In the uninhabited alley.
The night in New York was deep.
The air was filled with a mixture of machine oil and cooking oil fumes.
"She's going to die soon."
Hearing Spider-Man Peter Parker's worried statement, Ian's expression noticeably froze. After a brief silence, he spoke in an odd tone.
"What's the deal? Why is Gwen going to kick the bucket *again*?" Ian frowned, finding it hard to believe. It seemed every time he encountered Gwen, she was in some kind of precarious situation.
It was shocking.
But also not particularly shocking.
"Again?"
Peter blinked in confusion.
"Why do you say 'again'?"
His focus was clearly sharp. As a normal New York citizen unfamiliar with the ties between Ian and Gwen, it was normal that Peter Parker didn't know about Gwen's "prone to tragedy" attribute.
"Uh..."
Ian reclaimed his blinking patent, blinking twice. "Never mind the details. Tell me, what happened to Gwen? Last time I saw her, she was hanging herself from a web in Times Square."
He felt that Gwen, as a "relic of the old era" like himself, shouldn't perish even if she encountered some danger. She should possess some of the resilient qualities of an "old soldier."
"Three days ago, we were stopping a bank robbery. Those bastards were inexperienced and panicked while driving away, almost hitting a child on the side of the road."
"Teacher Gwen was teaching me Spider-Man techniques, and when she saw the kid about to be struck by the out-of-control car, she immediately put herself in front of the child to save him."
"She is a real hero. She saved the child, but she suffered compound fractures across her entire body and hasn't been moved out of the ICU yet."
Peter took a deep breath, his voice filled with respect for Gwen.
"Wait a minute, Gwen's physique allows her to stop a subway train with her bare hands. How could being hit by a car leave her critically injured and dying?" Ian's brow furrowed like an eighteen-year-old adult boy.
He felt this was neither logical nor scientifically sound.
"That's what I find most incomprehensible. Doctor Strange said her power is draining, which is why she wanted to teach me to take over as the new Spider-Man."
Spider-Man dropped his usual flippant attitude, speaking seriously.
"Power draining?" Ian looked up in surprise at the drone appearing above the alley. He knew that any drone appearing in such a location at this time most likely came from Stark Industries.
After all, normal drone hobbyists know that if a drone leaves their line of sight, others might shoot it down as an unmanned object. You can still shoot down modern birds in a modern city.
"Hey! Teacher New Tony! Can someone explain the situation to me?" Ian's guess was correct. A drone painted gold and red silently descended from above the alley.
It projected a holographic image onto the ground.
It was Teacher New Tony.
He was wearing a suit characteristic of a presidential campaign, the model looking like a $2,999 skin, every color combination containing strong campaign hints.
"You showed up a little later than usual today," Teacher New Tony commented on what he observed first before continuing to answer the question that perplexed Ian.
"The Extraordinary DNA in Gwen's body is degenerating, or more accurately, the supernatural substance within Gwen's body is being transferred from thin air into the body of the second Spider-Man, Peter Parker."
"Of course, Gwen's life will certainly be saved. I've already transferred her to the Sanctum Sanctorum basement, where she is being treated by Doctor Helen Cho's Cradle of Life device."
Teacher New Tony was reliable as always.
His words were full of information.
Causing Ian's super-brain to turn slightly.
However, before the most super-intelligent person present could speak, Peter Parker, who mistakenly thought his identity had just been revealed, was the first to tear off his mask with a look of helplessness.
"Wait, I wanted to keep some suspense about my identity! Being a high school student superhero is pretty amazing." Behind the Spider-Man mask was a youthful face.
"I'm still in middle school, and I became an Evil God at the age of fifteen, yet I'm not showing off. You want to start showing off?" Ian looked at Spider-Man's vanity with contempt.
"..."
Spider-Man opened his mouth, finding himself speechless. If the information the other superheroes shared was correct, this little boy really seemed to be some kind of Evil God found only in movies.
Seeing Spider-Man fall silent, Ian continued to look at his face. "Oh, by the way, did you not know that Superman has X-Ray Vision?"
"Superman can see what you look like under your mask at any time." Ian's switching of identities was this seamless, without a trace of awkwardness.
Hearing this, Spider-Man's face instantly became surprised and uncertain.
"He can do that?"
