But soon, Fu Haoran noticed a problem. He stared at the [Universal Points +4234] on the System Panel, his brows drawing tighter and tighter.
"Thirteen Reincarnators, averaging just over 300 points each?"
He pulled up the records from the previous mission. Even a random side quest had barely managed to earn four digits.
"Too little. This doesn't come close to reflecting what a Reincarnator is worth."
Fu Haoran wasn't sure what to make of it. This was his first time dealing with other Reincarnators.
"I'll have to go down and see for myself."
To be safe, he brought along his personal "bodyguard," Lucifer.
She basically never followed orders, but if anything went wrong, he could always duck behind her. That was a safe bet.
That was called sensible positioning on the battlefield, not being a coward.
The camp.
Wade was directing the soldiers as they cleared the battlefield. When he saw Fu Haoran arrive, he stood at attention and saluted. "Governor, the enemy has been completely wiped out. We suffered no casualties."
Fu Haoran looked around, taking in the charred wreckage in the distance, then the heavy weapons, all intact. He fell silent for three seconds.
That was it?
Lucifer seemed to see what was on his mind. "There are no hidden enemies within fifty kilometers. The residual energy signatures are about to dissipate."
Fu Haoran took a deep breath and turned to Lucifer, his tone slightly awkward. "Back on the bridge, I ran through a whole series of tactical scenarios. I was wondering if they had an ambush set up, whether we should bring in more troops..."
Lucifer said quite seriously, "Your simulations were impressive. They were on par with what I could do at six."
"...You can stop now."
Fu Haoran was wounded. So all that caution had been for nothing.
Awkward as it was, even if he could do it all over again, Fu Haoran would still choose to reveal as many of his cards as possible.
The Reincarnation Battlefield was full of all sorts of people. He'd only been to one world; according to the forum, he was a complete rookie. There was nothing wrong with being cautious.
Fu Haoran glanced at the Lasguns in the soldiers' hands and silently grumbled to himself.
Lots of people on the forum called these things "flashlights," but that was by comparison with the monsters and demons of the Warhammer Universe.
Laser guns were actually pretty high-tech. Fu Haoran had tested one: it could punch through concrete. The Hellguns used by Stormtroopers could even take down a Space Marine, let alone these Reincarnators, who didn't have top-tier protection.
Four hundred "flashlights" opening fire at once, backed by heavy Autoguns, Las-cannons, and Wolf Spider Sentry Guns.
Fu Haoran glanced at the charred remains on the ground in the distance and silently looked away.
The Reincarnators had no one to blame for their deaths. They'd underestimated their enemy and mistaken the Empire's advanced technology for crude toys made by the locals.
For all he knew, Laser weapons were among the few standard-issue weapons of the Imperium of Man that had never been lost and were still being continuously upgraded.
This little incident was soon behind them.
Fu Haoran quickly arrived at the largest tent.
Inside lay the most important target of the operation: the remains of a Mark 1 Armor, pieced back together.
Almost at the same moment, the System Panel chimed in Fu Haoran's ear:
[Obtained key resource: Mark 1 Armor technical sample (available for analysis)] [Worldline change rate: 1.2%] [Universal Points: +166]
Lucifer glanced at it, her disdain unmistakable. Her tone carried the characteristic arrogance of the Necrons.
"Don't tell me you went to all this trouble and deployed all that firepower just to get this primitive piece of junk."
Fu Haoran wasn't angry. Instead, he smiled.
Sure, in the eyes of the Necrons, it was junk.
In the Warhammer World, there were plenty of suits of Power Armour like this, and even more advanced Force Feedback Power Armor.
The Force Feedback Power Armor sold by the Adeptus Mechanicus was more than ten times as capable as the Mark 1.
But the problem was, Fu Haoran didn't have any.
Besides, the armor itself had never been what he was after.
Fu Haoran looked away from the armor and said evenly, "It's a foot in the door. I have no use for it, but someone else does."
Lucifer raised an eyebrow but didn't reply.
