Wong struggled to maintain the operation of the magic circle, but the pattern drawn with wine had almost completely evaporated. He could not spare the time to draw a new one, and his own magic power was close to drying up.
He was not the Ancient One or Strange. He did not have the ability to draw power from the Dark Dimension. His magic power was just enough to let him live on two-dollar meals three times a day.
Hearing this, everyone in the wine cellar immediately stood up vigilantly and gathered around Wong. Perhaps they thought they would feel safe beside a Master of the Mystic Arts, but now, Wong could barely maintain his own safety.
"Red mist... I smell the red mist!" Hank sniffed, and an unpleasant, nauseating smell entered his nose. Along with that frightening sensation, fear and panic that ordinary people could not bear gradually enveloped Hank's body.
At that moment, he wanted to turn off these damned super senses. So did Matthew, who was lying on the stretcher.
At the entrance of the wine cellar, the old, dilapidated wooden boards creaked, and a faint red mist overflowed through the damaged cracks. Everyone huddled around Wong, looking at the scene as if facing the end of the world. Frightened screams kept coming from their mouths.
"Is there really no other way? You can just open a portal and leave!"
"If I could open one, I would have opened it long ago!" Wong roared angrily. "The red mist blocks the transmission of magic power. I can't open a portal to the outside at all!"
"Aren't you a master sorcerer?" Sam instantly entered a state of alert, activated his equipment, stretched the steel wings from his back, and pulled out two Sterlings, aiming them at the red mist.
He was not afraid of the red mist. He was afraid of the enemies that came with the red mist...
Hank also cast aside his polite manner and transformed into a blue beast, like a lion. His strong body stood in front of everyone, and a low growl rumbled from his throat, ferocious and vigilant...
"Back... back..." Hill raised her pistol, staring solemnly at the wooden boards that were about to break. She gently pulled the trigger. However, she did not have adamantium bullets. They were all ordinary rounds, which had no effect at all on certain physically enhanced superheroes.
"It's reached the limit..." Wong struggled to say the words, and the magic power in his body suddenly scattered. A trace of blood flowed from the corner of his mouth, and his whole body abruptly fell backward.
Hank supported the weakened Wong and looked worriedly at the wooden boards. As expected...
Boom!
The wooden boards suddenly exploded, and a huge amount of thick red mist surged from the broken entrance. Seeing that the situation was bad, Sam immediately flapped the wings behind him, sending a whirlwind toward the red mist.
But it did not work. Instead, it dispersed the red mist even more, filling the entire wine cellar in an instant.
"Run!"
"Ah!"
"Find a place... find somewhere to hide!"
"Get out of the way! Don't block me!"
When everyone saw the spreading red mist, they were terrified and fled in all directions. But where could they escape? The wine cellar was only about fifty square meters in total, with nothing inside except wine barrels.
Crowded. Cramped.
The ugliness of human nature was vividly displayed at this moment. People pushed and struck one another, afraid that someone else would take away their chance to survive.
"Don't crowd... don't crowd!" Sam hurriedly tried to maintain order, but the frantic people did not care at all. Some even began beating Sam when he blocked their path.
Hank subdued two of them with force. Hill pointed her gun at one person and forced him into a corner. The rest were still rioting.
Matthew was in an even worse situation. Limping with one leg, he was thrown off the stretcher and stepped on several times by the chaotic crowd. No one knew if he still had the strength to move.
The red mist lingered around everyone. The ordinary people with weaker resistance had their eyes turn red first, and they began attacking the people around them like madmen.
"We can't hold this anymore! Run! Do everything you can to survive, and don't worry about anyone else!" Hill made the most accurate judgment of the current situation. It was almost impossible to save everyone's lives.
Then... let whoever could survive survive.
Hill fired bullets at the infected crowd. In such a small space, almost every shot struck the head. Each infected person who was hit fell to the ground, twitched a few times, then stopped moving.
Even if they were infected, they were still human by nature. They did not have super self-healing abilities or strange, powerful strength.
There was also an essential difference between the red mist and a zombie virus. Zombie viruses could spread through saliva and blood, usually through bites or scratches.
