MC Creative Mode: Wholesale Perpetual Motion Machine

Chapter 278 Healing the Zombie Spider-Man

A figure emerged from the dark alley.

Fang Zheng stood quietly, his gaze sweeping over this new world, and murmured, "Another unknown collection?"

"It's quite close to the group where Batman is."

Fang Zheng's brows furrowed slightly as his gaze swept over some unusual trace at the street corner. He then looked in one direction of the city and walked slowly towards it.

New York at sunset is a desolate city.

Fang Zheng walked among the broken walls and ruins, his gaze calmly penetrating the rubble to look at the shocking black bloodstains in the high-rise buildings and beneath the ruins.

Scattered among the rubble are faintly visible gruesome bite marks and fragments of human remains. The once bustling city is now nothing but devastation.

A suffocating silence filled the air, with only the howling wind. Sunlight and shadows intertwined on the cold surface of the high-rise building, and the expansion and contraction of heat caused the steel bars inside the building to make faint sounds like marbles, as well as the sound of Fang Zheng's own footsteps.

Apart from that, there were no other signs of life.

Whether it was the pet cats and dogs that were once everywhere, the rats and insects cowering in the corners, or the lush trees and grass that were once part of Central Park...

Even the bacteria and fungi deep in the soil, which have survived mass extinctions for millions of years and symbolize eternal vitality, have disappeared without a trace.

Look, in the ruins of those collapsed high-rise buildings, you can vaguely see the broken bones of a child being devoured alive by a starving mother.

Look, in those abandoned, dark alleys, lie the remains of humans, devoured by wild dogs and cats.

Look, deep in Central Park, in an ant nest, the queen ant is being eaten by worker ants, and the worker ants are killing each other.

Look, in the laboratory footage buried deep underground, even single-celled life forms under a microscope are frantically devouring each other...

Everything seems to have gone completely mad.

Devouring their own kind and devouring those of different kinds is no longer for survival or reproduction, but purely to fill that endless hunger.

After being satiated, the body stopped growing, as if achieving some kind of eternity.

The old cells have died but are not completely dead, and new cells are no longer being born.

They no longer reproduce because they have become "immortal".

Every existence that can be called "life," from single-celled to multicellular, from animals to plants, has been devoured by endless hunger without exception, leaving only eternal death.

The afterglow of the setting sun was still intense, and the heatwave swirls up dust from the ground.

Fang Zheng stood on the wide street, in the middle of a jumbled pile of vehicle wreckage, looking up at the top of the Empire State Building.

"Ahhh..." In this deathly silent city, the only sound came from a being that might not even be called a life, who was wailing endlessly.

"Aunt May...Mary Jane..."

He wore a filthy spider suit, but beneath it lay no skin; his bald head revealed rotting muscles and withered, dirty teeth.

"Why...why can't I help myself? Why am I so damnable, yet I've survived?"

Spider-Man Peter Parker kept wailing.

His seemingly decaying muscles and bones maintained a peculiar state of decay over the long years, neither rotting nor recovering.

He stood atop the Empire State Building, attempting time and again to leap from the top and end this decaying and degenerate existence.

However, his physical instincts and the deep-seated obsessions of his soul erupted time and again, forcibly preventing him from taking his own life.

He could not die of his own volition; he could only hope for the power of time.

Wind, sun, rain, lightning... hoping that nature can gradually wear down this immortal monster.

Perhaps, one day, as the last zombie and the last carrier of the virus in this universe, he will be able to meet his true death and sleep under the erosion of time, allowing this demonic existence to gradually fade away from this world.

But before those long years, he could only wail and reminisce.

Recalling my youth, recalling the days when I was Spider-Man fighting crime...

Then came the nightmare of becoming a zombie and eating Aunt May and his fiancée Mary Jane alive...

Memories of the long process that devoured the entire universe, the endless slaughter, the indulgence in consuming life for the sake of hunger, and the deep despair and pain after a brief moment of satiation...

After another round of wails, the zombie Spider-Man's spider-sense suddenly detected something.

He suddenly looked down at the crossroads and his gaze met that of a boy who was looking up at him.

A living person?
An overwhelming fear instantly gripped his soul.

Instinctively, he leaped down, his right hand outstretched in the air. Several rotting veins shot out from the gash in his wrist, sticking to the wall of the building next to him like spider silk, cushioning the force of his fall and allowing him to stop steadily in mid-air, blocking Fang Zheng's path.

