29

"You are the Bereginya," Nobu spoke, while one could hear teeth gritting against each other.

"I never gave that name to myself, nor do I like it. It was these two who came up with it," Liam replied through his helmet. He didn't need a voice changer here. None of them would escape anyway.

"It was you who caused us such a nuisance at the pier?" Madame Gao asked as she held her crutch more tightly than ever. She was ready to pounce on this guy at any given time.

"Why ask when you already know the answer?" Liam replied. There was an eerie silence that followed, and one could feel the chill slowly creeping in this late autumn weather. The wind was quite high today, making everything extra creepy.

"Why did you attack us? Who are you?" Madame Gao asked.

"It's funny that you ask. I mean, I have always known of your existence—Wilson Fisk, the mobs, the Russians, and you, the Hand, the traitors... Oh, why are you looking at me like that? You think I don't know what you two are really after in Hell's Kitchen? I never bothered with you because you didn't cross my path—until one of your people kidnapped one of my bullies. And then I had to take action," Liam said.

His words felt like a bomb to both Nobu and Madame Gao. It was fine when he used the name Wilson Fisk—even though his name had slowly become taboo in the neighborhood, it wasn't to the extent of invoking fear among people yet—but the name Hand, and the fact that he proclaimed the real reason for their presence here, sent them off the edge.

Nobu didn't hesitate as he took out a knife and lunged at Liam, only to see a sword suddenly coming out of his chest, spraying blood all over the place. He didn't even realize that a man was standing behind him, and then, in front of him, Liam appeared and thrust a sword through his chest, a few inches away from the previous sword.

Essentially, two swords went parallel to each other. Of course, the other swordsman was himself—the spectral elf of himself. Nobu could see this as he slowly turned to look at the ghost. He was dumbfounded. When he saw the footage of the ship, he, like Madame Gao, wasn't that convinced, but now reality had hit him.

The cold crept up from the swords and spread almost instantly through Nobu's entire body. Within a second, his whole body froze over—white shavings covered his skin and black suit. Even the facial expression of pain and horror was accurately captured in the freeze.

Liam didn't want to give him a chance and just slashed at Nobu multiple times using his raw strength. After a few seconds, just like the guard in the footage, Nobu's body blew apart. Madame Gao was now struggling to believe what she was seeing. In her hundreds of years of experience, she had never seen someone like Liam before.

"Who are you? You don't look like someone from K'un-Lun," Gao asked as she slowly moved her crutch, preparing to stage a retaliation.

"Do I look like someone from that place? You guys are hilarious. Just because you failed to get what you wanted from K'un-Lun, you rebelled. It didn't belong to you in the first place. You should have just accepted fate and moved on," Liam said.

"Who gets to decide what we get and what we don't? We gave our lives to that place, and they just rejected us. They don't have the right—neither do you. We will achieve what we have the right to achieve," Gao expressed her belief with huge conviction.

"Yes, you can, and nobody is going to stop you from that. But by rebelling, killing, and bringing evil to society? That's how you want to do it? Actually, you know what? You also have the right to do that, but you must have the power to back it up," Liam said as he pointed his sword at Gao.

Gao pointed her crutch at Liam and used her Qi to attack him. It was essentially a shockwave attack that was supposed to spread outward, but before it could reach Liam, he jumped in the air and did a somersault. Then, mid-air, he jumped again to somersault once more, reaching behind Madame Gao.

His jumps happened so fast that she didn't even see how Liam went into a spectral phase and reached behind her. By the time she realized Liam had arrived behind her, it was too late.

Liam didn't utter more words of high morality—he simply used his sword to separate her head from her body. She was unwilling as she felt all her long years of work had gone down the drain, and an expression of utter regret was written all over her face.

Blood spilled all over the place, but Liam's armor looked immaculate, just like before. The armor had runes—of course, Liam had used magic to ensure it remained clean always. Seeing that two of the criminals were finished, he moved forward to dominate Wesley.

It was time to take an empire down.

"Are my instructions clear?" Liam looked at the two brothers and Wesley, who was now his new subordinate.

"Yes, sir."

"Make the process slow, and also expose the Steel Serpent. If the Hand comes after you, inform me," Liam said.

"We will follow your orders, sir," the three men spoke in sync. Liam also needed to take care of the ninjas if he wanted his assets to come out fair and square. And that's what he did.

There were a dozen ninjas hidden in the shadows as guards of Nobu and Madame Gao, and he hunted each of them down, killing them by separating their heads from their bodies. Normally, he would have called the police to take care of the bodies, but SHIELD wasn't clean yet, so he directed the Russians to take the bodies and burn them.