Chapter 1836: Madman's Journey (Part Twelve)_1

Three minutes later, Spider Man, standing on the rooftop of a nearby shop, spotted the wreckage of an area that once served as a stage for flash artists. It was wreckage because the props set up around the scene had been entirely destroyed by zombie flash artists and enthusiasts.

In an instant, Spider Man's gaze locked onto a shiny object under a collapsed rack. It was a piece of a camera lens, which suggested the main body of the camera would be found not far off.

However, despite a thorough search around the shard, there wasn't any sign of the rest of the camera. Just then, a zombie clad in a jacket turned around, revealing a bloodied camera lodged deep into its chest.

It seemed to have fallen in the midst of its escape, breaking the camera lens, while the corner of the camera had lodged itself into its chest. It had shortly after been bitten by zombies, but its remarkable vitality kept it from dying.

The problem now was that there were several zombies surrounding this particular one. Either he could leap down and knock them all down to forcefully snatch it, or he could resort to cunning tactics.

Just then, Spider Man's gaze fell onto a sewage drain not too far from the zombie mob.

Two minutes later, a pair of red and blue hands appeared from the drain. Like a demon, they violently grabbed a zombie by its ankle and dragged it into the drain with a "swoosh".

Fighting off his revulsion, Spider Man bashed the zombie's head and broke its spine with stones from the sewer before reclaiming the camera.

As the smart camera lacked film, Spider Man could only hope that the preview screen had merely run out of power. He crawled out of the sewer, took care of the two zombies in the coffee shop, and managed to charge the camera.

He sighed with relief when he saw the start-up screen. Flipping through the camera, he indeed found many photos stored inside.

The scene at the time had been chaotic. Not long after an unidentified object had fallen from the sky, the Avengers had charged onto the scene, only to be turned into zombies. The nearby civilians were not spared either.

Luckily, this zombie virus could only be spread through bites and not airborne like some games or movies might suggest. Therefore, although the Avengers had been turned into zombies, it still took them some time to infect everyone around. Some civilians managed to escape.

The camera managed to capture another flash team enthusiast sprinting to safety and disappearing around a nearby corner. Spider Man had a hunch that this person was likely the one who had submitted these photos to several major media outlets.

Continue flipping through photos, Spider Man finally saw in the corner of a picture what had fallen from the sky — a zombie sentinel.

It had ruthlessly infected all the Avengers members in the area. Spider Man zoomed in on all the captured images of the heroes getting infected, but on one of the photos, he discovered a barely noticeable detail.

It was a picture of Wasp Woman just as she got bitten in the neck by the sentinel. But in the background of the picture, there was a tiny spaceship against the sky in the distance.

Spider Man enlarged the photo again and again and eventually recognized the symbol of Wakanda on the side of the spaceship.

Black Panther was there too? But why had he just been watching?

Spider Man instinctively felt something was off and thought this was an extremely important clue.

Had Black Panther landed or had he simply left in his spaceship? If he hadn't landed and zombies had chased him when he'd flown away, might he be the one who ultimately survived?

Believing he was onto something important, Spider Man decided to go to where the Wakanda spaceship had appeared.

Using three-point positioning, he figured that Black Panther's spaceship was over Times Square – a place that was now nothing more than a terrifyingly difficult heap of corpses.

Regardless, Spider Man was determined to head towards Times Square, camera in hand. He didn't realize that all this time, Helen had been lost in her thoughts, wearing a thoughtful expression.

Stark and Shiller continued towards the base of Stark Building. They encountered a few monsters along the way, most of which Shiller took down. Apart from the occasional nuisance of the ghosts, it had been no big trouble.

But Stark, a regular human who had been injured in his brawl with Shiller, felt he needed a break. He wanted to clean his wounds with water to avoid infection and, preferably, bandage them.

Around the 40th floor or so of Stark Building was still a research facility, its confidentiality and security levels were lower than the top floors. Perhaps this was why no documents needed destruction, and no powerful zombies had shown up.

Stark knew this was their last chance to resupply because just 40 floors below was the employee office area packed full of zombies. He was considering if there was any way to bypass this section.

They found an empty lab and dealt with the monsters inside. Stark washed his face at the sink, removing the blood on his head and arms.

He looked at Shiller who shook his head, letting the viscous blood remain on his forehead. Stark gave up and looked around, fetching a pack of tissue from a drawer. After wetting it, he began to wipe away the blood on Shiller's face.

Facing Shiller enabled him to see what was going on behind him. While wiping Shiller's face, Stark suddenly noticed a red light blinking on the wall.

Used to uncanny occurrences by then, the blinking light seemed nothing more than some paranormal activity. But then the logic in his mind returned. He realized that the blinking light wasn't erratic like a ghost would be, but rather seemed like a piece of electronic equipment.

Stark vaguely remembered the layout of Stark Building having an emergency communication device installed in every lab. They were there for emergency contact during any incidents.

