Chapter 8: The Villains Are Dumbfounded, What on Earthis the Background of This Transfer Student?
Snap.
The faint sound of a mechanical shutter rang out at the edge of the noisy plaza.
A faint red light flashed across the camera's telephoto lens.
The bald man's finger was jammed tightly onto the shutter button.
He panted heavily, his lungs wheezing like a bellows.
The sour and stinking smell of garbage in the alley drilled straight into his nostrils.
The photo was taken.
He also casually recorded a blurry twelve-second video.
The footage was very shaky.
But it was enough to clearly see how that white freak slapped the Green Goblin flying away.
The bald man trembled as he took out a black encrypted satellite phone from his suit's inner pocket.
The data cable was plugged into the camera interface.
"Hurry... hurry and transmit it over..."
His teeth chattered, his upper and lower jaws clacking together with a rattling sound.
The blue progress bar on the screen crawled slowly.
Fifty percent.
One hundred percent.
The green checkmark indicating successful transmission lit up.
As if his spinal cord had been drained, the bald man collapsed heavily into a puddle of dirty water.
The muddy water splashed and soaked his cheap suit trousers.
He couldn't care less about the five-thousand-dollar DSLR camera, crawling and stumbling as he fled out of the alley.
He didn't want to stay another second in this ghost place.
...
Ten minutes later.
Hells Kitchen, the top floor of Fisk Tower.
The air was filled with a rich smell of Cuban cigars.
Wilson Fisk sat in that customized, oversized leather executive chair.
His massive body looked like a mountain of flesh.
The expensive white suit was tightly stretched across his body, outlining terrifying muscle contours.
A tablet computer was placed on the desk.
The twelve-second video was playing on a loop on the screen.
The video had no sound, filled entirely with messy static noise.
The white figure stood in place.
With a casual wave of his hand,
the Green Goblin slammed into the load-bearing pillar of a three-story commercial building like a cannonball fired from a barrel.
Steel bars snapped.
The walls cracked.
Fisk did not speak.
His right hand holding the cigar was suspended mid-air.
The ash of the cigar accumulated a long section, falling with a snap onto his black suit trousers.
Burning a charred hole.
Fisk was completely oblivious.
The flesh of his thick chin was trembling slightly.
The video played on a loop for the fifth time.
Fisk suddenly leaned forward, his thick fingers grabbing hold of the tablet computer.
The alloy casing made a teeth-gritting deformation sound.
"What is this thing?" Fisk's voice was low and hoarse, like sandpaper rubbing against glass.
Standing beside the desk, his top confidant Wesley had a forehead covered in cold sweat.
He pushed his gold-rimmed glasses and swallowed a mouthful of saliva.
"Boss, this is intelligence just sent back from Times Square."
Wesley's voice was a bit hollow, "That green monster from Oscorp was... one-shotted by him."
Fisk smashed the tablet computer onto the desk.
Two spiderweb-like cracks split across the surface of the screen.
He stood up and walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window.
Manhattan's bustling night view spread out beneath his feet.
But he could no longer feel his past sense of control.
"That load-bearing pillar is 1.2 meters in diameter, made of C60 high-strength concrete."
Fisk stared fixedly at the reflection on the glass.
"That green guy smashed into it, and the pillar didn't break. That means the armor absorbed most of the impact."
"Yet he was slapped flying seventy meters away."
Fisk turned his head, his bloodshot eyes staring at Wesley.
"If that slap hit me on the head, what would happen?"
Wesley lowered his head, not daring to say a single word.
Kingpin's strength was a myth in New York's underworld.
Bare-handed crushing of a human skull, punching through bulletproof glass with a single fist.
But in front of that white monster, this power was like an infant that had just learned to walk.
"Pass down my order."
Fisk grabbed the pure gold ashtray on the desk and smashed it heavily onto the carpet.
The dull impact made Wesley's shoulders shrink.
"Make everyone under us immediately withdraw from Queens, especially those blocks near Midtown High School."
"Whoever provokes the person wearing white, or the guy looking like that monster in the video..."
Fisk gritted his teeth, the muscles on his cheeks bulging high.
"Without waiting for them to make a move, I will personally sink his entire family into the Hudson River."
Wesley nodded repeatedly, took out his phone, and ran out of the office.
Fisk sat back down in his chair.
He panted heavily, reaching out to grab the whiskey glass on the desk.
His hand slipped.
The crystal wine glass dropped onto the desk, amber-colored liquor spilling all over the table.
This underground emperor of New York felt fear for the first time in his life.
...
At the same time.
Deep underground in Chinatown.
A dim, sunless dojo.
The air floated with a strong scent of inferior sandalwood.
Madam Gao leaned on a dragon-headed cane, sitting on a straw mat.
Her wrinkled face drooped down, like a withered mummy.
In front of her knelt three Hand assassins wearing red ninja outfits.
On the side wall of the dojo hung a white cloth.
An old-fashioned projector was playing candid footage from Times Square.
The image quality was very poor.
But the action of backhand-slapping the Green Goblinaway was so clear that it made one's scalp tingle.
Madam Gao's hand clutched tightly onto the cane.
Her knuckles turned white.
She had lived for centuries and had seen all kinds of supernatural powers.
K'un-Lun's Iron Fist, the demons of Hells Kitchen.
But there was definitely no power that could be as pure and violent as shown in the video.
"No fluctuations of Qi. No traces of magic."
Madam Gao's withered lips touched up and down, her voice hoarse like a broken bellows.
"That is pure physical strength."
She coughed twice and spat out a mouthful of bloody phlegm.
Splashing onto the wooden floor in front of her.
The red-clad ninja kneeling at the very front raised his head.
"Madam, our laundry powder factory in Queens..."
Bang!
Madam Gao's cane struck heavily against the ground.
The red-clad ninja was so frightened that he swallowed the rest of his words back into his stomach.
"Shut down the factory. Burn all the goods."
Madam Gao's turbid eyes revealed fear.
"Withdraw all of the Hand's hidden outposts. Absolutely do not let that white monster notice us."
Hunching her back, she stood up.
"The excavation plan for the dragon bones is suspended. Before figuring out this monster's background, New York is no longer safe."
The red-clad ninjas kowtowed in unison.
Their figures turned into wisps of black smoke and disappeared into the dojo.
Madam Gao looked at the frozen white back silhouette on the projection screen.
Her withered fingers trembled and drew a cross across her chest.
She even forgot that she didn't believe in God at all.
Panic spread like a plague through New York's underworld.
In an abandoned auto repair shop in Brooklyn,
the mob boss "Tombstone", who possessed a body of steel and iron, smashed the billiard table in front of him with a single punch.
Looking at the cell phone video handed over by his subordinate, the grey skin on his face twitched twice.
He ordered all members to hunker down.
In an underground casino of the Russian mafia,
several bald thugs looked at the screen, and the vodka bottles in their hands dropped to the ground, shattering into pieces.
They booked plane tickets to Moscow overnight.
The entire villain circle of New York completely exploded because of this twelve-second short video.
Everyone listed that white figure as an absolute taboo that must not be provoked.
Queens overnight became a restricted zone for the underworld.
...
And the perpetrator of this panic,
was currently sitting in a Michelin three-star restaurant in Upper East Side, Manhattan.
Restaurant "Le Bernardin".
The air drifted with the rich aroma of roasted rosemary and butter.
Aaron took off that white battle suit,
and changed into a dark blue casual suit he casually retrieved from the system space.
He sat in a prime window-side seat.
Beside his hand was a glass of decanted 1982 Lafite.
Melodious cello music played in the restaurant.
The surrounding diners were all dressed in high-end formal wear, talking in low voices.
No one knew that the monster who withstood a bomb head-on and tore apart the Green Goblin bare-handed at Times Square just tens of minutes ago was sitting right here cutting steak.
Aaron felt starved.
The fusion of the Steel Body had consumed a massive amount of his physical strength.
His stomach right now was like a bottomless pit.
In front of him on a white bone china plate was a freshly served tomahawk steak.
Medium-rare.
The surface was grilled to a crisp, sizzling and steaming with heat.
Cutting it open revealed tender, pink meat inside.
A waiter wearing a vest walked over,
respectfully pouring the decanted red wine for Aaron.
The ruby-like wine sloshed in the wine glass.
Aaron picked up the silver knife and fork.
He was still not quite used to his soaring strength.
When his fingers pinched the fork handle, he applied a tiny bit of force.
The silver fork handle was directly crushed flat, leaving two clear fingerprint indentations.
