On the operating table in the laboratory, Blonsky took off his shirt and lay flat on his back, his muscles twitching slightly with anticipation.
Stern was busy connecting a syringe filled with bright green liquid to the infusion tube.
"This is Banner's blood sample," he said. "After being activated by gamma radiation, it can theoretically induce similar mutations."
Stern held up a large jar of blood—its color strangely off—and presented it to Blonsky, his voice trembling with excitement.
As he spoke, he inserted a special needle into Blonsky's jugular vein and slowly pushed in the red-green liquid.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
The moment the blood entered his body, Blonsky's screams filled the entire laboratory.
His body began to spasm violently. His muscles swelled as if inflated, and strange green veins pulsed beneath his skin.
His bones emitted a teeth-gritting crackling sound. His spine twisted and stretched, and his shoulder blades jutted out like jagged peaks.
"Perfect… Your cellular activity has exceeded expectations by 300%!"
Stern stepped back, eyes wide and breath coming in rapid gasps, his voice thick with exhilaration.
As the last drop of the Hulk's blood flowed into his veins, Blonsky's body convulsed uncontrollably.
"Gurgle… gurgle…"
Muscle fibers throughout his body seemed to tear apart and reassemble under the grip of invisible hands. A bluish-gray layer of thickened skin—stratum corneum—spread rapidly across his surface. His spine arched grotesquely, sprouting a row of hideous bone spurs.
His lower jaw thrust forward; his teeth sharpened into fangs like a shark's. His cloudy yellow pupils shrank into vertical slits deep within his eye sockets.
"Sizzle!"
With a sound like ripping fabric, his body—now nearly four meters tall—burst through his combat uniform. Reptilian scales patterned his exposed chest, and every bulging muscle hardened like granite.
"ROAR! ROAR! ROAR—!!"
Blonsky—no, the Abomination—raised his head and unleashed a deafening bellow. His powerful arms wrenched against the restraints, snapping them like paper.
Pah! Pah! Pah—!
He seized the operating table beneath him and hurled it through the window like a pebble.
Swish!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM—!!
The table shot through the air like a cannonball, crashing through three concrete walls in succession before twisting, crumpling, and embedding itself at the far end of the corridor.
Ding! Ding! Ding—!
The lab alarm wailed shrilly, its piercing shriek echoing through the smoke as emergency red lights flickered overhead.
"Haaa…"
Stern pushed himself up from the floor, his glasses shattered, blood trickling from a gash on his forehead down his cheek.
But he paid no mind to his injuries. Instead, he threw his arms wide, gazing at the Abomination with shining eyes, and sighed in rapture:
"Haha! Perfect! Absolutely perfect! This is nothing short of divine—"
ROOOOOLL—!!
"Ahhhhh!"
The Abomination roared again, and the shockwave shattered everything nearby. Even Stern was hurled backward by the force.
BANG!
He slammed onto a lab table, his forehead striking the metal edge. Blood gushed instantly from the fresh wound.
And at that very moment, a single drop of the Hulk's blood—left clinging to the edge of the table—fell onto Stern's open wound.
Abomination didn't even look at Stern. Instead, he bent his legs slightly and leapt upward suddenly.
"Boom!"
The concrete ceiling shattered like paper, and the hateful figure vanished instantly into the night.
"Gurgle… gurgle…"
In the ruined laboratory, Stern lay on his back in a pool of blood, eyes wide open.
That drop of Hulk's blood seeped into his wound like a living thing, and his skin and blood vessels immediately turned a strange green.
Stern's skull crackled as his cerebral cortex expanded and reorganized at a speed visible to the naked eye.
"This is…"
In that moment, Stern suddenly felt his brain evolve—his consciousness seemed to stretch infinitely outward.
With a single thought, every computer, every mobile phone, even the surveillance camera on the street corner within a one-kilometer radius became an extension of his mind.
"Hahaha… So this is power! This is the power of a god—"
His laughter grew distorted and maniacal, his facial muscles twitching unnaturally.
But at that very instant—
"Boom!"
An arrow wreathed in purple lightning tore through the wall and struck Stern squarely in the forehead!
"Bang! Bang—!"
The violent thunder element erupted instantly. Stern's head exploded like an overripe watermelon, charred fragments spraying in all directions.
The headless corpse swayed for a moment, slowly knelt, and finally collapsed to the ground.
"Bang!"
Another deafening blast echoed as a massive hole suddenly blew open in the laboratory ceiling.
Amid swirling smoke, dust, rubble, and debris, a striking figure in purple and black descended gracefully.
She wore a Gothic dress of black and violet, its hem adorned with silver, star-like ornaments that swayed gently with the air resistance of her fall.
A thorn-patterned eyepatch covered her left eye, while her right gleamed with a golden pupil sharp as lightning.
Beneath the laboratory lights, her fair, porcelain skin seemed to glow with an alluring cold luminescence. Tiny but deadly arcs of purple-black lightning coiled through her long twin ponytails.
"Hmph~ It seems my arrival was a step too late."
Fischl landed lightly on the ground. The wind-formed wings behind her folded slowly, dissolving into stardust that faded into the air.
"Sizzle!"
A giant crow—its body wreathed in purple-black energy and boasting a wingspan of nearly two meters—materialized out of thin air, arcs of electricity leaping between its wings.
Oz circled the corpse with elegant grace before hovering beside Fischl like a refined old butler.
"Miss," came a deep, cultured male voice from Oz's beak, "according to the Eye of Judgment's observation, the true prey has only just begun to hunt."
Fischl stroked Oz's feathers with her lace-gloved fingers and replied:
"No matter. If fate has brought us here, there must be a deeper meaning."
As she spoke, she lifted her chin. Beneath her eyepatch, a faint flicker of lightning sparked in her left eye.
"Oz, go and seek the trail of that foul beast—but keep your gaze beyond the two-kilometer forbidden zone. Do not let its corrupting breath taint your soul!"
"Yes, Miss."
Oz spread his wings, transformed into a bolt of lightning, pierced through the wall, and vanished.
Fischl walked slowly toward the shattered window, her skirt whispering in the night breeze.
From the steel jungle not far away, the distant roar of collapsing buildings and the screams of panicked crowds drifted faintly through the air.