Web of the Multiverse - 171 (Patreon)

Chapter 171: Captain Universe Spider-Man Makes His Debut!

Under Venom Captain America’s watchful gaze, the silhouette of the Spider-Cycle gradually shrank against the horizon until it disappeared completely from sight.

He stared fixedly at the spot where the Spider-Cycle had vanished, frustration churning inside him.

A few seconds later, he slammed a fist into the surface of the lake, sending water splashing two or three meters into the air.

Once again, he thought back to the almost unimaginable difference in strength he had just experienced.

Only now did he realize that during his first clash with Spider-Man, the other man had deliberately held back the entire time. He probably hadn’t even used ten percent of his true strength.

Spider-Man had been restraining himself from beginning to end, like an adult playing a game with a child.

But Venom Captain America was, after all, a super-soldier who had survived the meat grinder of World War II.

He quickly suppressed the frustration boiling inside him, turned around, and began swimming across the lake.

He moved through the water at astonishing speed, his body cutting through the icy lake like a swordfish effortlessly slicing through the waves.

In the blink of an eye, he reached the Quinjet. He grabbed the water landing gear hanging beneath it and pulled himself up into the cabin.

The Quinjet’s interior was brightly lit.

When everyone saw Venom Captain America climb aboard dripping wet from the lake, they instinctively gathered around him. Almost immediately, they realized something was wrong.

Venom Deadpool was the first to rush over.

“Where’s Spider-Man? Why didn’t he come back with you? And where’s the Spider-Cycle?”

Venom Captain America deliberately avoided Venom Deadpool’s eyes, clearly having no intention of answering.

He made his Venom suit shudder sharply, shaking every drop of water from his body into a fine mist and leaving himself completely dry in an instant.

Then he turned to Venom Wolverine beside him.

“There’s no time to explain. Logan, go tell Rocket to start the engines immediately. We’re heading straight for Krakoa.”

Venom Wolverine froze for a moment, but he still chose to trust Captain America and turned toward the cockpit.

“Steve Rogers! Are you fucking deaf? Can’t you hear me? What the hell are you doing?”

Venom Deadpool’s voice had become unusually sharp, with unmistakable anger behind it.

He seized Venom Captain America by the wrist, gripping so hard it seemed as though he wanted to crush the bones beneath his fingers.

“Spider-Man isn’t even on the plane yet, and you want to take off? What is he to you, some disposable decoy?”

“When we were getting hunted through Washington by a bunch of Poison bastards, what were you doing? Hiding in a New York supermarket, drinking Coke and eating Snickers while you enjoyed yourselves?”

“He’s only been in this universe for two days, and he’s already done so much. And now you’re choosing to abandon him?”

By the end, Venom Deadpool was practically roaring.

After the mission in Washington, D.C., Venom Deadpool had already come to regard Peter as one of his most important friends.

On the surface, Venom Deadpool might seem like a carefree idiot who never took anything seriously and was always making R-rated jokes.

But in truth, he valued his friends more than almost anything.

In the movie Deadpool & Wolverine, Deadpool had even been willing to sacrifice his own life to save the nine people who mattered most to him, using his own body to forcibly destroy the Time Ripper.

That was why hearing Venom Captain America order the Quinjet to leave before Spider-Man had even boarded pushed him into such a fury, nearly to the point of losing control.

Venom Deadpool’s angry words also seemed to strike directly at Venom Captain America’s own sore spot.

Only then did he turn and look Venom Deadpool in the eyes.

“You think I didn’t want to stop him? I tried, and I failed. He’s so strong I couldn’t move him. I couldn’t stop him from staying behind to cover all of us.”

“What we need to do now is not sit here crying about it. We need to use every second he’s buying us and make the most of the chance he created.”

“Wade Wilson, sit down right now! Or I’ll put you in that seat myself. Believe me, you are not going to enjoy how that happens.”

Venom Deadpool’s body instantly stiffened. He released Venom Captain America’s wrist as though he had been shocked.

The next second, he bolted toward the slowly closing hatch like a madman.

There was still some distance left before it sealed completely.

But Venom Deadpool had barely made it half a meter when Venom Captain America, clearly having anticipated exactly what he would do, reached out and locked a hand around his shoulder.

Venom Ant-Man and Venom X-23 sprang in from the side at the same time. Three people, six arms, clamped around Venom Deadpool’s body and limbs like steel restraints.

