Emil Blonsky lay flat on the laboratory operating table, his bare chest heaving as his muscles twitched with dark anticipation.
Beside him, Dr.
Sterns worked frantically, connecting a heavy syringe filled with a glowing, neon-green liquid to an IV line.
“This is Banner’s blood sample.
It’s been highly synthesized and activated with gamma radiation.
Theoretically, it should induce a similar mutation.” Sterns held up a massive vial of the sickly green blood for Blonsky to see, his voice trembling violently with uncontainable excitement.
Without another word, he drove a specialized needle thick into Blonsky’s jugular vein, slowly plunging the volatile liquid into his bloodstream.
“Arrrghhh!”
The exact moment the blood hit his system, Blonsky’s agonizing screams ripped through the laboratory.
His body went into violent, rigid spasms.
His muscles began to inflate grotesquely, thick, pulsing blue-green veins bulging against the underside of his skin like writhing snakes.
Sickening, wet cracks echoed through the room as his skeletal structure shattered and forcibly rearranged itself.
His spine twisted and elongated, and his shoulder blades jutted out from his back like jagged mountain peaks.
“It’s perfect… your cellular activity has already exceeded my highest projections by three hundred percent!” Sterns backed away, his eyes wide and manic, his breathing heavy with sheer awe.
As the final drop of Hulk’s blood vanished into his veins, Blonsky’s entire body convulsed.
Squelch, snap…
His muscle fibers were ruthlessly shredded and stitched back together by some invisible, monstrous force.
A thick, dark olive-gray exoskeleton rapidly coated his skin.
The vertebrae along his spine violently erupted outward, forming a wicked, jagged row of bone spurs down his back.
His jawbone jutted forward monstrously.
His teeth sharpened into jagged, shark-like fangs, and his cloudy yellow irises shrank into predatory vertical slits deep within his sunken eye sockets.
Riiiip!
His combat pants instantly shredded to useless rags as his colossal frame ballooned to nearly twelve feet tall.
Reptilian, scale-like patterns etched themselves across his massive, bare chest.
Every single bulging muscle looked as dense and impenetrable as solid granite.
“ROAR!!”
Blonsky—or rather, the Abomination—threw his head back and unleashed a deafening, earth-shaking roar.
He flexed his massive arms, and the heavy-duty carbon-fiber restraints snapped like brittle twigs.
Smash!
He tore the heavy operating table right out of the floor and casually hurled it through the room as if it weighed no more than a pebble!
Whoosh!
Crash!
Bang!
Boom!
The solid steel table turned into a lethal cannonball, violently blasting through three solid concrete walls before finally wedging itself at the very end of the hallway, completely twisted and deformed.
BEEP!
BEEP!
Shrill emergency alarms instantly blared throughout the facility, the unsettling red emergency lights flashing urgently through the thick clouds of dust.
“Ugh…” Sterns slowly pushed himself up from the rubble.
One of his eyeglass lenses was completely shattered, and a steady stream of blood trickled down his forehead.
But he completely ignored the pain.
Instead, he threw his arms wide open, gazing at the Abomination with absolute, terrifying reverence.
“Haha!
Perfect!
It’s utterly perfect!
This is nothing short of God’s own cre—”
“GET LOST!!”
“Aaaagh!”
The Abomination unleashed a furious, thunderous backhand.
The sheer concussive force of his roar shattered the remaining glass in the room and violently blew Sterns right off his feet.
Smash!
Sterns crashed heavily onto a tilted lab bench, his skull cracking viciously against the sharp metal edge.
Blood instantly gushed from the fresh gash.
And at that exact moment, a single, stray drop of Hulk’s synthesized blood dangling from the edge of the table fell perfectly into his open wound.
The Abomination didn’t spare Sterns a single glance.
He bent his massive knees and vaulted upward with terrifying, explosive force.
BOOM!
The thick concrete ceiling shattered like fragile paper, and the colossal monster launched himself out of the facility, vanishing into the night sky.
Gurgle, throb…
Amidst the utter devastation of the lab, Sterns lay flat on his back in a pooling puddle of his own blood, his eyes locked onto the ceiling in a wide, unblinking stare.
