"There's a great guy here."
Renzo flew through the air, his body completely transparent. This was an ability he had developed with the Mind Stone. Although he couldn't make himself larger or smaller, he could still use both phasing and invisibility. But Renzo swore on his conscience that he had never entered a bathhouse or restroom. He was a gentleman.
All information about Anne Weying on the Internet had been blocked. Renzo had tried to find surveillance footage from the road where the accident occurred, only to discover that all the cameras along that route had been erased and replaced. Even the dashcams had disappeared. Not only the one in Dan's car, but also the one in the vehicle that had collided with him. Renzo tried using the Mind Stone to probe the other driver's memories, only to find that the man's brain had been tampered with so extensively that Renzo was left speechless.
Helpless, Renzo had no choice but to repair the driver's brain, pretend to be a doctor, and ask him what had happened beforehand. Seeing the man's confused eyes, Renzo knew he wouldn't be getting any useful information from him.
So he connected to the city's surveillance cameras, pulled up footage from the three days before and after the accident, and replayed it in his mind again and again, hoping to find some clue. The process was unpleasant. The massive, complex flow of information battered his current brain. Compared with the supercomputers he had once used, even the processing power granted by the Mind Stone had its limits. His body could no longer bear the strain.
Two streams of blood burst from his nose, forcing him to suspend his search.
But what could a pair of naked eyes accomplish?
Renzo flew over the suburbs. He had been searching around San Francisco for two days, yet he had not sensed any unusual life signs. Moreover, he had never seen Annie since arriving here, and he didn't know her aura well enough to track her by instinct.
So he came to the suburbs. He remembered that when he had first appeared in the old Spider-Man universe, he had landed in the suburbs. When he traveled to the X-Men universe, he had also appeared on a remote yacht. In the 838 universe, it had been even stranger—he had appeared directly on Titan.
According to the original movie, Venom and the other three symbiotes had also landed in the woods outside the city. Perhaps the mysterious symbiote would appear there this time as well. Renzo thought he might be able to find some clues.
In fact, that was exactly what had happened. Contempt had taken Annie into the outskirts, very close to where the spacecraft carrying Venom and the others had landed six months earlier—only about a thousand meters away.
The wreckage of the landing pod had originally been recovered by Drake's Life Foundation, and after a period of surveillance, the site had been restored to its original state. Later, the Life Foundation had collapsed along with Drake's death, and all its assets had been seized by the government. However, they didn't know about this location. Drake had deliberately erased all records of where the symbiotes had first appeared. He had wanted to claim such powerful life forms for himself and turn them into weapons.
Unfortunately, the ambitions of Drake and Riot had been defeated by Eddie and Venom, and their plans had come to nothing.
Contempt pitched a tent in the woods.
Yes, she actually pitched a tent!
There was no other reason than the fact that the woman beside her was too noisy. She had never encountered such a loud and fearless woman before. In fact, Annie was also the first human woman she had ever met.
Annie had been afraid of Contempt at first. Although Venom, a relatively kind symbiote, had left a good impression on her, Riot's cruelty had frightened her even more. For the first two days, she remained extremely cautious, afraid that she might anger the alien creature and become its next target. She had seen Venom eat people, after all, and he had once been attached to her body.
She had no idea where the head Venom swallowed had gone. Fortunately, she hadn't felt anything in her throat.
But after spending several days together, Annie instinctively felt that this purple monster had a temperament similar to Venom's. Contempt was more rational and intelligent, and she didn't seem inclined to eat people's heads for no reason. Moreover, she had absorbed a large amount of electronic equipment. Judging from what she had said, information seemed to be her primary source of nourishment.
Contempt's personality was much stronger than Venom's or Riot's. She was also smarter and more rational, though she possessed far more scheming tendencies. Unlike those irrational symbiotes who knew nothing but fighting, she had relied on her intelligence even on the symbiote homeworld.