Venom Deadpool struggled with all his strength, kicking wildly against the floor as a stream of curses poured from his mouth.

“Let me go! I’m not the kind of bastard who leaves his friends behind and flies away! I’m not going anywhere, damn it! I’m going to help my friend!”

By the end, Venom Deadpool’s voice had grown choked, as if he were about to cry.

But no one released him.

They all knew Venom Deadpool could do nothing to help Spider-Man. Letting him out now would only send him to his death for nothing.

The rest of the people in the cabin looked equally grim.

Venom Mary Jane and Venom Silk both turned their faces away, unwilling to watch.

Venom Spider-Man sighed and headed toward the cockpit to see if there was anything he could do.

By then, Venom Rocket Raccoon had already completed every preflight preparation from the pilot’s seat.

He ignored the commotion behind him and focused entirely on flying the Quinjet.

One by one, the Quinjet’s engines ignited and climbed to maximum power.

The massive aircraft began accelerating across the surface of the lake like a hammerhead shark awakening from its sleep, moving faster and faster.

As the cabin hatch sealed its final sliver of open space, Venom Deadpool’s shouting was cut off.

At the same moment, the Quinjet’s nose rose. The entire aircraft shuddered, lifted cleanly from the surface of the lake, and accelerated smoothly into the sky.

The entire takeoff was flawless, with every stage of acceleration timed perfectly.

Despite this being his first time piloting a Quinjet, Venom Rocket Raccoon displayed impeccable flying skills.

When the gray-blue horizon appeared beyond the cabin windows, Venom Deadpool finally stopped struggling.

He lay sprawled on the cabin floor, utterly drained, as though every bone had been pulled from his body.

Then he muttered something so quietly that only he could hear it.

“You better not die, Spidey. Next time I see you, I’m gonna punch you right in the face!”

...

By then, Peter had ridden the Spider-Cycle to an altitude of roughly one thousand meters.

At the same moment that the Quinjet, under Venom Rocket Raccoon’s flawless control, finished accelerating into the air, Peter deactivated the Spider-Cycle’s stealth mode.

Amid the howling winds high above the ground, Peter and the Spider-Cycle suddenly appeared.

Against the empty sky, they were impossible to miss.

Several kilometers away, the Quinjets and Valkyrie bombers conducting low-altitude searches simultaneously turned toward him.

Like sharks catching the scent of blood, they surged toward that patch of airspace without hesitation.

This proved Peter’s earlier concern had been right.

No matter how flawless the takeoff was, there was no way it could happen without making any disturbance at all.

So there had been no avoiding Peter’s decision to stay behind and cover their retreat.

Peter glanced over his shoulder and confirmed that the transport-class Quinjet carrying the Venom Superheroes had already pushed itself to maximum speed.

Like a giant steel bird desperately trying to break through an encirclement, it was rapidly disappearing into the distance.

Peter gave a slight nod, then stood up on the Spider-Cycle.

A thousand meters of empty air stretched beneath his feet.

The fierce currents sliced past him like blades, enough to send a chill down anyone’s spine.

“Some techniques for using the Enigma Force can only be tested properly in real combat. There’s only so much you can learn by working things out alone.”

Peter murmured the words, stepped forward, and dropped from the Spider-Cycle.

The next instant, boundless white light erupted from his body.

It was as though someone had ignited a star inside the atmosphere.

The entire sky around him blazed with light.

The sudden brilliance could be seen clearly from dozens of kilometers away.

Within that radiance, a figure dressed in a black-and-white starlight battle suit slowly emerged.

Captain Universe Spider-Man had arrived!

Such unrestrained, overwhelming energy radiation was as conspicuous on the radar systems of the Quinjets and Valkyrie bombers as a blazing torch in the middle of the night.

More than a dozen aircraft already racing toward him at high speed simultaneously locked onto Peter’s position.

There was no warning and no demand for surrender.

From the moment the battle began, it was a fight to the death.

Flashes of fire flickered across the bodies of the Quinjets and Valkyrie bombers.

Large-caliber armor-piercing rounds poured toward Peter like a torrential downpour, sealing off every direction around him.

Rounds capable of punching straight through armored vehicles struck Peter’s Starlight Suit without causing so much as a ripple.

