On a deserted roadside outside the city, music blared from the speakers of a parked sedan.
Two men faced each other in the darkness.
One stood.
The other struggled to stay upright.
Daredevil pressed a hand against his chest where several ribs had been shattered by Noah's kick. Even so, he tried to push himself back onto his feet.
Before he could rise fully, the cold barrel of a rifle pressed against his forehead.
One twitch.
That was all it would take for the bullet to blow through his skull.
"Sorry about this, Daredevil," Noah said quietly. Then he corrected himself. "Actually… Matthew Murdock would be more accurate."
His expression remained calm.
"You're a good man. Unfortunately, tonight you picked the wrong fight."
Matt's head jerked up.
"You… know who I am?"
The shock in his voice was unmistakable. Few people knew his identity. Even fewer would dare speak it out loud.
Noah answered with action instead of words.
Two gunshots rang out.
BANG. BANG.
Both bullets struck cleanly—one through Matt's right arm, the other through his left leg.
Matt groaned despite himself. His baton slipped from his grasp and clattered onto the pavement.
Noah bent down, picked it up, and tossed it several feet away.
"Of course I know who you are," Noah said calmly. "I know the law firm you work at. I know the people close to you."
He paused briefly.
"Though I guess 'family' isn't the right word anymore. Your father's gone. Same situation as me."
Matt remained silent, breathing slowly through the pain.
Noah continued.
"Relax. I'm not planning to kill you. Like I said—you're one of the good guys."
He stepped back toward the car.
"But do me a favor. Stop chasing me."
"You've got your own enemies to deal with. Guys like Wilson Fisk. Focus on that."
Noah opened the driver's door.
"If we run into each other again and you decide to interfere… well."
His voice stayed casual.
"I'm sure Kingpin would be very interested in the real identity of Daredevil."
He let the implication hang in the air.
"After all, the secret identity of a superhero is worth a lot more than the money from a single bank vault."
Noah slid into the driver's seat, slammed the door shut, and hit the accelerator.
The car roared away into the night.
Daredevil lay on the asphalt, listening to the fading engine, his expression unreadable behind the red mask.
Inside the car, Noah's calm expression collapsed instantly.
Pain exploded through his body.
"—Ah, damn it!"
His entire frame throbbed from the recoil of that final kick.
Both of his legs had taken serious damage. The bones felt like they were riddled with cracks.
Even pressing the gas pedal hurt.
"That guy's durability is insane," Noah muttered through clenched teeth.
He quickly pulled up the system interface.
Name: Noah ValeLifespan: 18 / 120Strength: 1.4 + 0.2Constitution: 1.3Mental Focus: 1.4Charisma: 1.4Unassigned Attribute Points: 0.3
Another panel had appeared during the fight.
The system had briefly analyzed his opponent.
Opponent Analysis: Matthew Michael Murdock
Strength: 1.4
Agility: 1.4
Constitution: 1.4
Mental Focus: 2.9
Charisma: 1.2
Noah couldn't help shaking his head.
"Seriously… that mental stat is ridiculous."
Over the past few days, he had started to understand the limits of ordinary human physiology.
Around 1.4 seemed to be the natural peak.
Strength.
Speed.
Durability.
Daredevil had reached that limit in all three.
On top of that, Matt's heightened senses pushed his mental processing ability to nearly 3.0—which explained why his reaction time had been terrifyingly sharp.
If Noah hadn't disrupted his hearing with loud music and caught him off guard…
That fight could have turned into a slow, painful loss.
Noah exhaled and focused back on driving.
After reaching a rocky area outside the city, he stopped the car.
He pulled the money sacks from the trunk and carried them to a narrow crevice between two large stones.
One by one, he stuffed the bags deep inside.
Then he sealed the opening with heavy rocks.
Hidden.
Temporary, but secure enough for now.
After that, he drove another fifteen kilometers before abandoning the car.
The rifle.
The mask.
The stolen clothes.
Everything went into the bushes.
He kept walking.
Even with his injured legs.
Another few kilometers later, he reached a patch of dense forest.
Finally, he stopped.
His body was nearly at its limit.
"Robbing a bank is easy," Noah muttered, leaning against a tree. "Cleaning up afterward is the real nightmare."
He tilted his head back and stared up at the branches above.
Then he started climbing.
Despite the pain in his legs, he pulled himself onto a thick branch.
Once there—
He began doing pull-ups.
One arm only.
Yes.
Pull-ups.
This wasn't madness.
It was an experiment.
If his theory was correct, he didn't need to spend attribute points to heal.
He just needed to push his constitution high enough.
Raise it from 1.3 to 1.4.
Once his body reached that level, the injuries should repair themselves naturally.
So he began training.
Right there in the middle of the forest.
With cracked bones in both legs.
Ten.
A hundred.
A thousand.
The increase in strength made every movement more efficient. Even though his body was damaged, his muscles could produce incredible output with relatively little energy.
By the time Noah completed his one-thousandth one-arm pull-up, his arm had only just started to feel sore.
He kept going.
1345.
1346.
1347.
His arm trembled as he lifted himself again and again.
Muscles burned.
Sweat dripped down his face.
A faint warmth flowed through his body, easing the strain just enough for him to keep going.
Finally—
At 1,984 repetitions, his arm gave out.
Noah switched hands and let the exhausted arm rest.
At that moment, new information surfaced in the system.
His intense training—even while injured—had triggered a deeper analysis of his physical limits.
The system concluded that pushing his body through extreme exertion could gradually raise his natural physical thresholds.
Strength.
Constitution.
Mental focus.
Each could increase if he repeatedly pushed past his current limits.
Noah's eyes lit up.
"So that's how it works."
The attribute points he equipped weren't actually part of his base stats.
They acted more like external enhancements layered on top of his natural abilities.
Which meant something important.
Even if his base strength eventually rose to something absurd—twenty, fifty, or more—the extra +0.2 from attribute points would still stack on top of it.
Separate.
Permanent.
His grin spread slowly across his face.
"I might actually break the system."
All the frustration from earlier that night disappeared instantly.
Excitement replaced it.
"Alright," he said quietly. "Let's keep going."
He grabbed the branch again.
And resumed training.
Two hours later.
The system finally confirmed the breakthrough.
His body's constitution had reached the next threshold.
A cascade of sharp cracking sounds spread through his body.
Bones shifted back into alignment.
Muscles repaired themselves.
Ligaments tightened and stabilized.
Within seconds, the damage in his legs vanished.
Noah dropped from the tree.
Mid-air, he twisted into a clean flip before landing lightly on the ground.
Perfect balance.
Perfect control.
He flexed his legs experimentally.
No pain.
His body felt stronger than before.
Noah looked toward the distant glow of the city.
Home was still more than twenty kilometers away.
He inhaled deeply.
Then he started running.
The night wind roared past his ears as he accelerated.
Buildings.
Road signs.
Trees.
Everything blurred as he sprinted through the darkness like a shadow cutting through the city's edge.