In less than ten minutes.
An entire, well-equipped modern U.S. military squad was wiped out by the Abomination. Humans wailed, fires raged, and a once-prosperous, peaceful corner of the city had been reduced to a living hell.
The Abomination was like a monster crawled out of the underworld, born to slaughter. Blood seeped from the flattened vehicles beneath its feet. It glanced down at its clenched fists and, feeling the utterly incomparable power surging through its body, its almost-human face twisted into a crazed, satisfied snarl.
"P-please… don't kill me…"
The only surviving American soldier dropped his rifle with a sharp clatter. He stood before a building turned to ruin, eyes horrified as he watched his comrades shred to pieces in an instant. His spirit and will seemed utterly crushed; his legs gave out and he collapsed to his knees in a pool of blood.
Along with his body, his lifelong faith had been broken.
Faced with such an overwhelmingly overpowering force that defied every common sense, the soldier found himself wondering whether, if a god truly existed, it too might be slain by the unstoppable horror before him.
The Abomination sneered at the soldier and made no move to spare him. Instead it took a step forward — a step like Death approaching — and the ground trembled and cried out under its tread.
The American soldier remained motionless, hands limp on the ground, awaiting the end.
Just as the Abomination debated whether to crunch the man with its hand or grind him to paste with its foot, a silhouette streaked across the fire-lit night sky behind it.
Swish — swish — swish!
Three white strands of web struck the Abomination's bald head in quick succession. It reached back and clawed at the back of its skull; its palms came away sticky with tough, tenacious white webbing. Surprised, the Abomination turned and looked toward the clock tower with a chunk missing from its side. On top of that tower crouched a human girl in a black-and-white spider suit.
"A big guy like you — wanna play?" Gwen, the female Spider, peered down at the Abomination and taunted, curling a finger. Then, without hesitation, she tugged a web and swung herself away.
"ROAR!!"
The Abomination howled, abandoning the kneeling soldier. It planted its feet and launched itself backward, cracking the road beneath it as it surged like a human missile, smashing onto the clock tower's spire without any sign of deceleration or wind-up. It then dove in a straight line after the web-slung Gwen.
The American soldier stared in a daze until a boy's voice spoke nearby: "Hey, sir, why don't you take this chance and get out of here?"
The soldier followed the voice and saw only a wasteland of flames — no one in sight calling to him. Still, the voice snapped him back. He scrambled up, staggered, and fled the unforgettable carnage.
Inside a nearby residential building whose occupants had already evacuated, a silver-haired youth bearing a round shield and clutching a longsword stood behind a window—Xi Nian.
He sighed softly. He didn't quite understand why, after deciding to leave, he had instead followed the girl in the spider suit back into the city's collapsing warzone. But he couldn't shake the image of that lone figure plunging into battle.
She was just a mysterious person with superhuman abilities—yet he found he couldn't simply walk away.
"Well, I'm already here. I might as well see what happens." Xi Nian tightened his grip on the antique longsword and leapt from the windowsill to the church roof across the street, thirty meters above ground. Nearby stood the clock tower that the Abomination had just smashed.
He crouched low and watched the city below.
Gwen clearly knew she couldn't go toe-to-toe with the Abomination. She kept using her webbing to swing through empty streets, darting nimbly between buildings and slipping through narrow windows and alleys just her body could pass through.
Still—
The Abomination hung stubbornly on her tail. Rather than falling behind, the distance between them decreased.
It didn't care about obstacles. It smashed and leaped with brutal force. Anything in its path was pulverized to dust.
Boom!!
Like a human torpedo it slammed down again, this time smashing across the exterior wall of a building ahead of Gwen.
Clinging to an eave with one massive hand, the Abomination lashed out with the other as Gwen shot by. At the last instant she snapped her web and swung back — barely missing the Abomination's grasp. The white hood over her head was snagged and shredded into rags by the giant green hand.
"ROAR!!" the Abomination grew even angrier and continued to chase Gwen into a narrow alley.
"Close one," Xi Nian murmured from his vantage point. He was suddenly impressed — Gwen was far more formidable than he had imagined.
But no matter how long she ran, she could only delay the inevitable.
"No—she's not just running," Xi Nian realized, his eyes sharpening. He stared intently; Gwen was intentionally driving the Abomination toward denser clusters of buildings.
Crack… crack… crack—
Walls on both sides of the alley showed fresh, obvious damage. The Abomination thundered out of the alley, filthy and enraged. It locked on to Gwen as she darted into another narrow lane, every vein on its head and forehead bulging with fury.
It roared and charged into the alley mouth, violently ramming through and widening the passage two or three times as it barreled forward.
Only this time, when it burst out the other end, it found itself in a spider's lair—a field of dense white webbing strung everywhere beyond the alley. The webs were anchored to the surrounding intact buildings: dozens upon dozens of strands forming a gigantic web trap outside the alley.
If the Abomination had been calm, perhaps it would have shrugged it off. But in its blind rage, it smashed straight into the snare.
"Now!" Xi Nian thought.
Gwen, clinging to a high wall, lashed out with webbing. The strands shot and stuck to the Abomination's head and limbs, like iron chains attached to surrounding facades.
In about five seconds, the Abomination was nearly cocooned in webbing. Its mouth and nose were sealed; it was trapped, fused into the architecture around it.
"Impressive—really underestimated her," Xi Nian muttered in admiration.
Having expended nearly all of her webbing, Gwen finally let out a breath and slumped against the high wall, exhausted.
Perhaps because the area was empty, she pulled the lower edge of her mask up slightly, revealing a delicate chin, a small mouth still panting, and a neat, high nose.
"No way," Xi Nian felt a chill run through him.
Although only half her face showed, the girl in the spider suit looked very much like someone he knew.
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Power me up with your Power Stones!