Eight hundred meters.
Ron's Observation Haki locked onto the life form.
The heartbeat was extremely low, forty-eight beats per minute. Breathing was even, fingers steadily resting on the outside of the trigger guard.
A person trained in top-tier sniping.
Intense killing intent, yet without a trace of panic.
Ron withdrew his senses, ignoring it.
He had more important matters to attend to.
The water on the edge of the rooftop evaporated from the heat beneath his feet, leaving a ring of white salt. Ron gripped the railing; the metal softened under the intense heat, five finger marks deeply embedded.
The red dot on the system interface flashed.
Hell's Kitchen, 42nd Street, "Eden" nightclub.
One thousand two hundred meters away.
Ron released the railing and leaped off the seven-story-high apartment rooftop.
The moment he landed, the concrete floor cracked in a spiderweb pattern, but there was no sound. Armament Haki enveloped his legs, dissipating all the impact.
He walked through three streets; the rain was still falling.
The neon sign of the "Eden" nightclub glowed a blinding pink in the rain. Two security guards in black suits stood at the main entrance, a Glock pistol tucked into their belts.
Ron didn't go through the back door.
He walked straight to the main entrance.
His Observation Haki activated.
Information flooded his brain like a tidal wave.
Within a 120-meter radius, forty-seven life forms.
Twelve armed bodyguards, positioned in the lobby, at the stairwell, and in the VIP lounge corridor on the second floor.
Eight gang members, concentrated at the bar area, three of them carrying submachine guns.
Nineteen civilians. Waitresses, bartenders, and young girls forced to sit in booths serving drinks. Their heartbeats were generally rapid; two were trembling.
Lester Miller, in the innermost booth on the second floor, his heartbeat steady, was smiling.
And, sixty meters above, on the roof, was the man with a Barrett rifle.
Frank Castle.
He was also waiting for Lester.
"Get in line," Ron muttered.
The security guard at the main entrance spotted him.
The one on the left reached out and blocked Ron's chest.
"Private party, idlers—" Ron raised his left fist.
A black sheen flowed across his fist; Armament Haki coated his bones and muscles, transforming his fist into a hammer.
One punch.
The security guard's body and the bulletproof glass door behind him shattered simultaneously.
The entire tempered glass shattered into dust; the security guard flew fifteen meters, crashing into three sofas in the lobby, smashing into the wall, and embedding himself there, motionless.
Before the other security guard could even draw his gun, Ron had already leaped over the doorframe.
He kicked him in the knee; the sound of breaking bones was half-masted by the music.
The security guard screamed and fell to the ground. Ron bent down, pulled out his Glock jacket, crushed it, and threw it into the trash can.
The music in the lobby continued to play.
The DJ booth lights swirled, casting multicolored beams onto Ron's face.
The three gangsters at the bar were the first to react.
"Damn! Someone's broken in—" The first man raised his MAC-10 submachine gun.
Ron's right arm began to liquefy from the elbow down.
His skin cracked, and dark red magma gushed from his muscle fibers, the temperature soaring to 1200 degrees Celsius in 0.3 seconds.
A wave of heat washed over him, and bottles on the bar exploded one after another.
The three submachine guns fired simultaneously.
The bullets pierced Ron's torso, passed through the magma, and melted into molten iron within less than 0.1 seconds, dripping onto the floor and burning through the tiles.
Ron walked forward through the hail of bullets.
With each step, a charred footprint appeared on the floor beneath his feet. The tiles cracked, white smoke rising from the gaps.
The three gangsters emptied their magazines.
Ron raised his hand, unleashing a magma whip that struck the barrels of the three men's guns with pinpoint accuracy.
The metal softened and bent instantly, rendering the weapons unusable.
The tip of the magma whip grazed the area beneath the bar.
The waitress crouching under the bar had her eyes closed, awaiting the searing pain.
No.
She opened her eyes.
The gangsters three meters away lay on the ground, steam still rising from the edges of their clothes and skin. The air in front of her was even cool—the heat radiation from the magma was precisely blocked by some force, keeping it a foot away from her body.
Observation Haki locked onto the location of every civilian.
