Tony, in the interrogation room, naturally could not see Hong Fei on the other side. At the moment, Hong Fei was facing Frank with a grim expression, and no one knew what the two of them were discussing.
The moment Obadiah saw Tony, he heaved a sigh of relief, but his heart quickly tightened again.
"When can you release him?"
"I don't choose the time. Whenever you pay, I'll release him."
"How am I supposed to pay you?"
"Wait for my notice."
"How do I know you won't kill him after taking the money?"
"Rest assured. I value credibility far more than ordinary people do. Business is for the long term. Life is so long—how could I possibly only do this one job?"
At that, Obadiah suddenly fell silent.
Hong Fei curled his lips into a smile and waited for the prey to take the bait.
After a long while, Obadiah licked his lips, wiped a hand over his bald head, and suddenly broke into an unprecedented smile.
"I think we might be able to make another deal."
Hong Fei feigned surprise. "Oh? I actually have something I can do for Mr. Stan?"
"Of course, but I think we should discuss this deal in person."
Hong Fei cursed inwardly, but said, "I'm afraid I wouldn't dare meet you at a time like this. I might not even see you before a missile sends me straight to heaven."
Obadiah cursed inwardly as well, yet he maintained his smile. "I'm in Afghanistan right now. You can choose the location. I guarantee I won't reveal this matter to anyone. Besides, our video record right now is practically me handing you leverage against me. What else do you have to worry about? But for my own safety, I must bring people with me."
They definitely had to meet. Hong Fei had Obadiah Stane firmly in his grasp. As the main villain of the first installment, Hong Fei refused to believe the man would not drop a Skill Card.
But he could not agree too quickly.
Don't forget, Hong Fei was currently in Sokovia, not Afghanistan!
"I'll consider it first. Prepare what I want, and I'll contact you again."
After ending the call, Hong Fei waited until Frank left the interrogation room, then immediately said, "Prepare the plane. Have everyone pack their things. We'll be leaving soon."
That night, after Tony returned to the secret room, he began loudly calling for Hong Fei to start hammering iron sheets with him the moment he walked in.
Frank had indeed given him greater motivation. Even while hammering the iron sheets, Tony muttered constantly to himself.
The Mark I Armor was not that complicated to make. Tony did not need it for a prolonged battle, so with the two of them working together, progress was swift.
Two days later, Frank, who was watching the secret room through a camera, saw Hong Fei quietly make a hand signal. He immediately turned and ordered, "Bring him out."
A moment later, the secret room door was pushed open, and three men in black with covered faces rushed in. Two went straight to Hong Fei and dragged him out, while the third restrained Tony.
"What are you doing? Don't touch him! I said I'd pay his ransom! Stop it!"
Unfortunately, the masked men ignored his shouts, and Hong Fei was still taken away.
With a clang, the iron door locked shut. Tony stood dazed for a moment, then hid in a corner and gritted his teeth as he completed the armor's final assembly. This corner was the only surveillance blind spot he had discovered through testing, but he did not know Hong Fei had deliberately left him that opportunity.
After leaving the secret room, Hong Fei quickly changed into a fitted black combat suit, black boots, and black gloves, then put on a pure white mask.
Declining the handgun Frank offered him, he asked, "Is everything ready?"
Frank nodded. "The plane is at the airport and can take off at any time. The helicopter is waiting outside, and Number One and Number Two have already found a suitable place in Afghanistan."
For convenience, the five men Frank had recruited had been given the codenames Numbers One to Five.
Hong Fei nodded. "Good. You four board the plane first. I'll be there shortly."
Frank immediately asked, "Are you sure you want to go alone? What he built doesn't seem simple."
"I know that thing better than you do. I hammered plenty of those iron plates myself." Hong Fei smiled. "Relax. To me, it's just a lump of iron. All right, where's what I asked for?"
Frank reached over and picked up a long box from the table.
"Given the marksmanship you showed before, I'd recommend learning professional sniper tactics."
Taking the box, Hong Fei shook his head and said seriously, "There's no need to learn how to shoot. Hurry up and go. He'll be coming out soon."
Frank sighed helplessly, turned, and led Numbers Three to Five swiftly onto the plane.
Inside the secret room, Tony quickly put on the armor, his face twisted with barely concealed fury. When the progress bar on the computer reached one hundred percent, he immediately tore free of the wires connected to the armor, walked beneath the camera, and pointed at the secret room ceiling. "Now, I'm coming for you!"
Hong Fei curled his lip at the rather childish Tony on the screen, then turned and walked toward the secret room.
With a boom, Tony kicked the iron door open.
Outside the secret room was a long tunnel, lit only by dim light from old bulbs on the walls.
The sound of every step the armor took echoed through the tunnel. All Tony could picture was Hong Fei being beheaded by those terrorists, and the fire in his heart burned even hotter.
Soon, he stopped.
At the end of the tunnel, a black figure suddenly appeared. The only white part of the person's body was the mask on his face.
With a flick of his wrist, a flowing streak of clear, cold light shot into view.
Hong Fei held a straight long blade, its hilt and guard matte black, its blade bright and silver.
The blade was four centimeters wide, 74.6 centimeters long, and 125.8 centimeters in total length.
The specifications were identical to the actual weapon, and the real blade fit Hong Fei's physique perfectly.
