The iron gate closed behind them. Frank, carrying his gun, followed Ron, and the two hurried along the underground passage.
Ron pulled up his system panel as he walked.
[Impact Level 1 Detainees: 2/10]
[Bulleye Detainee Recommendation Level: Level 2]
[Level 2 Unlock Condition: Level 1 Detainees: 10] Eight short.
Ron closed the panel, his steps unwavering.
"The plan has changed." Frank turned his head.
"Don't touch Bullseye yet. Clear out the remaining outposts in Hell's Kitchen tonight."
"You said forty-four hours, eight times."
"Changed to one night." Frank cocked his M16, muzzle pointing downwards.
"Eight outposts, one night?"
"You're in charge of the outer perimeter blockade and intelligence confirmation. I'm going in." Ron turned the corner of the passage, the morning light illuminating his face.
He took off his gold-rimmed glasses, folded them neatly, and stuffed them into his pocket.
"Rest before dark. After dark, start at the first casino in the West End." 7:40 PM.
Hell's Kitchen West End, 41st Street Underground Casino.
Ron's body began to liquefy ten meters in front of the casino's main entrance.
His skin cracked, dark red magma gushing from his muscle fibers, heat waves evaporating the water on the ground into white mist.
Observation Haki spread out.
One basement level, thirty-one life forms.
Fourteen armed bodyguards, positioned at the entrance, bar, gambling tables, and back door.
Nine gamblers.
Six dealers and waiters.
Two debtors handcuffed in the storage room.
The boss, in the innermost office, heart pounding seventy-eight, was counting money.
Ron walked in.
The roller shutter door was crushed into scrap metal by the magma's hand.
The bodyguard drew his gun.
The bullet pierced the magma body, melting into molten iron that dripped onto the ground.
Ron ignored them.
He walked straight through the gambling area, lava flowing between the fourteen bodyguards. The metal parts of all the guns softened and deformed under the intense heat, and the primers in the magazines exploded with crackling sounds.
The bodyguards threw away the scalding scrap metal and knelt on the floor, clutching their hands.
The office.
The leader was called "Severed Finger" McKee because he liked to use pliers to pull out the fingers of debtors.
When Ron kicked open the door, McKee was stuffing a wad of cash into the safe.
"You—" Ron punched him in the chest.
The Armament Haki-hardened fist struck his ribs, breaking three simultaneously. McKee was sent flying, his back crashing through the office's plasterboard wall.
[Detain "Severed Finger" McKee to Level 1 of Impel Down?] Detain him.
The ground cracked open, and a dark red vortex engulfed McKee.
[Detention successful. Level 1 of Impel Down: 3/10] Ron turned and left, entering the storage room and melting the handcuffs on the wrists of the two debtors.
"Get out. Don't come back." The two scrambled away.
8:12. 38th Street underground boxing ring.
The leader, "Iron Hammer" Hank, a former heavyweight boxer, weighed 140 kilograms, his fists as big as casseroles.
Ron didn't use lava.
Hank threw a punch.
Ron sidestepped, his right knee slamming into Hank's abdomen.
The Armament Haki-enhanced knee struck his abs, Hank doubled over, stomach acid gushing from his mouth.
Ron's left hand gripped the back of Hank's head, pressing it down, while simultaneously raising his right knee.
The knee slammed into his face.
His nose shattered.
Taken into custody.
[Impact Level 1: 4/10.] Frank's report came through the encrypted channel.
"The sentries on the east side of the boxing ring have been cleared. Two. Knees."
"Next. 44th Street drug trafficking ring."
9:03 AM. Drug trafficking ring.
9:38 AM. Loan shark den.
10:11 AM. Illegal gambling center.
10:44 AM. Underground arms trading point.
Six strongholds, six leaders, all detained.
[Impact Level 1: 8/10.] Ron stood in the ruins of the sixth stronghold, wiping the blood from his fist.
It wasn't his blood.
Two targets remained on the system panel.
Seventh: 47th Street human trafficking transit station.
Eighth: The northernmost part of Hell's Kitchen, an abandoned clinic on Tenth Avenue.
The label read four words—Illegal Organs.
Ron went to the human trafficking transit station first.
A converted shipping container warehouse.
His Observation Haki scanned twenty-three life forms inside.
Seventeen of them had extremely weak heartbeats, low body temperature, and shallow, irregular breathing.
The people being held captive.
Ron kicked open the iron door of the container.
Before the six guards could react, his lava whip had already shattered their weapons.
Ron quickly dispatched them one by one.
Six punches, six men on the ground.
He opened the internal partition wall.
Seventeen people were crammed into a space of less than twenty square meters.
Men, women, young and old.
The youngest looked no more than twelve years old, huddled in a corner, his eyes large and empty.
Ron crouched down and reached out.
The child shrank back slightly, then didn't move.
"There's no one outside. Get out." The leader was a tall, thin man nicknamed "The Trafficker" Scott.
Take him into custody.
[Imperial City Level 1: 9/10.] 11:17.
The last one.
An abandoned clinic on Tenth Avenue.
A message came through Frank's encrypted channel.
"I haven't been to this spot before. The informant said the people inside only moved in three months ago, and they're extremely secretive. They always use underground pipes and never show their faces on the street." Ron stood in the alley opposite the clinic, his eyes closed.
His Observation Haki penetrated the walls.
The clinic had two underground levels.
Level 1: Five armed men, carrying submachine guns, positioned at both ends of the corridor.
Level 2: Three life forms.
Two with normal heartbeats, one making delicate hand gestures.
Another with an extremely weak heartbeat, almost stopped.
And— Three without heartbeats.
Ron's fingers tightened.
Lava seeped from between his fingers, dripping onto the concrete floor, burning through it.
He didn't use the main entrance.
Lava seeped through the ground, and Ron's body sank, falling directly into the underground corridor.
The five armed men turned their heads simultaneously.
Ron didn't give them a chance to fire.
Shave.
The figure vanished, reappearing at the other end of the corridor.
The submachine guns of all five men were melted into scrap metal, and all five lay on the ground, their kneecaps shattered.
He pushed open the iron door to the second basement level.
The white light of the operating lights was blinding.
Three stainless steel operating tables.
On the leftmost table, a man's abdomen had been opened; his liver had been removed and placed in an icebox beside him.
His heart had stopped beating.
On the middle table, another corpse lay. The chest was open, the ribs stretched to the sides, and the space where the heart should have been was empty.
On the rightmost table, there was another person.
Alive.
A young woman, in her early twenties, with a freshly stitched incision in her abdomen, blood seeping through the gauze.
One of her kidneys had been removed.
But she was still breathing.
Ron's gaze shifted to the operator beside the operating table.
A man in his fifties, wearing sterile gloves, his surgical gown splattered with blood.
He was placing a kidney into a portable freezer.
His movements were steady.
Professional steadiness.
"The Butcher," Vincent.
A former attending surgeon at Mount Sinai Hospital, his license was revoked six years ago for illegally harvesting organs from executed prisoners.
After disappearing for three years, he reappeared in Hell's Kitchen.
Ron walked to the freezer and opened the door.
Inside were sealed bags.
Seventeen kidneys. Eight hearts.
Labels indicated the date and blood type.
The earliest date was three months ago.
The most recent was today.
Ron closed the freezer door.
Vincent finally reacted. He threw down the freezer and raised his hands above his head.
"No—don't kill me. I can give you money. Lots of money. A kidney is worth two hundred thousand on the black market—" Ron's fist slammed into Vincent's right elbow.
The joint shattered.
Vincent screamed, his right arm dangling at an unnatural angle.
Ron's second punch slammed into Vincent's left elbow.
Another cracking sound.
Vincent collapsed to his knees, both arms useless, hanging limply like two noodles.
"My hands—my hands! Do you know how much these hands are worth—" Ron crouched down.
"Twenty-five lives." Vincent froze.
"You harvested organs from twenty-five people. Three months. One every three and a half days on average." Ron's right fist slammed into Vincent's right knee.
The kneecap shattered.
The left knee.
Shattered. All four limbs were useless.
Vincent lay on the ground, convulsing.
Ron stood up, looking down at him.
"This kind of person deserves to stay in Impel Down for another thousand years." Impel Down.
The ground cracked open, and a vortex engulfed Vincent.
[Impel Down Level 1 Capacity: 10/10.]
[Level 1 is full. Consume 1000 Justice Points to unlock Level 2?] [Confirmed.]
Ron's consciousness was pulled into a dimensional space.
Before him lay the entirety of Impel Down.
Level One—The Blue Prison District. Ten iron cages lined both sides of the corridor. Lester Miller huddled in the innermost corner, Johnson leaned against the wall, lost in thought. The other eight newly imprisoned criminals were still adjusting to this world with no exit.
A deep abyss cracked open in the floor of Level One.
In the darkness, a new level emerged.
Level Two—Beast Hell.
The temperature was at least twenty degrees lower than Level One, and the air was thick with the chill of metal.
The iron cages were larger, their walls engraved with a pattern familiar to Ron.
Seastone.
Not real Seastone, but "Conceptual Seastone" created by the system based on the rules of this world.
System notifications popped up.
[Level Two unlocked successfully. Can imprison targets with a sin value below 5000.]
[Additional function unlocked: Conceptual Seastone Handcuffs x5. Usable in the real world.] [Concept: Seastone: Suppresses the source of all extraordinary power. Effective against mutants, superhumans, magic users, and users of technological equipment. The wearer's extraordinary abilities are completely sealed, and their physical strength is reduced to that of an ordinary person.] Five black handcuffs appeared out of thin air in Ron's hands.
The metal was cold, its surface engraved with fine swirling patterns.
Ron weighed them in his hand and stored them in his system space.
His trump card against Bullseye was now available.
The system continued to pop up notifications.
[Devil Fruit Furnace - Basic Function Unlocked.]
[Usable Material: Residue of the degraded super-soldier serum from "Snake Eyes" Johnson's body.]
[Smelting Product: Zoan-type Wolf-Wolf Fruit.]
[Effects: Beast form, super senses, high-speed regeneration, night vision. No fruit side effects.] Ron found the furnace in the dimensional space.
A giant, iron-gray furnace, with dark red flames burning inside.
He operated the system, drawing a dark red energy thread from Johnson's cage.
The thread floated into the furnace.
The flames changed color, from dark red to deep purple, and the temperature soared.
The furnace vibrated for three seconds.
A fist-sized fruit emerged from the flames.
Dark gray, its surface covered with swirling patterns, its shape crooked and twisted, like a rotten sweet potato.
[Zoan Type - Wolf-Wolf Fruit, Refining Complete.] Ron grasped the fruit, his consciousness returning to reality.
Four o'clock in the morning.
Safe house.
Frank sat on the cot, cleaning his gun; the bruise on his left shoulder was deeper than yesterday.
Ron tossed the Wolf-Wolf Fruit onto the folding table.
The fruit rolled twice and stopped next to the magazine.
Frank looked up, staring at the grayish-brown object.
"That's it?"
"Eat it."
"What is this thing? It looks like a moldy potato."
"It's what gives you power. Eat it." Frank picked up the fruit and smelled it.
It had no taste.
He took a bite.
His expression instantly contorted.
The taste in his mouth was somewhere between mud and rotten rubber, with an indescribable bitterness that shot from the back of his tongue to the back of his head.
"Damn—" Frank almost spat it out, but he forced it down.
A second bite. A third bite.
He swallowed the entire fruit in three bites.
Then the transformation began.
Frank's pores all over his body exploded, every hair standing on end.
Muscles rolled beneath his skin, bones made a faint clicking sound, but it wasn't deformation, it was strengthening.
His pupils contracted from round to vertical in three seconds.
His canine teeth lengthened by half a centimeter, their tips peeking out from the edge of his lips.
His fingernails thickened, sharpened, and turned dark gray.
His earlobes elongated slightly, pressing against his skull.
Half-beast form.
Frank looked down at his hands. Gray claws had replaced his original nails, and the muscles in his forearms were noticeably thicker.
His ears twitched.
The sounds of the entire safe house exploded into his brain—the footsteps of rats in the underground pipes, the murmurs of drunkards three blocks away, even the sound of Frank's own blood flowing through his veins.
His sense of smell exploded simultaneously.
The smell of rust, gunpowder, the lingering sulfur on Ron, the sweat from his own cot—each odor was broken down into dozens of layers, so clear it sent chills down his spine.
Frank clenched his fist.
He turned and slammed his fist into the concrete wall of the safe house.
A hole half a meter in diameter blasted open in the wall, sending rubble and dust flying out and hitting the trash cans in the alley across the street.
Frank withdrew his fist, looking at his undamaged knuckles.
He hadn't even used Armament Haki.
Pure physical strength.
"This fucking…" Ron retrieved a pair of conceptual seastone handcuffs from his system space and tossed them to Frank.
Frank caught them with one hand, the gray claws gripping the black metal with a slight clinking sound.
"Tonight. Abandoned Bronx subway station. Target—Bulleye." Ron spread out a street map, circling the subway station's location in red.
"You seal off all surface exits. I'll come in from underground. The seastone handcuffs are for Bulleye." Frank's vertical pupils contracted slightly, reflecting the light.
"I've been waiting for this day for a long time." Ron put away the map and walked towards the iron gate.
His hand rested on the doorknob, and he paused.
His Observation Haki detected a signal.
Not Natasha. Not Daredevil.
It was coming from the direction of the Bronx.
Extremely far. Beyond the normal perception radius of Observation Haki.
But the system was automatically amplifying the information from that direction.
[Warning: Abnormal energy fluctuations detected in the target area.] [Three new unidentified energy sources found inside the abandoned Bronx subway station.]
[Energy signature analysis in progress...partial match with known database entry: HYDRA standard EMP generator.]
[Additional detection: Unknown alloy woven mesh deployed in the platform area; preliminary material analysis...contains vibranium.] Ron released his hand from the doorknob.
Bullseye wasn't alone.
He was waiting for someone.
And those people carried equipment specifically designed to deal with superhumans.
Ron turned to look at Frank.
Frank's vertical pupils glowed faintly with a golden light in the dim light.
"Plan remains the same," Ron said, "but bring all the ammunition."
Frank unlocked the ammunition box and began stuffing magazines into every pocket of his tactical vest.
On the folding table, the map marking the Bronx subway station fluttered in the wind, and the words "Bullseye" within the red circle swayed in the light.
Ron's right hand was spread open, a thin crack appearing in the skin beneath his palm, through which a dark red light shone.
Magma at 1200 degrees Celsius flowed along his finger bones.