Kingpin, S.H.I.E.L.D., and the Shadow Army

Following a tourist map to Manhattan in the Big Apple, Lu Qi failed to find Stark Tower, which left him a little puzzled. He had wanted to check in at the famous spot.

Thinking back over the plot, Stark Tower really had not appeared in Iron Man 1. Its first appearance should have been in Avengers 1. After all, the scene of Stark wearing his armor and working in the water to restore power to Stark Tower had been quite memorable.

Unable to check in at the internet-famous landmark, Lu Qi left disappointed. For now, he needed to get some money and settle down outside first.

After all, The Ancient One had tossed him aside after using him, without even giving him any money or resolving his identity issues. In Marvel, he was basically an unregistered account.

If he was discovered, he might be deported back to his country—if they were capable of doing that.

As Lu Qi walked, he considered where to make some money. With so many Ninja Soldiers at his disposal, maybe he could just do construction work. He remembered that labor costs around here were pretty high.

In the end, though, Lu Qi did not look for construction work. It would have been a little beneath a superpowered person like him. More importantly, superpowered people on Earth all hid themselves away. Showing up so openly felt strange.

(PS: Mutants excluded.)

Or perhaps he could rob the gangs in Hell's Kitchen?

Lu Qi thought of the Hell's Kitchen dungeon that so many superheroes farmed for massive amounts of reputation, experience points, and money, so...

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Paul looked at the sparse crowds on the streets. The buddies who usually chatted and joked with him had all vanished. Even he had been ordered by the gang boss not to cause trouble.

That was because a force called the "Shadow Army" had appeared out of nowhere recently and had been robbing every gang in Hell's Kitchen, looting all their money.

But strangely enough, they never took the most valuable laundry powder. Instead, they burned it all, taking only cash and the like. They did not even want guns, which had led to quite a few "scavengers" appearing in Hell's Kitchen lately.

Pah. What Shadow Army? It was nothing more than some little team formed by street vigilantes.

Paul touched the gun tucked into his clothes and spat.

Vigilantes or not, if they dared show themselves, he would blow them away with one shot. He refused to believe those bastards could not be killed!

Pushing open the door to his gang's base, Paul entered, only to find it far too quiet today.

A pair of red eyes silently emerged from the shadow behind him, and a glint of cold light slashed toward Paul's neck...

Lu Qi sat atop the building, playing on a handheld console. Thank Marvel World's black technology. Although phones were not smartphones yet, handheld consoles and things like that still existed.

Pairs of red eyes emerged from within his shadow. As if receiving a message, Lu Qi stood and left.

======

After receiving the news, Coulson arrived at the Blood Hand gang's base. The place had already been cordoned off, with yellow warning tape plastered over the main entrance to keep people out. But someone had long since torn it open, and the interior had probably been looted countless times.

Coulson walked straight inside.

The moment he entered, he saw a decapitated corpse. Since no one was paying, nobody had come to clean up the bodies. Even when the police came, they only conducted a brief investigation before leaving this dangerous neighborhood.

As a top agent, Coulson naturally was not afraid of a mere headless corpse. For people like them, even if they watched someone get crushed into meat paste, they could still eat another two bowls of rice afterward.

Coulson examined the entrance. Someone had just entered the base when a sharp blade from behind severed his head.

After checking both sides of the door, Coulson was certain that no one could have hidden behind it without being noticed by whoever entered.

Then was it someone the victim knew? Impossible. Most of this man's acquaintances were lying dead inside.

Coulson had already reached a conclusion, but he did not confirm it immediately. Instead, he headed deeper inside.

Everything in these areas had been looted clean, without even a shell casing left behind.

Coulson's head hurt. Their influence in Hell's Kitchen was much weaker than in other places, and by the time they learned of this, it was already too late.

Looking at the mess before him, Coulson sighed and began inspecting the place from the start.

After a while, Coulson organized his findings.

The laundry powder in the warehouse had been washed down the drain with water and other things. Not a single coin of cash had been left at the scene. It was enough to make one suspect that the killer was so poor that he had developed a superpower called "money sense."

Every victim at the scene had been killed in a single strike with a bladed weapon. Some also bore marks from being pierced by darts, but strangely, no darts or similar objects had been left behind.

Investigations of nearby residents also revealed that there had not been much noise during the incident. It was as though everyone inside had been killed all at once.

Yet Hell's Kitchen's gangs had been keeping an extremely low profile lately, with nearly all their members staying in their own bases. With so many people, how had the killer eliminated them all so quickly? There had been no news of any special forces deployment on their side.

After counting the corpses, there were over a hundred in total. Most had gathered in groups, but some had been hiding in extremely secluded places. According to the investigation, the difference in their times of death was less than an hour.

The more Coulson thought about it, the more his head hurt. For the killer to meet all these conditions, it would be equivalent to bringing at least fifty people into the base, locating every enemy as if using wallhacks, killing everyone within an hour without letting anyone react, and preventing them from firing even a single shot.

