Possessing Tony

After shaking off Peter, Ben drifted through the skies above New York City like a ghost.

New York City truly looked luxurious from afar. Seen from above, it resembled the veins of a starry sky.

"Unfortunately, a closer look reveals the filth and crime beneath all that prosperity."

Ben sneered.

For the wealthy standing at the top of society, New York was the true capital of the world, an imperial city. The rich partied through the night, drowning in luxury as they squandered money and indulged their desires.

But for far more people, that prosperous world was separated from them by an uncrossable chasm!

The lights shining in the darkness did not belong to them. The dark, damp corners beneath those lights were where they gathered in clusters.

That unreachable prosperous city, those towering skyscrapers, pressed down on the people at the bottom like Five Finger Mountain, leaving them struggling to breathe.

Those living at the bottom had once dreamed of prosperity too, and fought for it. But in the end, this enormous city mercilessly shattered their dreams and crushed them beneath its feet.

This city's prosperity had always belonged to only a select few.

Prosperous New York was New York, and New York filled with crime and violence was New York too.

It was still the same New York, yet what different people could see was entirely different.

And what was even sadder was that the prosperity of those few had been built by endlessly draining the flesh and blood of those at the very bottom.

They stood atop skyscrapers as high as the heavens, devouring every piece of ordinary people's flesh, drinking every drop of their blood, smashing every bone in their bodies, sucking their marrow dry, and finally letting their shriveled corpses pile up to form this city.

Every brick and every dollar in this city was stained with blood!

Yet the people who built the city would never be its masters!

Like Uncle Ben and Aunt May, who worked themselves to the bone yet still lived in poverty. This situation was nearly impossible to change. Those born in the slums would most likely spend their entire lives struggling through the mud.

In this glittering city, they were like cockroaches scurrying about.

"But things are different now!" Ghostly fire flickered in Ben's eyes. "I'll change all of this!"

But what he wanted to change was not this city, only his own family.

Of course, he knew it would never be that simple.

Once he made the cake bigger, the capitalists holding vast amounts of money would swarm in like sharks scenting blood, seeking to swallow him and his company whole without leaving behind even a scrap of value.

Just like poor Connors.

He had spent more than a decade painstakingly researching cross-species genetic inheritance, only to end up making a wedding dress for Osborn Enterprise.

Ben thought of Connors because he happened to be passing over the top of Osborn Tower at that moment. He saw Connors clutching his arm as he painfully and awkwardly climbed into a taxi.

Clearly, in order to stop Osborn's upper management from conducting human experiments, the poor doctor had made himself the first test subject.

"So Connors will become the Lizard tonight?"

Curt Connors was a rare talent. Perhaps Ben could recruit him into his company someday.

"Not just Connors. Doctor Otto is also quite a good scientist." Ben had now set his sights on both the Lizard and Doctor Octopus.

Both men had wanted to use their inventions to benefit the world, yet fate had toyed with them and turned them into villains.

But despite thinking that, Ben did not immediately follow the Lizard.

In his opinion, the Lizard was perfectly suited to be Peter's first opponent as a Super Hero.

There was no need for him to interfere now. Besides, he had his own business to attend to.

Leaving Osborn Tower, Ben headed in the opposite direction from Connors.

Before long, he arrived at another famous building in New York City. It was several times more luxurious than Osborn Tower and also the tallest building in all of New York—Stark Tower.

Ever since he had stolen the armor from Tony last time, Ben had wanted to get his hands on the Arc Reactor as well and study it.

Cold fusion had always been a theory. He wanted to know exactly how Tony had managed to make it real.

"Even Obadiah couldn't replicate it after obtaining the reactor. That shows just how advanced the Arc Reactor's technology must be."

Ben passed through the outer glass of Stark Tower. His body had become completely translucent, and in the darkness, he would be nearly impossible to spot without looking carefully.

Besides the reactor, Ben was also very interested in Stark's artificial intelligence.

Stark: ???

So you're just going to keep fleecing me alone, huh?

Jarvis possessed an extremely advanced level of artificial intelligence. Later on, he even developed emotions and thought patterns close to those of a human. In comparison, Friday was much more rigid.

Given enough time, Ben could use Grey Matter to develop both artificial intelligence technology and an Arc Reactor himself. But since ready-made examples were available for study, that time could be greatly shortened.

Although it was already nighttime, a small number of people were still working inside Stark Industries.

Corporate drones. Even dogs would shake their heads at them.

Ben flew directly toward the top floor.

The top of the tower was Tony's private area and also where he worked.

Most of Tony's inventions had been completed there.

But Ben was somewhat surprised that Tony was still in Stark Tower at this hour.

"What's this guy doing hiding here instead of sleeping with some magazine-cover girl in the middle of the night?" Ben wondered.

Fortunately, Tony did not hear him, or he would have been furious.

Who knew who had stolen his suit of armor, forcing him to build a new one?

"Sir, a Lizard Man has appeared on the Williamsburg Bridge." As Jarvis spoke, he pulled up surveillance footage from along the route.

The moment Tony heard the word "lizard," he reacted as though he had been triggered. He immediately dropped everything he was working on, walked over to Jarvis, and casually picked up a glass of Chlorophyll Juice.

Then he frowned. "What is this thing now?"

He had initially thought XLR8 had appeared again, but the monster on the screen looked more like a miniature Godzilla.

"This thing is almost as disgusting as Chlorophyll Juice!" Tony took a sip of the juice, his face immediately twisting in pain. "It's all Dinosaur Baby's fault. He made me drink this stuff."

"But from another perspective, XLR8 taking away your armor has also slowed the rate of palladium poisoning," Jarvis analyzed rationally.

Ben had indeed caused the palladium in the Arc Reactor to leak, but thanks to him, Tony had been unable to use his armor during this period, which slowed the spread of the palladium.

At the moment, the new armor had not yet been completed, so Tony could only stare helplessly.

"Damn it, I should've prepared several suits of armor for emergencies." Forcing down the bitter Chlorophyll Juice in one gulp, Tony suddenly saw a strange figure in a red-and-blue bodysuit pass through the footage Jarvis was playing.

"What was that?"

He had just been about to ask Jarvis to rewind and slow down the footage when his body froze in place as though he had been struck by a paralysis spell.

No one noticed a translucent milky-white shadow slip into his body.