Chapter 91: Sludge and Scum (Part 1)

"I am a doctor, not God."

Strange stood at the entrance of the operating room with his hands on his hips and said, "And I am a psychiatrist. I cannot cure all diseases. You cannot send all kinds of patients to me for treatment!"

"So how is Dr. Connors?"

"I don't know. You have to ask those diagnostic instruments. I can't fully understand those data either."

Then Strange saw Schiller, Stark, and Peter all looking at him with the eyes of looking at a poor student. He exploded completely and said loudly, "What do you take doctors for? Wishing machines? You send patients with all sorts of diseases to me and expect me to cure them instantly. If I can't cure them, do you still want to come and belittle my professional level?"

Schiller said, "Alright, even if you can't cure him, you still have to introduce us to someone who can cure him, right?"

Strange rolled his eyes and said, "Judging from his current state, you'd be better off praying to God."

"I hope you can save him. For this, I can pay a lot of money," Stark said.

"You only know how to mention money and money. I know you're a rich man, but not everything in this world can be solved with money. You sent a half-dead corpse here; what can I do?"

"Listen, you'd better hurry up and do it..."

Stark stepped forward and pointed his finger at Strange's shoulder. His tone was very harsh. Strange was also very unhappy. He pushed Stark away and said, "Ha, do you expect everyone to be a lackey for you rich people?"

When he said this, he glanced at Schiller. Schiller hadn't done anything yet, but Stark exploded first. He directly swung his fist and punched Strange. Peter rushed up to stop him.

"Hey, calm down, Mr. Stark! Calm down!"

Strange was hit and bent over. He touched his nose, and a bit of blood stained his hand. He cursed a dirty word in a low voice. Schiller directly pressed his shoulder and then dragged him away.

Strange didn't want to leave, but Schiller's strength was too great. He was dragged out of that corridor by Schiller. Just after turning the corner, Strange said loudly, "What are you doing? Do you think I can't beat that damn arms dealer?!"

"Didn't you notice his emotions are a bit abnormal? Do you plan to spar with a madman here?"

Strange held his breath and sat on the chair next to the hospital corridor, saying, "I really don't understand why you all have to come and trouble an ordinary person. You either have money or know those weird little tricks. Why do you have to appear in my life?"

Schiller opened his mouth, but still didn't say those words. He couldn't tell Strange that someone was staring at his arm with glowing eyes right now, could he?

On the other side, Peter was trying to appease Stark. He felt Stark was a bit too irritable. He wasn't like this in the past.

Although Stark was occasionally pretentious and sharp-tongued, his temper was still okay. He wasn't one to explode at the slightest provocation and could communicate calmly most of the time. But now, Stark didn't know why he looked so irritable.

Peter grabbed one of Stark's arms, wanting to turn him around. Stark bared his teeth and swung his arm fiercely. Peter was actually pushed away directly.

Peter stared at Stark's arm in great surprise. Even if he hadn't used much strength, he was already much stronger than an ordinary person. Iron Man without the mech should just be an ordinary person; how could he push away Spider-Man, who possessed spider-mutation strength?

Peter was a bit confused, but he felt Stark was very wrong.

He retreated a few steps and saw Schiller waving at him at the corner. Peter looked back at Stark again, but ultimately turned and ran over.

Stark stood in place, shaking his head violently, occasionally leaning forward and backward, as if talking to the air.

After Peter ran over, he asked Schiller, "What's wrong with this? Is Mr. Stark sick?"

"This illustrates a principle," Schiller said, "Alcohol makes people turn into a lump of sludge."

After leaving the hospital, Stark didn't even call for his mech. He gritted his teeth and said in a low voice, "Damn it! You can't do that! Peter is just a child!"

"Let me eat his head. It will definitely be very delicious. You will fall in love with that feeling..." a low and hoarse voice came from the air.

Stark said, "Listen, you lump of sludge, if you dare to control my body without permission again, I will let Jarvis use a 500-decibel sonic cannon to hammer you into flour!"

And this matter had to be told from a few days ago.

Ever since Obadiah had been in a coma, the weapons manufacturing department of Stark Industries had been almost at a standstill. Even if Stark didn't have much understanding of these business matters, he also discovered that, in fact, his Uncle Obadiah was the backbone of Stark Industries being able to reach today.

Without Obadiah, a whole bunch of troubles followed one after another.

