I'm working on Marvel's Spider-Man in American comics.

Chapter 568 Cletus Casadi

Rikers Island, New York.

Although the Kang Dynasty Incident had occurred before, for most people in New York, it was something they had never experienced. Only Kingpin, who was involved in the entire incident, had a vague recollection of it, but because he was not involved in the final battle, the impression he had was not deep.

He remained in his cell, reading the newspaper and drinking tea, but Kingpin seemed to hear something strange. He went to the iron bars and looked outside, seeing a car drive into Rikers Island prison late at night. Kingpin frowned. Rikers Island primarily housed hardened criminals on death row and New York mob bosses. Its security level was far from sufficient to hold superhuman criminals.

Kingpin couldn't recall anyone in his own intelligence network making contact at this time. He sat back down on the edge of the bed, then quickly stood up and looked in the direction the car had gone.

That's the death row.

"Cletus Cassady, a serial killer, a psychopathic killer, the kind of guy whose crimes in the last century would have made him the prototype for a horror movie—but unfortunately, it's the age of superheroes now, and nobody cares about guys like that anymore."

"What crime?"

"Eleven counts of first-degree murder, 23 counts of second-degree murder, seven counts of felony murder, antisocial personality disorder, and schizophrenia—not multiple personality disorder. A lawyer once used a certificate of mental illness to exonerate him, and he turned around and killed the lawyer's entire family."

As the prison guard explained the situation to the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent beside him, he reiterated, "He's scheduled to receive the injection the day after tomorrow."

"The day after tomorrow? That should be 48 hours away."

Looking at the murderer in the cage, whose limbs were bound by heavy shackles and whose mouth was covered by a mask, the agent sat down next to Cletus after arriving there, looking at the death row inmate's puzzled eyes.

"Do you know you're dead? I mean, legally."

Cletus looked at him expressionlessly.

"Here's what happened: when we realized that the future was changing and many people's fates were being rewritten, we started to deal with, or rather, preserve some... essential materials, like you. I don't know why you're considered important in the algorithm, but today, I do."

Do you want to live?

The agent couldn't see the lower half of Cletus's face, but he saw the man's narrowed eyes, a look he recognized very clearly.

This man doesn't care about his own life or death; what he seems to care about is that he hasn't killed enough people yet.

“Very good.” After the agent finished speaking, he took out a small box. Inside the box was a syringe containing a red and black liquid.

“We’ve tried it on a lot of people, and many lunatics we thought had enough potential have died from its side effects. To be honest, this is the last one.” The agent said as he inserted the syringe into Cletus’s neck and pushed it in. “Hopefully you’ll succeed. If you do, you won’t die in two days. If not… you’ll die tonight. Good luck.”

Two days later, after doctors administered enough medication to cause Cletus's heart failure and confirmed his death, his body was placed in a refrigerated cabinet to await an autopsy.

In a sense… Cletus was indeed dead. But he sensed his consciousness still lingering, and he began to look back at his past, from when he killed his first person at age 13 until now. He told the police his true number of murders, but these incompetent cops couldn't find any bodies and could only give him a completely inadequate sentence.

He should have been executed at least thirty times.

"A... decent victory."

Unfamiliar sounds he'd never heard before surrounded him, and Cletus realized he was in a strange place. Everywhere he looked was a viscous, writhing mass of biomass, crawling across the ground and forming vein-like structures. There was a dim light, but no visible source of illumination.

He whirled around and saw that the thick biomass densely packed together formed structures of solidified flesh and blood, with enormous dragons crawling outside the structures. He looked up and saw a gaunt, pale-faced man sitting on a throne. His body was shriveled like a skeleton, with a red dragon pattern on his chest.

"Finally... I've left that damned spider totem, though not quite."

The man muttered to himself in a language Cletus couldn't understand at all, then looked at him: "Ah, never mind. Let's make a deal, mortal. You kill a few people for me, and I'll give you the power to kill anyone."

Cletus laughed.

He opened his eyes, feeling the scorching heat. Surrounded by enclosed metal walls, he felt the intense heat relentlessly burning his body, a pain that made him laugh with pleasure. Beneath his burning, acrid skin, thick, reddish-black biomass churned and bubbled out.

The crematorium worker who had just put the body into the incinerator seemed to have heard laughter. He approached the incinerator to listen, then dropped his shovel in disbelief and scrambled out. Then, a dull thud came from inside the incinerator.

Hey, hey, hey.

With a deafening roar of high temperature and terrifying banging, the incinerator finally exploded, and a long, red monster with incomprehensibly long limbs emerged from the flames, black biomass flowing from its body.

Cletus sensed all of this, then incredulously put away the new symbiote he had acquired. He saw his body, which had been charred by the incinerator, begin to recover to the extent of its severe burns, and the suture marks left by the dissection were still clearly visible on his chest.

"I only need to kill two people to kill countless others, that's really..."

The carnage covered Cletus's body. This symbiote possessed its own consciousness, but it was not yet mature and could not speak. It kept calling out a voice to its host.

He was very hungry.

Yes, I'm hungry.

How long had he been imprisoned on the island? How long had it been since he had killed anyone? Not only was his new partner hungry, but he was hungry too.

"Let's practice on a few homeless people first, oh wait, let's clean out the crematorium first, I can smell the living..."

(End of this chapter)