The new portal was different from the old ones. It looked like a patch of melted space collapsing inward, forming a passage that linked two separate locations.
This was Harry's first time trying to use the new kind of portal, and because he wasn't yet skilled with it, the exit point appeared slightly off from where he intended.
The result was an extremely unfortunate placement beside Ghost-Spider, startling her badly and throwing off her swing.
She immediately lost control of her web line and dropped out of the air. She hit a rooftop, rolled across it, then tumbled down again before finally coming to a stop right in front of Harry, dizzy and thoroughly disheveled.
Harry seized the opportunity, rushed forward, and pulled at Ghost-Spider's mask, revealing a face that looked fairly familiar.
The same blond hair. The same delicate features. Overall, there was at least a fifty percent resemblance.
But unlike the Gwen Harry knew, whose long twin ponytails gave her a much softer feel, the Gwen in front of him wore short, sharp blond hair that made her look brisk and almost boyish.
Of course, perhaps because of chaos magic's constant nourishment, the Gwen in Harry's world had far more refined features and much better skin than the Gwen standing before him now.
Still, she was Gwen, and she was still a pretty girl.
What Harry hadn't expected, though, was that in this world Gwen had become Spider-Man instead of Peter.
Wait...
Something was off.
Crouching in front of Gwen, Harry swept his gaze over her and quickly noticed a precise, sophisticated device strapped to her wrist.
It looked strikingly similar to the TVA's temporal locator. After examining it with his observation runes, Harry was stunned to discover that it could travel through every parallel universe covered by the Web of Life and Destiny.
Which meant that as long as a universe had a Spider-Man, this device could reach it.
"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!"
While Harry had been examining Gwen, she had finally managed to recover her senses.
The moment she looked up and saw a handsome face studying her with obvious interest, she jumped in shock and rolled backward, putting distance between herself and the strange man.
She knew this guy was standing with The Spot in the middle of the road and blocking traffic. That alone made him look suspicious.
Gwen pushed herself upright and aimed her web-shooters at the two of them. From under her mask came a teasing, wary voice.
"Well, well. A brand-new villain duo? Did Mr. Spot go out and find himself a partner?"
With a light tap of her toes, she leaped onto a nearby lamppost, her black-and-white spider suit snapping in the wind.
"If you want to wreck New York, you'll have to ask Spider-Man first.
"Friendly warning, I'm in a bad mood today, so even if you surrender, I'm still gonna web you to a dumpster for a couple hours."
The black holes on The Spot's body quivered violently, producing a sound like grinding gears. The cluster of spots that served as his eyes fixed on Gwen.
"Wait, what's with your suit? Why is the spider symbol white?" He suddenly slashed a black vortex open in the air and yanked out a crumpled newspaper. On the front page was a photo of the young Black Spider-Man. "I fought Spider-Man just last week, and he definitely didn't look like that!"
Tilting her head, Gwen said in a playful voice, "I'm a special guest star. Enough talking, let's go. I'm about to show you what I can do!"
She launched herself forward at once, swinging straight toward Harry.
The man in front of her was dressed like a wizard, which clearly meant he wasn't the combat type.
So as long as she could get in close, one good punch would settle everything.
After dealing with the wizard, clumsy old Spot would obviously be no problem.
Gwen was starting to feel like her battle IQ was getting higher by the day.
Unfortunately, reality had other plans.
The scene Gwen imagined never happened, and what followed was wildly different from what she had expected.
Just as she closed the distance to less than two feet from Harry, the air beneath her feet suddenly turned thick and sticky like glue, while purple runes burst from the ground like chains.
The punch she threw with all her strength felt as though it had plunged into a swamp. Her motion stopped dead in mid-lunge, leaving her suspended in the air in an awkward, twisted dive.
"What... is this?!" Gwen's voice rang out from under her mask, full of shock.
She struggled to kick her legs, only to find that even her hair seemed to be held in place by invisible hands, barely able to move.
Harry slowly walked up to her and calmly studied the girl in front of him.
"This is gravity magic. You're currently in a null-gravity state, while also being restrained by an overwhelming gravitational force.
"In this situation, no matter what I do, you won't be able to resist."
"Ahhhhh! Don't come any closer!"
Gwen instantly remembered some disturbing case files she had once read, and her face practically drained of color beneath the mask.
A bright, energetic girl like her was basically every creep's dream target.
Harry's face darkened. Of course he could tell what Gwen was thinking. He irritably flicked her forehead and said, exasperated, "I already have a girlfriend, so stop overthinking it. What I want to ask is, where did you get that multiversal travel watch on your wrist?"
