Tian Lin's face, haggard and ashen, no longer betrayed the storm of emotions one would expect after such a nightmare. In place of panic, a cold, almost frightening resolve had taken root.
His clothes, shredded by claws and whipped by the wind, hung loosely on a frame that had grown skeletal; a week of endless flights and a meager ration of dried meat had stripped him of significant weight. His tangled, greasy hair clung to his forehead in unkempt strands, and his skin was layered with dust and soot—they hadn't had a single moment to stop and wash away the stains of the catastrophe.
One of Tian Lin's arms was tightly bandaged with a scrap of red fabric—a torn, alcohol-soaked piece of Spider-Man's own suit. During the moment of Bao Jian's death, Peter, in a surge of primal horror and rage, had gripped his companion's arm so hard the bones had nearly snapped, leaving a deep, dark bruise.
Tian Lin's fingers twitched incessantly, and his lips had taken on a bluish tint, looking like they had been painted with a deathly lipstick. An endless stream of thoughts pressed against the inside of his skull, once again shifting his perception of reality, turning the world into a series of logical blueprints and vectors of survival.
A few yards away, Spider-Man was hunched over a campfire. He had caught some local creature during a quick hunt and was now roasting it over a flame ignited by a cracked energy crystal—the very crystal he'd used to spark the fire.
Since the fall of the City, they had covered dozens of miles, swinging through the air at a breakneck pace. Peter needed to feed to sustain the Swarm, but even he seemed unsettled; his mind felt frayed, unable to focus. For hours, they hadn't exchanged a single word, each of them silently processing the carnage they had witnessed.
Finally, breaking the long silence, Spider-Man spoke:
"How you holding up, bro?"
Those four words jolted Tian Lin out of his trance. His eyelids flickered, his lips pressed into a thin line, and he brushed a strand of hair from his eyes.
"I'm thinking, Peter. I'm thinking..."
Spider-Man's head turned slowly toward his companion—now the only living soul left in his world.
"What are you thinking about?"
the hero asked, his voice louder this time, edged with a sharp pressure.
"Where we go. What we do. Listen, Peter, I know nothing about this land—absolutely nothing. I can't navigate by these stars, and I don't know if there are other cities nearby or what state they're in. The only man who had that information is rotting in a field miles away with his head blown apart..."
For a split second, his voice wavered. A thick, black despair tried to swallow him whole. Spider-Man turned, expecting to see the same apathy and gloom in Lin's eyes that had haunted his own after so many failures and trials. He expected to see the hollow gaze of a broken man.
But instead, he saw Life.
In the depths of Tian Lin's pupils, an endless, savage flame was roaring. It was an incredible, almost animalistic will to survive. Like the hardest granite, this inner fire refused to die; instead, it grew fiercer with every new danger, every enemy that crossed their path. This flame cut through the darkness of his despair, turning raw terror into pure fuel for his mind.
"Spidey, we need to find water,"
Lin's voice steadied, regaining its cold, analytical edge.
"In terms of magic and tech, this world eclipses yours, but the urban planning is stuck in the 19th century. Cities are always built near water: the Nile, the Tiber, the Thames... the logic is the same here. We find a riverbed, follow the current, and sooner or later we'll hit a settlement. All roads lead to Rome, right?"
Even in his diminished state, Peter Parker couldn't help but marvel at the young man's sharp intellect. Lin's knowledge was startlingly deep: art, science, architecture, history—his brain functioned like a high-end computer, finding exits where others saw only dead ends.
Peter was a genius too, but since the "incident," his intellect had begun to fade, slowly eroded by the collective hive-mind of the spiders. Only his iron will allowed him to remain an individual.
"What makes you so sure we won't just run into another demon?"
Spider-Man asked hollowly.
"What if they've already wiped everything out?"
"I'm not sure, Peter,"
Lin replied, staring into the dancing flames.
"But listen: my town wasn't attacked by a demon; it was attacked by a demonic cultivator. Remember that black flame—the one from the cultivator you killed? I saw that same flame everywhere when I was fleeing my home. The demons hit the Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities, maybe Tier 3 And 4. But the Tier 5 cities... those are likely being overrun by demonic cultivators. They're easier to handle than that thing at the walls. Infinitely easier, Peter. If we can just reach one of them..."
