Yinsen froze for a moment.
But when he saw Tony standing in front of him, he smiled.
"Are you ready, Tony?"
"There are at least dozens of enemies out there with heavy weapons. They won't go easy on us."
Tony raised his arms, and fire lit up the cave.
"I'm ready to die. But only after I find Luca and give him a good, hard kick."
Without further hesitation, the two rushed down the passage and out of the cave, ready for a final showdown with the terrorists outside.
The moment they emerged, the area outside became a battlefield.
The terrorists could hardly believe what they were seeing.
A clunky robot that could breathe fire!
In this day and age, it was no less astonishing than the Transformers appearing in real life.
But they didn't hesitate. They raised their guns and immediately opened fire.
Tony's only weapons at the moment were his flamethrowers.
He led the way, long jets of flame shooting from his arms.
The terrorists who came close were burned and driven back, screaming.
But the enemy wasn't stupid either.
After losing more than a dozen men, they realized they couldn't just charge in blindly.
They immediately pulled back, using the terrain as cover and attacking from a distance with submachine guns and rifles.
Bullets rained down on Tony's armor.
Fortunately, ugly as the Mark I was, its shell was made from high-strength missile alloy.
Its defenses were more than adequate.
Bullets only sent showers of sparks flying when they struck it, unable to penetrate.
Tony pushed forward step by step through the hail of gunfire.
Just then.
He spotted a terrorist lieutenant in the distance, behind a sandbag barricade, hoisting an RPG onto his shoulder!
The dark muzzle was already aimed at Tony.
His pupils contracted.
This pile of scrap metal could stop ordinary bullets, but it would never withstand a direct hit from a rocket!
Tony immediately turned and shouted to Yinsen behind him.
"Get behind a rock! Don't come out!"
No sooner had he finished speaking.
"Whoosh!!"
The rocket screamed toward Tony.
As he watched it draw closer, Tony could only panic helplessly.
The cumbersome armor couldn't dodge at all.
I'm done for.
A wave of despair welled up in Tony's heart.
Is this how it ends?
He still hadn't found Luca or brought his little brother safely back to New York.
Just then.
The sky suddenly lit up.
A dazzling blue-white beam descended from the sky like divine punishment!
The beam struck the rocket with unerring precision.
"Boom!!!"
A deafening blast rang out.
The beam detonated the rocket in midair.
The shock wave spread rapidly in all directions, sending a ring of nearby terrorists flying.
Even in his armor, Tony was driven back by the blast. He finally lost his balance and crashed heavily into the sandbag wall beside him.
He shook his head, still a little dizzy from the impact, and looked up in the direction the beam had come from.
The sunlight was so dazzling that he couldn't help squinting.
He saw a figure floating motionless in midair.
The figure wore a white lab coat that snapped in the wind.
Backlit as the figure was, Tony couldn't make out his face. He could only see what looked like a faint halo of energy around his body.
Tony was deeply shaken.
This was completely beyond anything he knew.
How can a human float in the sky without a thruster?!
And fire energy too?!
"Damn, is that God? Did God go out in a lab coat today?" Tony couldn't help remarking.
The next second.
A teasing voice drifted down from the sky.
"Tony, are you delirious from hunger? Or did that bomb rattle your brain? You're actually starting to think I'm God. Though I admit, I am pretty handsome."
At the sound of that voice.
Tony froze.
That was Luca's voice!
He wasn't dead!
Not only was he alive, he was flying in the sky?!
What the hell is going on?
Does the family gene pool have a talent for awakening superpowers too?
Did the old man secretly study something weird behind my back?
Most importantly, if the Stark Family has superpowers, why don't I?!
Why am I stuck suffering in a crappy cave, hammering sheet metal?!
This isn't fair!
Up in the air.
Luca breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that Tony was all right.
The armor looked ugly as hell, and a little ridiculous.
But to build something like that in a cave without even a full set of tools, Tony truly deserved to be called a god of mechanics.
Luca hadn't expected Tony to come up with a way to save himself too, and in the way he did best.
The Stark Family really were all geniuses. Even their ideas for fighting back in desperate situations were so in sync.
"Looks like I won't have to collect your corpse after all, big brother."
Luca smiled and shook his head.
Then he turned his gaze to the terrorists below.
By now, the terrorists had also reacted.
They didn't know how Luca had gotten up there, but that didn't matter.
He was definitely an enemy!
A lieutenant shouted, "Fire! Shoot him down!"
The twenty or thirty terrorists who remained immediately swung their guns around and fired wildly at Luca in the air.
"Luca, watch out above!"
Seeing this, Tony shouted in alarm.
He tried to raise his arms and help with his flamethrowers, but the distance was too great. The flames couldn't reach him in the sky.
But his concern was completely unnecessary.
Luca smiled faintly in midair, brimming with confidence.
He gently raised one hand and pushed it forward.
The next second.
The bullets all stopped half a meter away from him.
Every bullet struck a blue-white energy field, sending ripples across it.
Clatter, clatter.
The warped bullets fell to the ground.
The terrorists stared, dumbfounded.
Damn it! Is he even human?!
Luca spread his palms and aimed them at the enemies below.
"Assholes, now it's my turn!"
The next second.
Two dazzling clusters of blue energy gathered instantly in his palms, emitting an unsettling hum.
"Boom!"
Two beams of energy shot from his palms.
They were too fast to dodge.
In an instant, they struck two enemies carrying heavy machine guns in the crowd.
There was no explosion, nor any scream.
The two enemies had no time to react.
The moment they came into contact with the blue beams, they turned into a bloody mist and dispersed into the air.
But it wasn't over.
Luca had no intention of stopping.
He moved his hands through the air, firing one energy blast after another.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Blue beams flashed through the camp.
In just a few seconds, screams rang out one after another.
More than a dozen terrorists vanished from the world in an instant.
More than a dozen deep, blackened craters appeared in the ground.
Tony, leaning against the corner of the wall, was utterly dumbfounded at the sight.
His own armor was so heavy that even turning around was difficult, while Luca could wipe out enemies with a casual wave of his hand.
He suddenly felt as though his invention was a toy.
While Tony stood there stunned, Luca stopped firing.
He looked down at the dazed Tony and called out teasingly.
"Hey! Tony! How long are you going to keep watching? Is your armor so heavy you can't get up? Do you need me to protect you on the way out, great genius scientist?"
Hearing that taunt.
Tony immediately snapped back to his senses.
The words "do you need me to protect you" ignited his competitive spirit.
"Shut up, you freak who does nothing but fiddle with test tubes!"
Tony instantly fired back.
Then he braced himself against the wall and staggered to his feet.
"The Mark I is a groundbreaking weapon. It could wipe the floor with you! Why would I ever need your protection?!"
Luca shrugged indifferently.
"All right, since you're so confident. I'll take care of the ones on the east side of the camp, and you take the west. Let's see what two months of hammering sheet metal can actually do."
Tony raised his arms, and his flamethrowers roared to life again.
"I don't need you to teach me how to fight. But I agree to your proposal," Tony shouted back.
"Let's have a contest. Whoever finishes off his enemies last has to stay off alcohol for a whole month after we get back to New York! You dare?"
Luca raised an eyebrow and burst out laughing.
"Are you challenging me? Fine, I accept! Big brother, you'd better get ready to drink coffee every day when we get back to New York!"