Symbiotes

"Wait, you want to go to our world to look for some Infinity Stones?"

Blonde Spider-Man was startled when he heard Wang Bert and the others talking. Though he had no idea what the Infinity Stones were, the word "adventure" alone told him something was wrong.

Blonde Spider-Man was a little displeased. You won’t take the risk yourselves, but you want our world to take it? How does that make sense?

Wang Bert smiled and said, "Future Tony Stark, I’ll leave them to you."

"This was our business to begin with."

Future Tony nodded and began explaining things to the Spider-Men. They were all kind people, so convincing them would not be difficult.

After thinking for a moment, Wang Bert called Ant-Man Scott over and asked, "Have you found Dr. Pym?"

"No. There isn’t a single trace of him. If I’m not wrong, he probably fell into the Quantum Realm, just like Hope’s mother."

Scott shook his head and said, "By the way, Hope wants to rebuild a Quantum Realm Channel as quickly as possible. That might help us find Dr. Pym."

Wang Bert hesitated. "Rebuild a Quantum Realm Channel?"

"I know it will cost a lot of money, and I know Osborn Corporation took a huge loss this time. But Mr. Wang, as long as we bring back Dr. Pym, he’ll definitely be able to earn all those losses back."

Scott hurriedly explained. A Quantum Realm Channel would cost tens of billions of dollars. It was no small sum.

Only Wang Bert, the Galaxy’s Richest Man, could make Scott dare to ask for something like this. He would never have dared bring it up to anyone else.

"The money doesn’t matter. I’m just worried there might be another accident."

Wang Bert shook his head and said, "Forget it. Rebuild it first. Have Hope speak to Mercury President. I’ll approve special funding for you."

Scott was overjoyed. "Thank you, Mr. Wang."

"You really are loaded."

Tony said sourly, "Does Osborn Corporation really have that much liquid capital?"

"Osborn Corporation doesn’t, but Blood God Group does. The hair-growth shampoo sells ridiculously well, so we have plenty of cash on hand."

Wang Bert smiled. "I looked over last year’s performance report. The shampoo made more money than Iron Man Armor."

"That’s because you’re too ruthless. Once people start using it, they have to keep buying it every month."

Tony complained, "You’ve practically monopolized the entire shampoo market. I heard several shampoo manufacturers are preparing to team up and sue you."

"Let them sue. I have plenty of lawyers."

Wang Bert said indifferently, "Next month, Blood God Group will launch body wash for beauty care and scar removal. Blood God Group isn’t trying to monopolize the shampoo market. We’re trying to monopolize the entire cosmetics market.

Sigh, my net worth is about to soar again by accident. With so much money, how am I supposed to spend it all?"

Tony gave him the middle finger. At his age, he was still showing off his wealth. It was really… enviable!

Tony had once dreamed of surpassing Wang Bert and becoming the richest man, but he had completely given up on that now. The gap between them was simply too vast.

Scott blinked and decided to buy Blood God Group stock later. The cosmetics market was enormous. Once Blood God Group monopolized it, its stock price would definitely skyrocket.

Before long, Future Tony convinced the Spider-Men. Blonde Spider-Man said, "If things are really as you say, then we have no problem with it. But our world might not have Infinity Stones."

"We’ll know after we go there."

Future Tony said, "The urgent matter is finding that Kingpin. He should be in this world too. Only by finding him can we get the Super Collider."

"We have to find him."

Spider-Gwen nodded repeatedly. Only the Super Collider could send her home. To be honest, she felt very insecure in an unfamiliar world.

"I’ll mobilize all of S.W.O.R.D.’s resources to find Kingpin. Spider-Man, please draw portraits of Kingpin and his men."

Steve said, in a very good mood now that the conflict had been resolved.

Blonde Spider-Man nodded. "No problem."

With the problem resolved, both sides let out a huge sigh of relief. Future Tony looked at Peter, his expression somewhat complicated. He said, "Parker, in my world, I failed to protect you. I’m sorry."

"I died?"

Peter was stunned. The way Future Tony looked at him made him feel awkward—it was the look a father gave his son.

"You died. Turned to dust."

Future Tony sighed and led Peter aside to speak privately.

Wang Bert quietly instructed Steve, "Steve, settle them in and don’t let them act alone. It’s not that I don’t trust them, but the information they possess must not be discovered by others."

"I understand. Leave it to me."

Steve nodded. "Mr. Hands-Off Boss, you can go chase girls again."