Her brain had essentially become a supercomputer, much like Vision's, though its performance was slightly inferior. After all, the technology available in this universe had clearly not reached Tony Stark's level, let alone Wakanda's. Among the technology available through the Internet, her capabilities were at the highest level on Earth, but compared with the vast universe, they were insignificant.
Still, on this small and remote planet, it was more than enough.
Contempt casually glanced at the woman sitting on a tree stump. A bright bonfire burned between them, its warm light illuminating both figures. Annie straightened her back and glared at Contempt before turning away and tossing a few twigs into the fire.
As the only unusual symbiote on the entire planet capable of surviving on electronic components, Contempt was almost immune to sound and fire.
Why almost?
Because sound waves and flames could still hurt her, but they were far less effective than they were against ordinary symbiotes. Instead of killing her on contact, they merely caused ordinary wounds that would heal on their own after a while, no different from knife cuts or gunshot wounds.
This was also why she had volunteered to be sent to Earth. Gnar had determined that all four symbiotes previously sent to Earth were either dead or out of contact. Of course, for an ancient and arrogant god like Gnar, escaping his control could only mean one thing: if the symbiote had truly broken free, then it must have died.
Being able to kill the symbiotes...
Gnar believed it was impossible with Earth's technological level. Unless humans had truly discovered the symbiotes' weaknesses, killing them would be nothing more than wishful thinking.
But this conceited god had been completely wrong.
He never expected that a symbiote would actually break free of his control and join forces with a human it had known for only a few days to resist the world it had been born into.
Perhaps Venom simply loved peace. Under Eddie's influence, his simple and kind nature had transformed him from a violent brute into a good-hearted creature with intermittent bouts of insanity. He liked Earth. He didn't want to destroy his homeworld, so Venom had chosen to flee and remain silent.
He probably never expected that Venom could kill Riot, just as Peter Parker—who had never been bitten by a spider—might somehow defeat Flash Thompson.
Contempt raised her head. Her superhuman perception sensed an inexplicable aura. Their frequencies were almost synchronized, causing their brainwaves to resonate. Contempt suddenly saw strange sights: people and objects she had never encountered before...
A golden-red armored man lifting an entire city; red-and-blue figures swinging between skyscrapers; a red-haired woman clutching her head and laughing wildly...
What were these...?
Contempt stood there blankly. Countless colors and images flashed across her eyes. An enormous amount of information crashed into her mind like thunder, washing through her consciousness in a torrent. The astonishing scenes left the young symbiote bewildered, while the bizarre experiences broadened her horizons.
Renzo slowly descended. Annie looked at the strange man falling from the sky in surprise, then glanced toward the dazed monster. She didn't know Renzo, and she instinctively wanted to rely on the familiar monster beside her. She didn't know why—perhaps it was a woman's intuition, or perhaps simple sympathy between two women—but Annie was more willing to trust Contempt.
"Don't be afraid. I'm here to save you."
"Save me?" Annie looked wary. "I don't need saving. I'm fine."
"But the others aren't. Dan and Eddie are very worried about you," Renzo said. "Eddie is looking for you like crazy. He searched all over San Francisco but found nothing. Dan didn't even go to the hospital. He came looking for Eddie, blood all over his shirt, and passed out after telling him what happened."
Annie froze.
"The people closest to you are looking for you, yet you say you don't need saving. I don't know what kind of person you are. Eddie and Dan have listed plenty of your good qualities."
There wasn't much else they could do. What could an ex-boyfriend and a current fiancé talk about? Sitting on the sofa and chatting was about the limit. Only the woman they both loved could awaken their desire to talk—to discuss the woman they loved, reminisce about their sweet memories, casually trade stories, feel jealous of one another, and then eventually return to the subject of getting her back.
How could Dan not mind Annie's past with another man? But his love for her allowed him to accept his lover's past.
How could Eddie simply give up on his lover? Yet clinging to someone who no longer loved him would be unfair to her. Eddie had spent the past six months in a slump. So what if he possessed enough power to stand against anyone? After losing her, his heart was filled with emptiness. There would always be a space inside him that belonged to her.
