The spider-silk snagged a lamppost three meters away.
With a low grunt, Gwen yanked her arm—the silk went taut, releasing its stored elastic potential in an instant, catapulting her forward.
Her right leg was extended straight as a spear, aimed directly at Ryan Quinn’s chest.
She was moving too fast; the air shrieked in his ears.
Ryan Quinn had no time to dodge.
He hadn’t even finished adjusting his stance after landing when the kick reached him.
A layer of black, viscous substance surged from the surface of his skin, crawling up his right arm.
In the blink of an eye, it condensed and hardened into a massive square shield with razor-sharp edges and dark red veins rippling across its surface.
The cellular fission of the Blacklight Virus was being pushed to its limit; if Ryan Quinn could imagine it, the virus could create it.
*Boom!* The collision of limb and shield rang out with a screeching, metallic clang, like two slabs of steel crashing at high speed.
A shockwave exploded from the point of impact, sending dust and gravel flying outward in a ring.
Gwen’s right leg slammed into the shield with all the terrifying kinetic energy of her spider-strength.
Ryan Quinn felt like he’d been hit head-on by a semi-truck.
The surface of the shield groaned, its dark red patterns flickering violently, nearly shattering.
His body slid back uncontrollably, his soles plowing two scorched furrows into the ground.
*Crash!* His back slammed into a brick wall, the impact shaking the entire structure and sending dust cascading from the mortar.
Spider-web cracks radiated from the point of impact, spreading across nearly half the wall.
Ryan Quinn let out a muffled groan.
His chest burned, his blood surged with the impact, and it hurt like hell.
This was the power of Spider-Man—brute force measured in tons.
This wasn’t something a novice who had just transmigrated and consumed a single ordinary human could face head-on.
Leaning against the cracked wall, Ryan Quinn lowered his eyelids, a single thought surfacing in his mind: *Ah…
I can’t win.
This is too much trouble.
Let’s bail.* Once the decision was made, the black shield on his arm instantly softened, receding beneath his skin like a tide.
Ryan Quinn hooked his fingers into the cracks between the bricks, his muscles surging with power as he scrambled up the wall.
Every step found firm purchase; he cleared four or five meters in a few breaths, as if he were running on level ground.
Gwen landed and looked up, her pupils trembling again.
The guy was crawling up the wall too—and he was faster than her.
Gwen’s wall-crawling relied on the intermolecular forces of microscopic hairs; it was stable, but its speed was limited.
Ryan Quinn’s method couldn’t even be called crawling.
He was running up the wall, every movement crisp and efficient, driven by a reckless, raw power.
“You can crawl too?!” Gwen couldn’t help but shout.
No one answered.
Ryan Quinn’s figure rounded a balcony and vanished.
Gwen gritted her teeth.
She raised her hand and fired a line of webbing at a third-story windowsill, yanking herself upward.
Her body carved an arc through the air, her feet hitting an air conditioning unit on the second floor before she pulled herself higher.
Her movements were more fluid, more graceful—like a true spider spinning its web.
But she couldn’t match the monster’s speed.
As she rounded a corner, a momentary blind spot appeared.
*Whish!* A sharp whistling sound tore through the air above her.
Her Spider-Sense screamed so loudly it felt like her skull was being pried open.
Without even looking up, Gwen instinctively flipped backward.
*Snap!* A black whip-cord lashed against the wall where she had just been standing.
Bricks shattered and fragments sprayed as a half-meter long, two-finger deep groove was gouged into the masonry.
If that had hit a person, even someone with a spider’s constitution would have ended up with broken ribs.
Gwen flipped and landed on a narrow windowsill.
Ryan Quinn was crouched on a fire escape three meters above her, his hood fluttering in the night wind.
His right arm could no longer be called an arm; it had deformed from shoulder to fingertips.
Cells had proliferated, twisted, and stretched into a two-meter-long black whip covered in chitinous, armor-like patterns, its tip still quivering slightly.
Gwen swallowed hard.
What on earth was this guy?
Ryan Quinn looked down with a lazy, detached expression, as if that hideous whip had nothing to do with him.
The black whip traced an arc through the air, screaming as it tore through the atmosphere, sweeping toward Gwen’s waist.
Gwen dropped into a low crouch, and the whip whistled over her head, slicing through the metal awning above the window with a sharp *clack*.
Half of the iron frame fell toward the street, throwing off sparks as it hit the ground.
Gwen didn’t retreat.