"Steve, you’re getting more and more adorable. Just a little scummy."

Wang Bert laughed loudly and shut down the holographic projection. Steve looked up at the sky and sighed. Whose mouth had been so quick to spread the news?

In the corner, Wanda was listening as Future Banner told her about herself. She said in disbelief, "Pietro was shot to death? I accidentally hurt more than a hundred people? I fell in love with a robot? I killed him with my own hands?"

"That wasn’t even the most tragic part. The most tragic part was that Vision was revived by Thanos, and then you watched Vision die a second time."

Future Banner sighed. "Before you turned to dust, your eyes were filled with relief. Wanda, I’m sorry. We adults failed to protect you and let you suffer such a tragic fate."

"That wasn’t me. I’m living very well. Although my boyfriend is a little scummy—fine, extremely scummy—he really treats me well."

Wanda shook her head. She was grateful that this world had Bert. Otherwise, her fate would have been unimaginably miserable.

Did I offend the writers or something? Why am I so miserable?

Thinking of something, Wanda sighed. "After that Wanda comes back to life, she’ll definitely be devastated."

"There’s nothing we can do about that."

Future Banner shook his head. Wanda’s eyes flickered. Perhaps she should do something. That woman was simply too pitiful.

On the cruise ship, Wang Bert stood at the bow, his eyes filled with joy. He had never expected to open the door to parallel worlds.

What did parallel worlds mean? They meant countless benefits—for example, the Space Stone.

The Space Stone could greatly increase Wang Bert’s strength. Though he was already quite powerful, there was still one shadow hanging over his heart.

The boss of "Fantastic Four 2," Galactus.

Galactus was one of the Five Creator Gods. Though he ranked at the bottom, he was still a Creator God. Wang Bert had no idea whether he could defeat Him.

If he could not, Earth would become His food.

Perhaps I can visit other parallel worlds first and test the waters?

Wang Bert thought to himself. First, I need to find Kingpin. I never expected he would still have a role to play.

Given S.W.O.R.D.’s strength, finding one person should not have been difficult, especially someone as unusually built as Kingpin. Yet to everyone’s surprise, after a full seven days of searching, they still had not found even a trace of him.

It was as if Kingpin did not exist in this world at all.

"Could it be that he never came to this world?"

That possibility made the Future Five and the Spider-Men very anxious. If Kingpin had not come, they would be in serious trouble.

Had Kingpin really not come? No, he had. However, he had arrived at a different time than the Spider-Men—over a year earlier.

In fact, Kingpin had watched the entire battle between Earth and the Ten Thousand Snakes Dimension from outside New York. To be honest, it had terrified him. Earth in this world was simply too frightening, and that Blood God was so powerful it inspired despair.

Afterward, Kingpin learned what had happened to this world’s Kingpin, which made his heart tremble even more. He decided to keep a low profile, lest the Blood God capture him and turn him into a puppet. That would be worse than death.

Besides keeping a low profile, Kingpin also decided to leave that hellhole called New York—there were simply too many big shots there.

In the end, Kingpin chose San Francisco. There, he reunited with his men and quietly took control of a major corporation—the Life Foundation.

"Spider-Man is here too. We don’t have much time, Doctor. Has the Quantum Realm not settled down yet?"

In the underground base beneath Life Foundation headquarters, Kingpin asked Dr. Octopus with some irritation.

The new Super Collider had been completed half a year ago, but because of the disturbance in the Quantum Realm, they had not dared activate it.

"It’s already settling down. It should be related to Spider-Man’s arrival. According to my estimates, the Quantum Realm will return to normal in half a month."

Dr. Octopus, who wore oversized sunglasses and looked shriveled, said, "Once it stabilizes, I’ll notify you immediately."

"Good. This world is too dangerous. We can’t stay here for long."

Kingpin nodded. He had no intention of causing trouble in this world for a simple reason: this world had too many big shots.

Kingpin only wanted to return to his own world and use the Super Collider to find his wife and child—he had investigated this world, and there was no Vanessa here.

"This world is more interesting than ours. Unfortunately, we’re villains."

Dr. Octopus sighed. She was very interested in this world, but it was obvious that this world did not welcome her.

"It’s interesting to an excessive degree. This world is full of world-ending disasters."

Kingpin shook his head and prepared to leave. Dr. Octopus hurriedly stopped him. "Kingpin, wait. I received some intelligence earlier. You should take a look."

