**Chapter 27: A Responsibility Too Heavy to Bear**

Making Peter become Spider-Man "according to history" was Atreus's strange insistence.

Of course, he knew he was being a bit ridiculous. If zombie heroes from the zombie universe could come through, then it wasn't impossible for a legion of Spider-Men from multiple parallel universes to gather together.

Just thinking about how the three Spider-Men sharing the screen in *Spider-Man: No Way Home* could turn into a mess made him feel strange. Maybe it was better to add another Peter Parker Spider-Man in advance?

That's why he secretly snuck into Gwen's room and, upon luckily discovering the mutated spider hadn't died, chose to lure this world's Peter over.

Everything was a choice of the "Steins;Gate" of fate!

However, enhancing the Lance sisters with some extraordinary bloodline powers was already on Atreus's agenda.

This fused world was too damn dangerous. It seemed that normal humans who relied mainly on martial arts would simply become cannon fodder by the mid-stage. Fortunately, with Atreus's relationship with Tony, if push came to shove, getting a couple of Iron Man suits to protect them wasn't out of the question.

As a "money-powered" person, when things get tough, you go for tech.

Meanwhile, Gwen was distraught. Out of her instincts as a researcher, she had collected the remains of the mutated spider Peter had swatted to death, preserved them in ice, and was visibly conflicted.

After brushing off her mother's questions, she returned to her room, mumbling to herself repeatedly:

"Damn it! That idiot! How did he get himself into this mess?"

"Hasn't he caused me enough trouble already?"

"What if he becomes Spider-Man too?"

"Should I team up with him?"

"No, no, no! That guy is a bit unreliable."

After a very conflicted dinner, Gwen decided to pretend to go back to her room to study, then sneak out to find Parker.

The black-and-white Spider-Woman suit clung to her body, and the mask with large eye patterns might seem a bit silly to others, but it covered Gwen's face well.

She first checked Peter's room as usual, and sure enough, he wasn't there. Gwen began to expand her senses, searching for Parker everywhere.

She guessed right—Peter had started mutating right on the bus.

Suddenly waking up from an unexpected sleep, Peter jumped to the roof of the bus in a panic, causing chaos. Helplessly, he got off the bus in extreme panic and hid in an abandoned factory.

Astonished by his changes, Peter began experimenting with Spider-Man's various abilities, like the tiny barbs on his fingertips that allowed him to climb vertically up walls, or the webs shooting from his wrists…

"Heavens! Isn't this Spider-Woman's ability? Could it be... Gwen is Spider-Woman?!" Overjoyed, Peter quickly pieced together the truth.

While Peter was ecstatic about gaining new powers and breaking free from his boring, frustrating position as a weakling, Gwen suddenly made a discovery.

"Clack!"

The sharp sound of a brick striking nearby caught Gwen's attention.

She quickly turned around and cautiously whispered, "Peter?"

This was the rooftop of an abandoned factory. The only iron staircase leading up here had long been broken due to age. Gwen doubted an ordinary person could climb up here.

Likewise, Gwen couldn't mistake the sound of Spider-Man's webs sticking to stone walls.

Behind a triangular gable, Gwen heard faint footsteps.

She placed her hands on her hips and called out somewhat irritably to her childhood friend behind the rooftop, "Peter! I don't know how to tell you. This was all an accident. I got bitten by that mutated spider and ended up like this. Now it seems you're the same… I don't know what our future holds, and I don't know if this power is safe. But anyway, let's figure it out together."

"G-Gwen..." Even though Peter's voice was raspy with an unsettling, creepy tone, it was unmistakably Peter's voice.

Peter's creepy act made Gwen a bit angry. She put her hands on her hips and raised her voice: "What's with you? Are you blaming me for this? Even if I hid the spider, doesn't mean you're not at fault! You shouldn't have entered my room in the first place! It's a girl's private space! Privacy! Do you get it? Don't blame me entirely for getting bitten."

There was no reply, only a weird, heavy breathing sound.

It sounded like Peter was working an old, hole-ridden bellows.

"Hey! Peter! If you've got something to say, come out and say it. It's 90-10, or… no, 80-20! You get 20, I get 80!"

Just then, Gwen saw Peter's messy hair poking out from the rooftop.

But for some reason, Gwen felt something was wrong.

"Thump! Thump! Thump!"

That was her heart beating wildly!