Armament Haki controlled the flow and temperature radiation range of the magma.
Not a single innocent person was harmed.
All the bodyguards in the lobby rushed over, twelve pistols simultaneously pointed at Ron.
The leader was a bald, burly man with a scorpion tattooed on his neck, and a booming voice.
"Who the hell are you? Do you know whose territory this is?"
Ron didn't stop.
"I know. Wilson Fisk's."
He raised his right hand, fingers spread.
A fist-sized ball of magma condensed in his palm, its temperature far exceeding the surrounding elemental energy—a miniature version of Akainu's technique.
"Inu-chan Crimson Lotus."
The magma ball flew from his hand.
Not towards the bodyguards.
It pierced the ceiling, passed through the second-floor floor, and through the partition wall of the VIP area corridor, striking precisely the load-bearing beam of the VIP area's back door passage.
Explosion.
The entire corridor's ceiling collapsed, reinforced concrete debris blocking the only escape route.
Screams and the sound of overturned tables and chairs echoed from the second floor.
The bodyguards froze for a second.
Just that one second.
Ron's body transformed into magma, passing through the twelve men.
He didn't even lift a finger.
In the path the magma flow had taken, all the bodyguards' guns, magazines, and the metal fasteners of their bulletproof vests melted. Molten iron splashed onto their skin, and the bodyguards screamed, dropping their weapons.
Ron reformed into human form and stood at the top of the stairs leading to the second floor.
All twelve bodyguards behind him were incapacitated; not a single one was dead.
He went upstairs.
The VIP box door was made of thick walnut wood.
Ron kicked it open.
The door flew through the air, overturning the champagne tower on the coffee table. Golden liquor spilled everywhere, mixed with shards of glass.
Lester Miller huddled in the corner of the sofa, two bodyguards blocking his way.
The bodyguards drew their guns.
Ron's magma fist was already at the ready.
His left fist slammed into the first bodyguard's bulletproof vest at the chest. The Kevlar fibers instantly carbonized under the intense heat, sending the bodyguard flying, clothes and all, crashing through the French windows and plunging from the second floor into a garbage dump in the back alley.
The second bodyguard turned and ran.
Ron didn't chase.
His attention was on Lester.
Lester Miller huddled in the corner between the sofa and the wall, his legs trembling, a dark stain soaking his crotch.
The index finger he'd used to give the middle finger through the car window in court five hours earlier was now curled in his fist, knuckles trembling.
Ron crouched down.
The two were less than half a meter apart.
"Mr. Miller." Lester's teeth chattered.
Ron's right hand was still molten, the heat evaporating the sweat from Lester's face.
"This morning, the court acquitted you."
"I…I have a lawyer! I have human rights!" Lester's voice trembled. "You can't do this! It's illegal—"
"Seven lives." Ron interrupted him.
"One of the girls, named Emily White, nineteen. Her mother's hair was half white, her fingernails dug into the wood of a picture frame, and her dress was soaked in blood." Lester shrank back desperately, his back pressed against the wall.
"There's another one named Lisa Chan, fourteen years old. The medical examiner's report says—you stabbed her twenty-three times, each stab three seconds apart." Ron extended his right hand, and lava enveloped Lester's left ankle.
Lester let out a pig-like scream.
"Your human rights—" The lava moved up his calf, burning through his trouser leg.
"I revoked it when you killed the first girl." The system popped up the trial interface.
[Is Lester Miller to be imprisoned?]
[Option 1: Imprison him in the first level of Impel Down (permanent imprisonment, continuously accumulating sin points)]
[Option 2: Execute him on the spot (immediately accumulating all 500 sin points)] Ron chose imprisonment.
A crack appeared in the floor beneath Lester. Dark red light shone through the crack, swirling, expanding, forming a vortex one meter in diameter.
Lester's body began to sink.
"No—no—help! Help!" His fingers gripped the edge of the sofa, his nails digging into the leather.
It was no use.
The vortex swallowed him whole.
Silence returned to the compartment. Only a ring of charred marks remained on the floor.
[Ding. Sin Value +500, Justice Value +200. Number of prisoners in Impel Down Level 1: 1/100.]
