Lava melted through the glass revolving door.
Tempered glass crumbled into viscous droplets, splattering down the door frame onto the marble floor, burning a series of black holes.
The lobby was brightly lit.
Thirty security guards huddled behind load-bearing pillars, all clad in black tactical gear.
They weren't carrying conventional firearms.
Electromagnetic pulse guns. Vibranium shard projectiles. Hypnotic gas emitters.
Beneath the fountain's base, a silver-gray device whirred at high speed.
Blue light erupted from the tops of three antennas, weaving into a light curtain that enveloped the lobby.
An electromagnetic barrier.
Kingpin's defense line, prepared for a year.
Ron didn't stop.
Dark red lava burst through his skin, engulfing his arms, shoulders, and torso.
His suit instantly carbonized to ash.
Completely magma-ified.
The 1200-degree Celsius temperature shattered the blue light curtain.
The circuitry overloaded, white smoke billowing from the antenna base.
Three seconds.
The equipment exploded.
The light screen disintegrated into a sky full of arcs of electricity, flickering twice before going completely out.
"Fire!" Thirty guns roared simultaneously.
Vibranium fragments slammed into Ron's torso.
The moment the fragments penetrated the magma layer, they quickly softened and deformed, turning into molten gold that trickled down his back.
The hypnotic gas canisters, thrown into the air, exploded instantly due to the intense heat.
The white mist, barely spreading, evaporated instantly.
Ron continued forward.
The marble beneath his feet turned into lava.
A security guard's hand trembled violently, and his walkie-talkie fell to the ground.
"First floor lost! Less than ten seconds—he's coming!"
The walkie-talkie was silent.
Two security guards dropped their guns and rushed towards the side door.
Jessica approached from behind.
Her left fist slammed into a marble support column.
The column snapped in half, sending debris flying.
No killing. Just establishing authority.
The remaining twenty-eight security guards stared at the broken stone pillar, gun barrels drooping one after another.
Some slammed their rifles to the ground, clutching their heads.
The sound of metal clashing against marble echoed.
Jessica closed her eyes.
The Soul-Soul Fruit's sensory abilities expanded outward, sweeping over all the kneeling security guards.
Soul fluctuations were normal.
No remnants of mind control.
No frenzied excitement like a suicide bomber.
"Clean," Jessica said, opening her eyes.
Ron nodded and walked towards the elevator.
The elevator doors were tightly shut, the floor indicators all off. Power had been cut off.
Ron pressed his right hand against the elevator door.
Lava erupted, instantly burning through the double-layered steel plates.
The door melted and collapsed, revealing the vertical elevator shaft.
He raised his right arm.
Jessica grabbed it.
Lava gushed from beneath Ron's feet, the powerful thrust carrying both of them into the shaft.
Third floor.
Eight armed drones hovered at the opening, their infrared sights locked on.
Ron's body temperature soared to 1500 degrees Celsius.
The heat radiation instantly created a scorching field.
The drones' electronic components all short-circuited, their rotors stopped, and they crashed one after another into the bottom of the shaft.
Fifth floor.
Poisonous gas poured in from the ventilation duct.
A pungent stench of sulfides mixed with a high concentration of nerve-numbing agents.
The air temperature within two meters of Ron exceeded 300 degrees Celsius.
The poisonous gas molecules decomposed instantly.
Jessica pressed against his back, her cloak shielding him from the deadly heat.
Eighth floor.
The four walls of the elevator shaft suddenly closed.
A metal mesh woven from vibranium-titanium alloy composite threads descended upon him.
Ron didn't use magma.
He slammed his right palm directly onto the mesh.
Flowing Cherry Blossom.
The shockwave traveled along the alloy threads, penetrating the interior, causing the welded joints to crumble inch by inch at a microscopic level.
The entire net instantly shattered into hundreds of scrap metal pieces, plunging into the abyss.
Jessica cursed under her breath.
"Kingpin turned this building into a ninety-three-story meat grinder."
"Can't grind it."
The two continued their ascent.
Fifty floor.
Ron stepped into the corridor, his magma power receding by seventy percent.
Twelve people blocked the end of the corridor.
Silver-gray custom-made armor, blue coolant flowing from the joints.
The chest armor temperature detector showed: -15 degrees Celsius.
They held energy-cutting guns modified from Chitauri remains.
Blue beams shot out, carving glaring red marks into the wall.
The first beam aimed directly at Ron's chest.
Ron dodged.
The beam grazed his right shoulder, cleaving the door frame behind him in two.
Pure magma couldn't penetrate the cooled armor.
Ron withdrew the magma, his Armament Haki fiercely covering his entire body.
"Shave." His figure vanished into thin air.
Before the first armored soldier could even turn his gun, Ron was already beside him.
