The signal followed for four hundred meters.
Ron counted his steps, each one splashing through puddles, the sound drowning out his slowed breathing.
Frank walked ahead, his right hand on the grip of his M16A4, shrapnel from his left shoulder still clinging to his body, each step causing a piece of broken ceramic to fall off.
"Keep going," Ron whispered.
Frank turned his head.
"Turn left at the second intersection ahead, into the laundry room underpass, back to the safe house."
Frank's pace didn't change, but his right hand moved from the grip to the trigger guard.
"A tail?"
"Mine. You go first."
Frank didn't turn around. He quickened his pace, turned into the alley on the left, and disappeared into the darkness.
Ron stopped.
The alley was narrow, lined with fire escape staircases from old apartment buildings, the smell of rust mixed with the acrid stench of garbage cans.
He didn't turn around.
His Observation Haki continued to track the signal. The other person was 12 degrees to the left, directly above him, forty meters away. Clinging to the crossbeam of the fire escape, their breathing rate was nine breaths per minute.
Extremely low.
Well-trained, or perhaps exceptionally gifted.
But the strangest thing was the person's method of perception. Not sight, not thermal sensing, not any reconnaissance method Ron had ever seen.
It was sound waves.
An incredibly sophisticated receiving network emanated continuously from the person's earlobes, covering a radius of over three city blocks. Every rebound of a water droplet hitting the ground, every vibration of a piece of rust falling from the fire escape, every faint sound of a rat scurrying through the garbage heap—all were captured, analyzed, and reconstructed into a three-dimensional map by that network.
A blind man. A blind man who "sees" the world with his ears.
Ron's foot ground against the concrete.
"Come down." Silence.
Rain dripped from the fire escape, tapping against the garbage can lid, one sound after another.
"I'll count to three. One." The sound of fabric scraping against metal came from above.
A crimson figure flipped down from the fourth-floor fire escape beam, spinning one and a half times in mid-air before landing silently.
He crouched, right hand on the ground, left hand gripping a red stick.
The stick was made of a special alloy and could be separated into two pieces.
Matthew Murdoch straightened up.
A red mask covered the upper half of his face, revealing only his jawline and tightly pursed lips. There were no openings for his eyes.
The two were six meters apart.
Ron, hands behind his back, sized up his opponent. Information from his Observation Haki lined up in his mind: height 1.83 meters, weight approximately 85 kilograms. Muscle density 40% higher than an average person, but lower than that of a serum-enhanced human. Calluses concentrated on the base of the palms and the second knuckles, a fighting style.
Numerous old injuries. There were signs of old fractures and healing on his seventh and eighth ribs on his right side, and his left knee ligaments showed signs of elasticity loss from repeated strains. There was a knife scar on the edge of his right scapula.
Like Frank, he had spent years fighting his way through Hell's Kitchen with his injuries.
"You burned 'Eden' last night." Matthew's voice was low, with the rough texture characteristic of Hell's Kitchen natives.
"And tonight you demolished the warehouses in the dock area." Ron didn't deny it.
"You killed someone."
"No." Matthew's head tilted slightly.
Ron understood the meaning of this gesture perfectly. His super hearing was analyzing his heartbeat, blood pressure, and vocal cord vibration frequency to determine if he was lying.
Three seconds later, Matthew's jaw twitched.
His heartbeat was steady. No physiological signs of lying.
"Where did those people go?"
"They're locked up."
"Where are they locked up?"
"A place they can't get out." Matthew's stick twirled half a circle in his right hand, changing his grip from a normal to a reverse grip. "You have no right to detain anyone. Trial is a matter for the law." Ron smiled.
Not a sneer, but the reaction of hearing a familiar joke.
"Matthew Murdoch." Matthew's body tensed.
"Partner at Nelson & Murdoch. Columbia Law School graduate, specializing in criminal defense." Ron took a step forward. Matthew's cane immediately went to his chest.
"How many cases have you represented in court for those victims?" Matthew didn't answer.
