Chapter 310: Sons of Satannish (3)

[Third Person's PoV] 

A blazing fist plummeted from the sky like a meteor, crashing down toward Spider-Man with fiery intensity. Reacting in an instant, Peter backflipped away just as the fist collided with the ground. Upon impact, a tidal wave of mystic flames erupted outward in a scorching blaze, engulfing the patch of grass in an inferno as it surged straight toward him.

With a burst of agility, Peter launched himself into the air, soaring higher than the rushing fire. Mid-flight, he shot a webline downward, yanking himself toward the ground. He spun gracefully midair, using the momentum to swing his leg outward in a vicious arc that slammed into a group of cultists with bone-rattling force. They were sent tumbling to the dirt in a daze.

As his feet touched the ground, Peter's body began to crackle with chi energy. In the blink of an eye, he split into three afterimages, each one moving in a different stance—one delivering a crushing dropkick, another twisting into a high roundhouse, and the third driving forward with a powerful punch.

The cultists had no time to react. Each image struck a different target simultaneously, launching them in separate directions. One smashed into an ancient headstone, another rolled across the mossy, overgrown grass, and the third landed with a painful grunt against a rusted fence.

Meanwhile, not far away, Nightwing was a blur of motion. He sprinted in wide, unpredictable arcs, using parkour and refined acrobatics to dodge the relentless blasts of mystic energy bursting up from the ground like geysers. Each bolt missed him by inches, erupting behind him with enough force to crater the earth.

As he moved, kinetic energy visibly built up inside his body—green arcs of discharge flickering across his limbs. Channeling the energy into his weapon, he supercharged his baton with his emerald chi and hurled it toward the ground with calculated precision.

"Any of you ever play Plinko?!" Harry shouted with a cocky grin.

The baton struck the earth and ricocheted at a seemingly impossible angle, slamming into the torso of a crimson-robed cultist. The impact hurled the target backward, and the weapon bounced once again—this time soaring high into the air, right as Nightwing performed a backward somersault through the sky with effortless grace.

"That's a hundred points! Let's see how high we can go!" he yelled, eyes gleaming with thrill.

The baton spun like a blur as it returned to his grip. He flung both of them outward in twin arcs, each finding its mark with brutal accuracy. The cultists they hit were sent tumbling like ragdolls, groaning as they landed in tangled heaps. Mystic bolts continued to fire, narrowly missing him as he twisted, ducked, and danced between them.

"Two hundred! Three hundred! Four hundred points!" he called out, counting each successful strike while leaping toward where his next baton would land.

Back on the battlefield, Peter spotted another cultist conjuring a glowing, circular shield of arcane energy. Wasting no time, he fired two web-lines, pulling himself forward like a missile. With his knees tucked in, he rocketed forward and slammed into the shield, his knee crashing against its surface.

The barrier cracked, but did not break.

Suddenly, the magic circle pulsed with an ominous glow and expanded outward, engulfing Peter entirely. A burst of explosive force detonated around him, throwing up clouds of smoke and heat.

Peter twisted into a curled backflip, landing in a low crouch—his signature spider-stance. Wisps of orange smoke coiled from his frame, and his suit was now lined with glowing, bright blue weblines that shimmered like lightning—kinetic energy visibly surging through them. These lines, normally invisible, were now burning with stored force, revealing the power hidden within.

Regular vibranium wouldn't have withstood such mystical fury. Fortunately, his suit had been specially enchanted by the Ancient One herself, infused with protective spells and resilience far beyond mere materials. Even so, he wasn't completely unscathed. The spell's heat had scorched through the enchantment—his skin beneath the suit glowed red, recovering slowly as the magic faded and his healing factor kicked in.

Peter winced slightly, then smirked. "Okay, gotta admit—those flames were pretty spicy~."

The cultist, eyes wide with disbelief, screamed, "Impossible! Those are the sacred flames of the Mighty Lord Satannish! You should have been reduced to ash!"

Electric sparks crackled along Peter's arms as he launched two quick webs to either side and pulled himself forward like a slingshot. "Maybe your lord isn't so mighty. Wanna know what is?" he asked, grinning.

With all his weight and speed behind it, Peter's foot smashed into the weakened shield, fracturing it like glass. "My foot!" he finished.

The blow crushed into the cultist's stomach, knocking the wind—and the spit—out of him as he went flying backward. He slammed into the ground and scrambled desperately to stop himself, clawing at the grass.

He coughed violently, wheezing in rage. "HOW DARE YOU?! How dare you speak his name in such a manner!?"