She lunged toward Ryan Quinn, kicking off the edge of the windowsill to launch herself into the air.
Both hands fired simultaneously, two web lines crossing as they stuck to the walls on either side of him.
She twisted mid-air, using the tension of the webs to snap herself forward, legs together, aiming a double-kick at Ryan Quinn’s chest.
Ryan Quinn glanced at her.
*Tsk, what a pain.* His left arm hardened into a small buckler to guard his chest.
*Thud!* Gwen’s feet slammed into the shield with a dull, heavy impact.
This time, she didn’t bounce back.
Borrowing the recoil, she performed a backflip in mid-air while simultaneously pulling the crossed web lines.
The webbing tightened, ensnaring the whip on Ryan Quinn’s right arm and locking his line of attack for a split second.
That was the moment.
Gwen landed without a pause, her body coiled like a spring before she exploded forward.
She closed the distance, her right fist whistling as it aimed for Ryan Quinn’s face.
He tilted his head to dodge, and her fist slammed into the wall behind him.
With a boom, the bricks disintegrated, leaving a crater the size of a bowl.
Her left fist followed immediately.
Ryan Quinn retreated again, the punch grazing his chest and tearing a hole in his school uniform.
Gwen’s attacks grew faster and heavier with every strike.
Her Spider-Sense allowed her to predict every one of Ryan Quinn’s dodges, and each hit was enough to shatter stone.
Ryan Quinn was forced back repeatedly, the fire escape beneath his feet creaking and groaning as if it might collapse at any moment.
But Ryan Quinn wasn’t panicking.
He was even a bit distracted.
The Blacklight Virus gave him more than just brute strength; it gave him combat instincts.
With every parry and every dodge, his body was learning and evolving.
Gwen’s punching habits, her way of generating power, her attack rhythm—it was all being disassembled, analyzed, and archived in his mind at the speed of an automatic download.
Ryan Quinn thought to himself: *Oh.
So this is combat instinct.
Quite convenient.* Gwen swung a high roundhouse kick at his head.
This time, Ryan Quinn didn’t retreat.
His left arm snapped up, blocking the leg with raw force.
*Thwack!* The dull sound of flesh hitting flesh echoed.
The bones in his forearm groaned, but Ryan Quinn didn’t let go.
His fingers clamped around Gwen’s ankle, and with a sudden twist, he hurled her away.
Gwen flipped twice in the air, stabilizing herself with one hand before landing firmly.
She looked up at Ryan Quinn, her brow furrowed tightly beneath her mask.
Ryan Quinn’s strength had increased since the start of the fight.
It wasn’t an illusion.
Was he getting stronger *during* the battle?
Ryan Quinn flexed his left arm.
It had been bruised dark purple a moment ago, but the Blacklight Virus beneath his skin was rapidly repairing the damaged tissue.
Within seconds, it was back to normal.
He looked down at his arm, thinking that this was indeed quite useful.
Then, he slowly raised both hands.
At his fingertips, black biomass began to condense, extend, and harden.
Ten lethal blades, each twenty centimeters long and thin as paper, reflected the pale, sickly light of the streetlamps.
Ryan Quinn gave a casual flick of his wrist.
The blades sliced through the air with a soft *hiss*.
Gwen’s gaze froze.
Those blades radiated danger—the kind that would slice through anything they touched.
She pivoted sharply, weaving her body through the narrow gaps of the fire escape.
Her toes tapped the iron grates, and her palms pushed off the railings; every movement was as light as if she were weightless.
With a backflip, she landed on the rooftop, her knees bending slightly to absorb the impact.
She looked up.
The rooftop was empty, save for the cold, pale moonlight.
The hooded man was gone.
Gwen stood there, her chest heaving, her breathing not yet fully recovered.
She looked down at her hands, then back at the empty roof, her mind a chaotic mess.
Three blocks away, Ryan Quinn was crouched on the roof of an apartment building.
He pulled off his hood, letting the night wind mess up his hair.
He looked down at his hands; the ten blades had receded, his fingertips returning to their normal state.
Ryan Quinn let out a yawn.
“Exhausting.
I thought I wouldn’t have to lift a finger today.” He stood up, shoved his hands back into his pockets, and began to walk home at a leisurely pace.
In the distance, the faint sound of sirens drifted toward him, and red and blue lights flickered between the buildings.
“…Hope I don’t run into any cops on the way back.
It’d be too much trouble to explain.” Ryan Quinn let out a long yawn.
“I have school tomorrow.
What a drag.”