Dr. Connors has no intention of remaining human!

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Why had Hawk worked so hard to become stronger?

Wasn’t it so he could take his fate into his own hands?

Oh.

Now anyone could simply walk up and demand his blood?

Ha.

In their dreams.

It had only been Gwen just now. If it had been anyone else, Hawk guaranteed that the moment the needle touched him, he would have blown the man’s head off.

However...

Gwen paid no attention to Hawk’s quip. Instead, she looked again at the blood analysis report that had just been printed.

Other people might not have understood it, but she did.

And precisely because she understood it, Gwen could not help drawing in a sharp breath.

Nearly every one of Hawk’s blood readings was off the charts.

His white blood cell count alone had already reached the highest value the equipment could display. The true figure might even have been higher.

What did a white blood cell count like that indicate? It meant that Hawk possessed an extraordinarily powerful and efficient immune system—one capable of recognizing and destroying virtually any foreign invader in an instant, whether viruses, bacteria, parasites, or anything else.

It also explained his astonishing ability to recover.

Gwen once again remembered the day of the laboratory accident. She had clearly seen Hawk’s hand bleeding, yet in the blink of an eye, it had healed completely.

And then there were all the other readings...

In short, if Gwen had not personally drawn the blood from Hawk’s finger, she would have assumed the data was fabricated simply by looking at the report.

Because these were not figures a human being should possess.

“I once saw Captain America’s blood test results online.”

“Hawk.”

“Your readings are even more exaggerated than his. You haven’t been injected with the Super-Soldier Serum too, have you?”

Gwen could not help looking at him. Once mutation had been ruled out, the only remaining possibility was an injection of the Super-Soldier Serum.

Unfortunately—

Hawk merely shrugged.

“No.”

“All right.”

Seeing his response, Gwen decisively dropped the subject. She tore the report in her hands into pieces, then thoroughly cleaned the machine inside and out. Finally, she rinsed the test tube under the faucet three times before throwing the thoroughly soaked, softened scraps of paper into the nearby trash can.

She eliminated every possibility that anyone else might accidentally discover the report or the blood sample.

Hawk watched her finish and let out a quiet laugh.

“Is it really necessary to be so nervous, Wen?”

“It is.”

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Gwen looked at Hawk with an unusually solemn expression.

“I have no doubt that if your readings were exposed, you would end up on an autopsy table.”

Hawk raised an eyebrow.

“That depends on whether they can catch me.”

They could try and see whether they were capable of catching him.

Hawk would not mind turning their attempt into a one-way trip to the grave.

After all, he had already crossed the line into killing.

As he had said before, killing was no longer a question of whether he would do it. The only question was how many people he would kill.

But Gwen’s expression did not soften because of his words. If anything, she looked at him even more seriously.

“Hawk!”

“Hmm?”

“Never let anyone find out about your blood readings.”

“...All right.”

Looking at Gwen’s grave expression, Hawk thought for a moment, then nodded.

Only then did the sternness on Gwen’s young face ease somewhat. As they walked out of the laboratory, she changed the subject.

“What do we do now?”

“What?”

“Dr. Connors.”

“It has nothing to do with us.”

Hawk shrugged. “We didn’t cause him to turn into a lizard monster. For all we know, Dr. Connors has already fled to Mexico.”

Gwen considered this and nodded.

“That’s possible.”

“Forget about him. What class do you have this afternoon?”

“French. You?”

“Geography.”

Talking about their afternoon schedules, the two of them left the Stark Three Laboratory Building behind.

And just like that, three days passed in a flash.

During those three days, the public frenzy surrounding the lizard monster gradually died down.

After all, ever since the creature had appeared on the Williamsburg Bridge that day, it had not been seen again.

Everyone assumed that the military had either captured it in secret or that it had already fled New York City.

Peter, New York’s friendly neighborhood hero, thought the same.

But...

In reality, the Lizard had never left. At that very moment, he was hiding in the underground tunnels just five blocks from Midtown High School.

New York’s sewer system contained platforms spaced at regular intervals.

The Lizard’s temporary hideout had been established on one of those platforms.

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But Dr. Connors had now returned to his human form.

After experiencing what it was like to be a powerful, indestructible giant with all four limbs intact—even if his appearance was hideous—how could he willingly return, once the effects of the drug wore off, to being a crippled man incapable of defending himself?

Perhaps Dr. Connors had initially injected himself with the regenerative serum because he did not want the board of directors to experiment on those already unfortunate disabled soldiers.

But Dr. Connors had now awakened to the truth.

There was nothing wrong with being human. Yet being a lizard man meant being stronger than ordinary people, more powerful than ordinary people, and possessing a freedom far beyond anything an ordinary person could imagine.

So Dr. Connors made a decision.

He would no longer be human. He would become a lizard man permanently.

To accomplish that, he first had to determine why the one successful laboratory mouse had survived.

For those three days, he had remained here watching the recordings from his laboratory.

Finally...

As the hypnotic mechanical hum of electricity passing through the equipment sounded intermittently in his ears, Dr. Connors—his body filthy and his forehead slick with sweat—suddenly brightened. His eyes locked onto a frozen image on the screen before him.

There it was.

The tailless white mouse, licking blood from the floor.

Dr. Connors rapidly rewound the footage. Before long, the image came to a halt at the moment Hawk pulled his hand back from in front of Gwen.

“Hawk!”

“It was him!”

The moment Dr. Connors saw the image, his entire body shook. Then he began trembling uncontrollably.

They were tremors of excitement.

He had once formed a favorable connection with Hawk, and Dr. Connors believed that if he called him, Hawk would surely give him some blood to study.

That was what he thought—and that was what he intended to do.

But just as Dr. Connors was about to take out his phone, a voice suddenly rang inside his mind, or perhaps beside his ear.

“No. He won’t give it to you. Someone with blood that powerful would never hand it over to you.”

“...”

Listening to the whisper that seemed to echo both within his mind and beside his ear, Dr. Connors’ gaze grew hazy.

“That’s right. He won’t give it to me. Why would he? But what am I supposed to do?”

“Gwen...”

“Capture Gwen. She is Hawk’s girlfriend. Capture Gwen and force him to give you his blood!”

“You’re right. Capture Gwen and force him...”

With his eyes vacant, Dr. Connors muttered to himself as he picked up the last three regenerative serums beside him.

...