The Shadow of Queens: Do Not Respond to the Spider's Kindness

As we crossed Queensboro Bridge, the pale green of the sky grew even darker.

Jiang Li, leading the Mechanical Hound covered in metal barbs, stepped into Queens territory.

Unlike the hustle and bustle of Manhattan, filled with crazy steel parasites, this place is eerily quiet.

There was no roar of car engines, no sirens, and even the rustling of leaves in the wind was swallowed up by some invisible force. The entire Queens was as if it had been stuffed into a giant vacuum glass jar.

Jiang Li stopped in his tracks.

The red brick apartment buildings, lampposts, and even cars parked on the side of the street were all covered with a thick, semi-transparent white thread.

These threads were still twitching very slightly, like the nerve bundles of a living organism.

"Woof!"

The Mechanical Hound beside him growled, bared its sharp metal fangs, and bit down on a white thread hanging down beside it.

Sizzle--!

The Mechanical Hound's bite force, powerful enough to crush armor, failed to sever the seemingly delicate white thread. Instead, a strange wave rebounded along the thread, causing the hound's metal head to emit a piercing grinding sound.

"Not a physical protein, but a concrete representation of a certain dimension of concept?"

Jiang Li narrowed his eyes slightly.

He looked up at the pedestrians on the street.

There were far fewer pedestrians in Queens than in Manhattan. They weren't bowing their heads like they would during an air raid siren; they were walking normally.

However, their movements were extremely contorted.

Everyone walking on the street covered their ears tightly with both hands.

It wasn't just a simple covering. To prevent their hands from coming loose, some people used industrial tape to tightly bind their hands and heads together; others used iron nails to forcefully nail their palms to the sides of their skulls, oblivious to the blood streaming down their faces.

Absolutely no sound can be heard.

This is the survival rule of Queens.

Just then...

A dozen meters ahead of Jiang Li, a little girl in a school uniform tripped over a white silk thread because she was walking too fast.

With a "thud," the little girl fell heavily to the ground.

Due to the intense pain and instinctive reaction, her hands, which were taped around her ears, unconsciously loosened a gap.

It is this extremely tiny gap.

The fatal trigger condition has been met.

"Sizzle..."

In the deathly silence, a static crackling sound, like the tuning of an old-fashioned radio, suddenly broke the silence.

Immediately afterwards, an extremely gentle, sunny, and even somewhat boyish voice rang out in the air above the street without warning.

"Need any help? I'm your Good Neighbor..."

The instant the sound faded.

The little girl who had fallen to the ground suddenly froze.

She wasn't physically attacked by any monster, nor did she bleed. But her eyes rolled back instantly, and her mouth opened wide in excruciating pain, to a limit that no human skeleton could withstand.

"Vomit--!"

Accompanied by a sharp, retching sound.

Large gushes of white silk threads gushed out from the deepest part of the little girl's throat! Not only her mouth, but also her eyes, ears, and even the pores of her skin were sprouting these eerie white threads wildly!

This is an obliteration of causality.

The moment you hear a greeting from a "Good Neighbor," a spider's Web of Fate will automatically hatch within you.

Less than five seconds.

The little girl vanished completely. She transformed into a giant white cocoon, as tall as a person, lying quietly in the middle of the road. The cocoon throbbed slightly, seemingly being slowly absorbed by the spiderweb network connecting the entire block.

The pedestrians around, their hands nailed to their heads, didn't even glance at the cocoon-like creature, continuing to walk stiffly on their way.

"To assimilate people from within, turning them into a cocoon. This method of killing is even more disgusting than those junkmen at Stark Tower."

Jiang Li looked at the white cocoon not far away without the slightest sympathy.

Instead of covering his ears, he raised his foot and kicked over a trash can on the roadside.

Clang!!

A deafening clang of metal shattered the deathly silence of the street.

Since the rule was to listen to the sound, he took the initiative to call out the source of the ghost story.

"Hey, you silk-spinning worm."

Jiang Li put his hands in his trench coat pockets and gave a cold laugh at the empty street.

"I'm standing right here. Want to come out and say hello?"

Dead silence.

Absolute silence.

Approximately three seconds passed.

"Sizzle... sizzle..."

The static noise in the surrounding air suddenly became extremely agitated. From all directions, in the cracks between buildings and under the manhole covers, the white threads began to writhe and contract wildly.

Immediately afterwards, that sunny, boyish voice, this time, didn't travel through the air, but instead exploded directly in the depths of Jiang Li's mind in a stereo sound!

"Looks like you're in trouble, sir! Don't worry, I'm your Good Neighbor — Peter Parker!"

The moment the sound rang out, the surrounding space seemed to freeze.

The invisible "Cocooning Causality," like an overwhelming net, directly locked onto Jiang Li's vocal cords, eardrums, and trachea. It attempted to forcibly rewrite Jiang Li's internal physiological structure, causing him to burst out with white silk threads from his body.

One second.

Two seconds.

Three seconds passed.

A gentle breeze rustled Jiang Li's black trench coat.

Nothing happened.

Jiang Li did not turn into a cocoon, and did not even cough once.

That's it?

Jiang Li picked at his ear, his face full of disdain.

[Error. Error.]

The source of the anomaly lurking in the shadows seems to have fallen into a logical rut. Within its system of rules, anyone who hears a sound is doomed.

However, the "cocoon code" it released returned [Null] when it hit Jiang Li.

Jiang Li is in an Untargetable state granted by [Grey Matter]. This causal locking, transmitted through the medium of sound, means that even Jiang Li's judgment box cannot be touched.

"Not only is the code poorly written, but even the way they kill is so passive."

Jiang Li raised his head, his gaze instantly locking onto a clock tower at the end of the street.

That is the final source where all the white threads of Queens converge.

"Since you won't come out, then I'll go up there myself and burn this tattered net of yours."

Jiang Li strode forward, the Mechanical Hound beside him letting out a low growl.

The moment Jiang Li stepped into the Clock Tower Square.

The source of the anomaly has completely gone berserk.

It seemed to realize that the rule code was ineffective against this intruder, so it abandoned the "cocooning" assassination method.

Rumble!

The entire clock tower trembled violently. Countless white cocoons wrapped around the clock tower burst open in unison, but what crawled out were not Spider-Man, but faceless phantoms made of pure nightmare spiritual energy!

In mid-air, an extremely large, twisted entity slowly descended from the shadow of the clock tower.

That's not Spider-Man in the red and blue bodysuit.

Instead, it was a gigantic spider silhouette pieced together from countless human spines and glowing neurons! Embedded on its back were hundreds of tightly closed human eyeballs.

[Since you won't accept your neighbor's kindness... then become nourishment for my nightmares...]

The giant neural spider no longer emitted the voice of the sunny boy, but a vicious curse emanating from thousands of Soul Stone mixed together.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Hundreds of translucent Silk, shimmering with a ghostly blue light, shot towards Jiang Li in a massive, overwhelming barrage.

"Physical attacks are ineffective, so they're switching to mental attacks?"

Jiang Li looked at the translucent Silk. He could sense that it wasn't a physical entity, but rather "fate lines" that directly attacked the Soul Stone and subconscious.

If you get entangled, your body won't be injured, but your consciousness will be instantly pulled into an endless nightmare of terror.

Jiang Li stopped in his tracks, and the [Multiversal Energy Core] on his left wrist burst forth with a dazzling green light.