"Hostiles below, drop your weapons immediately! Hands behind your heads!"
A piercing synthesized voice cut through the downpour. Two high-powered searchlight beams crossed, pinning Yang Ming in the center of their glare.
The streams of light carried a scorching heat, instantly vaporizing the rainwater on Yang Ming's coat into wisps of white mist. The violent rotor wash drove the standing water on the ground outward in a frenzy.
An ordinary person's nerve would have shattered within a second under the sights of two fully armed helicopters modified to Apache standards.
But Yang Ming merely narrowed his eyes slightly.
In his mind, [World-Class Firearms Mastery] worked like an overclocked quantum computer, instantly breaking the scene before him into strings of cold data.
Model: modified Sikorsky UH-60. Armor thickness: additional 15 mm Kevlar composite armor on the underside. Rotor speed: 320 rpm. Wind drift: southeasterly wind, 4.2 m/s.
"Countdown to surrender. Three-" The voice over the loudspeaker was cold and merciless.
"Two-"
A cold, humorless smile tugged at Yang Ming's lips.
He did not raise his hands. The dark silver ring at the base of his right index finger flashed faintly.
Spatial displacement.
The FIM-92 Stinger man-portable antiaircraft launcher that had been resting inside a Stark weapons crate appeared out of thin air on his right shoulder.
"One-open fire!"
The helicopter pilot pressed the firing button for the mounted Gatling gun.
But Yang Ming was faster.
There was no hesitation, no need to think. His thumb flicked off the safety with a snap, his left hand steadied the launch tube, and his right eye lined up with the optical sight.
Target locked. The infrared seeker gave a shrill beep.
The entire process took 0.4 seconds, breaking the physiological limits of human tactical movement.
His index finger squeezed the trigger.
Boom!
A furious backblast erupted behind Yang Ming, instantly drying the standing water on the ground. An infrared-guided, armor-piercing high-explosive missile streaked upward on an orange-red trail, a fire dragon charging against the current straight into the sky.
The distance was far too short.
The first helicopter's pilot did not even have time to pull the control stick.
The missile shot unerringly through the helicopter's side door and detonated inside the cabin.
A blinding fireball tore through the night sky. The massive shock wave shattered the bulletproof glass. Heavy steel wreckage broke apart in midair, trailing thick smoke and screams as it plunged into the turbulent Hudson River and sent waves more than ten meters high surging upward.
"Fuck! He's got antiaircraft missiles! Climb! Climb!"
Terrified out of his wits, the second helicopter's pilot hauled on the control stick, wrenching the nose upward. Its mounted Gatling gun blindly poured fire down below.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-!
The metal storm hammered the docks like rain, plowing deep furrows through the concrete and sending fragments flying.
Yang Ming did not try to tank the barrage.
The instant he fired the first missile, he pulled with his left hand and draped the silver Optical Camouflage Medical Blanket over his head. His entire figure vanished on the spot, as though rubbed out with an eraser.
Bullets swept across the spot where he had just stood.
The helicopter wheeled in midair, its searchlight sweeping wildly without finding a target.
"Where is he?! What the hell!"
During those three seconds of the pilot's panic,
the air warped strangely behind a pile of discarded tires ten meters from Yang Ming's original position. He crouched there, already holding a second spare missile. Loading complete.
He did not even use the sight. From the sound of the helicopter's rotors tearing through the air alone, his brain had already calculated its evasive trajectory.
He rose and lifted the tube. The helicopter was trying to bank right and climb.
Yang Ming led the target with the launcher and squeezed the trigger.
A second fire dragon roared forth.
Boom!
This time, he did not strike the fuselage. At an exceptionally tricky angle, the missile hit the helicopter's vulnerable tail rotor with perfect precision.
The tail rotor exploded. Instantly deprived of its stabilizing countertorque, the enormous helicopter spun wildly in midair like an out-of-control top.
"Mayday! Mayday! Tail rotor failure-!"
Amid desperate screams, the helicopter slammed headfirst into the steel crossbeam of the docks' hundred-meter-tall gantry crane. The violent secondary explosion lit up the sky over half of Hell's Kitchen.
The few gangsters still alive on the docks broke completely. They dropped their guns and fled through the muddy water with their hands over their heads. Every one of them thought they had stumbled into an ambush by military special forces.
Yang Ming casually tossed the empty launch tube into the standing water.
He brushed the dust from his coat.
"Free fireworks. You're welcome."
He turned and slipped calmly into the darkness like a ghost in the rainy night.
The top floor of Fisk Tower, Midtown Manhattan.
Luxurious floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the nighttime cityscape of much of New York.