After a person was bitten by a zombie, their body would gradually transform, losing consciousness bit by bit until they became a greedy monster driven only by appetite.
The red mist was different. It spread only through the air. Once it entered the human body, it gradually eroded it like a virus until all consciousness vanished. It had only one method of transmission: the mist.
Infected people were different from zombies. Infected people were humans who had turned into madmen. They did not have the ability to survive after being stabbed through the body. The weaknesses humans had in life remained the weaknesses of the infected after corruption. Headshots, pierced hearts, excessive blood loss—all of them still killed.
For example, Captain America's zombie could still live after his body was cut in half. That situation basically did not exist among the infected, unless they were people with especially strong self-healing abilities, such as Deadpool, Wolverine, Hulk...
"Go, go! Run outside! Cover your mouth and nose with your clothes! Don't crowd... don't... fuck you!"
Sam was directing the people in the wine cellar to evacuate when a sudden pain struck his arm. An infected person had bared his teeth and bitten Sam.
Sam punched the infected man. His teeth flew out with blood, but the infected man refused to let go. He continued biting Sam's arm and began tearing at his clothes with both hands.
"Fuck!" Sam had no choice but to raise his Sterling and shoot the infected person in the head.
Before he could feel relieved, his entire body was pressed to the ground. All the ordinary people in the wine cellar had turned into infected, attacking the heroes one after another.
Seeing that the situation was irreversible, Hank and Hill felt utterly helpless. They were superheroes who protected people, but now they had turned their claws and weapons on the very people they protected. An emotion called shame rose in their hearts.
A massacre even more terrifying than the red mist began...
As several gunshots came to an end, Hill slowly lowered the gun in her hand and stared at the hellish scene before her with a heavy expression. Dead bodies lay in rows. The red mist and blood merged together, and the strong, pungent smell made it difficult to tell whether they were in hell or on Earth.
"It seems we can't escape..." Hill calmly put away her gun and stood back-to-back with Hank. "If I mutate first, or if I show signs of mutation... kill me immediately."
Sam had already rushed out of the wine cellar with Wong on his back. He was the warrior most likely to escape. A pair of long steel wings stretched from his back. The Red Falcon equipment pushed its firepower to the limit. Wong's body was very weak and had even lost a great deal of weight. His body, normally more than two hundred pounds, had been weakened by magic until he was only a little over a hundred, far from his original build.
Hank wanted to take Hill with him, but the woman refused. For the first time, sorrow appeared in his resolute eyes. If Nick Fury had seen this, he would have screamed in disbelief.
Few people or events could stir Hill's emotions. Nick Fury had once praised her as a natural agent—cold, ruthless, cunning, and intelligent. Nick Fury had wanted Hill to become Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. countless times, but she had rejected him every time.
"I don't want to become a one-eyed bastard who lies all day and thinks in shadows."
Hill had answered Nick Fury in front of everyone.
She was strong, even stronger than most men. She always placed the bigger picture above her own life. She believed the order of the world far outweighed any single human life, and sacrifice... was necessary.
Hank did not give up. He still wanted to take Hill away, just as he would with Professor X, putting life first.
As one of the first students at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, and also one of its first teachers, Hank had been with Professor X for fifty years. He was the person who knew Professor X best in the world. Even Erik and Raven could not compare to him.
Hank knew Professor X's thoughts very well. The professor valued life, every life, whether mutant or human.
Hank deeply understood Professor X's thinking, and gradually, he had become less like himself.
But kindness ran deep. Hank did not want to give up on anyone who could still be saved... because he was an X-Man.
Hank carried Hill on his back and rushed out of the wine cellar regardless of her struggles and objections.
The strong smell of alcohol mixed with the pungent, nauseating scent of blood, merging into a strange new odor. His beast-like sense of smell clearly separated every component, almost making his brain shut down.
Hank endured the unpleasant smell and ran down the street with a ferocious expression. Even on the gravel-strewn road, he moved as if walking on flat ground, his large blue furry feet stepping lightly against the pavement.
He was not merely called "Beast." His body was gradually assimilating because of his mutant genes, becoming more and more like a true beast, with powerful movements, living habits, and physical senses. Apart from his extraordinary IQ, in his mutant form, Hank was almost a real beast.
