Had the prerequisite quest started?

"Bang, bang, bang!" "Bang, bang, bang! Over here!"

While the two men fired in a panic, Lin Ze seized his chance, vaulted up, and charged at them with the Dull Blade in hand!

With his agility and a weapon in hand, Lin Ze caught both men completely off guard.

After taking who knew how many slashes in the confusion, the two men no longer cared whether the venomous snake was still at their feet. They raised their guns, aimed at Lin Ze, and fired several shots in quick succession.

But Lin Ze attacked faster and moved more nimbly. After dodging their bullets twice, he seized an opening and swung his weapon, cutting through one man's gun stock. Then he followed through with a thrust to the man's neck, eliminating one threat.

The man struck in the neck stopped breathing at once and collapsed into a pool of blood.

The remaining man wore a look of utter horror. He had done plenty of killing in the desert, and he knew he had met a dangerous opponent.

Gene realized in despair that his bullets could not even touch the boy. As the sword that had killed his companion thrust toward his chest, venomous hatred flashed in his eyes.

"Die!" Gene threw away his gun, pulled several round objects from his clothes, and hurled them at Lin Ze.

Alarm bells rang in Lin Ze's head. He immediately abandoned his attack, extended his hand, and unleashed his Elemental Skill: Gale Blade.

The vortex of gathered wind sucked in the incoming round objects, and Lin Ze darted aside.

"Ding, ding, ding!"

"Boom!"

The round objects gave off a piercing sound and exploded in less than a second.

The blast wave knocked Lin Ze off balance. He pitched forward and rolled onto a nearby sand dune.

Lin Ze felt dizzy and disoriented. He could hear nothing, and he could not open his eyes.

"Traveler!"

Hearing Paimon's cry, Lin Ze forced his eyes open and saw her hovering helplessly beside him, looking frantic.

"Aah! Traveler, are you all right?"

Paimon looked at Lin Ze anxiously.

"I'm fine. Where's that man?"

"He's lying on the ground. I think he's dead," Paimon said.

Lin Ze breathed a sigh of relief. He had aimed his Elemental Skill at that man, so the bombs caught in the vortex had been closest to him. There should have been no chance of him surviving.

Lin Ze looked toward the man who had attacked them. He was thoroughly dead, his flesh charred all over.

"All right, Paimon. Let's keep going."

"Okay!"

With that, Lin Ze braced his hands against the sand and tried to get up, only to feel searing pain throughout his body.

"Ah! Blood! Traveler, you're bleeding!"

Bright red blood welled from his body. Lin Ze looked down and found several wounds of varying sizes all over him.

Damn it. Those were Fragmentation Bombs.

A Fragmentation Bomb was a type of bomb made by mixing small metal fragments with explosives.

After detonation, the metal fragments inside scattered over a wide area. Sometimes their reach exceeded that of the blast wave, with some even traveling several kilometers.

As sensation returned to his body after the blast, the pain of his injuries came with it.

Lin Ze gritted his teeth and tried to keep getting up, but his body gave out.

I have to find somewhere to treat these wounds.

This was the difference between being transported to another world and playing a game. In the game, eating a little fruit or food restored health. Even without food, finding a Statue of the Seven would heal you. But in three-dimensional reality, the fragments had to be removed from the wounds first.

Otherwise, even eating health-restoring food like sunsettias would not heal the wounds.

After soothing the frightened, worried Paimon, Lin Ze pulled his clothes aside and began removing fragments from his wounds. But there were simply too many. His vision swam, and every breath carried a heavy metallic tang. Before he could finish, his vision went black, and he collapsed toward the ground.

Even more alarming, in the last second before he lost consciousness, Lin Ze dimly saw a group of armed men running toward them.

*!!!*

"Paimon... hurry... go..."

The dark mountain cavern had been carved into chambers of various sizes. Its solid stone walls formed an impregnable prison, leaving those inside no way to escape.

In the deepest part of the Cave, two men worked busily amid a chorus of metallic clanging.

One wore silver-rimmed glasses and looked to be in his forties. He had a quiet, refined air. If not for their surroundings, anyone seeing him would have taken him for a scholar.

