Furnace Coast

The ruins of the Northern California Coast Guard base burned in the morning mist.

Twisted steel and concrete melted into bizarre glassy forms. The acrid stench of scorched debris mixed with the salty tang of the sea breeze, permeating every inch of the air.

Several unextinguished flames licked through the wreckage like venomous snakes making their final struggles. The piercing alarms had long since been destroyed by explosions and heat, leaving only the crackle of fire and the strained groans of cooling structures.

The gold-and-red Mark XLII armor crashed down onto the scorched clearing before the base's main building like an out-of-control shell, its engines shrieking under overload. Tony Stark staggered out of the armor as the faceplate snapped open, revealing a face bloodshot with fury and shock.

He did not spare a glance for the black smoke rising from the armor's leg joints. His gaze remained fixed on the flashes of fire and deafening metal-tearing crashes still erupting deep within the base.

"Rhodey! Answer me! JARVIS! Scan for life signs! Lock onto Rhodey's location!" Tony roared into his comms, while miniature missile pods deployed from his armor's shoulders and scanned the surroundings warily.

"Sir, Colonel Rhodes's War Machine armor signal is near the western hangar. It is extremely weak and unstable! High-energy heat sources detected! Multiple! Moving at extreme speed! Non-life signatures... abnormal! Similar to... biological furnaces!" JARVIS's voice carried an unusual urgency.

"Biological furnaces?!" Tony's heart sank. Pepper's intelligence and the hellish sight before him connected instantly—Extremis Virus! That madman Killian!

Boom—!!!

A deafening explosion came from the direction of the western hangar, accompanied by a pained, furious roar!

"Rhodey!" Tony's pupils contracted sharply. His engines fired again as he charged toward the blast without a second thought!

As he passed through the smoke and ruins, the sight before him nearly froze his blood.

The western hangar had become a lava hell. Molten crimson metal flowed across the ground, while enormous holes had been melted through the walls, exposing the gray sky and ocean beyond.

Three... no, four burning figures, like lava demons crawling out of hell, surrounded a half-kneeling gold-and-red figure!

It was Rhodey's War Machine armor!

The armor had been severely damaged in several places. The chest reactor flickered dimly, while its left arm had been torn clean off at the shoulder, white-hot molten metal flowing from the break!

Half of Rhodey's helmet faceplate had shattered, exposing a face smeared with blood and soot, twisted by agony and heat!

His remaining right arm desperately blocked a heavy fist blazing with orange-red flames as a Lava Man hammered it toward him. The armored arm let out a piercing screech of deforming metal!

The other three Lava Men lunged from different directions. Their clothes had long since burned to ash, and their skin bore cracked lava-like patterns of orange-red and dark gold. Their eyes spewed scorching light, and every movement left burning footprints on the blackened ground!

One of them opened his mouth, an unnerving orange-red sphere of light gathering deep in his throat!

"Try this, tin can!" the Lava Man gathering the light sphere let out a hoarse, inhuman roar, his voice trembling as the heat distorted the air!

"No!!!" Tony's eyes nearly split open. His repulsor blast instantly charged to its limit! But he knew it was too late!

Just as that destructive blast of superheated breath was about to erupt—

Time seemed to have been paused.

A blurred gray figure appeared before Rhodey without warning, as though tearing through space itself, directly facing the Lava Man with his mouth open.

It was Xiao Han.

He did not even glance at the badly wounded Rhodey behind him, nor at the Lava Men rushing in from either side. He calmly looked at the twisted, burning mouth gathering terrifying heat energy.

Then he raised his right hand and extended his index finger.

The movement was not fast. It even carried a hint of casual indifference.

He lightly tapped that mouth radiating an aura of destruction.

Pfft.

A soft sound, like a soap bubble being popped.

The orange-red sphere in the Lava Man's throat, condensed to its limit and capable of melting through tank armor, vanished soundlessly... like a punctured balloon.

It did not explode. It did not disperse. It simply disappeared completely, conceptually—along with the violent thermal energy contained within it!

The Lava Man remained frozen in the pose of preparing to fire. His burning eyes widened abruptly, filled with utter shock and confusion. A strange wheezing sound escaped his throat like a leaking bellows, but he could no longer spit out anything.

The next second, an incomprehensible, irresistible force born at the molecular level surged through Xiao Han's tap and into the Lava Man's skull!

