Gwen's confession was like music to Peter's ears.
But it didn't sound so wonderful to Electro.
Electro's face contorted within the electrical currents, his large cyan face now looking as hideous as a demon.
The electric arcs around him crackled, their brightness suddenly increasing several-fold, illuminating the entire Seventh Avenue like broad daylight.
"Damn it, damn it, damn it! You can only be mine. Watch me kill this nuisance first, then I'll go kill that bastard neighbor of yours!"
Before his voice even faded, Max suddenly threw his arms open, and violent currents of electricity exploded outward with him at the center!
Zzzzt—!
Bolts of electricity transformed into lightning snakes following Electro's movements, striking toward Peter and completely engulfing his figure in the blinding glare.
Gwen and Felicia's hearts leaped into their throats at the sight, terrified that Peter would be struck by the terrifying lightning.
"That's it?"
Fortunately, a nonchalant sneer drifted from the electrical glare, quickly allowing the two women to put their hearts back in their chests.
They instinctively looked over and realized Peter had appeared several meters away at some point, his black and red suit completely unscathed.
Clearly, the previous currents hadn't hit him at all.
"Impossible!" Electro couldn't help but scream, his voice shrill and piercing with shock.
"How did you dodge that?! Even Ghost-Spider couldn't do it!"
"That's how it is for a frog in a well."
Peter shrugged in a very punchable manner.
"You get a little power and think you're invincible, but you don't realize your Daddy once said that at your level, you're just a... lo~li~ in my eyes."
Hearing Peter's dismissive tone, the arrogant, darkened Electro's composure shattered on the spot.
He began to attack Peter frantically and repeatedly.
Arcs of electricity rained down on Peter, but his body was as light as if he were weightless, effortlessly dodging all of Electro's attacks.
After a brief exchange, he had already gauged Electro's power level.
Aside from his troublesome elementalization ability, the guy's other moves were quite ordinary.
He was essentially a giant battery; he could only absorb and release electricity, but his control over the current itself was extremely limited.
This meant that no matter how much power he unleashed, he could only launch straightforward attacks.
He couldn't freely manipulate the shape of the electricity like Thor or Eneru from the Pirate King.
While these direct currents were fast, dodging them wasn't difficult as long as one predicted the landing point from the start.
However... he couldn't just keep dodging forever.
Noticing Electro's face turning from blue to pale, Peter had a thought and quickly allowed himself to "voluntarily" take a hit from a bolt of lightning.
This guy was essentially a coward.
If he realized his attacks were consistently ineffective or if his energy was about to run out, he would most likely turn tail and run.
Given his elemental form, if he only focused on escaping, the current Peter really wouldn't be able to stop him.
So, he had to stall the guy and make him think he wasn't all that; only then would Felicia have the chance to use the water to decide the battle in one fell swoop.
Crack!
The current hit Peter, leaving a scorched mark on his suit.
Feeling the negligible damage Electro had caused him,
Peter couldn't help but curl his lip in disdain.
"That's it?"
With the defensive boost from Iron Body, plus the innate recovery abilities of the horse talisman and the lizard serum,
Peter hadn't even felt any pain before the injury was healed on the spot.
If he hadn't specifically controlled the horse talisman not to repair the damage to his suit, even that scorched mark wouldn't have remained.
As Peter expected, seeing "The Punisher" hit by his current, Electro—who had been considering retreat—instantly perked up and laughed wildly while floating in mid-air:
"Hahaha, I knew it! I am the invincible Electro! A nobody like you can't do anything to me!"
Believing he'd found Peter's weakness, Electro turned into a blinding blue flash of lightning and began spinning frantically around Peter at high speed.
As he spun rapidly around Peter, he raised his hand and fired arcs of electricity at him from various tricky angles.
Back, side, knees, ankles... realizing Peter wasn't invincible, Electro stopped aiming for a one-hit kill and instead constantly looked for vulnerable spots to attack, trying to kill Peter that way.
And Peter demonstrated with his actions what it meant to "do my best to play along with your performance."
Even though he was healing faster than he was losing health, he raised his arms to protect his head, acting as if he were being beaten into submission and could only charge blindly to try and break out of the "encirclement."
Bang!
During this, Peter seized an opportunity and fired a Flying Finger Pistol, blasting open a nearby fire hydrant.
Noticing the water gushing from the hydrant, a look of fear immediately appeared on Electro's face.
He knew all too well what water meant for him—conduction, short-circuiting, energy dissipation... so he immediately stopped his attack and flew far away, putting dozens of meters between himself and the hydrant.
Only after ensuring the water from the hydrant couldn't affect him did he smugly resume his trash-talking:
"Trying to use water against me?" Electro laughed loudly, thinking himself clever:
"Idiot! Did you think I'd be stupid enough to fall for it? Everything you do is just a deathbed struggle!"
Electro mocked Peter triumphantly, but Peter didn't show the frustrated expression Electro expected.
On the contrary, his voice was incredibly relaxed:
"You don't actually think you hurt me just now, do you?"
As he spoke, a hazy white light appeared on Peter's body. Wherever the light passed, the scorched areas immediately returned to their original skin tone.
The skin there... was as good as new!
Following that, even his damaged suit became as clean and new as ever.
Electro's mocking came to a screeching halt.
He looked at Peter in utter bewilderment, even wondering if he was hallucinating.
As he was thinking this, he heard Peter speak in a very relaxed tone:
"I was just teasing you just now, you idiot!"
As he spoke, Peter looked back at Felicia in the distance and snapped his fingers at her with great elegance.
"Time for your debut, baby~!"
The moment Peter snapped his fingers, Felicia Hardy understood and began to speak.
A beautiful singing voice rang out like clear spring water.
The moment the singing began, Sandman, Electro, and Gwen all instinctively widened their eyes.
They saw a scene that they couldn't understand no matter how hard they tried.
"Water!"
The water gushing from the broken hydrant actually began to gather spontaneously toward the singing girl, as if going to pay homage to their queen!