Wooden arrow shafts and metal tips—this utterly ordinary combination had no business appearing in their current situation.
It was the sort of gear that belonged in a wilderness survival scenario, a primitive tribe, or in the hands of children, rather than being used to hunt Spider-Man Benjamin Reilly and Gwen.
Yet this scene, which had no right to occur, was playing out right before their eyes. Furthermore, the arrows traveled with blistering speed, emitting a sharp, piercing shriek as they tore through the air, their tips parting the atmosphere with the faint outline of a trailing shockwave.
It was as though these weren't ordinary arrows at all, but rather narrow, high-velocity sniper rounds.
Benjamin Reilly had, after all, undergone a simple week-long training regimen and possessed a passable grasp of his abilities.
Seeing the arrows inbound, his upper body snapped sharply backward in a severe bend, folding almost as if his spine had broken, displaying astonishing physical flexibility.
Gwen, however, lacked Benjamin Reilly's instantaneous reflexes.
On one hand, since acquiring her powers, she had never once participated in any combat whatsoever. Benjamin had at least thrown down in a few scraps, whereas she had experienced zero.
Her coming to track down Spider-Man Benjamin Reilly tonight was specifically because she had noticed his combat style was worth studying and had made the trip on a whim.
Her combat awareness was exceptionally impoverished, and with her spider-sense failing to trigger, she hadn't even perceived the arrival of the danger.
On the other hand, a flurry of four or five evasion methods had flashed through Gwen's mind in an instant, yet she had instinctively waited for her spider-sense to chime in and select the optimal maneuver.
Having evaded the arrow strike, Benjamin Reilly instinctively glanced over toward Gwen's direction. Seeing that she seemed frozen in place, Benjamin blurted out a warning on sheer instinct:
"Look out!"
Fast as the arrows were, they hadn't broken the sound barrier; Benjamin Reilly's yell instantly jolted Gwen out of her daze.
In the nick of time, she forced power into both feet, launching her entire body upward in a high leap to vault straight over the path of the incoming projectiles.
The missed arrows slammed into the wall, their tips and shafts shattering sequentially in a pattering clatter like rain hitting banana leaves.
Gwen inwardly reeled with shock. She had zero doubt that had she been struck by those arrows, she would have ended up with several extra gaping, bloody holes punched through her body.
Their destructive power was hardly any weaker than an assault rifle's.
Flicking her wrist to shoot a strand of webbing, Gwen swung her body around to land once more against the building's wall, shifting her gaze toward the direction from which the arrows had been fired.
She hadn't noticed the extremely faint purple mist drifting from those shattered arrows. By the time she drew in a breath and realized the air had inexplicably taken on a trace of sweetness, it was already too late.
Gwen felt her limbs go limp and her head swim, tumbling downward from the wall in a freefall like a strip of tape that had lost its adhesive.
Gas, traps, fog...
The hunter Kraven talked a terrifyingly big game, yet when it came to dealing with the three of them, he completely eschewed a direct confrontation, opting instead to first debilitate their strength before seizing the right moment to strike.
Seeing Gwen fall victim, a lasso bound with several stone-like objects came spinning through the air instantly.
The stones rubbed against the atmosphere, emitting a metallic rust smell—clearly, they weren't ordinary stones either.
Swish!
The lasso effortlessly wrapped around Gwen. The weight of the stones caused the rope to automatically coil around her several times, rendering Gwen—who had lost her strength to the poisonous gas—completely incapable of resisting.
Simultaneously, Benjamin Reilly saw a large net unfurl out of nowhere above his head, crackling with blue electrical currents—yet another trick belonging to Kraven the Hunter.
Benjamin Reilly tried to spring away in retreat, but several more arrows came whistling in from triangular angles, their tips trailing flickering, burning flames.
"Sulfuric acid? You've got to be kidding me."
Venom Robin's axe-strike cleaved through empty air, cyan smoke billowing upward in an attempt to obscure his vision.
Yet as a symbiote, Robin possessed no such concept as "sight"; the pair of white eyes on his face functioned primarily as decoration and a means to express emotion.
The smoke failed to block him, but Robin did register what the object he had shattered actually was: a massive vat of sulfuric acid concealed there ahead of time.
The acid corroded the mummy wrappings Venom Robin was wearing, eating away at the symbiote matter coating his legs.
Dripping downward drop by drop, the liquid permeated straight into the masonry beneath his feet.
"Huh? It's already necrotic?" Venom Robin glanced down at his feet, then couldn't be bothered to care about the symbiote matter that had been thoroughly dissolved by the strong acid and could no longer be retracted.
The entire sequence had spanned less than two full seconds; Venom Robin felt his own reaction time had been exceptionally swift.
However, the moment he looked toward Gwen and Benjamin Reilly's direction, a knot tightened in his chest.
In a matter of mere seconds, those two were already facing mortal peril. Venom Robin shuddered to think what would happen if Benjamin Reilly—having finally managed to be resurrected—met a miserable end now, and the Old Bat ended up launching New York straight into the stratosphere on the spot.
With no time to think, Venom Robin dropped his double-edged battle-axe with a heavy thud.
He grabbed the mummy wrappings draped over his body with both hands and ripped them apart with all his might.
Rip!
That suit gifted by the Moon God Khonshu was instantly shredded into pieces by Venom Robin.
The symbiote matter writhed like a boiling soup, lengthening Venom Robin's physique segment by segment while baring his fangs and crimson, elongated tongue without an ounce of concealment.
The massive wing membranes on his back snapped wide open, and his hands lost their prior appearance, mutating into vicious, razor-sharp claws.
Ever since following Batman to Mexico to wage a massive battle against the Gamma monsters, Venom Robin had slipped into a deep slumber.
He hadn't reawakened until the arrival of the Moon God Khonshu. Though he could no longer possess Batman, he had acquired three distinct forms unique to himself.
They were the "Eclipse Knight" form dominated by the power of the Moon God, the Venom form dominated by the power of the symbiote, and the ordinary child persona clad in mummy wrappings.
For Venom Robin, who was fanatically devoted to combat, the most practical and formidable choice was naturally the Venom form; in this appearance, he could go toe-to-toe with opponents on par with the standard Hulk without losing the upper hand.
This fact had already been verified two weeks prior aboard the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier.
"Awooo!!"
Venom Robin let out a feral roar, preparing to lunge forward instantly to rescue Benjamin Reilly and Gwen—whoever she was—and then dish out a severe, vicious lesson to that so-called Kraven the Hunter.
Yet the moment he looked toward Benjamin Reilly and Gwen's location, Venom Robin was left dumbfounded:
"Where are they?"
Benjamin Reilly and Gwen, who had been right there in their original spots the second before, had both vanished. Even Venom Robin hadn't perceived when the two of them had gone missing...
Oh, they hadn't vanished; at that moment, the two of them had already departed their previous location, currently wedged securely tucked under Batman's arms on both sides.
"Old—" Venom Robin's word Old Bat hadn't even cleared his lips.
"Batman? These two have a connection to you? No wonder, no wonder I chose them as a warm-up activity; all of this was destined from the start."
The hunter Kraven's voice echoed out from the shadows:
"Your head will become my trophy sooner or later, but not today..."
This time, it was Kraven the Hunter's turn to be cut off mid-sentence.
Clang!
A figure clad in a red-and-gold armor dropped heavily from the sky, slamming down right beside Batman—Iron Man Tony Stark had arrived in the Mark VIII armor.
In the shadows, Kraven the Hunter remained silent, merely knitting his brows in a scowl.
--
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