In the parking lot outside the auditorium.
Ryan Quinn was dragged through the fire exit by Mary Jane, stumbling onto the wet concrete.
The cold wind rushed down his shirt collar, and a fine drizzle stung his face.
…Ah, it’s raining.
So cold.
I want to go back to sleep.
Behind them, screams and cries still echoed from inside the auditorium.
In the darkness, countless silhouettes surged toward the various exits.
Mary Jane’s hand still gripped his wrist—tightly, her knuckles white.
Her red hair was plastered to her cheeks by the rain, and her white formal dress was splattered with mud.
“Are you okay?” She turned to look at him, her eyes wide, her pupils still trembling.
“Yeah…
I’m fine,” Ryan Quinn said sluggishly, his tone vague.
He looked back toward the auditorium.
The fire door was still open; shadows were fleeing into the night.
Some tripped and were hauled up by those beside them, and the sound of sobbing drifted from the distance.
Then he heard it.
Coming from deep within the auditorium—the sound of impacts mixed with shattering, the screech of something scraping against the walls.
And a familiar voice.
Gwen’s voice.
It was the roar she only made in battle, filled with resolve.
But there was an underlying exhaustion in her voice; she was reaching her limit.
Ryan Quinn sighed.
“…What a pain.” “What?” Mary Jane’s eyes went even wider.
“Are you crazy?
Inside—” “Go find somewhere safe to stay.” Ryan Quinn pulled his hand from hers, his movements leisurely.
“Don’t follow me.” Mary Jane opened her mouth to say something, but Ryan Quinn had already turned and headed back toward the auditorium.
He walked back.
His pace wasn’t fast—just a steady, unhurried stride.
After a few steps, he sped up slightly.
Then he broke into a run.
His figure, clad in a black suit, vanished into the darkness behind the fire door.
Mary Jane stood frozen, rain dripping from her red hair.
She stared at the door that was still swaying on its hinges, her lips moving slightly, but in the end, she said nothing.
She turned and ran toward the parking lot.
Ryan Quinn passed through the fire door and entered the corridor behind the auditorium.
It was pitch black, save for the dim red glow cast on the floor by the emergency lights.
His footsteps echoed in the empty hallway, rhythmic and calm.
“Aah…
seriously.
It’s not often I get to wear a suit.” Ryan Quinn looked down at the dust on his cuffs and sighed again.
Then he heard it.
Closer.
Clearer.
Gwen’s voice.
That thing’s voice.
The crashing.
The shattering.
A heavy, dull thud followed by Gwen’s muffled groan.
Ryan Quinn pushed open the side door to the main hall.
He saw Gwen get clipped by one of that thing’s limbs, her body flying back and slamming into a row of seats.
She rolled and stood up, her movements sluggish, her left arm shaking.
The creature lunged at her again.
“…Fine then.” His body began to change.
A layer of pale grey biomass surged from beneath his skin, slowly coalescing over his body.
The texture was finer and lighter than before, the surface etched with quantum flow lines that flickered with a cold, dark red light in the darkness.
Armor plates formed in sequence from his chest to his shoulders, then down his arms and legs, each piece fitting together seamlessly.
The texture was somewhere between solid matter and pure energy, its edges shimmering slightly, looking somewhat unstable.
He pulled his hood down, obscuring most of his face.
A full-face mask covered his features, with two narrow, dark red bands of light where the goggles should be.
The ashen Ghost Suit.
Ava Starr’s combat gear.
Ryan Quinn moved.
His body slowly became transparent.
“…This ability is really exhausting.” Ryan Quinn looked up and fixed his gaze on Karl King.
From the monster’s severed limb, countless tiny spiders were frantically surging out, attempting to repair the wound.
The dark purple liquid had stopped flowing, and new tissue was growing at a visible rate—but it couldn’t grow a new forelimb that fast.
At the very least, it only had seven legs now.
Ryan Quinn placed Gwen in a corner of the auditorium—a triangular space formed by two collapsed walls, just enough to shield her.
He propped her against the wall, ensuring she wouldn’t slide down.
Then he stood up and turned around.
Karl King’s compound eyes glowed in the dark, the dark red light more piercing than before.
The bleeding from his stump had stopped, and new tissue was slowly growing—a malformed limb was poking out from the wound, still short and small.
His other seven limbs tapped lightly on the floor, creating a dense, rhythmic clicking.
His compound eyes were locked onto Ryan Quinn, scanning from the pale grey armor up to the cold mask.
“You…
who are you?” The voice squeezed out of the cracks, high-pitched and raspy.
“What are you?” Ryan Quinn tilted his head, the light bands on his goggles flickering slightly.
“Take a guess.” Then Ryan Quinn’s body vanished.
His body shifted from solid to translucent, then disappeared completely into thin air.
There was no disturbance in the air, no residual body heat.
The space he had occupied was clean; not a single trace remained.
All of Karl King’s compound eyes widened simultaneously.