[Initial Mission 'Punishing Sin' Completion: 1/2. Remaining Target: Umbrella Network.] Ron stood up.
A noise came from behind.
A hole exploded in the ceiling, rubble and dust raining down.
A black figure jumped down from the hole, kneeling to cushion the fall, an M16A4 assault rifle held in right hand, muzzle pointed directly at the back of Ron's head.
Ron didn't turn around.
His Observation Haki told him everything—the person's heartbeat, position, grip on the gun, the distance between the index finger and the trigger.
"Who are you?" The voice was hoarse and rough, carrying the marks of years of smoking and swallowing gunpowder.
Ron slowly turned around.
Frank Cassel.
A black trench coat, with a white skull and crossbones painted on the chest. Three old scars ran across his left cheekbone to his chin.
His gun was impeccably steady. Not even a fraction of a millimeter of deviation.
"I watched the whole thing through the scope." Frank's left eye narrowed slightly. "Lava. Immune to bullets. Precision strike through three walls. You're not a mutant."
"I'm not."
"Then what are you?"
"A judge." Frank's gun paused.
Only for 0.3 seconds, then it steadied again.
"Judges don't spew lava."
"This judge does." Ron stood ramrod straight, hands behind his back, facing the gun. He sized Frank up, not with his eyes—his Observation Haki was scanning Frank's physical condition.
Two old fractures in his right ribs hadn't fully healed. A penetrating scar lay on his left shoulder. Shrapnel remained deep in his right quadriceps muscle.
This man, riddled with wounds and carrying a gun, had killed in Hell's Kitchen for three years.
Ron spoke.
"Frank Cassel. Former Lieutenant Colonel, 3rd Marine Battalion, Charlie Company. Forty-seven targeted elimination missions in Kandahar Province, zero failures." Frank's right index finger moved from the trigger guard to the trigger.
"He settled in New York after retiring. Wife Maria, daughter Lisa, son Frank Jr. Three years ago, in Central Park, a three-way gang shootout. Your family was hit by stray bullets and all died instantly." Frank's breathing rate changed.
From twelve beats per minute to eighteen.
"You investigated me?"
"No need," Ron said. "The entire Hell's Kitchen knows the Punisher's story." Silence.
The sound of rain outside filled the compartment.
Frank didn't lower his gun.
Ron took a step forward. The muzzle was almost against his sternum.
"You've been killing for three years. Has the Hell's Kitchen mob dwindled?"
Frank didn't speak.
"You kill one boss, and three more pop up the next day. You take down one stronghold, and two new ones open on the same street the following month."
Frank's Adam's apple bobbed.
"What you lack isn't firepower, Cassel," Ron said. "What you lack is a system. A place where evil goes in and never comes out."
"You have one?"
"I just sent Lester Miller in there. You saw it with your own eyes."
Frank was silent for five seconds.
The gun muzzle slowly shifted two centimeters, no longer aimed at Ron's heart.
"You want to recruit me?"
"What I'm offering you isn't recruitment," Ron said. "Something greater than revenge."
"What?"
"Order." Ron extended his right hand.
Frank stared at the hand. Three seconds ago it could spew magma capable of destroying everything; now it hung silently in mid-air, waiting for his response.
A notification popped up on the left side of Ron's vision.
[Target detected: Frank Cassel. Willpower Strength Assessment: S-Rank] Combat Experience Assessment: A+. Suitable Rank: Commodore. Grant?
Frank hadn't even gripped it yet.
But he lowered the gun.
That was enough.
Three blocks away.
Atop the church bell tower in the rain, a man in a crimson bodysuit knelt beside a statue.
He had no eyes.
But his hearing covered a radius of over four blocks.
Explosions. Shattering glass. The faint hiss of molten metal. The sudden silence after twelve guns fired simultaneously. The scream of a man being consumed by some force.
And the conversation between two men.
Matthew Murdoch's jaw tightened when the word "order" reached his ears.
He stood up, rain dripping from the edge of his mask.
Hell's Kitchen was his territory.
Tonight, someone had carried out a trial on his turf, in a way he couldn't understand.