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Ryan's two fingers were like Rin's blow, striking down and scattering Peter's chuunibyou detective soul!
Peter's earlier guesses were quite normal, but how did he suddenly frame Ryan as a conspirator later on?
He didn't even know he had thought so much; Gwen was even his accomplice...
Ryan admitted the correct parts of Peter's guesses, such as his father being the one who reared the Super Spiders, and that he had indeed intentionally placed a Super Spider on Peter's neck yesterday.
But he denied Peter's other chuunibyou guesses and added two points.
One, he had secretly investigated these things through the relics Richard left behind, which he had looked at with Peter before. (This was a lie.)
Two, in his secret investigation, Peter's parents didn't commit suicide; it was because Norman Osborn intended to use the Super Spiders reared by Peter's father for war. Peter's father disagreed, so Norman Osborn sent people to silence them.
That's why after taking some of the Super Spiders, he set fire to the ones that didn't belong to Osborn Enterprises in the first place. (This was the truth.)
Within Ryan's half-truths and half-lies, Peter accepted this heavy truth brought by his cousin.
Ryan also gave Peter two choices.
One, kill Norman Osborn directly to avenge his parents. Peter could choose to do it himself, or Ryan could do it for him.
Two, treat it as if it never happened, accept this 'gift' from his father, forget the pain of the past, and start a new life.
And Peter chose... to be alone for a while.
He didn't make a choice; he just silently took off the spider suit, walked out of the Underground Room in a daze, and locked himself in his room.
Regarding this, Ryan didn't offer Peter much comfort.
Everything he could do for Peter, he had done; everything he could say, he had said.
The rest could only depend on Peter's own choice.
Whether he becomes a demon king or a hero is up to Peter...
However, no matter which choice Peter made, the end for this Universe's Norman Osborn would ultimately be death.
Not to mention Norman Osborn's own terminal genetic disease; even Ryan wouldn't let this lifelong nemesis of Spider-Man off the hook.
After all, Ryan didn't want a sinister fellow staring at his family from the shadows all the time.
The Green Goblin might not be the strongest in the Marvel Universe, but his danger to Spider-Man's family is among the highest!
However, before dealing with Norman Osborn, Ryan still wanted Peter to make his own choice first.
Otherwise, it would be easy to leave the kid with a lifelong regret.
Besides, the current Norman Osborn hasn't turned into the Green Goblin yet, so there's no rush.
But Ryan clearly forgot the power of his little butterfly wings.
Every time he flaps his wings, it affects more than just one person... and this time, besides Peter, he also caused a chain reaction affecting all of Osborn Enterprises.
A fire burned all the Super Spiders, extinguishing another light of hope for the terminally ill Norman Osborn.
So Norman Osborn naturally directed that anger and pressure toward all of Osborn Enterprises.
This included Richard's former colleague, Dr. Connors.
Norman Osborn gave Dr. Connors a deadline, giving him only one last week. If Dr. Connors still couldn't complete the research on the regeneration serum within a week, he could pack his bags and leave!
For Dr. Connors, this was undoubtedly bad news.
It wasn't that he was truly afraid of being fired by Osborn Enterprises... after all, as a top figure in his professional field, even if he were fired, plenty of top companies would be lining up to invite him to join.
Just like Ryan when he had just graduated.
What Dr. Connors cared about was that if he were really fired, all his previous hard work at Osborn Enterprises would be in vain!
Because the intellectual property rights for those research projects were held by Osborn Enterprises!
This meant that not only could he no longer use the research he had already completed, but most importantly, he couldn't even continue his ongoing research on the lizard regeneration serum!
This touched Dr. Connors' bottom line!
Restoring his physical integrity had always been Dr. Connors' lifelong wish.
Now, with the help of Peter's algorithm, he finally saw the hope of fulfilling that wish.
But just as this hope appeared, it was about to be snatched away. How could Dr. Connors accept this?
So over the next few days, although Peter was heavily hit by the truth of his parents' death and didn't go to help Dr. Connors complete the research on the lizard regeneration serum...
...and Gwen didn't go to be Dr. Connors' assistant either because she had to go to school from Monday to Friday...
...Dr. Connors still began to accelerate the research progress on his own, conducting biological experiments on the lizard regeneration serum day and night.
Hard work pays off; before the final deadline Norman Osborn gave him, Dr. Connors' experiment succeeded!
A little white mouse that had lost its forelimb successfully grew a brand-new leg under the effect of the regeneration serum!
This news immediately reached the ears of the bedridden Norman Osborn.
To prolong his dwindling life, Norman Osborn ignored Dr. Connors' warnings and had people forcibly take away the regeneration serum that hadn't yet undergone human testing.
This also made Dr. Connors seem to understand why Richard had once insisted on leaving Osborn Enterprises with his research results.
Because Norman Osborn had already gone mad!
And the kind-hearted Dr. Connors, in order to prevent his untested regeneration serum from producing unpredictable consequences after being used on Norman Osborn...
...gritted his teeth and injected himself with a dose of the regeneration serum, intending to personally test the serum's effects on a human body.
If the effects were successful and there were no side effects, then naturally everyone would be happy.
If there were side effects, he could lead by example and let Norman Osborn see them, thereby stopping him from using it!
And the result, naturally, was that the unexpected happened.
After Connors injected the regeneration serum, his missing right arm did grow back, but it looked just a tiny bit different from the original!
Why did it look a bit green?
And the new arm didn't just have green skin; some green scales like a lizard's also grew on the skin!
And they weren't just on the newly grown arm; those green scales were like a virus, spreading from the arm to the rest of his body.
Seeing this change, how could Dr. Connors not know that his lizard regeneration serum experiment had gone off the rails?