Then, Wanda spun around, flickering before Karn like a ghost amidst the red mist, and said indifferently:
"Now, answer my question. Why do you want to kill Ryan and destroy the life I finally managed to restart?"
Under the restraint of Chaos Magic, Karn struggled to look up at Wanda and said in a low voice:
"Destroy your life? I don't even know you, so how could I possibly destroy your life!"
"Heh, is that so? Then you'll get to know me soon enough, and you'll find out why you're destroying my life..." Wanda chuckled softly, spreading her five fingers toward Karn before slowly clenching them...
As her fingers closed, the Chaos Magic wrapped around Karn began to contract, causing the bones all over his body to emit an overburdened 'crackling' sound under the pressure of the Chaos Magic!
Once Karn was completely imprisoned by Chaos Magic, Wanda reached out another hand shimmering with red light toward Karn's head, saying softly:
"My new family is still waiting for me to head to the new home Ryan arranged for us, so I don't have much patience to waste on you today. Could I trouble you to cooperate a bit and let me read your memory?"
Facing Wanda's gentle yet lethal threat, Karn showed no fear. Instead, he let out a long sigh and said slowly:
"You really shouldn't have interfered in this matter. Just like that werewolf, this matter originally had nothing to do with your fates; it only concerns the fate of Spider-Man..."
"But... to end all this as quickly as possible, I can only remove you stumbling blocks from the path!"
The moment Karn finished speaking, Wanda, whose fingers were almost touching his forehead, also sensed something was wrong!
Karn let go of the Trident in his right hand, which was also wrapped in Chaos Magic. Then, the Trident actually moved on its own, breaking free from the shackles of Chaos Magic and swinging down fiercely at Wanda's head!
Seeing this, Wanda had no choice but to withdraw her hand from reading Karn's memory and deal with the incoming Trident first. She raised both hands to create a barrier of Chaos Magic in front of her to block the slash of the red-glowing Trident!
But to Wanda's surprise, her usually invincible Chaos Magic failed her this time. The magical barrier formed by Chaos Magic lasted only an instant before being easily sliced open by the Trident's red light blade, which then swung toward her behind the barrier!
While this Wanda was powerful, as a mage, her reaction speed could only be described as mediocre. In her haste, she couldn't react again in time, and the Trident was already about to strike her body!
Just as Wanda was about to be split in half by the Trident, a yellow figure leapt from her side, violently knocking Wanda away and taking the blow for her!
This was, naturally, the recovered Logan. With his exceptionally keen danger perception, he had sensed the danger coming even before Wanda did.
Therefore, when Karn attacked, he rushed over and pushed Wanda away without hesitation, returning the favor for when Wanda had saved him earlier!
Talk about loyalty!
Wanda, who had been knocked flying by Logan, quickly stabilized herself in mid-air and reacted by using Chaos Magic to catch Logan, who had been sent flying by Karn's Trident in her stead!
Immediately, Wanda pulled Logan behind her with Chaos Magic to protect him, staring warily at Karn in the air to prevent him from launching another sudden attack like that!
Only then did Wanda realize that Karn's Trident strike had not only sliced through her Chaos Magic barrier and sent Logan flying, but it had also cleaved a pitch-black spatial rift in mid-air!
This Trident was not only Karn's combat weapon but also his transmitter for opening spatial portals!
Having lost the restraints of the Chaos Magic and regained his freedom, Karn did not continue to pursue Wanda and Logan. Instead, he gripped the Trident that flew back to him and stepped through the spatial rift he had cleaved.
Before the spatial rift closed, Karn looked down at Wanda and Logan, his tone indifferent:
"You really shouldn't have stopped me this time. If I had killed Ryan Parker, then the others in this Universe, and even those in other Universes, might have been spared..."
"But you stopped me. So the next ones to come won't just be me, but other Inheritors who are far more brutal and leave even less room for escape..."
After finishing these words, which seemed nonsensical to Wanda, the spatial rift Karn had opened slowly closed until his figure was completely submerged...
Wanda looked at the spot where Karn had disappeared with a grim expression. After confirming he had truly left, she turned to help Logan up. Seeing the massive, hideous wound extending from his shoulder to his waist, almost traversing his entire body, she used Chaos Magic to stabilize the injury while asking with concern:
"You've suffered such a serious injury, are you alright?"
