Batman Incident (15)

The Morlun Family, also known as the Inheritor Family, were sometimes called the "Cosmic Vampires."

To understand this family’s origins, one had to mention the Spider Totem.

Perhaps in many people’s eyes, Spider-Man had been born from a mutation caused by a spider bite, but that was not actually the case. Spider-Man’s power belonged to the magical side and came from the ancient Spider Totem.

Animal totems were an extremely mysterious and powerful force throughout the Marvel Universe, and the Spider Totem was among the finest of them. Naturally, such great power tempted people to steal it.

There was a group of creatures in the universe that resembled vampires. They traveled through different Multiverses, killing every creature connected to a totem and absorbing their power to strengthen themselves. This was the Morlun Family.

Schiller said to Nick over the phone, "I have to admit, I didn’t expect them to make a move against Spider-Man so quickly. The little bait we put out this time actually hooked a big fish."

"Rather than that, shouldn’t you be concerned about how we’re supposed to deal with them?"

"By your account, they can even travel through Multiverses beyond human comprehension, and their targets are usually no match for them. So how do you think ordinary humans like us are supposed to deal with such powerful supernatural creatures?"

"The truth is, we don’t actually need to deal with them."

"What do you mean?" Nick asked.

"I think you can figure it out too. If there’s a Morlun Family, then there must be other supernatural creatures like them, and probably a whole lot of them."

"Think about why humanity has been able to live peacefully until now. If they could really do whatever they wanted here, forget one Earth—even several Solar Systems would have been destroyed by them."

"Of course I know that mysterious forces have always been protecting Earth. In fact, I’ve paid attention to this ever since the day I took over as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D."

"But if this Bat God’s guard has truly descended, doesn’t that mean they’ve found a way to break through Earth’s defenses?"

"They’re still far from that. If they had truly found a way, why wouldn’t they simply appear above Earth and announce to every human that they were about to rule this place…"

"Instead, they’re sneaking around like guilty thieves. They even need to hide behind some Bat God facade and have Earth’s vampires summon them here."

In the end, Schiller concluded, "They aren’t ruthless bandits here to rob a bank. They’re just a bunch of stupid thieves who sneak into an ordinary home, only daring to quietly pick the lock without making a sound."

"And as it happens, the owner of this house has a bad temper and holds grudges."

After night fell, Stark hovered above a street in front of the Brooklyn Bridge. Below him stood a strangely shaped vehicle.

Stark pressed a button on his arm, and the vehicle’s armor unfolded. A group of very odd-looking robots stepped down from it.

They had four thick Mechanical Legs. Their upper halves were ringed with mechanical arms equipped with geared grippers and hooks, while their main bodies resembled hexagonal nuts.

Steve, standing beside him, said, "This is what you’ve been working on these past few days? Are you sure these things can fight?"

"No, they aren’t for fighting." Stark gave a disdainful snort and said, "Grunts like you only think about fighting. These are multifunctional battlefield robots."

"So what can they do?"

"They can handle every logistics task you can imagine."

"After fighting all night, I realized a major problem—humanity’s weakness may not be that we can’t fight, that we aren’t accurate enough with guns, or that we don’t evade quickly enough. It’s that we waste too much manpower on logistical support."

"Moving a wounded soldier who’s fallen down takes two people, and they have to be strong. They have to cross the center of the firefight to pull the wounded person out, and if one of them gets hurt too, then someone else has to take their place."

"Of course, in an ordinary war, there might be some room for that, because the other side would be on the same level as us and wouldn’t deliberately target retreating wounded soldiers."

"But those bats are different. They can fly. Once they see someone fall or someone try to rescue the wounded, they attack those people like mad."

"Once we abandon the wounded, our morale will plummet, and our casualties will only grow worse."

"I thought about this a lot this afternoon…" Stark said with his arms folded. "This is also my first time taking part in a war, so there were quite a few flaws and unsuitable aspects in my armor design. I’ve adjusted those problems as quickly as I could."

Steve heard an immense confidence in his tone. It was completely different from his usual stubborn bravado. At that moment, Stark—or rather, Iron Man—truly possessed remarkable charisma.

He was so extraordinarily gifted in his field, and he never avoided discussing his own mistakes and weaknesses. That meticulous mindset clashed sharply with his somewhat casual attitude, giving him a uniquely distinctive air.

Stark continued, "Schiller gave me a lot of inspiration. We really need a battlefield-adaptive calculation system, preferably one intelligent enough to calculate these weaknesses in advance before we discover them, so we can stay one step ahead of the enemy."

"Still, there wasn’t enough time this round. We only had a single day, not even enough to complete testing, so I compromised and built these robots through manual design."

Stark descended and patted one robot’s arm. "I won’t even mention functions like transporting supplies and constructing defensive works. More importantly, they’re equipped with incendiary bombs and flamethrowers. I designed a signal button into everyone’s night-vision devices. As long as they press it, it means there’s an injured vampire here that can be burned. These robots will rush to the battlefield and reduce them to ashes with their flamethrowers."

