Perfect Stealth

Operating an armored vehicle isn't actually that difficult—if all you want is to make it move, one hand is enough. But if you want it to fire ammunition and deal damage on command, that does require expertise in the relevant field.

Yuri drove the vehicle straight west.

Tony was kidnapped by the Fake Ten Rings Gang. Their symbol was a large circle made of ten smaller circles linked together, and that symbol was exactly the one the Captain had painted over.

On a whim, he read the memories of the armed thug the Captain had beaten half to death, and sure enough, he got some information: not long ago, the Gang Leader had captured some big shot and transported him to a more hidden base.

Unfortunately, this guy hadn't read much. He only knew to head west, without even knowing the exact distance.

"Hey, kid!"

The Captain, who had just gotten used to his unreliable driver, tapped his personal computer. "Are you sure you want to keep heading west? You know our search range is already the fringe area... Farther west, and that's truly no-man's-land."

"No-man's-land?"

Yuri forced the armored vehicle up a small hill with a slope of over fifty degrees. After parking, he pointed at a thin wisp of cooking smoke two kilometers away. "No-man's-land doesn't have cooking smoke, unless some clever monkeys learned to cook behind our backs."

The Captain squinted. Under the setting sun, that wisp of smoke was so faint it seemed like it could break apart at any moment.

He picked up binoculars for a closer look and easily spotted a fluttering flag. The pattern on it was identical to the one he had painted over on the vehicle door.

"Oh! My God!"

He punched Yuri hard in the chest. "Whether or not the target is hiding here, just reporting this location to the U.S. military will make this trip worth it."

Yuri grabbed some canned food and beer from the vehicle. While there was still daylight, he lit a portable gas stove and cooked the food.

He glanced at the Captain, who was hesitating with his personal computer in hand, then turned off the stove and called him over to eat. "It's almost dark. Want to take a gamble?"

The Captain pried open a can, grabbed a beer can, and chugged it down in one go. After a satisfied "Nice!", he opened another and clinked it hard against Yuri's. "Then let's gamble!"

"Two machine guns, three gunners; no watchtowers, no searchlights; patrols change shifts every three hours, extremely lax attitude..."

The two of them hid in a small gully about five hundred meters from the Fake Ten Rings Gang, heads together as they summarized their observations.

The Captain pulled two silencers from behind his waist, and they each attached one to their own gun muzzles.

After checking their gear one more time, the Captain repeated the battle plan. "Infiltrate! Our goal is to not be seen by anyone. I go first, you follow. I take left, you take right. If we're discovered, I'll draw their fire, and you get out as fast as you can."

"The coordinates have already been sent to the U.S. military. We only have thirty minutes! Young summer intern, are you ready?"

Yuri: "Yes sir!"

"Move out!"

Yuri watched the Captain crouch low and crawl forward two hundred meters before he himself stepped out from behind the gully, swaggering openly.

To regain his human form, he had killed and absorbed the abilities of four Eternal warriors: Ajak's healing, Phastos's scientific creativity, Druig's mind control, and Makkari's Super Speed.

After he absorbed them, these abilities became incredibly weak, nowhere near the level of the Eternal warriors in his memories. But controlling one or two people's minds was still simple.

The two Ten Rings members guarding the machine gun were like idiots. They voluntarily posed in a way that wouldn't be discovered even if they died, watching Yuri fire a muffled bullet at each of them before dropping dead on the spot.

Just as he was about to move on, he suddenly felt a bit reluctant. So Yuri crouched down, busied himself for a while, dismantled the machine gun's tripod, and removed the gun body separately.

After wrapping himself in ammunition belts, he nodded in satisfaction and continued toward the next checkpoint.

He repeated the trick, killing the machine gunner there. He dismantled the tripod, slung the M14 on his back, picked up a hundred-pound machine gun in each hand, and with ammunition belts draped over both shoulders, walked along the wall's shadow toward the base.

Infiltrate?

The perfect infiltration is killing everyone who sees you!

"Rat-a-tat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat...!"

Suddenly, intense gunfire erupted inside the base. Yuri looked up and saw that the unlucky Captain had already been discovered by the enemy. The two sides were locked in a fierce encounter battle!

Watching the base light up rapidly, he activated Super Speed and rushed toward the battlefield like lightning, slyly positioning himself behind the Ten Rings members who were ganging up on the Captain.

"Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat...!"

Bullets as dense as a level 12 rainstorm flew from behind, the powerful recoil transmitting through the gun to its wielder. But the Mutant's immense strength allowed him not only to withstand that backlash but also to aim with ease and fire with purpose...

A hundred meters away, the Captain hid behind cover, pulling out a small mirror to check the source of the heavy fire. When he saw Yuri holding a machine gun, looking like a Terminator reborn, he couldn't help but curse:

"What the fuck!?"

In the deep, winding cave, behind the heavy, sealed iron door, Tony Stark, who was hammering a piece of steel, suddenly frowned. He tilted his ear and asked Yinsen, who was in the same pose, "Did you hear that, Mr. Yinsen?"

"Yes, sir!"

A hint of relief appeared on Yinsen's weathered face. He put down his work and gently patted his cellmate's shoulder. "Congratulations, Mr. Stark. You can get out of jail early!"

A smile also appeared on Tony's long-gloomy face. He excitedly hugged his friend beside him and patted his back hard. "Not me—us! You and I can finally leave this damn place!"

Yinsen smiled without speaking, but a strange light flickered in his eyes. He pulled a bulletproof vest from under the mattress and handed it to Tony. "Put it on quickly. Victory is just ahead. You don't want to fail at the last moment, do you?"

Tony fumbled to put on the vest but noticed Yinsen wasn't making any further moves. He asked in confusion, "What about yours, Yinsen? Don't worry, I can help you put it on."

Yinsen smiled and shook his head, looking at Tony with a calm expression. "I'm sorry, Mr. Stark. I lied to you before."

"No! Yinsen, we agreed to leave together!"

"Mr. Stark, my family died in the war. The weapons that killed them were made by your Stark Industries."

"I'm sorry, Yinsen, I'm so sorry... but you saved me?"

"Then cherish it. Don't waste your life."

"BANG!"

The armed men outside roughly shoved the iron door open. Yinsen didn't even glance at the thugs storming in. From behind the workbench, he pulled out a handmade repeating rifle and said to Tony with a joking grin, "See? Just like they never noticed you secretly building weapons, you never noticed me either, Mr. Stark."

The moment he finished speaking, the smile vanished from his face. He yanked back the bolt, spun around, and the bullet that left the chamber struck like a venomous snake, biting viciously into the hastily returning fire of the thugs.

"Don't worry about me, Mr. Stark! I'm just going to see my fami—...ly."

"No! Yinsen!"

Please keep reading, my lords, I beg you.