A smile spread across Rex Viper's face.
This was exactly what he had been waiting for. He didn't hesitate for even a second. The moment the achievement pack opened, the rewards flashed through his mind in an instant.
[Congratulations on receiving rewards: Ability Upgrade Card, Bloodline Fusion Card.]
He used the Ability Upgrade Card immediately.
The next second, a surge of inspiration slammed into his mind like a detonation. His body exploded upward with terrifying force, and he launched himself into the air like a tiger springing for the kill. Across from him, the Black Wolf Spider was already diving in, and the two of them hurtled toward each other at high speed.
As the distance vanished, Rex could clearly see the savage gleam in the other man's eyes. There was mockery there too, a cruel little sneer curling at the corner of his mouth, as if he found Rex's attempt to meet him head-on laughable. But Rex was smiling too, and his expression was every bit as cold.
The moment they were about to collide, a blinding white flash erupted in front of the Black Wolf Spider's face. It was so sudden and so fierce that his vision turned completely white in an instant. Panic flickered through him the moment his sight disappeared, and then he felt the air compress around him before a fist smashed brutally into his face.
All of his own attacks missed.
A sharp, explosive pain tore across his skull, and his entire body was blasted backward by overwhelming force. He flew uncontrollably through the air and slammed hard against the ground with a heavy crash. Fortunately, his physique was monstrous enough to keep him from breaking apart on impact, and his vision began recovering after only a brief moment.
Then he saw silver snakes flying toward him through the dim light.
A heartbeat later, unbearable pain and numbness devoured his entire body.
His skin cracked open at once, blood bursting out in streaks as his bones groaned under the pressure like they were on the verge of splintering. Only then did he realize that what he had seen weren't silver snakes at all. It was lightning.
Seeing the enemy preparing to continue the assault, the Black Wolf Spider's survival instinct exploded. He slammed a hand into the ground and forced himself back up in a savage motion. His thighs compressed with a force greater than before, crushing a shallow pit into the pavement beneath him, and then he shot away like a bullet.
In the blink of an eye, he dove straight into the sea of red-clad ninjas.
Almost immediately afterward, Rex's lightning descended.
Dozens of thunderbolts ripped through the night and crashed into the cluster of ninjas around the Black Wolf Spider. In a single moment, hundreds of bodies turned to ash and exploded upward into the air. The sight was so sudden and so violent that everyone watching froze where they stood.
The exchange had lasted only a few seconds, but it was enough to stun the entire battlefield.
Somewhere behind the command channel, Nick Fury swallowed hard. The monstrous strength of the Black Wolf Spider had already shocked him badly enough, but Rex's display hit even harder. If this lunatic had power like that, why the hell had Fury ever thought arresting him was a realistic plan?
Arrest him?
At this point, Fury wanted to build him a shrine.
His regret came fast and bitter. This guy wasn't just dangerous. He was a full-blown monster in human skin.
Not far away, Wade, Blade, and Black Widow had all tried to intercept the Black Wolf Spider and failed. Now they stared at the silver-white storm still crackling in the air, their expressions stiff with disbelief. Wade's eyes were practically bulging.
"My God," he blurted. "He's basically the God of Thunder."
Blade's face looked no better. If Rex had this kind of power all along, then what the hell had that fight against Frost even been? Had he really held back that much while Blade was getting beaten to hell?
As for the others, they simply stood there in shock.
This was still an era when superheroes had not yet fully stepped onto the world stage. Powers like this did not belong to ordinary reality, and Rex had just dropped that truth onto all of them like a lightning strike to the skull.
But Rex himself wasn't particularly excited.
His gaze stayed fixed ahead, sharp and unblinking, because he had already seen what mattered most.
The Black Wolf Spider wasn't dead.
The bastard had been smart. He had deliberately thrown himself into the crowd of ninjas before the lightning landed, forcing the destructive power to spread across a wide target area. The result was devastating for the Hand's forces, but it left relatively little concentrated damage on him.
Now, amid the swirling ash, the Black Wolf Spider stood quietly in front of the building.
He reached somewhere into his clothing and produced a bottle of black liquid, then downed it in one gulp. In the next instant, the wolf spider tattoo on his chest began to glow, and the black legs inked into his flesh trembled slightly like something alive beneath the skin. His wounds started healing at visible speed, and the aura around him climbed higher and higher.
When the process ended, he felt even stronger than before.
Rex's expression hardened.
