Malibu, seaside villa.
A large crane was at work, its steel boom removing collapsed, fractured precast concrete slabs and load-bearing pillars one by one, while workers in hard hats cleared away the rubble.
The basement that had once displayed Iron Armor and housed the development of the Ultron Program was now strewn with debris and filled with smoke and dust. The massive explosion had destroyed the entire workshop, causing losses too vast to calculate.
Based on the basic cost of Iron Armor, a single suit cost tens of millions of dollars. Once fully outfitted with weaponry, an energy system, and artificial intelligence, the expense could easily exceed a hundred million. By that logic, the Mandarin's single cruise missile had blown away something close to a small mountain of gold.
Beneath the ruined seaside villa, reduced to broken walls and wreckage, the foundation suddenly trembled. The workers heard a dense clatter of meshing gears. Under Jarvis's control, lights came on one after another in the deeper underground levels, and then more than twenty suits of Iron Armor shot into the sky.
This was the Iron Legion Tony had envisioned before: Jarvis remotely controlled them across multiple threads, deploying them for coordinated combat and boosting their overall strength. Every suit had distinct traits and was suited to different combat environments.
This utterly insane method of fighting was simply burning money for fun. Only Iron Man, backed by the entirety of Stark Industries, could afford such consumption. It perfectly illustrated the eternal truth that money let you do whatever you wanted.
After learning that Killian's real target was the president aboard Air Force One, Tony hurriedly called Sean. The moment the call connected, a violent explosion erupted from the other end, accompanied by chaotic fighting and gunfire.
"The Mandarin is fake! Killian is