" Luke! Wake up! Look at me!"
Daredevil's shouts echoed through the factory; he desperately wanted to awaken the giant who had once fought alongside him.
The bartender who poured beer for the poor in Harlem, a man with invulnerable skin who always smiled gently at the little girl in the neighborhood.
Daredevil refused to believe that such a resilient soul could be destroyed by chemical poisons; he firmly believed that human reason still lingered deep within those mutated muscles.
His response was a furious, irrational howl.
Before the deafening roar had even subsided, the Punisher Frank Castle, had already emerged from the Shadow on the right.
This veteran, who had experienced countless bloody battles, didn't believe in the idea of being reformed.
All those calls for love and peace, all those rhetoric about using past friendships to awaken lost minds, were nothing but nonsensical fairy tales to the Punisher.
There is only one most effective way to deal with a monster that has gone out of control and gone berserk!
That means using a high-caliber, armor-piercing round to smash the opponent's skull!
Bang bang bang bang!
The Negasonic Teenage Warhead clattered and fell to the ground, without even breaking a skin.
Daredevil transformed into a human hammer, slicing through the air with a whoosh.
Right next to it are the remains of an assembly line, with the sharp corners of the sheet metal standing upright. If you were to headbutt it, you'd be skewered like a string of candied hawthorns on the spot.
His Superman reflexes saved his life; Daredevil tucked his head and neck into his arms and faced the ground with his back.
boom!
"Puff!"
He spat out a mouthful of blood, the ground cracked open, the swarm of wasps in his left ear swarmed again, and his Radar Sense went out of control.
His internal organs had all shifted, and he swallowed back the second mouthful of blood that rose to his throat. Daredevil lay sprawled out, unable to lift even a finger.
Before he could catch his breath, Luke's large hand pressed down on his back, squeezing his spine.
"Hmm..."
Daredevil braced himself on his elbows and crawled forward with all his might.
"Let go of me!"
Before the Punisher could even make a move, Luke slapped him across the face.
The Punisher flew sideways, crashing into a row of empty metal barrels, rolling seven or eight meters with a clatter. He saw stars and tried to climb up twice, but both times he fell back into the pile of barrels.
Daredevil gritted his teeth and tumbled sideways.
Half of his body broke free from the restraint, his knee slammed into the ground, and he was just a hair's breadth away from rolling over and escaping this Shadow.
But another large hand swung down, its five fingers gripping the shoulder and digging directly into the collarbone.
Oh no!
The thought had barely formed when he felt a tightening around his hips as a second hand gripped his waist.
One hand on the shoulder, the other on the waist.
With both hands, exerting force in opposite directions.
"Giggle... giggle..."
At first, it was just pain, a soreness seeping from between the bones. Then the pressure increased layer by layer, and the spine began to groan from the unbearable burden.
No one in the world could hear the screams of his own bones more clearly than Daredevil.
His exceptional hearing, honed through countless trials, became an extremely cruel form of torture at this moment.
" Luke... don't..."
Ever since he decided to wear that dark red mask, Daredevil has been fighting for justice in this ghostly city every night.
He had long been mentally prepared to die a violent death in the street, and over the years he hadn't really taken death seriously or been genuinely afraid of it.
Being a superhero in this utterly awful Hell's Kitchen is a job that puts your life on the line.
He wasn't afraid when he jumped from the rooftop of a seven-story building back then, when there was no safety equipment below.
Even when a dozen submachine guns were pointed at his head by local gangsters, and bullets could turn him into sieves at any moment, he was never afraid.
I was never afraid when the knife pierced my flesh.
But now, a bottomless sense of powerlessness has emerged.
This is unlike any other time before; it's a chasm that you can't cross no matter how strong your will or how skilled you are.
Faced with physical crushing force, human bones are as fragile as a dry twig.
A jumble of images flashed through my mind.
The way Dad lay on the boxing ring, his face covered in blood, his eyes swollen shut, surrounded by gamblers the Batman Who Laughs wildly after winning money, their greedy faces staring at him.
Sergeant Brett collapsed at his feet. This kind-hearted man who had always upheld his principles had a tragic smile on his face as he died from the poison gas.
The first time he wore that dark red mask, he made a vow to himself that he would ensure the good people in this city could sleep peacefully at night.
Behind every lit window in Hell's Kitchen, someone was waiting for him to return.
And those he saved, and those he missed.
At the firm of blind lawyer Matthew Murdock, there's a pile of unfinished pro bono cases waiting to go to trial.
The scenes flashed by like a revolving lantern; death was imminent, and the fear of dying was so intense it was like a hundred claws tearing at one's heart.
The Punisher propped himself up from the pile of metal barrels, blood obscuring one eye.
He reached into his gear; the holster was empty, the magazine pouches were all deflated, the grenades were long gone, and the tip of the dagger was still stuck in the wooden crate.
For the first time in his life, Frank Castle couldn't find a single usable item on his person.
Those hands that killed so many people could stretch from the docks to the street corner; now, you can't even find a single stick that can still make a sound.
"Giggle..."
Daredevil's screams echoed through the factory.
He could hold on for at most two more seconds, and then the backbone that had carried him for over thirty years would be destroyed in these hands.
He could even calculate the location of the fracture, between the third and fourth lumbar vertebrae, where it would give way first.
Daredevil suddenly stopped struggling. He opened his mouth, and blood dripped from his chin onto the ground.
" Luke... I'm sorry..."
"I didn't... save you..."
Luke let out a muffled growl.
Click!
The sharp crack pierced Frank's ears, louder than any explosion he had ever heard.
The red body slumped down, its head lolling to one side, and remained motionless.
Luke released his grip, straightened up, and the metal canister on his back was still bulging.
The Punisher knelt motionless on one knee amidst the jumbled pile of metal barrels.
Three meters away, there was that Azazel who jumped around on the rooftops like a flea every night.
That stubborn mule, single-minded and unwilling to kill anyone, would rather be stabbed himself than actually kill someone.
Now he lies sprawled on the ground, his legs in a deformed position that no normal living person could achieve.
Is he dead?
He didn't know, but even if this guy survived, he would spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
The Punisher suddenly laughed, unfastened his bulletproof vest, and pulled out a piece of plastic explosive wrapped in duct tape from a hidden compartment. It was his trump card—half a pound of high explosive, enough to send this factory building and its roof flying into the sky.
Use your thumb to open the safety cover of the detonator.
He propped himself up on his trembling knees, swaying as he stared at the dark figure, grinning to reveal a mouthful of blood-stained white teeth.
The Punisher raised his hand and, with all his might, flung the explosive at Luke Cage's feet.