He instinctively tried to cover his sensitive areas, his expression full of shock.
"That's just how Superman is. Stop covering up, you don't have twelve arms like me." Ian answered calmly. He actually didn't have X-Ray Vision.
But his original statement was that Superman did.
This certainly counted as using one of his slots for telling the truth today.
"Where do you have twelve arms?" Spider-Man circled around, looking at Ian's back and butt, as if wondering if Ian had hidden the other ten arms inside his clothes and pants.
Just then.
Spider-Man suddenly heard a horrifying sound of bone grinding. Eight dark red spider legs with a metallic sheen suddenly burst out of Ian's back.
The end of each spider leg strangely twisted and deformed.
They coalesced in the air into realistic hands, each complete with five fingers—this was the work of [Myriad Forms], which could even allow Ian to mimic his feet as hands.
It was just a shame the alley ground was dirty.
Ian was unwilling to take off his shoes to show Spider-Man his foot-hands. Under his control, one of the large hands suddenly turned towards Spider-Man, its fingertips gently pinching Spider-Man's face.
The action was gentle, like stroking a cat.
However.
This made Peter feel a chill, sensing his head could be crushed at any moment.
"My gosh!" Peter Parker was startled by Ian's quiet yet ruthless display. He instinctively took a few steps back, bumping into a dirty trash can behind him.
Even a Jerry was scared and scurried into the sewer.
"You, you were bitten by a Spider-Monster too?! And it must have been a really bad bite!" Spider-Man couldn't help but touch his own back, feeling relieved that he didn't have this kind of mutation.
"Bullshit!"
Ian was very indignant.
The spider hands behind him simultaneously raised their middle fingers.
"I'm the one who bites the Spider-Monsters; a Spider-Monster can't bite me at all! Do you even know what an Evil God is? You must not have watched the live broadcast that day."
To prove his point, one of the hands behind him suddenly morphed, turning into a hideous mouthpart that crunched and bit through a fire hydrant on the roadside that hadn't provoked anyone.
The noise was terrifying.
However, no water sprayed out of the fire hydrant, showing that the Commissioners Smith of the new Marvel were also quick to adapt. Ian then used his real hands to crush the fire hydrant back into its original shape.
It might be a little crooked, but it absolutely didn't affect its use.
"See that! A Spider-Monster is just a roadside creature in front of me!"
Ian's angry declaration made Spider-Man gulp. The young Spider-Man watched Ian gradually retract his back appendages and realized that Doctor Strange and the others were probably telling the truth.
This little boy truly was a great Evil God. Peter suddenly realized that he might have been 0.01 millimeters away from death—those hands could definitely crush his skull easier than crushing an egg.
"So, can you play four consoles at the same time with those hands?" He stammered, changing the subject, making Ian, who was about to mimic his hideous Evil God "face," freeze instantly.
"I can do that? I can play 5v5 against myself? I don't have to be mad at bad teammates and war-god opponents anymore?" Ian clearly felt inspired.
He believed that Spider-Man Peter Parker must have at least the potential of a Harvard graduate, and the only reason he hadn't thought of it was because he was a little boy distracted by various great undertakings.
A Harvard graduate's potential was nothing special.
Ian knew he had the capital to acquire Harvard.
"Uh, it looks like you really can play four consoles at once..." Spider-Man said with a hint of envy. He was questioning Ian's super-brain, so Ian didn't want to humor him.
"Now is the time to care about Gwen, yet all you're thinking about is playing games. What a poor Spider-Man." Ian looked at Teacher New Tony, expressing that he was still the top fan on the 'Gwen Care' leaderboard—he was the only reliable friend who managed to catch Gwen when she was about to fall from a great height before she could break her spine.
Even though Gwen eventually fell and turned herself into a pulp, Ian had still proven how reliable he was.
"Teacher New Tony, can Gwen get up from her sickbed, listen to me brag for a bit, and then climb back into her bed?" Ian had developed the habit of telling Gwen how awesome he had become.
He wasn't used to this Marvel trip without seeing Gwen.
"I'm afraid not."
Teacher New Tony shook his head regretfully.
"Gwen is still unconscious. Since the Cradle of Life is only a semi-finished project, her bodily injuries have only been stabilized. It will take some time before she can wake up."