Aaron froze for a moment.
He quickly released his hand and quietly straightened the fork handle under the shadow of the tablecloth.
It was a bit awkward.
Strength control still needed time to practice.
Carefully, he cut a piece of juicy beef and popped it into his mouth.
The juices burst open in his mouth.
The fatty aroma of top-grade beef permeated his taste buds.
Aaron leaned comfortably back against the velvet chair back, picked up the red wine glass, and took a sip.
On the restaurant's wall hung a muted television.
News subtitles scrolled across the bottom of the screen.
They were all follow-up reports about the Times Squarebombing case.
The police were searching all out for that fleeing green freak.
General Slocum threw a fit at the press conference, demanding a thorough investigation of Oscorp.
As for that white figure who saved the mother and daughter,
because the appearance time was too short and the surveillance cameras didn't capture a clear face,
the news only mentioned it in passing, calling him the "mysterious man in white".
Aaron cut the second piece of beef.
The blade slid across the china plate, making a slight scraping sound.
The black pepper grains on the meat chunk exuded an enticing spicy fragrance.
Just at the moment when the fork was about to be brought into his mouth,
hum.
deep within Aaron's mind, a harsh electronic alarm suddenly erupted.
It directly drowned out the melodious cello music in the restaurant.
Aaron's movements stiffened.
His wrist paused mid-air.
A drop of crimson blood dripped down along the meat chunk, smashing onto the pure white tablecloth.
Blurring into an eye-piercing red patch.
In front of his retina, a crimson light screen suddenly popped up.
The edges of the light screen flashed with high-frequency alarm red light.
Rows of huge white characters directly smashed into his consciousness.
[Ding!]
[Detected extraterrestrial meteorite fall.]
[Venom Symbiote has arrived on Earth!]
[Please host go intercept it!]
Chapter 9: Intercepting the Venom Symbiote, Little Spider-Man is so envious he cries
Bloody water spread across the clean white tablecloth.
Aaron dropped the silver fork with a clatter.
The fork struck the edge of the bone china plate, emitting a crisp sound.
He didn't even bother to wipe his mouth as he reached his hand into the inner pocket of his dark blue suit.
He pulled out a stack of green Franklin banknotes.
Without even looking at how much it was, he slapped it directly onto the table.
Pinning down that unfinished glass of Lafite red wine.
"Check, please."
Aaron pushed away the velvet chair.
His turning motion was too abrupt, and his knee accidentally bumped against the solid wood table leg.
The heavy dining table shook violently, and a large puddle of red wine spilled from the decanter.
Without looking back, he strode quickly through the restaurant corridor.
The waiter holding the baked soufflé froze in place, staring blankly at that thick stack of U.S. dollars.
He pushed open the glass revolving door.
The cold autumn wind poured down the collar.
Aaron quickly turned into a pitch-black dead end nearby.
There were no security cameras.
He took off his suit jacket and casually shoved it into a nearby trash can.
"Suit up."
A layer of cold sweat oozed from his skin.
The pure white Symbiote matter instantly surged out wildly.
Following the muscle contours, it wrapped around his entire body within seconds.
Coordinate location: The suburban forest of Westchester in northern New York.
Straight-line distance: thirty kilometers.
Aaron took a deep breath.
His legs slightly bent, and the dense muscles of his thighs tightened like fully drawn steel cables.
Bang!
The bluestone pavement beneath his feet instantly shattered.
Spiderweb-like cracks spread more than two meters around.
His entire body transformed into a white cannonball, launching straight up from the ground.
Heading straight for the night sky of Manhattan.
With the enhancement of the Steel Body and Anti-Venom, he didn't need to swing around the streets looking for pivot points like Spider-Man.
He directly leveraged force off the glass exterior walls of the skyscrapers.
Every time the tip of his foot touched the glass, it would kick up a circle of white shockwaves.
The thick tempered glass was crushed into pieces by sheer brute force, and glass shards fell like raindrops.
The sound of the wind turned into a sharp tearing noise beside his ears.
Meanwhile.
Queens, the Parker home.
In the crowded bedroom on the second floor, a dim desk lamp was lit.
Peter Parker was slumped over the desk.
Holding a tiny sewing needle in his hand, he was laboriously mending the gray hoodie with the torn collar.
The tip of the needle had just passed through the rough fabric.
Hum.
A sharp, violent pain exploded from deep within the back of his head.
It felt like a red-hot iron nail was forcibly hammered into his brain matter.
Peter sucked in a sharp breath of cold air from the pain.
His fingers trembled.
The tip of the needle directly pricked into the pad of his left thumb.
A round bead of blood welled up.
Ignoring the pain, he shoved his finger into his mouth and sucked on it.
His head snapped around, staring fixedly at the north outside the window.
Spider-Sense.
Unprecedentedly intense.
Ten thousand times more intense than when he encountered those thugs with iron bars earlier.
His brain buzzed as if the highest-level air raid siren had been triggered.
There was something there.
Intuition told him that it was something dangerous yet inexplicably attracting him.
Peter dropped the half-mended hoodie.
Hastily pulling on an old jacket.
He grabbed the cheap web-shooter on the table pieced together from a high-pressure gas cylinder and waste steel pipes, wrapping it tightly around his wrist with waterproof tape.
Pushing open the window, he flipped and jumped out.
Fumbling hurriedly, he pressed the switch on his wrist.
Hiss.
A white web stuck to a streetlamp pole.
Utilizing momentum, Peter swung through the night wind.
The synthetic web fluid was too expensive.
He didn't dare press the launcher hard, and the web sprayed out was pitifully thin, causing him to swing in a stumbling manner mid-air.
...
Westchester Forest.
A hundred-meter-long charred gap had been smashed into the dense pine forest.
The soil was churned up.
Thick tree trunks were snapped in half, and dark red sparks were still rising from the broken edges.
The air was filled with a pungent, scorched odor.
Boom.
Aaron landed heavily on the ground.
His white military boots stepped on the charred dead branches, and the snapping sound was exceptionally clear in the silent forest.
He walked forward along the gap.
Not far ahead, a deep pit more than ten meters in diameter appeared at the end.
At the bottom of the pit quietly lay a half-person-tall oval meteorite.
The surface of the meteorite was covered with honeycomb-like holes.
Grayish-white heat was spitting out from the holes.
Aaron jumped into the meteorite crater.
The soil beneath his feet was hot and soft, puffing white smoke as his leather boots stepped on it.
He approached that meteorite.
A finger-thick crack ran through the entire rock body.
Deep within the crack, a mass of black liquid was slowly writhing.
Like a pool of living, viscous asphalt.
Venom Symbiote.
It seemed to have sensed the commotion outside.
The black liquid stopped writhing.
Then, like a snake, it poked out a round head from the crack.
There were no eyes, only a patch of reflective pitch-black.
It swayed slightly in the air, as if sniffing out the scent of prey.
Five kilometers away.
Peter shuttled with difficulty among the treetops.
Cross-growing branches scratched his cheeks, leaving behind streaks of blood.
The sleeve of his old jacket was unraveled, flapping loudly in the wind.
He gasped heavily, sweat streaming down his forehead and blurring the lenses of his black-framed glasses.
"Almost there... right ahead."
Gritting his teeth, Peter pressed the launcher on his wrist once more.
The high-pressure gas cylinder made a hissing sound of leaking air.
The web shot out was as thin as a noodle, barely able to bear his weight.
Peter felt a pang of heartache.
This was his last half-can of inventory.
After fighting this battle, he wouldn't even have the loose change to take the bus home.
At the bottom of the meteorite crater.
That mass of black liquid sensed the surging vital energy on Aaron's body.
The vitality emitted by the Steel Body was like an ocean in a desert to it.
Venom darted out fiercely.
It elongated into a thin black thread, lunging straight for Aaron's chest.
Aaron did not dodge.
He proactively extended his right hand.
Slap.
The black liquid collided with his palm.
The texture was slippery and cold.
Venom immediately climbed crazily up along Aaron's fingertips, wrists, and forearms.
The black threads, like the meridians of a living creature, covered his pure white battle suit inch by inch.
Just at that moment.
A crisp crack came from the pine branch overhead.
Swinging on that weak web thread, Peter descended from the sky.
His physical strength was overdrawn, and he failed to stand firm upon landing.
He rolled ungracefully twice on the charred soil, his head knocking against the edge of the meteorite crater.
"Hiss..."
Rubbing his sore shoulders, Peter forced his head up.
