I Became Spider-Man's Cousin in Anime Crossover

Chapter 568 [3 Chapters Combined] Riley: Watch me play the sweetheart and trick her!

Xiaoyu was silent for a moment, then looked up at Riley standing in the center of the ward. Before Riley could speak, she asked, "Shouldn't we leave now?"

Clearly, even though Xiaoyu had a lot of questions, the constant alarm sounds echoing in her ears were enough to make her realize that now was not a good time to sit down and have a chat.

"Don't worry, the space carrier won't crash... The talisman I had Silly Girl bring you should already be on you, right?"

Riley smiled confidently upon hearing this. He walked slowly to Xiaoyu and gestured meaningfully in response.

Xiaoyu didn't ask any questions. She reached into her pocket, rummaged around, and took out six talismans, handing them to Riley.

Clearly, Riley hadn't expected that despite having completely restricted Amora's abilities and maintained a magical defense spell, Amora would still forcibly switch bodies with her, allowing Riley to successfully outmaneuver her...

However, the moment Riley learned that Xiaoyu had been seriously injured, he sensed something was wrong and made preparations in advance.

After all, Xiaoyu is a chosen one, favored by both righteous and evil forces. She is someone who could escape unscathed even if she were to venture alone into Hell, where eight great demons are sealed.

So when Riley learned that Skorch had been able to severely injure Jade, Riley understood...

This must be the work of dark energy.

The purpose was to seriously injure Xiaoyu, to make her suffer a little but not to the point of death, and at the same time, to use this as an opportunity to reasonably and temporarily leave the front-line camp.

To prevent Xiaoyu's activity from interfering with Amora's subsequent plans.

Just like Amora's originally flawless infiltration plan in District 13 was easily seen through by Jade.

If Xiaoyu were to appear in the command room unharmed...

Amora would probably be recognized by Xiaoyu and arrested on the spot before he could even carry out his next plan after the body swap.

Given that Xiaoyu could be seriously injured, Riley, who already had a history of being successfully ambushed by Mr. Negative, immediately realized...

As the core figure on the positive side, I am highly likely to be the next target of the negative forces.

Moreover, it's highly likely that it's a dark trick, completely unreasonable and impossible to defend against.

Therefore, Riley, who seemed to spoil his child without limits, actually entrusted the six most practical of the twelve talismans to Jade for safekeeping, with the intention of keeping a backup plan.

Given Riley's current situation—having lost his original body and completely severed his connection with the system, resulting in a significant reduction in his strength—...

Riley's decision was undoubtedly a success!

"So it didn't work after all... Oh well, it's enough for now."

Of course, after Riley regained the six talismans from Jade, his first reaction was to take out the Horse Talisman. He attempted to use the Horse Talisman to expel the external magic and return himself to his original body.

Unfortunately, it's unclear whether the rules of the Infinity Stones are far superior to the twelve talismans, or whether the magic of the Horse Talisman simply cannot affect the soul level...

Riley tried several times but couldn't retrieve his body. With a helpless sigh, he bent down and pressed the hand holding the horse charm onto the floor.

In an instant, the magic of the Horse Talisman spread from Riley's location to the entire space carrier.

The silvery-white light wasn't dazzling, but it seeped in like mercury, penetrating every crevice and seeping along the broken cables, layer by layer, caressing every broken drive shaft. At a speed visible to the naked eye, it repaired every damaged area of ​​the space carrier.

Meanwhile, trusting Riley, he chose to split up with him. Led by Natasha, Banner, who had found Nick Fury ahead of time, also noticed the changes occurring on the Helicarrier. He immediately assisted the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in regaining control of the massive vessel.

The smell of burning gradually dissipated in the silver light, and the piercing alarm sounded from sharp to gentle, and then fell completely silent.

The red emergency light overhead flashed twice before being replaced by the cool white main lighting.

The corridor brightened again, the ship stopped shaking, returned to a stable hovering state, and rose into the sky again, like a reactivated aerial fortress.

"Done. It's all thanks to the talisman."

After a brief wait, until he received good news from Banner through the communicator, confirming that the Helicarrier had temporarily escaped the curse of the "Never Falling" title, Riley sincerely sighed and kissed the Horse Talisman.

Then, as Riley handed the six talismans back to Xiaoyu, he seemed to remember something, turned to look at the silly girl, and asked curiously.

"By the way, silly girl, now that it's confirmed that I am 'Rie Parker'... can you transfer your functions to me now? I mean, to this body I'm in now."

