Centipede Emerges, New York Never Sleeps

In the warehouse district on Third Avenue in Queens, New York, gunfire, alarms, and the sounds of heavy objects crashing shattered the silence of the night.

Peter Parker darted through the warehouse, his webs crisscrossing everywhere as he stuck panicked guards to the walls or bound them up like dumplings. His movements were far more practiced than before. Spider-Sense allowed him to anticipate attacks ahead of time, and though his homemade suit was crude, it was flexible enough.

"Hey, guys, working overtime at night doesn't come with extra pay!" he chattered as he fought, trying to hide his nervousness and excitement behind jokes. This was his first time taking the initiative to hit an organized criminal hideout, and his adrenaline was surging.

Before long, more than a dozen guards had been dealt with. Peter looked at the warehouse full of smuggled goods, hesitated, and ultimately only used his web-shooters to leave behind the words, "Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man." He then anonymously called the police using a guard's phone, without touching any of the property.

"Uncle Ben would be proud of me..." he muttered, savoring the fulfillment that came from doing the right thing as he swung away into the night on his webs. What he did not know was that shortly after he left, S.H.I.E.L.D. agents quietly appeared, took over the scene, erased some overly obvious traces, and filed the incident away.

Inside the Thunder Temple, Lin Ye watched Peter's clean and decisive actions, as well as his final choice, and nodded slightly.

"He has a good nature. He's worth cultivating," he said. "Keep watching him. When necessary, give him some 'perfectly timed' opportunities for training, but don't let him notice."

"Instruction recorded," Remy replied.

Yet New York's night was destined to remain anything but peaceful.

Less than an hour after Peter left, a violent explosion and terrified screams suddenly erupted from a secluded street near the border between Queens and Brooklyn!

A figure staggered out of the blazing explosion. He was an abnormally tall, hulking man whose knotted muscles had nearly become grotesquely distorted. His eyes glowed red, while beneath his skin, it seemed as though countless earthworms were writhing, emitting an unstable orange-red light. Inhuman cries of pain came from his mouth. His right arm had been replaced by a crude metallic mechanical device that flickered with dangerous energy.

He was one of Hydra's failed products from the "Centipede" project—a Centipede Warrior deliberately enhanced and released by Ward!

"Power... I need more power!" the warrior roared, smashing a fist into a car parked by the roadside. The car was instantly crushed flat and exploded! He absorbed the energy from the blast, and the orange-red glow over his body stabilized slightly, but the madness in his eyes only intensified.

Following the subconscious commands implanted in his brain, he began destroying everything aimlessly while craving more energy to sustain his highly unstable existence.

The police arrived quickly, but their bullets had almost no effect on the monster. Instead, they only enraged him. A one-sided massacre was about to begin.

"Warning! A high-energy anomalous biological reaction has been detected in New York City! Extremely destructive! Its energy signature partially matches the 'Centipede Serum' and 'Extremis' in the database, but it is highly unstable!" Remy's alarm sounded within the Temple.

The holographic screen immediately displayed scenes of chaos in the streets.

"Hydra's toy?" Lin Ye saw through the situation at once. "Are they so eager to lure me out? Or are they simply trying to create chaos?"

He had little interest in it. Such a low-level modified monster was not even worth his personal attention.

But the next second, his gaze fixed on one corner of the surveillance footage—a red-and-blue-suited figure was frantically dodging the shockwaves from the explosions before resolutely turning around and charging toward the monster!

It was Peter Parker! He had not gone far, and after hearing the commotion, he had rushed back!

"Tch, troublesome kid." Lin Ye frowned. With Peter's current strength, fighting such a berserk monster was far too dangerous.

On the street, Peter struggled to evade the Centipede Warrior's attacks and explosions with his webs.

"God, what the hell is that thing?!" Peter's heart pounded wildly with fear. His Spider-Sense was issuing frantic warnings, telling him that the monster before him was incredibly dangerous! But he could not retreat. There were still civilians below who had not been evacuated in time!

He tried to bind it with webs, but the webs were instantly melted apart by the high-temperature energy radiating from the creature's body! Even the web pellets he fired were easily swatted away!

"Roar!" The Centipede Warrior noticed the irritating "little bug" and smashed a fist toward Peter's position, its terrifying punch generating a scorching wave of air!

Peter barely dodged in time. The wall behind him was blasted open with a huge hole, sending rubble flying everywhere!

No! I'm completely outmatched! Cold sweat streamed down Peter's face. He needed help! But who could he turn to?

S.H.I.E.L.D. had also detected the sudden battle.

"It's Garrett's doing!" Natasha immediately concluded. "He wants to use this monster to test Thunder or force him to act!"

Fury's expression darkened. "Deploy a rapid-response team immediately! Capture that monster alive if possible! We can't let it cause any more damage! Notify the police to evacuate civilians and lock down the area!"

He knew they had to intervene, but he wanted even more to know what Lin Ye would do.

Wakanda, Shuri's laboratory.