The Lava Man's burning head exploded from within, as if a miniature supernova had detonated inside it! There was no splattering flesh, no shattered bones—the matter composing his head was completely broken down and vaporized in less than a billionth of a second!

Only a cloud of fine, blazing stardust flickering with orange-red embers remained, cooling rapidly and drifting away through the air!

The headless lava body swayed. Its burning patterns quickly dimmed, solidified, and lost all luster and life. Like an ugly lava statue instantly cooled, it crashed into the flowing molten metal, splashing crimson sparks everywhere.

Time began flowing again.

Silence.

Absolute silence blanketed this furnace hell.

The other three Lava Men, halfway through their charge, froze as though struck by invisible sledgehammers!

Their burning pupils stared fixedly at their companion's headless body, vaporized in an instant, before snapping toward the suddenly appeared young Asian man in a gray hoodie. For the first time, their eyes revealed the most extreme human shock and incomprehensible terror!

The light in Tony's repulsor blast remained frozen at full charge. His mouth hung slightly open, his mind utterly blank.

Rhodey's remaining right arm was still held in a blocking pose. Pain and the dazed confusion of surviving disaster were frozen across his blood-smeared face.

Xiao Han withdrew his finger as though merely brushing away some nonexistent dust. Only then did he slowly turn around, his gaze sweeping across Rhodey's battered armor. His brow furrowed almost imperceptibly.

"Colonel Rhodes?" His voice was calm and emotionless.

"...Y-yes... that's me..." Rhodey's voice was hoarse and dry. The agony and heat had left his consciousness somewhat muddled.

"Your armor." Xiao Han's gaze paused briefly on Rhodey's severed left arm and the dim reactor in his chest. His tone carried the air of an objective assessment. "The cooling design... isn't very good."

Rhodey: "..."

Tony: "..."

The cooling design?! Was this really the time to discuss that?!

At that moment, the three Lava Men who had been intimidated seemed to break free from their extreme fear, their virus-twisted violence and madness once again taking control!

"Kill him!!" one of the Lava Men let out a hysterical roar. The lava patterns across his body burst with blinding orange-red light as he charged at Xiao Han like a burning meteor!

The other two attacked at the same time. One condensed a high-temperature shockwave in both fists and struck at Xiao Han's back, while the other leaped high into the air, bringing a burning foot down toward Xiao Han's head with the force of a lava stomp!

Their coordination was flawless, sealing off every avenue of escape!

"Watch out!" Tony and Rhodey shouted at the same time!

Faced with this three-pronged assault that could melt a tank into slag, Xiao Han did not even turn around.

When the Lava Man charging from the front came within half a meter of him, he merely took a casual... step to the left.

The movement was tiny, like avoiding a pedestrian on a crowded street.

Yet that seemingly insignificant step caused the Lava Man charging like a burning meteor to miss Xiao Han by a hair and brush past the edge of his clothes!

Boom!!!

Unable to stop himself, the Lava Man slammed into a thick, half-molten alloy partition wall behind Xiao Han!

The terrifying impact and the heat he carried instantly drove the wall inward and melted through it!

His entire body became embedded in it. The lava patterns across his body burst apart under the violent collision as he let out a pained howl!

At the same time, Xiao Han casually swept his left hand backward.

The movement was as gentle as brushing a fallen leaf from his shoulder.

Smack!

The lava fist that came from behind, carrying a destructive high-temperature shockwave, was caught firmly and tightly... in his pale, seemingly ordinary palm!

The violent thermal shockwave struck what seemed like a barrier of absolute zero and instantly vanished without a trace!

The lava matter forming the fist gave off a piercing hiss, like red-hot iron plunged into ice water. Its orange-red patterns visibly dimmed, cooled, and cracked!

"Argh—!" The Lava Man let out a shrill scream and tried to pull back his fist, only to find that his arm seemed welded to a cosmic singularity, utterly immovable!

An icy, irresistible force spread up his arm. Everywhere it passed, his boiling lava blood instantly solidified! His arm rapidly lost its glow, turning into cold gray-black stone riddled with cracks!

Xiao Han did not even look at him. Holding the arm that had become a gray-black stone sculpture, he casually flicked his wrist.

Crack! Crack-crack!

A teeth-grinding sound of shattering rang out!

Starting from the arm Xiao Han held, the Lava Man's lava patterns collapsed and disintegrated throughout his body in a chain reaction! Like a poorly made clay figurine smashed apart, he crumbled into a pile of lifeless gray-black rubble that smoked faintly!