Looking at the injury Logan sustained for her, Wanda couldn't help but think of Pietro and Vision, who had also died before her eyes.
Logan looked down at the torn skin and muscle on his body—even his Adamantium skeleton had been nearly severed, revealing his internal organs in a 'heavy injury'—and grinned nonchalantly:
"It's fine. Just a fatal wound, it's nothing to me!"
"By the way, your face and abilities look a bit familiar. Who are you?"
Wanda glanced again at the extremely severe injury on Logan that would have killed anyone else long ago. Only after seeing his wound healing at an incredible speed did she relax and show a faint smile:
"Wanda Maximoff. You can call me Wanda. And you? Who are you, and why were you fighting that strange fellow?"
Logan looked at the bitter smile on Wanda's face, and for a moment, she felt even more familiar, gradually overlapping with a figure from his youth who also smiled with such a tragic fate:
"Are you... Magneto's daughter?"
That's right, he remembered where he had seen this face!
This woman named Wanda bore some resemblance to the Magneto of his Universe!
Especially those eyes and that smile!
Could it be... that there are actually X-Men in this Universe too?
Thinking of this, Logan's eyes lit up!
Once, when the X-Men of his Universe needed him most, he didn't appear, leading to the death of almost all Mutants in his Universe. Logan, who had failed his entire Universe, now wanted nothing more than to see another X-Men!
Even if it was the X-Men of another Universe!
But clearly, Logan was destined for disappointment. Neither this Universe nor the Universe Wanda came from had Mutants or X-Men.
Wanda shook her head: "I'm sorry, I think you have the wrong person. I don't know any Magneto. My parents were just two ordinary people..."
Hearing this, the light in Logan's eyes dimmed at a visible speed, and he said dejectedly: "Alright, I see. I have things to do, let's part ways here..."
After saying that, Logan turned to leave.
Looking at Logan's lonely back, Wanda suddenly said: "Wait, you're actually looking for Ryan, right? Why not come with us? I have a feeling we must rendezvous with Ryan quickly. A storm is coming..."
Rumble—
A sudden clap of thunder. In the heavy rain, the lightning illuminated a bloody land strewn with corpses!
On the ground lay all kinds of Spider-Men, and the only ones standing in this bloody slaughterhouse were a few men and women dressed in noble attire...
They are... Inheritor Family!
And those Spider-Men lying in miserable states on the ground were some of the members of the Spider-Alliance that Spider-Man 2099 had aggressively assembled earlier!
Morlun casually drained the last powerful Spider-Man in his hand—one who had mutated six arms—and tossed the corpse onto the ground like trash, his face filled with intoxication.
"What a long-awaited feast. Originally, we needed to go through the Universes one by one to find these spiders, absorbing their spider totem power to recover. But I didn't expect these foolish Spider-Men would dare to group up and deliver themselves to our doorstep, significantly shortening our recovery process!"
Clearly, Spider-Man 2099 overestimated his Spider-Alliance and underestimated the strength of Inheritor Family, leading to the current situation.
Bora, who had previously failed to hunt down Gwen, was also present. He licked the blood of a certain Spider-Man from his fingers with a satisfied expression and smiled.
"That's right, what a bunch of complete idiots. They thought they could hunt our Inheritor Family just because they had the numbers, but they ended up being a meal delivered right to us, hahahahaha!"
The tall Daemos crossed his arms, looking somewhat annoyed: "Hmph! It's a pity we didn't keep all those Spider-Men who dared to attack us. We let that leader escape with a few of them!"
The elegant Jennix smiled slightly: "After all, we hadn't recovered to our current peak strength back then. There were so many of them; even a herd of pigs would take a while to slaughter, let alone a swarm of spiders~"
One of the only two females present, the steady Raina, didn't dwell on the Spider-Alliance matter but looked toward Daemos: "By the way, Jennix, how is Brix?"
The elegant Inheritor named Jennix shook his head gently: "Brix's new body has been recloned, but his soul suffered severe mental trauma during its return. I'm afraid he'll need some time to recover!"
Morlun frowned upon hearing this and cursed dissatisfiedly: "That useless trash actually failed in an ordinary Spider-Man's World. He's a disgrace to our Inheritor Family!!"
At Morlun's anger, the other members of Inheritor Family immediately fell silent.
