Pain! Pain! Pain!
For the very first time, Zhang Tong experienced a pain that pierced straight into his soul.
His body felt freezing cold, a wave of nausea surged up his throat, and with every single beat of his heart, a sharp ache stabbed through his head.
In a daze, he reached out a hand, instinctively searching for the one thing that could grant him a sense of security—his ice-cold assault rifle.
Yet what his fingers touched was only a warm pillow.
"What... what is happening to me?"
Dazed and dizzy, he stumbled to his feet, massaging his throbbing forehead as he looked around.
This was a warmly decorated bedroom, where gentle moonlight spilled across the floor, casting a soft, hazy glow.
The room was filled with a long-lost tranquility that made him feel somewhat ill at ease.
This place was not Manhattan, which had long since turned into a purgatory; it was a room utterly unfamiliar to him.
There was no stench of smoke, blood, or steel; no piercing, agonizing screams; no filthy, hideous, and distorted infected creatures—only peace and quiet.
Perplexed, Zhang Tong surveyed the room while racking his brains, desperately trying to figure out why he had ended up in this place.
He could only recall that right before losing consciousness, the final image burned into his memory was a mutated corpse lunging straight at him.
Then came the sharp crack of a gunshot, followed by absolute darkness.
"Bang!"
As he sank deep into his memories, a sudden knock on the door snapped him back to reality.
Then, a woman's voice rang out.
"Peter! Are you planning on coming down for dinner?"
"What...?"
"Your Uncle Ben and I made your absolute favorite meatloaf. Are you sure you don't want to try some?"
After a moment of stunned silence, Zhang Tong replied, "I'll be right down."
Having no idea what was going on, he could only play along for now.
Pushing the door open, Zhang Tong stepped out and walked down the stairs.
In the living room, a middle-aged woman wearing an apron was taking a dish that gave off an enticing aroma straight out of the oven.
A middle-aged man with graying hair and glasses sat on the sofa, watching television.
Seeing Zhang Tong come down the stairs, the man smiled and said to the woman, "You shouldn't bother the boy. He's studying for his English exam tomorrow."
"Oh, come on, I don't think we need to worry about that. Our little Peter is a very smart boy."
The woman set the serving dish down and cast a loving gaze toward Zhang Tong.
Zhang Tong, however, paid no attention to her look.
At that exact moment, his gaze had fallen upon the mirror hanging by the landing.
Reflected in the mirror was the slender figure of a young man.
That was not his own body!
Suddenly!
A flood of memories rushed into his mind like a breaking tide.
The memories belonging to this body were forcibly imprinted into his consciousness.
A few minutes later, having digested the sudden influx of memories, Zhang Tong slowly raised his own frail hands and stared at them.
"Did I... cross over into the Marvel Universe and become Peter Parker?"
"The Spider-Man whose motto is 'With great power comes great responsibility'?"
He muttered under his breath, shifting his gaze back toward the couple.
The woman cooking must be Aunt May, and the bespectacled middle-aged man should be none other than Uncle Ben, who was destined to become a sacrificial lamb in the near future.
After offering a silent moment of mourning for "Uncle Ben," Zhang Tong took a deep breath, pondering his next move.
His attention, however, was quickly caught by a news report broadcasting on the television.
"The New York City Police Commissioner has promised the citizens that the NYPD will bring Spider-Woman to justice in the shortest time possible!"
Accompanied by the appearance of the female news anchor on screen, footage showed a figure in a black-and-white spandex suit—Spider-Woman—shooting webbing as she swung between skyscrapers.
Right behind her, police cars wailed their sirens in frantic pursuit.
The two sides were staging a thrilling, heart-pounding chase through the streets of New York!
"Spider-Woman?"
Staring at the television screen, Zhang Tong frowned deeply.
He vaguely remembered a certain parallel universe in Marvel lore where Peter Parker never became Spider-Man; instead, his girlfriend Gwen Stacy was bitten by the spider and became Spider-Woman.
And Peter Parker, taking the place of Uncle Ben, ended up becoming the sacrificial lamb who died in Gwen's arms.
Since Gwen Spider... had already appeared on television...
Does that mean he wouldn't get to be Spider-Man after all, and was instead destined to become an unlucky sap like Uncle Ben?!
After a moment of contemplation, he shook his head and walked over to the dining table.
He didn't care much about the matter anyway.
As a "Blackwatch" soldier who had walked straight out of blood and darkness, he had long since grown indifferent to death.
