Chapter 1399: The Return of the Old Ones (Part Seven) (Patreon)

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In King Pin's Royal Palace, Jessica watched helplessly as Reilly swung his fists in anger, pounding the monster that Daredevil Matt had become into the floor.

Matt was completely embedded in the ground, and the expensive, hard flooring material in King Pin's Royal Palace was no match for Reilly's fury. If Shang-Chi hadn't pulled him back, Jessica seriously doubted that Reilly would have stopped until Matt was a pulp.

Reilly stood up from the ground, gasping for breath. He ran his hand along the edge of his mouth and said in a rather coarse tone for him, "Damn it! Something must have been controlling him. I'll make them pay, I will!"

Shang-Chi patted Reilly on the back and then calmed him down from head to toe. He knew how much the space that Matt had occupied had affected the Spider-Men. Spider-Man rarely accepts care from others for long, as those who used to accompany him have either left or died.

This made them feel quite guilty, as if they were a jinx. But in that space, they felt a sense of security, knowing that no one could harm Matt, which could be seen as a kind of Stockholm syndrome.

Reilly's extra anger was because the image of the injured Matt triggered memories of many bad things in Spider-Man's life, where the people he cared about ultimately left and never returned.

After a while, Reilly finally calmed down a bit. He took a deep breath and looked at the unconscious Matt, saying, "I don't want to know who did this. They're going to regret it!"

"We're going to find out." Shang-Chi pushed Reilly back a bit and gave Jessica a look. Jessica stepped forward and said, "There was an explosion a couple of blocks away. It could be a car or a fight. We need to go check it out."

Reilly wiped his mouth with his arm again, hesitating a bit as he looked at the unconscious Matt, "We need to figure out what to do with him, even if it means locking him up. The basement has cages, come with me."

Reilly and Shang-Chi then lifted Matt and took him to King Pin's basement, throwing him into one of the cages used for hunting dogs. As Shang-Chi locked the cage, he said, "I thought you wouldn't want to do this, since Matt was a hero, even if he's a monster now."

"I don't have time to worry about that now!" Reilly frowned. "We don't know when the next terrible attack will come at night, so we need to act quickly, by any means necessary."

Shang-Chi fell silent. He understood Reilly. A sense of urgency was spreading in his heart. As Reilly said, no one knew when the next mental attack would come, even if not tonight, perhaps tomorrow.

When disaster strikes at night, daytime becomes precious. The experience of that terrifying world has washed away all their laziness and leisure, even making them slightly anxious.

They couldn't afford to delay anymore. Their survival instinct forced them to act quickly, without any hesitation.

After locking the cage, Reilly practically dragged Jessica as they hurried to the location she had heard the commotion. There was an exploded truck, its charred remains scattered on the road like a freshly bloomed flower.

"There's someone there," Shang-Chi focused his qi into his eyes to enhance his vision. He squinted towards the bottom of the truck, but Jessica stopped them, raising her gun and cautiously approaching.

"Captain America! It's Captain America! Back off! He's a monster and not dead!" Jessica shouted.

Reilly and Shang-Chi immediately became alert. They could clearly see the dark figure under the burned truck chassis move slightly. Shang-Chi quickly yelled at Jessica, "Go knock him out before he fully reacts!"

Jessica gritted her teeth, stomped her foot, and kicked away the remaining truck debris, rushing in and using the butt of her gun to viciously strike Captain America's head. He convulsed and lay motionless on the ground.

Jessica let out a long sigh. Reilly and Shang-Chi rushed over and saw Captain America's monstrous fangs and evil countenance. Reilly didn't even have the energy to curse.

"Should we try cutting off those tentacles with a knife?" Jessica asked uncertainly.

But Reilly and Shang-Chi both shook their heads. Reilly said, "The problem isn't with the tentacles. They've also been mentally corrupted, their evolution incomplete, turning them into monsters. But their bodies were already strong, so the monsters are strong too."

"There's a wound on his chest," Shang-Chi walked over to Captain America's side, grabbing his uniform and ripping it open. Reilly saw a deep gash across Captain America's chest.

"Someone took his heart, but he's still alive," the anatomically knowledgeable Reilly said with disgust. He examined Captain America's condition and continued, "First struck, pierced, then exploded, impacted, and his heart removed, but none of that could kill him."

Shang-Chi felt his throat tighten. He tried not to imagine the process of injury Reilly described, but still felt a little dizzy. In the past, he probably would have vomited already.

But now he didn't even have time to feel nauseous, forcing himself to swallow the bile rising in his throat, and staring intently at Reilly, he asked, "What do you think happened?"

