Most powerful Hunter in Marvel Universe - Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The Weight of Silence

The distance between his boulder and the compound’s perimeter closed with terrifying speed. Veer’s enhanced legs propelled him forward in great bounding strides, each footfall barely whispering against the sand despite the force behind it. But as the fence line approached, as the scattered pools of light from the guard towers grew brighter and more defined, something fundamental shifted in his approach.

He couldn’t just charge in. The realization hit him with the clarity of ice water, cutting through the adrenaline and the desperate urgency that had been building in his chest. This wasn’t a video game where he could respawn after failure. This wasn’t even a training simulation where mistakes earned you bruises and lectures. This was real, with real consequences, and the most pressing consequence would be a bullet through Tony Stark’s head the moment the terrorists realized they were under attack.

Twenty yards from the fence, Veer dropped into a crouch behind a cluster of rocks, his breathing deliberately steady despite his racing heart. He pressed himself against the largest boulder, feeling the residual heat of the day’s sun still trapped in the stone against his back.

He needed to think. To plan. To remember that he wasn’t invincible, no matter how much the system’s numbers suggested otherwise.

Thirty-three tons of lifting strength meant nothing against a bullet. His enhanced durability, his healing factor—they were improvements over baseline human, certainly, but they weren’t immunity. A well-placed shot could still kill him. A rocket-propelled grenade wouldn’t care about his aura level. An explosion wouldn’t politely wait for his healing factor to kick in.

And worse—far worse—was what would happen to Tony Stark the moment gunfire erupted.

Veer closed his eyes, forcing himself to visualize the scenario from the terrorists’ perspective. They had the most valuable hostage in the world. Stark Industries was offering a hundred million dollars for his return. Governments were applying pressure. Media attention was relentless. The Ten Rings had leverage, but only as long as Tony remained alive and under their control.

If that control was threatened? If someone attacked their compound?

They wouldn’t hesitate. They’d either use Tony as a human shield or simply execute him out of spite. If we can’t have him, no one can. It was exactly the kind of mentality that drove terrorist organizations—the willingness to destroy rather than lose.

So a frontal assault was out of the question. He needed to be surgical. Silent. Invisible.

Invisible.

Veer’s eyes snapped open, and he called up the system interface with a thought. There, among his abilities, was the answer he’d overlooked in his rush to action.

Zetsu.

He’d practiced it over the past month, of course. It was one of the fundamental Nen techniques, impossible to ignore. But he’d treated it academically, clinically, never fully appreciating what it could do in a practical situation like this.

Zetsu didn’t make you invisible—that was a common misconception even among Nen users in the Hunter x Hunter world. You remained perfectly visible to the naked eye, a physical presence that could be seen and touched. But what Zetsu did was far more subtle and, in many ways, more useful.

It suppressed your aura completely, closing your body’s pores and shutting off the flow of life energy that naturally emanated from all living things. To someone trained in Nen, an active aura was like a beacon, a presence that could be felt even when the person couldn’t be seen. Zetsu extinguished that beacon. It made you nothing, a void, a absence where a person should be.

But its effects went beyond just concealing aura. When used properly, Zetsu created a kind of perceptual gap in observers. Your presence became easy to overlook, like a stranger in a crowd or a shadow in a dark room. It wasn’t invisibility, but it was close enough if you were careful, if you moved at the right moments, if you understood how human attention worked.

Batman’s trick, Veer thought with a grim smile. How the Dark Knight seemed to appear from nowhere, materializing behind criminals who would swear they’d been watching the rooftop just a second ago. It wasn’t magic. It was understanding the limits of human perception and exploiting them ruthlessly.

There was a cost, of course. There was always a cost.

Activating Zetsu meant shutting off his Ten, the protective shroud of aura that surrounded his body and provided a baseline defense against physical and supernatural attacks. Without it, he’d be marginally more vulnerable—not critically so, given his enhanced physiology, but enough to matter in a fight.

The benefit, though…

Veer took a slow breath and activated Zetsu.

The change was immediate and profound. His aura, which he’d maintained with Ten as a constant presence since leaving the hotel, suddenly collapsed inward. It felt like holding his breath, a deliberate cessation of a natural process. The protective warmth that Ten provided vanished, leaving him feeling oddly exposed despite knowing his physical body was unchanged.