At a glance, he saw the person in white at the bottom of the pit.
And he saw that black slime crawling up the white-clad person's arm toward the neck.
Peter widened his eyes.
He didn't recognize that it was his desk-mate Aaron.
But the Spider-Sense in his brain was sounding frantic warnings.
The source of danger was that lump of black mud!
"Hey! Stay away from that thing!"
Peter shouted anxiously.
He thought this person in white had been attacked by an alien creature.
He slammed his arm up, pressing hard on the launcher switch on his wrist.
Wanting to use the web to pull that black mud off the other person.
Click. Click.
The high-pressure gas cylinder made a hollow impact sound.
It was out of air.
Not a single drop of web fluid shot out.
Peter anxiously patted his wrist, his face flushed red, and he could only watch helplessly as the events unfolded at the bottom of the pit.
At the bottom of the pit.
Venom had already climbed up onto Aaron's shoulders.
It greedily felt the terrifying power contained beneath this body.
Ten thousand times stronger than any host it had ever seen in the Universe.
This was simply the perfect vessel bestowed upon it by the Creator.
The black liquid suddenly expanded.
Transforming into a faceless black giant net.
It frantically spread upwards along Aaron's neck.
Attempting to directly wrap around Aaron's head.
It wanted to devour this host's brain and completely take control of this invincible body!
Chapter 10: Venom wants to rebel? The anti-venom suitteaches you how to be a good boy
The black, viscous liquid surged wildly.
It was like an airtight net, tightly covering Aaron's mouth and nose.
A strange smell of sewage fermentation mixed with ozone rushed straight into the nasal cavity.
The edge of the crater.
Peter was so anxious that he was sweating profusely.
He beat hard on the launcher on his wrist.
The high-pressure gas cylinder made a hollow click sound, and not even a drop of webbing was sprayed out.
"What the hell!"
Peter's voice cracked.
He looked left and right, and hugged a charred pine trunk with both hands.
With a forceful snap.
With a crack, he tore off a charred wooden stick as thick as a baby's arm.
The residual warmth on the wooden stick scalded his palms until they blistered.
Peter couldn't care about the pain, and scrambled down the steep crater.
The gravel at the bottom of the crater scratched his old canvas shoes.
A long bloody cut was drawn on his ankle.
"Hey! Spit that person out!"
Peter held the charred wooden stick and stumbled towards the man in white wrapped in black mud.
He didn't have super vision, and couldn't recognize at all that it was his deskmate.
He only saw that the innocent passerby was about to be suffocated.
The center of the crater bottom.
Aaron stood in place, not even moving a finger.
The venom Symbiote danced in wild ecstasy.
It followed Aaron's pores and squeezed desperately inward.
It wanted to deprive the brain of this god-tier body and turn it into its ultimate carrier.
One second. Two seconds.
Venom collided with a wall.
A pure white, absolute high wall that made its soul tremble.
The conceptual anti-venom suit awakened.
It sensed the invasion of the foreign parasite.
Aaron didn't even need to give instructions; this suit had a purification instinct carved into its genes.
Hiss——
A sharp burning sound rang out.
It was like fatty meat dropping into a red-hot iron wok.
Aaron's body surface suddenly burst into a dazzling, pure white light.
The white Symbiote matter rolled backward out of the pores.
They turned into hundreds of sharp white barbs, instantly piercing through the black slime covering the face.
Venom let out a miserable scream.
This wasn't a sound produced by air vibration, but a wail that acted directly on the spiritual level.
The black liquid twisted violently.
It sensed the breath of its natural enemy. That was a terrifying power that could completely erase it from the molecular level.
Venom wanted to escape.
It retreated frantically, trying to detach itself from Aaron's body.
Too late.
Aaron raised his right arm.
The white anti-venom quickly gathered on the palm, turning into a wide white sharp claw.
He grabbed the black slime on his face.
Five white fingers, like red-hot iron tongs, dug deeply into Venom's main body.
Rip.
Aaron exerted force with his arm and forcefully tore this mass of black mud off his face.
Fresh air rushed into his lungs again.
Venom struggled desperately in the white sharp claws.
It split open a large mouth full of fangs, attempting to bite off Aaron's wrist.
Aaron sneered.
His right arm was raised high back, carrying a terrifying wind pressure.
And it slammed fiercely into the scorching crater ground beneath his feet.
Boom!
The soil exploded.
Venom was solidly smashed into the mud pit, creating a half-meter-deep concave hole.
Before it could react.
A thick white long whip extended from the white matter on Aaron's right arm.
The long whip, carrying the sound of breaking through the air, fiercely lashed at the black slime.
Slap!
The black mud splashed in all directions.
Large swaths of white smoke billowed from the struck area.
Venom's fangs melted.
Its proud Symbiote muscles disintegrated inch by inch under the purification of the anti-venom.
Slap!
Another whip.
The black mud was beaten into a ball.
It desperately released mental fluctuations begging for mercy.
The berserk killing consciousness was completely shattered, leaving only the most primitive fear and submission.
In just a few seconds.
The alien parasite that was baring its fangs and brandishing its claws just now turned into a completely non-aggressive pool of black slime.
It was only the size of a fist.
Round and chubby.
Like a piece of black slime jelly, shivering in the muddy water at the bottom of the crater.
It extended a black tentacle as thin as a toothpick, and ingratiatingly rubbed against Aaron's white combat boots.
Peter held the charred wooden stick, freezing two meters away.
He maintained the chopping posture.
The muscles on his wrists were trembling from overexertion.
A spark from the front of the wooden stick dropped onto the back of his foot, scalding a red dot.
"This..."
Peter swallowed a mouthful of saliva.
His Adam's apple moved up and down with difficulty.
He looked at the man in white who had violently beaten the alien monster, his brain completely unable to process it.
Aaron bent down.
He extended two white fingers, pinching the top of the piece of black slime.
And lifted it up.
The black mud hung limply in mid-air, not daring to move at all.
The white suit on his face receded to both sides like water ripples.
Shrinking back below the collar.
Revealing Aaron's slightly casual face.
He turned his head and looked at Peter, who was dumbfounded.
"It's fine, I picked up a pet." Aaron smiled.
His voice was very relaxed, just like picking up a stray cat on the roadside.
Peter's mouth was wide open.
His chin almost dropped onto his feet.
He raised his hand and pushed hard on the crooked black-framed glasses on the bridge of his nose.
The lenses were covered in dust, but he still recognized this face.
"Aaron?!"
Peter's voice directly changed pitch.
He threw away the charred wooden stick in his hand and took a big step forward.
"Why are you here? This white clothing... and the power just now..."
Peter's brain was completely in a mess.
The night before yesterday in a narrow alley in Brooklyn, he saw with his own eyes Aaron snap a revolver with one punch.
At that time, Aaron said he was born with divine strength.
Today, in this suburban forest, he watched Aaron beat an alien monster that could devour humans into jelly!
This is called being born with divine strength?
This is simply a monster wearing human skin!
"I came out for a walk."
Aaron casually stuffed the black venom slime into his pants pocket.
Through the fabric, that mass of black mud obediently clung to his thigh, not daring to emit a single bit of temperature.
"A walk? This is thirty kilometers away from Queens!" Peter retorted loudly.
He pointed at Aaron's pants pocket.
"What on earth is that thing? It wanted to eat you just now!"
"It only eats chocolate now." Aaron patted his pocket.
The suit completely receded, withdrawing back into his pores.
Underneath, he was wearing a thin white T-shirt.
Aaron turned around, his toes tapping lightly on the stone wall of the crater.
The whole person, as if weightless, leaped onto flat ground a dozen meters high.
"Go home early, Peter. The soles of your shoes are almost burned through."
Aaron waved his hand with his back to him.
Peter lowered his head.
Only to find that the sole of his right canvas shoe had been burned with a big hole by the residual heat at the bottom of the crater.
A piercing pain came from the soles of his feet.
"Wait! Aaron, how many things are you keeping from me!"
Peter crawled up the crater hands and feet.
When he crawled up covered in dust and dirt, only the cold wind was blowing in the pitch-black pine forest.
That white figure had long since disappeared without a trace.
Peter sat on the ground with a thump, looking at the scrapped launcher in his hand, feeling like crying without tears.
Late at night.
Manhattan, New York City.
Colorful neon lights illuminated the bustling streets.
Aaron walked on the tree-lined sidewalk of Fifth Avenue.
The air was mixed with exhaust fumes and the yellow mustard smell of the street corner hot dog stand.
