Tony did not respond.
He could not sink into that all-encompassing despair.
His gaze raced across the virtual control panel inside his armor, pulling up the latest structural stress map.
The glaring Red Zones representing radiation damage were beginning at the armor's most critical protective points—the joint seals, the area around the chestplate's Energy Core, and the leg thruster shielding—and slowly, inexorably eroding inward like red ink spreading across rice paper.
J.A.R.V.I.S. silently marked a tiny percentage beside the affected areas: material performance degradation rate.
That number was climbing as well.
Tony's pupils contracted sharply.
Joint seal failure meant High-Energy Radiation particles would directly penetrate the armor and scorch his flesh; weakened chestplate protection meant the Arc Reactor would be exposed directly to the impact—it was the heart of his Steel Body;
If the thruster shielding broke, he would lose his mobility and his last means of contending with that Deep Sea Monster... And that ever-rising degradation rate was like a time bomb strapped to him, its countdown ticking thunderously in his ears.
What now?!
His mind raced at breakneck speed. Countless half-formed plans flashed through his head, only to be rejected even faster.
Overload the Energy Shield? The materials were already near their breaking point. Forcing an overload would be no different from self-destruction!
Emergency cooling? At this extreme depth, the seawater itself was a massive heat sink, but the target core's temperature had already surpassed the limits of conventional matter!
Separate and detonate it? That thing was now a Living furnace. Any external stimulus could become the final straw, triggering the premature detonation of fifty-eight megatons' worth of destruction!
A tremendous sense of helplessness pressed down on him like the heavy waters of the deep sea.
Knowledge—the weapon that had once made him capable of anything, almost arrogantly