Chapter 78: Underground, Animal Battle
First floor of the teaching building, archives room.
In the center of the archives room, on the tiled floor, there was a huge pit.
The hole looked freshly dug, nearly a meter wide, with soil and broken stone scattered around its edges.
Wearing the hooded Spider-suit Gwen had given him, Xi Nian crouched by the rim. His body displayed sharp, streamlined muscle lines as he leaned over to peer into the endless darkness below.
He took a breath.
And jumped.
Down, down, free-falling endlessly…
After dropping nearly twenty to thirty meters, he neared the ground. Just above the faintly glimmering water surface, half a meter from the bottom, several white strands crisscrossed in the air.
Gwen's webbing.
Xi Nian immediately braced his palms against the pit walls to slow his fall, then landed lightly on the tough web she had strung.
His green eyes gleamed faintly as he lay across the strands, scanning the environment. The pit opened into a sewer below.
It was narrow, dark, suffocating.
Without hesitation, Xi Nian followed the trail of webs stretching into the tunnels.
Sometimes he crawled like a spider, moving across the strands. Sometimes he sprinted like a cheetah along the damp ground.
The underground sewer twisted endlessly with forks and turns. Without light, one could easily lose all sense of direction.
But Xi Nian wasn't worried. Gwen's webs were his guide, and her scent remained locked in his senses.
Still, as he ran, his brows furrowed deeper. This subterranean maze felt like another hidden world, untouched by sunlight. What kind of twisted things could thrive down here?
He had run nearly two or three kilometers when his nose caught it—
The sharp scent of blood.
Gwen's blood. She was hurt.
His eyes instantly hardened, the silver bracelet of divine protection blazing with light, barely suppressing the wild instinct rising within him.
Thud, thud!
Hands and feet pressed against the angled tunnel walls, Xi Nian sprinted at a ninety-degree incline. His speed, already blinding, surged even faster. Water below splashed violently in the wake of his movement.
…
Soon, he arrived at a wider crossing in the sewer.
There, a hulking humanoid lizard, two to three meters tall, stood menacingly against a slender figure.
Spider-Woman leaned on the wall, her left calf bleeding from a claw wound, slowing her movements.
Through their shared spider sense, she turned her head sharply, noticing Xi Nian as he rushed from a side tunnel.
At that same moment, the Lizard lunged toward her like a predator.
But Xi Nian was faster.
"Get lost!" His body became a cannonball, slamming into the Lizard and sending the monster crashing back.
"Careful!" Gwen shouted, her voice sharp with warning instead of relief.
"…What?!"
Midair at the tunnel intersection, Xi Nian's instincts flared. He twisted his waist, his lean body spinning like a whip.
Swish! Swish!
Two gleaming mechanical tentacles slashed through the air where he had been, stabbing into the water below and sending spray everywhere.
Dodging the ambush through sheer reflex, Xi Nian's eyes snapped up. On the ceiling corner of the sewer, clinging like a spider, hung a man in sunglasses—his back fused with four writhing mechanical arms.
Doctor Octopus.
Whoosh—
A white strand of web shot out, catching Xi Nian before he could fall into the water.
He didn't resist, letting himself be pulled toward its owner.
He landed beside Gwen at last, quickly steadying her slender frame. "Are you okay?"
"Just my leg. I can still fight," she panted.
Xi Nian's gaze flicked toward the man on the wall. "That one with the claws—you know him?"
Gwen nodded faintly. "Don't you remember? He's Otto Gunther Octavius, a famous physicist in Washington. He even visited our school for an event a year ago."
"Another doctor?" Xi Nian muttered. He suddenly remembered Cheetah's words—about how the school's doctors were all weirdos.
Weirdo was putting it lightly.
First Lizard Doctor. Now Octopus Doctor.
What's next, Panda Doctor and open a zoo?
If you counted Spider, Cheetah, and now these two, this was turning into a full-blown animal brawl.
A splash echoed.
The Lizard crawled from the rushing water, his cold green reptilian eyes locking on them.
Above him, Octavius crawled swiftly along the ceiling with his tentacles, voice full of irritation. "This is your fault—you drew both spiders here."
"Enough talking. Let's just finish them," the Lizard rasped.
"They've seen us. They know our secrets. Naturally, we can't let them return above." Octavius sneered. "As long as that girl doesn't show up, we're fine."
Six months ago—
The two doctors had already been using the school's underground sewers for their inhumane experiments. Just as they started to achieve results, a girl from the lower grades stumbled upon them.
She told them she knew what they were doing. If they continued, she would report them to the school and the police.
They tried to threaten her.
The girl answered by punching the ground beneath her feet.
One punch. Even now, the sewer still bore a gaping abyss from the impact.
From that day, both doctors had been forced to halt their work.
Until recently—when that mysterious girl stopped showing up.
Then they began again.
And their research had succeeded.
The Lizard had gained limb regeneration and the monstrous body of a reptilian beast.
Doctor Octopus had fused with his mechanical arms, his brain and the machines forming a new nervous system.
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