Infiltrating Stark Tower!

One month later.

Fu Qinghai sat in a cubicle in front of a floor-to-ceiling window, staring with a pained expression at the busy, traffic-choked streets of New York outside.

Damn this Stark Industries internship recruitment!

Looking up at that shimmering, iron-gray building in the distance, he was still at least three whole blocks away from Stark Tower!

In his past life, Fu Qinghai had heard of this situation: some subsidiaries or small companies under large conglomerates, lacking the fame to attract enough applicants, would borrow the parent company's name for recruitment, while the actual employment contract would be with an obscure little firm. Both large state-owned enterprises and private companies loved playing this trick.

But he never imagined that the mighty Stark Industries would play this game too!

The company where Fu Qinghai was currently interning, called Beckhart Visual Effects, wasn't even a subsidiary of Stark Industries; at most, it was a supplier with a close partnership and mutual shareholding.

And even they could borrow the name of Stark Industries to recruit?

Fu Qinghai recalled his exceptionally smooth interview process and how he had smugly thought his forged credentials were seamless and his rhetoric airtight.

It turned out they didn't care at all whether he was real or fake.

Society is simple; it's the people who are complicated.

So, the clown was me all along!

Looking at the computer screen and the piles of documents before him, and at these simple, dull, and repetitive tasks, did this really require a "Stanford PhD" like him? Any graduate from Galiton University could do this.

Fu Qinghai's mood was extremely complicated right now.

He was one step further away from becoming the CEO of Stark Industries.

The only consolation was that the internship salary was decent enough for Fu Qinghai to barely survive in New York, without having to line up with the homeless for federal unemployment relief meals.

The instant coffee had already gone cold. Sitting at his desk, bored to death, Fu Qinghai stared fixedly at the entrance of Stark Tower in the distance, as if gazing at an unreachable goddess.

The midday sun was as scorching as it had been on the day of his interview, making the glass curtain walls shimmer with light.

Suddenly, Fu Qinghai thought he saw a blurry shadow flash across the reflection on the glass wall.

"Hmm?" Fu Qinghai squinted to get a better look, but it was too far away to see clearly.

"Am I seeing things?" The reflected sunlight was too intense, and Fu Qinghai wasn't sure what he had actually seen.

"Probably just my eyes playing tricks on me. Hmm... I've been in the Marvel Cinematic Universe for over two months now, and I haven't found any other suspected Reincarnators yet. That voice in my head hasn't appeared again either." Fu Qinghai calculated to himself; how long would it take for a fake doctor like him to infiltrate Stark Industries?

Not only had he failed to steal any black technology from Stark Industries, but the legendary Assimilation Points also seemed nowhere in sight.

"Tsk..." After thinking for a while, Fu Qinghai smacked his lips and stood up, preparing to go get another cup of hot coffee.

Suddenly, a loud "BOOM--" echoed through the air. Fu Qinghai quickly turned his head to look out the window.

He saw a massive hole blown into the midsection of the distant Stark Tower, with thick black smoke billowing out.

The explosion was so loud that even Fu Qinghai, three blocks away, felt the floor tremble.

The office erupted in a commotion; Fu Qinghai's colleagues all stood up to look out the window.

"What happened?"

"Is it a terrorist attack?"

"Look, that's Stark Industries! It's smoking!" a colleague pointed out.

"God, don't tell me those aliens are back." Some employees began to pray; these were likely survivors who had experienced the Chitauri invasion of New York.

"Quiet! Quiet! Get back to your seats!" A short, chubby supervisor was also startled and walked out of his office to maintain order.

But the employees were indifferent to his shouting, crowding around the floor-to-ceiling windows to observe the distant Stark Tower.

The Battle of New York from a year ago was still fresh in everyone's memory, and many ruins in the city had yet to be fully repaired.

Fu Qinghai stared deeply at the chaotic scene in the distance: traffic jams, people fleeing in terror, police in black NYPD uniforms rushing to the scene, and the sound of fire sirens wailing in the distance.

I have to go there. A voice in his heart seemed to be reminding him.

"I have to go check it out!" Fu Qinghai decided. Although he didn't know the situation, he felt this event was no small matter. He had experienced the security at Stark Tower—it was exceptionally strict. Whoever could cause an explosion in the middle of the building was definitely no ordinary person.

Following that inexplicable urge in his heart, Fu Qinghai pushed past his colleagues, ran down the stairs, and reached the street.

People on the street were fleeing in panic away from Stark Tower; no one wanted to be a spectator. Born in the disaster-prone city of New York, this was the most basic safety awareness.

