On the screen, two iron men, one large and one small, were fighting fiercely in the street. The smaller one was clearly outmatched and being beaten back.
"Tony was overconfident. He's stumbled at Obadiah's hands again."
Wenwu smiled faintly. It seemed Tony had still followed the original plot.
First, Obadiah had taken Tony down with a neurotoxin weapon, then removed his Arc Reactor and installed it in the Iron Monger.
"My lord, you're saying that big iron man is Obadiah?" Razor Fist asked in surprise.
"That's right, it's him." Wenwu nodded.
"He's a billionaire and the vice president of Stark Industries, yet he went after Tony himself?" Razor Fist looked utterly baffled.
"This Obadiah is far too stupid! He's a billionaire and the vice president of Stark Industries, yet he went after Tony himself?"
Completely bewildered, Razor Fist couldn't help complaining. "Couldn't he have sent someone he trusted? Even paying an assassin to kill Tony would have been better than exposing himself like this!"
"Obadiah was clearly blinded by hatred and jealousy." Wenwu chuckled and shook his head.
"My lord!"
At that moment, Ching-Lin came to report. "Recently, quite a few spies disguised as refugees have poured into several nearby cities."
"It seems our large purchases of special alloys on the black market have alerted other forces."
Wenwu smiled faintly, unconcerned.
His Ten Rings controlled five major provincial capitals, their territories joined together to carve out nearly thirty percent of Salia's land.
Along the way, they had wiped out quite a few forces!
With them purchasing so many supplies on top of that, it would have been hard not to attract attention!
But such a large territory had cost him a great deal of money.
He had spent nearly eighty percent of Xu Wenwu's thousand years of accumulated wealth!
"Leave them alone."
Wenwu waved a hand. His gaze suddenly turned cold, and his voice was low and murderous. "But if they dare go too far, shoot them on the spot!"
"Yes!" Ching-Lin accepted the order.
"By the way, how many of your assassins have been enhanced?" Wenwu asked Ching-Lin.
"Thirty so far, all carefully selected," Ching-Lin replied.
Wenwu nodded. For now, he was only having the assassins enhanced first. As for the army, he would leave it until last, then select its special forces elites for enhancement.
He turned back to the live broadcast on the television just as a pillar of energy shot into the sky. Obadiah and his Iron Monger perished together in the giant reactor's energy!
S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters, the Triskelion.
In the director's office, the blinds broke the morning sunlight into mottled patches of light and shadow.
Director Nick Fury sat upright behind his large desk, his gaze fixed on the top-secret files concerning Tony Stark and Obadiah Stane that Coulson had just brought him.
He leafed through them in silence for quite a while before gently closing the file. A meaningful smile touched his lips. "Looks like our playboy genius really has made something extraordinary!"
Fury then changed the subject, rapping his knuckles lightly against the file on the desk. His tone turned serious. "Have you traced the Iron Monger armor's origins? Or did he secretly get the blueprints from Tony?"
Coulson stood straight and reported gravely, "We haven't found out. It's possible he got them from Tony and made a copy!"
"What about the Ten Rings? How's the investigation going?"
At the mention of the Ten Rings, Fury's gaze instantly sharpened like a blade, and he leaned forward slightly. "They kidnapped Tony, held him for so long, then released him for no apparent reason. There's more to it than just making a few missiles!"
Coulson's eyes flashed with shock. He couldn't help asking, "Director, you mean... they most likely released Tony because they'd already gotten his miniature energy reactor and the Mark Armor blueprints?"
"Exactly. Otherwise, it's all too much of a coincidence."
Fury's expression grew graver, his brows tightly furrowed. "The Ten Rings pulled out right after Tony built the Mark I. That's no coincidence."
Fury was privately alarmed.
Even S.H.I.E.L.D. coveted Tony's Arc Reactor and armor technology, yet now a terrorist organization had gained possession of the core technology. It was almost unbelievable, and a tremendous security risk.
He looked up and continued, "Recent intelligence showed that the Ten Rings suddenly launched surprise attacks on nearby forces in Salia and took control of five major provincial capitals. Their estimated troop strength exceeds fifty thousand, including quite a few legions wearing armor!"
"Think about it. They've also been buying special alloys on a massive scale lately, haven't they?"
"Yes, Director."
Coulson nodded. "The Ten Rings have been extremely active over the past six months or more."