Upon hearing this, the silly girl frowned slightly.

A rare hint of embarrassment flashed in her large, bright eyes.

After a brief silence, the silly girl, who had tried several times without success, hung her head like a child who had made a mistake and responded with a pitiful expression.

"No, Riley. Although Silly Girl knows that you are the real Riley... the person who entered the login password for this service is your original body. Silly Girl's core system rule is to obey the instructions of the person who entered the login password. This underlying code was completely locked from the moment Silly Girl was born, and there is no backdoor to bypass it. Therefore, Silly Girl must obey the orders of another 'Riley,' and cannot transfer the functions to you. Unless the other 'Riley' personally asks Silly Girl to transfer the functions to you."

"Tsk, I knew it... It's okay, silly girl, it's not your fault, I was just too careless."

Fortunately, Riley, as a time traveler, was familiar enough with the abilities and characteristics of the silly girl. When he asked the question, he already had a general idea in mind.

So, after receiving a direct answer from the silly girl, Riley wasn't too discouraged. After a moment of contemplation, he immediately devised a new plan.

"If I'm not mistaken, Amora's knowledge of me comes mostly from publicly available news reports. Since you've never appeared in public, Amora shouldn't know of your existence... In that case, your responsibility for the next operation is to stay behind the space carrier and prevent Amora from suddenly teleporting over to launch a sneak attack. Before Amora is captured, or before your energy runs out and you automatically shut down, you must avoid any direct contact with her."

"Okay, Riley, silly girl understands."

Riley's words of comfort turned the silly girl's mood from gloomy to cheerful. When she looked up, she had a beaming smile and nodded earnestly in agreement.

"Very well, so next, we will..."

"Wait a moment!"

Just then, Felicia, who had been by Xiaoyu's side, but whose mind had gone blank due to the overwhelming contrast of Riley appearing as Amora, finally managed to process and accept the absurd reality.

Seeing Riley's calm and unperturbed demeanor, seemingly unconcerned about the changes in her body, Felicia, a terrifying thought flashing through her mind, instinctively stood up, her beautiful eyes wide with surprise.

"Even a talisman can't turn you back, so doesn't that mean..."

"Riley, you're not going to be trapped in this body for the rest of your life...?!"

Upon hearing this, Riley subconsciously looked down at his current appearance.

The sight of a vast expanse of white left Riley speechless for a few seconds.

Then, Riley shrugged, gave a slightly helpless smile, and replied in a serious tone.

"Who knows... If I can't find a solution, I can just switch professions completely and become a mage. Anyway, this body's adaptability to magic isn't much worse than my original one, and its lifespan is much longer. If I just follow the mage path, it seems like there's still a lot of room for growth, so it's not a bad deal..."

In his words, Riley, who was usually so shrewd, seemed to have truly resigned himself to his fate.

After all, the rules of the Mind Stone have such a high priority that ordinary magic simply cannot break them.

Unfortunately, after Riley hid the Mind Stone in the system's storage space, no one could retrieve it before he switched back to his body unless he actively revealed the system's existence to Amora.

This vicious cycle led Riley to accept that she had been forcibly swapped bodies and had no hope of ever getting her original body back.

Moreover, in Riley's view, as Peter and the others gradually grow into superheroes capable of standing on their own, he himself could, in most cases, simply lie low and do nothing.

Since she no longer needed to rush to the front lines and face various unexpected crises, Riley didn't have any particular feelings about whether she was male or female.

Although the excess fat on her chest made Riley feel somewhat uncomfortable.

But once they adapt, staying behind to take care of the little ones and, at the appropriate time, offering advice and pointing out the direction to move forward is perfectly sufficient.

With that thought in mind, Riley, while responding to Felicia's question, couldn't help but imagine the wonderful daily life he would lead after a peaceful retirement from the dangerous profession of superhero.

Upon closer reflection, Riley found herself inexplicably a little hopeful.

After all, Riley had been busy all his life and never had the chance to experience firsthand what it's like to retire at home, lie around and collect a pension.

"What? Oh! No—!!!"

"No, no, no! That won't do!"

Just as Riley was envisioning his leisurely retirement, Felicia and Jade, upon hearing his reply, reacted as if they'd been stepped on, their voices rising an octave. Their faces flushed almost instantly, and they frantically waved their hands in front of them, vehemently denying it.

"You absolutely have to find a way to turn back! Riley! You'll definitely find a way, right!"

"Exactly! That old hag Amora, what right does she have to possess your body! She doesn't deserve it at all!"