"How many did you win?" Silence.
"Let me count for you. In the past two years, you've handled seven criminal cases involving Kingpin's influence, and the success rate—zero." Matthew's jaw twitched.
"Seven charges, seven dismissals. Witnesses were threatened to recant three times, key evidence disappeared twice from the courtroom, and judges dismissed charges twice for procedural flaws." Ron took another step. Four meters away.
"You wear a suit and read legal statutes in court during the day, and beat people up in alleys at night in a bodysuit. Does the law authorize you?" Matthew's stick pointed at Ron's chest.
"I'm not like you. I don't throw people into some black jail."
"You break their legs, throw them to the police, the police take them to court, the court releases them. Then you break them again." Ron stopped.
"Murdoch, what you're doing is like pouring water into a leaky bucket." The stick thrust forward.
It was incredibly fast. Matthew's explosive muscle power was concentrated in his waist, abdomen, and forearm; the stick's tip aimed straight for Ron's throat, angled fifteen degrees from the front, avoiding a conventional block.
Ron raised his right forearm.
Armament Haki condensed into a black, hard shell on his skin.
The stick's tip struck his forearm, producing a crisp metallic clang. The vibration traveled along the stick back to Matthew's palm, making his hand numb.
Matthew's head tilted another degree.
The sonic feedback told him: the tip of the stick wasn't contacting a metal prosthetic, nor any known alloy. It was organic tissue. Human skin and muscle.
But harder than steel.
"Your arm..."
"Harder than your stick." Ron didn't retaliate, his arm remaining in a blocking stance. "Want to try again?" Matthew withdrew the stick, spun around, and swept a second strike from below towards Ron's knee.
Ron raised his leg to avoid it.
A third strike followed immediately. Matthew used the spatial model constructed by the sonic waves to strike from Ron's sensory blind spot—behind his right ear.
An ordinary person couldn't react in time.
Ron's left hand reached out and precisely gripped the stick.
In Matthew's sonic map, this person had no sensory blind spots.
His body was surrounded by a sensory field covering 360 degrees, every attack from every angle was predicted 0.3 seconds in advance.
Almost isomorphic to his own ability.
Even stronger.
Ron released the stick and took a step back. "Three moves are enough." Matthew's breathing rate rose from nine to fourteen. He gripped the stick again, but didn't attack.
Ron pulled a USB drive from his inside suit pocket.
Small, about the size of a thumbnail, with a black plastic casing.
He tossed the USB drive over.
Matthew caught it, running his fingertips over the surface for two seconds. No extraneous electronic components, no miniature antenna structure for tracking.
"What's this?"
"Judge Harold Mickson's bank statements. Over three years, anonymous accounts in the Cayman Islands transferred a total of seventeen million dollars to him. The transfer dates correspond one-to-one with the sentencing dates of twenty-seven felons he released." Matthew's fingers tightened.
"Eleven of them committed murder again after their release. The names, dates, and victim information are all in there."
"Why are you giving this to me?"
"Because you still believe in the law." Ron turned his back to Matthew.
"I don't believe you. You do your way, I'll do mine. But one thing—don't block my way."
He walked towards the alleyway.
"Wait a minute." Ron didn't stop.
"What you mean by 'imprisonment'—where did you send those people?"
Ron's steps faltered.
"A place more suitable for them than any prison." Matthew's hearing scanned again. Heart rate 62 beats per minute, blood pressure stable, vocal cord vibration frequency normal fluctuations.
The truth.
But he heard something else.
There was a continuous low-frequency vibration within Ron's body, extremely low, approaching the infrasound range. That vibration was accompanied by abnormal thermal radiation.
This man's body contained a volcano.
Matthew stood there, clutching the USB drive, listening to Ron's footsteps fade into the distance.
Rain dripped from the edge of his mask onto the stick.
Frank was waiting at the door of the safe house three blocks away.
