Chapter 7: The Night Devil Returns Without Achievements_1

On his way back to the apartment, Shiller could clearly feel someone following him. His spider-sense-boosted vision allowed him to notice someone watching him from across the apartment building.

The building opposite was made entirely of glass. One of the small window panes reflected light differently, and Shiller, with his acute senses, noticed it immediately.

His decision to open a clinic in Hell's Kitchen was not reckless. After observing for a few days, he had a good handle on the routines of his fellow tenants.

Most of them were office workers and elite professionals, many of whom were single and had regular office hours and a fixed circle of friends.

Living among such a crowd made it all too easy for S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to find a chink in their armour.

Hell's Kitchen, on the other hand, was a different story. Although it was the largest slum and mob hub in Manhattan, New York, and even all of America, the population density and the number of strangers were high. Various sized mobs nested there, making it the perfect hideout for outsiders like Shiller, who wanted to blend into a crowd.

Life in an upscale apartment might be comfortable, but it didn't compare to the freedom of Hell's Kitchen. Shiller was convinced that if he continued to live there, four or five of his neighbours would become S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Unidentifiable individuals would attempt to get close to him in order to gather information, which could either be his or Stark's. This was how S.H.I.E.L.D. operated whether you liked it or not.

There were some differences between Hell's Kitchen and Gotham. Despite the numerous mobs of all sizes, Hell's Kitchen was significantly less dangerous than Gotham.

Most of its inhabitants were poor, gamblers or addicts. There were no Scarecrows or Jokers, nor any notable major villains.

Most of the people were ordinary. Despite the proliferation of guns and drugs, the majority of the victims were common people, not those with paranormal abilities.

Shiller planned to make Hell's Kitchen his first base in the Marvel universe.

Stark was very efficient. In a short time, he had managed to pull some strings with a number of senators, securing a hospital slot for Hell's Kitchen.

Some senators took advantage of this to publicise their benevolence. Although they claimed New York would not give up on any citizen, they never expected the hospital to actually be built – after all, it was Hell's Kitchen, a place said to even cook devils.

Open a hospital there? It was ludicrous unless the hospital was built like a concentration camp, complete with tanks and cannons at the entrance, with doctors and nurses armed with machine guns. Only then might it stand a chance, otherwise all the medication would be looted overnight.

Regardless of how incredulous the senators were, or how indifferent the residents of Hell's Kitchen, a small psychology clinic did spring up in Hell's Kitchen.

Known as the largest and most notorious slum in Manhattan, its eight blocks was just a euphemism.

In reality, the area was far more sprawling. With dozens of complex streets, there were hundreds of mobs tangled within this maze.

Some people said that the boss of Hell's Kitchen was Kingpin, but in reality, it was not so. Kingpin's business reached far beyond Hell's Kitchen, extending across the entire East Coast, including the Eastern Seaboard, with a range of criminal enterprises.

His business was all over America. While Hell's Kitchen may encompass some of his drug operations and smuggling ventures, he neither lived nor constantly monitored there.

The Night Devil, a Hell's Kitchen native, was his archenemy, but their battlefield had yet to cross paths with Hell's Kitchen. Little Spider, who had clashed with Kingpin several times, was still an innocent high school student.

Kingpin's ambition was certainly not limited to controlling Hell's Kitchen. He didn't fret over the chaos within the Kitchen, because incidents of arson, robbery, abduction, and fights were commonplace, not to mention disappearances. Creating a bit of a commotion was nothing unusual.

So, when Kingpin, who was in San Francisco, heard that his men in the Manhattan Area's Hell's Kitchen had gone insane, he chalked it down to a drug overdose and didn't think much of it.

Meanwhile, in Hell's Kitchen, a terrifying rumour spread - there was said to be a horrific doctor residing in the psychological clinic at Ninth Tail Lane, at the end of Mary Street. Every mob member who tried to extort protection money from him ended up running out in a panic, and soon after, went crazy.

This caused a significant stir in the beginning. Some notorious mob bosses, not believing the rumours, took their men in. But soon after, they started to fight the air as though they were confronting a monster. They struggled, screamed, fled, cried, and acted as though they were possessed.

The incident became the talk of the town, specifically Mary Street, and rumours spread rapidly.

The message, propagated from one to ten and ten to a hundred, warned everyone to steer clear from Ninth Tail Lane as there was a terrifying curse there. It was said to force you to confront your deepest fears and eventually drive you mad with terror.

Later, when Shiller, who lived there, began to venture out and people found out he was the owner of the clinic on Ninth Tail Lane, they realised that it wasn't a ghost, but a peculiar psychological doctor.