The second man kneeling in the line was a heavily scarred, forty-year-old veteran named Ivan. He had previously served in the Russian Airborne Forces, the VDV. He had eventually been dishonorably discharged for aggressively smuggling military hardware out of Chechnya, winding up in America as localized muscle for the Tarasov syndicate.
Ivan slowly looked up at Zero, his face remarkably calm for a man staring at death.
"We are strictly civilian security contractors," Ivan stated in heavily accented, broken English. "We have absolutely no knowledge regarding any specialized tactical Vanguard."
Zero simply stared down at him. He didn't say a word.
The young female disciple wielding the steel whip stepped forward. She smoothly raised the razor-sharp tip of the cable and pressed it directly against the center of Ivan's forehead.
"Three seconds," Zero announced flatly.
Ivan clenched his jaw, glaring at the assassin. "I do not know."
The tip of the whip moved.
It didn't simply thrust forward; it operated entirely like a mechanized drill.
The final two inches of the high-carbon steel cable were forged with deep, microscopic spiral grooves. With a terrifyingly fast, violent flick of the disciple's wrist, the cable spun rapidly, violently boring directly through Ivan's frontal bone and deep into his frontal lobe.
Ivan's heavy body immediately went completely rigid. He violently convulsed, his eyes rolling entirely back into his head as thick white foam bubbled past his lips.
Five seconds later, he collapsed face-first onto the marble, a perfectly circular, thumb-sized hole weeping dark blood from between his eyebrows.
The third man in the kneeling line was a terrified, nineteen-year-old Black kid.
He was shaking so violently he had completely soiled his trousers. Tears streamed down his face, mixing with the blood on the floor.
"Please... please, man... I was just a fucking busboy! I was just wiping the tables and pouring drinks in the VIP lounge... I swear to God I don't know anything about an army!"
Zero remained completely silent.
The male disciple utilizing the brass knuckles smoothly stepped forward. He delivered a flawless, crushing downward strike directly onto the teenager's Adam's apple.
The boy collapsed, both hands desperately clutching his shattered throat. His face rapidly turned a deep, sickly purplish-blue from asphyxiation. His legs violently kicked against the slick tiles for several agonizing seconds before he finally went completely still.
Zero slowly walked over to Mason.
He casually observed the faded BUD/S tattoo peeking out from beneath the SEAL's torn, blood-soaked sleeve.
"Name? And specialized operational unit?"
Mason looked up, a ferocious, blood-stained grin splitting his face. "Ask your fucking mother, you bald prick."
Another severed head violently rolled across the floor, coming to a dead stop directly against Mason's combat boot.
"The elite twelve-man Vanguard element that systematically eradicated the Camorra hit squads last night," Zero said softly, utilizing the flat edge of his blade to forcefully lift Mason's chin.
"The forensic data confirms they utilized an M110 semi-automatic sniper platform paired seamlessly with an M320 grenade launcher. That specific firepower configuration fundamentally requires a minimum of three dedicated ammunition handlers to operate effectively. Where is this unit currently training?"
Mason simply stared at him, saying absolutely nothing.
The fourth guard was executed. Then the fifth.
When only a single, emaciated boy remained kneeling at the end of the line, the sheer, suffocating terror finally broke his mind. A foul-smelling puddle of urine rapidly spread from beneath his knees.
"Staten Island!" the terrified boy screamed, hyperventilating. "Yes! The old industrial refinery on Staten Island! They... they must be hiding there! That's the base!"
He possessed absolutely zero localized intelligence; he was just frantically screaming the first abandoned location that came to his panicked mind, desperately hoping it would buy his life.
"The Staten Island Refinery?" Zero paused for exactly three seconds, clinically evaluating the lie. "Very well. You are permitted to leave."
The boy looked up, his tear-filled eyes wide with absolute disbelief.
"Go," Zero smiled. It was a terrifying, unnatural expression.
The boy scrambled frantically to his feet, slipping in the blood, and desperately staggered toward the shattered glass doorway.
He reached the threshold and briefly glanced back over his shoulder. His eyes projected a complex mixture of profound guilt for abandoning his team, abject terror, and overwhelming relief at having survived the slaughter.
