The golden-red curtain of light closed completely. Its last glimmer vanished in midair inside the laboratory, as though someone had pinched it out between their fingers.
Debris littered the floor. Shattered glassware still rolled, making faint clinking sounds. The alarm had stopped, but the red emergency lights remained on, sweeping across the walls again and again-and across the spot where Kingpin had stood.
All that remained there was a pool of blood and a broken button from his white suit.
Peter stared at the empty space, the web glands on his wrists still tense.
"He just got away like that?"
No one answered. The skin at the back of Peter's neck still prickled. When the Mandarin appeared, the sensation had been more terrifying than Green Goblin's bombs. It hadn't felt like danger flying at him from any particular direction, but like the entire laboratory had suddenly become a tightening net.
Yang Ming walked over to the blood Kingpin had left behind and crouched down.
He didn't touch it with his hands. Instead, he took a transparent sample tube from his Storage Ring and used forceps to place a small bloodstained piece of glass inside.
Peter looked at him. "Who exactly was that guy in the green robes?"
"The leader of the Ten Rings."
Yang Ming stood and adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses.
"The Mandarin."
Peter froze for a moment.
He had never heard the name, but after seeing what those ten rings could do, he knew anyone who could carry Kingpin away like a dead dog was no ordinary gang boss.
"The Ten Rings?"
"An established terrorist organization based in Asia. Arms dealing, kidnapping, assassination, human experimentation-anything that makes money."
Yang Ming glanced at the damaged laboratory equipment.
"Kingpin was working on the Super Soldier Serum, and the Mandarin suddenly showed