"In fact, Doctor Helen Cho believes the loss of the Extraordinary DNA is a more serious problem for Gwen." Teacher New Tony looked at Ian.
"You probably already know why the Extraordinary DNA in her body is disappearing, right?" New Tony dropped his smile, his expression looking quite certain.
He was perhaps becoming more and more anthropomorphic.
"Teacher New Tony is still so good at reading expressions." Ian nodded, not denying it. He had indeed generally realized the reason for the problem that appeared on Gwen.
"Human facial expressions and pupil reactions are easy to interpret, especially when interpreting someone like you who never bothers to conceal anything. It's even simple difficulty for an AI like me."
Teacher New Tony answered the question while subtly praising himself.
Ian thought he was praising his purity.
"Uh, I'd like to know the reason too."
Spider-Man interjected at this moment. "Can someone explain it to me? I need to ease my guilt, since it looks like I'm stealing Teacher Gwen's power!"
His concern was not unfounded.
However.
The truth was, of course, not like that.
"Relax, little Peter, no, big Peter. You're several years older than me. I can't let you seize the opportunity to call me 'Uncle' and take advantage of me..."
Ian patted his shoulder, exercising the caution proper to a rich person, after all, he had read a few books on how to be rich, even if the authors of those books weren't rich themselves.
"It has nothing to do with you. This is more like some kind of cosmic law at work, possibly related to certain ancient entities that are being resurrected. That's why there's only one slot for Spider-Man in a universe."
Ian's guess was not unfounded. He knew that Spider-Man's power did not actually come from genetic mutation; genetic mutation was merely the way to initiate contact with a certain mysterious entity.
That mysterious entity was the Spider-Totem.
It belonged to a mysterious and ancient supernatural concept in the Marvel Universe. It wasn't just a religious belief or cultural symbol, but a cross-dimensional, cross-species spiritual force.
"What do you mean 'one slot for Spider-Man,' can't you use 'one' or 'a single person'?" Spider-Man was bothered by the quantifier Ian used and couldn't help but correct Ian.
"It's all the same, we're talking about the Spider-Totem."
Ian performed an inversion sentence, then explained the situation to Spider-Man and Teacher New Tony. The Spider-Totem belonged to a multi-dimensional cosmic consciousness network that identifies and activates individuals with the "spider gene," linking them into the spiritual network of the entire "Spider Family."
In some circumstances.
The Spider-Totem can even allow Spider-Men from different universes to share abilities or consciousness. It is the bond between all Spider-Men and the most resilient, most unyielding spiritual force in the Multiverse.
Because of this.
In most cases, only one Spider-Man chosen by the Spider-Totem exists in a single universe. It's easy to understand, like Ian and Jordan playing games on the same home network—one person will always steal the other's bandwidth speed. Therefore, the best situation is, of course, to lock Jordan's computer and only let Ian play games.
The situation with the Spider-Totem was roughly the same.
"Is it because of the ancient entity?" Teacher New Tony was processing Ian's information and using it to calculate more data, while Spider-Man was confused, half-understanding and half-not.
He might not be as Harvard-like as he thought.
"Yes, for the specifics, I feel I need to go see Gwen first." Ian put his hands into the pockets of his red-and-black hoodie, turning his head to the drone projection floating in mid-air.
"She's right under the Sanctum Sanctorum."
New Tony's virtual image nodded.
"I want to go see my Teacher Gwen, too." Hearing this, Spider-Man Peter Parker immediately moved closer, his expression concerned, without any hint of bad intentions.
However.
Ian looked him up and down, then pointed disapprovingly at the stains on the back of his suit—sticky webs, dust, and a few suspicious scorch marks.
"Then you have to take a shower first."
As he spoke, Ian pinched his nose.
"Uh, I guess I am kind of dirty."
Peter looked down at himself, then at Ian's spotless uniform, and couldn't help but ask, "Why is your suit so clean after a fight?"
He suspected Ian added cutting-edge technology to his suit.
"It's called a Bio Force Field. You can't learn it, don't be jealous." A Biotic Armor and a Bio Force Field are only one word apart, and Ian was equally righteous when lying as when telling the truth. Instead of explaining the mimicry armor, he soared into the sky, heading straight for the Sanctum Sanctorum, the location of the New Justice League.
