Crushing Defeat

He stood before the heavy iron gates, gave them a gentle push, and watched them crash down with a resounding boom.

Leon's swift and decisive actions left both Tony and Yinsen stunned.

Before they could even snap out of it, someone outside the iron gates shouted loudly.

"Fire!"

With that single command, a dense volley of gunfire erupted in unison, the pouring stream of bullets as thick and heavy as a torrential downpour.

The commotion inside the cave had been far too loud, and the terrorists had sensed that something was wrong long ago.

Under their leader's direction, everyone had formed a formation with their rifles inside the tunnel right before the cave entrance, simply waiting to empty the magazines of their rifles.

Now that the order had been given, everyone fired without a moment's hesitation.

Yet Leon's reaction speed was even faster than their gunfire.

His gaze swept across the space, and he reached out to shield both Tony and Yinsen behind him.

The next second, countless bullets struck him almost simultaneously.

A continuous series of crisp impacts rang out, yet they failed to inflict even the slightest bit of damage.

The moment each bullet struck Leon, it was crushed and deformed by the tremendous force, then dropped to the ground.

Even the bullets that hit the surface of Leon's eyeballs were no exception.

At the same time, a massive volley of bullets battered the cave walls and the ground, kicking up vast clouds of dust that obscured their vision.

Amidst the flying dust, the terrorists fired continuously for a full half-minute before the gunfire gradually died down.

"Gibberish!"

"Gibberish!"

The terrorists shouted, convinced that no one could possibly survive such crossfire.

Their leader stood behind the corner of the tunnel with his arms crossed, poking his head out to stare into the dust-choked cave. A few seconds later, he waved a hand, sending men forward to check.

No one gave it a second thought, assuming there couldn't possibly be anyone alive inside—it was merely a question of whether the bodies were shattered into a few pieces or dozens.

Yet right at that moment, two crimson points of light rose within the smoke and dust.

Those specks of light seemed to harbor boundless murderous intent, making anyone who looked at them shudder with bone-chilling fear.

"What is that? Bats?" someone asked in a daze.

No one answered, but the next second, everyone was left with no doubts whatsoever.

The brightness of those two red lights surged rapidly, and then they shot out two mesmerizing beams of heat vision.

That thick, elongated red beam was undoubtedly the most terrifying laser weapon the terrorists had ever seen in their lives.

Sweeping simply from left to right, it cut everyone in its path clean in half, killing them on the spot, and even scorched the severed edges until they were a bloody mess.

The speed of the beams was so fast that no one could react in time.

Everyone blocking the tunnel directly ahead of the cave entrance perished almost instantly, not even managing to utter a single cry of agony.

As for those blocking the other side of the tunnel, they only saw a flash of red light pass by, and then everyone standing in front of them was cut down at the waist and killed.

They stood there in a daze, their minds completely blank, too late to make any reaction.

It was the bald leader in the crowd who snapped out of it first.

"Th-That's the laser weapon developed by Tony Stark!?"

He was both utterly shocked and utterly certain.

"Dammit, he's been building this thing these past few months!"

"We've been tricked by him!"

The leader's final verdict calmed the others' blank minds slightly, but they still looked at one another in dismay, unsure of what to do.

"Weapon or not, they're all used by people!"

The leader judged at that moment, "Since someone has to use it, all we have to do is kill the people inside, and the laser weapon will be ours!"

He gave the order: "Everyone fall back, use grenades to bombard the cave, and kill Tony Stark for me!"

With that, the leader licked his lips, undisguised greed flashing in his eyes.

"I only care about that laser weapon. As for Stark, kill him and then demand money from Obadiah Stane!"

The leader's command completely sobered everyone up.

What he said made total sense!

No matter how powerful Stark's laser weapon was, as long as they killed him, that weapon would be theirs!

Almost everyone subconsciously forgot the fact that the previous volley hadn't even been able to kill the people inside the cave.

The terrorists retreated in unison, drawing their grenades and preparing to throw them.

Yet footsteps rang out abruptly from the other side of the cave tunnel.

It sounded like the footsteps of a single person, unhurried and leisurely, taking a stroll in the park.