Remembering the corpse at the entrance, Coulson reached a conclusion. The killer was very likely a superpowered person.

Although superpowered people were extremely rare in this world, S.H.I.E.L.D. still knew they existed. But were these people not all supposed to be hiding quietly in the shadows, terrified of being exposed and dragged away for dissection? How did one dare jump out into the open?

Though he had a suspect in mind, there were no unusual fingerprints or footprints at the scene. He had gained no useful information at all, which gave Coulson a terrible headache. Just as he was wondering how to report this to his bald boss, someone slipped in through the entrance.

The man was not at all surprised to see Coulson, which told Coulson that he had come specifically for him.

"Would you like to know who did all this?" the man asked Coulson.

Deep within Hell's Kitchen, a massive man stood before a floor-to-ceiling window, looking toward the nearby streets.

Kingpin was irritated. A force called the "Shadow Army" had suddenly appeared on his turf recently. It had destroyed one gang after another without the slightest regard for reason. Yet strangely, it did not take the most valuable goods. Instead, it took cash worth less than a tenth of the drugs. It was bizarre to the extreme.

Yet their actions did not resemble those of the old rivals who loved and hated him in equal measure. In other words, Hell's Kitchen now had another new enemy. Unlike the ones before, this enemy was exceptionally powerful and efficient, and in a short time, it had already caused him considerable losses.

But the dignity of the underworld emperor could not be insulted. Kingpin had naturally prepared a gift for them, but first, he needed to know their identity. And when it came to investigating identities, who was better at it than that agency? After all, they were professionals.

Kingpin crushed the tempered glass in his hand, letting the shards fall to the floor, then used his uninjured hand to take out a phone.

"Did you tell that Homeland Strategic... whatever agency the things I asked you to say?"

Coulson walked out of the gang base. He had not expected such a force to emerge in Hell's Kitchen lately. Combining it with the information he had discovered earlier, Coulson felt there was something to work with here, so he quickly drove away in his beloved car.

Lu Qi returned to the small apartment where he lived, exchanged a few friendly greetings with his upstairs and downstairs neighbors, then went home.

Ninja Soldiers emerged one after another from the shadows, each carrying some amount of money and valuables.

They placed the money in a small room. That room now held quite a bit of cash, but Lu Qi was not satisfied. He still had a bit of a hoarder's instinct.

Lu Qi did not yet know that he had insulted Kingpin's dignity, nor did he know that Kingpin had revealed some traces of him to S.H.I.E.L.D. He only knew that he had destroyed another heinous gang, and his heart felt utterly peaceful.

Mm, I really am amazing.

At first, Lu Qi had not been so cold-blooded and ruthless. He had only ordered the Ninja Soldiers to knock them out and take their money. But once, in a gang's basement, he found hundreds of scantily clad women, including quite a few minors! There were even piles of corpses in the corners, with flies buzzing around them and maggots breeding inside.

The sight filled Lu Qi with rage, so he ordered the Ninja Soldiers to kill everyone in that gang. He had continued that practice ever since.

Feeling that his style was becoming somewhat antiheroic, Lu Qi could not help but smile bitterly. Still, he knew that some people deserved to die.

To borrow a famous quote: Forgiving them was God's business. My job was to make sure they met God on time.

Using those words to express his thoughts, Lu Qi had killed no fewer than a thousand people in Hell's Kitchen. Of course, 99.99% of them had been killed by Ninja Soldiers. Only one gang leader, who had still been threatening those women and Lu Qi when death was upon him, had made Lu Qi strike personally.

And then, Hell's Kitchen truly had a demon.

The demon himself contentedly inspected his little treasury, then ordered takeout. The delivery fee cost no less than the meal itself, simply because this was Hell's Kitchen. It cost extra.

Thinking back to that time, he had called the police and had them clean up the scene. Afterward, he had the Ninja Soldiers confirm that the women had not been sold back to other gangs by the police, then stopped paying attention.

That was not alarmist speculation. Once, while clearing out a gang, he had unexpectedly obtained evidence of crimes committed by Big Apple's corrupt officials. After handing it to the police, they sold it back to a gang, forcing him to verify the truth himself.

Opening the system, Lu Qi saw that after so many days of mining, he now had seventy Ninja Soldiers. He had also encountered the issue The Ancient One had mentioned before: the Energy Crystals included with the system had been exhausted, and his number of Energy Crystals was no longer increasing.

His current panel was:

[Lu Qi

Ninja Soldiers: 70

Energy Crystal mining speed: 7/minute

Energy recovery speed: 7/second

Current Energy Crystals: 71]

He had not used the remaining seventy-one Energy Crystals to purchase Ninja Soldiers because he feared that he might need energy later but lack enough of it. So he had kept some Energy Crystals in reserve, preserving his mana bar.