Indeed, at this critical moment concerning the fate of all members of Inheritor Family, Brix had messed up due to carelessness. Even if Brix's spirit luckily recovered later, Morlun probably wouldn't let him off easy!
Amidst the heavy silence caused by Morlun's anger, a space rift suddenly opened in the slaughterhouse littered with the corpses of Spider-Men. Karn, holding a red-glowing Trident, slowly stepped out of the rift!
Seeing Karn appear, the other Inheritors immediately had an idea: to shift Morlun's wrath onto this 'traitor'!
Anyway, that's what they had always done in the past!
The caustic Bora was the first to start the attack, mocking the returning Karn: "Oh, our family's great philanthropist is back. Well, I bet you failed to deal with that prophesied spider again because of your 'kind heart,' didn't you?"
"Just like... before!"
As Bora started, the other members naturally followed suit instantly. All sorts of mocking words flew from their mouths like sharp arrows piercing Karn, showing no sign of treating him as a member of their family.
And there was a reason why they disliked Karn so much.
Because Karn had been an anomaly in Inheritor Family from the very beginning!
As the lowest existence among all animal totems, their Inheritor Family's initial power upon birth was actually very weak; one could say they were at the bottom of all animal totems!
But there is always a way out; the Universe is fair. Although they were born weak, they possessed a special talent that other totem users did not...
And that was... Absorption!
They could absorb the power of other animal totem users for their own use!
Born weak but possessing such a heaven-defying ability, if Inheritor Family wanted to survive and make their naturally weak selves stronger, they had only one choice...
And that was to hunt other animal totem users!
This also made them the notorious totem predators of the Multiverse in the previous cycle!
However, almost all members of Inheritor Family were villains, so they didn't care about this infamy—except for Karn, the anomaly of Inheritor Family.
Unlike the naturally cruel and bloodthirsty nature of the other Inheritors, Karn was so kind that he was completely out of place with everyone else in Inheritor Family.
Since he was young, Karn disliked killing and loathed the family's behavior of hunting others for food.
It was because of this that, during Inheritor Family's previous cycle, under the prophecy of an elder, they learned that a future Spider-Man would destroy the entire Inheritor Family and decided to strike first by wiping the spider totem from the Multiverse!
Thus, Inheritor Family went through immense hardships to find the Primal Universe where the Spider-God, the Master Weaver, resided!
Led by the patriarch Solus, they collectively hunted the Master Weaver, who was situated on the Web of Destiny in the Primal Universe!
But during the hunt, because of a moment of hesitation from Karn, their mother—Solus's wife—was killed by the Master Weaver's counterattack.
Although the Master Weaver was eventually captured by Inheritor Family, Karn's father, Solus, began to loathe Karn from then on because of his mother's death.
He didn't even want to see his face again and considered Karn the shame of Inheritor Family, which is why he used a hood to completely cover Karn's head.
Later, Kang the Conqueror's TVA was established and launched a purge against their family, which was constantly traversing and disrupting various timelines!
Having just fought a great battle with the Master Weaver and not being at their peak strength, Inheritor Family was no match for Kang and was hunted down by him!
Finally, the father was defeated and sealed by the previous Time Lord, Kang the Conqueror, and the other members of Inheritor Family had to pay the price of falling into a collective slumber to escape Kang the Conqueror's pursuit!
The other survivors of Inheritor Family clearly blamed Karn for this crushing defeat.
If not for Karn's hesitation, their mother wouldn't have died, and with their mother's help, their father Solus might not have been sealed by Kang!
Because of this, the awakened Karn took up his Trident to atone for the 'mistake' he once committed, beginning a journey of hunting Spider-Men for the family to seek redemption...
This had nothing to do with Karn's own will; he did it only for atonement...
(PS: Because the cinematic Universe and the comic Universe have very different settings, the story of Inheritor Family has also been adapted and will not be exactly the same as the comics...)
Back to the present...
Karn listened to his siblings' focused accusations against him and did not refute them, only silently enduring.
Morlun remained in his state of neither joining in nor stopping them, watching the show until Karn was about to be drowned by the others' vitriol. Only then did he hypocritically raise his hand to stop them:
"Alright, stop arguing. Karn may have indeed made a mistake in the past, but remember, we are a family. Arguing won't solve any problems!"