Originally, Obadiah walked with ease between the military, Congress, and other arms dealers. He wouldn't let anyone take advantage of him for even a penny, not even the military.

But now without Obadiah, Pepper could handle some business matters, but she wasn't that sensitive to political maneuvering, and Stark was entirely ignorant of this.

He suddenly discovered that he had actually been in a vacuum environment in the past. He only needed to stay at home in the laboratory and work on his inventions every day; those waves of treacherous struggles couldn't affect him in the slightest.

But now without Obadiah, Stark had to face all this himself.

Stark indeed had a genius brain, but his brain didn't turn in that direction at all. The military applied all kinds of pressure on him, and the means Stark could take were few.

He couldn't figure out the complex and intricate relationships between various forces for a while. Even if his intelligence would allow him to learn these sooner or later, he was just as flustered at the beginning.

The military targeted this timing. They acted very decisively, immediately using a public opinion war to put Stark Industries in a situation of being attacked from both sides.

Stark's pressure was extremely great. This was completely different from the feeling of not being able to do experiments or inventions not going smoothly. He couldn't even find an outlet to vent, so he could only return to his old profession: smoking and drinking.

All kinds of extreme emotions piled up in his mind. This intense emotion just happened to attract the attention of a homeless alien.

The symbiote Venom—a special symbiote that was the first to leave its symbiote mother, a genius child among symbiotes.

As everyone knows, this race is attracted by all kinds of intense human emotions. Originally, Venom was attached to an ordinary reporter who had just divorced, but when this reporter interviewed Stark, Venom discovered that this person in front of him, the emotions on him and the charming fragrance emitted from his brain, made Venom simply unable to resist.

So, this daring symbiote took the opportunity of the reporter thrusting the microphone into Stark's face, instantly detached from the host's body, and then ran onto Stark.

At first, Stark didn't discover any clues. Venom was an experienced symbiote. When first parasitizing a host, it would remain dormant for a period of time to avoid causing the host's overly intense resistance.

But soon, Stark began to feel that something was wrong. He wasn't an ordinary person. He possessed a brain cursed by knowledge. He keenly felt his intense negative emotions being guided out, which made him even more frantically start to use alcohol to numb himself to ensure those emotions wouldn't explode and hurt others.

Jarvis also used some data to implicitly remind his master that his psychological state and personality were beginning to shake, which meant Stark must have fallen into a strange state of being induced.

This state didn't last for too long.

At that time, the lizard-man broke into Stark Tower, and Jarvis had to use emergency awakening measures to wake up Stark, who had been hungover for a night. But in reality, Stark wasn't woken up by Jarvis, but by the symbiote Venom, which was screaming in Stark's body because of the huge sound waves.

Stark then discovered that his feeling of being controlled actually came from a mysterious alien creature parasitizing his body.

The sound waves played by Jarvis made Venom scurry wildly in Stark's body. Stark discovered the true face of this alien creature—a lump of black sludge.

Then he discovered that this alien creature possessed intelligence not inferior to humans, not only able to communicate with him but also claiming to possess all his personality and memories.

Indeed, Venom said so, and it said so to every host because this could well lower their vigilance. It would repeatedly emphasize to the host the fact that the symbiote and they were one.

Actually, to some extent, what it said was true. Although this race didn't look very good and looked sticky, in the comics, they were not an evil race and were naturally a blank sheet of paper when produced.

They were more similar to an "inert race" and couldn't very forcefully devour and erase the host's personality, instead adopting a gentler way to parasitize them. The host and the symbiote were more like partners, rather than a relationship of control and being controlled.

The symbiote army scattered in the universe also parasitized quite a few races. They helped these aliens gain stronger physical power, but most of the ones they chose were high-intelligence races.

This was because they needed the host's independent personality to provide them with emotional energy, which was the basis for their survival, rather than like some evil parasitic races, directly turning all kinds of intelligent creatures into zombies without thinking ability. The symbiote couldn't do this. If their host couldn't think, then they would have nothing to eat.

Venom also understood this point. If it couldn't win the trust of the host, then it could only wander around hungry every day.

Stark, in its view, was simply a perfect meal ticket. Stark, who was in a low period, had large emotional changes every day, and Venom could obtain quite a bit of energy every day.

But soon, Venom discovered that it had still thought of this matter of finding a meal ticket too simply. ===== CHAPTER 92 =====