"Large numbers of armed personnel have gone to Salia, and vast quantities of supplies have been gathering there too. The special alloys they've been buying up like crazy on the black market were ultimately shipped to Salia's western coast."
At that, Coulson suddenly realized something, and his voice rose sharply. "Director! You mean they bought those special metals to build Iron Man Armor or other high-energy weapons?!"
Fury nodded gravely. "Otherwise, where do you think that rumored legion of Iron Man Armor came from?"
Fury pulled out a stack of photos and tossed them onto the desk. They showed elite Ten Rings troops, as well as numerous blurry images of the Iron Legion.
There were plainly more than fifty of them!
"Director, the Ten Rings used to be an extremely dangerous terrorist organization!"
Coulson looked worried. "If they really have obtained these technologies, the consequences would be unthinkable. Should we report this to the World Security Council immediately?"
"No need to report it. Just inform the military directly... though perhaps they already know!"
Fury spoke in a low voice.
Coulson was silent for a moment, evidently knowing which military Fury meant.
In the end, he nodded in agreement.
Fury interlaced his fingers and said gravely, "The Ten Rings are an ancient organization with a deeply entrenched web of influence. Now they've acquired Tony's reactor and armor technology too, making them extremely dangerous. We must have the military suppress them, or they'll surely cause a major disaster in the future."
At that moment, Agent Hill knocked on the office door and brought Fury a file.
"Director, we've found Spider-Man, who appeared a few days ago. He's a high school student close to graduation, still just a kid!"
Fury picked up the file and studied it for quite a while. "As long as he isn't a Mutant. The person who killed his uncle still hasn't been found. Go look for the killer, show him some goodwill, and recruit him into the Avengers Initiative. Promise him official status, pay off his family's debts, and give him the most freedom possible. Don't interfere with his work as a street vigilante, New York's friendly neighborhood hero!"
"Coulson, you'd better handle this personally. He's a good kid with a lot of potential!"
Fury's tone was decisive. He could see Peter Parker's potential from that little bit of information! Peter could be recruited into the Avengers Initiative, and if Tony agreed to join, the Avengers would have two members!
Salia Base, underground equipment area.
Ivan had been released for the time being. Now, dressed in work clothes, he stood at a workbench with several scientists, adjusting the parameters of the enormous particle collider.
Wenwu had also come in person to see whether they could produce the New Element this time.
That was right. Wenwu had long since sent someone to infiltrate the president's office at Stark Industries, secretly photograph the industrial exposition model Howard Stark had left behind, and send the pictures back.
Hidden within the seemingly ordinary model was the complete framework for the New Element that Howard had worked out in advance.
Limited by the technology of his time, Howard had been unable to synthesize it. Now Wenwu had reaped the benefit, gaining possession of the New Element before Tony.
However, Ivan's theoretical foundation was ultimately somewhat weaker than Tony's.
He had studied it for a long time without figuring out the atomic structure. Only after Dr. Sterns stepped in to help had they truly deciphered it and worked out the formula for synthesizing the New Element.
Even so, their previous attempts at synthesis had failed more than a dozen times!
Whether they could succeed this time was anyone's guess!
As for the model, Wenwu hadn't had anyone destroy it. He wasn't sure whether Tony had photographs. If he destroyed it, he might instead draw Tony's attention, leading Tony to find the photographs and synthesize the New Element ahead of time.
Two hours later.
The equipment area was now crisscrossed with thick superconducting alloy pipes, and a dense network of wiring connected to the room's power supply terminals.
The entire collider looked somewhat crude, yet it was extraordinarily precise, capable of forcibly reshaping atomic structures and synthesizing an entirely new element that did not exist in nature.
Wearing heavy protective goggles, Ivan looked on with anticipation as he reached out and pressed the power activation switch.
"Power connection complete. Particle collider preheating at 100%. Ready to start." The intelligent system's emotionless mechanical voice echoed through the vast base.
Hum-!
A deep, high-frequency vibration instantly filled the entire equipment area. An invisible high-energy field spread outward, and the screens of all the surrounding instruments burst into flashing blue light.
Two intensely concentrated silver-white particle beams shot from the superconducting pipes at either end of the collider, racing around the circular track and accelerating.
The particles approached the speed of light, and tiny sparks of ionized blue light flickered around the track. High-energy particles tore through the air with sizzling electrical crackles.
The two particle streams collided head-on with precision at the center of the apparatus!