The last video the Ten Rings had taken had been filmed by a terrorist hiding in a house.
He had only started filming when the fight was almost over.
The footage mainly showed Tony's Iron Man Armor.
As for Qin Xiao...
Only in the last two or three seconds had the camera caught him smashing the tank.
Unfortunately, Obadiah had figured he had seen enough of the video. When the camera shifted, he hadn't kept watching.
So Qin Xiao's punch nearly made Obadiah's jaw drop inside Iron Monger.
"That's impossible..."
Obadiah had gotten the Arc Reactor as he had wished and activated his invincible Iron Monger.
He had even defeated Tony Stark's armor, and just when he was feeling invincible...
Someone had actually stopped him with a single punch, someone who looked so scrawny, at that.
"That's impossible!!!"
Obadiah doubted whether that last punch had been real.
The Arc Reactor in his chest went to full output, and he brought a full-power punch crashing down at Qin Xiao.
Judging by its sheer size alone, that fist could hit almost half of Qin Xiao's body.
"Come on, bastard!"
Qin Xiao shouted.
He likewise stood his ground and threw a punch.
Lying off to one side, Tony's eyes widened.
He knew firsthand just how strong Iron Monger was.
He hadn't expected Qin Xiao to stand his ground and take this punch head-on when it clearly carried more than twice the force of the last one.
Clearly...
Tony still didn't know Qin Xiao well enough.
He had clearly underestimated just how shameless Qin Xiao could be.
That punch Qin Xiao had seemingly thrown with all his strength...
Veered sharply to the side just before the two fists met.
Turning with the momentum of his punch, Qin Xiao had already moved out of the path of Iron Monger's fist.
Boom!
Iron Monger's punch smashed straight into the rooftop, punching a hole through it.
Looking back at Qin Xiao, there was a sly smile on his face.
At some point, a sword hilt had appeared in his hand.
With a flick of his finger and a sweep of his wrist, a black Tang saber with a coldly gleaming edge was in his grasp.
Holding the saber in both hands, he slashed down hard.
The blade flashed.
The Tang saber, thinner than a palm, severed the Iron Monger armor's right arm cleanly at the elbow in a single stroke.
"Fuck!"
Obadiah didn't even know what words could describe the shock he felt.
Qin Xiao was no fool. His first punch had been to save Tony, and it had looked as though he and Iron Monger were evenly matched.
But after that exchange, Qin Xiao's right hand had clearly gone a little numb, though that was nothing given his recovery ability.
Now he was facing a second punch that clearly packed more than twice the power of the first.
Only an idiot would trade blows with him.
Tony had destroyed Iron Monger's weapons systems, leaving only the Gatling gun on his right arm able to fire.
Now Qin Xiao had sliced off that entire forearm with one stroke.
"Fucking moron!"
Qin Xiao spat out a classic Chinese adjective.
Although that Gatling gun posed no threat whatsoever to Qin Xiao, what else could you call someone who had a weapon but didn't use it?
"Tony, watch me cut this guy down to a stump!"
He turned back to toss that line at Tony.
Only to discover huge flames beginning to shoot from Iron Monger's feet, accompanied by billowing smoke.
His weapons systems had been destroyed, one arm had been sliced straight off, and someone had even traded a punch with the steel behemoth that was Iron Monger using flesh and blood.
All of this was a little beyond Obadiah's comprehension.
So, while Qin Xiao was talking to Tony, Obadiah activated flight and prepared to make his escape.
Unfortunately, the cumbersome Iron Monger accelerated far too slowly during its initial ascent.
Huge jets of flame erupted, and his entire body slowly rose off the ground.
Qin Xiao turned to look and grinned!
"Oh! Leaving without even saying goodbye? Look at those thrusters. They're both suits of armor, so why is yours so bad for the environment? Get down here!"
The moment he finished speaking, Qin Xiao turned his blade sideways and delivered one diagonal slash, then another!
Iron Monger's thick metal legs separated straight from his torso.
With the flames still firing, they actually rose over ten meters, spun through the air several times, and then crashed heavily onto the rooftop.
Iron Monger's heavy body crashed down, and Qin Xiao stepped forward, raising his saber and bringing it down again.
Iron Monger's left arm hit the ground.
A perfectly good, imposing, mighty suit of giant armor had been reduced to a limbless stump by a few slashes from Qin Xiao.
Glancing back at Tony, Qin Xiao jumped straight onto Iron Monger's high, bulging torso with his saber in hand.
He looked for a joint, then decided not to bother. In any case, the system didn't classify this thing as a special alloy.
He could just stab straight through it and be done.
He had just raised his Tang saber when he heard Tony shout behind him.
"Qin!"
Tony called out, then said nothing.
But his meaning couldn't have been clearer.
Qin Xiao looked at Tony too, remaining silent for a long time before finally speaking.
"Do you... remember how many graves there were beside Yinsen?"
That one sentence made Tony turn his face away.
Yes, the bloody massacres in the Middle East had been committed by the terrorists of the Ten Rings.
But whether it was supplying the weapons or the kidnapping of Tony that had led to the later retaliation against Yinsen...
Obadiah certainly bore a share of that heavy blood debt.
Tony turned his face away. This time, Qin Xiao didn't pause. He raised his saber and brought it down.
Obadiah let out a muffled grunt inside Iron Monger.
Qin Xiao pulled out his saber, shifted to another spot, and stabbed him once more. Only then did he flick off the blood and put the Tang saber away.
"He said he'd bought an island to retire on. He even told me a whole lot about how he'd figured things out and all that. What a shame!"
Tony muttered quietly beside him.
"All right! I know you're having a hard time with this. Even if he bought an island, it wouldn't have helped. We have a saying in China: 'Cause and effect come full circle; retribution never fails.' You always have to repay what you owe others!"
Qin Xiao plopped down beside Tony.
"By the way, why didn't you answer the phone?"
"I was taking a shower. I only found out about the call afterward. JARVIS told me, and I came right over. Can you still get up?"
"Yes, but I might need you to help me take off the armor!"
The current armor still couldn't come off automatically.
The two of them struggled for quite a while before finally removing the armor piece by piece.
Tony looked at Iron Monger before him, fell silent for a moment, then said,
"We can't leave this thing here, or that big thing downstairs. Everyone's bound to find out what happened tonight. We have to destroy both of them!"
Tony was referring to the enormous Arc Reactor prototype downstairs.
Once Tony's miniature reactor and his armor were exposed together...
This large reactor would certainly draw the covetous attention of many factions.
Although everyone knew they weren't Tony Stark, and that shrinking it wasn't something they could do just because they wanted to...
They still had to try, didn't they?
The temptation of the Iron Man Armor was simply too great.
"How do we destroy it? Do we need to push this big guy off?"
Qin Xiao pointed at Iron Monger as he asked.
"No! Let's go down and find Pepper. We'll watch the fireworks together!"