Before transmigrating into Peter Parker, he had been fighting in the world of *Prototype*.
Zhang Tong had originally been an ordinary office worker in China who tragically died of overwork from staying up late.
Upon waking up, he had crossed over into the world of *Prototype*, becoming a member of "Blackwatch"—an elite special operations unit under the United States Department of Defense.
This biological warfare unit was the most elite force in the entire United States, possessing formidable individual combat capabilities, absolute calm under pressure, and extensive experience in dealing with biological viruses. They were the ones responsible for completely eradicating a zombie-infested town.
The Department of Defense had been researching the "Blacklight Virus Project," but the virus broke out and spread across Manhattan, and "Blackwatch" was ordered in to suppress it.
As a veteran gamer, Zhang Tong naturally knew what kind of horrors awaited him in this chaos.
The "Blacklight Virus" had infected eighty percent of Manhattan's population, turning the majority into mindless zombies while transforming a small fraction into terrifying bioweapons.
An apocalyptic Manhattan had completely devolved into a hellish slaughterhouse.
Whether it was the elderly or children, hesitation meant pulling the trigger or meeting certain death.
Monsters surged forth in endless waves; the roar of gunfire could not stop them, only driving them into a greater frenzy.
Yet ordinary zombies and monsters were not even their greatest enemy.
That man in the black hooded jacket—the most powerful existence among the infected—had become a sharp blade reaping the lives of "Blackwatch" soldiers.
Every time the man struck, a burst of gore would erupt, and the soldiers would instantly dissolve into a bloody mist absorbed straight into his body.
Even though "Blackwatch" was equipped with rocket launchers, tanks, and heavy weaponry, they still couldn't stop his slaughter!
...
Exhaling a long breath, Zhang Tong pulled his memories away from the "purgatory of Manhattan."
He remembered being tackled by a mutated zombie right at the end...
Was it at that exact moment that he transmigrated once again, becoming Peter Parker?
He turned his arm over, looking at the exact spot where he had been tackled, and took a deep breath.
On the back of his arm was a bite wound.
Hideous and terrifying, bluish traces spreading outward like spiderwebs served as a grim reminder:
He had been infected with the "Blacklight Virus" by a zombie, and even after his soul had crossed into another world, this damned virus had followed him all the same.
The fate of a virus host was binary: either degenerate into a mindless zombie, or symbiotically evolve alongside the virus to become a powerful, self-aware lifeform.
"The Blacklight... Virus?"
After muttering to himself, he lowered his hands with a solemn expression.
He didn't feel excessive terror toward death itself.
His deepest concern was the potential spread of the virus.
He knew he was a selfish, cold-blooded bastard who wouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger even on women and children.
Yet a living hell like Manhattan was something he refused to experience a second time.
He could watch tens of thousands die with indifference, but he could never bring himself to slaughter tens of thousands with his own hands.
Just like the oath his drill instructor had made him swear back in the "Blackwatch" unit:
"When we hunt, we kill.
No one is safe, nothing is sacred.
We are Blackwatch. We are the last line of defense. We will burn ourselves to hold the line, and this is the last line that must be held."
The instructor who had administered that oath to him had later sacrificed his own life to save him during the "Manhattan Outbreak."
Zhang Tong held deeply complicated feelings toward that short-tempered sergeant who firmly believed himself to be a "champion of justice."
For the first time, he realized that the meaning behind that oath might not be so easy for him to bear after all.
Lost in a turbulent mixture of thoughts for a few minutes, he turned around and walked back toward the stairs.
"Sorry, Aunt May, Uncle Ben. I just remembered I have some things to take care of, so I'll skip dinner."
To prevent the virus from infecting the two of them, he chose to keep his distance.
Aunt May and Uncle Ben watched as Zhang Tong walked up the stairs and disappeared around the corner, worry etched across both of their faces.
After a moment, Ben picked up the serving dish, took a bite of the meatloaf, and narrowed his eyes.
"Delicious. The baking time is just right."
Aunt May pulled out a chair and sat down, asking her husband with concern, "Aren't you worried about Peter?"
Ben put down his knife and fork, shaking his head. "He's always so quiet. He just loves to think things through by himself."
Aunt May sighed heavily. "I don't like this at all. He used to be such a happy little boy."
"But now, he's a young man with secrets of his own. He'll grow up, just like his father did."
Ben smiled reassuringly at his wife.