Crunch.
A premium Cuban cigar was crushed into fragments by a thick hand with terrifying grip strength.
Wilson Fisk, also known as Kingpin, turned his mountain of a body around. His face was expressionless, but the brutality in his bloodshot eyes was enough to suffocate anyone.
"What did you say?" Kingpin's low voice seemed to resonate inside his chest.
The man in a suit standing before him shook like a leaf, large beads of cold sweat dripping from his forehead.
"B-boss... Pier 47 was blown up. Punisher and Daredevil are both gone. The two gunships sent as reinforcements... both crashed too. The weapons shipment on the pier... disappeared."
"Where's Bullseye?" Kingpin advanced a step, his massive shadow swallowing his subordinate.
"We... we've lost contact." The suited man swallowed. "We found dozens of our men's bodies at the scene. All killed with a single strike. Slit throats, pierced hearts... some with precise submachine-gun shots to the head. But... we didn't find Bullseye's body."
A deathly silence fell over the office.
Kingpin drew a deep breath and casually scattered the crushed cigar over the carpet.
"Lock down Hell's Kitchen."
Kingpin's voice was ice-cold.
"Send out every gang member still breathing. Turn over every inch of ground and find the bastard who touched my shipment. I want him alive. I'm going to crush his spine myself, inch by inch."
22 Lake Street, Hell's Kitchen.
The downpour washed over the battered streets.
Yang Ming paused slightly as he reached the clinic entrance.
Two street punks in ripped jeans lay in the muddy water outside, clutching their shattered knees and squealing like pigs being slaughtered.
Jessica Jones leaned against the roller shutter, now reduced to ruined scrap metal. Holding the bloodstained cast-iron heating pipe, she gave a bored yawn.
When she saw Yang Ming approaching, she pointed the pipe at the two heaps of mangled flesh on the ground.
"Junkies trying to sneak in and steal things in the chaos. I smashed their knees, just like you told me."
Yang Ming did not spare the punks a glance. He stepped straight over them.
He entered the clinic.
Inside the Sterile Chamber, Matt Murdock still lay motionless, breathing steadily.
Frank Castle sat on an ammunition crate in the corner, wiping his old Remington shotgun with gauze. Hearing footsteps, he looked up. His cold eyes swept over Yang Ming's empty hands, and his brow tightened almost imperceptibly.
"You came back empty-handed?" Frank asked hoarsely. "Did Kingpin's reinforcements arrive?"
Jessica followed him inside, tossed aside the pipe, and curled her lip. "Told you. Taking on Kingpin's weapons shipment alone? You're lucky you came back alive."
Yang Ming offered no explanation.
He walked over to the sink, took off his still-dripping black windproof coat, and casually hung it over the back of a chair. Then he turned and walked to the open space in the middle of the clinic.
He raised his right hand. The dark silver ring at the base of his index finger glimmered beneath the dim yellow wall lamp.
With a thought,
Crash!!!
An extremely heavy impact erupted, loud enough to shake the entire basement.
A green military wooden crate, more than two meters long and wide and reinforced with high-strength composite armor plating, slammed onto the concrete floor out of thin air without warning.
Then,
Crash!
Crash!
two more thunderous impacts followed.
Three heavy Stark Industries weapons crates, each weighing half a ton, stood neatly arranged in the center of the clinic. The faint blue "STARK" authentication markings sprayed on their sides struck everyone's nerves.
Silence.
A deathly silence settled over the clinic.
Jessica's mouth hung slightly open, her eyes wide as saucers. She looked at the three enormous crates on the floor, then at Yang Ming's empty right hand. Her brain completely stalled.
Frank's hands froze in the middle of wiping his gun.
The muscles in Punisher's cheek twitched uncontrollably twice. This was a man who had seen mountains of corpses and rivers of blood, who would not flinch even if a mountain collapsed before him.
Half-ton weapons crates. Three of them.
Appearing out of thin air?
He had thought Yang Ming was a master assassin concealing his true abilities, or an eccentric doctor with miraculous medical skills. But this was now entirely beyond the bounds of human physics.
"Spatial Folding Technology?" Inside the Sterile Chamber, Matt had used his superhuman hearing to gauge the volume and weight of the objects landing on the floor. He could not hide the shock in his voice.
Yang Ming pulled out a tissue and leisurely wiped a drop of rainwater from the back of his hand.
He walked to the triage counter, picked up the long-cold cup of coffee, and took a sip.
His dark eyes swept over the stunned Frank.
"Restocking went smoothly." Yang Ming's tone was flat, as though stating something utterly trivial.
"The medical bill is paid in full. We're even."