The final Lava Man, who had leaped high and attempted to stomp on Xiao Han's head, witnessed his companion turn to rubble in an instant! The madness in his eyes was immediately replaced by boundless terror! His raised lava foot froze stiffly in midair!

Only then did Xiao Han tilt his head slightly upward and glance at him.

That gaze was calm and without threat, yet it made the Lava Man feel as if he were being stared at by the abyss of the universe! An utterly terrified whimper escaped his throat as he forcibly twisted his body, trying to alter his descent and flee!

But it was already too late.

Xiao Han's left hand, which had just swept away the high-temperature shockwave, casually lifted upward.

The movement remained light, as though he were merely catching a falling feather.

Pfft!

That burning lava foot, carrying immense stomping force, was held steadily... beneath his pale palm.

There was no sound.

No shockwave.

No burst of energy.

Only an invisible, absolute force field spreading outward in an instant.

The Lava Man's terrifying downward momentum and the lava heat within his body vanished without a trace the instant they touched that palm, like mud sinking into the sea!

His entire body hung in midair as though immobilized by magic, suspended in an absurd pose. His burning foot was less than a centimeter from Xiao Han's palm, yet it could not descend even a fraction further!

His burning pupils shrank to pinpoints from extreme terror, while choking, clicking sounds came from his throat.

Xiao Han supported his foot without even the slightest tremor in his arm. He calmly watched the Lava Man hanging in the air, his tone carrying a trace of irritation at being disturbed.

"Jumping around..." He lightly turned his wrist, the movement as casual as shaking dust from his hand.

An overwhelming, irresistible force instantly acted upon the Lava Man's entire body!

Boom—!!!

As though struck head-on by a high-speed interstellar train, the Lava Man's body bent into a shrimp shape and flew backward toward the vast ocean outside the base at a terrifying speed more than ten times faster than his descent!

The air tore apart with a piercing sonic boom! The lava patterns over the Lava Man's body burned and peeled away violently under the high-speed friction, leaving only a straight, burning orange-red trail behind him!

Several seconds later, a muffled explosive boom echoed from the distant Pacific Ocean! A huge column of water mixed with steam shot into the sky, as though a depth charge had been dropped!

Xiao Han withdrew his hand as though merely brushing away a little splashed dust. He looked down at his palm. It remained pale and clean, without even the slightest scorch mark.

Only then did he turn back, his gaze returning to Rhodey before sweeping over the dumbstruck Tony.

"Taken care of." His voice was as flat as if he were stating something trivial. "Three with bad cooling, and one flea."

Tony opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He looked at the pile of gray-black rubble on the ground, then at the distant waterspout and steam that had yet to dissipate.

Then he looked at the calm-faced neighbor who seemed to have just returned from a stroll. An immense sense of helplessness washed over him, mixed with shock, absurdity, and the relief of surviving disaster.

Rhodey was even more completely dumbfounded, temporarily forgetting the agony of his missing arm.

Xiao Han walked over to Rhodey and looked down at the dim reactor in his chest, then at his severed left arm armor.

"Your core is about to go out." He gave the assessment objectively, then extended a finger toward the dim Arc Reactor in the chest of Rhodey's War Machine armor and lightly flicked it.

Ding!

A crisp, pleasant metallic chime rang out.

Bzzz—!!!

Rhodey's Arc Reactor seemed to be infused with surging life force, instantly bursting with an unprecedentedly stable and intense azure light!

Even the damaged energy circuits across his armor lit up again! A warm current instantly drove away the pain and cold within Rhodey's body!

"Th-thank you..." Rhodey's voice was dry, filled with disbelief.

Xiao Han did not respond. His gaze shifted to Tony. "Tony."

"Huh?" Tony jolted.

"Your man." Xiao Han pointed at Rhodey. "His armor's cooling is terrible. And..." His gaze swept over this wrecked furnace coast, and his brow furrowed slightly. "...this place is too dirty."

Before Tony could react, Xiao Han's figure silently vanished from where he stood, as though melting into the sunlight.

Only Tony and Rhodey remained standing amid the burning ruins, looking at the pile of cooled lava rubble on the ground, the distant blast site where the ocean was gradually calming, and the reactor light in Rhodey's chest, newly invigorated and running steadily once more.

The sea breeze blew past, carrying the smell of gunpowder and scorched debris, as well as a lazy reminder that seemed to drift in from the distant horizon:

"Clean it up... don't dirty my beach."