eyes and burn them with your heat gaze. You've never been punched, so you don't know where to protect yourself when you're being punched. You don't even know to put your thumb on the outside when you make a fist—otherwise you'll break your own thumb."

He released his father's arm and took a step back.

Homelander slid down from the railing, turned around, his eyes already brimming with tears, but he had not given up.

He lunged at him again, swinging his fists wildly and letting out meaningless roars.

Butcher parried his right fist with his forearm, lowered his body slightly, and landed a short, precise straight punch on Homelander's nose.

Blood gushed from his nostrils and splattered onto Butcher's shirt cuffs.

Homelander's head snapped back, his entire center of gravity collapsing completely under the blow. He staggered back two steps before tripping over his own heel and falling to the ground.

He lay on the concrete floor, trying to get up by supporting himself with his hands, but his arms were trembling.

His nosebleed dripped onto the cement floor, leaving a small, dark red stain.

He looked up at Butcher, his lips trembling violently.

"Stop fighting—I was wrong, I shouldn't have been your enemy, stop fighting." His voice trembled and broke, every syllable shaking.

Butcher looked down at him.

This man, who once called himself a god, was now lying on the rough cement ground, his face covered in tears and snot, looking up at him with an expression more humble than any plea for mercy.

But Butcher noticed that his fingers were still secretly digging into the cracks in the ground. He was pretending to give up, waiting for Butcher to lower his guard before launching a sneak attack.

Butcher did not give him that chance.

He crouched down, grabbed Homelander's chin with one hand, and forced him to look directly into his eyes.

The eyes of the man from the motherland were still moving; those blue eyes that had burned countless people to death with their heat gaze were now frantically turning left and right in his swollen eye sockets.

Butcher tightened his fingers and pulled his face back as his eyes turned toward the broken iron railing at the edge of the rooftop.

“You were lying even when you were begging for mercy,” Butcher said. “Were you thinking that as soon as I relaxed, you would pick up that railing and stab it in my eye? You won’t have the chance.”

He slammed Homelander's head onto the concrete, then stood up and stepped on his wrist, which was still stealthily moving toward the railing.

The bones made a slight creaking sound on the cement floor.

He buried his face in the concrete, his shoulders trembling violently, and what came out of his throat were no longer words of pleas for mercy, but broken, meaningless howls.

The cry was sharp and piercing, as if someone had been trapped in a laboratory cage for far too long, so long that they had forgotten how to cry and only remembered to express their fear with the most primal sound squeezed from the deepest part of their throat.

He cried like a baby, a baby forgotten by the whole world, a baby who would never be held by anyone again.

Butcher watched him cry.

He had waited for this moment for far too long. He had fantasized countless times about making his countrymen kneel and beg for mercy, and about seeing fear, pain, and despair on their faces.

But when he actually saw the blond man curled up at his feet, crying like a baby, he found that he didn't feel the pleasure he had imagined.

There is only one kind of pure, unadorned, almost physiological nausea.

"Don't cry," Butcher said.

The people of the motherland cried even louder.

So Butcher's next punch landed on his jaw.

The sound of teeth breaking came from under his knuckles. Homelander's jaw was dislocated, and his mouth was twisted to one side at an unnatural angle, unable to utter a cry.

"That punch," Butcher's voice suddenly softened, so soft it sent chills down Homelander's spine, "was for Becca."

"Yes, my wife. You took her away at Walter's Christmas party and then laughed at me, this cuckolded bastard. Think about the way you looked at me before. Do you think the deepest image in every one of my nightmares isn't what you did to her?"

He stopped.

Homelander slid down the railing and collapsed to the ground like a lump of mud, his jaw dislocated, his face covered in blood, and a muffled whimper coming from his throat.

He tried to raise his hand to shield his face, his fingers still twitching, but he couldn't lift it anymore.

Butcher looked down at the man curled up in a ball, his chest heaving violently, his knuckles covered in blood.

"Get up," Butcher said.

The people of the motherland did not rise up.

He lay prone on the concrete floor, his fingers digging into the cracks in the ground, shaking his head desperately. Every movement seemed to tear at his dislocated jaw, but he couldn't care less about the pain. He just kept shaking his head frantically.

"I'm not finished yet." Butcher squatted down, grabbed Homelander's dislocated jaw with one hand, and forced him to look into his eyes. "Aren't you a god? How come you're like a dead dog now?"

He released his grip, and Homelander's head slammed heavily onto the concrete floor.

"God—oh, what a weak god. He was beaten so badly by me, a mere mortal, that he can't even stand up."

Butcher's body began to sway after he said those words.

After the adrenaline recedes, the weakness of a dying man presses down on his entire body like a wall.

He knelt on one knee, supporting himself on the concrete ground with one hand.

The morning light shone on his face, making him look closer to an ordinary person than ever before—an ordinary person who had just finished the longest boxing match of his life and could finally stop and catch his breath.

Seeing Homelander beaten to the point of unconsciousness, Butcher eventually lost consciousness as well.

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