"Besides... and if you give up your original body, wouldn't the world lose a Spider-Man? That would be such a waste! Spider-webs, spider-sense, wall-climbing ability—those are all your signature moves! We absolutely can't let Amora benefit from them!"

"That's right! That's it! Let's get going! The sooner the better! We'll go get your body back right now!"

After she finished speaking, before Riley could respond, Jade and Felicia got up and ran out of the ward.

Judging from their posture, they are most likely preparing to launch a Quinjet fighter jet and head straight for the New York battlefield.

Riley was truly taken aback by the two girls' decisive and assertive demeanor.

He stared at the door panel, which Xiaoyu had slammed against the wall, broken in half at the joint, and bounced back, still trembling slightly. It took him several seconds to come to his senses.

These two little girls really care about his affairs.

They weren't even worried about it, but the girls were already getting angry.

It seems that all the pampering I've given them over the years hasn't been in vain.

In their hearts, they still quite approve of themselves as "older brothers"!

Thinking about it this way, a smug smile unconsciously appeared on Riley's face.

That was the standard "My child has become sensible and knows how to care about me" smile of an old father.

Loki, who had been silently observing the situation, crossed his arms, tilted his head, and thoughtfully watched the direction Jade and Felicia had left.

He then turned his head, his green eyes reflecting Riley's smug smile. After a moment of silence, he sighed silently at Riley's profile and shook his head.

Riley is indeed terrifyingly strong. In a direct confrontation, there are probably only a handful of people in the Nine Realms who could rival him.

However, Loki now realizes that this guy's emotional intelligence is also shockingly low, even lower than his own brother Thor.

At least that big oaf knew he should take the initiative to pursue girls, even if his methods were as clumsy as cracking walnuts with a hammer. But at least he knew he was pursuing them.

And this guy in front of him—the two girls were blushing so much that they couldn't even speak properly, yet he actually understood it as "the younger sister acknowledging the older brother."

This isn't just slow-witted; it's downright stupid.

Indeed, the world is fair. You gain something, you lose something else.

……

Let's turn to the other side of the story.

Just as Riley had feared, after successfully escaping the Helicarrier with the help of Kaecilius, Amora, relying on her identity as "Riri Parker," disguised herself as a research team with Dr. Asakura, who was on standby, and the henchmen responsible for transporting materials, and successfully entered Stark Industries.

During this time, because Jarvis's main program was taken to the Helicarrier by Tony, only a routine security subsystem remained in the building. After recognizing Riley Parker's biometrics, the access control system, facing the "master" with the highest authority, gave Amora the green light all the way, allowing her to enter and exit every area inside Stark Industries.

At this moment, on the ground floor of Stark Industries.

The large arc reactor, powered by the new element, was emitting a steady, deep hum. A pale blue light flowed across the arched dome, illuminating the entire underground space like a temple sunk to the bottom of the sea.

At the core of the reactor, a fist-sized crystal of a new element is slowly rotating. With each pulse, it releases enough pure energy to power the entire Manhattan power grid.

Directly in front of the reactor, Dr. Asakura had already connected the portal activation device.

It was a massive machine created by a mix of Asgardian and S.H.I.E.L.D. technologies.

Two main energy conduits were inserted directly into the reactor's output port. A continuous stream of blue light flowed into the core of the start-up device through the conduits.

The main body of the device, inlaid with the Tesseract, was placed on the top floor of Stark Industries.

It's worth mentioning that the new element originated from Howard Stark's research on the Cosmic Cube. The resonance and compatibility between the two is even more stable than Amora had anticipated.

Even without iridium as a stabilizer or the Mind Stone's energy support, the energy output of this large reactor alone is enough to keep the portal opened by the Tesseract stable open for a long time.

Now, Amora is just one step away from completing the mission entrusted to her by Thanos.

Across the vast sea of ​​stars, by anchoring the coordinates of the Chitauri army, a portal can be opened over New York.

However, this task sounds simple, but it is much more complicated and troublesome to do than finding a needle in a haystack.

Moreover, the Earth is not staying still; it is being pulled by the Sun's gravity and is hurtling through the universe at a speed of 630 kilometers per second.

Meanwhile, the relative distance between the Chitauri fleet in distant deep space and Earth needs to be calculated directly using astronomical units. Any angular deviation of even one micrometer will be magnified into an error of at least tens of thousands of kilometers.

In this scenario, accurately pinpointing the location of a fleet would require simultaneously solving hundreds or even thousands of variables. The computational load would be enough to make the CPU of any supercomputer in the world start smoking.