He no longer used Steel Body to jump.
Having just fused with Superman's power and subdued Venom, he needed a little time to calm the boiling blood and Qi in his body.
The venom in his pants pocket was very quiet.
It pressed itself flat, disguising itself as a black fabric lining.
Having witnessed the purifying power of the anti-venom, even if it were given ten thousand guts, it would no longer dare to have any inappropriate thoughts about this host.
Staying alive was more important than anything else.
Aaron walked with his hands in his pockets and leisurely steps.
This was less than two blocks away from his duplex mansion in the Upper East Side.
He turned into a narrow alley between two commercial office buildings.
The street lamp in the alley was broken.
Only the ventilation fan at the end emitted a monotonous buzzing sound.
Just when Aaron walked to the middle section of the alley.
His footsteps stopped.
The hearing enhanced by Steel Body captured a trace of unusual movement.
That was the sound of metal friction.
Faint as a mosquito's buzz.
If it were an ordinary person, they would definitely mistake it for the sound of wind blowing over a tin roof.
But Aaron heard it very clearly.
This was the impact sound of some precision tool prying open a lock cylinder.
The source of the sound was not on the ground.
Overhead.
Aaron raised his head, his vision piercing through the darkness.
Next to it was a financial building up to fifty stories high.
The glass curtain wall gleamed with a cold blue light in the moonlight.
The sound came from the exterior wall of the top floor of the building.
Aaron narrowed his eyes.
Superman's vision instantly shortened the distance of hundreds of meters.
On the outer edge of the forty-ninth floor, there was a graceful black figure, clinging to the smooth glass like a gecko.
That was a woman.
Wearing tight black leather clothes, her perfect curves were fully exposed under the moonlight.
Hanging from her waist was a slender silver grappling line.
The other end of the grappling line was fixed to the lightning rod on the roof.
She wore a black eye mask covering the upper half of her face.
A head of silver-white long hair was blown around by the night wind.
At this moment, her whole body was suspended in the air.
Holding a specially made laser cutter in her hand, she was carefully scorching a half-meter-square safe outer window.
Blue cutting sparks flashed in the night sky.
That explosion-proof glass, claimed to be able to stop sniper rifles, was cut with a neat circular arc.
Aaron looked at the black shadow suspended in mid-air.
His vision swept over the silver cat head badge on the leather clothes in front of her chest.
The top thief in the Marvel Universe.
Black Cat. Felicia Hardy.
The safe glass finally made a slight shattering sound.
The circular glass was removed by the Black Cat using a suction cup.
She let out a long breath of relief.
She reached into the safe, feeling for the black velvet box containing diamonds inside.
Just at the moment when her fingertips were about to touch the box.
In the pitch-dark alley below, a clear man's voice came through.
The voice wasn't loud, but with the sound-gathering effect of the walls, it accurately reached her ears.
"Working at heights without a hard hat will get you fined."
Chapter 11: Shopping and Accidentally Encountering the Black Cat, the Master Thief Lady is Caught Red-Handed by Me on the Spot
At a height of forty-nine stories, the wind blew wildly.
"Working at heights without a safety helmet will result in a fine."
This teasing remark, riding the rising night wind, drilled straight into Felicia's ears.
She was intently staring at the explosion-proof glass in front of her.
This sudden shout startled her shoulders into a shiver.
The special laser cutter in her hand deviated by half an inch.
Blue high-temperature sparks brushed past the metal frame of the safe, splashing a string of dazzling white stars.
It almost burned through the black leather glove on her left hand.
Felicia bit the tip of her tongue. The taste of blood instantly calmed her down.
She turned off the cutter.
Looking down.
The narrow alley between the two financial buildings was pitch black. Only a poorly connected wall lamp was flickering.
It was too far, and apart from a few trash cans, nothing could be seen clearly.
Auditory hallucination?
She shook her head. This was close to two hundred meters in the air, and besides the sound of the wind, not even a ghost could come up here.
Felicia hung the cutter back onto her tactical belt.
A perfect circle had been cut out of the glass.
She took out a heavy-duty suction cup with a handle and pressed it into the center of the circle.
Pulling it outward gently.
Pop.
The half-meter square thick circular glass was completely removed.
She reached her hand into the pitch-black safe.
Her fingertips touched a delicate velvet box.
It was heavy.
Tonight's target, that eight-million-U.S.-dollar South African diamond, was in hand.
The corners of Felicia's mouth curled up.
On the ground.
Aaron pulled his hand out of his casual dress pants pocket.
Having eaten a whole tomahawk steak, he just needed to walk off the food.
He moved his ankles.
His leather shoes ground against the asphalt twice.
He did not let the anti-venom suit cover his whole body.
This was downtown Manhattan, and the white suit was too eye-catching.
He only intended to use physical strength. The newly fused Steel Body needed actual combat to familiarize himself with the techniques of exerting force.
Aaron's knees bent slightly.
The dense muscle groups deep in his thighs instantly contracted like a heavily compressed heavy-duty spring.
Bang!
A muffled explosion.
The road surface beneath Aaron's feet directly collapsed.
A cracked shallow pit with a diameter of one meter appeared in place. Gravel splashed like bullets, pattering against the red brick walls on both sides.
The strong recoil pushed him to rise from the ground.
The air in the alley was forcibly pushed away.
Stirring up a violent wind that blew several trash cans rolling more than a dozen meters away.
Aaron shot straight into the night sky like a humanoid Rocket.
The strong push-back feeling made his blood boil.
Ten stories. Twenty stories. Thirty stories.
The sound of the wind in his ears turned into a sharp tearing sound.
The kinetic energy of the ascent began to weaken.
Aaron forcibly twisted his waist in mid-air to adjust his posture.
He extended his right hand with his five fingers spread open.
His fingertips tightly hooked into the metal seams of the glass curtain wall on the thirty-fifth floor of the building.
His steel-like fingers dug into the aluminum alloy frame.
Using this pivot point, his arm forcefully pulled.
His entire body catapulted upwards again.
The dark blue curtain wall reflected his ascending afterimage.
Forty-fifth floor. Fiftieth floor.
The roof.
Felicia had just stuffed the diamond box into her waist bag.
The zipper was pulled halfway.
An abnormal gust of wind rolled up from below the exterior wall of the building.
The wind was extremely strong, blowing her silver-white long hair all over her face.
She reached out to brush her hair away.
Just then, a pair of leather shoes landed silently on the windbreak low wall half a meter above her head.
Aaron stood on the edge of the roof with his arms crossed.
Looking down at the Black Cat hanging in mid-air on the outer wall.
"The luster of this diamond is indeed quite good." Aaronspoke, his voice as steady as chatting in a living room.
"It's a pity it's of illegitimate origin."
The hairs all over Felicia's body stood on end instantly.
She raised her head abruptly.
Through the black half-face mask, she stared at the man in the white T-shirt above.
No helicopter, no ropes, not even a flight backpack.
In the middle of the night, climbing fifty floors from the ground with bare hands?
This completely shattered her years of theft common sense.
"Mister, you picked the wrong occasion to hit on someone."
Felicia's heart pounded like a drum, but her movements did not stop.
This was professional literacy honed on the edge of life and death.
Her right hand brushed across her waist.
Two miniature flashbangs the size of steel balls left her hand and headed straight for Aaron's face.
At the same time, her left hand quickly pressed the retraction button on her belt buckle.
Click.
The sound of the mechanism rang out. The silver steel wire around her waist tightened abruptly, dragging her away from the curtain wall and swinging toward the rooftop of another building.
The entire set of movements was smooth and flowing.
Bang!
The flashbang exploded half a meter in front of Aaron's eyes.
The dazzling white light instantly illuminated the fiftieth-floor rooftop. It was even brighter than the midday Sun.
If he were an ordinary person, his retina would have already been burned.
Aaron didn't even blink his eyelids.
Superman's retina structure had long been immune to this kind of strong light. He only felt his vision whiten for a moment.
He watched the Black Cat swinging more than a dozen meters away.
He couldn't be bothered to jump across and chase her himself.
He tucked his right hand back into his pants pocket, his fingertips gently flicking the piece of black fabric disguised as the lining.
"Time to work."
The venom slime in his pocket shivered abruptly.
It was just worrying about having nowhere to demonstrate its value. Hearing the host's command, it instantly boiled over.
A mass of black mucus crawled out along Aaron's trouser seam.
Instantly stretching and transforming into a black tentacle as thick as a wrist.
