Chapter 20: Possession of Tony

After shaking off Peter, Bren drifted like a ghost above the city of New York.

From a distance, this metropolis looked indeed luxurious, like the very veins of the starry sky.

"Too bad... up close, the glamorous exterior hides the dirt and crime underneath," Bren sneered.

To the rich who stand at the top of society, New York truly is the world’s capital, an imperial city. The wealthy revel in endless nights of parties and excess, spending their money and desires until the break of dawn.

But for many others, the bustling world is separated from them by an insurmountable divide!

The bright lights in the distance don't belong to them; the dark and damp corners beneath those lights are where they gather, the places they call home.

The towering skyscrapers, as tall as mountains, press down on those at the bottom, suffocating them.

Those living in the lower levels once dreamed of prosperity and worked for it, but in the end, this massive city cruelly shattered their dreams, trampling them underfoot.

The glamour of this city always belonged to a select few.

The magnificent New York is New York, and the New York full of crime and violence is still New York.

It's the same city, but what people see and experience is entirely different.

What’s even more tragic is that the prosperity of this elite few is built on the suffering of those at the bottom.

They stand atop their towering buildings, devouring every piece of flesh from ordinary people, drinking their blood, crushing their bones, sucking every drop of marrow, and leaving behind withered corpses to build up the city.

Every brick in this city, every cent spent, is soaked in blood!

But those who built the city will never be its masters!

Just like Uncle Ben and Aunt May, who work tirelessly, only to live in poverty, and this situation is nearly impossible to change. Those born in the slums will likely forever struggle in the muck.

In this glittering city, they’re like cockroaches scurrying around.

"But it’s different now!" Bren’s eyes gleamed with a ghostly fire, "I will change all of this!"

However, the change he wanted wasn’t for the city, only for his own family.

Of course, he knew it wouldn’t be that simple.

Once he had made his fortune, those who held massive amounts of money and power would come for him like sharks sensing blood, intending to swallow him and his company whole, leaving no value behind.

Just like our poor Connors.

He had spent over a decade researching cross-species gene inheritance, only to end up as a pawn for Oscorp.

Bren thought of Connors because he was passing by the top of the Oscorp Tower at that very moment. He saw Connors clutching his arm, painfully and helplessly crawling into a taxi.

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It seemed this poor doctor had become the first test subject in Oscorp’s human experimentation, trying to stop them from further experiments.

"Does that mean Connors will become Lizard tonight?"

Dr. Curt Connors was a rare talent, and maybe one day, Bren could recruit him into his company.

"Not just Connors, but Dr. Otto Octavius is also an excellent scientist," Bren mused, already considering Lizard and Doctor Octopus for potential future ventures.

Both of these men had wanted to use their inventions for the benefit of the world, but fate had played with them, turning them into villains.

However, although Bren was thinking this, he didn’t immediately follow Connors.

In his view, Connors, as Peter’s first villain, was perfect for the job.

There was no need for him to intervene just yet, as he had his own matters to attend to.

Leaving Oscorp behind, Bren moved in the opposite direction from Connors.

Not long after, he arrived at another famous New York landmark, a building far more extravagant than Oscorp Tower and the tallest in the city—the Stark Tower.

Ever since he had stolen the suit from Tony, Bren had been eager to get his hands on the Ark Reactor and study it.

Cold fusion had always been a theory, and Bren was keen to discover how Tony had managed to bring it to life.

"Even Obadiah couldn’t replicate the reactor, so it’s clear the technology behind it must be incredibly advanced."

Bren passed through the outer glass of Stark Tower, his form now semi-transparent, blending seamlessly with the darkness. If one didn’t look closely, they wouldn’t notice him at all.

In addition to the reactor, Bren was also intrigued by Stark’s artificial intelligence.

Stark: ????

Is he just going to keep taking advantage of me?

Jarvis was an AI of extremely high caliber, so much so that over time, it developed near-human emotions and thinking patterns. In contrast, Friday, the later AI, was much more rigid.

Given time, Bren could use his own tech to replicate both the AI and the reactor, but with existing technology available, the process would be much faster.

Though it was night, a few employees were still working inside Stark Industries.

They were the corporate slaves, who could make even a dog shake its head.

Bren headed straight for the top floor.

At the top of the building was Tony’s private area, his workspace.

Most of Tony’s inventions and creations were designed there.

But to Bren’s surprise, Tony was still at Stark Tower at this late hour.

“This guy, not off to sleep with cover girls, but stuck here working?” Bren thought, confused.

Luckily, Tony didn’t hear him or he’d surely be furious.

Bren also didn’t know who had taken his armor, forcing Tony to build a new one.

“Sir, there is a lizard man on the Williamsburg Bridge,” Jarvis said, bringing up surveillance footage.

The moment Tony heard the word "lizard," he instantly dropped everything he was doing, rushed to Jarvis’s side, and grabbed a glass of chlorophyll juice.

Then he frowned. “What is this thing?”

At first, he thought Heatblast had shown up again, but the creature in the footage resembled a miniature Godzilla.

“This thing is almost as disgusting as the chlorophyll juice!” Tony took a sip of the green drink, grimacing. “Damn dinosaurs, making me drink this crap.”

“But on the bright side, Heatblast’s theft of your suit has slowed the spread of the palladium poisoning,” Jarvis reasoned.

Indeed, Bren had caused the palladium element in the reactor to leak, but thanks to the loss of Tony’s suit, the spread of the poison had slowed down.

Since Tony’s new suit wasn’t ready, he could only stare helplessly.

“Damn it, I should’ve prepared some backup suits for emergencies.” Tony drank the chlorophyll juice in one gulp, and suddenly, he noticed a strange figure in a red and blue suit passing through the footage.

“What is that?”

Just as he was about to ask Jarvis to slow down the footage, his body froze as if struck by a spell.

No one noticed that a semi-transparent, milky white shadow had slipped into his body.