Conquering the Multiverse Starting with the Black Robe

"You mean my severed hand is completely necrotic and can't be reattached?"

"Don't be so discouraged, buddy. At least you still have me. We're like brothers, aren't we?"

"Fuck you, French."

Butcher gave the middle finger and coldly glanced at the grinning Frenchman.

Hughie stood to the side, took a deep breath, as if making some kind of decision.

He leaned close to Butcher's ear and whispered, "Hey, Butcher, can we talk alone?"

Butcher raised an eyebrow, waved his hand to signal the annoying guy next to him to get lost, then turned his head to look at the uneasy Hughie, "Alright Hughie, spit it out."

"Did you hear what he just said?" Hughie glanced meaningfully at Rean, who was leisurely savoring a chocolate bar, then quickly looked away. "He was already in the store when I got beaten up, otherwise how would he know what I said? He witnessed the whole thing, he was just watching!"

Upon hearing this, Butcher silently poured himself a glass of wine. "So...you're telling me that the person who saved your life just now deliberately waited until we were beaten to a pulp before helping us, because he wanted us to be grateful so he could control us?"

"It's a little different from what I expected, but it's pretty much the same." Hughie nodded.

"There's a misunderstanding here." Rean's figure appeared beside Butcher at some point, startling Hughie.

He glanced at Hughie and continued, "That's my ability. I heard you arguing with the Invisible Man five kilometers away and rushed over as fast as I could, but I still didn't make it in time." At the end, he turned his gaze to Butcher.

Butcher tilted his head back, downed the wine in his glass in one gulp, and narrowed his eyes, which were hidden behind the glass.

After putting down his glass, he looked completely normal and shook his head, saying, "I don't blame you, buddy. You saved my life. Even though I'm a heartless bastard, I still know how to be grateful, unlike some bookish coward who likes to doubt his own people and spouts conspiracy theories."

"Hughie, why don't you talk about the locomotive? If you can find a way to lure that guy out, the boss can help you kill him and avenge Robin."

"That makes perfect sense." Rean laughed, walked over to Hughie, and casually put his arm around his shoulder.

Hughie was uncomfortable with Rean's affectionate behavior, but dared not resist, and could only force a couple of dry laughs to ease the awkwardness.

He was now half a head taller than Rean, who was not yet fully developed, but when Rean put his arm around him, Hughie felt as if a mountain was pressing down on his shoulders. Even though the other man was not exerting any force, his legs involuntarily went weak and he slumped down.

“Sometimes being too smart isn’t a good thing, Hughie.” Rean turned his head, his dark brown eyes staring into the other’s eyes, a faint smile playing on his lips. “As you can see, I’m not American. In my hometown, there’s an old saying, ‘It’s good to be confused sometimes.’”

Actually, you don't need to doubt me at all. If I wanted to use you, I could simply kill one of you to establish my authority, and then use force to coerce the rest into working for me. Why waste so much breath?

Hughie stood frozen in place, looked back for a moment, and realized that Rean was right. He immediately felt a little ashamed of his naive thoughts. "I... I didn't mean that. I shouldn't have doubted your boss. I'm sorry."

"It's okay, buddy. You don't know me. It's good that you're wary." Rean's smile remained unchanged, as if he didn't care at all.

"It's my fault for not explaining things clearly to you, but it's not too late now."

"Let me introduce myself, my name is Rean."

Rean released Hughie, beckoned French over, looked around at everyone, and continued calmly, "A superhuman secretly trained by Vought."

They locked me up in a secret base for research, where it was dark and gloomy. I endured years of torture before finally seizing an opportunity to escape.

So you may doubt me, think I have ulterior motives, but I assure you, everything I've done is aimed at the Vought Group.

Butcher had no interest in the suffering Rean had endured, but he astutely caught the key point in the conversation: "You mean... those damned superhumans are all mutant freaks created by Vought?"

Hughie couldn't help but exclaim, "What a gift, Fuck!"

Rean understood his personality and was used to it; Hughie in the show was the same way, easily startled.