In truth, much Kung Fu had originally been created to serve cold weapons.
When entering a real battlefield and pursuing actual lethality, the best approach was naturally not to compare Kung Fu barehanded.
An ordinary person's fists would not easily cause death unless they struck a vital point, but a cold weapon might directly punch a hole through someone after a single hit.
A punch to the heart might not kill, but a blade through the heart was certainly fatal.
Facing an Iron Man suit, Hong Fei had no reason to foolishly use flesh and blood against steel.
Even so, although he carried a Horizontal Blade, he still looked somewhat ridiculous before the towering, imposing armor.
Thus, Hong Fei's appearance not only failed to pressure Tony, but instead seemed to offer him an outlet for his rage.
Tony raised an arm. The seven barrels welded in a circle beneath the armguard immediately began to spin. In an instant, mechanical whirring and gunfire erupted together. Bullets howled out in a tidal torrent, like a sudden downpour from the heavens—points becoming lines, lines forming a surface—as they frantically surged toward Hong Fei.
The instant Tony raised his arm, Hong Fei, who had participated in building the armor, activated Shinigami Eye.
Hong Fei had long known what it was. Tony had asked for bullets but no gun because he had made the gun himself out of a pile of scattered materials!
In an instant, the towering armor turned blood-red in his vision. The spinning barrels slowed to an extreme degree, and brass bullets shot out one after another, quickly gathering into a wall of bullets advancing toward him.
Every hair on Hong Fei's body stood on end. He gripped the hilt with both hands. The blade tore through the air before him, the bullets were within reach, and blade light suddenly erupted.
In Tony's eyes, Hong Fei's movements abruptly shifted from utter stillness to extreme motion. The sudden acceleration had already exceeded the limit of what the naked eye could track. The Horizontal Blade danced in his hands like a soaring Flood Dragon. Before the first slash of light faded, the second and third had already struck. Sharp, rapid clanging burst continuously from the brilliant mass of light and shadow, while clusters of sparks flashed wildly before Hong Fei.
The sharp blade perfectly split the bullets along their lines of symmetry. Driven by their remaining momentum, the severed bullets slammed into the tunnel walls. In the blink of an eye, dust kicked up from rows of bullet holes spread out and swallowed Hong Fei.
After one burst of rapid fire, Tony had no choice but to stop. He knew the weapon he had built all too well. Restricted by such conditions and materials, it could not sustain high-speed firing for long. Besides, he did not have many bullets.
At the same time, his face beneath the iron armor had already filled with shock.
At that moment, he had to wonder whether the person standing opposite him was truly human, or a super AI with a humanoid body.
Otherwise, with a human body, human vision, and human neural reaction speed, how could someone possibly use only a cold weapon to slash apart every high-speed bullet fired from gatling barrels?
Within the dust, Hong Fei lowered his blade. Sweat had seeped across his forehead beneath the mask, and waves of soreness ran through both his arms.
Shinigami Eye could slow the flow of time, but forcing his body to react and move so rapidly in such a short time still exacted an enormous toll.
Yet Hong Fei felt utterly exhilarated.
After all, he had blocked bullets with a blade!
And because he had participated in building the armor, Hong Fei knew very well that even accounting for recoil, Tony's Mark I Armor still fired at a standard rate of 750 rounds per minute!
That meant that in those brief dozen seconds, he had already cut apart hundreds of bullets!
In his previous life, it was something no martial artist would have dared even imagine. Now, he had recreated it for real.
The fatigue in his body was not worth mentioning. His achievement filled him with boundless excitement.
Across from him, Tony recovered after a brief moment of shock and raised his other arm.
Hong Fei instantly snapped back to attention. His arm swung, and the Horizontal Blade shot through the air like an arrow released from its bow. In the next instant, the sharp tip slipped into an imperceptible gap at the armor's shoulder, and a burst of dazzling sparks immediately exploded inside the armor.
At the same time, after throwing the Horizontal Blade, Hong Fei kicked off the ground. His body shot forward nearly parallel to the floor, wind howling past his ears. Once he closed in on the armor, he grasped the hilt and drove it inward with force. The blade immediately pierced through Tony's back, bringing a vivid spray of blood with it.
Tony cried out in pain and swung a fist at Hong Fei's head.
Hong Fei kicked the armor's abdomen, used the force to pull out the blade with his left hand and shift half a step aside. Holding the Horizontal Blade behind his body, he lightly rested his right hand atop Tony's iron fist like a falling leaf.
In that instant, the force within the Iron Fist fed back into Hong Fei's mind with perfect clarity. With the earth as its core, power traveled through Tony's legs, waist, abdomen, shoulders, and elbows. Hong Fei's open palm rested beneath the iron fist, first yielding and guiding, then erupting with all his strength as he pulled it sharply to the side.
Boom!
A heavy crash echoed through the tunnel as the massive armor slammed solidly into the stone wall, sending clouds of dust cascading down.
Tony, inside the armor, only felt the suit suddenly slip out of control. Before he could react and regain command, the impact had already left him dizzy and disoriented.
With a faint tearing sound, the blade slipped gently through a gap at the armor's neck. Its icy tip touched Tony's throat, immediately making him dare not move again.
A short while later, Hong Fei boarded the helicopter carrying Tony, who had once again fainted and been wrapped up like a rice dumpling, and swiftly headed for the airport.
Before you continue