"No...don't...continue..." Indistinct words came from his rotting mouth. His distorted face, filled with chaotic emotions, stared intently at the seemingly ordinary young boy in front of him.

His confused thoughts made it impossible for him to understand why there would be a human being, a child, standing here on this empty Earth.

But then, the vague words quickly became clear.

A supernatural force caused his wisdom to return rapidly.

He looked at Fang Zheng's intact clothes, which represented a well-developed industrial system; he looked at Fang Zheng's calm and fearless eyes, which represented his confidence.

The spider senses didn't detect any danger signals, meaning the boy posed no threat to him.

Where did he come from?
Are they travelers from a parallel universe?
Or a time traveler from the past?
Or perhaps, a transcendent being like an "observer"?

Spider-Man was momentarily unable to assess the situation, but at that moment he had only one thought—

We must never let this child experience this terrible nightmare!

Then he said clearly, "Child, whether you came to this universe through superpowers or some kind of high technology, stop here! Before it's too late!"

"Before I... feel hungry again!"

However, Fang Zheng did not react to his warning. He just looked at him quietly, then stepped forward and said softly, "You are in pain."

"Don't come any closer!" the zombie Spider-Man shouted.

“You are very sad,” Fang Zheng continued, stepping forward again.

"I told you not to come any closer, didn't you hear me?!" Zombie Spider-Man took two steps back, wary.

"Let's give each other a hug." Fang Zheng took a step forward and got closer to the presence that exuded a decaying aura.

"You!" Zombie Spider-Man's eyes instantly revealed extreme fear.

As this vibrant, flesh-and-blood body drew near, a hunger hidden deep within my soul erupted like a volcano.

"I don't want to eat people anymore! I really don't want to eat people anymore!!!" he screamed hysterically, his right hand suddenly forming a claw as he tried to grab the "fresh meat" that was so close to him.

But the left hand was faster, immediately grabbing the right wrist and twisting it back tightly. At the same time, more veins began to spurt from the left wrist, trying to escape immediately.

However, it was too late. A warm embrace had already tightly held his rotting, stinking body.

Feeling the fresh, raw flesh right before his eyes and smelling the tempting scent of life, Spider-Man felt a deep-seated terror. He even hallucinated the crunching sound of his teeth chewing raw meat.

The fear left his mind blank, and he stood there frozen for a few seconds.

When he finally realized what was happening and was at a loss, he suddenly noticed a strong and familiar heartbeat, like a war drum, resounding in his long-forgotten chest and even his entire brain.

"Ugh?"

Fragments of extremely distant memories slowly surfaced like a tide.

This familiar heartbeat is as natural as the nose that everyone sees in their peripheral vision when looking ahead, yet subconsciously ignores – it's all too natural.

Peter Parker, who had just been bitten by a mutated spider and gained superhuman senses, couldn't sleep well for the first few days.

His heightened senses allowed him to clearly hear the roar of cars on the distant street, the whispers of neighbors upstairs and downstairs, and even the beating of his own heart and the twitching of his internal organs as they digested food.

But how long has it been since I've heard such a sound?

His body stopped functioning after being infected by the zombie virus.

The heart stops beating, and the food eaten cannot be absorbed; it simply accumulates in the body.

That heart that no longer beats has become a dispensable piece of fat; whether it's removed or left, it makes no difference.

"Me?" He hesitated, his stiff lips moving with difficulty. This thing, which he hadn't had for so many years, made him feel a strong sense of foreignness on his face.

With a "smack," Spider-Man reached out and slapped his face, touching that familiar yet unfamiliar smooth skin, and that warm, living flesh.

"You!" Spider-Man stared at the boy in front of him with extreme astonishment, muttering helplessly, "Could it be that you cleared... no, you cured the zombie virus?"

Fang Zheng stood with his hands behind his back in front of him, a gentle smile on his face: "I've healed you."

"While it may not be entirely accurate, it is certainly a form of therapy for you, at least."

"You're Spider-Man Peter Parker, right? Would you be interested in telling me your story?"

At this moment, the dim setting sun had just sunk below the horizon, and in the sky that was not yet completely dark, a bright moon had already risen, casting its cool light.

"Waaaaah..." Spider-Man, unexpectedly reborn, found his face brimming with tears. He could no longer hold back, collapsed to his knees, and sobbed uncontrollably, his cries echoing through the deathly silent city...

(End of this chapter)