"I don't care what the reason is. If I don't see my missiles before sunrise tomorrow, you and this bald bastard can spend the rest of your lives jerking off in this cave!"
When the Ten Rings terrorist finished, the gunmen around him all burst out laughing.
With that, the terrorist left.
Late that night.
Tony scanned the parts scattered around him and breathed a sigh of relief. At least they hadn't been discovered. There was still time.
"What are your plans once we get out?" Tony calmly asked Yinsen beside him.
It had been almost three months since the two of them had been kidnapped and brought here. Tony had thought about giving up, but Yinsen's encouragement had kept him going.
Now, the Iron Man Armor was nearly complete. If the plan worked, they could escape tomorrow.
"Go home and see my family." Yinsen's voice was calm, but what Tony failed to notice was that there was no anticipation in his eyes when he spoke of his family, only emptiness.
Meanwhile, several kilometers from the cave where Tony was being held.
Li Ang hovered in the air, his Super Hearing extended, and finally pinpointed Tony's location!
"You sure were hard to find!"
He had watched plenty of Marvel movies, but he wasn't enough of a diehard fan to recite every detail.
The few details he knew had come from breakdown videos. At most, after watching one, he would post a bullet comment saying, "That's some insane attention to detail, bro."
All he knew was that Tony had been abducted and taken into the mountains of Afghanistan.
To find Tony, he had flown a circuit around Afghanistan before finally finding this place.
Of course, most of the time had been spent flying all the way here from New York.
Now, everything inside the cave entrance was laid bare before Li Ang's eyes. The terrorists had three layers of guard posts, from the inside out.
Armed terrorists patrolled in overlapping routes in every direction around the entrance, leaving no blind spots.
But this posed no difficulty for Li Ang. Guns and artillery couldn't threaten him. What he was considering was whether these terrorists could contribute some more Presence before they died.
Just as he was about to fire a blast of Heat Vision to tell these terrorists, I'm fucking here, text appeared before his eyes.
[Earned Kingpin's hatred: +1,200 Presence]
Li Ang raised an eyebrow. It seemed the bearded man had reported everything, a little slower than expected.
Now he just had to see what Presence could do once he rescued Tony.
Could it, for instance, make him stronger, enough to steamroll the Celestials?
At that thought, Li Ang couldn't wait any longer. His eyes lit up, and he fired his Heat Vision at the explosives in the distance!
The moment the searing beams touched the explosives, a violent explosion rang out, shaking even the ground.
"Holy shit, we're under attack!"
The entire camp descended into chaos. Li Ang hovered in midair as the terrorists scrambled to organize a counterattack.
A group of men raised their AKs without any semblance of order, braced them at their waists, held the muzzles down, and started spraying and praying. Rat-tat-tat... only two out of every ten shots hit.
They still posed no threat to Li Ang, until someone raised an RPG. In Resident Evil, this thing could practically be called a conceptual weapon.
Any mutant would go down in one shot. Li Ang wasn't a masochist, nor did he want to dirty his clothes, so he simply denied the man a chance to fire.
He rocketed down from the air, grabbed the RPG guy, and hurled him away, launcher and all. The man flailed his arms wildly through the air, leaving behind only a fading "Aaaah-"
The leader walked out of the cave and saw a stranger standing in his camp. He shouted, "Who are you?"
It was useless, because Li Ang couldn't understand him.
Li Ang didn't give him the time of day either, keeping most of his attention on the text before his eyes.
[Earned a lackey's fear: +3 Presence]
Three points. It was downright pitiful, but fortunately, there were enough of them to contribute a hundred points in total.
While Li Ang read the text, the leader saw that he wasn't communicating at all and roared, "Use rockets! Blow that yellow-skinned pig to pieces!"
Li Ang didn't understand that either, but he knew it wasn't anything nice.
Seeing the men around him raise their weapons, he moved with a sonic boom. As though teleporting, he smashed the dozen or so armed men around him to pieces with his palm, as easily as swatting flies!