But what replaced that feeling was extraordinary.

His senses sharpened. Not dramatically—he didn’t suddenly gain superhuman hearing or telescopic vision—but everything became clearer, more defined. The subtle sounds of the compound carried to him with new clarity: the crunch of boots on gravel as guards walked their patrol routes, the low murmur of conversation in Arabic from the nearest tower, the distant clank of metal on metal from somewhere deeper in the compound.

He could feel the presence of people now, even though he couldn’t see them. Not precisely—he couldn’t pinpoint exact locations or count heads through walls—but there was an awareness, a sense of life and movement that his suppressed aura somehow made more noticeable by contrast.

It was disorienting and exhilarating in equal measure.

Veer opened his eyes and studied the compound with fresh perspective. The layout was clearer now, the patterns of movement more obvious. He could see where the guards clustered, where they were sparse, where the blind spots in their patrol routes existed.

And there, carved into the mountainside behind the compound, was the cave. The entrance was partially hidden by the buildings and weapon stockpiles that filled the open area, but Veer could make out the dark mouth of it, perhaps fifteen feet high and twice as wide. That’s where Tony would be. Deep in the mountain, in some makeshift workshop, surrounded by car batteries and electronics components, frantically building something that would either save him or get him killed.

But between Veer and that cave were over two dozen armed terrorists, multiple buildings filled with weapons and supplies, and probably dozens more fighters sleeping or working inside. The perimeter was fenced, patrolled, and lit well enough that a casual approach would be suicide.

He’d need to thin the herd.

The realization settled over him like a heavy cloak. He’d known, abstractly, that lethal force might be necessary. But knowing something intellectually and accepting it emotionally were different things entirely. These were people—bad people, certainly, terrorists who’d kidnapped and likely tortured Tony Stark, who probably had blood on their hands from other atrocities—but people nonetheless.

And he was going to have to kill them.

Veer’s hand flexed involuntarily, and he felt the muscles of his fingers respond differently than they had a month ago. The system had granted him access to skills from Zeno Zoldyck’s arsenal, basic-level implementations of techniques the legendary assassin had perfected over six decades. One of those was Claw—a technique that modified the structure of hands, hardening nails and enhancing the cutting power of fingers until they became weapons as deadly as any blade.

At level one, his Claw skill was rudimentary. It wouldn’t give him razor-sharp talons that could slice through steel. But it would make his strikes more effective, his grip more lethal. Combined with his enhanced strength and the element of surprise, it would be enough.

It would have to be enough.

The first target was obvious—a lone guard patrolling the northeastern section of the fence, temporarily out of sight of his fellows as his route took him behind a storage building. Veer watched him through slitted eyes, timing his movements, counting the seconds of his isolation.

Twenty seconds per circuit. Twenty seconds where the man would be alone, invisible to the others, vulnerable.

Veer waited for the pattern to repeat once more, confirming the timing. Then, as the guard disappeared behind the building again, he moved.

Silent Gait was another of Zeno’s techniques, one that Veer had practiced obsessively over the past month despite its stubbornly remaining at level one with zero progress. It was more than just moving quietly—it was a method of motion that minimized noise through precise control of muscle and weight distribution. Every step became deliberate, calculated, the body’s weight shifting in ways that prevented the telltale sounds of normal movement.

At level one, Veer’s Silent Gait wasn’t perfect. But combined with Zetsu’s perceptual suppression and his enhanced physical control, it was more than adequate.

He crossed the twenty yards to the fence in heartbeats, his feet barely disturbing the sand. The fence itself was chain-link, topped with barbed wire—intimidating to normal people, trivial to someone who could crush steel in their bare hands. Veer gripped the metal links and pulled, slowly, steadily, applying just enough force to bend the fence outward without creating the sharp sounds of tearing metal.

A gap opened, large enough for him to slip through.

The guard was still behind the building, his back turned, weapon slung casually over his shoulder as he completed his circuit. Veer could see him now, close enough to make out details: the cigarette dangling from his lips, the slightly slouched posture of someone bored with his duty, the heavy jacket inappropriate for the cool but not cold desert night.

He looked young. Maybe mid-twenties. Someone’s son, perhaps someone’s brother.

Also someone who’d chosen to work for a terrorist organization that kidnapped and murdered civilians.

