Horizontal Blade Meets Armor, Blade Edge Slices Bullets

Tony in the interrogation room naturally couldn't see Hong Fei on the other side. He sat there with a grim face, facing Frank, and who knew what they were saying.

Obadiah breathed a sigh of relief the moment he saw Tony, but his heart quickly tightened again.

"I want to know when you'll release him."

"The timing isn't up to me. When you pay, I'll release him."

"How do I pay you?"

"Wait for my instructions."

"How do I know you won't just kill him after you get the money?"

"Relax. I value reputation far more than the average person. Business is long-term—life's long, after all. Why would I only do this one job?"

At that, Obadiah fell silent for a moment.

Hong Fei curled his lips, waiting calmly for his prey to take the bait.

After a long pause, Obadiah licked his lips, wiped his bald head, and suddenly broke into an unprecedented smile.

"I think we might be able to do another kind of business."

Hong Fei feigned surprise. "Oh? I actually have something I can do for Mr. Stan?"

"Of course. But I think we'd better discuss this in person."

Hong Fei cursed inwardly, but said, "I'm afraid I wouldn't dare meet you right now. I might not even see you before a missile sends me straight to heaven."

Obadiah cursed inwardly too, but kept his smile firmly in place. "I'm in Afghanistan right now. You can pick the location. I swear I won't tell anyone about this. Besides, this video call with you is practically handing you leverage. What else do you have to worry about? But for my own safety, I'll have to bring some people with me."

A meeting was inevitable. He had to get Obadiah Stane. As the main villain of this movie, Hong Fei didn't believe he wouldn't drop a Skill Card.

But he couldn't agree too quickly.

After all, Hong Fei was currently in Sokovia, not Afghanistan!

"Let me think it over. Get my things ready, 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 up. We're leaving soon."

That night, Tony returned to the secret room and immediately bustled in, calling for Hong Fei to start hammering metal together.

Frank had given him a real boost of motivation. Even as he hammered, Tony muttered under his breath.

The Mark I Armor wasn't that complicated to build. Tony didn't need it for a prolonged fight, so working together, they made rapid progress.

Two days later, Frank, watching the secret room through the camera, saw Hong Fei quietly signal him. He immediately turned and ordered, "Bring him out."

A moment later, the door to the secret room was pushed open. Three men in black with masked faces rushed in. Two went straight for Hong Fei and dragged him out, while the third held Tony down.

"What are you doing? Don't touch him! I told you, I'll pay his ransom! Stop!"

But the masked men ignored his shouts. Hong Fei was taken away.

The iron door clanged shut and locked. Tony was dazed for a moment, then retreated to a corner, gritting his teeth as he made the final adjustments to his armor. That corner was the only blind spot in their surveillance, something he'd discovered through trial and error—but he didn't know Hong Fei had deliberately left it open for him.

Once out of the secret room, Hong Fei quickly changed into a tight black combat suit, black boots, black gloves, and a pure white mask.

He declined the pistol Frank offered and asked, "Everything ready?"

Frank nodded. "The plane's at the airport, ready for takeoff. The helicopter's waiting outside. Number One and Number Two have found a suitable spot in Afghanistan."

For convenience, Frank had given the five men he recruited the codenames Numbers One through Five.

Hong Fei nodded. "Good. You four get on the plane first. I'll be right there."

Frank immediately questioned, "Are you sure you want to do this alone? That thing he's building doesn't look simple."

"I know that thing better than you do. I hammered out a lot of those plates myself." Hong Fei smiled. "Don't worry. To me, it's just a hunk of metal. Anyway, where's the thing I asked for?"

Frank grabbed a long rectangular box from the table.

"With the marksmanship you've shown, I'd recommend you learn proper sniper tactics."

Taking the box, Hong Fei shook his head seriously. "Shooting doesn't need learning. Hurry up and go. He'll be out soon."

Frank sighed helplessly and led Numbers Three to Five quickly to the plane.

Inside the secret room, Tony, barely containing his rage, quickly put on his armor. When the progress bar on the computer hit one hundred percent, he tore off the cables connected to the suit, walked under the camera, and pointed at the ceiling. "Now, I'm coming for you!"

Hong Fei watched the rather melodramatic Tony on the screen, curled his lip, and turned to head toward the secret room.

With a crash, Tony kicked the iron door open.

Beyond the door was a long corridor, lit only by the dim glow of old bulbs on the walls.

The clanking of the armor echoed through the passage. Tony's mind was filled with images of Hong Fei having his head cut off by the terrorists, and his fury burned hotter.

Then he stopped.

At the end of the corridor stood a black figure, the only white on him being his mask.

The figure moved his wrist, and a streak of flowing, cold light flashed into view.

In Hong Fei's hand was a straight longsword. The hilt and guard were pitch black; the blade gleamed silver.

Blade width: 4 cm. Blade length: 74.6 cm. Total length: 125.8 cm.

The data matched the physical object perfectly, the blade fitting Hong Fei's form without a flaw.