Fu Haoran looked up at the sky. "All right, hurry up and get things ready. Our guest will be here soon."
The convoy sped through the Kandahar desert, its headlights cutting through the night.
Obadiah Stane gripped his phone, veins bulging as he roared into it, "Have the board put pressure on Tony! He has to reverse his decision to shut down the weapons business!"
"The black-market weapons channels are all cut off. The creditors have already seized my private estate. If I can't get the armor technology, I'll be bankrupt—and they'll throw me into the sea as fish food! That useless Raza ruined my best chance!"
"I don't care what it takes. Beg him, threaten him, whatever—just make him change his mind!"
He hung up and smashed his phone against the car window.
A senior executive at Stark Industries, he played the role of Tony's mentor while secretly supplying weapons to terrorist organizations and expanding arms orders.
But as Tony grew more and more mature, Obadiah realized he couldn't control him at all.
Tony didn't take a word he said seriously, and it made Obadiah feel threatened.
He wanted nothing more than to replace Tony Stark as chairman of the company.
"That useless Raza!" Obadiah ground out. "I personally sold you Tony's escape route, and you still let him get away!"
"How much longer?"
"Five minutes, sir."
Obadiah closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat, anger and anxiety roiling in his chest.
Tonight, he had to get the armor fragments. Then... he'd make that incompetent fool Raza keep his mouth shut forever.
The convoy reached the camp.
Obadiah stepped out of the car, the faint smell of something burnt reaching his nose.
The headlights swept across the ground. There were no familiar terrorists on patrol. The camp tents were all lit, yet an eerie silence hung over them, broken only by the flapping canvas in the wind.
Obadiah furrowed his brow, a trace of wariness stirring in him.
But then again, those terrorists had never been disciplined. Maybe they'd turned on each other. Hadn't Tony escaped in the chaos?
Besides, he still had an Ultrasonic Paralyzer hidden in his pocket. No matter how many enemies there were, he could handle them with ease.
With that thought, he strode confidently toward the largest and brightest tent.
He lifted the flap.
Raza was nowhere to be seen.
A dozen soldiers in gray Plasteel Armor stood inside. Not one of them looked Middle Eastern, and all of them watched him with hostile eyes.
"Get—"
Obadiah had only just shouted the first syllable when dull thuds sounded behind him.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
They weren't gunshots. They were the sounds of heavy blows landing on flesh.
He turned and saw that four of his eight bodyguards were already down.
The whole thing had taken less than three seconds, with hardly a sound.
A hand reached in from the side and clamped around Obadiah's wrist. Another slipped into the inside pocket of his suit and deftly fished out the Ultrasonic Paralyzer.
Obadiah's pupils contracted.
They hadn't taken his phone or his custom pistol. They'd only taken this?
Did they know what it was?
Strangely, they'd left his phone and gun untouched.
"Who are you?"
Obadiah didn't panic. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that all eight bodyguards had been subdued. He immediately realized there was no point panicking.
Now, he needed to negotiate.
"Mr. Obadiah, since you've come all this way, let's talk."
Fu Haoran stood up from the back of the tent. He looked to be in his early twenties. He tapped a finger against the Iron Suit beside him, pieced together from the remains of an early-model armor, its plates still scorched.
Obadiah's eyes lit up at once. They hadn't killed him or touched his phone or gun; they'd only taken the Ultrasonic Paralyzer. That meant they weren't here to kill him.
And that pile of armor... they'd deliberately left it there for him to see.
The corner of Obadiah's mouth lifted slightly as he regained his usual composure.
Raza was dead? It didn't matter.
He'd negotiate with whoever had the armor.
As for this young man...
He glanced at Fu Haoran, a trace of contempt flickering in his eyes.
What he didn't know was that there wasn't the slightest hint of ingratiation in Fu Haoran's eyes.
Fu Haoran had never wanted to become anyone's lackey. He wanted to use Obadiah to get what he truly needed.
Before you continue