The tip of the tentacle opened a phantom giant mouth filled with sharp teeth.
Swish—
The black tentacle shot into the night sky like a hunting viper.
Its speed was more than ten times faster than the Black Cat's grappling hook, whipping out a black afterimage in the air.
Felicia was suspended in mid-air between the two buildings.
The night wind blew on her face.
She glanced back, wanting to confirm whether that strange man had been blinded by the flash.
No one was chasing from the roof.
But she saw something pitch-black whipping over like a whip.
Before her brain could react.
Her waist suddenly tightened.
That black tentacle tightly wrapped around her slender waist.
The touch was viscous, cold, carrying the brute force of a Beast.
"What the hell is this!"
Felicia screamed involuntarily.
The grappling hook controller in her hand almost slipped out.
The next second, the tentacle yanked backward fiercely.
Snap.
The silver steel wire fixed on the lightning rod snapped instantly.
The broken steel wire let out a piercing screech in the night sky.
The Black Cat lost her balance entirely. Like a kite with a broken string, she was dragged flying backward by the tentacle.
The intense feeling of weightlessness made her heartbeat skip a beat.
The wind whistled in her ears.
She closed her eyes, instinctively curling her body up. She thought she would fall onto the hard concrete roof.
The imagined bone-breaking and tendon-snapping did not happen.
She crashed into a solid embrace.
As hard as a steel plate. It crashed into her chest, making her stuffy and almost out of breath.
Aaron wrapped his left hand around the Black Cat's waist, and his right hand pinched the black tentacle wriggling as if asking for credit.
Forcibly stuffing it back into his pants pocket.
"Let me go!"
Felicia struggled frantically in Aaron's arms.
Her combat skills were all fed by actual combat.
Her right elbow struck backward fiercely, aiming straight for Aaron's ribs.
Her left knee arched up, mercilessly thrusting toward his vital parts.
Aaron sighed.
He didn't even dodge.
Letting the Black Cat's elbow smash against his ribs.
Thud.
Felicia felt as though her elbow had crashed into a solid piece of titanium alloy. Her bones tingled from the vibration, and her entire arm instantly lost strength.
Aaron's left arm exerted a slight force.
Directly wrapping around her waist, forcibly turning her entire body half a circle in mid-air.
Stepping forward closely by one step.
Bang.
Felicia was pressed tightly against the heightened explosion-proof glass curtain wall.
The heavy glass emitted a muffled vibration sound.
Aaron used only his left hand to hold down both of her arms.
She felt that what was pressing on her body was not an arm, but a steel column in a hydraulic press.
No matter how she twisted her body, that hand remained motionless.
The two of them were pressed very close together.
Aaron's breath beat against Felicia's forehead.
Felicia clearly felt the terrifying power contained in that body beneath the other party's clothes.
That was a sense of crushing beyond common sense.
Just like a wildcat whose tail was stepped on by a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Even the thought of resisting could not arise.
Felicia's struggle suddenly stopped.
Her chest heaved violently, panting heavily.
The tight black leather clothing pressed against the cold glass, outlining a provocative curve.
She couldn't beat him. She couldn't run away.
Her intuition, wandering on the edge of black and white for years, told her that angering the man in front of her would lead to a miserable death.
She took a deep breath.
The panic on her face vanished completely within 0.1 seconds.
That pair of eyes exposed outside the black mask quickly curved into a charming arc.
Her body softened, and she purposely leaned against Aaron's arm.
Her red lips parted slightly, exhaling a puff of hot breath carrying a minty scent.
"Handsome, do you want to make a deal?"
Chapter 12: Felicia's Shock, How Does This Man Know Everything?
The night wind swept past with the smell of gasoline from downstairs.
Felicia pressed against the explosion-proof glass, her waist as limp as if she had no bones.
The mint-scented hot breath she exhaled landed right on Aaron's chin.
"Handsome, want to make a deal?" Her voice was sweet and syrupy, carrying a heavy nasal twang.
Aaron sneered.
"Put away that routine of yours."
Instead of retreating, he advanced, pressing his chest forward by an inch.
The glass emitted a dull deforming sound.
The corner of Felicia's eye twitched.
In that split second.
A stainless steel needle, thinner than a hair strand, sprang out from the black leather glove on her right index finger.
The distance was too close.
With a flick of her wrist, the steel needle accurately stabbed toward the carotid artery on the side of Aaron's neck.
The syringe was filled with a high concentration of military-grade anesthetic. She had bought it from the black market at a huge price. A single drop could knock down an adult Africa elephant.
Clang.
A faint, crisp sound.
There was no dull sensation of piercing skin.
Felicia felt as if her finger had poked into a solid steel ingot.
The slender anesthetic needle bent to ninety degrees. The needle tip didn't even leave a White mark on Aaron's skin.
The light blue anesthetic liquid leaked out along the syringe.
It dripped onto the collar of Aaron's White T-shirt, staining a small patch of Water stain.
Felicia's breathing stopped for half a second.
What kind of monster physique was this anyway?
Her reaction was exceptionally fast. Her right knee exerted sudden force, and her entire body bounced off the explosion-proof glass, surging upward like a startled wild cat.
The hidden clasp at her waist sprang open.
A pitch-black triangular military dagger fell into her palm. She grasped the hilt with both hands and backhanded it toward Aaron's eyes.
Her movements were flowing like clouds and water, without any redundant exertion.
It was all instinct forged by killing in the rotten alleys of Hells Kitchen.
Aaron sighed.
His left hand was still pressing on the clothes at the Black Cat's waist without letting go.
He only raised his right hand.
The military dagger stabbed to within three centimeters of his eyes.
Aaron extended two fingers. His index finger and middle finger pinched together.
Hum.
The blade of the military dagger vibrated violently, emitting a hum.
Felicia flushed red, her waist and abdomen muscles tense. She used all her strength to press downward, wanting to drive the blade into the opponent's eyes.
The blade was stuck between those two fingers, motionless.
Just like being embedded in a mountain.
Aaron's fingers gently twisted.
Snap.
The military-grade triangular steel dagger broke into two pieces like a dry tree branch.
The broken blade tip spun and flew out, smashing onto the iron sheet of the nearby ventilation duct, scraping out a long string of Fire sparks.
Felicia's heart pounded wildly.
Taking advantage of the broken blade's momentum, her waist twisted weirdly, and her legs clamped toward Aaron's neck like scissors.
The killer move of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, the scissor choke.
As long as it was locked tightly, it could cause a person's brain to experience hypoxia and shock in just a few seconds.
Aaron didn't even look.
His right hand smoothly slapped her ankle.
Bang!
Felicia felt her entire right leg go numb as if struck by electricity. A soreness seeped through her bone crevices, and her strength was instantly drained.
She groaned softly, her whole body smashing down from mid-air.
Aaron loosened his left hand.
She fell solidly onto the concrete ground of the fiftieth-floor rooftop, emitting a heavy muffled thud.
Stirring up a cloud of dust.
Thick dust had accumulated on the concrete ground.
Felicia lay flat on the ground, coughing violently.
The night wind blew her silver-White long hair into a complete mess. The leather jacket's elbows were worn through, oozing fine beads of blood.
She retreated using both hands and feet.
Until her back leaned against the rusty Water tank at the edge of the rooftop, only then did she pant heavily.
She couldn't beat him.
This was simply not the same species.
Strength, speed, and defense—she was rubbed against the ground in all directions.
Her proud combat skills were like a child's broadcast gymnastics in front of the opponent.
Since physical methods were useless, she could only rely on her brain.
Felicia took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the fear in her heart.
She wiped the dust from the corner of her mouth and pulled the black half-face mask that had slipped to her chin back into place.
Put on that lazy and charming expression.
"You are very strong, I concede."
She threw the half-section of the broken blade in her hand aside. The metal emitted a clanging sound upon hitting the ground.
"I am a person under Kingpin. That diamond is the cargo specifically named by the boss."
She deliberately pressed her voice to be very steady, carrying a bit of a threatening taste.
"It is very easy for you to throw me down from here. But having provoked Hells Kitchen, you will definitely not have a good life in New York. How about we split this money equally and make friends."
Aaron tucked his hands back into his trouser pockets.
The black Venom slime in his pocket felt the host's body temperature and obediently clung closely to his thigh.
"You are not Wilson Fisk's person."
Aaron interrupted her words.
He looked down condescendingly at the Black Cat, his voice without a trace of ripples.
"Kingpin doesn't like to use petty thieves like you, he prefers mad dogs like Bullseye."