Snarling, he ripped the mask from his face, revealing furious, sweat-slicked, bloody, features as he forced himself upright, panting and trembling with fury.

"Say… are you all calling yourselves his sons because you've got serious daddy issues?" Peter quipped with a dramatic gasp, sidestepping a bolt of mystic fire. "Wait—don't tell me! This is actually a Daddy Issues Support Group, isn't it?"

"That can't be…" Aria's voice crackled in his earpiece, surprise coloring her tone. Her words drew Peter's attention as the HUD highlighted the cultist, launching facial recognition software in real time.

Her sudden outburst startled Peter mid-battle, causing him to pause. That was all the opening the cultist needed.

A blazing fist slammed into Peter's gut.

He grunted, the mystic flames licking at his stomach with painful intensity. The kinetic energy stored in his suit flared with brilliant light, reacting instinctively to the impact. An explosive force blasted outward from his suit like a shockwave, sending nearby cultists flying through the air before they crashed hard into the ground.

Peter rubbed his abdomen. "Ow. Okay—seriously—why the shout, Aria?! I swear, if I get a mystic-induced tummy ache because of you—"

"I'm sorry for startling you," Aria replied quickly, her voice tight with urgency. "But you have to see this."

Several files opened across his HUD. One focused on the cultist who had just hit him. He was older, with graying brown hair, a slightly twisted nose, sharp brown eyes, and eyebrows that seemed to bristle with age and fury.

The name on the file sent a chill down Peter's spine:

Name: Adrian T. Toomes

Date of Birth: 03/24/1973

Sex: Male

Date of Death: 02/20/2008

Peter's heart skipped a beat. "Adrian Toomes…? No way—he's supposed to be—"

"The Vulture," Aria confirmed grimly. "Yes. He is also supposed to be dead. When I first searched for him in this universe, every record pointed to a confirmed suicide. I thought that was the end of his story. I figured this world would simply never have a Vulture. But it looks like I was wrong."

Peter ducked under another magical blast, flipping over a cultist and landing beside Harry, who was receiving the same intel through his own HUD.

"Summarize!" Peter ordered as he somersaulted over a flaming arc and kicked a cultist aside.

"Right. Here's the short version," Aria began, her tone now solemn. "Adrian Toomes had a wife and daughter. One day, while he was at work, his wife went to pick up their daughter from school. On the way home, a drunk driver hit them both… They didn't survive."

Peter blinked in surprise at the intel. He and Harry kept moving, striking down any cultist who got too close as Aria continued.

"The drunk driver was the son of a powerful businessman," Aria said as she continued. "He was underage, wealthy, and completely shielded from consequences. No charges. No trial. No accountability. Adrian tried everything—he fought tooth and nail to bring the boy to justice. But the system failed him."

Peter blasted one cultist with an electrified web, the power surge so intense that parts of the cultist's robe burned away, exposing scorched skin beneath.

As Peter blurred into a flurry of afterimages and Harry unleashed a storm of chi-powered explosives, the battlefield began to tilt in their favor. Some cultists started to rise again, their flames burning through the webbing restraining them, but not fast enough.

"And after all that, after everything," Aria concluded softly, "Adrian left behind a suicide note and staged a public suicide. He hoped that, maybe with his death, people would finally listen. That justice might be found in his absence if it wasn't granted in life. The note said he did it because he wanted to be with his wife and daughter again."

Peter landed hard beside one of the downed cultists—Adrian. His figure was trembling as he tried to get back up. But Peter was already moving.

Adrian hurled bolts of raw magic in desperation, crawling backward on the dirt, eyes wide with fear and fury. Peter's spider-leg constructs burst from his back, slicing through or deflecting each attack with mechanical precision. Adrian's back slammed against a weather-worn tombstone—he had nowhere left to go.

Peter slowed, walking toward him step by step.

When he stood in front of the trembling man, he crouched, tilting his head thoughtfully. "Tell me… did you join this cult to bring your wife and daughter back?"

Adrian froze. His mouth opened slightly, the words caught in his throat. His eyes widened with disbelief. "How did you…?"

Then, suddenly, that shock gave way to rage.

"I did it for more than that!" Adrian spat, his voice shaking with fury. "It was for justice! The court refused to hear me! The bastard who took them from me, My Isabella and my little girl—he walked away free! No punishment. No remorse. If no one else was going to act, then I would. If the world would deny me Justice…Then I would take my Vengeance"

Another file flickered onto Peter's HUD: a missing persons report. The photo matched a teenage boy—the very one who had taken the lives of Adrian's wife and daughter. Gone without a trace.

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