Kingpin turned back and asked, "What intelligence? Show me."

Dr. Octopus used her wristband to project a light screen. In it, a potbellied Spider-Man dropped from the sky, clumsily knocked down a group of robbers, then swung into the air on his webbing.

Kingpin was stunned. "When did Spider-Man get so fat?"

"This should be another Spider-Man."

Dr. Octopus brought up another light screen showing Peter and Blonde Spider-Man swinging through the air together. "On the left is this world’s incredibly rich Spider-Man. On the right is the Spider-Man from our world.

Kingpin, if I’m not mistaken, Spider-Men from parallel worlds followed Spider-Man through to this world."

Kingpin was somewhat puzzled. "So what? More bugs are annoying, but what does that have to do with us?"

"No, it does concern us. The connection between these Spider-Men is very interesting. If we can unravel it, our chances of finding your wife and son will greatly increase."

Dr. Octopus adjusted her sunglasses and said, "Also, if we master this connection, we might be able to wipe out Spider-Man completely. I don’t want to go back to our world and fight Spider-Man again. I’m tired of it. Sick of it."

Upon hearing that it could increase the odds of finding his wife and son, Kingpin immediately said, "Have Scorpion and Norman, who are hiding in New York, capture that fat Spider-Man."

"Fine. I’ll notify Scorpion and Norman right away. With their current abilities, S.W.O.R.D. won’t be able to catch them."

Dr. Octopus smiled. The Quantum Realm had given them a special ability, and that was one reason they had remained undiscovered.

After discussing the matter, Kingpin turned and left. Just as he returned to his office, the Life Foundation’s president, the Indian Dr. Drake, knocked on the door and entered.

Dr. Drake said excitedly, "Our spaceship has reached the Symbiote Planet. In less than half a month, they’ll return to Earth with a large number of symbiotes."

Kingpin said, "Don’t rush. The Solar System is guarded by the Space Fleet. They can’t discover them."

"Don’t worry. Our god will help conceal our trail."

An ugly head that seemed to be made of mucus extended from beside Dr. Drake’s neck. It said, "We will enter Earth without a sound and merge with all humans without a sound."

"That’s right, exactly. We’ll create a new species. Humans are too disgusting, like parasites, desperately destroying Earth. Earth needs purification."

Dr. Drake shouted fanatically. Kingpin looked at him speechlessly. If the man were not still useful, Kingpin would have killed him long ago.

Kingpin was indeed a bad man, but he was still human. Dr. Drake, however, was a traitor to humanity. He had always wanted to create a new species to replace humanity.

To that end, Dr. Drake had repeatedly sent spaceships into outer space, hoping to find a species capable of replacing humans. In the end, he really did find one: symbiotes, which could only survive by merging with hosts.

Some time ago, a Life Foundation spaceship returned to Earth with several symbiotes. Dr. Drake merged with one of them, a symbiote called Riot, and completely betrayed humanity.

Kingpin had not stopped this because Riot promised to give him several symbiotes without self-awareness.

Symbiotes were powerful and could heal themselves. Kingpin wanted to use them to protect his family, so his loved ones would not die in car accidents again.

Kingpin did not want to lose any more family. He would go insane—perhaps he already had.

As for what happened to this world, what the hell did Kingpin care?

Kingpin instructed, "Very good. Also, be extremely careful when capturing homeless people to merge with symbiotes. S.W.O.R.D. must not catch wind of it."

Not everyone could merge with symbiotes; certain conditions had to be met. To help those symbiotes complete their mergers, Dr. Drake had been capturing homeless people for experiments.

Dr. Drake smiled. "Don’t worry. No one cares about those homeless people."

Dr. Drake was wrong. Even homeless people had someone who cared about them—for example, Eddie Brock.

Eddie had once been a popular reporter. Later, he followed a candidate and published the truth, only for everyone to treat him like a fool. He lost not only his job but also his girlfriend, leaving him no choice but to slink off to San Francisco to make a living.

After arriving in San Francisco, Eddie joined a newspaper through an introduction. However, his stubborn nature led him to offend Dr. Drake, and he was fired—he had asked Dr. Drake far too many questions he should not have asked, such as whether the Life Foundation was deceiving its test subjects.

In the end, Eddie, once an outstanding reporter, became a slum dweller in the slums, surviving every day on welfare and relief. Because of this, he came to know some homeless people who were likewise at the bottom of society.