The exact second he turned his head back to step onto the sidewalk, his cranium violently separated from his shoulders.
The severed head spun rapidly through the night air, bounced twice against the pavement, and rolled backward, finally coming to a rest directly in front of Mason's knees.
The boy's headless corpse maintained its forward momentum, taking two additional, ragged steps before collapsing heavily onto the concrete.
"He lied to me," Zero sighed, genuinely sounding disappointed.
Mason stared blankly at the growing pile of mutilated corpses surrounding him.
The severed head of the busboy was staring directly up at the ceiling. The eyes were still wide open, the pupils massively dilated, the jaw slack as if he were still trying to scream his lie.
Zero's disciples were systematically executing these men as if conducting an ancient, religious ritual. Every single movement was mechanically precise, completely calm, and entirely devoid of human empathy.
"Now. It is your turn," Zero said softly. He walked back to Mason, squatted down so they were perfectly eye-level, and stared directly into the SEAL's soul.
"United States Navy SEAL Team Six. You were clearly once one of Anthony Tarasov's most elite localized operators."
With a microscopic flick of his wrist, Zero drove the pommel of his short-sword violently into Mason's heavily plastered leg. The thick fiberglass splint audibly cracked and shattered.
"If I am analyzing this correctly," Zero observed casually, examining the brutal shrapnel trauma beneath the cast, "this specific injury was inflicted by an elite, High Table-adjacent operator."
Mason's face was completely masked in his own blood. His ferocious smile only widened.
"You honestly think I'm going to tell you a fucking thing?"
"I believe you are highly capable of it," Zero stood up smoothly and gestured sharply to his disciples.
He merely requires localized persuasion.
The two male disciples immediately stepped forward, violently pressing their heavy combat boots down onto Mason's shoulders, pinning him to the marble.
Mason desperately attempted to thrash, but his shattered tibia and severed left forearm tendons completely neutralized his combat strength. He couldn't break the hold.
The young woman wielding the steel whip stepped forward. She slowly raised the razor-sharp tip of the cable and pressed it directly against the center of Mason's right shoulder joint.
"The Vanguard. Where is the operational base?" Zero asked.
"Go fuck yourself," Mason spat.
The girl's wrist blurred.
The heavy steel tip violently pierced directly into the socket of Mason's shoulder joint. It didn't punch cleanly through; she deliberately angled the thrust so the spinning, grooved metal violently chewed into the joint capsule.
Mason could physically hear the horrific, wet crunch of his own cartilage shattering. He felt the thick, stabilizing ligaments violently snap, the heavy deltoid muscle aggressively tearing apart from the inside out.
The atomic, blinding wave of pure agony swept over his entire nervous system like a localized tsunami. Mason violently ground his teeth together, aggressively refusing to scream, but thick, cold sweat instantly saturated his tactical uniform.
"Current troop strength?" Zero asked again.
Mason spat a thick glob of bloody saliva directly onto Zero's polished shoe.
The female disciple smoothly withdrew the whip and immediately drove it into Mason's left shoulder joint.
The exact same brutal, mechanical process. The exact same suffocating agony.
Mason's left arm immediately went entirely dead, dropping limply to his side, permanently paralyzed. Both of his arms were now completely useless; he was only able to maintain his kneeling posture by engaging his core abdominal strength.
"Who is the localized tactical commander?" Zero asked, his voice still perfectly level.
Mason slowly raised his bleeding head. He looked Zero dead in the eyes and roared with every remaining ounce of strength in his lungs.
"Didn't your fucking mother teach you to introduce yourself before interrogating someone, you bald Japanese freak?!"
Zero slowly reached up and wiped a fleck of Mason's blood from his cheek. For the absolute first time since entering the nightclub, a genuine expression crossed the assassin's face.
It wasn't anger. It was profound, clinical curiosity.
He stared down at Mason the way a biologist examines a particularly resilient insect pinned to a corkboard.
"You possess remarkable endurance," Zero chuckled softly. "But every human biology possesses a structural limit."
Zero gave a single, microscopic nod to the female disciple wielding the long-handled naginata.