Gwen immediately became wary again.
The organization she currently belonged to was called the Spider Society, a powerful group capable of moving freely throughout the multiverse. Its mission was to preserve balance and justice between universes.
The dimensional travel watch on her wrist was issued by the Spider Society. Worn on the arm, it allowed the user to travel between dimensions.
A piece of technology like that was not something some random scientist from a single universe could identify at a glance.
And yet this wizard had recognized it after only one look. That most likely meant he, like her, came from another parallel universe.
Still eyeing Harry carefully, Gwen demanded, "A dimensional travel watch isn't the kind of thing you see lying around on a sidewalk. Only members of the Spider Society know about it!
"You recognized it in one glance, so are you from another parallel world too? Can you travel across dimensions?"
"The Spider Society?" Harry had never heard the name before. It sounded like some small multiversal group.
He looked at Gwen and answered, "I do come from another parallel universe, but don't worry, I'm not a bad person.
"For certain reasons, I was exiled by a multiversal Hydra organization, and now I'm trying to find a way home.
"The Spot's powers may be able to help me get back, which is why I'm here."
"A multiversal Hydra organization!" Gwen's voice rose in surprise.
She had occasionally seen information about Hydra in the Spider Society's database and knew it was a terrifying organization that had conquered many parallel universes.
Against something that powerful, the Spider Society would be no match at all.
And if the wizard standing in front of her was an enemy of Hydra, then he was probably a serious powerhouse, and probably one of the good guys too.
Her spider-sense told her Harry wasn't lying.
Even so, she couldn't help saying, "But The Spot beside you is a supervillain. You shouldn't be with him."
Being brought up so suddenly made The Spot panic. He was terrified Harry might abandon his treatment because of what he had done before.
But before he could explain, Harry continued, "I know. But he hasn't killed anyone, he hasn't committed arson, and the bounty on his wanted poster is even lower than this universe's young Black Spider-Man. So I think maybe he can still be recruited. He's not beyond saving."
That left Gwen completely speechless.
Because, honestly, Harry wasn't wrong.
In many worlds, Spider-Man's bounty was even higher than that of actual supervillains.
Just then, a furious shout came from the distance, growing louder as it approached.
"You damn criminals, let Gwen go!"
A slim young Spider-Man in a black skintight suit was swinging rapidly toward them.
If Harry had guessed right, this was the original Spider-Man of this universe.
Gwen noticed Miles rushing over too and quickly tried to stop him.
"Wait, Miles, he..."
But it was already too late.
Miles had already leaped high into the air and came flying in with a kick aimed straight at Harry.
Harry was a normal person too, and after being provoked again and again, he was naturally starting to get annoyed. He had gone easy on Gwen because she was his girlfriend's variant.
Miles was not.
So Harry gave his wand a light flick and fired off a magical beam at him.
The next moment, Miles' whole body jerked, and he dropped from the air, rolling across the ground not far from Harry and the others.
Gwen was about to ask if Miles was hurt when she suddenly heard a series of deeply unfortunate noises.
At first, Miles started hiccuping, then he began farting nonstop.
If that had been all, everyone probably would have just been disgusted and kept their distance.
But very quickly, things got much, much worse.
The hiccuping and farting stopped being the main issue.
Instead, Miles started vomiting and having diarrhea.
Bleeegh...
Watching vomit and waste seep out through the gaps in his skintight suit, Gwen finally hit her limit and nearly threw up herself.
She turned to Harry and shouted, "Ahhh, that is so gross! What did you do to Miles?!"
Harry looked a little stunned himself. This was only one of the few times he had used the hiccup spell and the farting spell.
But clearly, his chaos magic had grown dozens of times stronger than before. Even a casual spell now carried far more power than it used to.
As a result, the hiccup spell and farting spell had effectively turned into a vomiting spell and a diarrhea spell.
Looking embarrassed, Harry hurriedly said, "Sorry, I was trying to make him hiccup and fart, but I didn't expect..."
He quickly waved his wand again and cast another spell at Miles.
"Finite Incantatem! Reparo!"
In the next instant, Miles stopped his humiliating performance, and all the vomit and filth on him vanished without a trace.
To show his sincerity, Harry looked at Miles with complete earnestness.
"Sorry, Miles, this one's on me. What kind of compensation do you want?
"Tons of gold? Powerful magic? A long life? I'll do my best to make it right."
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