Reborn in Marvel: Starting Out by Making Tony Stark Invincible?

Tony Stark had never been a patient man.

Especially when a brilliant idea popped into his head—like now, as he stared at the vicious Devil Armor in the holographic projection, madness glinting in his eyes.

"JARVIS! Activate all mechanical arms! I want to be wearing it within twenty-four hours!"

"Sir, according to calculations, the Mark-2-Devil Edition is far more difficult to manufacture than the original Mark-2. Estimated completion time is at least three times that of the Mark-2."

"Then hook the coffee machine up to an IV drip!" Tony waved without looking up.

And so, Chen Tian and Yinsen were forcibly trapped in the lab by Tony.

The next day.

"Chen Tian! Summon Diablo again! I need it to confirm Hellfire's energy output parameters!"

Chen Tian lay sprawled on the couch, dead inside. "Tony, that's already the third time today..."

"Come on! Science requires sacrifice!" Tony yanked him to his feet. "Think about it—this is the first suit of armor in history to combine Hell technology!"

Yinsen silently raised his cross. "...I think I need to visit a church."

The third day.

"No! Why did it fail again?" Tony frantically grabbed at his hair.

Not far away, Chen Tian opened the faceplate of a crude suit of armor.

"Tony, I may be younger than you, but if you don't fix the thruster's energy output, I'm cutting off your little Tony with my sword!"

The fourth day... the fifth day...

Until the fifteenth day after Diablo had first been summoned in the lab...

The laboratory was a complete mess.

Coffee cups were piled into mountains, empty energy drink cans rolled everywhere, Tony's hair looked like he had been struck by lightning, while Chen Tian and Yinsen lay collapsed in a corner with hollow eyes.

But—

Two suits of armor stood quietly in the center of the lab.

On the left was the original Mark-2, sleek crimson-and-gold armor, elegant and precise.

On the right was the Mark-2-Devil Edition—dark red scale armor covered its entire body, the demon horns on its helmet curved viciously, lava-like patterns surrounded the reactor on its chest, and mechanical wings behind its back spread slightly, as though ready to tear apart the air at any moment.

Tony stood before them, his face full of pride. "Look!! Tony Stark's genius masterpiece!"

Chen Tian weakly raised a hand. "...Can I go sleep now?"

"Sleep?" Tony raised an eyebrow. "No, no, no. Now comes the testing phase!" He strode toward the Devil Armor. "JARVIS, initiate the suit-up procedure!"

The mechanical arms immediately began moving, fastening armor components onto Tony one by one. As the final faceplate closed, the armor's eyes suddenly lit with a scarlet glow, and flames flowed out like liquid.

"System startup complete, Sir," JARVIS's voice came from within the armor. "Hellfire Thrusters are ready. Sulfur Smoke Generator charging complete."

Tony moved his arms, and the armor's scales opened and closed slightly with his movements, producing metallic scraping sounds. "Perfect! Now—"

He raised a hand. The repulsor began charging, dark red energy gathering in his palm. "Let's test the firepower!"

"Tony! Don't do that in the lab—" Chen Tian had not even finished speaking.

BOOM!!!

A dark red energy beam blasted straight through the lab wall, sending the swimming pool outside flying into the air along with it.

Alarms instantly rang throughout the entire villa.

Pepper's scream came from upstairs. "TONY STARK!!!"

Tony fell silent for two seconds inside the armor. "...JARVIS, activate flight mode."

"Activated, Sir."

The Devil Armor's back thrusters erupted with sulfur-scented flames. Tony shot through the massive hole in the wall with a whoosh, leaving a trail of scorched black marks behind him.

Chen Tian and Yinsen stood amid the rubble and exchanged a glance.

"...Did we make a monster?"

Yinsen silently pulled out his cross. "Is it too late to quit now?"

From the communicator in the lab came Tony's wild laughter mixed with the roar of the thrusters.

"This thing is freaking awesome!!!"

Chen Tian exchanged another look with Yinsen. Yinsen sighed and patted Chen Tian on the shoulder.

"I'll leave it to you, young man. I can't take it anymore." Without paying Chen Tian any further attention, he hurried out of the lab. At that speed, he could probably compete in the Olympics.

Chen Tian watched Yinsen run away, then looked at the shattered ceiling and the wreckage covering the floor.

