Even without eyes, Bant still rolled his eyes inside his heart.
Peter hurriedly helped Mark up. "Wait, Daredevil. He's not our enemy. He's that super bracelet… I mean, Wildmutt."
Mark didn't know how to respond for a moment. The creature in front of him didn't feel like any species that could exist on Earth. It was hard for him to believe this thing was "on their side."
Bant didn't care what Mark thought. They weren't close in the first place. If Peter hadn't gotten hurt, and if the monster's ability hadn't piqued Bant's interest, he wouldn't have bothered with any of this.
At the same time, Peter and Mark also noticed the blood painting on the wall.
The three of them could only scrape together one pair of eyes, and it happened to be on Peter. So Peter was the only one who could clearly see the full picture.
That twisted image, smeared entirely in blood, made him feel sick on the spot. The figures in the painting had no pupils, their faces frozen in terror and warped beyond recognition.
He felt like throwing up.
"That monster… he killed this person just to paint?"
"Blood from one person isn't enough," Mark gritted out, hatred lacing every word. "He's harmed at least one hundred and thirteen people!"
But he was also confused. The blood stench here was so thick it felt like a slaughterhouse. How had he never noticed it before?
"Then how do we find him?" Peter asked.
He'd been useless for a while now. All he could do was place his hopes on Mark and Bant. He really wanted to say it out loud: letting two guys with no eyes track someone down felt a little ridiculous.
"I can't either." Mark shook his head. His senses were completely useless against that enemy. He even suspected it was because the guy had been staying here all along that the wall's blood stench had been masked from him.
Thinking of that, he looked at Bant again, that strange alien dog.
"Your… friend," Mark struggled for a long time before finally finding a word that sounded less offensive. "Can he find that guy?"
Peter nodded without thinking.
In truth, he'd already realized Wildmutt's method of searching was probably similar to Mark's, and the enemy just happened to be the perfect counter to Wildmutt.
But he still believed Bant could do it.
Same old line: my cousin is invincible.
Bant didn't disappoint him.
At that moment, Bant calmed himself and pushed Wildmutt's senses to the absolute limit. The gill-like slits on both sides of his head opened, and in that instant, the city's information poured into his brain.
A picture of the entire New York City unfolded inside Bant's mind. Starting right in front of him, with the scene of Peter and Mark staring at the blood painting in horror, it expanded outward until all of Hell's Kitchen was laid bare…
Nowhere to hide. He saw, one block away, a homeless man lying on soggy cardboard. Not far from there, a gang thug pressed a gun under another thug's chin. Through a wall, he heard a drunk man smash a bottle over his wife's head…
Outside Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan was still prosperous.
This massive three-dimensional model of New York appeared in Bant's mind like a hologram.
But it wasn't complete. There was a huge missing section. That area was like a giant black hole, constantly devouring Bant's perception until he couldn't sense anything there at all.
Found you.
The moment he realized Wildmutt's super senses weren't working, he'd already had an idea. He could use the enemy's ability to locate the enemy.
If that monster couldn't be detected by any senses other than sight, then he just had to do the opposite and find the "blank spot." Once he found the hole, he would know the monster's position.
But he didn't move right away. Instead, he turned his head toward Peter and Mark and shook it at them.
He had found the monster, but he didn't plan to tell Peter and Mark.
Because Wildmutt's transformation time was limited, only thirty minutes.
Sure, he'd previously gained access to the Omnitrix's Life Lock mode, but to activate that mode he needed to use a voice password. And the Little Broken Watch couldn't translate Wildmutt's language…
"Even you can't find him?" Peter asked in surprise.
Bant scratched words into the floor with his claws, then ignored their reactions and charged out of the room. Under the moonlight, he climbed onto the rooftops like a werewolf and vanished.
After everything that had happened tonight, Mark felt exhausted.
"Spider-Man, we have no leads. Let's call it here for tonight."
Mark planned to wait until daytime, then investigate properly under his other identity. A monster using the blood of over a hundred victims to paint a mural couldn't possibly leave zero traces.
"Alright…" Peter nodded and prepared to leave as well.
Meanwhile, on the other side.
After leaving Hell's Kitchen, Bant flipped open a sewer cover and slipped inside. He had already returned to his normal form, wearing his Spider suit. To anyone else, he would just look like Spider-Man.
"Back in the sewers again."
"I really am Spider-Man now."
He sighed, then raised his right hand. "Eunice, project the network map of Manhattan's underground pipelines."
"Yes, sir."
Eunice's cool voice sounded. In the next second, a three-dimensional hologram rose from his wrist device.
Unlike Peter's suit, which still didn't have an AI installed, Bant had long since embedded a tiny chip into his own web-shooters.
With his left hand, he adjusted the projection and quickly marked a location in red from memory.
He wasn't worried about the enemy running. Because when he transformed into Wildmutt, he'd already discovered the enemy's base. Besides that enemy, there were nearly a hundred weak voices inside.
Clearly, they were ordinary people the monster had kidnapped.
Ordinary people, yes, but some of their identities weren't ordinary at all.
"Councilwoman Andrea's daughter?" Bant laughed softly. "Now that's an unexpected bonus."
A councilwoman might not be all that powerful on her own, but if he used her as an entry point to gain the support of more council members, Primus's future development would become much smoother.
With that thought, he stopped complaining about the sewer environment. Following Eunice's guidance, he headed deeper into the tunnels.
At the same time, in Muse's base.
Hundreds of weak people hung from the sewer ceiling like strips of dried meat. Most of them barely had any breath left. Constant bloodletting without nutrition had pushed them to the brink of death.
And in a place crawling with bacteria like this, their wounds had long since become infected. Most of them were burning with fever, sickness clinging to their bodies like a curse.
Andrea stared at the scene in terror. She hadn't been tied up here for long. That monster hadn't had time to touch her yet, but just seeing what had happened to these people drove her to absolute despair.
Would she end up like them?
Would that monster cut off her limbs with a knife, then stitch them somewhere else, turning her into one of his so-called twisted "artworks"?
Or would he hang her upside down, slice open a vein, and keep draining her until she died?
She trembled as she imagined it.
Just then, Muse appeared like a ghost, completely silent.
"Sure enough… once a person dies, the amount of blood that flows out decreases…"
His arrival made Andrea's pupils tighten, her breathing hitching painfully.
Then she watched as the monster picked up a saw, walked to someone who was barely alive, grabbed the man's arm, and started sawing.
Screeeech!
The rusty saw ground against flesh and bone, making a piercing sound.
"This hand… where should I stitch it?"
His hollow eye sockets shifted, his "gaze" landing on Andrea, who was tightly bound and thrown on the ground.
In the next second, that faceless head seemed to smile.
/-\
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