"Someone discovered the abnormality and tried to kill him, but failed. And I'm sure the attacker was also injured and didn't get far. We need to find them," Reilly said as he stood up, not even looking at the unconscious Captain America anymore. He waved to Jessica and started walking towards the edge of the street, saying, "It was probably Quill and Rocket Raccoon. The claw marks on Captain America's chest are from an animal, and the heart removal is human work. I can't think of any other combination."

So Shang-Chi followed Reilly, with Jessica trailing behind them, gun in hand, asking, "Can't you guys slow down? Explain what's going on with that corpse? Explain what you're doing now?"

"There's no time," Reilly slowed down a bit, waiting for Jessica to catch up. Then he resumed his pace, looking at her and saying, "It's clear that some disaster is unfolding, and the situation is much worse than we thought. We need to find a solution as soon as possible."

"You look quite experienced, a bit too experienced," Jessica complained. "Not everyone can accept in two seconds that the national idol Captain America has been disemboweled to death, and besides, isn't Spider-Man good friends with Captain America? That's what the newspapers say."

"I had to convince myself that the guy lying on the ground is a monster," Reilly took a deep breath, his tone a bit shaky, clearly his mental state was not as stable as he was trying to appear.

"Even though I know he used to be a Hero, saved many people, and was friends with the Spider-Man of this world, I have to block that out and become callous, otherwise the Captain America of our world might also suffer the same fate."

"Well, you're the kind of calm teammates I'd most want to run into," Jessica had to quicken her pace to keep up with the two of them, and in the end, she just flew up, floating in the air, and said to them: "I'm really afraid you'll be moping and moaning, and by the time you find me in two hours, I'll have just burned my parents' corpses."

"So that's why your hands were shaking when you tried to hold the gun?" Shang-Chi tried hard to find comforting words within himself, but faced with the current situation, he couldn't say much.

Jessica shook her head and said, "No, that was just because I was exhausted from fighting the monster, but what I didn't expect was that you, coming from a more stable space, would adapt to the situation here faster than anyone else."

"Because we've been through worse."

About two minutes later, Reilly actively used his Spider-Sense to find Quill and Rocket Raccoon, who were in the basement of a bar not far from this street. Quill's Overhead was bleeding, and after Reilly did a preliminary check on him, he found it should be a concussion.

Rocket Raccoon complained next to him, "I told you using yourself as bait to ignite the Truck wasn't a good idea. When that monster's shield was blasted away, it just happened to hit him on the head, you know how hard that thing is! You should be grateful it didn't crack your skull!"

"Don't say that, Rocket," Quill tilted his head to the side to let Reilly bandage him, and showed a silly smile, saying, "I'm a space Pirate by origin, I know best how to set traps, we succeeded, didn't we?"

"Besides, if we didn't use this method, we'd be fighting that thing for ages, its shield is so damn accurate in defense, you tried it too, didn't you?"

"Oh, hey, buddy!" Quill took a sharp breath, Reilly apologized for his slightly rough movements, but then started to treat Quill's arm injuries more nimbly.

"Some things have happened here," Quill took the initiative to open the conversation. "It's similar to the world we experienced before, but different. You've seen that this world has Superheroes, and they've also been turned into monsters. I suspect it may be the work of a group."

"Worse than that," Quill turned his gaze to the corner of the room, where there was a red, indistinct substance, and everyone had deliberately ignored that thing before he spoke.

Quill bared his teeth in what could be called a cruel smile, the sharp gloss passing over his teeth, and he said in a flippant tone, "I'm afraid they're immortal."

"I had Rocket slice open his chest, I tore out his heart with my own hands, just like Yondu did to his prisoners many times, but he didn't die. I saw a tentacle grow out of his body and replace his heart, he'll become even crazier."

Seeing Jessica's pale face, Quill felt a sense of mischievous success, but he found that the hands still steadily and firmly bandaging him showed no trembling at all, and the scene he had expected of frightening the young Reilly and Shang-Chi did not occur.

Shang-Chi still looked a bit disgusted, but he was just kneeling silently by the wall, while Reilly had a slightly cold expression as he bandaged him, like he was handling a piece of pork.

"Hey, boys, give me some reaction, scream or say you're scared, I just tore out Captain America's heart!"

"That was just a monster," Shang-Chi said with a tight-lipped expression. "No matter how glorious his past, it's all in the past. At most, you were acting in self-defense."

"We really don't have time for these trivial details," Reilly licked his slightly dry lips and said, "You can accuse me of being callous and cruel for not jumping up to condemn you for tearing out my friend and elder's heart. But clearly, the trouble isn't over yet, and we're much stronger than you put together. If you don't want another concussion, you'd better be nice to us."

Reilly never dreamed he'd have a moment in his life where he'd threaten someone like a gang, but what made him happy was that the threat was very effective, and the fool in front of him shut his mouth.

M.I.

[Read at www.patreon.com/shanefreak, and thanks for the invaluable support!]

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