The surface of the suit seemed to be protected by an invisible force field. The instant the rounds touched it, they were violently deflected and sent ricocheting away. Some were even hurled directly back along their original trajectories.

The next instant, Peter vanished.

When he appeared again, he had already streaked past the side of a Valkyrie bomber at an unbelievable speed.

In his hand was a white blade formed from highly compressed light.

The blade traced a brilliant arc through the air and sliced straight through the Valkyrie bomber from the center.

The cut was smooth as a mirror.

The two halves of the aircraft peeled apart in opposite directions before being swallowed by an explosion.

Peter looked down at the white light blade in his hand and nodded in satisfaction.

This was one of the Enigma Force techniques he had developed recently.

Peter had named it [Enigma Force: White Blade].

The conventional way of using the Enigma Force was far too crude and straightforward.

Most attacks simply involved firing beams in a straight line. It was predictable, inflexible, and extremely inefficient in terms of energy consumption.

At the same time, the explosion lit up the entire airspace.

The remaining Valkyrie bombers immediately scattered like a flock of startled birds.

Inside one of them, Poison Crossbones stared at the glaring point of light on his radar.

The Spider-Man in the sky had assumed a unique form he had never seen before.

He looked nothing like the Spider-Man who had infiltrated the Triskelion last time.

And yet Poison Crossbones was certain this was the same Spider-Man who had humiliated him in front of everyone.

It was almost instinctive.

Poison Crossbones knew he could not be mistaken.

He let out an enraged growl and ordered the remaining Valkyrie bombers and Quinjets to regroup. They attacked from three directions at once, trying to overwhelm that hateful Spider-Man through sheer numbers.

This time, they did not limit themselves to armor-piercing rounds.

Every heavy weapon they had was brought to bear.

Among them were S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Hellfire missiles and HYDRA’s heavy energy cannons.

As those devastating weapons opened fire, the entire sky filled with the continuous roar of enormous explosions.

Towering flames surged upward, while terrifying shockwaves shredded clouds thousands of meters away.

Poison Crossbones had just begun to breathe a quiet sigh of relief, convinced that there was no possible way that infuriating Spider-Man could have survived bombardment on such a scale, when a tiny point of pure white light slowly emerged from the smoke.

It shot straight into the sky.

Then the point of light burst apart like a star exploding in midair.

Countless white needles of light erupted from it, shooting in every direction like rain and covering the entire surrounding airspace.

As though each needle had eyes of its own, they accurately pierced every aircraft still attempting to evade them.

[Enigma Force: Light Rain]!

This was the second technique Peter had developed.

By compressing the Enigma Force to an extreme degree, condensing it into a single point, and launching it into the densest part of an enemy formation, he could release it all at once to produce devastating area-wide destruction.

Six Quinjets and seven Valkyrie bombers were pierced through almost simultaneously.

Their fuselages became riddled with holes like battered tin toys before exploding one after another into fireballs.

For Peter, this battle to cover the others’ retreat hardly felt like a high-risk fight for survival.

It was closer to a live combat exercise for testing his Enigma Force techniques.

Only one minute and thirty seconds had passed since the battle officially began.

Yet in that brief span of time, S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Quinjets and HYDRA’s Valkyrie bombers had already suffered a ninety-percent loss rate.

Spider-Man, meanwhile, showed no visible injuries despite being surrounded and attacked from every direction.

Judging by the sheer abundance of energy still radiating from his body, he had not consumed much of his reserves either.

“Damn it, what kind of creature is that? No. That thing is already beyond the limits of carbon-based life. It’s more like some demon out of human mythology!”

Poison Crossbones, now piloting the sole remaining Valkyrie bomber, felt his blood run cold.

He could think of absolutely no way to defeat the Spider-Man floating in the sky in that black-and-white starlight battle suit.

In the end, Poison Crossbones did not hesitate.

He wrenched the control stick sideways, forcing the Valkyrie bomber through a sharp 180-degree turn before fleeing toward downtown New York.

There was no shame in running away.

Blindly charging to your death was not bravery. It was stupidity.

That was Crossbones’ philosophy of survival.

Even after becoming a Poison Host, that philosophy had remained perfectly intact.

But in the next instant, a spark of delight suddenly appeared in Poison Crossbones’ eyes.

Several figures were flying toward this airspace at tremendous speed from the direction of New York City.

Reinforcements from the Poison species had arrived!