Felicia gritted her teeth.
Having her lies exposed to her face, the cold sweat on her back broke out even more.
"Think whatever you want. But the person behind me is someone you absolutely cannot afford to provoke. Take the diamond and leave quickly, otherwise everyone will be in trouble."
Aaron laughed.
He took a step forward. His leather shoes stepped on the broken glass of the rooftop, making a crunching sound.
"Felicia Hardy."
The lazy expression on Felicia's face froze instantly.
Just like having a basin of ice water poured over her head.
Wearing a mask, she had committed major crimes in this city for three years without ever leaving any clues.
Even in the encrypted archives of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the New York Police Department, there was no true identity of the "Black Cat".
How did this man know?
Maybe it was just a coincidence. She bit her lip hard, absolutely unable to admit it.
"Who are you calling? You must have recognized the wrong person." Felicia said with a cold face.
"Your mask cannot block your guilty conscience." Aaronstopped his steps, only two meters away from her.
"Walter Hardy, your father. Once New York's top master thief 'The Cat'. Now he is locked in Rikers Island Prison, calculating the time, he has three years left on his sentence."
Felicia's chest heaved violently.
Her nails dug desperately into the concrete ground. Her knuckles turned White.
Concrete debris pricked into the gaps of her nails.
"Do you want to overturn the verdict for your father? Or do you want to prove that you are stronger than him?"
Aaron's voice appeared very cold in the night wind.
"You rented a luxury apartment in Queens. Behind the wardrobe, there is a secret compartment containing all the artworks you have stolen over the past few years. The total value is about thirty million U.S. dollars. The password is your father's birthday."
Felicia's shoulders began to tremble.
"You are used to drinking half a glass of iced whiskey before committing a crime. You like to take a bath with Warm Water."
"At the base of your right thigh, there is a cat-paw-shaped reddish birthmark. That is a rebellious mark you tattooed yourself when you were sixteen years old."
"Also, you are allergic to nuts."
With every sentence spoken, Felicia's complexion turned pale by a fraction.
By the time Aaron finished the last sentence.
Her entire person was like someone just fished out of an ice hole, trembling all over. Even her teeth were chattering.
Complete exposure.
Not physically, but mentally.
All her secrets, disguises, background, crime evidence. Even the most private physiological characteristics.
In front of this man wearing a White T-shirt, it was like an opened children's picture book.
Without any concealment.
Her proud intelligence-gathering ability, her cunning and scheming, at this moment turned into a complete and utter joke.
Fear, true fear.
A sense of despair even thicker than facing Kingpin and facing the muzzle of S.H.I.E.L.D. drowned her like a tide.
Felicia supported herself on the ground with both hands.
Her arms completely lost the strength to support her, and her whole body collapsed limply.
The tight black leather jacket was stained with dust.
In those eyes that usually always exuded confidence and charm, now only emptiness remained.
She was defeated. Defeated thoroughly and utterly.
"Who on earth are you..."
Felicia's voice was terribly hoarse. Her throat was like swallowing a handful of sand.
She looked up at Aaron, her shoulders trembling involuntarily.
"S.H.I.E.L.D.'s super Agent? Mutant? Or a devil of mind-reading?"
Aaron did not answer this boring question.
The night wind blew up the hem of his clothes.
"You only need to know that you are a transparent person in front of me."
Felicia lowered her head resignedly.
She knew she couldn't run away.
Whether in force or intelligence, the opponent had carried out an all-around dimensionality reduction strike against her.
With trembling hands, she unfastened the leather bag at her waist.
Took out the black velvet box containing the eight-million U.S. dollars diamond.
Placed it on the concrete ground. Pushed it toward Aaron's direction.
"The things belong to you."
Felicia leaned against the rusty Water tank and let out a bitter laugh.
She raised her hand and brushed that messy silver-White long hair behind her ear, revealing a section of fair neck.
"Kill me? Or hand me over to Sheriff George Stacy to collect the bounty?"
She abandoned all care, her voice carrying a sense of drained powerlessness.
"Speak, what on earth do you want to do with me?"
Aaron looked at the box containing diamonds on the ground.
Didn't pick it up.
He raised his eyebrows casually, his tone casual.
"I happen to lack a sensible housekeeper, let's go, come home with me."
Chapter 13: Picking Up the Black Cat as a Maid, the Daily Shuroba Begins
Upper East Side, Manhattan.
Inside the private elevator exclusive to the top-floor duplex, the four walls of the car were inlaid with polished black walnut wood.
The spotlights on the ceiling cast a warm yellow light.
The number jumped to "80".
The elevator doors slid open silently.
Aaron walked out of the car with his hands in his pockets.
Felicia Hardy followed behind, her steps feeling floaty.
She was still wearing that dust-covered black leather catsuit, her left hand clutching the scraped skin on her elbow.
The pretty face hidden beneath the mask was taut.
The hallway was paved with a thick Persian rug.
With every step she took, the heels of her high heels sank into the wool, making not a single sound.
She couldn't beat him, nor could she run. Her bottom cards had been stripped away until not even her underwear was left.
Felicia's mind was currently a tangled mess.
Aaron walked up to the large brass door at the end.
He didn't pull out any keys.
The retinal scanner on the side of the door lit up with a blue light, and the lock sprang open with a "click".
The heavy bronze door slid into the walls on both sides.
The lights automatically lit up one by one.
Felicia followed and stepped into the foyer.
Her steps suddenly halted.
She was a Master thief who had seen all sorts of big scenes.
She had slipped into top-tier vaults in Manhattan, and strolled through the luxury Villas of the wealthy in Long Island as if they were her own backyard.
But the furnishings of this apartment still made her swallow hard.
An eight-hundred-square-meter high-ceilinged duplex space.
Outside the panoramic floor-to-ceiling windows, the night view of New York looked like a gigantic circuit board.
In the center of the living room was a set of custom-made white leather sofas.
The constant-temperature wine cabinet on the left took up an entire wall, densely packed with Romanée-Conti of terrifying vintages.
Looking out, there was even a steaming high-altitude constant-temperature swimming pool on the terrace.
"This..." Felicia bit her lower lip.
Just now on the rooftop, she had thought this weirdo wearing a white T-shirt was a hidden ascetic or a MilitaryAgent.
Now it seemed he was an outrageously wealthy tycoon.
As for this apartment, even if she sold that eight-million-dollar diamond, it would only be enough to buy a bathroom.
The little escape scheme in her heart was starting to crack in the face of absolute financial and martial power.
Aaron walked up to the bar counter.
He poured a glass of pure water with ice and tilted his head back to drink half of it.
"Sit wherever you want. Don't touch the third row of the wine cabinet; those are unique pieces meant for display."
He pointed at the sofa.
Felicia stood in place without moving.
She untied the tactical belt around her waist and threw it onto the carpet along with the black box containing the diamond.
The metal buckle made a dull thud.
"A butler?" She rubbed her reddened wrists.
"You went through all that trouble to bring me back just to find someone to clean such a huge house?"
There was a hint of probing in her voice.
Aaron didn't look back.
He walked over to the storage cabinet beside the foyer and pulled open the lower drawer.
When the system gifted this luxury mansion, it conveniently stuffed a bunch of sundries inside.
He rummaged through it twice and pulled out a transparent plastic packaging bag.
He turned around and casually tossed it.
The packaging bag traced an arc in the air and hit Felicia in the chest.
She caught it in a fluster.
Lowering her head to look.
Through the transparent plastic wrap was a traditional black-and-white British maid outfit.
Hanging on top of it was also a white lace headband and a pair of strapped white silk stockings.
Felicia's face instantly flushed red.
The blush spread all the way to the root of her neck.
"Are you crazy?" She squeezed the bag until it made a creaking sound.
"I am a Master thief. I've killed people in Hells Kitchen." She lowered her voice, her chest heaving violently.
"Now you are my butler."
Aaron walked over to the sofa and sat down, crossing his legs.
"The first room on the right is the guest bathroom. Five minutes. Change and come out to brew a cup of coffee."
He picked up the remote control and turned on the hundred-inch holographic television on the wall.
A midnight talk show was playing on the screen, and the roaring laughter of the audience filled the living room.
Felicia stood in place, her back molars clenched tightly.
She looked at Aaron's relaxed back.
And then at the half-open panoramic window. This was the eightieth floor; jumping down wouldn't leave even a trace.
The knuckles of her fingers clutching the plastic bag turned white.
Taking two deep breaths, she turned and walked towards the guest bathroom on the right.