In the movie, Annie had been a brave and sensible woman, but seeing her with his own eyes, Renzo felt somewhat dissatisfied. Her attitude was too casual, as though someone owed her something. That wasn't how a person should speak to a stranger who was trying to help.
Renzo lowered his eyes. His tall frame allowed him to look down at the woman in front of him.
"I don't owe you anything. You'd better correct your tone and your attitude. If Eddie weren't worried about you, I wouldn't care whether you lived or died."
"You only need to answer one question now. Are you willing to go back with me? Yes or no."
Hearing the man's calm, indifferent tone, Annie suddenly realized that what she had said might have been excessive. But she still glanced at Contempt. The symbiote remained embedded in place like a statue, her pupils flashing constantly with streams of data. She had yet to finish processing the enormous amount of useless information Renzo had given her.
Renzo's brain could withstand far more than Contempt's. He had poured information from various universes and the planet Xandar into her mind. The information from parallel Earths alone was manageable, but the data from Xandar was simply too vast. It contained information spanning half the universe, and even Contempt would need time to process it all.
"She won't wake up for a while," Renzo said. "I don't know what happened between you two these past few days—the bizarre story of a human woman falling in love with an alien monster, beauty and the beast and all that—but you'd better consider what matters more."
Renzo pointed at Contempt's body.
"She's an alien, an invader who came to Earth without permission, and there's a monster from her homeworld hiding behind her."
"She's not bad! She's just like a person. She even saved Dan!" Annie retorted.
"Ma'am, I don't care who she saved. Eddie risked his life to stop Riot and get the message back, but she still came here. If you don't want Eddie's efforts to be in vain, you'd better see the situation clearly and come with me."
Renzo opened a blue whirlpool portal.
"Go through here. It leads to Eddie's home. Your fiancé will be there."
Annie hesitated. This concerned the entire Earth, and her one-sided understanding of Contempt was beginning to waver. Perhaps because of her experience with Venom, she firmly believed in kindness. But under the protection of Dan and Eddie, her awareness of danger had gradually weakened.
Perhaps the appearance of Riot would make the brave woman return.
But right now...
She was simply a happy woman about to get married.
Boom!
An electromagnetic cannon blasted Renzo away, and Contempt woke from her short circuit. She picked out a few useful memories from the countless useless ones.
For example, Black Renzo.
She had only experienced such pure evil once before—from Lord Gnar. And even that evil seemed inferior.
It was practically a collection of every evil in the universe.
When such a terrifying being appeared before her, Contempt's first reaction wasn't to run. It was to fight back and protect Annie.
"Run! He's not human!"
Contempt shouted, but realized her words were useless to the confused woman. She decisively merged with Annie, then fled the woods in two or three steps with her powerful yet flexible body. By the time Renzo stood up, their figures had already disappeared.
"Damn it!" Renzo cursed helplessly. "Are all superheroes' girlfriends this difficult?"
He flew into the air and chased after them.
Contempt and Annie disagreed. The woman loudly questioned Contempt's purpose in coming to Earth. Was she here like the uninvited guests before her, intending to invade the planet?
Contempt couldn't answer, because that had indeed been her original purpose. She had come as a vanguard to prepare the way for Lord Gnar's arrival.
But now she had changed her mind.
She had seen the courage of humanity through those chaotic memories. Everyone was fighting for what they loved, even when it meant risking their lives. Those memories were like thick, vibrant strokes of paint, leaving an indelible image on the blank canvas of Contempt's mind.
Blank paper was the easiest thing to stain.
Contempt suddenly felt something she could only describe as "approval" toward Venom's actions. She finally understood why Venom would betray his homeworld for an Earthling.
No!
Contempt shook her head violently, trying to drive the rebellious thought from her mind. But it was like a nail driven deep into her consciousness, refusing to budge.
Lord Gnar would kill her!
He would kill everyone!
"Hey!"
A golden beam struck Contempt, knocking her from the air and sending her crashing heavily into the trees. Several small trees snapped beneath her impact.
"I'm very unhappy with your behavior, so you'd better apologize to me."
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