Chapter 208: Gathering of Heroes (Part I)

Let's rewind time slightly, back to when Eddie left the Life Foundation basement and saw the purple Spider-Man beating the silver-gray Riot.

Riot, pinned down by Spider-Man, swung a fist hard. Spider-Man rolled away to dodge, and just as he intended to rush up again to stop Riot, a huge black shadow roared and charged up.

Spider-Man jumped backward, dodging the pouncing Venom. Venom, also transformed into a behemoth, hammered Riot in the face with one punch. Spider-Man asked the Phantom in his mind, "What is going on here? Do you symbiotes have a grudge against each other?"

"It's hard to explain to you." The Phantom's voice carried a hint of helplessness.

At this time, Venom and Riot were already fighting. The Phantom said to Peter, "Venom and Riot do indeed have a grudge, but that was back when Venom was just born."

"I still haven't figured it out yet. What is going on with your race? Why..."

Peter had just said this when he saw Riot's two arms transform into two huge blades, hacking toward Venom. Venom didn't show weakness, black slime erupted, and countless tentacles hammered toward Riot. As the two fought in an inseparable struggle, they began to move outside the base building.

Peter chased after them while listening to the Phantom explain about the symbiotes.

"Actually, we aren't called symbiotes. Our race name is 'Klyntar,' and we were born on the planet Klyntar in the Andromeda Nebula. Our creator is the God of Symbiotes, Knull."

"That is an evil and ancient creature. After he created the symbiotes, he used us to invade the universe. Later, the vast majority of symbiotes believed his actions were evil, so we collectively overthrew him and imprisoned him on our home planet, Klyntar."

"That Riot doesn't seem to be with you? And what's up with Venom? How did they two form a grudge?"

The Phantom sighed. Peter discovered that this female symbiote's emotions were more human-like; he could even feel her very complex emotions at this moment through the brainwaves transmitted by the Phantom.

Moreover, her emotions were clearly much more stable than Venom's, and her speech was very logical. Peter almost couldn't feel at all that she was an alien creature.

The hoarse female voice came again: "The reason we betrayed our creator is because of the symbiote's attributes. When we parasitize other races, if they are righteous, we will also be infected by righteousness."

"Knull's unbridled acts of destruction and ruin were seen as evil by most races. Many of our kin parasitized righteous races and felt deeply that we were helping the evildoer, so most of us began to awaken."

"After an accident, the connection between most symbiotes and Knull was severed, and we united to defeat and imprison him."

"However, the destruction caused by Knull was irreversible. Many of our kin felt guilty for this, so we established an organization called 'Agents of the Cosmos'."

"Members of this organization choose righteous and kind alien races to parasitize, become their partners, help their civilizations develop, or go to rebuild those civilizations that were once enslaved and destroyed by Knull."

"You seemed to have mentioned this organization just now. Are you also a member of this organization?"

"That's right, I am one of the current leaders of this organization."

"Then what's up with Riot? I just heard you call him 'a traitor to the Agents of the Cosmos'?"

"That's right, it's exactly as it sounds. Riot was once a member of the Agents of the Cosmos, but he betrayed us."

"Just as you saw before, our life form is very special. In most cases, we need to have a host to act freely, but there are exceptions. On our home planet Klyntar, even without a host, symbiotes can act freely."

"So, although the home planet has become a prison for Knull, there are still many symbiotes living on it."

"About... forget it, anyway, it was a long time ago, a split occurred within the Agents of the Cosmos. The reason was that a portion of the agents left behind on the home planet Klyntar received Knull's summons."

"Knull's evil and chaos infected them again, making them betray the Agents of the Cosmos and become Knull's minions again, and the leader among them was Riot."

"Just like his name, he led a portion of the Agents of the Cosmos to riot. They threw themselves back under Knull's command and wanted to release him from prison."

"I understand this part." Peter chased behind the two monsters beating each other while communicating with the Phantom in his mind.

"Then what's up with Venom? What grudge does he have with Riot?"

"Venom is a lunatic; this is something all symbiotes acknowledge. He is completely abnormal."

The Phantom seemed not to know how to express this to Peter. Peter felt she thought for a moment, and then he heard the Phantom say, "I know you were once parasitized by Venom, but I want to tell you that his method is abnormal."

"You might not believe it, but symbiotes who participate in the Agents of the Cosmos all have the same guidelines. We have a complete set of parasitism rules to help us achieve a good symbiotic relationship with our hosts."

"For example, the moment we parasitize a host's body, we must analyze the various data of their body and formulate our own parasitism plan based on this data. At the same time, our top priority is to ensure the host's life safety. This is why I wanted to stop you from jumping off the building before."

The Phantom's voice sounded helpless. She said, "When I first came to Earth, I had already parasitized several standard humans. I know what an ordinary human's physical fitness should be like and know how much impact we can withstand together."

"According to your development, you can't even be counted as an ordinary adult human; you can only be counted as a cub."

"And I am also not a strength-type symbiote. Even if the two of us add together, jumping down from thirty-plus floors might cause injury, so I wanted to stop you."

"Oh, but can't you read my memories? Then you should be able to see me swinging around on high buildings often."