The Vibranium Energy Resonance Long-Range Sensor suddenly emitted an extremely faint alert!

"An abnormal energy burst detected! Location: New York! The energy pattern contains a mix of biological enhancement and high-temperature properties, but there's an extremely faint resonance signal matching our stolen Vibranium samples!" Shuri instantly jumped to her feet and excitedly enlarged the data. "It's weak, but the frequency matches! He used that batch of Vibranium! Or he's near the point of the energy outbreak!"

She immediately locked onto coordinates in Queens, New York!

"Father! I've caught his trail! He's in New York!" Shuri reported to T'Chaka at once.

King T'Chaka's spirits lifted. "Can you pinpoint him?"

"Not yet! The resonance signal is too weak, and it's being disrupted by powerful biological energy! But the range has already been narrowed down to one district!" Shuri rapidly operated the controls. "I need to mobilize more computing resources to filter and amplify the signal!"

"Approved!" T'Chaka gave the order immediately. After lying dormant for some time, Wakanda's pursuit had finally resumed!

On the streets of New York, the battle was completely one-sided.

Peter Parker was already in grave danger. Several parts of his suit had been scorched, and he had expended a huge amount of stamina. The Centipede Warrior grew more frenzied with every fight, and the destruction spread farther and farther.

S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Quinjet had arrived overhead, but the streets below were narrow and civilians had not yet been fully evacuated, so they did not dare use heavy weapons.

Just as the Centipede Warrior grabbed the slowing Peter and its mechanical arm, burning with high-temperature energy, was about to crush him—

Crack!

A slender yet incomparably concentrated bolt of blue-white lightning descended from the sky like a precise scalpel, instantly striking the joint of the Centipede Warrior's mechanical arm!

It was not a violent explosion, but penetration and destruction taken to the extreme!

Sizzle!

The mechanical arm's energy transmission system overloaded and melted down instantly! Black smoke rose from it as the arm drooped uselessly, releasing Peter.

Peter took the opportunity to kick off the monster's chest, flipping backward with the momentum before landing shakily some distance away.

Everyone froze, including the S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel in the air and Shuri far away in Wakanda!

That lightning strike had been too precise! Too sudden!

"Was... was that him?" Peter looked up at the sky, but saw only the night and the S.H.I.E.L.D. aircraft.

"The attack came from higher altitude! Unable to lock onto its source!" the Quinjet pilot reported.

Natasha's gaze sharpened. "He acted! But where is he?"

Inside the Thunder Temple.

Lin Ye slowly withdrew his finger. That precise lightning strike had been as effortless to him as flicking away a speck of dust.

"Remy, analyze that monster's energy core and simulate a reverse energy shock frequency."

"Analysis complete. Simulated frequency generated."

"Good. Inject the monster with an energy shock at that frequency and detonate its unstable serum."

"Instruction executed."

On the street, the Centipede Warrior had just broken free from its restraints and was about to pounce on Peter and the surrounding crowd again when its body suddenly stiffened!

The highly unstable Centipede Serum and Extremis within its body were instantly detonated by an external reverse energy frequency precisely tuned to match them!

"No—!!!" it let out a desperate howl.

Boom!!!!

A massive explosion violently erupted from its body! Orange-red energy shockwaves swept outward!

"Watch out!" Peter instinctively wanted to rush over and protect the nearest civilians, but he was nowhere near fast enough!

However, when the terrifying shockwave spread to a certain range, it seemed to crash into an invisible wall flickering with tiny arcs of electricity, firmly containing it within an area less than ten meters in diameter!

The explosion's flames and energy crashed and churned wildly within that invisible barrier, burning themselves out before slowly fading away.

The people on the street stared dumbfounded at the small patch of scorched, melted ground and the monster at its center, which had completely vanished apart from a little residue. Beyond the barrier, they had not even felt a gust of wind from the blast.

After the silence came cheers and tears from those who had survived the disaster.

Peter slumped to the ground, staring at the scorched marks for a long while without coming back to his senses.

Natasha and all the agents aboard the Quinjet felt a chill run down their backs.

Such terrifying power was precise to the extreme, capable of killing unseen while perfectly controlling the range of destruction.

In Wakanda, Shuri watched the Vibranium resonance signal that had suddenly appeared and vanished on the screen, along with the perfectly contained explosion. Her voice trembled with excitement:

"It was him! It was definitely him! Not only did he use Vibranium-related technology—an energy containment field—but he also intervened! The signal was brief, but I caught it! The approximate area... is locked onto the northern mountains of New York!"

King T'Chaka drew a deep breath. "Keep narrowing the range! But remember, do not make any provocative moves!" He knew that finding the other party and becoming enemies with him were two entirely different matters.

Thunder Temple.

Lin Ye yawned.

"Cleanup complete. Hydra's little trick was boring."

His gaze fell once more upon the still-shaken Peter Parker.

"Still, it gave the kid a good lesson."

This night in New York was destined to leave many people unable to sleep.

(End of Chapter 23)