"Fuck! No one has ever dared threaten me like that. No one!"
Inside a skyscraper in New York's Hell's Kitchen.
Kingpin stood behind his desk, his massive body trembling slightly with rage. He gazed out through the glass at Hell's Kitchen beneath the night sky, his eyes icy.
He was thoroughly sick of these freaks in tights who thought putting on a costume made them a match for him.
He was Kingpin, emperor of New York's underworld. No one had ever dared threaten him like this.
In front of the desk, the bearded man who had met Li Ang earlier knelt on the floor, trembling in fear at Kingpin's words.
"Get Bullseye. I want him to bring back that man's head and hang it from a streetlight. Let everyone see what happens when they anger me!"
The bearded man sighed with relief at those words and hurriedly got up to leave and fetch Bullseye.
But a voice sounded from the darkness. "All right."
The bearded man had just reached the door when something whistled through the air. The next second, his eyes widened, and his body went limp as he collapsed onto the genuine leather carpet...
A steel needle that had flown from some unknown direction pierced straight through his head without resistance and embedded itself in the wall!
Meanwhile, Li Ang was still sitting atop the tall building, surprised that upgrading the system's voice function cost only 10 Presence.
Ten Presence-no bad deal, no getting scammed. All he needed to do was shout in the street and reread the Declaration of Independence to catch a few people's attention.
Li Ang waved a hand grandly. "I'll buy it!"
[Loading...]
The text appeared one last time. Filled with anticipation, Li Ang finally heard the system's voice after the text disappeared.
"Master."
The female voice held no hint of seduction. It was cool and formal, yet it sounded familiar to Li Ang. Very familiar! He coughed twice, then stood up and silently marveled at how well spent those 20 Presence had been!
It was more than just the system's voice function. Li Ang clenched his fists, feeling the power surging inside him.
Before, he had money with nowhere to spend it. Now, he finally had somewhere to put it to use.
Just as he was about to leave, he keenly sensed something shooting toward him from behind!
The sound of it cutting through the air was faint, but it was still far too obvious to Li Ang.
He twisted sideways, and as the object flew past, he saw that it was an iron nail about as long as a finger.
"An iron nail? Who throws iron nails as weapons?" Li Ang ran through all the superheroes he knew, but none of them were this bizarre.
Turning around, Li Ang saw a man in a black combat suit standing on a raised platform nearby.
Most importantly, the man wore a mask with a circular pattern on it. Li Ang immediately realized who he was.
Bullseye.
Kingpin's top assassin. Anything in his hands could become a lethal weapon.
For instance, he had once killed someone ninety meters away with a toothpick.
Although that was obviously bullshit as far as Li Ang was concerned, that was simply how the character was written. Just as Li Ang could shoot lasers from his eyes.
The sight of Bullseye piqued Li Ang's interest.
Since he was going to see Kingpin, he ought to bring a greeting gift. This Bullseye seemed just right.
"You've got a target on your head. Do you like getting shot at?"
Anger flared inside Bullseye when he heard that. Narrowing his eyes, he pointed at Li Ang's mouth and snarled, "Before I kill you, I'll rip out your tongue!"
As he finished speaking, without any visible movement, three steel nails shot in front of Li Ang's eyes, aimed at blinding him. This was his usual tactic.
Li Ang neither dodged nor evaded. He wanted to see whether he could withstand Bullseye's thrown attacks.
According to his character setup, Bullseye made extraordinarily precise muscular adjustments when throwing weapons to maximize their power.
A toothpick flicked from his fingertips could even rival a bullet in power!
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Three metallic clashes rang out. The iron nails, powerful enough to penetrate steel plates, struck Li Ang's face, but the sight Bullseye had imagined of them punching through Li Ang's skull never materialized.
The tips of all three steel nails flattened on impact, and they fell to the ground with a clatter.
Li Ang glanced at the steel nails on the ground, his expression a little strange. "Why do I feel like those weren't even as good as bullets?"
Bullseye could hardly believe what he had just seen. "How is that possible?" Refusing to accept it, he reached behind his waist again. This time, he drew six throwing knives!
He took long strides, throwing all six knives at Li Ang in time with his steps within a single second.
"You can become an assassin with street-performer tricks?" This time, Li Ang gave Bullseye no chance to continue.
A sonic boom tore through the air atop the building. Even Bullseye's exceptionally sharp dynamic vision could catch only an afterimage. Before he could dodge, he felt as though a truck had slammed into his chest!
His entire body flew sideways and smashed into the railing.
The railing could not withstand such force at all. It broke apart, and Bullseye plummeted from the tall building!
His vision kept graying out. He had almost met his great-grandmother.
As weightlessness took hold, he still could not understand why neither the steel nails nor the throwing knives had been able to hurt Li Ang at all.
If he could not figure it out, he would not rest in peace even if he died!
Before he hit the ground, the weightlessness vanished in an instant, replaced by suffocation!
His eyes widened as he looked at Li Ang floating in midair, holding him aloft by the throat. Looking at the smiling young man before him, his expression twisted.
"Die, you freak!" Bullseye struggled as he spoke.
He drew a dagger and thrust it viciously at Li Ang's wrist.
But the dagger could only slice through Li Ang's clothes. It even threw off sparks when it touched his skin.
Holy fuck, are you even human? Bullseye really wanted to ask Li Ang.
Whose flesh gave off sparks when you dragged a knife across it?
Seeing that there was no communicating with Bullseye, Li Ang simply gave up. Instead, he grabbed Bullseye's shoulder with one hand and pulled outward with the other!
His head, spine still attached, was brutally yanked out of his body. Blood sprayed out and scattered like rain!
Bullseye's eyes remained wide, his face frozen in pain. Li Ang's eyes were indifferent as he heard the system's voice in his ears.
[Bullseye killed: +6,000 Presence]
"Only six thousand..." Li Ang sighed. He had expected at least ten thousand. He had never imagined Bullseye's influence on this world would be so small.
Dissatisfied, Li Ang let go, allowing Bullseye's headless corpse to fall freely toward the ground.
Soon, Bullseye splattered into a puddle of mashed flesh. With everything done, Li Ang changed direction and flew toward Hell's Kitchen with the human scorpion!
Before long, he arrived in the skies above Hell's Kitchen.
Extending his super hearing, Li Ang could hear the sounds of freedom within Hell's Kitchen.
Gunfire, drug dealing, murder and robbery...
That was right. This was the freest place in all of America. The air here was as sweet as certain people who had fled abroad claimed, because it was all drugs.
One breath, and you could shake your head as fast as an electric toy.
Li Ang ignored all of that and soon located Kingpin's building within the area.
Inside his building, Kingpin sat at his desk, his fingers tapping incessantly on its surface.
He watched the news scrolling across the tablet before him, his expression shifting between light and dark.
Just then, a clacking sound came from the glass behind him, as though someone were tapping on it from outside.
Kingpin turned his head. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, where there should have been nothing but the city at night, Li Ang floated in midair with both hands behind his back, giving him a friendly smile!