"Wait!" The leader raised a fist, signaling everyone to pause their actions.

The crowd slowly lowered their grenades and raised their gun barrels once more, their gazes fixed intently on the corner of the tunnel.

Clack, clack.

The footsteps grew closer and closer.

The leader split his mouth into a grim grin and issued a threat, "Tony Stark, did you think you could escape just by having a weapon? You tricked me, but it doesn't matter, because you're dead for sure today, and your laser weapon will become mine!"

"Oh? Is that so? But my name isn't Tony," the newcomer replied calmly.

The terrorists assumed the person walking toward them was Tony Stark.

Yet when that person stepped around the corner, it completely caught them off guard.

It was a handsome man wearing only a pair of long trousers, barefoot, with his sturdy pectoral muscles bared.

Who was this? When did he enter the cave? Why had they never seen him before?

WTF?

A chorus of incredulous curses instantly erupted in the tunnel.

"Who are you? Where's Stark?" The expression on the leader's already dark face grew even gloomier.

The cave was the familiar cave, but out walked a person he had never seen before.

He suddenly began to suspect that Tony Stark had been quietly rescued without their knowledge, and that they had been completely played for fools.

Leon glanced at him. "I'm Stark too."

"You're Stark?" The leader's teeth ground together with a crunch. "What a joke... Open fire, give me everything you've got!"

This group of terrorists possessed genuinely good combat proficiency.

At the leader's command, the dense barrels of their guns once again spewed fire in unison.

Leon neither dodged nor evaded, letting the bullets strike his body as he walked forward with leisurely paces.

His super-brain told him he could be as relaxed here as if he were returning home.

However, the mood of the opposing faction of terrorists, who served as his enemies, was entirely different.

They all stared with wide eyes, their fingers pressing down on the triggers without stopping, while their minds were already too chaotic to hold a single thought.

What kind of monster was this? Rifle bullets couldn't even cause him a fraction of a percent of damage.

As the distance between them grew closer and closer, Leon remained completely unscathed.

Some of them began to lose their minds, dropping their guns and turning to run.

"Ah, ah! A monster!"

"Stop right there!" The leader instinctively drew his gun to execute the deserter.

Yet two searing beams of heat vision arrived even faster than the leader, instantly piercing through the deserter and killing him.

The leader stared in a daze at his dead subordinate who died with eyes wide open, then turned his head to glare at "Stark" with eyes full of cracked veins.

Those crimson pupils seemed to have come straight from hell.

"Not a single one of you people calling yourselves the Ten Rings is getting away." Leon's voice seemed to come from the abyss.

The next second, the heat vision swept across once more, and the entire tunnel was instantly cleared.

A single second later, aside from Leon, there wasn't a second heartbeat left here.

Before death took him, the leader understood something, and his eyes—filled with reluctance and regret—gazed blankly at Leon. "So that... wasn't... a laser weapon..."

With those words, he completely lost his life.

Leon shook his head silently and continued walking outward. "I told you, I'm Stark too."

The moment he stepped out of the cave, three rocket-propelled grenades flew toward him simultaneously from all directions.

"These Ten Rings people really are organized and faithful. Even with a casualty ratio this outrageous, they still dare to counterattack."

Leon sighed softly, extending his right hand to block in front of him.

The three rockets were intercepted by him one after another, and the fiery explosions instantly engulfed him.

Immediately following that came a dense barrage of gunfire and countless grenades.

Every terrorist was eager to pour out every shred of firepower at their disposal within the shortest time possible.

Facing the monster that had walked out of the cave, one could never be too cautious.

Yet their ferocious expressions quickly froze.

A pristine figure leaped straight out from the flames, ignoring the flying bullets in midair.

Not to mention injuries, that figure did not even have a single tear in the long pants he wore.

He swept his gaze around the surroundings, his form suddenly vanishing into thin air, only to reappear once more at the cave entrance in the blink of an eye.

Next, all the terrorists present collapsed to the ground one after another with their necks snapped.

In an extremely brief instant, Leon had taken care of everyone at ultra-high speed.

He clapped his palms together and shouted toward the cave, "Tony, Yinsen, the terrorists are all dealt with, come on out!"