The woman stepped forward. She raised the heavy, razor-sharp blade high above her head and brought it violently down.
She didn't aim for Mason's neck. She aimed for his good leg.
The high-carbon steel was so terrifyingly sharp it met almost zero physical resistance. The heavy blade sheared cleanly through Mason's right ankle, instantly separating his foot from his lower leg. The surgical cut severed the thick tibia bone, the heavy calf muscle, the major arteries, and the nervous system in a single, flawless stroke.
The sheer, apocalyptic shock to his system finally broke his resolve. Mason threw his head back and unleashed a feral, agonizing, beast-like howl.
He collapsed sideways onto the marble. A massive, pulsing torrent of arterial blood immediately gushed from his severed stump, rapidly expanding across the floor tiles.
Zero calmly crouched down beside him.
"This is your absolute final opportunity. Provide the intelligence, and I will grant you the mercy of a rapid death."
Mason's face was completely drained of color, resembling pale wax. The catastrophic blood loss was already causing his vision to violently tunnel and blur.
But despite the agony, the elite operator managed to force one final, blood-soaked smile onto his face.
With his absolute dying breath, Mason whispered:
"Fuck... your... entire... bloodline."
"Is the ultimate glory of a Navy SEAL simply to seek a pointless death?" Zero stared at Mason's fading eyes for several seconds. He stood up slowly.
"Initiate the Lingchi protocol. Begin with the extremities."
When the naginata violently severed Mason's left wrist, his agonizing screams echoed loudly against the shattered glass of the Nightclub. The severed hand landed heavily in the expanding pool of blood, the fingers still twitching with phantom nerve impulses.
The second devastating strike shattered his right elbow joint, leaving only a few mangled, bloody tendons connecting his forearm to his bicep.
The sheer, incomprehensible agony caused Mason's eyes to physically bulge from his skull, but his vocal cords had completely failed. He was utterly incapable of making another sound.
Mason had been reduced to a bleeding torso.
He was technically still alive, but his nervous system was entirely destroyed. He lay on the marble, his mouth gaping wide as he desperately gasped for oxygen, resembling a mutilated fish dragged out of the ocean. His eyes were half-open, his pupils massively dilated, but a microscopic sliver of defiant light remained within them.
He died with the absolute, unwavering conviction that Anthony Tarasov was going to feed every single one of these ninja freaks to the dogs.
Zero's disciples retrieved several lengths of heavy industrial cabling from the Nightclub's maintenance closet. They threaded the wire brutally beneath Mason's bleeding armpits, hoisted his mutilated corpse into the air, and aggressively strung him up from the heavy steel frame of the neon "Blue Lizard" sign hanging directly over the entrance alley.
The female disciple meticulously arranged Mason's four severed limbs on the pavement directly beneath the body, arranging them into a flawless, geometric cross—adhering perfectly to the High Table's ceremonial execution manual.
It was a highly visible, explicitly bloody declaration of war left specifically for the Tarasov syndicate to discover.
After driving exactly three blocks away from the active crime scene, Zero pulled his encrypted satellite phone from his pocket and dialed Gramont's private frequency.
"Marquis."
"Did you successfully extract the intelligence?" Gramont's voice bled through the receiver. It was thick with a hangover and vibrating with suppressed, anxious rage.
"The localized trash has been systematically eliminated," Zero reported calmly. "But the operational rat-holes were entirely empty."
A heavy, suffocating silence hung over the line for several seconds.
"They didn't give you a single coordinate?"
"There was an elite American Navy SEAL commanding the perimeter. He appears to be the primary operator who clashed with your Black Armor element at the Hunting Ground," Zero noted smoothly.
"His limbs were systematically amputated. He is currently hanging from the Nightclub's exterior signage. He did not utter a single verifiable syllable before his heart stopped."
Gramont unleashed a violent, toxic string of French profanity, ending the tirade with a feral hiss. "I will simply wait for that Russian bastard to attempt his revenge."
Back at the entrance to the Blue Lizard Nightclub, Mason's mutilated, bleeding corpse swayed gently in the freezing morning breeze.
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