"Is this book called 'Reborn in Marvel: Starting Out by Making Tony Stark Invincible'? And seriously, is Tony still Iron Man in that armor? Steel Demon would fit him better!"

Tony Stark piloted the Mark-2-Devil Edition into the sky. The Hellfire Thrusters drew a dark red trail through the night, while sulfur smoke streamed behind him like a demon's cloak.

"JARVIS, report status!" Tony's voice trembled slightly with excitement.

"All systems are operating normally, Sir. Hellfire Thruster output has reached 147% of the designed value," JARVIS replied calmly. "However, I must remind you that this speed has exceeded the limits of human endurance..."

"Shut up, JARVIS!" Tony laughed as he rolled through the air. "Now this is real flying!"

He suddenly dived, his Demon Wings fully spreading, then pulled up sharply less than a hundred meters above the ground. The sulfur smoke from the thrusters left a scorched black trail across the earth.

"Testing weapon systems!" Tony raised his arm. As the repulsor charged, dark red runes flowed across the armor's surface.

BOOM!

A lava-like energy beam struck an abandoned factory in the distance, instantly turning it into a sea of fire. The shockwave from the explosion even shattered glass within a kilometer.

"Holy shit!" Tony whistled. "That's even more powerful than I imagined..."

He continued climbing and soon broke through the stratosphere. The scales on the armor's surface trembled slightly in the thin atmosphere, while the Hellfire Thrusters continued burning steadily in the vacuum.

"Sir, I recommend returning," JARVIS reminded him. "Although the armor's performance has exceeded expectations, prolonged exposure to Hell energy may affect your physiological indicators."

Tony looked at the data displayed on his faceplate. Several readings had indeed begun flashing red. He smacked his lips. "Fine. That's enough fun for today."

On the return trip, Tony deliberately slowed down and let the armor land gently on the helipad of the Malibu Villa. Mechanical arms automatically disengaged the suit, removing the armor components from Tony one by one.

When the final faceplate opened, Tony still wore a satisfied smile. "Perfect! It's easily ten times stronger than the Mark-2 I designed before!"

He turned toward the lab and discovered that Chen Tian and Yinsen had already fallen asleep on the couch. Tony shrugged, poured himself a glass of whiskey, and stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows, admiring the two suits of armor standing silently beneath the moonlight.

"JARVIS, make a record of this." He took a sip of his drink. "Mark-2-Devil Edition, maiden flight test—100% successful."

In the distance, the destroyed swimming pool was still giving off black smoke. Tony pretended not to see it and whistled as he strolled back to his bedroom.

Late at night, in Stark Industries' underground laboratory, Obadiah Stane stood before a pile of scattered components, his expression terrifyingly dark.

"This is what you accomplished in half a month?" He grabbed a twisted metal plate and smashed it viciously onto the ground. "A pile of scrap metal?!"

The engineers in the lab were silent as cicadas in winter. No one dared lift their heads.

"Sir, we've been doing our best to replicate Tony's design," the chief engineer explained tremblingly. "But the Arc Reactor technology is too complicated. We..."

"I don't want excuses!" Obadiah grabbed the engineer by the collar and dragged him before the massive prototype. "Tony managed to build one alone in a cave, and you—" He pointed at the clunky armor standing nearly three meters tall. "—gave me this walking iron coffin?!"

The prototype's exterior was rough and crude. Its joints were connected by thick hydraulic rods, and its chest energy source was not a miniature reactor but a tangled mass of wires connected to more than a dozen car batteries.

"At least... at least it can move..." the engineer argued quietly.

As if to prove the point, the prototype suddenly let out a piercing mechanical screech. Its right arm jerked upward—then, with a bang, its elbow joint exploded, dropping down in a plume of black smoke.

The veins at Obadiah's temples throbbed.

"Trash! You're all trash!" He furiously kicked over a workbench, sending components clattering across the floor. "Even Justin Hammer's team is better than you!"

In the corner, a bespectacled technician gathered his courage and spoke. "Sir, perhaps the problem lies with the energy source. Without an Arc Reactor, we'll never be able to..."

"Then steal one!" Obadiah suddenly lowered his voice, hissing like a venomous snake. "Tony's villa, his laboratory—there must be blueprints or samples somewhere..."

The technicians exchanged terrified looks. Obadiah's expression grew darker and darker as he decided to handle it himself.