Since these devices were for emergencies, they each had their independent power source. Even when most of the lighting and power systems were out, the emergency communicators still had power.

Stark initially didn't want to interfere, figuring that the emergency communicator was probably just an evacuation notice, but the flashing red light was really getting on his nerves.

Stark, having a slight touch of OCD, threw away his tissue and walked towards the communicator. He first hit the mute button to avoid making noise that would lure zombies, before pressing the answer button.

What shocked him, though, was the face of Black Panther showing up on the communicator.

"This is an emergency communication being sent to Stark Building, I am Black Panther, the King of Wakanda…"

"Tony! Tony! Pick up the phone!!!"

Black Panther inside the screen seemed very anxious, he quickly said: "While I was delivering a public speech in Times Square, I saw members of the Avengers turn into zombies in Central Park, New York and I couldn't get through to you on the phone, and Jarvis isn't responding to me either."

"If you already know about this, please figure out a way to stop them! I can see a horde of zombies approaching here, there are many people in the square right now and I need to go down and evacuate them…"

The communication was cut off with a sizzling noise. Stark forcefully pressed a few buttons but there was no response from the emergency communication device. Clearly, this was an outdated message. Stark punched the wall in frustration, sighing.

His relationship with Black Panther was good. They shared similar temperaments and intellect, and from the content of the communication, it was clear that Black Panther must have met an unfortunate end while trying to evacuate the civilians.

Just as Stark was about to turn around, feeling slightly sorrowful, a faint electrical sound coming from the communicator caught his attention.

He instantly turned back, his eyes fixated on the blinking red light on the communicator. He suddenly remembered that this was the emergency communication device of Stark Building. How could it possibly have the static noise of a normal radio?

Stark stared at the communicator, then he realized from the blinking light on the screen that it was actually another communication, only it was shot in complete darkness without any spoken words, just ambient noise. Therefore, it sounded like static noise left over after the communication was cut off.

Stark quickly wiped his wet hands on his clothes, looking around for something. Shiller pulled out a screwdriver from his pocket and handed it to him.

Stark's eyes widened, deciphering from Shiller's gaze the sentiment 'I initially wanted to stab you with this'. He felt a rush of fear but couldn't afford to care about that right now.

Stark Industries' products actually didn't have any screws on them, but Stark knew where to pry it open, yet it was quite strenuous. In the end, Shiller had to help him open the casing.

Stark fiddled around inside for a while and pulled up the records of the emergency communicator, then he found that the last communication record which matched with what he heard from Black Panther's communicator was from approximately twenty minutes ago.

"T'Challa is still alive, he's still alive! What I mean is, it's very likely that he hasn't turned into a zombie yet!!"

Before Shiller could speak, Stark quickly explained as if to convince himself, "Stark Building has been in trouble for so long, Iron Man hasn't come back yet, meaning he's very likely turned into one of those ravenous monsters, too busy eating to come back and check."

"It is known that Iron Man has turned into a zombie, so if Black Panther has also turned into a zombie, they would be on the same side. Black Panther wouldn't need to go to such lengths to contact Iron Man, he could simply find him directly or even just call him."

"But if Black Panther just hid away and didn't turn into a zombie, then he wouldn't be able to confirm whether Iron Man had turned into a zombie or not, so he'd very likely be trying to find a way to contact Iron Man."

"But he worries that Iron Man has already turned into a zombie, so he can't speak clearly, only hinting at it like this because if Iron Man has turned into a zombie, although he may still retain his intellect, he would certainly be influenced by hunger, and wouldn't give a second thought to the final static noise. Only a clear-minded Iron Man would notice this."

"There's another possibility." Shiller started, "He might be in a very desperate situation, totally out of breath, only able to press the replay button on the communicator."

Stark stared at him directly.

"You know something else, don't you?" Stark slowly approached Shiller and asked, "I'm not talking about your prophecies as an outsider. You know more information about the situation of this world!"

Greed in the Tower of Thought sighed. Propped on the railing he mumbled, "...I knew you'd figure it out."

Atop a skyscraper in Times Square, New York, Spider Man sighed, looking at the Wakanda mini spaceship that landed in front of him. The spaceship didn't crash, which meant the Wakanda group had voluntarily disembarked.

Spider Man speculated that the Wakanda group, who had been conducting activities at Times Square, noticed the disturbance taking place at Central Park, New York, and thus, disembarked voluntarily in an attempt to evacuate the public, but ended up annihilated by the arriving zombie Avengers.

Even so, Spider Man decided to board the Wakanda spaceship. The significance of having a spaceship in this situation was clear without having to say it. Spider Man had visited the ship before, so he was confident he could get it to take off.

What puzzled Spider Man was that the door of the spaceship was not closed, he and Helen easily walked inside.

The next moment, Spider Man's pupils contracted sharply.

On the wall of the spaceship's hall was a line written in bright red blood -

"THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME"