Kingpin Backs Down

Not long after, The Punisher arrived in the alley. He nodded when he saw Bullseye lying on the ground.

"It really is him. How did you catch this guy?"

"A welcome gift from that homeland bureau or whatever." Lu Qi said. The Punisher and Fury knew each other anyway, so he did not have to worry about The Punisher leaking it and having Coulson come after him to settle the score.

"It's only natural that those people noticed you, but they aren't easy to deal with," The Punisher said.

"But their position on our situation is rather awkward..."

"They neither endorse it nor stop it." Lu Qi finished for him. The Punisher shot him a surprised look.

"Looks like you have a pretty good relationship with them."

Lu Qi chuckled. If he had done anything bad, Coulson probably would not have come to him so amicably. It would have been straight to "FBI, open the door!"

The Punisher drove out to the suburbs and reached a small cabin, then dragged Bullseye inside.

Lu Qi chose not to watch the eye-searing scenes and stayed outside.

After waiting several hours, Lu Qi looked at his nearly dead phone and sighed. He was about to ask The Punisher for the car keys so he could charge it.

But The Punisher happened to walk out of the cabin then, carrying a barely alive Bullseye over his shoulder.

Bullseye's throwing skills were truly absurd, but everything else about him was just average. Lu Qi did not know why the superheroes in the movies never simply crippled his hands after finally defeating him. That alone would cut Bullseye's combat strength by more than half.

Reality was different. Lu Qi looked at Bullseye's smashed, deformed hands and nodded.

It seemed the superheroes in reality had not been dumbed down much.

The Punisher said he wanted to use Bullseye to set a trap and see whether he could lure Kingpin out. Lu Qi agreed.

He was not like those superheroes who fought their enemies back and forth for years.

A grudge should be settled that very night. Nearly three days had already passed, and Lu Qi was getting desperate.

Desperate to send Kingpin to his death.

After parading Bullseye around the streets a few times, The Punisher took Lu Qi to a factory and hung Bullseye high in the air. The two of them waited.

Whenever he had nothing to do, Lu Qi started scrolling through his phone. Then, a push notification suddenly appeared.

'This year's Annual Pinnacle Person Award will be presented in Las Vegas tomorrow.'

"Looks like I have to settle this today. At the very least, I need to hurt Kingpin badly enough that he won't dare bother me again."

Lu Qi spoke to The Punisher. According to the movie plot, Tony would go to Afghanistan the day after receiving the award to showcase new weapons, then get attacked in his happy Humvee.

That meant if he wanted to watch the show and leave a souvenir check-in, he had to start moving tomorrow.

"Why are you in such a hurry? We can't deal with Kingpin today." The Punisher frowned.

Even with Kingpin's capable subordinate captured, he still did not believe Kingpin would show himself. After fighting Kingpin for so many years, he knew just how ruthless and cold-blooded Kingpin was.

"But I have something more important than fighting Kingpin to do next. Put simply, fighting Kingpin will only earn me a few million, but what I'm about to do might leave me with enough money for the rest of my life."

If he rescued Tony Stark and that guy did not cover all his future expenses, he would send Tony right back!

The Punisher found Lu Qi's words strange, but then a ninja appeared before them.

Someone was coming!

The Punisher moved to higher ground to observe in secret. He saw a large group charging straight in from the front of the factory, while Lu Qi received a message from the ambushed ninjas.

A squad was approaching from the rear of the factory, all wearing high-tech powered exoskeletons.

After some thought, Lu Qi simply gathered ten Blade Soldiers and sent them to take out the elite squad sneaking in from behind.

He led the remaining hundred-plus ninjas to the front. Looking at the cannon fodder rushing over, Lu Qi waved his hand, and a mass of Ninja Soldiers silently surrounded them.

There were around two hundred people at the front. Their personnel and equipment were far better than before, and they even had several armored vehicles. Besides that, Lu Qi spotted plenty of heavy weapons produced by Stark Industries.

If the Ninja Soldiers fought them slowly, who knew how long this wave would take? He still had another set to hurry to afterward. Lu Qi rubbed his hands together, and his body sank into the shadows, the black silhouette blending perfectly into the pitch-black night.

He stealthily reached the underside of an armored vehicle, looked up at it, and threw a punch straight into it from below.

The sudden force flipped the armored vehicle over, crushing several confused thugs beside it.

Lu Qi wanted to repeat the trick, but the other two armored vehicles seemed to have received orders. They drove toward the factory without hesitation, while the surrounding gangsters picked up their weapons and charged the factory.

