...
"Vought International announced today that The Seven will hold the annual Hero Festival in New York this month, and all members will make an appearance..."
The anchorwoman’s voice drifted out from the television, sounding exceptionally surreal.
The damp night in Brooklyn.
A man lay in a dark alley, the back of his head resting in a pool of scarlet liquid, his eyes staring straight at a poster on the wall.
It was a poster for Vought International, with seven people standing in a row.
The blond man in the center wore a stars-and-stripes cape, his chin tilted up at thirty degrees, his smile so perfect it looked like it was poured from a mold.
Homelander!
America’s strongest superhero!
Vought International’s brand! The most popular man in the world!
When Lucas woke from his coma and saw that poster, all his memories came flooding back like a stormy sea.
The original owner, twenty-four years old, same name, born in New York, raised in an orphanage.
No parents, no friends, living off odd jobs.
As for himself, the last second he was still in an office building working overtime late into the night.
The next second, he had transmigrated into a world he was all too familiar with.
"The Boys"!
This was a world of entertainment to death!
Superheroes here were not the mainstream fighting illegal crime, but products packaged and produced by capitalists; even the globally popular The Seven were merely brand ambassadors launched by Vought International, while actually doing all sorts of evil in private.
That man standing in the center position was the scum of the scum!
Justice was worthless in this world.
Lucas took a deep breath and pushed himself up from the ground.
The body felt unfamiliar; it was over half a head taller than before, the shoulders were broader, and the muscle lines on his arms were very firm.
He clenched his fist.
A rusty trash can nearby actually swayed twice from the wind pressure generated by this punch.
Just then, a Translucent golden panel appeared out of thin air in his field of vision—
[Viltrumite Bloodline—Awakened]
Bloodline Level: Lv.1 Viltrumite Clerk (Actually an infant)
Strength: 8 tons Speed: Subsonic Defense: Immune to conventional weapons
Flight: Unlocked
Space Survival: 30 minutes
Bio-field: Primary (Passive · Body and Clothing Protection)
Genetic Status: Relatively stable, immune to all diseases/viruses/genetic contamination in this world
Evolution Points: 0 / 10,000
Ways to obtain points: Public emotions positive/negative, key character emotions positive/negative
Viltrumite?
Lucas stared at the panel for a long while, his lips twitching slightly.
He certainly knew what that was, the alien race from "Invincible".
One of the most formidable warrior races in the universe.
In this race, the purer the bloodline, the stronger the talent; they didn’t rely on magic or technology, their pure physical strength alone could crush everything.
Their lifespans were even longer; pure-blooded Viltrumites like the Regent or the Conqueror, which one of them wasn’t a monster that had lived for thousands of years?
And most importantly, in order to fight, Viltrumites would accelerate their growth to their prime, which was the period of peak combat power, and then stop aging.
The following thousands of years were all golden years.
And what he had activated now was Lv.1 Clerk, just the lowest existence of the Viltrumites.
Yet he possessed eight tons of strength, a body that bullets couldn’t penetrate, and the ability to fly at subsonic speeds.
In a normal world, this would be a superman!
In the world of The Boys, he looked up at Homelander’s smiling face on the poster and couldn’t say for sure.
However, below the panel, there was a bloodline upgrade curve.
Lv.2: Regular Soldier
Lv.3: Elite Warrior
...
Lv.6: Pure-blooded Royalty
If it could be upgraded, then it wasn’t a problem.
But upgrading required Evolution Points, and Evolution Points needed to be obtained through emotions.
For example, the crowd’s adoration, gratitude, reverence, or disgust, hatred.
Changing the fate of key characters could also earn Evolution Points.
The simplest way was to be a real hero in this world where all superheroes were trash.
It was quite ironic.
Lucas stood up and brushed the dust off his pants.
This body’s athletic ability exceeded his expectations; the movement of standing up was as light as a feather, without feeling a hint of weight.
Eight tons of strength were hidden within this set of muscles and skeleton; one couldn’t see any difference from the appearance alone.
However, what was the timeline now?
Lucas suddenly realized.
The plot of The Boys spanned several years, and the plot direction of the five seasons was different; if he had transmigrated to the period when Homelander ruled the world, he would be screwed.
Lucas rummaged through the original owner’s pockets: an old phone with a cracked screen and thirty-seven dollars in cash.
He opened the news app, and the headline on the homepage was the preview for Vought International’s Hero Festival.
Scrolling down...
"The Seven’s Translucent will attend a Brooklyn community charity event this week!"
Translucent was still alive?
Translucent was killed by Hughie and Butcher in the early stages of the first season; the fact that he was still making public appearances for events meant that the main plot of the first season had not officially started.
Scrolling down further.
"A-Train’s drug test report this month is normal; Vought International responds to external doubts!"
"Vought’s The Seven recruitment plan exposed: Nationwide search for the ’Eighth Member’ sparks heated discussion."
This news made Lucas narrow his eyes.
The Seven recruiting was to build momentum for Starlight joining the team.
Starlight, Annie January, joined The Seven through a nationwide search, and the timing of her joining coincided with the time Hughie’s girlfriend was killed by A-Train.
In other words...
Robin was still alive?
Lucas put the phone back in his pocket.
In a world full of Supes, he needed to constantly upgrade his bloodline to obtain stronger power.
Power was the right to speak; power could let him not take any crap!
Lucas looked up and tried to move his mind.
His feet left the ground.
He floated up naturally.
The night wind blew into his collar, the surrounding air flow accelerated, and Brooklyn slowly shrank beneath his feet.
High-speed flight was a Viltrumite instinct, as natural as humans walking with their legs.
Lucas hovered in mid-air, glanced at the city beneath his feet, and Homelander’s phantom appeared on a billboard.
Then he heard some sounds coming from the distance...
Three blocks away, glass shattered with a roar, and a woman was screaming helplessly.
Occasionally, a man’s angry curses could be heard, and not knowing if it was an illusion, Lucas heard the sizzling of electric current.
Superpower crime.
In New York, this stuff was more common than car accidents.
Vought International only cared about packaging top-tier superheroes to make money; what about those bottom-tier Supes on the streets who were messed up by Compound V?
Nobody cared at all!
The more of them, the better, as that was the only way to demonstrate the necessity of superheroes.
Lucas opened the system.
The experience points column on the panel was 0.
It needed ten thousand points to upgrade.
He didn’t hesitate for long, leaned his body in the direction of the sound, and his speed suddenly increased at a certain moment.
Subsonic flight, in the eyes of ordinary people, was just an afterimage flashing by.
A few seconds later, Lucas arrived at the scene of the incident.