Fu Qinghai, moving against the flow of the crowd, looked particularly conspicuous. Police were on the roadside maintaining order, as the explosion had caused several cars to collide.

"Hey, kid, you can't go—" The officer pulling the police tape had just stopped Fu Qinghai and was about to speak.

"BOOM!!!" Another loud bang.

This explosion occurred near the top of Stark Tower. Thick smoke rolled out, and countless glass shards and concrete fragments rained down like a downpour, causing people on the street to cover their heads and scramble for cover.

At the moment of the explosion, Fu Qinghai and the nearby police instinctively crouched down. Taking advantage of the distraction, Fu Qinghai jumped up and ran toward Stark Tower at an even faster pace.

As he ran, Fu Qinghai could hear his own heart pounding.

His reason was warning him: this is dangerous! This is extremely dangerous!

But the gambling nature deep in Fu Qinghai's bones overwhelmed his reason. He had been in the Marvel Cinematic Universe for a whole month and had achieved nothing. In his past life, he was just a corporate slave for a private company; was he going to spend half a lifetime as a mediocre corporate slave again after entering the Reincarnation World?

"Besides, according to the hint in that information, shouldn't I have three lives?"

Fu Qinghai rushed to the entrance of the building. People, injured and bleeding, were crying as they ran out. Fu Qinghai sidestepped and slipped inside, seeing the once-busy lobby in shambles: collapsed pillars, unconscious people on the floor, and security guards busy trying to save the wounded.

"This is no time to save people, and besides, I don't know first aid." No one paid any attention to Fu Qinghai. He stepped over the chaotic floor and sprinted toward the elevators.

The explosions had already spread to the upper levels, and there was no time to take the stairs. Fu Qinghai pulled an access card from the chest of a severed corpse wearing a blue security uniform. He didn't dare look at the mangled lower half of the body, and he held his breath to avoid the nauseating stench of blood, swiping the card to open the elevator door based on the layout he remembered from his interview.

"Ding-dong!" The elevator was still operational.

Fu Qinghai pressed the buttons for the highest floors, finally getting a response when he hit the 45th floor.

"Phew... looks like this guard's clearance only goes up to the 45th floor." Fu Qinghai took a deep breath as the elevator doors closed and it began to ascend slowly.

Standing in the rising elevator, Fu Qinghai forced himself to calm down and consider the situation he might face.

"Someone has invaded Stark Tower, a violent intrusion. What for?"

In the original movie plot, this period was Thor's timeline, and there was no mention of what the other Avengers were doing.

Then it was highly likely that these weren't plot characters, but Reincarnators like him! A chill ran through Fu Qinghai's heart. Reincarnators who dared to violently invade the Avengers' New York headquarters were certainly not weaklings like him, who had just entered the Reincarnation World.

Moreover, judging by the scale of this, the faction they chose was likely the opposite of his own.

Another explosion came from the floors above, causing the elevator to shake and the lights to flicker on and off.

Fu Qinghai quickly grabbed the handrail to steady himself.

At this moment, he recalled the blurry shadow he had seen flashing by in the distance earlier. Could it be related to this?

"Ding-dong!" The elevator doors opened.

Fu Qinghai cautiously poked his head out to look. There were damaged furnishings, bullet holes in the walls, and a few scattered corpses—not as many as on the first floor, but the walls were covered in radial blood spatters. Aside from the traces of battle, the 45th floor was completely empty.

Compared to the chaos on the streets outside the tower, there was an eerie silence here.

Having arrived, Fu Qinghai was no longer in such a rush. Driven by impulse to reach the upper floors, he could now take a moment to observe and think. Fu Qinghai approached a headless corpse in a suit slumped on a sofa. The cut on the neck was neat and smooth, and half-coagulated blood hung like a waterfall over the back of the sofa. The head lay behind it. Judging by the relaxed posture of the body, the victim hadn't realized danger was coming before death. On the chest of the suit was a blood-stained Stark Industries ID badge.

Another corpse lay at the entrance to the stairwell: a bearded white man in a shirt and jeans, wearing a desert camouflage GEN2 Bulletproof Vest. His hand was still tightly gripping an AR-15 assault rifle covered in custom parts and a personalized paint job. Intuition told Fu Qinghai that this was not the attire of Stark Industries security personnel.

Furthermore, the charred, ten-centimeter-wide hole in the center of the bearded man's chest suggested something else.

Could this be a puncture wound caused by Iron Man's repulsor blast? Fu Qinghai thought to himself. If so, this bearded man was likely also a Reincarnator.