A short distance away, a modified jeep swung its mounted gun toward Li Ang. A vicious grin spread across the terrorist's face. "Die, freak!"
He pulled the trigger, and large-caliber bullets poured out!
Li Ang raised his hand. The bullets striking his body felt like grains of sand carried on the wind.
His clothes inevitably ended up riddled with holes. Li Ang frowned, vanished from the spot, and appeared above the jeep in the blink of an eye before bringing his fist down!
The terrorist and the jeep were flattened into a metal disc, truly becoming one.
When he turned his head, he discovered that the boss had already run back into the cave and reached the surveillance room, where he was still typing something on a computer...
Li Ang reached the doorway at incredible speed and ripped the iron door straight out of its frame!
He roughly tossed the door aside, appeared behind the leader as though teleporting, grabbed him by the back of his collar, and flung him behind him.
There was a smack, and then no further movement.
Li Ang's attention, meanwhile, was completely drawn to the data on the computer. It was a message that hadn't been fully deleted in time.
"Someone's invaded! Notify the Mandarin immediately."
Before he could take a closer look, the message was erased. Li Ang narrowed his eyes. The Mandarin?
If he remembered correctly, the Mandarin who appeared on television in the Marvel Cinematic Universe was just a front. The real Mandarin was a man named Wenwu.
Most importantly, Wenwu had the Ten Rings!
Their origins were unknown, they weren't of Earth, and their history stretched back far more than a thousand years. Their technology was unlike anything even Captain Marvel had ever seen.
If he remembered correctly, they were still in Wenwu's hands at this point in time.
Didn't that mean that as long as he followed the trail to Wenwu, he could snatch them for himself?
But on second thought, those things were divine artifacts, after all. His current Homelander powers were fine in the early stages, but they would struggle badly later on.
He still needed to rescue Tony first and keep getting stronger.
Inside the cave, Tony had finished putting on his armor, while Yinsen fumbled frantically at the computer.
"Someone's crashed our party." There was a hint of curiosity in Tony's voice. "Whoever it is, he's given us an opportunity." Tony could still crack jokes. Seeing the armor fully in place, he could hardly wait.
"Tell me what to do next!" Yinsen was drenched in sweat as he stared at the data on the computer.
After that explosion earlier, they had realized that something was very wrong.
The armor's data upload and power startup had now reached 77%!
Tony watched the progress bar with the tense urgency of someone about to take off, only for the connection to lag. "Come on, come on!"
"No! No! Yamete!"
The screams outside the door made Yinsen and Tony exchange a look. Yinsen asked, "Could it be another group of terrorists?"
"What do you think? It's been three months. I don't think those military bigwigs are coming to rescue us."
Just as Tony and Yinsen were speculating about who was outside, a voice rang out. "Open up! Community benefits delivery!"
Yinsen looked at Tony in bewilderment. "Community benefits?"
"To hell with community benefits."
The progress bar filled, and the faceplate of Tony's Mark I closed! The lights throughout the cave began to flicker until they finally went out.
The energy required by the Mark I had drained the camp's entire power supply.
His metal-encased body felt an unprecedented power. Though this was only a prototype cobbled together from spare parts, it gave him a sense of security.
Outside, Li Ang saw the lights go out inside. Without a second thought, he raised his foot and kicked the door!
Bang!
Not just the iron door, but the rocks around it were blasted away by that kick.
The iron door flew out with a whoosh and embedded itself in the wall, making the whole cave shake as rubble and dust drifted down.
"This guy's seriously strong!" Tony became even more convinced that Li Ang was no good.
What kind of decent person made an entrance like that?
The Mark I stepped forward, its feet striking the ground with dull thuds. "Wow, community benefits? You guys do home visits now?"
Without waiting for Li Ang to speak, he threw a punch at him. The bearings and power mechanisms inside the suit churned as his fist hurtled toward Li Ang with a deep rush of air!