Scarlet Spider vs. Ripper (2)

"Nightingale?"

Miss Hell was a little surprised.

"What are you doing here too?"

The Ripper case clearly wasn't within a magical girl's scope of responsibility.

At that, a flicker of worry passed through Nightingale's violet eyes. She came over to Hell and held out a meal card with both hands.

"Um... Miss Hell, I wanted to ask if you've seen a boy with blue eyes around here? He's about my age. He's my friend, and he might have been kidnapped by the Crimson Flame Gang."

"I was so worried about him that I followed the clues here."

Miss Hell's expression grew complicated as she looked down at the meal card in its Hatsune Miku cardholder.

She hadn't expected Nightingale to have tracked her way here to find her.

But she obviously couldn't reveal her identity at a time like this.

She could only pretend she didn't know.

Hell gently brushed the gray-white hair from her shoulder and put a hand on her hip. "Sorry, I haven't seen him. I only just arrived at the scene myself."

A trace of worry passed through Nightingale's eyes. She bowed again and put away the meal card. "Sorry for bothering you, Miss Hell. I'll look around nearby some more."

With that, Nightingale turned and swiftly disappeared among the high-rises, moving as nimbly as a little purple cat.

Hell sighed inwardly, then turned her attention back to the fight between Scarlet Spider and Edward.

They had destroyed quite a few shops and vehicles along the way. Scarlet Spider was immensely strong, and his body could take an extraordinary beating.

Hell took out her phone and looked up information on both of them.

[Codename: Scarlet Spider]

[Danger level: C+.]

[Abilities: Basic strength, basic speed, basic defense, spider ability.]

[Background: In just three months since his debut, he has risen to the top of Taiping Prefecture's new hero rankings and ranks 36th in stock market valuation on the "Superhero 100." His kind and sincere personality has made him popular with the public, earning him the title of Taiping Prefecture residents' "friendly neighbor."]

[Greatest achievement: Captured the supervillain "Jumbo" single-handedly, earning the recognition and encouragement of "Peacemaker," the chief superhero.]

In Taiping Prefecture's superhero system, strength, speed, and defense were the three core measures of combat power, while special abilities were the icing on the cake.

Basic, intermediate, advanced, and super were rather vague classifications.

But even basic strength was beyond the reach of ordinary people.

Take Edward and Scarlet Spider right now, for example.

They had finished testing each other and were getting serious. They fought from one end of the street to the other, causing tremendous destruction.

Hell kept her eyes on them.

From their methods of attack and their past records, she could tell that Scarlet Spider was clearly a highly mobile superhero who specialized in restraining opponents.

His defining traits were his well-rounded physical abilities, spider-level reaction speed, and the tough webbing built into the devices on his hands.

As the two clashed, Scarlet Spider consistently had the advantage in speed. He was the first to catch Edward off guard, knocking the scalpel out of his hand during their exchange.

Then the device beneath his wrist fired a strand of tough, sticky webbing that wrapped around Edward's ankle.

He flung Edward away.

Bang!

Edward slammed into a Honda in the parking lot beside them, its roof caving deep into the passenger compartment.

"Fuck...!"

Covered in dirt, he activated the mechanism in his shoe, popping out another scalpel and cutting through the webbing around his ankle.

He immediately jumped back to dodge a second strand fired by Scarlet Spider, catching the second scalpel in midair at the same time. His expression was chillingly cold.

"I underestimated you, Spider-Boy."

"But now I'm getting serious."

As he spoke, Edward tore off his suit jacket and flung it into the air. At some point, five more scalpels had appeared in his hand, making six in total.

By the time the jacket fell, his eyes had turned a deathly white.

From Edward's perspective, the bones and vessels inside Scarlet Spider's body were as clear as illustrations in a textbook.

His vision was detailed enough to see the flow of every drop of blood and the contraction of every muscle in Scarlet Spider's body.

Through their close-quarters struggle just now, Edward had learned Scarlet Spider's physical condition and successfully entered his own "Surgery Time."