Boom!
A thick, long mechanical tentacle blocked Hank's path. Then a huge stone flew toward him and struck him. Thick smoke burst outward, knocking both people away.
"Ahem..." The thick smoke made Hank cough several times. He rolled across the ground and barely stopped after hitting an abandoned car.
A bloated man gradually emerged from the red mist. Four mechanical claws flew wildly behind him, revealing the identity of the newcomer.
Doctor Octopus let out a strange, mad laugh. His short figure slowly moved toward the two of them, chaotic thoughts filling his developed brain.
As a respected scientist in Marvel's world, Doctor Octopus had an IQ comparable to many technological heroes.
In Ultimate Spider-Man, he had exchanged bodies with Peter Parker on his own, watched the pure and kind-hearted young man die in pain, and openly accepted everything that belonged to Peter Parker—his identity, his abilities, his wisdom, his relationships, and all that came with them.
Doctor Octopus had used his intelligence to monitor the entire city. Mechanical spiders watched every resident who might commit a crime or had committed one, leaving no privacy unseen, even provoking resentment and resistance from the Avengers.
Even Venom had been easily stripped away by him and turned into his weapon. He had even become an enemy of the entire Avengers, violently beating Thor, controlling Captain America, and easily overturning the Avengers...
These achievements were enough to show how dangerous Doctor Octopus was.
As for why he had appeared here... The red mist explorers were not only superheroes. There were also curious super criminals who wanted to discover what the red mist was.
This suicide squad included Doctor Octopus, Mysterio, Vulture, Lizard, the Dark Lord, and other villains interested in science and magic. Fully armed, they had entered the red mist.
They had thought they could easily come and go, take some samples or record some data, then leave. But the result was...
General Ross, transformed into Red Hulk, had appeared in front of the team. Eroded by the red mist, General Ross had become like Doctor Octopus now, roaring with a strange laugh and seeming to repeat someone's name.
Before Doctor Octopus could continue thinking, Red Hulk smashed the attacking Lizard with one punch, sending his brains flying everywhere. Then he picked up the body and began biting into it.
The rest of them wanted to fight Hulk and rushed forward one after another. Mysterio tried to use his superb chemical illusions to interfere with Hulk's nerves, but he did not expect that General Ross, whose mind had long since become chaotic, did not rely on his eyes to perceive the things around him at all, but on instinct.
For an ordinary person like Mysterio, who had no superpowers, General Ross's punch made his body explode. The rest of the group was not spared either and were defeated one after another.
Only a few escaped, but what awaited them... was the same fate as General Ross.
Doctor Octopus murmured and urged the mechanical arm behind him to grab Hank, but Hank nimbly dodged.
The steel tentacle swung hard against a car like a whip, knocking it several meters away.
Hank anxiously climbed up. Seeing the power of that blow, his pupils shrank slightly, and he let out a threatening roar.
His eyes were fixed on Doctor Octopus. He had no time to wonder why the man had appeared here. All he could do now was defeat him, otherwise it would be impossible to leave.
"Uh..." Not far away, Hill groaned in pain. Her legs were pinned beneath a huge stone, her arms bruised and scraped, blood-red skin exposed beneath dirty dust. Her fair skin had been replaced by gray and red.
As her chest rose and fell violently, her breathing quickened, her heart rate accelerated, and she inhaled the red mist even faster. Almost half of Hill's eyes had been stained scarlet.
She wanted to reach out and grab the pistol that had fallen to the ground, but she was trapped firmly in place and could not move.
Hank rushed toward Doctor Octopus, but was knocked away by a single blow and crashed into an unknown store, where he lay motionless.
Hill watched helplessly as Doctor Octopus approached step by step. She could even smell the pungent scent of blood on his steel tentacles, as if in the next moment, he would slice away her face bit by bit...
Swish!
A beam pierced through Doctor Octopus's body, and a ray of golden light enveloped Hill. It was warm and comfortable. The red mist in her body was quickly dissolved like acid, struggling wildly as it escaped from Hill's body...
Hill did not know how to describe that scene, but when she later spoke to Nick Fury, she said,
"It was as if I saw the sun breaking through layers of dark clouds and descending before my eyes..."
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