Lu Qi looked at the two armored vehicles and quickly gave chase, but even as they neared the factory, they showed no sign of slowing down. Instead, they accelerated to full speed and crashed straight inside.

Lu Qi watched the armored vehicles enter the factory and could not be bothered to pursue them. He simply hid near Bullseye.

Since this was their target anyway, Lu Qi gathered his strength at the side, intending to blow up the armored vehicles the moment they came over.

As the Ninja Soldier Corps lying in ambush outside attacked, Lu Qi hid in the Shadow World and watched the two armored vehicles slowly approach.

On the small road leading to the factory, the gangsters had already spread out and begun their charge. The surrounding Shadow Ninjas suddenly attacked, inflicting severe casualties among the gangsters in the middle, but some of the lucky survivors quickly organized a counterattack.

Using all kinds of Stark Industries weapons, the gangsters successfully sent a large number of Shadow Ninjas back to the Shadow World. But their ammunition was limited, and sooner or later, the Shadow Ninjas would wipe them out.

Just as the two armored vehicles drove into the area where Bullseye was held, Lu Qi rushed from the darkness, dropped from above, and punched straight through one armored vehicle's engine.

The other armored vehicle rammed directly at him. Lu Qi gathered all his remaining energy, and a black shield appeared before him.

Bang!

The armored vehicle slammed into the black shield, shattering it, but the vehicle was forced to a stop as well.

Several ninjas appeared beside Lu Qi and leaped onto the armored vehicle. Their katanas plunged into its body and destroyed the engine. Then several Ninja Soldiers flashed their long blades, cutting open the vehicle's doors before charging inside and slaughtering every enemy within.

Lu Qi did not go inside to hack away wildly. Fighting in such a cramped space and getting blood splattered on himself would not be worth it.

He excitedly swung his fists twice on the spot, savoring the feeling of hard steel deforming and cracking beneath his punches. For some reason, he wanted to throw a few more.

Thinking about how, once he had more energy, he could punch away as much as he wanted, Lu Qi felt great.

While waiting for the Ninja Soldiers to crack open the cans, several Blade Soldiers returned to report in.

Looking at the blood slowly dripping from their claw blades, the squad in the rear was probably doomed. Gunfire still rang out beyond the factory, so Lu Qi sent them to support the battle at the front.

After cracking open the cans, Lu Qi was about to check on the situation at the front when he noticed a voice coming from the vehicle's radio.

"May I ask if this is Mr. Lu Qi?" Lu Qi picked up the radio and heard the question.

After thinking for a moment, Lu Qi replied, "It's me. What is it?"

The voice fell silent for a while, then another voice spoke.

"Hello, Mr. Lu Qi. I am Kingpin."

Lu Qi raised an eyebrow. "What is it, Mr. Kingpin? Don't tell me you still want to recruit me."

"No. I believe we can call a truce between us," Kingpin said, his voice still strong and steady.

Hearing how full of vigor Kingpin sounded, Lu Qi thought he was about to make a threat. Instead, he surrendered.

"I will compensate you five million dollars, and I will never trouble you again. I hope there will be no further grudges between us."

"Oh, really? How generous. Then what about Bullseye? How much are you planning to pay for him?"

He had no time to play with Kingpin next, anyway. Better to leave him for superheroes like Little Spider to grind levels on later.

"Bullseye? His mission failed, so he is naturally useless now."

"How cold-blooded. No wonder they call you the 'Crime Lord.'"

"Your strength is not bad either, 'Shadow Army.'"

After exchanging a bit of flattery, Lu Qi hung up the radio.

"What did Kingpin say to you?"

Once the Blade Soldiers joined the battle, it ended quickly. The Punisher had long since come over to Lu Qi's side.

"He won't go to war with me anymore. He paid into my little treasury and doesn't want to fight me."

"Mm." The Punisher did not seem surprised. "Kingpin is a smart man. Your strength keeps growing, and he doesn't know your limits. Naturally, he wouldn't dare keep fighting you."

Lu Qi smiled. His limits? Only after knocking Dormammu flat someday would he possibly encounter them.

"Then that's that. Looks like we won't be able to work together often in the future, but you can still come to me if there's anything urgent. You can deal with Bullseye however you want."

Lu Qi left those words for The Punisher and departed.

As he walked down the street, Lu Qi looked at the text message Kingpin had sent him asking for his bank account number.

"Damn, I haven't even applied for a bank card yet?"