Lin's voice broke on a high note. He dissolved into a fit of dry coughing, muffling the sound with his hand so as not to shatter the silence of the forest.
At that moment, Spider-Man began to act strangely. His body shifted rhythmically under the suit; the Swarm, previously calm, began to move erratically, creating shifting lumps and divots under the fabric. Lin noticed the change but chalked it up to shock. He was more preoccupied with his own question.
"Why are we alive, Tian? Why didn't our heads explode like the others?"
The question forced Lin to sift through his memories: legends of demons, cultivation manuals, and his own observations. His face grew pensive.
"Qi... it's the Qi. Or rather, how it's stored. Every practitioner has a core in their brain—a reflection of the soul in reality, like a magical battery for Qi. I've heard that when the power gap is too wide, the pressure from a superior's Qi can rupture that core. The demon was so powerful that their 'batteries' simply overloaded and detonated. But us... we aren't practitioners. There's little to no Qi in our bodies, so the pressure had nothing to act upon. To him, we're just blank spaces, Spidey."
"Mind... tearing apart..."
Spider-Man suddenly rasped.
Tian Lin snapped his head up and went cold. The spiders inside Peter's suit were racing frantically, creating living, pulsating waves across the fabric.
"W-whaat? What are you talking about, Peter? Expla—"
"Peter Parker is disappearing, just death..."
the voice became multi-layered, a buzzing drone.
"Memories are fading. I'm losing the connection..."
"It's the Qi!"
Lin scrambled to his feet.
"You have traces of Qi from the cultivators you consumed. The demon's presence corrupted that Qi—it's the same thing that happened to Bao Jian, just on a smaller scale."
Spider-Man slowly pulled off his mask. Lin recoiled in horror. In place of a face, he saw a writhing mass of hundreds of spiders, desperately trying to reform human features. Peter's mind was drowning in insectile instincts, dissolved by the demon's eldritch emanations
. Tian Lin gripped his head, rubbing his temples. For a minute, he nearly sank back into helplessness, but his will to live forced a brilliant, desperate idea out of the depths of his subconscious.
"I'm sending you back!"
"What?"
the Swarm hissed.
"The demons distort everything around them; they 'corrupt' the map like a glitch in a video game. If you leave this world, the influence should stop. It has to stop. Your mind will recover, and then... then you'll figure something out. You're Peter Parker, for God's sake!"
Tian Lin held out his hand, clutching an energy crystal and a storage ring.
"Take these. Swallow the crystal so it stays inside you. This ring is full of more crystals, manuals, scrolls... everything your scientists will need to understand this world. Find Doctor Strange, Reed Richards... anyone! Tell them to study this and find a way to open a stable portal. With the combined power of your world's heroes, you can save everyone."
The plan had been brewing in his mind for a while.
These weren't NPCs; they weren't just system constructs. They had their own universe and their own heroes. If the heroes of the Marvel universe were anything like the comics, building a cross-dimensional portal would be child's play for them. It was the only way to save this world without relying solely on the System. As Tian Lin spoke, the spider-swarm was rapidly gaining ground over Peter's consciousness.
"Are you asking us to run like cowards?!"
the Swarm suddenly roared.
"ENOUGH!"
Lin screamed, his voice cracking with exhaustion.
"Enough! You think I want this? If your mind goes dark, the Swarm will just eat me, Peter! I don't want to die—not like that! This... this gives us a chance. A ghost of a chance. If you can link our worlds... please, find me first. I'm the one who helped you. And if you can't save me... at least save this world."
The memory of Bao Jian's final smile flashed through Lin's mind.
"Please... save me and save this world, Spider-Man..."
The thousands of spiders forming Peter's shape began to settle. Using the last remnants of his will—a will honed by years of tragedy—Peter suppressed the hive-mind's instincts. He synchronized his movements with Lin's ragged breathing and finally regained control. The Swarm slowly raised a hand, accepting the ring. Peter felt an infinite bitterness welling up inside.
"I'm grateful to you, Lin."
A weak, exhausted smile flickered on Tian Lin's face.
"Me too, Peter. Summon!"
[ SYSTEM ACTIVATED ]