"The hounds are coming." Ron's words had barely left his lips when a hole blasted open in the south wall of the shipyard.
Flashbangs went in first.
Three. A white light engulfed the entire rooftop.
Frank's wolf ears caught the sound of the fuses snapping 0.3 seconds before the flashbangs exploded. He grabbed Jack's head, pressing them both to the ground.
Ron didn't move.
His Observation Haki had locked onto every heat source outside the wall ten seconds earlier. Eight people. Tactical formation. Two to a group, advancing simultaneously from four directions.
Professional.
Ron looked down from the edge of the rooftop.
Four dark figures filed in through the gap in the wall. Armed with custom-made short-barreled assault rifles, miniature grenade launchers mounted below the muzzles.
The leader wore a skull mask, and the pockets of his tactical vest were bulging.
Ron raised his right hand from the railing.
Fingers spread. A dark red light seeped from between his fingers.
He didn't transform into his full-body magma form. There was no need.
Ron hurled a fist-sized lava projectile downwards from the rooftop.
The projectile struck the concrete ground two meters in front of the four-man squad.
It didn't explode.
The magma silently seeped into cracks in the ground, spreading in four directions along the foundation.
Two seconds.
The four men plummeted simultaneously. It wasn't a simple ground fissure—the entire area's concrete foundation had been hollowed out from the bottom by the magma, creating a three-meter-deep lava crater.
The crater walls were eight hundred degrees Celsius.
The rubber soles of their tactical boots melted instantly.
The second four-man squad on the other side of the wall heard the screams and stopped.
Ron jumped off the rooftop.
The impact of the landing created a spiderweb-like crack in the concrete.
Ron glanced down.
The eyes behind the skull mask were fixed on Ron.
"Pierce sent you."
Ron wasn't asking.
The other man didn't answer. His left hand reached for the dagger at his waist—
Ron kicked him in the chest.
The man's body smashed through the metal fence behind him, rolling three times on the gravel of the parking lot.
The remaining seven team members watched their captain disappear into the ground.
Weapons were scattered everywhere.
Seven minutes later, everyone was taken into custody.
The shipyard returned to silence.
In the basement, Bucky's purification process was still running. Jessica's Soul-Soul Fruit shield steadily enveloped his consciousness.
— Seven days after Kingpin's disappearance.
Hell's Kitchen had become a slaughterhouse.
Ron stood in front of the courthouse window. Outside, at the intersection of West 52nd Street and 10th Avenue, two cars were parked across the road, their doors riddled with bullet holes. An ambulance was loading a stretcher.
The person covered by the white sheet was short.
Short enough not to be at the scene of a shootout.
Ron drew the curtains and sat back down at his desk.
On the desk lay Frank's handwritten report. Frank's handwriting was large and messy, the pencil almost piercing the paper.
"Monday: Gang fight on 49th Street. 3 civilians injured. 4 detained."
"Wednesday: Battle for the former Kingpin Casino on 44th Street. Crossfire. 2 civilians dead. 5 detained."
"Friday: Three-way brawl in the docks. 5 detained. 2 civilians dead. 1 12-year-old boy." Seven days. Seven civilians dead.
Frank and Jack patrolled until 4 a.m. every night, Monday to Sunday.
The bullet holes in their white cloaks were patched and reopened.
"Can't hold them down," Frank wrote on the last line of the report.
Ron closed the report.
Four and a half people—Bucky still in a deep coma during purification—couldn't hold up the entire New York City security network.
Frank and Jack were responsible for Hell's Kitchen and Brooklyn.
Jessica was to oversee Bucky's purification process.
Ron had to maintain his role as judge during the day.
He pressed the button for a shootout on the left, and two more immediately appeared on the right.
Back when Kingpin was in charge, his iron fist had reduced all the lower-level gangs to a docile deck of cards. Which street sold drugs, what time the casinos closed, which routes were used for human trafficking—everything was governed by rules.
A distorted order, but undeniably an order.
Now the table was overturned.
Six surviving Kingpin gangs were fighting for territory. Not to become kings, but to survive. Without a boss protecting them, whoever seized territory first would eat.
Ron rubbed his temple.
His communicator vibrated.
Jessica's voice came through the earpiece.
With a tension he'd never heard before.
"Ron, I detected something."
"What?"
"I don't know. But it's making my senses hallucinate from 300 meters away." Ron lowered his hand from his temple.
"Location."
"Lower Manhattan. The basement of a bar on Green Street." Jessica's breath hitched.
"That fluctuation…it's not human. It smells of sulfur. Frank's nose confirmed it too." Ron brought up the system panel.
The search area was locked on Green Street in Lower Manhattan.
The scan results appeared two seconds slower than usual.
The text on the panel had a red border.
[Anomaly detected: Parker Robbins. Codename "Big Boss".]
[Source of ability: Nisianti Demon Abyss Cloak (magical artifact).]
[Abilities: Invisibility, Aerial Walk, Demonic Fire Projection.]
[Sin Value: 6800.]
[Warning: The target's "invisibility" ability can be active simultaneously on the visual, thermal imaging, and electromagnetic wave levels. Observation Haki can locate the target through life force, but demonic fire will release a large amount of interference signals, reducing the location accuracy to 40%.] Ron stared at the warning line.
Location accuracy 40%.
That means three out of five predictions were false alarms.
He scrolled down.
[Additional Information: Parker Robbins, formerly a street thug in the Bronx. He acquired the Abyss Cloak in an abandoned warehouse three weeks ago. He has currently absorbed four gang branches formerly under Kingpin. Expansion rate: one every 48 hours.] He devours one gang every two days.
The criminal network Kingpin spent twenty years building is being taken over by this man in twenty days.
Ron closed the panel.
"Jessica."
"Yes."
"What hallucination did you have when you saw that fluctuation?" There was a three-second silence in the channel.
Jessica's voice was low.
"The Purple Man."
"I saw the Purple Man standing in front of me." Ron's finger hovered over the communicator button.
The holder of the Soul-Soul Fruit, someone tormented by mind control and granted mental immunity by her cloak—her soul defenses were the thickest in the entire Navy.
Her sensory protection was breached from three hundred meters away, triggering her deepest memories of fear.
"Withdraw. Don't approach." Ron hung up the call.
He stood up and picked up his black suit jacket from the back of his chair.
In the courthouse corridor, two clerks carrying coffee passed by and greeted him. Ron nodded slightly.
He stepped out of the courthouse.
Sunlight shone on the steps.
Ron paused for half a second on the last step.
His Observation Haki extended southward toward Lower Manhattan.
He detected that presence.
A faint, anxious life force. In the background noise of the city, the energy flickered, releasing a wave of interference pulses every few seconds.
Forty percent accuracy.
One in three false signals was real.
Ron withdrew his Observation Haki.
A magical creation. The power of demonic blood.
This wasn't a problem that muscles and bones could solve.
He needed intelligence. He needed a weakness.
Baki's purification had forty-eight hours left.