"Clang!" The next second, a hand wrapped in a red web-patterned glove grabbed onto the steel frame of the roof, but it felt unnervingly stiff and rigid.

Peter poked half his head out, and it was indeed his face, with that big forehead Gwen could never mistake.

"Peter, what's going on? Did your mutation go wrong?" Gwen's heart skipped a beat.

She became anxious. If she successfully mutated while her childhood friend Peter failed, she would never forgive herself.

Even though every sensory organ was sounding alarms, intense guilt drove her to approach him in a daze.

"Peter! I—"

"Gwen..." If Peter's earlier mumbling had some warmth, his raspy voice now had a chilling, hellish hunger to it.

Gwen froze suddenly: No! This isn't a hallucination! He looks like he wants to eat me!?

Her nerves tensed to the extreme, and she immediately stopped, standing five steps away from Peter.

The night wind carried a thick, rancid stench. Gwen's pupils shrank to their limit.

Something was wrong!

This Peter was definitely not right!

Even in the dim light, with Spider-Woman's night vision ability, Gwen finally saw how off this Peter was.

Not only were his limbs on all fours, pressed low against the roof like a real spider, but his face was also decaying!

It wasn't the kind of fresh decay where flesh just started falling off due to toxic gas; his decayed parts had clearly been that way for a long time, with even moss-like growths on his torn cheeks.

He had lost his nose, leaving a terrifying triangular hole in the center of his face.

When the top half of his face—what remained of it—came into Gwen's view, she couldn't help but scream.

"Ahhh—"

After all, Gwen had only recently been a high school student, dealing mostly with ordinary street thugs. She had never encountered a real monster.

Her extreme tension and fear pushed her into an uncontrollable scream.

In the split second she lost her focus, zombie Peter lunged at her.

When she finally reacted, dodging and leaning back, his foul-smelling claw had already grabbed her hood.

"Rip!"

Gwen was incredibly grateful that her homemade suit wasn't of high quality. Not only was the hood completely torn off, but a large section of fabric from her left shoulder blade area was also shredded.

Even worse, this terrifying Peter followed up with another swipe.

Gwen pushed off with her feet and, in a split second, launched herself into the air, barely avoiding having her abdomen torn open.

Gwen's eyes widened—he really wanted to kill me!?

Fear, confusion, and heartbreak!

A multitude of conflicting emotions flooded her mind.

If not for the fear that she couldn't predict zombie Peter's moves and would die, Gwen wouldn't have stared at her childhood friend's decaying face.

"Peter, I'm sorry! I, um…" Gwen blurted out an apology.

**Facing the next wave of attack, Gwen felt like she couldn't catch her breath as each strike came faster than the last.**

With no other choice, Gwen shot out a web from her right hand, flinging herself away.

Whatever had happened to Peter, she needed to get out of there first.

But just at that moment, two blobs of webbing came flying at her. With three quick snaps, the most unbelievable thing happened—one of the webs blocked Gwen's own web, which she had aimed to stick to the opposite building, while the other two hit her left and right hands in mid-air, completely sealing her web-shooting ability.

Mind you, Gwen had just flung herself out into the air!

"Ahh—" Gwen screamed as she fell.

This was the fourth floor!

Gwen made every effort to adjust her posture mid-air so she would land on a trash bin.

"Bang!"

The intense pain that shot up her back almost knocked her out.

It was purely through sheer willpower that she managed to struggle back up and start running!

No one knows Spider-Man better than Gwen.

Zombie Peter preventing her from shooting webs effectively disabled her quick escape ability.

Gwen knew that when dealing with Spider-Man, ordinary people were of no use; she had to find an ally, one powerful enough to handle Spider-Man.

The first person she thought of was Iron Man, as he was the only superhero in New York with a publicly known identity.

However, Tony was probably in his Florida mansion at the moment?

She had no time to think further, as several more blobs of web came flying at her.

She narrowly dodged them but realized that zombie Peter, using Spider-Man's high mobility, was swinging between the buildings behind her in hot pursuit.

Gwen, in a panic, grabbed anything within reach and threw it at zombie Peter behind her, but it was completely ineffective.

With her senses fully alert, Gwen finally detected a powerful presence.

Without caring about anything else, Gwen sprinted across an entire abandoned street block and finally reached an open area.

"Huh?"

"Hm?"

There, standing before her, was a bald, muscular man with a goatee and pale skin, sporting a strikingly religious red lightning tattoo across his body.

---

*(End of Chapter)*