"I'm an external personnel, I don't know where the base is! Doctor Strange hasn't even bought me health insurance yet!" Spider-Man shouted loudly toward the sky.
By the time he finished speaking, Ian had already reached his destination.
After all, New York isn't that big.
The Sanctum Sanctorum.
Headquarters of the New Justice League.
Ian pushed the door open, looked around, and found the hall empty, with only a few floating magical lamps emitting a soft light. He put his hands on his hips and loudly called out for Doctor Strange.
"Where is the third-in-command of my church? Come out and greet your Evil God My Lord." Ian intentionally spoke in a pinched voice, which definitely echoed throughout every area of the Sanctum Sanctorum.
However.
There was no response.
Ian dragged the unconscious Lizard, Curt Connors, by his hind leg through the layer upon layer of corridors in the Sanctum Sanctorum, and casually tossed the Lizard into the Sanctum Sanctorum's prison.
Which was the place where villains had been confined in the normal Marvel timeline. Ian proceeded unimpeded, moving through this place as if he were coming home.
"Not a single person to greet me, my Evil God face has no prestige."
Just as Ian was about to smash a few inexpensive items to express his Evil God wrath, New Tony's projection reappeared in the hall.
"Stephen Strange isn't here. He went outside the planet to help Thor look for his missing father." Ian was surprised that Marvel also had its own version of *Where is My Dad?*
"What happened to Odin? Why is he following me and going wherever he pleases?" Ian raised an eyebrow in surprise, shocked by the events that occurred while he was gone.
"Who knows?" Teacher New Tony, a senatorial candidate and the AI of the New Marvel Universe, shrugged. "I don't have any information gathering means on other planets."
"It's said that Odin disappeared with the King of the Frost Giants." Teacher New Tony wasn't curious about such things; his original purpose was merely to save the past.
"Well, then Odin probably eloped with the King of the Frost Giants." Hearing this, Ian understood, making a very unofficial historical judgment. Since Odin had not triggered the [Fifth Columnist Sixth Amendment Clause], Ian judged that Odin was certainly not dead. He was now more concerned about the state of Gwen's DNA fragmentation.
"Teacher New Tony, you said the disappearance of the Extraordinary DNA was a more serious problem for Gwen, what exactly did you mean?" Ian's gaze was fixed on the secret passage that Nick Fury had previously used to enter and exit.
Sure enough.
"On that point, let Doctor Helen Cho explain it to you." Teacher New Tony remote-controlled something, opening the floor where the secret passage was located.
Below the floor, a staircase leading downwards was revealed. Ian believed Teacher New Tony wasn't Batman and wouldn't have the tunnel lined with [Ianite] like Kryptonite.
He confidently jumped down. The stairs ended at a metal door. As Ian approached, it slowly opened, revealing a high-tech laboratory.
"The familiar old scent." Ian walked in, a little surprised, and immediately saw the "stingy woman" who wouldn't even let him eat snacks back in the old era.
Doctor Helen Cho.
Ian could remember this until the end of the universe.
"Clap, clap, clap, clap~"
Doctor Helen Cho was standing in front of a complex machine, focused on observing the data streams on a holographic projection. Hearing the footsteps, she looked up at Ian, frowning slightly.
However, she didn't recognize the boy with the strange eyes.
"Yo, Doctor, long time no see."
Ian waved hello with a grin, deliberately trying to confuse Helen Cho. Helen Cho scrutinized him, trying hard to recall, and eventually gave up the memory search.
"You're the League Founder who came to see Gwen Stacy?" Helen Cho was certainly aware of the group she was serving. She was a scientist hired by Teacher New Tony.
Her salary was probably dozens of times higher than Nick Fury's.
"Yes, I'm here to save my little partner." Ian looked at the instrument in the center, where a familiar figure lay quietly—it was Gwen Stacy.
Her face was pale, her breathing steady but weak, as if she was deep in a long dream. Gwen lay still inside, connected to various tubes and sensors.
But her clothes were still on.
"Teacher New Tony said Gwen's Extraordinary DNA is disappearing?" Ian leaned closer, frowning. The high-tech equipment here truly touched upon the limits of his abilities.
Hearing this, Helen Cho nodded.
"Her Extraordinary DNA is degenerating, but the problem is that the missing segments are not being filled by normal DNA; they are simply empty, causing her genetic chain to be in a state of fragmentation."