Rean scoffed, his words full of disdain, "It's just what you think. Christians are all over the world, so why does God favor Americans so much? Why don't we see so many superhumans in other places?"

There are no gods in the sky. The one who flies the most diligently up there is Homelander. What ability does he have to perform any miracles? He's more likely to defecate while flying.

"The truth is that Walter was mass-producing superhumans using something called 'Compound Five,' hyping it up and claiming it was 'God's blessing, an angel sent to save humanity.' In the end, it was nothing but a dirty hoax."

"Fuck, even the seven-man squad is the same?" French couldn't help but interject.

"That's right, everyone, including Homelanders, has been injected with this stuff."

As he spoke, Rean took out a bottle of potion that emitted a mysterious blue light, and shook it around so that everyone present could see it clearly.

"This is the original Compound V, and it has been iterated through at least twenty generations within Vought. The first batch of superhumans created by Vought during World War II, the soldier boys, were injected with this type."

Hughie felt a sense of absurdity. He used to be a staunch supporter of superheroes, and Rean's words made him feel like an idiot who had been living in a conspiracy for over thirty years and being completely manipulated.

He frowned, puzzled. "If they can create superhumans, why don't the Vought leadership use them themselves? Since they can mass-produce them, they could easily use this power to rule the world!"

"You think they don't want to? They can't. Because this thing is extremely unstable, and the types of superpowers that appear are not something that can be artificially controlled. Genius."

Rean held up the bottle, his gaze deep and unfathomable. "After adults are injected with Compound 5, those who are lucky will develop superpowers, while another possibility is that their testicles will swell up to the size of a basketball, or even experience a severe rejection reaction, causing them to explode into a puddle of mud. The consequences are far more terrible than suffering from nuclear radiation."

Walter had been unable to overcome this challenge from the beginning, only able to increase the success rate by diluting the dosage and injecting it into infants. Now, as you know, they've done a very good job."

He turned to look at Hughie, a hint of pity flashing in his eyes. "In addition, Compound 5 also enhances the superpowers in superhumans, but long-term injections will produce serious side effects, not only burdening the body but also making them extremely hyperactive."

The locomotive was under the influence of drugs and was in a daze, which is why he lost control that day and smashed Robin to pieces.

After Rean finished speaking, the basement fell into a long silence.

Regardless of what they were thinking, they were all silently processing the shocking revelations he had made.

Hughie stood there, stunned, his fists clenched, his face turning from deathly pale to ashen, his eyes red-rimmed. "Fuck, you damn drug addict! You liar!"

"Fils de pute! These Nazis who conducted human experiments!" Frenchie slammed his fist on the table, echoing Hughie's words, his face filled with righteous indignation.

The one who remained calm at this moment was actually the most hot-tempered Butcher. He looked at Rean quietly, without doubting the authenticity of what he had said.

On the contrary, combined with the secrets he knew, these details perfectly explained Walter's unusual behavior, and at least 70% of the information is credible.

"We can expose these things and send them all to jail!" Hughie said angrily.

"Give me a break, Hughie. Do you think you're the first person to know this?"

"At least half of the superhumans know about the existence of Compound V, and they also know that they are not a gift from God to America, but they all choose to keep quiet."

"Walter isn't going to spend that much money to keep everyone quiet, so why aren't they fighting back? Exposing them in the media, protesting?"

"Because they are beneficiaries, they are superhuman, not ordinary people, and they are naturally on the same side as Walter. No one would be stupid enough to go against themselves."

Rean shook his head. "Don't be naive. Exposing this won't do much good. As long as Walter finds a scapegoat, he can easily defuse public opinion."

Whether you believe it or not, superhumans objectively exist. They are far more powerful than ordinary people, and Homelander will never sit idly by and watch Vought's carefully built superhero empire be destroyed. It is his foundation and everything he depends on for survival.

If you try to destroy these things, it's like opening the cage that's holding the beast, and then the whole of New York will be destroyed along with it.