Inside the biological research base's factory.
Inside a sealed, locked office building, a man leaned on the faint light of a flashlight as he searched through files in the dark archives room.
Eddie Brock had originally been a well-known local reporter in New York. Some time ago, he had accidentally discovered that the Drake Bio Foundation was conducting inhumane human experiments involving mysterious, unknown alien lifeforms, intending to cultivate more advanced strategic organisms.
Eddie had wanted to expose this massive conspiracy to the public, only to be fired by his media company instead. Left with no other choice, he could only sneak into the biological research base to find and investigate evidence concerning the human experiments and alien lifeforms.
"Got it, this is it!" Eddie jolted and pulled a document from the safe. He immediately held the flashlight in his mouth and began reading it.
Alien symbiotes... Venom, Riot... liquid lifeforms...
When parasitizing suitable human hosts, they could display extraordinary power...
Of five human test subjects, only one had ultimately succeeded in symbiosis with a symbiote!
The more Eddie read, the more horrified he became. He hurriedly folded the documents and stuffed them into the inner pocket of his jacket.
Just as he prepared to leave.
The entire office building began to shake violently. Lights, desks, and cabinets rattled without end as dust continuously fell from the ceiling.
"What's going on?" Eddie looked out the office window in alarm and saw that the base factory's spacecraft was launching.
Rumble!
Immediately afterward.
The spacecraft, about to pierce the night sky and leave Earth, exploded violently several hundred meters in the air. Orange-red flames illuminated the enormous base below!
Eddie watched the scene in utter shock. Out of professional habit, he did not forget to take out his small camera and record it.
Countless burning, smoke-trailing pieces of spacecraft wreckage streaked across the city night sky like a meteor shower and fell toward the base.
In the camera lens.
Amid the wreckage falling from the spacecraft, a small black beastly silhouette flashed past under the firelight!
Within a mysterious dimensional space.
"Insufficient energy."
"Warning, repeating once more. Energy is critically insufficient..."
The lights on Iron Man's chest and around his eyes dimmed. He could only keep the armor's engines running at extremely low power, leaving himself suspended in the middle of the space filled with alien corpses.
The sole white light flickered weakly, about to sink into darkness.
"To think I'm going to die in this godforsaken unknown place." Stark wore a bitter smile. Lost in this place, he had discovered that the number of alien creatures buried here was simply incalculable!
Moreover, the clothing and weapons on those corpses varied greatly.
This also confirmed Stark's long-held suspicion. Beyond Earth, there were clearly even more complex and densely packed advanced alien civilizations!
The Avengers had been the right path for the future.
Unfortunately, knowing that now was already useless.
Stark felt helpless. The energy in his armor was about to run out, which meant this place would become his grave as well!
At that thought, Stark became much calmer and said softly, "Activate the built-in camera and begin a personal video recording."
The light inside Iron Man's helmet reflected Stark's exhausted face. "For Pepper Potts, Virginia Pepper Potts."
"By the time you see this, I should already be dead."
"Living in an era of alien invasions and rampant mutations, you never know when an accident might come early. Maybe I should have prepared myself for this long ago—just a moment ago, I was still in New York, and now I'm suddenly trapped in a place I can't escape from. I did my best, I really did."
"But you should know, I'm not leaving this behind to complain. I just want to tell you, I actually—"
"Love you very much."
Xi Nian plummeted straight down from a height of a hundred meters and landed on the factory ground, sending rubble flying as his feet stamped a crater into the earth. Nearby, the wreckage and fragments of the spacecraft crashed into the factory buildings, igniting roaring flames.
Xi Nian did not lower his guard. He carefully extended his senses outward and confirmed that the third symbiote had truly died before he finally relaxed slightly.
Dealing with the third—and final—symbiote had been even easier than expected.
It was also because Riot had insisted on courting death by trying to escape aboard the spacecraft. Instead, it had trapped itself inside the sealed cabin and been burned to death in utter frustration.
Of course.
If Xi Nian had arrived a step later and allowed it to escape Earth aboard the spacecraft, the outcome would have been entirely different.
Now, all three symbiotes were dead, while Venom lay dormant inside the Essence Devourer Beast.
"It's over." Xi Nian kicked off with his cat paws, suddenly accelerating as his small body leaped over the base factory's fence.
He headed back toward the Queens street where Gwen and Kara's hotel was located.
Halfway there, Xi Nian, parasitizing the Essence Devourer Beast, suddenly remembered something extremely important.
"Oh, right. I almost forgot." Xi Nian did not stop moving. As he leaped through the air above the skyscrapers, the kitten's mouth opened hideously and casually spat down toward the street below!
Ptui!
A gold-and-red steel body immediately flew from his mouth and dropped freely toward the ground.
Xi Nian did not stop. He accelerated and vanished into the city's night.
Clang!!
A dull metallic crash sounded as Iron Man hit the ground. Covered from head to toe in sticky saliva, he sat blankly and dazed in the middle of the street.
What had happened?
Stark was still somewhat dizzy. Before his eyes lay the familiar, bustling modern streets of New York, with traffic flowing everywhere as belated Christmas songs began playing on the streets.
As more and more people gathered around him, some even started taking pictures.
After a moment of silence, Stark felt no relief at surviving the ordeal. Instead, he wanted to swear.
WTF!
Had he recorded his last words for nothing?
Not long after Xi Nian left.
Inside the biological base's office building.
Eddie looked at the flames that had already spread across more than half the factory. He immediately panicked and fled outside, only to accidentally kick into a chair and fall heavily facedown onto the office floor.
His scraped palm burned fiercely. While enduring the pain, Eddie struggled back to his feet, but at that moment, a cold sensation spread from one end of his palm.
As though something had seeped in through his wound!
Once on his feet, Eddie instinctively looked at his palm. He found nothing on it, nor was there even the slightest wound. It was as if his palm had never been scraped at all.
The fire was about to reach the office building he was in.
Eddie did not think too much about it and hurriedly pushed open the door to flee outside!
Before you continue