The Mandarin
At last, the appointed day arrived. Xia Yu had already brought his men into position nearby, while Tony waited anxiously in the cave for the time to come.
The plot had tremendous inertia. The bald leader of the Ten Rings sensed that something was wrong and sent his men to take a look. Just like in the movie, Tony hurriedly activated his armor, and the terrorists who forced their way through the door were killed by the small bombs Tony had made. Then Yinsen grabbed a gun and rushed out to buy time.
Xia Yu was leading the twenty-odd Ten Rings members he had brought under his control toward the camp when, just as they were getting close, he heard an explosion followed by gunfire. He had no choice but to act himself.
Xia Yu had originally planned to park a kilometer away and lead his men in a direct assault on the camp, with Tony making his move afterward. But they had barely parked and taken a few steps when he heard the fighting start. With no time to worry about shocking anyone, Xia Yu told Blondie to drive straight to the camp, while he used Lingbo Weibu to race toward it.
The twenty-odd men left behind stared in disbelief. What was that? He had said a few words, then suddenly streaked across the desert in a straight line and vanished with a whoosh. Blondie was the first to come to his senses and quickly drove toward the camp.
When Xia Yu arrived, gunfire was still ringing out inside the cave. Outside, a group of Ten Rings members stood guard with their guns trained on the entrance. Xia Yu used the one-click outfit change he hadn't used in a long time to put on his black armor and took the Heaven Reliant Sword in hand. This time, however, he didn't wear a mask.
There were only twenty or thirty men outside, and against Xia Yu with the Heaven Reliant Sword and Lingbo Weibu, they couldn't last even a minute. He killed everyone outside, casually collected most of the munitions piled there, and rushed into the cave. Tony, wearing the Mark I, was crouched beside Yinsen. It seemed Yinsen still hadn't escaped death.
"Tony, let's get out of here first," Xia Yu said as soon as he entered, afraid something might change.
"Xia, can we bring him with us?" Tony asked, pointing at Yinsen's body on the ground.
"No problem. It's hard for you to walk in that thing, so hold still. I'll help you take it off first." With a few swift slashes of the Heaven Reliant Sword, Xia Yu helped Tony undo the armor. Much of the Mark I was held together with belts and the like, making it easy to take apart.
Xia Yu tucked Yinsen's body under one arm and gripped Tony Stark's wrist at the pulse point with his other hand, sending a continuous stream of Nine Yang Divine Skill true qi into him.
When the two came out, Blondie was leading the others over in five cars. The group had already regarded Xia Yu as a devil because of the Life and Death Talisman, and after what he had just done, they were even more afraid of him.
Xia Yu and Tony rode in Blondie's car as the group drove toward the middle of the desert. It was still dangerous here. Xia Yu had a GPS and a satellite phone, and before he came to Afghanistan, Pepper Potts had given him Colonel James Rhodes's number. He planned to call and ask him to pick them up once they had gotten farther away.
As he got into the car, Xia Yu noticed another red dot on the minimap. Only then did he remember that the bald man should have been lying beside the cave entrance when he went in. In the original plot, he hadn't died there either; Obadiah Stane had killed him later. Xia Yu decided to leave it at that. Without the bald man, how would Obadiah Stane become Iron Monger?
"Xia, thank you," Tony said.
"Don't worry about that yet. Let's find a safe place and get out of here first. You actually made a suit of armor in a cave. You're amazing, Tony, even if it was ugly," Xia Yu said.
Xia Yu had just sent some true qi into Tony, and Tony was in much better spirits physically, but Yinsen's death had hit him hard, so he wasn't in much of a mood to talk. After hearing Xia Yu, he opened his mouth, then finally couldn't resist saying, "Yours isn't much better."
Xia Yu didn't want to bicker with him right then either. It was just that seeing him so listless made him feel uncomfortable, so he had tried to make conversation.
Seeing him like this, Xia Yu was in no mood to joke anymore. He took out a GPS and a satellite phone and said to Tony, "When I came here, Pepper told me I could ask Colonel Rhodes for help if anything happened. I know he's a good friend of yours. I trust him, but I don't trust the U.S. troops here. Still, once we're safe, I don't think there'll be a problem asking him to come get us. You make the call."