"Chen Tian! Yinsen! Wake up! I have a genius idea!"

Tony Stark's voice boomed through the lab like thunder. He held coffee in one hand while wildly altering the Mark-2-Devil Edition blueprints in the holographic projection with the other.

Chen Tian painfully lifted his face from the couch, two heavy dark circles hanging beneath his eyes. "Tony... it's six in the morning..."

"More precisely, it's five forty-seven," Yinsen corrected weakly. He was trying to use his cross to block the blinding sunlight. "And we didn't go to sleep until three last night..."

"Sleep is for ordinary people!" Tony slapped the table excitedly. "Listen, last night's test was practically perfect! The Hellfire Thrusters were 47% more efficient than expected, and the repulsors have enough power to flatten a military base!"

He gulped down coffee, his eyes shining. "But! I found a small problem—the sulfur smoke is too conspicuous. It's practically telling enemies, 'Hey, I'm over here!' So, I'm going to add a stealth mode!"

Chen Tian and Yinsen exchanged a glance and sighed at the same time.

"Tony," Chen Tian said, rubbing his temples, "shouldn't we fix the swimming pool first? When Pepper saw that huge hole last night, she looked like she wanted to stuff you into the reactor..."

Tony waved him off. "The pool can wait! Technology can't!" He brought up a new blueprint. "Look, I'm planning to cover the armor with a nanocoating that can absorb specific wavelengths of light, then combine it with Hell energy's distortion effect—"

"Wait," Yinsen suddenly interrupted. "Did you just say 'Hell energy's distortion effect'?"

"Yeah!" Tony looked entirely justified. "During last night's test, I discovered that the armor creates slight spatial distortions around itself, like heat haze warping the air. If we can control that effect, optical invisibility should be theoretically possible!"

Chen Tian slowly sat upright. "Tony... are you sure this is just 'technology'? It sounds more like..."

"Magic?" Yinsen finished, gripping his cross more tightly.

"Pah!" Tony rolled his eyes. "It's just an application of energy that science hasn't explained yet. Chen Tian, you need to summon Diablo again today. I need to measure the spatial fluctuation parameters when it releases energy."

Chen Tian's face instantly fell. "Summon it again?! Tony, do you know how embarrassing it is to shout those summoning lines every time?"

"Science requires sacrifice!" Tony patted him on the shoulder and turned toward the workbench. "JARVIS, prepare Experiment Plan Number Thirty-Seven. Oh, right." He looked back. "Remind me to buy some tranquilizers. Pepper said if I blow up the house again, she's stuffing me in a rocket and launching me into space."

Yinsen silently pulled out his phone. "I'm booking a ticket to Nepal..."

Chen Tian collapsed back onto the couch, staring at the unrepaired hole in the ceiling as he muttered to himself, "Why did I even transmigrate into this world..."

Just as Chen Tian and Yinsen were being squeezed dry by the excited Tony, the television in the lab suddenly began reporting on terrorist activity in the Middle East.

The three of them immediately froze.

The footage on the television kept changing as the anchor explained that terrorists had once again appeared in the Middle East and slaughtered villagers. These terrorists called themselves the Ten Rings.

When the anchor mentioned the Ten Rings, a photograph appeared on the screen. It was not the bald man from the original story, but Abu—the bearded man.

"JARVIS, activate the Mark-2-Devil Edition's full weapons system." Tony suddenly threw down his wrench, the metal tool striking the floor with a shrill clang. The lab became so quiet that the reactor's hum could be heard.

Chen Tian noticed the veins bulging at Tony's temples. "You can't be planning to..."

"Exactly what you think." Tony had already walked up to the Devil Armor as the mechanical arms began assembling it around him. "How many villages have the Ten Rings slaughtered with my weapons? It's time they got a taste of being hunted by a demon."

Yinsen abruptly stood up, his cross pendant swinging wildly. "Have you lost your mind? You're going to show up in the Middle East wearing that armor? Everyone will think you're a new terrorist!"

Tony did not answer Yinsen. Only after the armor had fully equipped itself did he speak.

"I don't care. I just want to tell those bastards that maybe God won't punish them. But!"

The demon faceplate descended, hiding Tony's face. Scarlet light flickered in the armor's eyes as crimson flames burst forth.

Tony's voice came from within the armor, like a demonic god roaring from Hell.

"But the devil will!"