The door was slammed shut by her, making the walls emit a muffled thud.
The bathroom was paved with non-slip black marble.
Felicia zipped her leather catsuit all the way down and stripped off the dust-stained clothes.
She tore open the plastic bag.
This clothing had pitifully little fabric.
Clumsily, she wrapped the straps of the skirt hem around her back, pulling several times before tying it into a barely passable bow.
The hem of the skirt was short enough to just cover the roots of her thighs.
Bending over even slightly carried the risk of exposure.
She wedged that pair of white lace headbands onto her silver hair.
Taking a glance at the mirror by the washbasin.
The dignified "Black Cat", a top-tier flying thief whom the New York Police Department couldn't even catch a shadow of for three years.
Now dressed like a cheap club waitress.
A sense of humiliation made her eyes sting.
But compared to being thrown into the Hudson River to feed fish, or being sent to prison to keep her old man company, this was already the best result.
Five minutes were up.
The lock of the guest bathroom made a click sound.
The wooden door was pushed open.
Felicia stepped out in high heels.
Her heels tapped crisp pattering sounds on the marble floor.
She awkwardly tugged at the damn-short skirt hem.
The white silk stockings clung tightly to her slender thighs, pressing out a hint of fleshiness.
The black mask on her face wasn't removed; paired with this British maid outfit, it exuded a strong sense of contrast.
"This skirt is too short." She bit her lower lip, her voice as small as a mosquito's hum.
Aaron turned his head.
His gaze swept over her body.
"It fits well. Go brew some coffee. The kitchen is over there." He pointed towards the direction of the open kitchen.
Felicia clenched her fists, her nails digging into the flesh of her palms.
She had just moved forward two steps.
A crisp electronic sound came from the foyer.
Ding-dong.
The doorbell rang.
Felicia stopped her steps.
In the middle of the night, who would come to knock on the door of a single man living alone?
Subconsciously, she took half a step back, hiding behind a tall bird of paradise potted plant.
Aaron frowned slightly.
He stood up, walked to the foyer, and pressed the intercom display screen.
On the screen appeared a pure and pretty face.
Gwen Stacy.
She had changed out of the loose loungewear she wore during the day and was wearing an off-white trench coat.
Her long blonde hair was scattered over her shoulders.
In her hand, she carried a pink printed paper bag. Even through the screen, the blush on her cheeks could be seen.
Aaron pressed the door-opening button.
The draft from the hallway blew in, carrying the chill of late autumn.
Gwen stood at the doorway, holding the paper bag forward with both hands.
"Aaron. Good evening."
She stuttered a bit when speaking.
"I... I just baked a batch of cookies. Butter walnut flavored."
Gwen lowered her head, her gaze fixed on her own canvas shoes.
"During the day at your house... that news interrupted us. I was afraid you hadn't eaten dinner, so I brought them over on the way."
The excuse was very clumsy.
Forest Hills was more than half of New York away from the Upper East Side. It would take forty minutes by drive, making it impossible to be "on the way".
The mouth of the paper bag exuded a rich buttery aroma of baking.
"Thank you." Aaron reached out and took the paper bag.
His fingertips inadvertently brushed against the back of Gwen's hand.
Gwen pulled her hand back as if electrocuted, her cheeks burning hot.
She mustered up the courage to raise her head.
"Um, can't I go in and sit for a bit?" she asked softly, her gaze looking past Aaron's shoulder inside.
And it was precisely this look.
The shyness and expectation on Gwen's face instantly froze.
The living room lights were very bright.
Past that set of pure white handmade sofas, next to the bird of paradise potted plant.
Stood a woman with a figure so hot it was practically a foul.
Silver hair, wearing a black half-face mask.
Wearing an extremely revealing black-and-white maid outfit, with white garter stockings tightly stretched against her thighs.
The air instantly stopped flowing.
The cold wind from the hallway blew into the living room, dispersing the rich buttery aroma.
Replacing it was a pungent smell of gunpowder.
The smile on Gwen's face vanished bit by bit.
Her gaze swept back and forth between Aaron and that silver-haired maid.
Her fingers tightly clawed at the hem of her trench coat.
"Aaron." Gwen's voice was as cold as ice shards, "Who is this? Wearing like this in your house in the middle of the night?"
Felicia walked out from behind the potted plant.
A woman's intuition in this regard was always scarily accurate. She saw at a glance the hostility and possessiveness of this blonde girl.
The humiliation in her heart was suddenly replaced by a thrill of revenge.
Deliberately swaying her waist, she catwalked over to Aaron's side.
Sticking out a hand painted with black nail polish, she gently rested it on Aaron's arm.
"Master, do the coffee beans need to be freshly ground?" Felicia deliberately pinched her voice, her tone sounding sticky and sweet.
Gwen's breathing grew rapid.
Her eye sockets turned red, her chest heaving violently.
Her two hands clenched tightly into fists, the knuckles turning pale.
An epic disaster was about to erupt right in the foyer.
Just as the gazes of the two women were about to strike sparks in mid-air.
The hundred-inch holographic television on the living room wall.
The screen suddenly flickered for a moment.
The background audio of the midnight talk show was forcibly cut off.
The screen turned into a dazzling red.
"Breaking news broadcast!"
An anxious male announcer's voice resounded through the living room.
"A severe collapse has occurred in the New York Citymunicipal sewer network!"
"A giant lizard monster over six meters in body length has rushed onto the streets."
The screen switched.
In the footage from the night-vision helicopter, a giant monster covered all over in green scales was flipping over a New York Police Department patrol car.
The police car tumbled in mid-air, smashing the roadside fire hydrant.
"The police firepower cannot stop the monster's advance."
The announcer shouted.
"The monster's current movement trajectory is clear, and it is heading straight towards Midtown High School in Queens!"
Chapter 14: Professor Lizard wants to release poison gas? Drink this bottle of perfect antidote first!
The television screen flickered with a dazzling red light.
The female anchor's sharp voice echoed in the living room.
Yet the atmosphere was as cold as a morgue.
Gwen stared fixedly at the hand Felicia had placed on Aaron's arm.
Her chest heaved violently.
She clenched the pocket of her beige trench coat into deep folds.
Felicia did not yield at all, provocatively lifting her chin.
Caught in the middle, Aaron felt a bit of sweat on his back.
This was even more fatal than taking Green Goblin's pumpkin bomb head-on.
He had to leave. Right now.
Aaron cleared his throat.
He pulled his arm out from between Felicia's fingers painted with black nail polish.
His movements were a bit stiff, and he accidentally knocked over an empty glass on the coffee table.
The glass rolled twice on the carpet and hit the sofa leg.
"We're out of soy sauce at home."
Aaron made up a lousy excuse without changing his expression.
"I'll go buy a bottle at the convenience store downstairs. You guys chat first."
Gwen was stunned.
She pointed at the holographic television on the wall.
"There's a six-meter-tall monster outside! And it's heading towards Midtown High School!"
She bit her lip, her voice raising by an octave.
"I'll take the main road with surveillance."
Aaron grabbed the dark jacket on the sofa back.
Without even changing his shoes, he walked with large strides to the foyer wearing cotton slippers.
With a "click" sound.
The heavy brass door was pulled open by him with a yank, and then quickly shut.
The movement was smooth as flowing water, without delaying a single second.
In the empty living room.
Only Gwen, holding cookies, and the Black Cat wearing a maid outfit were left.
Staring at each other in blank dismay.
The air was filled with a mixed smell of butter baking and strong gunpowder.
...
Standing in the corridor on the eightieth floor, Aaron let out a long breath of foul air.
Escaped by the skin of his teeth.
He slipped the jacket on and pushed open the fire door of the safety exit directly.
There was no surveillance in the stairwell.
"Suit up."
He issued the command in his mind.
Pure white Symbiote matter surged wildly out from his pores.
Instantly swallowing his cotton slippers and casual clothes.
The form-fitting white battle suit covered his entire body.
The power of the Steel Body boiled anew in his blood vessels.
Aaron walked to the ventilation window of the stairwell.
With a kick, he shattered the iron bars of the louvers.
The night wind mixed with the earthy smell unique before the rain rushed toward his face.
He leaped out from the high altitude of eighty floors.
His body fell rapidly under the pull of gravity.
The wind whistled sharply past his ears.
Thirty meters away from the ground.
Aaron twisted his waist mid-air, and his legs stepped precisely onto the glass curtain wall of the nearby building.
Bang.
The tempered glass exploded a ring of white air waves.