She displayed a set of holographic data. Ian could only see the simulated fragmented image and only recognized the combined letters of the professional terminology.
He couldn't help it.
Ian's self-study hadn't yet reached this level.
"I'm a mysterious middle school student who plays with fel energy, practices magic, and acts as a superhero. It's normal to have some scientific shortcomings. Doctor, just tell me what the result will be?"
Ian rubbed his chin, ignorant yet self-assured.
Helen Cho was momentarily stunned, clearly not expecting him to describe himself that way, but she continued her explanation: "Simply put, Gwen Stacy can't die right now."
"But she might never wake up. Unless... my Cradle of Life device has a major breakthrough." Helen Cho's tone was somewhat pessimistic as she gently touched her masterpiece of the past half-lifetime.
The instrument currently holding Gwen looked familiar to Ian.
"For example, being able to directly 3D print a body with a complete genetic chain, and then transplant the soul into it?" Ian realized something and patted the machine.
A flicker of surprise crossed Helen Cho's eyes. She didn't know that the reason Ian was so familiar with the Cradle of Life was because he had seen the doomsday version she had created before.
The machine that printed human bodies like dropping dumplings into water.
"An excellent idea, theoretically feasible, but current technology can't achieve that yet." Helen Cho assumed Ian had come up with this research direction himself.
She thought Ian must have been modest when he said he wasn't knowledgeable.
"Is the technical difficulty very high?"
Ian regretted not asking the real Teacher Tony for the scientific blueprints earlier.
"We haven't even verified whether the soul truly exists." As a scientist, Helen Cho demanded evidence for everything, even after witnessing many supernatural phenomena recently.
Ian nodded upon hearing this, grinning with a hint of eagerness. "Once I learn how to astral projection, I'll let you see what a vengeful spirit looks like."
"????"
Doctor Helen Cho was momentarily speechless. It was the first time she had heard someone describe themselves as a "vengeful spirit." The female doctor rubbed her temples and turned back to look at the girl in the Cradle of Life.
"Can you help her? Through mystical means?" Helen Cho wasn't entirely clear on Ian's identity. Teacher New Tony had only told her that Ian was the world's first superhero.
He mainly feared that using the title of Evil God would scare away these excellent talents.
"No, no, I rely on the means of 'begging for food.'" Ian shook his finger, his tone still completely unashamed, but rather with a righteous pride.
"What?" Helen Cho was full of question marks.
Ian didn't explain much, instead pulling out his "lollipop" from his pocket—the pure white feather, glowing with a faint holy light.
"What is this?"
Helen Cho's frown deepened.
"It's the food I begged for yesterday." Ian answered casually, walking up to the life support pod and opening the hatch without hesitation.
"Wait! You can't—" Helen Cho was about to stop him, but Ian had already gently brushed the feather over Gwen's pale cheek. In an instant, the light on the feather brightened, and a soft halo enveloped Gwen's entire body. Her complexion became rosy at a visible speed, and her breathing became steady.
It seemed Lucifer's power was still quite effective.
Even outside his original universe.
His power was still able to function.
"That worked!? How could that work?"
Helen Cho looked at the monitoring screen in shock, finding that the previously fragmented genetic chain was being filled in by unknown genes. The empty sections were temporarily repaired by some mysterious substance!
Yes.
Temporarily repaired.
The moment Ian prepared to withdraw the feather.
The newly filled gene sequences suddenly began to disintegrate, vanishing without a trace as if erased by an eraser. Gwen's face turned pale again, and her breathing weakened once more.
"What is going on?!" Helen Cho abruptly looked up, her eyes filled with shock and uncertainty. As Ian put the feather back, her fingers flew across the control panel.
She was attempting to analyze the suddenly appearing gene sequences. However, these genes did not belong to any known biological structure and did not even conform to the DNA coding logic of terrestrial organisms.
"Strange... Logically, Lucifer's power should be able to directly reshape her genes. Could it be the universe's self-purification? Rejecting external elements?"
Ian was also a little unable to comprehend this situation.
"You said what-sifer????" Helen Cho was focused on analysis, but that didn't mean she was deaf. She turned her head in shock to look at Ian, who was staring at the feather in contemplation.
"That's not important."
Ian instead turned to Teacher New Tony.
