Makima retracted her gaze and said nothing more.
Makima opened an accident brief from Texas.
This was an ordinary file automatically marked as [Class D] by the system.
[Case Number: TX-9021]
[Location: San Antonio, Texas, Interstate 10]
[Description: An unidentified heavy-duty motorcycle caused road damage late at night. According to the on-site road administration report, approximately three hundred meters of asphalt pavement showed abnormal softening and scorch marks.]
[Police Conclusion: The vehicle involved is suspected of having illegally modified, low-quality chemical fuel boosters, constituting extreme street racing.]
Makima's finger paused on the words "scorch marks."
Without alerting anyone, she continued to use her authority to retrieve other "unrelated" cases from nearby cities in the preceding days.
Soon, two seemingly unrelated cases converged on her screen.
The first was the "Bad Bones" Bar murder case in Houston.
The victims were three core members of the local biker gang, the "Hounds of Hell."
Photos from the scene showed that the three individuals died horrific deaths.
Their bodies looked as if they had been thrown into a steel smelting furnace, turning into black powder that crumbled upon touch.
S.H.I.E.L.D. intelligence analysts speculated: "This appears to be a typical gang vendetta. It is presumed the killer attempted to destroy the bodies by arson. The case has been handed over to local police."
However, Su Modie keenly noticed a small, overlooked flaw.
Although the victims' leather jackets and metal accessories showed signs of high-temperature scorching, they were not completely destroyed.
How was this achieved?
Did the killer strip the victims naked before starting the fire?
And after burning them, thoughtfully re-dressed the unrecognizable corpses?
That clearly doesn't make sense.
Then there were several 911 call records marked as "Invalid Information."
The caller incoherently claimed that a burning motorcycle had overtaken his car in the middle of the night.
But the operator completely ignored the call, assuming the caller was high, and didn't even dispatch police.
Su Modie's heart tightened. Piecing all the information together, she suddenly thought of one person!
This person was definitely a true big fish... The Texas wilderness seemed endless, the air thick with the smell of dry dust.
This was a roadside bar with half its sign missing, its dim yellow light looking particularly murky in the night.
A middle-aged man was huddled in the darkest corner of the bar.
He looked terrible.
His once relatively thick, dark brown hair was now plastered messily to his scalp, and his hairline had receded slightly.
Beneath his deep-set eyes were two dark circles that no amount of sleep could erase.
He wore a badly worn leather jacket, and his entire demeanor suggested a nervous tension.
Although he was in a bar, he barely drank, instead pulling out a few colored jelly beans from his pocket.
He chewed them one after another, making a "crunching" sound.
He was trying to use the cheap sweetness to suppress the churning, burning sensation in his stomach.
"Be quiet... Please, just don't come out tonight..."
He muttered to the air, his fingers uncontrollably tapping a chaotic rhythm on the tabletop.
Suddenly, a burst of harsh laughter shattered the tranquility Johnny was desperately trying to maintain.
"Hey, beautiful! Nice white legs you got there. How about letting us have a feel?"
Three drunken thugs, their arms covered in cheap tattoos, cornered a young waitress like they were hunting prey.
"Don't touch me!"
Facing the thug's dirty hand reaching for her thigh, the terrified waitress instinctively fought back—she stomped hard on his foot.
But this only provoked a more brutal retaliation.
"You got nerve!"
The thug was enraged and embarrassed. Fueled by alcohol, he didn't hold back, winding up his arm and delivering a vicious slap.
"SMACK!"
Following the crisp sound of the slap, there was a crashing sound.
The girl knocked over a table and fell into the mess on the floor.
In her panic, her palm pressed directly into sharp glass shards. Blood instantly gushed out, staining the filthy wooden floor red.
The man's chewing motion suddenly stopped at that moment.
He closed his eyes in pain, the hand holding the jelly beans trembling violently, and a hideous blue vein bulged on his forehead.
He didn't want to interfere.
He really didn't want to.
If he did, that thing would come out, and then everything would be ruined.
But when the thug grabbed the girl's hair, intending to smash her head into the table, Johnny sighed.
The exhaustion, as if carved into his very bones, nearly overwhelmed him.
"Let her go."
The man stood up, his voice hoarse and carrying a strange tremor.
The thugs turned around, looked at the swaying middle-aged man who seemed high on drugs, felt no fear, and instead exchanged mocking glances and laughed.
Seeing this, the middle-aged man didn't get angry; he just sighed softly, as if lamenting the arrogance of youth.
"You... you have no idea what you are about to face..."
"Heh, of course we know. We're just facing an old lunatic,"
The leading strongman didn't attack immediately. Instead, he pulled out a folding knife, the blade snapping open with a "click." He gestured with it in front of the man, trying to scare him off: "Get lost, or I'll bleed you dry!"
The man, however, acted as if he hadn't heard. His bloodshot eyes stared straight ahead, and his steps didn't falter.
The feeling of being completely ignored infuriated the thug.
"Damn it, are you deaf?"
The thug cursed and wildly swung the folding knife, aiming straight for the man's face.
Yet the man's feet didn't even move; his upper body simply leaned slightly backward—
The knife, which should have struck, narrowly missed his nose.
A few severed strands of hair drifted down.
The entire room fell silent.
"WTF..."
The thug's hand holding the knife froze mid-air, stunned by the smooth evasion.
Even the waitress looked astonished.
Was this some kind of hidden master?
The man maintained his sidestepped posture, his gaze profound, like a peerless master looking down on ants.
He was waiting.
Normally, the opponent should have been intimidated by his aura and backed off, or at least shown fear.
However—
Reality rarely follows the script, especially for a man who'd been unlucky for most of his life.
After freezing for a second, the thug felt a surge of disbelief. Without warning, he tentatively retracted the knife and thrust it forward again.
An utterly unremarkable stab.
No technique, just pure emotion.
Psh.
This time, the man failed to react. The sharp blade pierced the worn leather jacket and solidly sank into his flesh.
The atmosphere suddenly became awkward, especially for the man who was still posing.
The thug was also startled, then spat viciously. His previous tension turned into furious laughter: "What are you trying to pull, old man? You scared the hell out of me! I thought you were some kind of tough guy!"
The man gasped, looked down at the knife handle sticking out of his stomach, and sighed deeply.
His eyes held no fear of death, only an extreme sense of speechlessness, like "I messed up again."
He murmured to himself.
"Did it have to be like this..."
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