Many people had not yet realized that Abomination’s brain-addled rampage, while appearing to be nothing more than a dangerous public spectacle suppressed before causing even greater devastation, was actually something far more profound.
In reality, Abomination had ignited the ambitions of countless ill-intentioned individuals.
He demonstrated that those possessing extraordinary power could unleash unchecked destruction under the global spotlight, declaring their supreme strength to the entire planet.
People had always known there were dangerous factions in the world, such as The Brotherhood, but they had always felt that such threats were distant and remote from their everyday lives.
From this moment on, that sense of security vanished forever.
A truly turbulent era—a stage for lunatics and monsters of every stripe—had arrived in full force.
*Thud!
Thud!
Thud!* Smashing through every obstacle in his path—skyscrapers, vehicles, and debris—Abomination stumbled back toward the laboratory.
Inside his clouded mind, he knew this was dangerous.
The sensible move would have been to flee the densely populated area immediately and contact Ross in secret to strike a deal.
They could have framed Hulk entirely for tonight’s destruction, joining forces once again to hunt him down for even greater gain.
Unfortunately, Abomination felt as if his intellect were on the verge of collapsing into madness.
He obstinately clung to the belief that only by injecting more serum could he increase his strength and reclaim his pride.
He searched frantically among the shattered ruins of the lab.
“If you’re looking for that big-headed freak, he’s hiding three hundred meters away, watching everything that happens here.” Duval stepped out from the shadows.
He had been waiting for Abomination all along.
“You…
were waiting for me?” Rage distorted Abomination’s hideous face as he caught sight of Duval.
“Indeed.
I’ve been watching you, and I knew you’d come back here,” Duval said.
He didn’t need his eyes to see; by sensing the Xenomorph within Abomination through his mental link, he could pinpoint the monster’s location with exact precision.
The moment Duval revealed himself meant the time was right.
He had originally thought that a Xenomorph gestating inside a powerful entity like Abomination would take longer to reach the chestbursting stage.
Yet, its development had exceeded his expectations.
Perhaps Abomination’s genetic structure—or the fraction of Hulk’s genetic code absorbed by Abomination—was so extraordinarily potent that it accelerated the Xenomorph’s growth exponentially.
Furthermore, Abomination served as an ideal incubator, brimming with abundant flesh, blood, and vital energy.
“Do you know, in the dozens of minutes since I took action against you, I’ve envisioned what comes next countless times,” Duval said, staring intently at the contorted monster approaching him, his gaze fixing on Abomination’s chest.
“Compared to you, vampires are hardly worth mentioning.” Abomination couldn’t comprehend Duval’s words.
He only knew that something was horribly wrong with his body.
It wasn’t that his dull, numb nerves had suddenly sharpened; rather, with Duval’s arrival, an absurd bulge had pushed up against the inside of his chest.
If not for Abomination’s insanely dense muscles and hide, a body alteration of this magnitude would have seen the Xenomorph burst free long ago.
“Did you do this?!
What on earth did you do to me?!” Abomination looked down at himself in disbelief.
He clawed at his chest, but as his steel-crushing fingers exerted even a fraction of force, a wave of agonizing pain shot through his entire body.
It felt as though he were squeezing his own internal organs—a deeply sickening, unnatural sensation.
Memories flitted through his mind of that bizarre spider-like creature, and he dimly realized where the root of the problem lay.
“Whatever this thing is, I am Abomination!
I am the strongest on this planet!
I will not die!” “No, you will die.” Duval stepped closer, one measured step at a time.
“Don’t mistake a Xenomorph for an ordinary parasite.
The moment it bursts from your chest, it means it has flawlessly assimilated your genetic material, replacing your internal organs and your spine to become a part of you.
Once it emerges, a piece of your very body leaves you forever.
Your weak regenerative ability cannot recreate missing organs—and besides, no organism’s body automatically regenerates organs that were never considered damaged, but rather detached as a whole.” Abomination’s remains would also become nourishment for the Xenomorph.
“Roar!” Glaring with blood-green eyes filled with a mixture of savagery and terror, Abomination feebly swung his giant fist down.
A single blow would be enough to crush the tiny creature before him to paste.
*Bang!* Duval raised both arms, bracing himself to take the strike head-on.
The cost was immediate: his legs sank halfway into the concrete floor.
The immense pressure far exceeded his normal limits, causing large swathes of his muscle tissue to tear open on the spot and sending hairline fractures web-patterning across his bones.
Yet he held his ground.
And almost instantly, every injury began rapidly regenerating.
As for how Duval, a mere mortal, could withstand such a blow—the reason was quite simple.
Inside his own body, he too harbored a Xenomorph whose development had been suspended…
*Splat!* With a violent tear, Abomination’s chest detonated open.
Torrents of thick blood sprayed in every direction, testifying to the terrifying internal pressure built up within him.
Abomination’s massive body twitched convulsively.
Through his failing consciousness, he stared in utter terror at the nightmare clawing its way out of his body.
It exceeded the limits of what his meager intellect could comprehend.
It was as if some infernal demon had used his mortal shell as a vessel to be born into the world.
From the moment it emerged, it displayed its ultimate, predatory nature.
Threshing its head back and forth while bathed in blood and tissue, it let out a piercing screech.
The newborn Xenomorph was terrifyingly formidable, standing nearly two meters tall right out of the host.
While two meters might not sound extraordinary at first, standard Xenomorphs emerged as tiny juvenile Chestbursters that required several hours of rapid growth to reach an adult height of two to three meters.
Duval assessed the condition of this powerful specimen.
Not only was it born with immense strength, but its growth rate would only be faster.
It wouldn’t take hours—in just tens of minutes, it would reach full, terrifying combat effectiveness.
As for Abomination…
He was on the verge of death.
Just as Duval had explained, once the Xenomorph matured and burst from the chest, having harvested Abomination’s finest genetic traits, it severed its genetic reliance on the host.
Even though Abomination retained a remnant of his healing factor, he could only stare helplessly at the gaping cavity in his chest, utterly powerless.
Not a single key organ missing from his destroyed chest cavity regenerated; it was as if they had vanished into thin air.
Abomination’s eyes bulged as if ready to burst.
Staring forward, he weakly reached out an arm, desperate to crush the terrible monster that had crawled out of his own flesh.
But what met his grasp was the monster’s inner jaw, extending faster than a speeding bullet from its gaping maw, piercing clean through Abomination’s skull in a single strike.
*Gulp, squelch!* Devouring flesh in huge gulps, it seized every second to gorge itself on vital nutrients.