"I have another method. I might need you to find ten mutants for me." As someone with a super-brain and the only successor not designated by Batman, he certainly had more than one strategy in mind. In Ian's view, if Lucifer's feather didn't work, he could try his new profession.
[Anomalous Sovereign: All who are mutated are your subjects; all who possess potential are blessed by you. In the Rhapsody of Evolution, you shall become the Endless King spanning multiple realities.
You are the Emperor of Genes, the End of Life's Evolution!]
"I need to conduct a crime sweep." If the system hadn't overstated the capabilities of this new profession, Ian believed he might be able to solve Gwen's problem of missing genes.
Teacher New Tony did not ask for the specific reason.
"No problem."
He directly agreed to Ian's request.
As an extremely efficient AI, Teacher New Tony's virtual image unfolded a holographic map in the air, with ten red dots flashing, distributed across various locations in New York.
"Recently, labs in New York have been frantically researching bio-enhancement technology. Spider-Man's success made them envious." He briefly explained the reason for the appearance of these mutated individuals.
Most of them were homeless people, immigrants, or bankrupt individuals who participated in drug trials by bio-corporations due to economic hardship, and then became monsters that were neither weak nor strong.
Ian leaned close to the screen, looking at the marked targets—some looked half-man, half-scorpion, some had bat wings, and one guy was even covered in fish scales, looking like a fish spirit.
"New York citizens' update speed is fast. It truly lives up to its reputation as a city with a higher crime rate than a little place called Gotham where I come from." Ian complained while heading toward the door.
New York City Sewer System.
In the dark, damp tunnel.
A hunched figure crawled rapidly, six segmented legs tapping against the ground. The scorpion tail on its back was raised high, and sticky fluid dripped from the stinger.
"Hey, Scorpion Demon!" Ian's voice came from the darkness.
The mutant whirled around, its scarlet compound eyes locking onto the source of the sound, but it only saw a lollipop faintly glowing in the dark, and someone playing with it.
"I heard you've been poisoning the drinking water lately? Even though New York tap water isn't drinkable anyway, that's just heartless of you." Ian stepped out of the shadows and criticized him.
The Scorpion Fiend roared and lunged! Ian dodged sideways. The scorpion tail grazed his cheek, and venom splashed onto the wall, instantly corroding a large hole.
"Wow, if even a little bit of that landed on me, wouldn't my handsome face be ruined?" Ian touched his mask with lingering fear, then kicked the opponent in the abdomen.
While the mutant was bent over in pain, the Marvel Superman grabbed the scorpion tail and snapped it with a powerful twist—Crack! The tail broke, and the mutant let out a mournful shriek.
Ian casually pulled out a roll of duct tape from his pocket and quickly wrapped him up like a mummy.
"One down."
The boy clapped his hands.
Dragging the immobilized Scorpion Fiend.
He hummed a tune as he headed towards the exit. Between the skyscrapers of Manhattan, a dark shadow swept across the night sky. The wide bat wings flapped, creating an eerie whistling sound.
Suddenly.
He heard the click of someone taking a picture.
"You keep flying, don't mind me. I just need to prove to a certain Batman pretender that Bat-Fiends really exist." Ian flew parallel to the Bat-Monster.
The Bat-Monster snarled sideways, its sharp claws aiming straight for Ian's throat!
"Too slow."
Ian leaned backward, propping himself up on the air with one hand, and kicked the opponent right in the chin. The Bat-Monster was sent flying backward, crashing through a glass curtain wall and tumbling into a company's conference room. When Ian jumped in, he found the creature struggling to get up, while the employees in the conference room were already huddled in the corner in terror.
"Don't be afraid, everyone, I'm Superman, just upgrading and fighting monsters." Ian smiled and pulled out a sack, using duct tape to bind the Bat-Monster's entire body and stuffing it into the sack.
The Marvel Superman came.
The Marvel Superman left.
Waving his sleeve.
He left money to compensate for the broken glass.
"Alright, next one."
At the Brooklyn docks, a burly man covered in grayish-green fish scales was tossing shipping containers around like toys, making gurgling sounds in his mouth.
"Brother, were you raised in nuclear wastewater?"
Ian squatted on a container, resting his chin on his hands as he observed him. The Fish Scale Brute roared and charged, smashing a fist at the container Ian was sitting on!
