"Urgh—pant! Pant! Pant!"
After a bout of inexplicable, painful trembling, Aldrich Killian panted heavily as he pulled his five fingers—already melted into a lump resembling that famous blue fat cat's—from the Iron Man armor helmet on Maya Hansen's head.
His strength was on the verge of running out. He gasped uncontrollably and trembled all over, as though his sanity had suddenly returned and he recalled exactly what foolish thing he had just done.
"Now your turtle shell should finally..."
The red-hot glow faded, and Aldrich Killian returned to normal. He raised his head, but his confident words came to an abrupt halt halfway through.
Because he met a face wearing a thoroughly amused smile.
"Hi~"
Tony lay on his side on the sofa and gave Aldrich Killian, whose forehead was drenched in sweat, a "friendly" greeting.
"Tony Stark?! How did you—"
In that state just now, Aldrich Killian's perception of time had been weakened to the extreme. He felt as though only a few seconds had passed, but in reality, more than half an hour had gone by.
When the corner of his eye caught sight of his prized Extremis soldiers lying scattered all over the room in pieces,
the bloody, rusty stench that had long filled the room surged into his nostrils like a burst dam, flooding his senses and mind with the message of death.
Aldrich Killian froze. He could not understand how any of this had happened.
Was I dreaming? When did it start?
Aldrich Killian tried to use dreaming as an excuse to explain away everything abnormal he had perceived.
However.
Smack!
After fiercely slapping himself across the face, the pain that surged through him left Aldrich Killian frozen once more.
It took him more than ten seconds to accept that he was truly in reality