Eight floors beneath Stark Tower lay the classified research center.
The acrid stench of burning mingled with the smell of machine oil, while the ventilation fans in the corner of the Workshop spun so hard they nearly smoked.
"Sir, the deep-space gravitational ripples beyond the Kuiper Belt have just dissipated completely. The observatory still cannot determine the source of that supernova-level gravitational disturbance." JARVIS's report echoed softly from the corner of the console.
"Who else but that monster Chen Xiao could whip up a star with his bare hands at the edge of the Solar System?" Tony rubbed his temples and muttered a curse. Not only did he have to worry about that unfathomable nonhuman out in space, but now he also had to cater to another exalted guest in his own facility.
Tony wore a heat-resistant leather apron smeared with black ash and gripped a high-frequency Plasma Spray Torch. His fingertips were red from the heat, and the nozzle pointed at a lump of pitch-black raw ore clamped in a vise.
It was abyssal adamant, gouged straight out of the subterranean veins beneath Demon City in Hell.
Hiss!
The blue-white plasma jet, powerful enough to slice through a main battle tank's armor, had barely touched the ore's surface when a ring of dark-green, deathly cold mist surged back out of the metal's pores.
A muffled puff sounded.
The ionization ring at the front of the torch instantly went dead, and the workbench's voltage regulator erupted in a cloud of black smoke.
Beside him, the robotic arm Dum-E spun in frightened circles, its tracks screeching against the floor tiles. It grabbed a nearby dry-powder fire extinguisher and frantically sprayed the smoking circuit board without a second thought.
Snow-white powder blasted out, showering the main console's large holographic screen.
**"Stop! You