Veer’s hands didn’t shake as he closed the final distance. His enhanced speed made it almost trivial—one moment he was five yards away, the next he was directly behind the guard, close enough to smell the tobacco smoke and cheap cologne.

The man never saw it coming.

Veer’s hands shot out, one clamping over the guard’s mouth to stifle any sound, the other gripping his head. For a fraction of a second, he felt resistance, felt the man start to struggle, felt the moment of panic as the guard realized something was terribly wrong.

Then Veer twisted.

The crack of vertebrae was shockingly loud in his ears, though objectively he knew it was barely a whisper in the night. The guard went instantly limp, the cigarette tumbling from slack lips to die in the sand. Dead weight in Veer’s arms.

Dead.

Veer lowered the body carefully, propping it against the building in a position that might pass for a sitting guard from a distance. His hands were steady. His breathing was controlled. He felt…

Nothing.

The realization sent a shiver down his spine far more profound than the act itself. He’d just killed a man—snapped his neck with his bare hands, ended a life—and he felt nothing. No horror, no revulsion, no moral anguish. It was as if he’d completed a task, checked an item off a list, executed a maneuver in training.

Was this the system’s influence? The merger with Zeno Zoldyck’s template—was it changing more than just his body? Was he inheriting not just the assassin’s skills but his mindset, his emotional detachment, his ability to kill as casually as breathing?

The thought was terrifying. But there was no time to process it, no luxury of introspection, because three more guards were approaching, their patrol route bringing them to the corner of the building where they’d discover their dead comrade in seconds.

Veer’s body moved before his mind caught up with the decision.

Silent Gait carried him forward in a blur of motion. The first guard died with Veer’s hand through his throat, fingers hardened by the Claw technique punching through flesh and windpipe before the man could draw breath to scream. The second died as Veer’s other hand caught him in a grip that crushed his larynx. The third managed to raise his weapon, managed to open his mouth to shout, and died with his head separated from his shoulders by a strike so fast it barely registered as movement.

Three seconds. Three bodies. Three deaths executed with mechanical precision.

And still Veer felt nothing.

He dragged the bodies behind the building, stacking them with their companion, his mind already moving ahead to the next problem, the next target, the next obstacle between him and Tony Stark.

The compound had approximately forty to fifty personnel from what he’d observed. Maybe more inside the buildings, maybe fewer. He’d need to clear them systematically, methodically, creating a path to the cave while ensuring no one survived to sound an alarm or threaten his target.

It was, in essence, a mass execution. And Veer was discovering he had a talent for it.

He moved through the compound like death itself, using the buildings and equipment stockpiles as cover, timing his movements to the patrol patterns he’d memorized. Zetsu kept him beneath notice, Silent Gait kept him silent, and his enhanced physiology kept him fast enough that most victims never realized they were under attack until it was too late.

A guard sleeping in a tent died without waking. Another pair playing cards in a supply room died mid-hand. A cook preparing an early breakfast died with his face in the pot he’d been stirring. A weapons technician examining an RPG died with his tools still in hand.

Some deaths were clean—quick strikes that ended life instantly. Others were messier when circumstances didn’t allow for precision. But all were silent, or silent enough. The compound remained unaware that it was being systematically dismantled from within.

Time became elastic, meaningless. Veer lost track of how long he’d been at work—ten minutes? Twenty? Longer? His awareness narrowed to the immediate: the next target, the next movement, the next death. It was mechanical, efficient, exactly what Zeno Zoldyck would have done in the same situation.

And with each kill, something in the system responded.

He felt it more than saw it—subtle shifts in his body, incremental increases in strength and speed, the gradual unlocking of capabilities that had been dormant. His merger percentage with the template was increasing, not by the standard daily 0.1%, but through actual application of the skills he’d inherited. Each assassination proved his compatibility with Zeno’s legacy, each death brought him closer to fully embodying the legendary killer’s capabilities.

The system was rewarding him for becoming what it wanted him to be.

Eventually, he stood in the center of the compound’s open area, surrounded by weapon crates and parked vehicles, and realized the night had gone silent. No more patrols. No more voices. No more signs of life except his own breathing and heartbeat.

He checked his internal clock and was startled to realize thirty minutes had passed. Thirty minutes of systematic slaughter, moving through the compound like a ghost that left only corpses in its wake.

