Deceive Time, Confuse Masses, Overall Improvement

When the gunfire echoed from inside the cave, the dozen or so men Obadiah had brought outside immediately raised their weapons.

But Frank and his team were faster.

Frank rolled away into the distance, and Numbers Three to Five, who had set up their machine guns on the high ground, popped up.

Amid the frantic gunfire, those bodyguards were shredded into pieces within ten seconds.

Frank flipped to his feet, stepped over the severed limbs and broken bodies, and checked each vehicle one by one. He finally found a chest of gold—not three tons, but about one ton, since the chest was only slightly larger than a desktop computer tower.

Frank and his men began hauling the gold, while the standoff continued inside the cave.

After Howard Stark's death, Stark Industries had remained under Obadiah Stane's control for a considerable stretch of time, until Tony, at twenty-one, turned over a new leaf as The Prodigal and took back the reins from the man who bore the Stark name.

In Tony's eyes, Obadiah was more than just his father's business partner or a senior executive at Stark Industries—he was an uncle, one of the few people Tony trusted, and a crucial mentor in his life.

He had always regarded Obadiah as a respected elder.

Yet half a minute ago, that elder had personally pulled the trigger at his head, trying to end his life with a single bullet.

Hong Fei stood to the side and shrugged. "I told you he was a traitor. You just wouldn't believe it."

Tony stared at Obadiah in fury and disbelief, but Obadiah turned his head to look at Hong Fei with shock.

"Don't look at me. Obviously your weapon didn't work on me, though that sound was really unpleasant."

Tony's eyes widened as he pressed again: "Why?"

Obadiah turned back, his gaze suddenly turning vicious. He raised his gun again and rapidly pulled the trigger at Tony.

Hong Fei burst into motion, activating Shinigami Eye at the same time. A string of afterimages flashed behind him as he drew another dagger from his thigh, effortlessly deflecting each bullet in front of Tony. Then, with a twist of the blade, Hong Fei reversed his grip and drove the sharp edge into Obadiah's throat.

Blood from the ruptured artery, driven by blood pressure, burst through the wound in a sudden red line.

Warm droplets of blood splattered across Tony's cheek, freezing him in place.

Hong Fei pressed the dagger down with one hand and clamped the other over Obadiah's mouth.

"Easy, don't be scared. It'll be quick."

Obadiah's body trembled uncontrollably, but under Hong Fei's restraint, he couldn't make a sound. He couldn't even muster the anger or hatred in his eyes—only the panic and terror of impending death.

"Honestly, I never really wanted to do business with you anyway. You're too cunning and you stop at nothing. Compared to you, I'd rather deal with Tony Stark. This time, you tried to kill me first, so we're even. Come on, relax. Take a deep breath. I'll count you down. Five, four, three, two..."

Before he reached one, the light in Obadiah's eyes had already faded. The trembling in his body sharply subsided, leaving only the occasional twitch from nerve impulses.

Hong Fei laid him gently on the ground and, with his back to the others, plucked a green card from the air.

He turned and fixed his gaze on Tony.

The sharp, piercing look instantly snapped Tony out of his daze. Intimidated by Hong Fei's strength and ruthlessness, Tony took a step back.

"Tony Stark. The facts are right in front of you. Our deal is over. You can leave, but don't forget to pay up. Otherwise, I'll come collect in person."

With that, Hong Fei delivered a single chop to Tony's neck, knocking him out cold.

"Let's move!"

At Hong Fei's order, the seven of them hauled the ton of gold through the tunnel and out to the back of the rocky hill, where two cars drove through the night to the airport.

The same Abu Officer personally saw Hong Fei onto the plane, and the group flew straight to Eastern Europe.

The next morning, the US military spotted the carnage outside the cave via satellite. When they arrived, amid the corpses and discarded ammo crates, they were thrilled to find Tony Stark, whom they had been desperately searching for.

Unfortunately, Obadiah Stane had been brutally killed by the enemy. Tony, upon waking, said nothing about it. Everyone assumed he was just in shock, and they immediately sent him back to New York by military aircraft.

Sokovia Castle.

Hong Fei held a green card between his fingers.

Active Skill Card: Deceive Time, Confuse Masses (Green)

"After using this skill, any lie you tell has a low probability of gaining absolute trust from others."

Hong Fei raised an eyebrow.

The phrase "low probability" was a bit vague. How low was low?

As for the effect of gaining absolute trust through lies, Hong Fei felt it wasn't something a gentleman would do.

He was a good person, after all.

Also, when he boarded the plane leaving Afghanistan, two streams of power had simultaneously poured into his body. One increased his total energy reserves, and the other directly strengthened his physique.

That meant he had received both positive and negative evaluations, and judging by the magnitude of the boost, his evaluation index this time was definitely not low.

The reason the power-up came so late, Hong Fei figured, was that the kidnapping of Tony was essentially a long chain of main quests. Only when he finally left that land did the main quest officially conclude, triggering the overall settlement of the quest chain.

After this settlement, his physical condition had been enhanced to a certain degree. He was confident that his body had now fully surpassed Frank's.

His energy had increased by about a third. If Hong Fei's body were a container for energy, it was now half full.

Notably, the physical enhancement hadn't expanded the energy capacity's upper limit—it was like thickening and reinforcing the container's walls.

Without numerical data to compare, it was frustrating. Hong Fei could only rely on feeling and testing to assess his current state.

But compared to a system that nagged in his ear and forced missions on him at every turn, Hong Fei much preferred his current freedom to control his own actions.

Frank pushed the door open. Hong Fei flicked his finger, and the skill card vanished.

"The bonds can be sold off tomorrow, and the passports should arrive by then too."

"Mm, once we have the stuff tomorrow, we'll head out immediately."

Aside from Frank, Hong Fei and the other five were using real passports. Considering their future operations, they couldn't keep entering and exiting countries with their true identities—that would risk drawing attention from certain agencies. So this time, they'd gotten a hefty batch of passports, at least three for each person.

Passports that could withstand close scrutiny didn't come cheap, because in a sense, these documents were genuine themselves.

But by now, Master Five Hundred Million couldn't care less about that kind of pocket change.

Frank: "I thought you'd want to stay here and enjoy your castle."

"A castle's just a castle. What's there to enjoy about it?"

Hong Fei didn't think he'd reached the point where he could afford to relax yet.

What truly gave him pleasure were the moments of physical enhancement and energy boost, and during this operation, he could feel his own exhilaration in the midst of the mission.

In other words, rather than lying still and savoring comfort, he preferred to get moving.