Seeing Ron return alone, he glanced at the empty alley behind Ron. "Resolved?"
"We talked."
"Talked?" Frank raised his right eyebrow. "You talked to the tracker?"
"He's not an enemy. Not for now."
Frank didn't press further. He pushed open the iron door, went into the armory, pulled a brown paper bag from under a cot, and tossed it onto the folding table.
"Intelligence received. Sent by the old informant an hour ago." Ron opened the bag.
Inside were three photos and a handwritten note.
The first photo: The entrance to an abandoned Bronx subway station, a "Danger: Do Not Enter" sign hanging on the iron railing.
The second photo: The platform inside the subway station, piled high with military-green ammunition boxes and rocket launchers.
The third photo was of a person.
Bald. Wearing a dark leather jacket. A frontal view, but the eyes sent chills down your spine.
Not fierce, not cold-blooded. It was the patience of someone scrutinizing their prey.
The handwritten notes were only two lines long:
"New guard. Arrived three days ago. Killed the original four guards and took over the entire warehouse by himself." Frank stood across the table, arms crossed.
"Bullseye." Ron stared at the eyes in the photograph.
"Real name unknown, mercenary assassin, Kingpin's ace. Genetically precise perception; anything in his hands becomes a weapon. A playing card can sever a throat, a toothpick can pierce an eyeball." Frank's right hand unconsciously touched the barrel of his M16.
"This man is ten times more dangerous than Kingpin. He doesn't kill for money; he kills for pleasure. He never misses a target. Not even once." A red analysis box automatically popped up on the left side of Ron's field of vision.
[Target: Bullseye. Real name unknown. Guilt level: 4500.]
[Extraordinary Trait: Genetically precise perception, capable of turning any object into a deadly weapon. 100% accuracy.] [Recommended level for kill/capture: Impel Down Level 2.]
[Current Impel Down Level: Level 1. Insufficient level.] Ron put the photo back on the table.
"Impel Down Level 2..." He brought up the upgrade requirements for Impel Down.
[Level 2 will be unlocked once 10 people are captured on Level 1.]
[Current number of people captured: 2/10.]
[8 more people needed.] Frank noticed Ron's silence.
"What? Can't you kill them?"
"I can. I can't hold them." Ron closed the system panel and reopened the Hell's Kitchen street map.
He picked up a red pen and circled eight of the forty-seven marked points on the map.
"Clear these eight before hitting the bullseye." Frank leaned closer to look. Eight locations were scattered across the East and North sections of Hell's Kitchen, labeled "Casino," "Underground Boxing Ring," "Loan Shark," and "Human Trafficking Hub," respectively...
"All peripheral businesses of Kingpin. The managers are all mid-level henchmen, with criminal records, wanted posters, and crime scores." Ron tossed the red pen back onto the table.
"Forty-four hours. Eight locations. One to be taken down every five and a half hours on average." Frank unlocked the ammunition box and began loading bullets into the magazine.
"When to make our move?" Ron glanced out the window. A sliver of gray-white appeared on the eastern horizon.
"Before dawn, take down two." He picked up a photo of the first target—the underground boxing ring on 39th Street, managed by "Iron Hammer" Hank, wanted for three years, crime score 680.
Frank clicked the loaded magazine into his gun.
Ron walked towards the iron gate, then suddenly stopped.
His Observation Haki detected a new signal. A black SUV was slowly driving past on the street above the safe house. Both people inside the car had low heart rates and controlled breathing, honed through professional training.
The passenger's body temperature was low, two degrees Celsius below normal.
And Ron recognized her heart rate pattern from S.H.I.E.L.D. files.
Natasha Romanoff.
The black SUV didn't stop. It drove across the street above the safe house, turned onto Ninth Avenue, and its taillights disappeared into the grey morning light.
Ron pushed open the iron gate.
"Let's go. Before she figures out where we are."
Frank shouldered his gun and followed.
The iron gate slammed shut behind them, the latch snapping into the lock with a dull thud.