He had just upgraded Lightning Control without hesitation, and the ability had now evolved into Thunder Control. The change was massive. His body's capacity to store and release lightning had increased dramatically. The old level of electric attacks could now be unleashed hundreds of times without much strain.
But attacks on the scale of the one he had just fired—the kind of full-power thunderburst capable of erasing hundreds of bronze-tier prey in one strike—could only be used three or four times at most.
Even so, he launched another one immediately.
Dozens of bolts crossed the night sky and came crashing down toward the Black Wolf Spider once again. This time, however, the man didn't even attempt to dodge. He stood where he was and raised his head, letting the thunder smash into him head-on.
Under the relentless bombardment, he roared at the sky.
And he endured it.
The tattoo on his chest swelled grotesquely, turning dark red as if it had become living flesh. His eyes shone with a savage, inhuman ferocity, and when he looked at Rex again, there was nothing left in them but killing intent.
"Iron Man," he snarled, "you're dead."
Rex wasn't rattled in the slightest. He stared at him for a moment, then let out a cold laugh. Raising one hand, he crooked his index finger in challenge.
"If you've got the guts," he said, "come over here."
The Black Wolf Spider bared sharp, predatory teeth and grinned. "Heh. I'm coming."
The moment the words left his mouth, he leaped.
His body soared into the air in a monstrous arc, rising as high as six or seven floors in a single bound. With both arms spread wide, he descended like a giant eagle diving for its prey. The sight was so outrageous that everyone who saw it felt their scalp go numb.
Wade clutched his head and shouted, "This is cheating! He's juicing!"
Fury's fists tightened somewhere across the comms. To hell with New York's air-defense protocols. He no longer cared. If this thing could be blown out of the sky with fighter jets, he was ready to call them in and deal with the consequences later.
But Rex did something no one expected.
He didn't even look at the Black Wolf Spider.
Instead, he dropped his gaze to the street beneath his feet. Then he bent down, smashed a fist into the ground, and shattered the pavement apart. Reaching into the broken hole, he grabbed hold of something thick and heavy, then yanked upward with brute force.
A black high-voltage cable as thick as a man's arm tore out of the ground.
He opened his mouth and bit down. The tough insulated outer layer split apart instantly under his fangs, revealing the copper core beneath. Only then did he finally lift his head to look at the Black Wolf Spider in the air.
His Thunder Control gave him only three or four full-force all-out attacks.
But on the other hand, his resistance to electrical power had evolved too.
Now he could absorb electricity directly.
The instant his palm touched the exposed high-voltage wire, the lights on the surrounding streets flickered wildly. A huge flood of power rushed into his body in a violent torrent. Silver-white light erupted all around him, and his clothes were burned away to ash in an instant. Endless arcs of tiny electricity whipped around his body, wrapping him in a storm of light.
The pain of overload stabbed into every inch of his flesh, but he only grinned wider.
"Here's a little secret," he said. "I'm passing the name Iron Man to somebody else. Next time, call me Thor."
The moment he finished speaking, endless thunder exploded outward.
Silver-white radiance swallowed the square and stabbed into everyone's eyes. Half the surrounding district lost power instantly, and the skyline went dark in great chunks, leaving only this patch of blinding brilliance to illuminate the city. The light was so intense it seemed to split the night itself, turning the battlefield into the center of a newborn storm.
The Black Wolf Spider, empowered by the drug, was still terrifying.
The tattoo on his chest opened its fanged mouth like a living creature and let out a silent, feral scream toward Rex. But even with that unnatural enhancement, he lasted only a few seconds under the deluge before smoke began rising from his body. His flesh charred. His skin blackened. The strength holding him together started failing under the violent pressure of the thunder.
And Rex still had power left.
He lifted one hand and pointed toward the lobby of the building.
A silver dragon made of hundreds of lightning bolts roared forward.
Everything in its path was obliterated. Every red-clad ninja it touched turned to ash instantly, and the dragon did not stop there. It plunged straight through the lobby, tore into the stairwell, descended into the underground levels, and finally slammed into the resurrection altar itself.
The structure had already been pushed far beyond its limit.
The instant the lightning struck, it collapsed.
A bright flash followed, and then the altar shattered completely.
Outside, thunder was still raging over the square, venting its power in a wild and merciless frenzy. Finally, with a deafening explosion, the storm of lightning compressed into a single blooming mass of white light and detonated above the plaza.
Everyone present had their vision seared white.
When they were finally able to see again, they turned their eyes toward the square below.
It was empty and in ruins.
The red-clad ninjas were gone. The Black Wolf Spider was gone. And Iron Man was gone too.
....
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