Chapter 361
At some point during Luke Cage's speech, a woman wearing a black jacket, jeans, and gray shirt, her black hair long and loose, had positioned herself behind Kingpin.
Daredevil, Luke Cage, and Jessica Jones now stood in a triangle formation, their attention locked on Kingpin—who'd been trying to approach Daredevil but had been maneuvered into the center of the rooftop.
"Give me trouble?" Kingpin let out a surprised laugh, his voice still broad and benevolent. "When did you people appear? I've never heard of you. I certainly haven't wronged you in any way."
"A week ago," Luke Cage said.
"A week ago?" Kingpin's brow furrowed. "Manhattan was under dinosaur invasion then. Don't tell me you're primitives from that prehistoric world."
Daredevil stepped forward. His billy clubs snapped together with a click, forming a single long staff.
As the staff whooshed through a flourish, Kingpin hastily tossed aside his cane and raised both hands. "Besides violence, can't we talk about whatever you want first? At least let me know where you came from?"
Luke Cage and Jessica Jones exchanged glances. Jessica spoke: "You're half right, Kingpin."
Kingpin held his palms up—each roughly the size of an ordinary person's head—and made a "please, continue" gesture toward Jessica.
"Continue."
"Our current condition does relate to the dinosaur invasion, but we're not primitives," Jessica said. "As for the rest... I'll tell you after you're on the ground!"
BANG! Simultaneously, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage launched forward with a thunderous impact, charging at Kingpin like trucks running at full power.
Daredevil's attack carried less dramatic momentum than theirs. He simply gripped his staff tight and set it vibrating, making the weapon undulate like a striking serpent as it drove toward Kingpin's body.
THUNK!
Daredevil moved last but struck first, his weapon advantage giving him the lead. The staff drove straight into Kingpin's spine with a sound like metal striking bronze.
"What was that noise?" Daredevil's ear twitched.
At the same moment, Luke Cage and Jessica Jones reached Kingpin's flanks, their fists driving toward his abdomen.
Kingpin still maintained his hands-raised surrender posture. He glanced down at the two fists striking his stomach—one large, one small—then looked up at Jessica Jones and Luke Cage's suddenly dilating pupils.
"Surprised?"
Two fists plus one staff. Three attackers' combined assault only made Kingpin sway slightly in place—they couldn't knock him down!
"Daredevil, what's happening?" Luke Cage asked urgently.
"No idea." Daredevil's words came rapid-fire. He used the staff's rebound force to vault upward, planting it against the ground, gripping it with both hands as his body rose, then driving both feet hard into Kingpin's back.
THWACK!
Kingpin's pristine white suit gained a pair of footprints. Daredevil's kick—which could send common thugs flying two or three meters—only made Kingpin's body sway in place again.
"Your combat experience is extensive. Unfortunately, your strength is insufficient." Kingpin didn't turn around, but the words were clearly directed at Daredevil. He looked down at Jessica and Luke. "You two have adequate strength, but you're too stupid."
With that, Kingpin's massive hands shot out with startling speed, seizing both their heads from left and right, then slamming them violently toward the rooftop floor.
"No!" Daredevil screamed. This wasn't the outcome he'd "seen" coming before arriving.
Mid-scream, Daredevil gripped his staff's far end with one hand and brought the entire weapon down on Kingpin in an overhead strike.
This time Daredevil aimed for Kingpin's head—that bald skull as thick as his neck... or perhaps he simply had no neck at all.
Kingpin was right. Compared to Daredevil with his rich combat techniques and tactics, Luke Cage and Jessica Jones understood nothing about fighting.
They were a couple. One was a street-level thug, the other a graduate of Midtown School of Science and Technology—former classmates with Peter Parker, the Parker Industries founder whose name had become extraordinarily prominent in New York's upper circles recently, though few had actually met him.
A week ago, during the dinosaur invasion, they'd been driving behind a military transport truck loaded with radioactive chemical agents.
When a massive Tyrannosaurus rex—over twenty meters long with olive-green skin—fought a smaller creature only three meters tall and five meters long that looked more like a lizard than a dinosaur, the two combatants rolled across the street in their struggle.
The military truck ahead took just a glancing blow from the giant T-rex's tail and immediately flipped over. Its tank ruptured, spilling radioactive chemicals that nearly filled the entire cabin where Luke Cage and Jessica Jones sat.
Intense pain, acrid fumes, and terror of the dinosaurs made them both lose consciousness simultaneously. When they woke, they found themselves in a dark basement with Daredevil in his combat suit sitting nearby.
"I saw you unconscious in those chemicals. I planned to take you to a hospital, but... your bodies seem to have undergone certain changes," Daredevil had explained then.
Ordinary people gaining superhuman strength through an accident—Luke Cage and Jessica Jones had been restless all week. When they heard Daredevil wanted to deal with Kingpin, who'd returned to New York, they immediately convinced him to act together.
And that led to the current scene.
The previous staff strike had already shown Daredevil that Kingpin's body had undergone changes. This time he held nothing back, bending the staff as he brought it down.
CLANG!
That bronze-on-iron sound rang out again, as though Daredevil had struck a massive bell with all his might. The staff vibrated violently, the shock making Daredevil's palms ache severely.
He couldn't stop Kingpin. His ears clearly heard Kingpin slam Luke Cage and Jessica Jones' heads into the rooftop.
Two thumps. The rooftop tiles shattered. Neither victim made a sound before losing consciousness immediately.
Daredevil ground his teeth. He'd only known that Kingpin had apparently recovered from his injuries and returned to New York, transforming himself into a legitimate businessman.
He hadn't known when Kingpin had become an iron-skinned monster.
"If you'd joined forces with Batman, I might be more troubled than I am now," Kingpin said, casually tossing the two heads aside and dusting off his hands as he addressed Daredevil.
Daredevil remained silent. His eyes had long since lost their sight, but still he stared fixedly in Kingpin's direction.
Luke Cage and Jessica Jones were only unconscious. The radioactive chemicals that mutated their bodies and granted them tremendous strength had also given them constitutions far beyond normal humans.
Though Kingpin had slammed their heads into the rooftop tiles, neither had lost their lives.
Three against one and they still couldn't defeat Kingpin. Daredevil made an instant decision: Run!
Without any hesitation, he turned and leaped from the rooftop.
He wasn't abandoning Luke Cage and Jessica Jones—he was going to get reinforcements!
***
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