In truth, many forms of Kung Fu were originally designed to serve cold weapons.

When entering a real battlefield in pursuit of lethal effect, the best approach was naturally not to rely on bare-handed Kung Fu.

An ordinary person's fist, unless striking a vital point, rarely caused death, but a cold weapon could pierce straight through and leave a hole.

A punch to the heart might not kill, but a blade through it was certain death.

Facing an Iron Man suit, Hong Fei had no reason to foolishly clash his flesh and blood against it.

Yet even with a Horizontal Blade in hand, he still looked somewhat ridiculous before the towering, imposing armor.

Thus, Hong Fei's appearance didn't pressure Tony; instead, it seemed to offer him an outlet for venting.

Raising his arm, the seven gun barrels welded in a ring beneath the arm guard immediately began to spin. In an instant, the clatter of machinery and gunfire intertwined, bullets roaring out like a tidal wave, as if a sudden downpour from the sky, dots forming lines, lines gathering into a surface, madly surging toward Hong Fei.

The moment his arm lifted, Hong Fei, who had helped build the armor, activated his Shinigami Eye.

He had long known what that was. Tony had asked for bullets but not a gun, because he'd built one himself from a pile of scattered materials!

Instantly, the towering armor appeared blood-red in his vision. The barrels' rotation slowed to a crawl, and gleaming brass bullets burst forth one after another, quickly coalescing into a wall of lead pushing toward him.

Every hair on Hong Fei's body stood on end. He gripped the blade's hilt tightly, the edge tearing through the air before him. Bullets were inches away, and the sword light erupted.

In Tony's eyes, Hong Fei's movements suddenly shifted from utter stillness to explosive motion, the acceleration surpassing what the naked eye could track. A Horizontal Blade danced in his hands like a soaring Flood Dragon. Before the first flash of light faded, the second and third strikes had already landed, a cluster of dazzling radiance accompanied by a rapid series of sharp clinks, sparks flickering intensely before Hong Fei.

The keen edge sliced bullets perfectly along their centerline. The split projectiles, driven by residual momentum, slammed into the corridor walls. In moments, dust kicked up from a dense array of bullet holes shrouded Hong Fei.

After a burst of rapid fire, Tony had to stop. He knew his handcrafted gun well—under these conditions and material constraints, it couldn't sustain high-speed shooting for long, and he didn't have many bullets anyway.

At the same time, his face hidden beneath the iron armor was filled with shock.

For a moment, he had to wonder if the man standing across from him was real or a super AI in human form.

Otherwise, how could a human's physical fitness, visual acuity, and neural reaction speed allow him to parry high-velocity bullets from a Gatling with nothing but a cold weapon, strike after strike?

In the dust, Hong Fei sheathed his blade. Sweat beaded on his forehead beneath the mask, and a dull ache spread through both arms.

The Shinigami Eye could slow time, but his body's rapid response and movement came at a great cost.

Yet Hong Fei felt nothing but exhilaration.

After all, this was blocking bullets with a blade!

And because he'd helped build the armor, he knew that even accounting for recoil, Tony's Mark I Armor still fired at a standard rate of 750 rounds per minute!

That meant in the mere tens of seconds just past, he'd cleaved through hundreds of bullets!

In his past life, no martial artist would have dared dream of such a feat, and now he'd made it real.

The physical fatigue was trivial; the achievement alone had him ecstatic.

Across from him, Tony snapped out of his shock and raised his other arm.

Hong Fei snapped back to focus. He swung his arm, and the Horizontal Blade shot through the air like an arrow from a bow. In an instant, the sharp tip slipped into a barely visible gap in the armor's shoulder, and a burst of dazzling sparks erupted inside.

At the same time, after throwing the blade, Hong Fei pushed off the ground, his body nearly parallel to it as he shot forward, wind roaring past his ears. Closing in on the armor, he grabbed the hilt and shoved it deeper. The blade pierced through Tony's back, drawing a flash of vivid blood.

Tony cried out in pain and swung a fist at Hong Fei's head.

Hong Fei kicked off the armor's abdomen, using the force to pull the blade free with his left hand and sidestep. He held the Horizontal Blade behind his back, his right hand falling like a drifting leaf onto Tony's Iron Fist.

In that instant, the force of the Iron Fist transmitted clearly into Hong Fei's mind. With the ground as the core, power flowed through legs, waist, and shoulders. His open palm met the Iron Fist from below, guiding it first, then in a flash, he channeled all his strength to pull and redirect it sideways.

Boom!

A dull crash echoed through the corridor. The heavy armor slammed solidly into the stone wall, sending clumps of dust scattering down.

Inside the armor, Tony felt it suddenly lose control. Before he could react to correct it, the impact left him dizzy.

With a soft scrape, the blade slid along the gap in the armor's neck. The cold tip touched Tony's throat, freezing him in place.

A moment later, Hong Fei carried a once-again unconscious Tony, now wrapped up like a dumpling, onto a helicopter and sped off to the airport.