Three in the morning.
New York, the city that never sleeps, had finally slipped into its deepest slumber.
In the distance, neon lights pierced the thin night mist, reflecting a pale halo off the floor-to-ceiling windows of this high-rise apartment in Queens.
The indoor heating system hummed with an extremely faint whir.
Zack Vance lay in his bedroom bed, his breathing deep and steady.
Beneath his pillow, a loaded Glock lay quietly within arm’s reach.
Even with a system at his disposal and enough wealth in his Great Wall Capital accounts to buy up an entire block, Zack’s nerves remained pulled taut.
As an ordinary man who knew the true colors of this world, he could never truly let his guard down.
He knew perfectly well that the moment he decided to use the female Homelander as his cash cow, he had inevitably set himself against Vought International.
He had simply underestimated the sheer efficiency of the corporate machine.
Outside the apartment, scaling the sheer, ninety-degree glass curtain wall, a solid black figure was climbing upward as silently as a gecko.
He used no ropes or suction cups.
Extremely hard micro-barbs slid out from the edges of his black tactical gloves, biting precisely into the seams of the building’s exterior paneling with every pull, never making so much as a whisper of falling debris.
More than two hundred meters in the air, the wind howled.
Yet the dark shadow seemed unaffected by gravity, his movements fluid and imbued with a spine-chilling, mechanical precision.
This was the most mysterious executioner of Vought International’s The Seven.
A silent killer with no sense of pain, no emotions, and a breathing pattern he could control to absolute perfection.
Black Noir.
He stopped just outside the balcony of Zack’s apartment.
Separated by a single pane of security glass, Black Noir’s face, completely covered by a black mesh mask, quietly surveyed the layout of the living room.
The low-light night-vision optics built into his retinas laid bare every detail of the darkness.
The gray fabric sofa, the two mugs sitting side-by-side on the coffee table, even the faint scuff mark on the carpet left by a sudden, heavy stride—everything painted a picture of the life that had transpired in this space.
Black Noir reached out his right hand, placing the tip of his index finger against the keyhole of the security glass door.
High-frequency microscopic vibrations traveled through his fingertip and into the lock mechanism.
*Click.*
A faint metal slip, almost perfectly masked by the howling wind outside, sounded.
In less than three seconds, the high-end security lock—reputed to withstand C4 blasts—had its internal mechanisms completely shredded.
The glass door was gently slid open, leaving a gap just wide enough for a person to slip through sideways.
Like a cold draft of night wind, Black Noir glided into the living room.
His tactical boots stepped onto the solid hardwood floors Zack prized so much, moving as soft and silent as a feline.
In this quiet space, Black Noir was not just an intruder; he was a black hole devouring all light and sound.
He paced slowly through the living room, his gaze sweeping across the open kitchen counter.
The air still held the faintest tang of tomato beef stew, along with a weak bio-electric field signature that only a Supe could detect—the trace of another apex predator.
Madelyn Stillwell’s suspicions had been correct.
The woman Vought revered as a god had indeed chosen this mortal’s nest as a sanctuary.
Black Noir did not linger.
He turned and glided toward the half-open bedroom door.
The bedroom was dark.
Thick blackout curtains completely blocked out the external light, leaving only a sliver of ambient glow from the hallway to cast a narrow, long strip of light across the floor before the bed.
Zack was still lying on his side.
His body was in the relaxed state of deep sleep.
As an ordinary human devoid of any extrasensory genes, he had no way of sensing the approach of an apex killer who had meticulously concealed his presence.
Black Noir crossed the sliver of light and stood at the bedside.
He looked down at the Asian youth whom the dossier described as having “no background, zero threat.”
He slowly raised his right hand, reversing his grip on the custom high-carbon steel dagger sheathed in his tactical belt.
The blade gleamed with a dull, matte finish in the darkness.
This weapon had slit the throats of countless Supes, its edge keen enough to slice through composite armor with ease.
The air pressure shifted ever so slightly in that instant.
Black Noir’s towering frame blocked the last whisper of airflow drifting from the bedroom door.
An oppressive weight, smelling faintly of blood and cold metal, descended over the bed like an invisible web.
Zack’s breathing pattern faltered slightly.
It wasn’t because he had heard a sound, but rather due to a primal survival instinct etched deep into the human genome when confronted by an apex predator.
It felt as though a sleeping person had suddenly plunged into an ice hole mid-dream, forcing the brain’s alarm system to violently snap awake.
Zack’s eyelids twitched violently.
He opened his eyes.
In the first instant his vision focused, Zack felt as though a cold, massive hand had clamped down on his heart, sending his blood rushing backward through his veins.
A dark silhouette stood beside his bed, melting into the shadows.
It was too close.
So close that Zack could actually make out the fine mesh pattern of the black mask, and the lifeless, emotionless eyes staring back from behind it.
Terror exploded in his brain like a tidal wave.
Zack’s pupils contracted sharply as adrenaline flooded his system.
His normal, human heart hammered against his ribs like a war drum, each beat echoing in his ears with a deafening roar.
Black Noir.
The moment the name flashed through Zack’s mind, cold sweat drenched the cotton pajamas clinging to his back.
Standing before his bed was a killing machine that obeyed Vought’s upper echelon without question.
If the assassin wished, that black dagger could slit his carotid artery in the blink of an eye, cleanly severing his trachea and vocal cords in under a second.
Zack’s brain screamed in a desperate bid for survival.
His right hand tensed, instinctively reaching beneath his pillow.
The Glock was less than twenty centimeters away.
If he could just grip the handle and flip the safety…
The dark shadow moved.
Without seeing a single trace of movement, Zack’s vision blurred.
A hand clad in a black tactical glove clamped down on his wrist like a steel vice, pinning it before he could slide it under the pillow.
The force was staggering.
Zack could hear the faint groan of his wrist bones under the terrifying grip.
Sharp pain shot up his arm, lancing directly into his brain.
Zack gritted his teeth, forcing down the groan that threatened to escape his throat.
He was pinned flat against the mattress by that single hand, completely immobilized.
Black Noir didn’t pause for a fraction of a second.
The black dagger in his other hand traced a lethal, reflectionless arc through the air.
The bone-chilling touch of cold metal pressed against Zack’s throat.
The sharp blade barely brushed his skin, but Zack could already feel a faint sting right over his carotid artery.
A deathly chill swept down his spine, spreading all the way to his scalp.
The entire bedroom fell into a suffocating, dead silence.
Black Noir loomed over Zack’s field of vision like a black tombstone.
If his wrist nudged forward by even a millimeter, this apartment—which only hours ago had been filled with the warm aroma of tomato beef stew—would turn into a lifeless crime scene.
Zack’s chest heaved violently.
In his extreme state of tension, every breath felt like swallowing shards of coarse glass.
He stared intently at the expressionless black mask.
It was over.
That was the first thought that flashed through Zack’s mind.
Vought had moved far faster than he had anticipated.
Madelyn Stillwell hadn’t given him any time to arrange a defense; she had simply dispatched her sharpest blade.
The system’s damned Body of Steel only activated during an embrace or in bed.
Facing an executioner who specialized in assassinations, his mortal flesh was no different from soft tofu.
The edge of the dagger pressed down a fraction of a millimeter further.
A droplet of warm blood welled from Zack’s neck, trickling down the fuller of the blade and dripping onto the pristine white sheet, blooming into a stark, crimson stain.