A Sudden Accident

A light tap...

Pah!

The moment the stone inside the transparent control chamber was shattered, a strange glow burst from it—something ordinary people could not see with the naked eye, but Hawk could.

At that very moment, his Cosmo stirred.

Clearly.

His Cosmo was telling him something.

Gamanion—

He had found it.

After absorbing the information transmitted by his Cosmo, Hawk understood what Gamanion actually was, and he could not help inwardly smiling in speechless disbelief.

The reason was simple.

Put plainly, Gamanion was Gamma Rays that, for some unknown reason, had changed from something that fundamentally could not be stored into something that could.

This...

Was Gamanion.

Well.

It sounded ridiculous.

But that was no longer important. What mattered was that Hawk now knew where to find the Gamanion he needed.

Quantico!

The laboratory where Bruce Banner had encountered the Gamma Rays explosion.

After leading Hawk inside, Gwen was still temporarily acting as a guide. Seeing Hawk staring fixedly at the shattered stone, she instinctively nudged him with her elbow.

Hawk came back to his senses and looked at Gwen.

His gaze was clear...

"Hm?"

"What are you thinking about?"

Gwen furrowed her delicate brows. "You're not actually thinking of turning into a monster like Abomination, are you?"

Thinking about the fascinated look in Hawk's eyes just now, she had the strange feeling that he no longer intended to be human.

For the moment, Hawk suppressed the urge to rush off to Quantico immediately and shook his head. "How could that be? I was just wondering whether Dr. Connors' experiment is close to succeeding."

Gwen was just about to speak.

Right then.

Dr. Connors, who had noticed Gwen bringing someone inside, happened to walk over. Hearing that, he interjected, "Scientific research is a path of constant trial and error. Still, I do feel that we are already on the road to success."

Gwen turned toward the approaching Dr. Connors and greeted him.

"Doctor."

"Curtis. Curtis Connors."

Also dressed in a white lab coat, Connors smiled and extended his only left arm toward Hawk. "You are..."

Looking at Dr. Connors' offered left hand, Hawk smiled and extended his own left hand. "Hawk, Gwen's classmate. I'm currently a summer job worker in the Bio-Electrical Engineering Department. Oh, and I came with Mr. Dillon. I was the one who asked Gwen to show me around. Sorry to disturb you, Doctor."

Dr. Connors laughed heartily. "I overheard your conversation with Gwen. Do you really think my experiment can succeed?"

Hawk smiled. "I've read your paper, Doctor. Clearly, if your experiment succeeds, it will certainly benefit humanity."

That was not flattery. It was the truth.

As long as Dr. Connors' Regeneration Experiment succeeded, there would no longer be any disabled people in the entire world.

Of course, that referred to physical disabilities.

That was why Hawk said it would benefit humanity, rather than all of humanity.

But all of that depended on whether Dr. Connors could truly develop the Regeneration Potion, rather than concocting Lizard Serum that turned people into lizard-men.

However...

That was probably unlikely.

The main reason Dr. Connors became the Lizard was because of a warning from The Amazing Spider-Man.

Although the Dr. Connors before him looked like the Dr. Connors from The Amazing Spider-Man film, there was no Amazing Spider-Man here.

There was a spider demon, though.

But he was currently working a summer job at the Daily Bugle, so he was unlikely to show up here.

Therefore...

The odds of this Dr. Connors becoming the Lizard were honestly lower than the odds of Max Dillon, who was repairing things outside, becoming Electro next year.

Still, Hawk's words were watertight.

He did not say whether he believed in it or not. He only said that Dr. Connors' experiment would benefit humanity if it succeeded.

Dr. Connors was quite pleased by that. He laughed heartily, though he said nothing more. As he left, he said to Gwen, "Gwen, you can introduce your classmate to our current progress."

It was rare for someone to affirm his experiment. Besides, Gwen was not involved in any core technology, and their progress was public knowledge, so there was no concern about leaking secrets.

Gwen answered, and after Dr. Connors left, she stood beside Hawk again and asked quietly, "Do you really think Dr. Connors' experiment can succeed?"

Hawk was watching the lab worker who had shattered the Gamma Stone walk toward a centrifuge not far away. Hearing that, he looked at Gwen beside him.

Just as he was about to shake his head and say he did not believe it, he seemed to notice something and looked up at the light bulb above them.

The laboratory ceiling light flickered rapidly once.

The next moment.

Bang!

With the light bulb exploding, the entire laboratory suddenly went dark.

Thud!

"Holy..."

Pfft!

Along with the sounds of rupture and urgent cries from the instant darkness, Hawk immediately felt a sense of pressure rushing toward...

Gwen!

Hawk had no time to think. Almost instinctively, he thrust out his right hand and blocked Gwen.

Pfft!

"..."

Feeling pain in his palm, Hawk furrowed his swordlike brows. At the same time, the laboratory's emergency lights quickly came online after the main lights went out.

The red emergency lighting made the cold laboratory look somewhat terrifying.

Especially when everyone saw a corpse lying in a pool of blood.

A female lab worker clutched her profusely bleeding neck as she collapsed beside the shattered centrifuge. Blood continuously bubbled out through the gaps between her fingers.

Several white mice scurried wildly across the floor.

"Holy shit!"

"Mia?"

"Jesus Christ."

"Mia!"

Under the red emergency lights, everyone's faces changed drastically at the sight. Some ran out of the laboratory to call for help, while others rushed toward the fallen woman.

Gwen's gaze fell on Hawk, who had already withdrawn his right hand and placed it behind his back.

Her eyes flickered as she turned sideways to face Hawk directly.

"Hold out your hand."

"What?"

Hawk was slightly startled.

Without speaking, Gwen reached out, grabbed Hawk's arm, pulled his right hand out from behind his back, and opened it.

What came into view...

Was Hawk's completely uninjured right palm, aside from a patch in the center that looked very much like newly grown skin.

Gwen froze.

Hawk smiled and withdrew his right hand. "My hand isn't as pretty as yours."

Gwen merely frowned and said nothing.

Just then, Osborn's medical staff and security personnel rushed in from outside and began clearing the area.

While the laboratory was in chaos, Hawk took the somewhat dazed Max and left early.

Gwen remained outside the laboratory, her brows still furrowed.

She was certain she had not seen wrong.

The moment the lights had gone out, she had clearly felt a suffocating pressure from compressed air bearing down on her. The pressure had come and gone quickly, but she had seen it clearly: at the exact moment it vanished, several drops of blood had fallen within her line of sight.

Yet Hawk's palm had clearly been perfectly fine.

Wait.

Gwen seemed to think of something. Her eyes lit up as she walked to the laboratory entrance and looked toward where she had been standing.

On the floor...

Several drops of blood stood out clearly against the white tiles!

A white mouse with its tail severed ran over, sniffed at them, and seemed to brighten. It began extending its tongue to lap up the drops of blood.

Shit!

Gwen came back to her senses and hurried inside.