Xia Yu was still uneasy, because the system hadn't notified him that he had completed the mission.
Had he jinxed it? Sure enough, a massive bolt of electricity appeared out of nowhere and pierced the two cars driving side by side up ahead. Both cars exploded into fireballs, and the people inside couldn't possibly have survived. The three cars behind them slammed to a stop. Everyone, Xia Yu included, stared dumbfounded at the two blazing heaps of wreckage ahead. Where had lightning come from in the desert?
Then a black-robed figure slowly descended in front of the three cars. Only his hands were exposed, and sharp-eyed Xia Yu immediately spotted a ring on every finger.
The Mandarin. This wasn't the impostor from Iron Man 3. This was the real big boss behind the Ten Rings. Xia Yu now understood why completing the mission required thirty thousand points.
"Tony, call Rhodes right now. Don't stop the car. Blondie, once I'm out, drive off immediately. Remember, if Tony dies, you won't live either," Xia Yu said quietly.
"What are you going to do? Let's go together!" Tony said.
"Tony, if I can't beat him and we stay here, we'll all die. If you leave, I'll still have a chance to escape even if I can't beat him. Stop fussing," Xia Yu said seriously.
Before Tony could respond, The Mandarin had already descended. He glanced at Xia Tian and the others' car and said, "Tony Stark stays. Everyone else, die!" As the word left his mouth, he waved his right hand. The ring with a yellow gemstone on his right ring finger flashed, and a beam swept across the other two cars, slicing them in half along with everyone inside.
The moment The Mandarin attacked, Xia Yu slapped Blondie on the shoulder and shouted, "Go!" Then he sprang forward, appearing directly in front of The Mandarin, and slashed diagonally upward from left to right at his head with the Heaven Reliant Sword. Xia Yu was so fast that The Mandarin's right hand had only just finished cutting through the second car.
The Mandarin's reaction was worthy of a hidden big boss. As soon as Xia Yu reached him, before he had even swung his sword, The Mandarin had instinctively stamped his right foot and floated backward. His left index finger flashed, and a ball of flame erupted out of nowhere to Xia Yu's front left. It didn't just appear; it erupted, forcibly blocking Xia Yu's sword strike. The impact also carried The Mandarin a little farther back.
Though it took time to describe, from Xia Yu telling them to hurry away to the two exchanging that single move, Blondie had only just turned the wheel, and the front of the car had only just swung most of the way around.
Half the force of the explosion was directed at Xia Yu's upper body. He used the impact to perform a backflip and landed firmly with both feet on the rear of Tony's car. Wrapping his feet in Internal Energy and combining it with his body's powerful explosive strength, he gave the car an instant physical boost, then charged at The Mandarin even faster than he had come back.
Seeing Tony Stark escape, The Mandarin roared, "You're courting death!" This time it was the little finger of his left hand. Xia Yu saw it clearly.
A beam of white light shot straight at Xia Yu. He was in midair with no way to dodge, so he could only raise the Heaven Reliant Sword to block it head-on. A chill crept up his arm along the blade.
Before it could pass his forearm, Nine Yang true qi surged out of the acupoints all over Xia Yu's body and forcibly dissolved the chill. The Nine Yang Divine Skill rendered him impervious to heat and cold and was the bane of all yin and cold energies under heaven.
Unfortunately, The Mandarin had rather a lot of rings. The one on his right middle finger flashed, and a whirlwind more than two meters wide appeared out of nowhere in front of Xia Yu. The fierce wind shrieked through the air like a wailing ghost. Its force was so concentrated that it seemed almost solid, yet it picked up barely a few grains of sand from the ground.
The advantage of having the system load martial arts was that, once loaded, each one was etched into Xia Yu's very bones like an innate instinct. In this situation, Xia Yu naturally used the most effective counter. The Heaven Reliant Sword in his right hand suddenly began to hum as his Internal Energy made it vibrate at a high frequency. Then he thrust his right hand forward.
The vibrating Heaven Reliant Sword followed the force of the wind into the whirlwind and traced a sideways U-shaped path, forcibly interrupting it. Dugu Nine Swords, Qi-Breaking Stance.