Veer pulled up the system interface, needing to confirm what he already felt in his bones.

—

[Template: Zeno Zoldyck]

[Synchronization: 48.4%]

Aura: Lv33

Power: 38 (Physical Strength Equivalent: ~19 Tons)

Affinity: Emitter

Abilities: Electric Resistance Lv3, Poison Resistance Lv3, Healing Factor Lv1

Skills: Assassin Mode Lv1 (0%), Snake Awaken Lv1 (0%), Silent Gait Lv2 (16%), Rhythm Echo Lv1 (0%), Claw Lv2(16%)

Nen Techniques: Ten Lv1(84%), Zetsu Lv2(2%), Ren Lv1(0%), Gyo Lv1(0%), In Lv1(0%), En Lv1(0%), Shu Lv1(0%), Ko Lv1(0%), Ken Lv1(0%), Ryu Lv1(0%)

Hatsu: Dragon Lv1(0%)

—

Two hundred and fifty-one kills. The number appeared in his mind with cold precision, provided by some subroutine in the system that tracked his progression. Two hundred and fifty-one human beings who’d gone to sleep tonight expecting to wake up tomorrow, who’d had families and histories and futures, all snuffed out in thirty minutes by a person who’d never killed anyone until an hour ago.

His merger percentage had more than doubled, jumping from 23.3% to 48.4%. His raw power had doubled as well—nineteen tons of baseline strength, over thirty with Ren active. Skills he’d been struggling to level had jumped to level two, their progression accelerated by practical application in life-or-death scenarios.

He was significantly stronger now than when he’d arrived. Strong enough to handle most street-level threats in the Marvel Universe. Still nowhere near the level of the heavy hitters—Thor, Hulk, even Captain America with his decades of combat experience—but getting there.

All it had cost was two hundred and fifty-one lives and a piece of his humanity he suspected he’d never get back.

Veer became aware that he was standing perfectly still, staring at the status screen, while a voice in his head—Zeno’s voice, or perhaps his imagination of what Zeno’s voice would sound like—praised his efficiency.

Good work. Clean kills. No wasted motion. You’re a natural.

Keep this up and you’ll make a fine Zoldyck.

This is just business. Don’t let emotion interfere with the job.

Was it the system influencing his thoughts, or was it his own mind rationalizing what he’d done? Did it even matter? The result was the same either way—he was becoming something he’d never been before, something he’d never wanted to be.

An assassin. A killer. A weapon in human form.

“Just a job,” Veer whispered to the empty compound, to the bodies he’d left scattered throughout the buildings, to the part of himself that was screaming in horror beneath the cold efficiency. “Just business. Just…”

He couldn’t finish the sentence. Couldn’t make himself believe it, no matter how much the merger with Zeno’s template wanted him to.

But he also couldn’t undo what he’d done. The dead stayed dead. The blood on his hands—metaphorical now, though he’d need to wash later—was permanent. There was no going back, no reset button, no way to return to being the person he’d been before he’d twisted that first guard’s neck.

All he could do was move forward. Complete the mission. Rescue Tony Stark. Collect the reward. And hope that somehow, in the process, he’d find a way to use the power and money to make this nightmare worth it.

The cave entrance loomed before him, dark and forbidding, leading deep into the mountain where the most important man in the world was probably putting finishing touches on the weapon that would change everything.

Veer deactivated Zetsu, allowing his aura to flow freely again, and felt Ten automatically reassert itself around his body. The protective shroud was welcome, a small comfort after thirty minutes of operating without it.

He’d cleared the way. The compound was secure. Now came the next challenge: finding Tony Stark in the maze of tunnels, and doing it before anyone outside the compound realized something was wrong.

Veer took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and walked toward the cave entrance. Behind him, the compound stood silent under the desert stars, a tomb of his own making.

He tried not to think about what that made him. Tried not to wonder if the man who completed this mission would be the same one who’d started it.

But deep down, he already knew the answer.

The desert night had claimed two hundred and fifty-one lives tonight. In a very real sense, it had claimed a two hundred and fifty-second as well—the death of whoever Paramveer Singh had been before he became the person capable of this.

And the worst part? The voice in his head that sounded like Zeno Zoldyck was proud of him for it.