“What—?!” His forelimbs swept frantically through the spot where Ryan Quinn had just been standing.
He hit nothing.
Wood chips and scraps of fabric were swept up from the floor, passing through that empty space and landing further away.
“Where is he?!
Where did he go?!” His eight limbs spun in place as his compound eyes frantically scanned every corner.
His single eyes also rotated independently—up, down, left, right—not missing an inch of space.
Nothing.
There was nothing.
The ashen figure had disappeared without a trace.
“Come out!” Karl King roared, his forelimb slamming into the stage.
The wooden boards shattered, sending splinters flying.
“Get out here!
Stop hiding!” Biological energy fluctuated restlessly across his surface, and his entire carapace trembled slightly.
But he neither knew nor understood what was happening.
He had eaten so many people, taken what was in their brains—but none of them had been scientists.
Not a single person could explain why a human would suddenly vanish into thin air.
Ryan Quinn coalesced behind him.
When his body snapped from intangible back to solid, he twitched.
His right shoulder flickered twice before fully stabilizing; the entire process was far from smooth.
“Tch…
it glitched again.” Ryan Quinn frowned under his mask.
“The compatibility of this ability…
it’s still not quite there.” But he didn’t pause.
His right arm transformed into a blade again, swinging in a horizontal slash toward the joint of one of Carl King’s hind legs.
Karl King didn’t turn around.
His Spider-Sense exploded in his mind, more violent than ever before.
He didn’t know where Ryan Quinn was, but something was closing in from behind, and his body reacted before his brain could.
His body instinctively lunged forward.
His five intact limbs exerted force simultaneously, and his entire form shot forward at a speed that defied his bulk.
But it wasn’t fast enough.
The blade sliced into the gap of a hind leg’s joint carapace.
Ryan Quinn was aiming for a weakness analyzed by the “Ghost” ability—a joint connection where the carapace was thin and the ligaments were exposed.
But the moment the blade touched the carapace, his wrist involuntarily phased for a fraction of a second.
The blade veered.
What should have been a strike that severed the entire limb only cut halfway through.
“…Oops.” Dark purple liquid sprayed.
The hind leg dangled limply from the joint, dragging a few severed ligaments, swinging back and forth.
Karl King let out a screech.
Using his forward momentum, he whirled around, his compound eyes locking onto Ryan Quinn behind him.
Ryan Quinn had just fully solidified.
His left foot had phased a beat too slow when it hit the ground; his ankle clipped a piece of broken rebar, and his body swayed before he steadied himself.
The quantum patterns on the ashen suit flickered unsteadily.
“Using this ability…
is way more exhausting than it looks,” Ryan Quinn grumbled to himself.
Karl King glanced down at his dangling hind limb, then back up at Ryan Quinn.
His chelicerae spread wide, revealing a deep crimson gullet as he let out a low growl that seemed to be squeezed from the depths of his chest.
“You vanish,” Karl King said, his tone accusatory.
“You were gone just now, then you appeared behind me—how did you do it?!” Ryan Quinn rolled his shoulders, resetting his stance.
“Even if I told you, you wouldn’t understand.” Karl King’s compound eyes constricted slightly.
There was nothing a failing student hated more than that phrase.
He wasn’t smart.
His classmates who actually studied had always said so.
His teachers said so, too.
His report cards were full of Ds, and his notebooks were covered in red marks.
But he was strong now—he didn’t need to understand; he just needed to fight.
“You think you’re special?” His voice dropped, trembling.
“You think you’re so great just because you can play hide-and-seek?
I don’t need to know how you do it.
I just need to kill you.” He lunged.
Karl King kept his body very low, his five intact limbs pushing off at once.
He charged straight ahead, relying on pure brute force to slam into Ryan Quinn.
His compound eyes were locked on the target, his Spider-Sense screaming in his head, leaving him with only one thought: hit him.
Ryan Quinn’s reaction was swift.
The “Ghost” combat instinct made a judgment in a fraction of a second—the brute force of this strike was too great; a direct block wasn’t worth it.
He activated his phasing.
But something was wrong.
His body began to enter phase shift— the edges of his skin turned transparent, and the quantum patterns began to glow—but the energy he had just devoured suddenly hit a snag, refusing to obey.
Ava’s quantum state required precise frequency adjustment; if it was even slightly off, it wouldn’t work.
Ryan Quinn’s body hadn’t adapted to this frequency yet.
He tried to tune it— He overshot.
The transition to the quantum state failed.
His body flickered twice—transparent, solid, transparent, solid—he couldn’t stabilize it.
“Ah…
crap.” There was no time to adjust.
Karl King’s body was already slamming into him.
Those compound eyes glowed with dark red light in the darkness.
Karl King wasn’t thinking about anything anymore.
He just wanted to crush this person.
He finally had his chance.
Phase shifts, quantum states—he didn’t understand a word of it.
All he knew was that this bastard who liked to disappear finally wasn’t disappearing.
“GOT—YOU—!”