Boom!
The container was dented, but Ian had already leaped behind him, grabbing a steel pipe and hitting him hard on the back of his head.
"Dong!"
The Fish Scale Brute staggered but didn't fall. Instead, he became angrier.
"Tsk, tough skin." Ian curled his lip, then suddenly had a flash of inspiration and pulled a bag of salt from his pocket.
"Heard fish are scared of this?" He grinned with his Evil God mouth on his mask and sprinkled the salt.
The Fish Scale Brute immediately screamed, white smoke rising from his skin as he frantically clawed at himself. Ian seized the opportunity to trip him with a sweep kick, then used a fishing net to tie him up like a tamale.
"Third one, mission accomplished!"
To these monsters, Ian was an unbeatable power. They were truly too weak and had too many flaws. In the end, all ten mutants were locked up in the Sanctum Sanctorum.
"What exactly are you going to do?!" The Lizard, Curt Connors, had his reptile face reflected in the dungeon's blue energy barrier. His vertical golden pupils narrowed as he watched Ian crudely shove the last mutant, a "Porcupine Man" covered in bone spurs, into the cell next to his.
"Someone as powerful as you doesn't need to study our blood." He growled, his sharp claws scratching against the transparent barrier, making a grating sound.
"I'm just thinking, I shouldn't have killed that Spider-Monster. Otherwise, I could have collected the Twelve Zodiacs of America." Ian was currently using a marker to draw a Peppa Pig on the Porcupine Man's cell wall.
He sighed regretfully.
"????????" Doctor Lizard's pupils trembled violently. Even his proudly scientific mind couldn't parse the chain of logic behind this statement.
"I know what he's going to do, I know, I'm smart." In the cell on the other side, the Rat Man, with rodent incisors, suddenly scurried to the barrier, his sharp claws tapping the transparent wall. "Are you going to build a private prison here and declare your extraordinary regime? Like those ridiculous supervillains?"
He was questioning Ian.
"First, you are the criminals. You should be grateful that I don't like killing. I have a no-kill rule. Secondly, I'm not a villain. I'm just a superhero who wants to save someone."
"At least today."
Ian pinched the twelve vials of blood and turned to leave the Sanctum Sanctorum dungeon. As the blood was analyzed and disappeared, the System's prompt for the new profession awakening sounded in his ear.
Sure enough.
The System never disappointed Ian.
...
Bright sunlight streamed into the room through sheer curtains. Specks of light danced on the floor. Gwen Stacy slowly opened her eyes, her vision shifting from blurry to focused.
She was lying on a soft, large bed, and the bedding smelled faintly of lavender.
"Where... am I?"
Gwen instinctively tried to prop herself up but found her movements unusually light, without the weakness of long-term bed rest. Her eyes scanned the window—a red-and-black figure was facing away from her, focused on carving something. Wood shavings fell rustling, catching the golden micro-glimmer of the sun.
"You're awake?" The person spoke without lifting his head, the carving knife still steady and precise in his hand. "Congratulations, you are now a qualified boy."
This single sentence instantly shattered the warm atmosphere.
"What?!" Gwen violently threw off the covers, looked down at herself, then let out a sigh of relief, glaring angrily at the window. "Ian Kent!"
She saw the boy finally turn his head, but he only glanced at her before continuing to carve the plaque. Vaguely, several powerful, bold characters were starting to appear.
[Ian Mental Hospital Hero Relief Center]
"..."
Gwen rubbed her temples, trying hard to piece together the fragments of her memory. "I remember... I was hit by a car, compound fractures all over my body, and then... a voice in my dream told me I could rest well."
"Mm-hmm." Ian nodded, continuing to carve. "That was probably the universe itself wanting you to retire gracefully and pass your popularity and power on to the next person."
His words carried certainty.
"But I feel... I'm in great shape now, even better than before." Gwen paused for a moment, looking down at her palms, then suddenly clenched her fist and released it.
Ian finally put down the carving knife.
"For that, you have to thank Evil God My Lord, me."
He turned around and spoke softly.
"The universe wanted to throw you out after exploiting you, telling you to take a bow... but I wouldn't allow it." In the boy's eyes was a natural arrogance, the original sin that Lucifer had once said he saw in Ian.
***
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