Marvel's Shendu: Dominating the Multiverse

Chapter 166 With great power comes great responsibility

"listen to me."

Uncle Ben grabbed Parker's wrist with his other hand.

"You have these—you can do these things—" Uncle Ben's breathing became erratic, and the pauses between each sentence lengthened. "With great power comes great responsibility."

Parker shook his head. He wasn't denying anything; his body was trembling, and the head-shaking was an uncontrollable action.

"You have to remember this." Uncle Ben tightened his grip on his wrist. "Promise me."

"I agree."

Uncle Ben didn't say anything more. His hand loosened.

Parker knelt there. People around him were shouting, making phone calls, and taking pictures with their cell phones. Red and blue lights came from a distance. He knelt there.

He didn't know how much time had passed. He didn't know when Aunt Mei arrived. He remembered that Aunt Mei didn't cry out loud. She knelt on the other side of Uncle Ben, holding Uncle Ben's hands with both of hers, and buried her face in them.

Later, Parker sat on the steps of the back door of the ambulance. He had a blanket wrapped around his hoodie and sweatpants, a gift from the paramedics. Aunt May was in another ambulance, with someone with her.

Parker had blood on his hands. His, Uncle Ben's, he couldn't tell.

My phone vibrated again in my pocket.

That number.

"The man who fired the shot was Dennis Carradine, 41 years old, with a criminal record of three burglaries and one armed robbery."

He ran out of the convenience store and passed Seventh Avenue. He saw cash in the car and opened the door. Your uncle resisted. Caradin is currently heading north, past Columbus Roundabout, and into Central Park. Do you want his real-time location, or do you want me to handle it?

Parker stared at the screen.

The words were very small. His eyes couldn't focus.

He typed two words and sent them.

"Location."

Three seconds later, a map screenshot was sent. A red dot was moving north of Central Park, with its real-time speed and direction marked next to it.

Parker stood up, the blanket falling to the floor. He put his goggles back on.

On the north side of Central Park, near the entrance to 110th Street. Dennis Carradine is running. He threw his jacket and gun into the bushes after running into the park. Now he's wearing a white tank top and jeans, blending in with the other runners on the track.

He didn't run very far.

A spider silk shot down from the treetop, stuck to his back, and lifted him off the ground.

Carradine was hanging upside down from a branch of an oak tree, about four meters off the ground. Parker stood on a branch in front of him. His eyes behind his goggles were red.

"Convenience store—that convenience store isn't me!" Caradin shouted.

Parker didn't hit him.

He tied the caradin to the tree, where it was wrapped in spider silk seven or eight times. Then he climbed down from the tree, walked to the bushes, and found the gun.

Nine millimeters, four rounds left in the magazine. One round is missing.

He used spider silk to stick the gun to the tree trunk next to the Caradin, then took out his phone and dialed 911.

"There's a person hanging from a tree, 200 meters east of the entrance to 110th Street on the north side of Central Park. He shot someone on Seventh Avenue half an hour ago. The gun is nearby."

I hung up the phone.

Parker stood under that tree for a long time. Then he turned and left.

On the opposite bench, Shendu sat, a few pigeons pecking at breadcrumbs on the ground in front of him. Parker didn't see him as he passed by. Not because he was invisible; Shendu hadn't done anything, he was just sitting there. Parker simply couldn't see anything.

The Lord watched as Parker's figure disappeared at the end of the park path.

The pigeons were still pecking at the breadcrumbs. The Lord hadn't fed them; the breadcrumbs were left by the last person who sat there.

In the Mind Stone's perception, Parker's emotional signals were so chaotic that they were unreadable.

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Uncle Ben's funeral is on Wednesday.

Parker wore a black suit jacket with sleeves half an inch too long, which Aunt May had found in Uncle Ben's closet. The church was small, and not many people came. A few neighbors, Uncle Ben's factory colleagues, and two volunteers from the community's FEAST shelter.

As the pastor read the eulogy, Parker kept staring at the bouquet of white flowers on the coffin.

Aunt May didn't shed a tear the entire time. Her fingers trembled as she placed her hands on the coffin, but no tears fell. Parker knew she would cry that night, in her room, her voice low. He could hear her through the wall. Spiders can't turn off their hearing.

On the fourth day after the funeral, Parker didn't go to school. He didn't go on the fifth day either. On the sixth day, Aunt May knocked on his door and said the school had called. Parker went to school on the seventh day.

He sat in the last row and didn't open his book for the entire class. The physics teacher was explaining elasticity; he knew all the formulas on the blackboard, but he couldn't concentrate.

He didn't go to the cafeteria for lunch; instead, he sat alone behind the ventilation duct on the rooftop. The last message from that number on his phone was still on that map screenshot.

He neither deleted it nor replied.

On Friday afternoon, Parker skipped his last class and went to Manhattan. He had no destination; he just wandered between buildings. He threw out webs, flung his body out, and let the wind fill his hoodie. It was the only way he could find to temporarily stop his mind.

He settled near 42nd Street, squatting on the exterior air conditioning unit of an office building. Below was a narrow alley leading to the entrance to an underground parking garage.

The spider sensor went off.

It wasn't a loud alarm, but a continuous, low-frequency hum that made your head tingle. Parker looked down.

A modified van was parked at the parking lot entrance, its back door open. Two people were unloading boxes inside; the boxes were metal and painted with the OSCORP logo. A blue light emanated from them.

Parker hesitated for three seconds, then jumped.

He landed silently on the truck roof; the spider silk slowed him down very well. He ultimately used the formula for Option B. The elasticity was indeed much better than before.

"Go easy on him, that's worth two million."

The speaker emerged from the parking lot. He was around fifty years old, with a round face, wearing glasses and a lab coat over a gray sweater. Four metal robotic arms, each about two meters long, extended from his back, ending in a three-jaw clamp-like structure. Red indicator lights flashed at the joints of the robotic arms.

Otto Octavius. Parker had seen a picture of this man at Oscorp's tech expo; the sign next to him read "Senior Researcher." But that was eight months ago. Eight months ago, Octavius ​​didn't have those four extra arms.

The two men carrying the boxes were clearly afraid of him. Just as one of them almost dropped the box, a robotic arm shot out and caught it from underneath.

"I told you to be gentle." Octavius's tone remained unchanged, but the mechanical arm retracted very slowly, and the man carrying the box took two steps back.

Parker remained motionless on the roof. His spider-sense was still buzzing.

He should leave. It's none of his business. Or rather, the old him would have jumped down and asked, but now he doesn't want to talk to anyone.

As he was preparing to retreat, the spider silk launcher jammed.

Just like that, a slight mechanical click was heard.

Octavius's four robotic arms turned toward him simultaneously.

"There are people in higher positions."