Watching Dr. Lizard and Dr. Octopus perish together, Vincent and Spider-Woman beside them were silent.
Who could have imagined such an outcome?
"Dr. Connors, he still lost control, completely degenerating into a monstrous beast."
Gwen took off her spider-hood, sighed, and said with a hint of sadness, "Dr. Otto should be the same; his brain nerves were stimulated by the intelligent system of those mechanical tentacles behind him, so his mind was controlled by the machinery long ago."
Vincent nodded slightly.
Acquiring extraordinary things beyond one's control, leading to a loss of humanity and moral bottom line... He could deeply empathize with this.
The current Dr. Lizard and Dr. Octopus were like Vincent when he was three-in-one.
However, Vincent had pulled back from the brink, timely controlling the extraordinary power, while the two doctors were unable to stop and continued to lose themselves in the abyss of the extraordinary.
In the current era, with the hidden side of the world exposed to sunlight and extraordinary events constantly emerging.
The two doctors were just a microcosm, a representation.
In the future.
Perhaps many more like the two doctors, who yearn to explore the extraordinary but ultimately get lost in it, will appear...
"Let's go, it's time to head back," Vincent said.
"Should we leave them here?" Gwen hesitated.
"Leaving their brilliance in the outside world, and burying the darkness in their hearts and what they possessed together beneath this ground—this should be the ending they desired," Vincent thought for a moment, then squatted down and placed his left hand on the ground near the two doctors.
His left hand's five fingers suddenly clenched and pressed downwards!
Crackle crackle—
The already cracked pit suddenly crumbled and collapsed downwards, and the entangled bodies of Dr. Lizard and Dr. Octopus fell, buried by rubble and darkness in the truly sunless underground...
Weekend.
Lying on the sofa at home, petting the Flerken Cub Xiao Huang, Vincent was bored, watching the television, which was broadcasting a memorial for two doctors who made outstanding contributions to biology and physics respectively—Curt Connors and Otto Gunther Octavius.
"So, Aunt Diana. What happened to that Cheetah Aunt... um, Ms. Barbara in the end?"
Vincent shifted on the sofa, looking up at the owner of the long, smooth legs that were cushioning his head.
Diana reached out and ruffled his hair, saying calmly, "Nothing much. However, she probably won't dare to come to this city for the next few years."
Vincent inexplicably shrank his neck, able to imagine that Cheetah must have been terribly, terribly tormented at the time.
After all, when he rushed back to school, he could only see the Cheetah's panicked fleeing back.
"Alright, you stay home and be good; I'm going to work," Diana said, gently lifting Vincent's head and replacing her legs with a pillow.
Vincent frowned uncomfortably.
The pillow was actually quite comfortable, but compared to the former, wrapped in a high-quality white gauze skirt, it was clearly far inferior in terms of softness, smoothness, and the pleasing sense of satisfaction...
After Aunt Diana left the house, it immediately became quiet, with only Vincent and Xiao Huang left to guard the home.
Even little Wanda, who usually bustled around the house, was gone; according to the arrangement mentioned last week, she had been picked up by a special car sent by Wayne Enterprises to Gotham City for further studies.
Oh, right.
Today was the seventh day since Superman's disappearance.
Vincent could recall, even with his eyes closed, how a few days ago, Metropolis was deserted as thousands of people, holding flowers, walked onto the streets to bid farewell, and the U.S. military even ostentatiously deployed warplanes, holding an unprecedented funeral that even a President wouldn't have.
Unfortunately, Superman was not lying in that luxurious, flag-draped coffin.
While the grand funeral was being held across the entire world, Superman, in his human identity as "Clark Joseph Kent," lay in an ordinary wooden coffin, and a small-scale farewell funeral was held in front of a suburban house far from the city.
So.
In the large funeral, what lay in the empty coffin should have been the justice and truth of this country.
At the small funeral, there were only a dozen or so people: Superman's family, fiancée, colleagues, and members of the Justice League, which was then being formed.
Diana told Vincent this after she returned from attending that small funeral.
Vincent knew.
This also meant that Aunt Diana had decided to inherit Superman's legacy, officially joining the Justice League as Wonder Woman, and teaming up with other superheroes to confront potential extraordinary events in the future!
This would also be the second extraordinary team formed with superheroes as members, after the Avengers!
...Vincent shook his head, but had no intention of joining any league.
After all, both the Avengers and the Justice League were respectively led by Iron Man and Batman as core figures, and he was simply not the type of person who could act and strive according to others' ideals.
If there was an opportunity in the future, he might as well create his own league.
If nothing else, Gwen should at least be one of the members, right?
Vincent quickly pushed this immature idea to the back of his mind, picked up Flerken Xiao Huang in his arms, and somewhat bored, rose from the sofa, muttering, "How about I take you to see Barry Allen? He took care of you for a while, and even specially invited us last time."
"Meow!" Xiao Huang blinked, raising a cat paw with pink paw pads.
"Five cans of small fish? Deal," Vincent said generously.
So, very quickly.
Vincent changed into his outdoor attire, went out with an ordinary backpack, from which an orange-yellow little head peeked out of the opening.
Outside, the sun was bright, people came and went on the streets, some street walls were graffitied with designs commemorating Superman, and billboards in the streets and alleys occasionally flashed Superman's image.
It was as if Superman was still alive, Superman everywhere.
Vincent, with Xiao Huang in his backpack, walked along the pedestrian street towards the address Barry Allen had given.
However, he had only gone halfway.
As he crossed a pedestrian crossing with a zebra stripe, Vincent was slightly startled, for in the oncoming crowd, a figure in a yellow robe stood out prominently.
It was a bald woman wearing a strange yet clean yellow robe, with her hands clasped behind her back, standing motionless and perfectly straight in the middle of the pedestrian crossing at the intersection.
Whether it was her peculiar attire, similar to a monk's robe, or her act of standing in the middle of the road, she stood out from the crowd, different from ordinary people.
However.
The numerous passersby walking past the woman's sides, and even the people on the entire street, seemed to not see her at all.
Vincent paused.
His first thought was, could it be that he had encountered something so-called unspeakable?
You cannot see the fear I see?
Dispelling the somewhat comical thought in his mind, Vincent hesitated, shifted the backpack to his chest, and pretended not to see her as he continued to walk forward.
And just as Vincent, like other passersby, was about to walk past the woman.
The woman smiled faintly, looked at him, and said, "My name is Ancient One."
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