"No, this is also a violation of the Agents of the Cosmos' parasitism rules. If not agreed to by the host, we can only read superficial memories."

"Because the vast majority of intelligent races feel very disgusted about their memories being peeped at, so in order to achieve a good symbiotic relationship, we generally won't actively peep at the host's memories."

"Then you guys are quite polite, but Venom just..."

Peter paused and then continued, "He always wants me to do bad things. I thought all symbiotes were like him."

"His situation is special." The female symbiote's voice carried some peculiar rhythm: "Venom was born during the war period after the Agents of the Cosmos split. At that time, he happened to be born in the area occupied by Riot."

"The batch of symbiotes led by Riot were mostly chaotic and evil, so it led to Venom having no concept of rules."

"The grudge between the two of them was also formed at that time."

"Riot was the boss there at the time. Because it was during the war period, what Riot needed were kin who could confront the real Agents of the Cosmos, but Venom was just born and didn't have much power yet, so he couldn't participate in the battle, so he almost couldn't get any food and was often bullied."

Peter glanced at the two monsters twisting together and said, "But now it looks like the situation has reversed."

"Because Venom is a lunatic. This is not an adjective, nor am I speaking ill of him; I am stating a fact." The Phantom's tone sounded very helpless.

"It might be childhood trauma, or it might be that he is naturally abnormal. In short, Venom is a lunatic symbiote."

"Generally speaking, symbiotes are indeed influenced by their hosts, but this influence is limited because we are also creatures with independent intelligence. We can selectively absorb certain traits of the host to strengthen ourselves."

"The more hosts a symbiote has parasitized, the stronger this self-control ability becomes. The leaders of the Agents of the Cosmos are all like this."

"But Venom is not like this. He accepts everything about the host's traits; he carves all sorts of messy things into his genes."

"His first host was a lunatic wearing a red and black uniform. The Venom parasitized on him became even more crazy."

"The two of them caused a lot of trouble in the universe. The most famous time was when this guy ran to the Andromeda Starport and insulted a group of dwarves."

"The dwarves recognized the symbiote parasitized on that person, so they blamed it all on the Agents of the Cosmos, bringing us a lot of trouble."

"And Venom is also gifted."

"As a parasitic race, our influence on the host is also limited, especially for some intelligent races with firm will. They can even rely on willpower to get rid of all the influence we bring to them."

"But Venom's erosion of the host is infinitely large. He can completely change the host's behavioral patterns, even without the host realizing it themselves."

"So, all order-side symbiotes know that they must stay far away from Venom and the hosts Venom has parasitized. This is why I didn't want to parasitize you before."

"But I don't feel like I'm that crazy?"

"I also feel it's very strange." The Phantom's voice was a bit puzzled: "Before, you wanted to jump down from such a high building, I thought you were crazy, but since you possess other special powers, it means your thinking is normal and not influenced by Venom. Could it be that Venom has really turned over a new leaf?"

Peter continued to ask, "Then why did you come to Earth?"

"This... still has to start with Knull. Not long ago, the Agents of the Cosmos discovered that Knull was creating a new symbiote."

"During the time he was imprisoned, there had been no unusual movements, but he suddenly started creating offspring. We suspected he wanted to break out of prison."

"Besides the Agents of the Cosmos, the rebels led by Riot also discovered this matter. They were very expectant of this, hoping that this newborn symbiote could welcome back their creator and lead them to invade the universe again."

Bidi Pavilion

"Both of our sides nervously watched the home planet Klyntar, waiting for that new special symbiote to be born."

"But just on the day we thought he was about to be born, he disappeared."

"Disappeared?"

"That's right, he just disappeared. That special symbiote that should have been born suddenly disappeared without a trace."

"The Agents of the Cosmos and the rebels were both confused, but this was a good thing for us. Once a special symbiote is born, a war to encircle and suppress Knull might have to start again."

"We thought that maybe something went wrong in the process of Knull creating this symbiote, but who knew, Riot, as Knull's close minister, received Knull's order to go and retrieve this newborn symbiote."

"In other words, this symbiote was snatched away by someone, and Riot was ordered to retrieve him."

"Riot received the order and headed straight for the Nine Realms, and the Agents of the Cosmos must stop him. We must never let Knull have a chance to escape."

"Riot can ignore the rules and sneak in directly, but the Agents of the Cosmos cannot. We first sent people to inform Asgard and obtained the consent of the All-Father Odin, and only then did I come to the Midgard of the Nine Realms through Asgard's passage."

"Then how were you caught?"

"Riot arrived here before me. He found a human to cooperate with, which is this host he has now. He sensed that the Agents of the Cosmos were tracking him, so he set a trap."

The Phantom said somewhat angrily: "He was once a member of the Agents of the Cosmos, and he fought against us for a long time. He has an understanding of each of our weaknesses."

"They designed a trap aimed at my host. My host at the time was just an ordinary person. In order to ensure his safety, I had to take the initiative to leave him."

"A symbiote that has lost its host is very difficult to act freely, and then it was caught by Riot and locked up." ===== CHAPTER 209 =====