If the Mind Stone were still intact, Amora could have used its power to establish a long-distance mental connection with the Chitauri commander. The two sides could have cooperated—one on the other side of the universe actively transmitting a location signal, while the other on Earth would capture the signal and lock onto the coordinates—reducing the anchoring process from astronomical figures to just a few minutes.

However, after Amora escaped the space carrier, she searched Riley's clothes inside and out, even taking apart the soles of his boots, but she still couldn't find the scepter inlaid with the Mind Stone. She couldn't figure out where Riley had hidden it.

She couldn't even sense that unique energy fluctuation from Riley, the one that belonged only to the Mind Stone! It was as if this one-of-a-kind Infinity Stone had vanished from the universe into thin air!

She thought it was utterly absurd.

Those are Infinity Stones! No matter how strong Spider-Man is, how could he possibly do something like that in front of her!

Unless, this body is hiding some special ability that I haven't discovered yet!

Based on Amora's investigation and understanding of Riley, Riley must have already guessed her intentions and is rushing this way. There's simply not much time for Amora to slowly uncover the secrets hidden in this body.

Amora still hasn't figured out how to use that weird gadget that shoots spider silk!

Meanwhile, Casillas, one of Amora's Earth allies and a master of spatial magic, was severely injured in his previous encounter with Riley.

Barely managing to stay alive and provide Amora with two or three short-range teleportations at crucial moments had already exhausted his remaining strength. There was no way to expect him to open a series of portals and teleport the Chitauri army over like in the final battle of Avengers: Endgame.

Left with no other option, Amora could only place her hopes of successfully opening the portal on Dr. Asakura.

This scientist, brainwashed by the Mind Stone, had participated in numerous S.H.I.E.L.D. research projects on the Tesseract and had thoroughly tested the energy flow of the Space Stone. He is undoubtedly Amora's only remaining hope for salvation.

Right now, Dr. Asakura is sitting in front of the control panel, the increasingly bright blue light of the Cosmic Cube reflected in his glasses.

The Ark reactor's output power has been pushed to 98 percent of its theoretical peak, and the cooling system is humming under high load.

Meanwhile, the energy fluctuations of the Cosmic Cube are sending search pulses into the depths of space every three seconds. Each pulse generates a dense stream of data on the screen in front of Dr. Asakura.

"Tsk... Still not done?"

"I'm sorry, Master, the conventional anchoring process requires too much computation, and our current hardware is simply insufficient. However, the Cosmic Cube itself possesses energy tracking capabilities. It can act as a beacon, tracking energy signals similar to itself in reverse. As long as we can capture the energy frequency remaining on the Mind Stone on the Chitauri fleet, theoretically we can skip most of the computational steps and directly pinpoint the location of the signal source."

Faced with Amora's clearly impatient urging, Dr. Asakura responded quickly, but his eyes never left the data waterfall on the screen.

"I'm trying to use the Cosmic Cube to perform a full-band scan, comparing all the captured anomalous signals one by one. But the Cosmic Cube's scanning range is too wide, from near-Earth orbit to the edge of the Milky Way, making signal filtering much more difficult than expected. If I'm unlucky, it might take several days, or even months, to roughly... wait, I think... I've already captured a signal source that meets the criteria?"

Just then, Dr. Asakura suddenly stopped speaking.

His eyes widened immediately as he looked at a data box in the corner of the screen.

There, a set of frequency data that had just emerged from the scan results was beating steadily and continuously, perfectly matching a theoretical model that he had repeatedly drawn in his research notes over the years.

Clearly, whether it's the timeline's self-repair or the dark forces running out of steam, they've secretly intervened once again...

The search process, which would normally take a long time with only a slight chance of success, was completed in just over ten minutes, successfully pinpointing the coordinates of the Chitauri fleet!

Dr. Asakura's lips twitched slightly, a hint of helplessness flashing in his eyes. His lips moved silently, as if he were making a complaint, before his gaze returned to its blank and vacant state, and he continued speaking in a serious tone.

"Calibrating signal source difference data and performing secondary confirmation... Confirmation complete, coordinates anchored, portal ready to open at any time."

"It actually succeeded? So quickly?"

Amora was also taken aback upon hearing this.

The unease on her face vanished instantly, replaced by the calm, cruel smile befitting an enchantress. She spoke softly, as if greeting an old friend, with a hint of anticipation as she gave her command.

"The guests must be getting impatient... Now, open the portal."

"It's time to bring this party to a fever pitch!"