His right fist slammed into the chest armor.
Flowing Sakura.
The shockwave ignored the two-centimeter-thick outer shell, striking the internal servo motor directly.
The motor shattered. The sternum cracked.
The armored soldier coughed up blood, flying backward along with his two-hundred-kilogram metal shell, smashing through the partition wall.
The second. The third. The fourth.
Ron left afterimages amidst the swarm of armored soldiers.
Each punch targeted only one point—the chest.
Flowing Sakura's force was precisely positioned at the critical line between destroying the armor and breaking bones.
Jessica burst in from the other end of the corridor.
She gripped the helmet of the eleventh armored soldier with both hands and pried it open with tremendous force.
Ten tons of force tore open the vibranium mask.
A purple psychic shockwave poured in.
The armored soldier's eyes rolled back, and he instantly lost consciousness.
The last armored soldier abruptly turned his gun towards Jessica.
Ron's palm was already pressed against her back.
The Flowing Sakura erupted.
The internal circuitry of the armor collectively failed. The two-hundred-kilogram iron shell became an upright coffin.
Jessica strode forward and smashed the iron coffin to the ground with a single punch.
Eighty seconds. Twelve people cleared out.
The corridor was littered with shattered parts and leaking coolant.
Ron stepped over the mess and continued upwards.
Seventieth floor.
A spacious hall.
Conference table, leather chairs, floor-to-ceiling windows.
Ron had just taken a step when the loudspeaker overhead blared.
"Judge Ron Stern." Kingpin's voice, deep and steady, cut through the static.
"Or rather—the Lava Man of Hell's Kitchen." Ron stopped.
Jessica stood to his right rear, the hem of her cloak swaying in the wind.
Kingpin's tone was completely calm.
"I know your real name, your address, your employee number."
"You thought lava could hide your identity? I found out the very next day." The broadcast paused for a second.
"Judge Mickelson texted me before you made your first move."
"He said the expression on your face when you saw the killer being released in court that day didn't look like that of a judge at all."
"I've been watching you ever since." Ron stood in the center of the hall, his face ashen.
His judgeship was just a tool. The tool was exposed; he could simply switch to another knife.
"So what?" There was a two-second silence on the broadcast.
Kingpin spoke again, his voice radiating absolute control.
"Because I also know—in your shipyard safe house, there's a sixteen-year-old Chinese girl hiding." The marble beneath Ron's feet cracked violently.
Not a cherry blossom.
It was an out-of-control body temperature.
1500 degrees Celsius.
His leather shoes instantly carbonized.
The marble floor tiles softened and collapsed, forming a two-meter-diameter orange-red lava crater.
Jessica was forced back three steps by the heatwave, the edges of her cloak charred black.
"Come on up, Your Honor." Kingpin's voice was icy.
"See you on the top floor."
"Before you come up, I suggest you make a call to confirm if the girl is still there." The broadcast cut off.
Ron pressed the communicator with his right hand.
"Frank! Safe House! Xiaowei!" Only Frank's heavy breathing and the noise of the wind rushing into his earpiece came through the communicator.
He was running at full speed.
Thirty seconds.
The footsteps stopped abruptly.
Frank's breathing stopped for a full two seconds.
Then, a wolf howl exploded.
It was the roar of a wild beast discovering its den had been destroyed, squeezed from the deepest part of its chest.
"The door isn't broken. The lock isn't touched."
Frank's voice was frighteningly flat.
"It's empty." Ron's five fingers dug five dents into the communicator's casing.
"There's a note on the table." Frank read it out, enunciating each word clearly.
"Fisk Tower, 93rd floor. Too late. I'm sending her to keep the Hand's materials company." A moment of deathly silence followed.
Frank's voice plummeted to below freezing.
"Ron. He hurt the child." Ron's hand fell.
The magma on his body receded completely.
The lava crater beneath his feet rapidly cooled and solidified.
A layer of pure black Armament Haki covered his entire body.
No longer a grayish-black sheen.
But an absolute black that completely swallowed light.
Jessica stumbled back three steps, her back slamming against the wall.
The word "Justice" on her cloak trembled violently.
The air felt as heavy as lead.
The floor-to-ceiling windows, coffee table, and chandelier in the 70th-floor lobby—
simultaneously cracked.
It wasn't a tremor.
It wasn't high temperature.
It was pure will crushing everything in its path.
A line of golden text popped up on the system panel in his field of vision.
[Conqueror's Haki - Prelude to Awakening.] Ron looked up, his gaze piercing through the ceiling, pointing straight to the top floor.
"Jessica."
"Here."
"Keep up, don't fall behind." Lava began to erupt from beneath his feet again.
No longer orange-red.
Pure white.
1800 degrees.