"Yinsen, hold this for me."

The speaker was the other man. He held a shallow dish with a pair of tongs. Inside was a scalding, brick-red liquid that appeared to be molten metal.

He was not tall, with slightly wavy black hair, thick eyebrows, striking eyes, and handsome features. He wore a brown jacket over a gray T-shirt.

As he spoke, he passed the tongs to Yinsen beside him. With the movement, a slightly raised device in the center of his chest shone through the thin fabric of his T-shirt, casting a blue-white glow.

No one would have imagined that Tony Stark, who had been missing for so long, was being held by terrorists in such a cramped, dark Cave and forced to make bombs.

Tony Stark had many identities. He was the chairman of Stark Industries, an American billionaire, the biggest arms manufacturer, and a man others called a playboy and a lunatic.

Two months earlier, he had been kidnapped on his way back from a weapons demonstration. Shrapnel had pierced his chest, leaving his life hanging by a thread. Fortunately, Ho Yinsen, a physicist who had also been kidnapped, helped him build the Arc Reactor, saving his life.

On the surface, they were making bombs. In reality, much of what Tony had asked the terrorists to procure was a smokescreen. He and Yinsen were building another "big boy."

Yinsen took the tongs steadily and was moving toward the furnace when a flurry of footsteps and loud voices suddenly came from outside the door. Startled, he stumbled, nearly losing his grip on the tongs.

Fortunately, Tony had been watching. He reacted swiftly, grabbing Yinsen's hand the moment he lost his balance and saving the molten metal in the dish.

Tony returned what he was holding to the furnace and said to Yinsen:

"Can you make out what they're saying out there?"

Yinsen spoke many languages, so whenever the terrorists wanted to communicate with Tony, he usually served as their interpreter.

Yinsen leaned against the iron door and listened for a while, then shook his head. "They're too far away for me to hear everything. Basically, they've captured someone else, and it sounds like he's dying. Poor fellow."

Tony said nothing. He simply picked up his hammer and began pounding the metal. His blows grew louder and louder, as though he wanted to pour all his anger into that sheet of metal and smash it to pieces.

He knew how dire his situation was. He could barely protect himself. Only by finishing the "big boy" would he gain the power to fight back.

The commotion faded. About half a minute later, footsteps sounded outside the door again.

Clang!

The iron door opened, and several men filed inside. After setting the large crates they carried on the ground, they all left again.

The crates contained materials for making bombs, but Tony had long since stopped needing them. The "big boy" he was building was actually a suit of Metal Armor that could encase a person's entire body. Every part had been completed two days earlier; only the final assembly and welding remained.

He had sent the men outside on difficult searches for these materials merely to buy more time.

But three Surveillance Cameras were mounted overhead in the cavern, constantly watching their "work progress." So after the crates were brought inside, they still had to go through the motions to reassure their watchers and lower the enemy's guard.

Yinsen walked up to one of the large crates and lifted its wooden lid.

He seemed to see something unbelievable, and suddenly pulled back the hand supporting the lid.

Thud!!!

The loud noise gave Tony, who was swinging his hammer, quite a fright. He turned to look and saw that Yinsen had stepped back half a pace and was standing rigidly beside the wooden crate.

"Yinsen?" He looked at Yinsen in confusion, unsure what had happened.

Hearing his name brought Yinsen back to his senses. He cast an extremely discreet glance at the Surveillance Cameras overhead, then gave Tony a small wave. Immediately afterward, he said loudly, "Tony, come take a look. Are these those German-made pipes you wanted?"

Noticing his unusual behavior, Tony put down what he was holding and walked over to the wooden crate in front of Yinsen. He gripped one edge of the lid and lifted it halfway.

*!!!* He looked down and, for an instant, nearly lost control of his expression.

Fortunately, Yinsen's warning let Tony recover immediately. He nodded and spoke in his usual tone. "Yes, that's right. These are the ones. Leave the pipes aside for now. We don't need them yet."

As he spoke, he slowly lowered the wooden lid back into place, leaving no gaps.

The two men walked back to their worktable and resumed their previous positions. But when their eyes met, each saw the astonishment in the other's gaze.

What had they seen???

A little girl!!!