"Their flamethrower systems are intelligently controlled, so they can ensure the fire doesn’t spread. They’re far more effective than manual operation."

"More importantly, there’s their method of movement."

As he spoke, the robot beside Stark rotated its mechanical arms and retracted them into its hexagonal body, turning into a nut-like shape before floating into the air.

Stark looked up at it and said, "So far, I haven’t seen those vampires demonstrate any ability to interfere with magnetism. Therefore, these machines can use magnetic levitation systems to move extremely quickly."

"Once one gets above a wounded soldier, the mechanical arms underneath will scoop them up, wrap them inside its armor, and fly them back."

"There are some emergency measures inside the armor, as well as some healing serum. You know, the batch Connors developed. There isn’t much of it, so it probably won’t be enough, but at least it can keep seriously wounded soldiers alive until they reach the hospital."

"This is already very good." Steve walked over and examined the hexagonal nut floating in the air. "War always kills people. It’s only a matter of how many, but saving even one more life is a good thing."

"Are you going to start reminiscing about your glorious battlefield days again?"

Steve shrugged. "No. Since you did well this time, I won’t nag you about that stuff."

"So you really were doing it on purpose before!" Stark glared at him angrily.

Steve spread his hands. "I used this trick on your dad before. You’ve improved a little compared to him, though. At least you can endure it for more than five minutes."

When Peter arrived, he saw Stark grabbing Steve by the collar. Peter hurried over and pulled them apart. Stark shook out his arm, glanced at Peter, and said, "What happened to your suit? Why did it turn so black?"

Peter shook his head. Seeing that he was distracted, Stark asked, "Hey, kid, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?"

"I don’t know." Peter spoke painfully. "My heart is beating really fast, and my Spider-Sense keeps going off, but I can’t find the source of the danger. I feel awful right now."

Stark saw that he was not joking, so he could only walk over and pat Peter on the shoulder. "I think you need to rest."

"You’re not even an adult yet, and you’ve been fighting for over twenty hours straight. This won’t do," Steve said as well.

Peter looked somewhat agitated. "Leave me alone. I know what I should do. I’m staying here, and I’m going to wipe out every last one of those disgusting monsters!"

"Your mental state is a little off…" Stark had just begun to continue when Steve stopped him.

Peter sat down against one of the vehicle’s tires. Steve crouched down as well, looked into his eyes, and said, "Of course, we aren’t trying to interfere with anything. But as your elder—at least I’m definitely your elder—I’m a little worried about you, Peter…"

"If you think you can keep going, then stay. But honestly, you’ve already done more than enough. You could even be called heroic."

Peter frowned and closed his eyes. "Sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with me either. I just feel really restless and uneasy…"

"Schiller will be here later. You can talk to him. Maybe a psychologist has a way to deal with these symptoms."

"Doctor Schiller is coming? Why? This is a battlefield! He’ll be in danger!"

Stark and Steve exchanged a glance. They realized that innocent Peter really seemed to believe Schiller had no special powers and was an ordinary person who needed protection.

By the time darkness was about to fall, the three lines of defense had been fully deployed. With Stark’s specialized logistics robots, the defensive line had been built extremely quickly and was very solid. The situation was considerably better than expected.

A mansion in the rear had become a temporary command center. Schiller sat on the second floor, with Peter seated across from him. Peter held his forehead and said, "I really feel awful, Doctor. I keep feeling like something dangerous is about to happen, but I can’t find where it’s coming from…"

"Is that what your Spider-Sense is telling you?"

"That’s right. It’s hard for me to explain what this feels like. Normally, my Spider-Sense lets me see images of the source of danger. It can even directly control my body’s movements."

"But now I can’t see anything. When I concentrate, I find nothing, but it just keeps faintly ringing…"

"Because you’ve always treated it as a passive ability. Have you ever considered that you might actually be able to control it actively?"

"Actively control it? I tried before, but no matter how hard I concentrated, it just wouldn’t appear."

"That was because you weren’t stimulated by danger at the time, so that brief state couldn’t be maintained. But now is a good opportunity. Since your Spider-Sense has been active all along, you can try to mobilize it…"

Peter closed his eyes and tried hard to focus, but his Spider-Sense was like a plucked string vibrating without pause, constantly disrupting his thoughts and scattering his attention.

Venom said, "Empty your mind. I think I can give you a hand."

Peter tried to clear every thought from his mind, thinking of nothing. Then, gradually, he saw a patch of black spread through his consciousness, and soon an image flashed past.

Schiller saw Peter spring up from his chair. Peter’s face was filled with terror as he said, "I saw…"

"Calm down, Peter. What did you see?"

Peter looked at Schiller in panic. "I saw Mr. Stark falling from a high building… He wasn’t wearing his armor, and then he hit the ground…"

Peter’s eyes were red, and he was nearly crying. His voice was hoarse as he trembled and said, "I saw… he died."

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