Utilizing the recoil, he shot towards Queens like a white cannonball.
The sirens of police cars on the street below rang into a chorus.
The red and blue police lights dragged long ribbons of light on the puddle-covered asphalt road.
A few minutes later.
Two blocks outside Midtown High School.
Aaron landed in a dark garbage recycling station.
He stepped on the rusty round sewer manhole cover with one foot.
The pig-iron manhole cover let out a miserable cry and snapped directly in the middle.
Aaron jumped into the pitch-black shaft.
A strong smell of ammonia and rotting matter rushed straight into his nasal cavity.
The main sewer road was wide enough to drive a truck into.
The walls were covered with dark green moss.
The turbid sewage submerged Aaron's ankles.
Heavy footsteps came from ahead.
With every step, the old water pipes at the top trembled along, dropping large flakes of rust.
Accompanied by hissing, heavy panting.
Aaron lightened his steps and walked forward close to the wall.
Turning a corner.
Ahead was an abandoned underground reservoir.
A giant lizard with a body length of over six meters was turning its back to him.
Its whole body was covered with dark green, rough scales.
Its thick tail dragged in the water, sweeping back and forth, splashing turbid water.
Professor Curt Connors.
Now the Lizard-man.
In front of the monster stood a two-meter-tall metal apparatus.
That was the Canary device snatched from Osborn Tower.
In the core slot of the device, several glass tubes filled with green liquid were plugged.
"Perfect… evolution…"
The Lizard-man spat out muddled human words from its mouth.
It clumsily used its clawed fingers to connect the thick cables on the device.
Light green poison gas had already begun to overflow along the pipes.
As long as the launch button was pressed.
This device would send the lizard gene poison gas into New York City's ventilation network.
Aaron leaned against the damp and cold brick wall.
He was not in a hurry to make a move.
His consciousness sank into the system space, into that golden-glowing blind box warehouse.
"Extract gene recovery potion."
His palm felt heavy.
A glass test tube filled with sea-blue liquid appeared out of thin air.
The surface of the test tube carried an icy metal texture.
This bottle of [Perfect Gene Recovery Potion] was unboxed from Professor Lizard's derivative blind box.
Aaron stuffed the test tube into the groove at the waist of his battle suit.
He stepped out of the shadows.
His military boots stepped on a broken brick, making a crisp sound.
The Lizard-man's movements stopped.
It abruptly turned its massive head.
A pair of vertical pupils flickered with a cold yellow light in the dark.
"Who?"
The Lizard-man let out a hoarse roar.
It turned around, its six-meter-long massive body full of oppression.
The top of the sewer was almost brushed by its spine.
Aaron stood in the ankle-deep sewage.
The pure white battle suit was exceptionally eye-catching under the dim light.
"From the Environmental Protection Agency."
Aaron patted the dust on his hands.
"Dumping chemical waste indiscriminately is prohibited here. You've been issued a ticket."
The Lizard-man could not understand this cold joke.
The Beast's instinct made it feel the threat from the short person in front of it.
It opened its bloody maw full of fangs.
A strong smell of dead fish rushed toward his face.
Boom!
The monster's thick hind legs kicked fiercely.
The cement slab on the ground shattered directly into powder.
The six-meter-long body crashed straight toward Aaronlike an out-of-control dump truck.
The right claw, larger than a millstone, with the wind whistling as it tore through the air, slammed fiercely toward Aaron's head.
Five black sharp claws popped out, flashing with cold light.
If this blow landed solidly, even an armored vehicle would be flattened.
Aaron didn't dodge.
He simply raised his left hand.
Bang!
The giant claw and the white palm collided.
A visible wave of air rippled out in the sewer.
A large patch of moss on the wall was blown off by the fierce wind.
Aaron's feet were rooted, nailed in place.
Not even retreating a millimeter.
The water surface was shaken into ripples.
A trace of astonishment flashed in the Lizard-man's vertical pupils.
It wanted to withdraw its claw.
Only to find that small white palm gripped its joint tightly like a hydraulic clamp.
The monster was enraged.
It twisted its thick neck and opened its bloody maw.
The upper jaw with serrated fangs bit fiercely toward Aaron's left shoulder.
Aaron didn't even activate the battle suit's defense transformation.
He just stiffened his neck like this and let it bite.
The muscle fibers of the Steel Body instantly densified to the extreme.
Crack!
A tooth-aching shattering sound echoed in the empty reservoir.
This was not the sound of bones breaking.
But the sound of teeth shattering.
The Lizard-man let out a shrill, miserable scream.
The moment its full mouth of fangs bit Aaron's shoulder, a dozen of them snapped directly.
The shattered gum spewed foul-smelling green blood outwards.
Its proud bite force was no better than biting onto a solid steel ingot.
"You need to scale your teeth, Professor Connors."
Aaron frowned.
A ripple appeared on the surface of the battle suit, bouncing off all the green saliva that had stained it.
He released the Lizard-man's claw.
His right hand suddenly reached out.
Directly grabbing the rough scales on the Lizard-man's chin.
The monster wanted to shake him off, and its thick tail whipped onto the nearby load-bearing column like a whip.
The concrete column snapped in response.
Aaron's left hand lifted upward, clasping the monster's upper jaw.
Both hands were up and down.
Terrifying monstrous strength erupted.
Creak, creak.
The Lizard-man's mandible emitted an unbearable groan.
Its mouth, more than two meters long, was forcibly pried open by Aaron to its extreme angle.
The monster struggled frantically in pain, its limbs scratching wildly in the dirty water, splashing mud everywhere across the sky.
But it couldn't shake Aaron in the slightest.
Aaron freed a thumb on his right hand.
Pressing on the groove at his waist.
That tube of sea-blue Perfect Gene Recovery Potion popped out.
He flicked open the metal cork of the test tube with his thumb.
The blue liquid emitted a faint fluorescence.
"It's time to take your medicine."
Aaron flipped his wrist.
Pouring the entire tube of potion, along with the test tube, directly into the Lizard-man's bottomless throat.
Gulp.
The blue medicinal liquid slid down the esophagus into the monster's stomach.
Aaron clapped his hands together.
Bang.
Slamming the Lizard-man's big mouth shut tightly.
The monster swallowed it.
Aaron let go and stepped back two steps to avoid being splattered with mud from the upcoming scene.
The speed at which the potion took effect was shockingly fast.
The Lizard-man's massive body suddenly froze.
It grabbed its throat, letting out a painful howl like a butchered pig.
Gurgle, gurgle.
Large patches of white steam began to emerge from the monster's epidermis.
Just like cold water poured onto a red-hot branding iron.
The hard dark green scales fell off piece by piece, dropping into the water with plop-plop sounds.
Its bones began to pop and crackle.
The six-meter-tall giant body shrunk at a speed visible to the naked eye like a deflating ball.
The thick tail turned into a puddle of green pus, quickly shriveling and disappearing.
The Beast's outline gradually faded away.
One minute later.
The steam dissipated completely.
Only the heavy breathing and the ticking of water drops remained in the sewer.
A naked middle-aged man was lying face down in the ankle-deep sewage.
He coughed violently, spitting out two mouthfuls of bloody green water.
Sparse hair, pale skin.
Professor Curt Connors was back.
His sanity reoccupied his brain.
Recalling his crazy act of almost releasing poison gas to destroy New York just now, his whole body trembled like a sieve.
Connors turned over with difficulty and sat on the ground.
Habitually, he wanted to use his left hand to touch his empty right shoulder.
His hand stopped halfway.
His gaze was nailed tightly onto the right half of his body.
There were no terrifying scars left by the severed limb.
An intact, powerful arm was growing there.
The skin was fair, all five fingers were sound, and even the nails were intact.
Connors was stunned.
He tried to move the index finger of his right hand.
The finger bent obediently.
He raised his entire right hand to his eyes, clenching it into a fist with force.
His nails sank deeply into the flesh of his palm, and the real pain transmitted along the nerves into his brain.
"My hand… my hand has grown back…"
Connors' voice was hoarse, tears gushing out mixed with muddy water.
This was not a cold-blooded claw exchanged for mutating into a monster; this was a real arm belonging to a human.
This bottle of potion not only cleared the lizard genes but also repaired his disability.
He raised his head.
Looking at the You-Know-Who in the pure white battle suit two meters away.
The sewer exhaust fan emitted a dull revolving sound.
Professor Connors propped his hands in the muddy water.
His knees softened, and with a thud, he knelt down in front of Aaron.