His special ability, "Surgical Scalpel," stemmed from his exceptionally refined clinical surgical skills, which gave him an intimate knowledge of every weak point in the human body.

In combat, this meant that every attack he made would cause functional damage to a victim's organs or limbs, or even kill them on the spot.

During "Surgery Time," Edward's physical abilities also improved dramatically for a short period, and he gained the ability to see through his opponent's flesh.

To his eyes, Scarlet Spider's most vulnerable spot was completely exposed.

His left arm, which had an old injury that had yet to heal, was his weakness.

"Hey, man, that look in your eyes is seriously creepy. Good thing I got here in time, right? Otherwise, those innocent kids would've fallen into your clutches."

Scarlet Spider shrugged and pulled with both hands. The vast webbing he had set up in advance spread out to cover the block where the two of them stood.

He wasn't to be trifled with either.

"Heaven and Earth Net" was Scarlet Spider's signature technique. He had used it to subdue Jumbo in their battle.

"And don't call me Spider-Boy. My codename is Scarlet Spider. You ever watch Transformers? Scarlet Spider, of the Decepticons!"

Scarlet Spider rambled on.

Edward lowered his eyelids slightly, not bothering to say more.

Swish!

As his figure vanished, the webbing between them was sliced cleanly apart in an instant, and Edward himself rapidly closed in on Scarlet Spider.

So fast!

Scarlet Spider was startled. He had never expected Edward to suddenly burst out at such speed that even his Spider-Sense failed to react.

He dodged in haste, but the scalpel still tore a bloody gash in his left shoulder.

This guy! He broke straight through my Heavenly Net and Earthly Snare?!

Scarlet Spider hurriedly fired a strand of webbing and climbed onto the glass of a nearby high-rise.

Only then did he suddenly realize, to his horror, that he couldn't muster a shred of strength in his left arm. It hung from his shoulder like a dead man's arm.

My arm? Is this still my arm?!

Scarlet Spider shook his shoulder, unable to believe it was his arm. It was almost as if he had accidentally compressed a vein while napping and the arm had died.

Edward had clearly only cut through some of the flesh and vessels in his left arm, without even injuring the bone, yet the arm had completely lost contact with the rest of his body.

Seeing this, Mo Zhen fell into thought.

According to an analysis by a superhero expert on social media, Scarlet Spider's webbing was tough, but its strength decreased when faced with sharp objects.

And Edward happened to fit the bill.

He was like a patient hunter, probing for his prey's weakness before ending the fight with his incomparably sharp scalpel.

After entering Surgery Time, he had not only broken through Scarlet Spider's Heavenly Net and Earthly Snare in a single exchange, but also temporarily disabled one of his arms.

At this rate, this little spider is probably going to lose.

Hell thought to herself.

In truth, judging by level alone, she wasn't very confident she could defeat either Scarlet Spider or Ripper one-on-one.

They might well leave each other badly injured.

So if she wanted to intervene, she had to find the right opportunity to reap the benefits.

As Hell pondered, Edward threw three knives at Scarlet Spider on the glass wall, cutting off all his escape routes and severing his webbing.

Scarlet Spider landed on one hand and became locked in close combat with Edward once again.

Without the web-shooting device on one arm, he could no longer break away from Edward's close-quarters assault.

I can't go on like this!

Scarlet Spider grew anxious.

Relying on the reflexes granted by his Spider-Sense, he could still hold his own against Edward for now, but if the fight dragged on, he was bound to make a mistake.

Hell could see that too.

In the end, Scarlet Spider and Edward had different approaches to fighting.

Scarlet Spider was a young superhero who had only recently debuted. Like the vigilante "Red Owl," he held to his own principle of not killing.

Even when facing the most vicious criminals, he would only choose to bundle them up and dump them at the police station's door rather than execute them himself.

Edward was different. As the infamous "Ripper," he had once dismembered spiritualist mages in Europe into countless pieces and hung them in Big Ben Square.

With one thinking of subduing his opponent and the other thinking of killing his, Scarlet Spider's defeat became inevitable.