That single drop of Hulk’s blood seeped deep into his wound like a living, hungry parasite.
Instantly, the veins across his scalp bulged, pulsing with a sickly, glowing green light.
Crack, stretch…
Sterns’ skull literally began to expand.
His cerebral cortex mutated and ballooned at a visible, horrifying rate, aggressively pushing against his scalp.
‘What is this…’
In that fleeting moment, Sterns suddenly realized his brain was undergoing an impossible evolution.
His consciousness felt completely unbound, extending infinitely outward.
With a single, passing thought, every computer, every smartphone, even the security cameras on the street corners within a one-mile radius suddenly became a direct extension of his own mind.
“Hahaha… so this is true power! You are reading on g.com, the official source.
This is the intellect of a god—” His laughter grew incredibly twisted and manic, the muscles in his mutating face twitching uncontrollably.
But right at that triumphant peak…
BOOM!
A blinding arrow completely wrapped in violently crackling purple lightning punched a clean hole right through the laboratory wall!
It flew with pinpoint, lethal accuracy, burying itself dead center between Sterns’ eyes!
KRA-KOOM!
The volatile Electro energy violently detonated.
Sterns’ freshly evolved, massive head exploded like a ripe watermelon packed with dynamite, scattering charred chunks of skull and gray matter across the room.
The horrifying, headless corpse swayed in place for a brief, eerie second before slowly collapsing to its knees and slumping completely lifeless onto the floor.
Crash!
Another deafening impact echoed from above as the laboratory ceiling completely caved in, forming a massive crater.
Amidst the billowing dust and falling debris, a stunning silhouette draped in striking purple and black descended with absolute, weightless elegance.
She wore a highly intricate, black-and-purple Gothic Lolita dress.
The hem of her skirt was heavily adorned with star-like silver accents, swaying gently against the air resistance of her descent.
A black eyepatch decorated with sharp thorn motifs completely covered her left eye, while her right eye—a piercing, golden iris—gleamed as sharp as a lightning strike.
Her impossibly fair skin seemed to cast a cool, ethereal glow under the flickering lab lights.
Arcs of volatile, purple-black electricity danced like tiny, lethal vipers through her long, blonde twin-tails.
“Hmph~ It appears the descent of the Prinzessin was a mere step too late.” Fischl touched down gracefully on the rubble, the Wind Glider on her back seamlessly folding inward and dissolving into a shower of fading starlight.
Bzzzt!
In a flash of blinding light, a massive, pitch-black raven with a wingspan of nearly two meters materialized out of thin air, violent electrical arcs dancing fiercely between its feathers.
Oz took a slow, dignified lap around Sterns’ headless corpse before hovering loyally at Fischl’s side, carrying the distinguished air of an elegant, seasoned butler.
“Mein Fräulein.
According to the observations of the Eye of Verurteilung, it seems our true prey has only just begun its own hunt,” Oz reported, a deep, incredibly sophisticated male voice echoing from his beak.
Fischl reached up, gently stroking Oz’s crackling feathers with her lace-gloved fingers.
“It matters not.
Since the intertwining threads of fate have woven our path to this very realm, there is undeniably a profound and inescapable design at play.”
Tilting her chin up proudly, a faint, dangerous spark of Electro energy seemed to pulse from beneath her eyepatch as she issued her royal decree.
“Ozvaldo von Hrafnavines!
Go forth and track the lingering shadows of that foul, corrupted beast!
But heed my warning—thine eyes must remain strictly beyond the two-kilometer boundary of absolution!
Do not allow its wretched miasma to taint thine immortal soul!”
“Understood, mein Fräulein.
I shall keep a safe distance.” Oz spread his massive wings, transforming into a brilliant streak of purple lightning that phased straight through the broken walls and vanished into the night.
Fischl strolled casually toward the massive, shattered window, the cool night wind catching the heavy frills of her Gothic dress.
From the sprawling concrete jungle not too far away, the terrifying, muffled booms of collapsing buildings and the frantic, echoing screams of civilians were already beginning to rise.