After searching the body thoroughly and finding no further useful information, Fu Qinghai spent quite a bit of effort prying open the bearded man's fingers from the grip. He familiarized himself with the trigger and safety, and mimicking the CQB style he had seen others use, he held the rifle and crouched low, moving toward the upper floors along the stairwell that had been blown open.

46th floor, 47th floor, 48th floor.

Along the way, Fu Qinghai touched every piece of electronic equipment he could find.

"Please enter password."

"Facial recognition in progress."

"Insufficient clearance. Access denied."

The electronic devices gave him a nearly uniform response.

"Fuck!" Fu Qinghai couldn't help but curse.

A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to enter the top floors of Stark Tower, yet it hadn't yielded any gains. Fu Qinghai was at best a white-collar worker with broad interests; he had no background as a genius hacker. Besides, breaking through Stark Industries' firewalls would likely require more than just an average genius hacker.

As Fu Qinghai searched, explosions and tremors continued to come from the top floor, indicating a fierce battle.

"To be able to go toe-to-toe with Iron Man, it's probably not something a few mercenary-like Reincarnators could pull off..." Now that he was one floor away from the top of Stark Tower, Fu Qinghai hesitated again.

He had managed to sneak into Stark Tower, but he hadn't gained anything.

Internal frustration was one thing, but most importantly, he remembered that the main quest he had chosen a month ago was "A. Avengers Faction Plotline"!

If... and this was a big if, Iron Man was actually killed on the top floor, even though it was currently the timeline for Thor, as one of the MCU's "Big Three" Avengers, this would definitely affect the entire plot trajectory of the Avengers faction.

The group of Reincarnators daring to challenge Iron Man clearly hadn't come unprepared...

Fu Qinghai thought again about the "Reincarnation Life X3" that the voice in his head had promised him...

"Screw it!" Fu Qinghai hardened his heart.

No matter how elaborate your plans are, no matter how powerful your strength is, and no matter how much of a weakling I am... today, I, Fu, am going to help out!

That said, Fu Qinghai still maintained a near-snail's pace as he slowly crept toward the spiral staircase.

Fu Qinghai did his best to mask his movements, holding his breath and listening as he moved.

The battle upstairs seemed to have subsided, and faint voices could be heard.

"So, Mr. Stark, even if you don't care about your own life, you should consider the lives of your woman and your friends. Now, hand over the isotope of the Tesseract." The voice belonged to a young man.

A weak voice replied: "I don't know what you're talking about... some bullshit cube, there's nothing here that you want."

"That is an heirloom left to you by your father, how could you not know!" The young voice sounded angry. "Look at this face, Virginia Pepper Potts, your poor little secretary. In the next second, this face will be blown to pieces by a .44 Magnum round!"

A truly classic villain monologue.

"You should be looking for Nick Fury, not me. Ha... just do it. I didn't expect that I wouldn't die in the Battle of New York, but instead, die at the hands of some idiot mutant."

"Mutant? I am not one of those mutated mongrels, Mr. Stark. You know nothing about the Will of the Earth, you know nothing about the great Power of Orochi!" The young voice was filled with arrogance.

Will of the Earth? Power of Orochi? Hearing this, Fu Qinghai began to think...

Could it be... The King of Fighters?

Hiss... Fu Qinghai gasped. He had been wondering what kind of Reincarnators could go toe-to-toe with Iron Man, but if the opponent was a complete reincarnation of Orochi from The King of Fighters, then according to the power scaling in that world, it was far beyond what Iron Man in his Mark 42 armor could handle. At the very least, it would take Tony Stark in the Mark 46 Bleeding Edge armor to have a fighting chance.

Conversely, the fact that he could now trade blows with Iron Man suggested that the opponent was not a full manifestation of the will of Orochi, but merely a temporary medium for it. Fu Qinghai continued his analysis.

"Merely" a temporary medium? Listen to how arrogant that sounded.

"Murakami, stop wasting your breath on him. The other Avengers are going to arrive soon; let's just kill him and trade for the Assimilation Points," a gruff voice said.

Fu Qinghai had already moved to the top floor and was currently sitting beside the glass door, listening to the voices coming from behind the wall.

"No, the other Avengers won't arrive that quickly. It's rare to push Iron Man into such a desperate situation; we can play with Mr. Stark a little longer..." the young voice sneered, clearly unsatisfied with the massive amount of Assimilation Points he would gain from killing Iron Man, harboring even greater ambition and greed.

"I can't just sit here; I have to do something, or Iron Man is going to meet his end today." Hearing this, Fu Qinghai decided to cautiously poke his head out to assess the situation.

He slowly extended his head toward the back of the door.

He saw the scene behind the door.

At just a single glance, Fu Qinghai's blood nearly ran cold.