The lights flickered, followed by a piercing metallic scraping sound from above. The walls suddenly sprang open, and a dozen modified soldiers in black combat uniforms rushed in, stun guns in hand, instantly blocking the doorway. The blue-glowing implanted modules on their arms flashed on and off, like some kind of synchronization signal.
"An ambush!" Ye Mo roared, his Steel Bone Transformation right arm sweeping across, knocking the two in front flying. But the opponents were not afraid of pain at all, falling to the ground and getting up again, their movements as synchronized as a machine.
Tony had already activated his armor defense mode, and his palm cannons were humming as they charged. "So that's why Killian left Pepper here as bait, he was waiting for us to get into the cage before closing the door!"
"Stop talking nonsense, the monitoring in the left passage is still running, reinforcements will be here in three minutes!" Ye Mo retreated along the edge of the test bench, his metallic fingertips drawing sparks across the surface. "Has your armored weapon system deployed?"
"87% complete, give me five more seconds!" Tony knelt down on one knee, the thruster nozzles on his back slowly opening.
But they didn't last five seconds.
Twelve guards simultaneously raised their guns, arcs of electricity leaping from the muzzles. Ye Mo was about to lunge to block when suddenly a "ding" sounded in his mind, and a emotionless, mechanical voice echoed:
"A high-risk encirclement scenario has been detected. It is recommended to activate the Lightning Control ability, which can temporarily suppress electronic targets and carriers of neural implants."
Ye Mo's eyes lit up. "Perfect timing!"
He immediately searched his mind for the fragments of abilities he had accumulated before—genetic fragments he had absorbed during the Battle of New York when he brushed past the corpse of a Mutants using electromagnetic pulses, which he had never tried. Now, without caring whether the combination was correct, he forcibly spliced together the " Electromagnetic Induction + neural interference" module and gritted his teeth to activate it.
"Hurry up!" Tony yelled.
"Shut up, I'm arguing with the system!" Ye Mo suddenly raised his hands, and two blue-white arcs of electricity crackled and exploded in his palms, instantly making the air smell burnt.
The next second, lightning exploded.
A ring of electric current suddenly spread out from him, sweeping across the entire area like a high-voltage electric grid. All the stun guns short-circuited and started smoking on the spot, and the implanted modules on the guards' arms exploded one after another, sparks flying everywhere. Some people screamed and convulsed as they fell to the ground, some rolled their eyes and passed out, and the remaining few tried to hold on, but their legs went weak and they knelt on the ground, their heads shaking as if they had been hit by a heavy hammer.
"Wow." Tony paused for a moment, "That's not flirting, that's sending out a mass internet outage notification!"
"Save your energy praising me, saving lives is the priority." Ye Mo gasped for breath, beads of sweat forming on his forehead. This move had taken more time than he'd imagined; his brain felt like it'd been screwed around twice with a screwdriver, and his vision was blurring.
But he had no time to rest.
Tony rushed to the testing table, switched his palm cannon to low-power cutting mode, and swiftly sliced through the restraints, carefully lifting Pepper out. The moment he touched her, he frowned. "She's ridiculously hot! Her internal temperature is at least fifty degrees Celsius!"
" The Extremis Virus has already begun to react." Ye Mo walked over and reached out to feel Pepper's neck; it was indeed burning hot, like the core of a furnace. He turned to look at the control panel screen; the heart rate was fluctuating wildly, and the breathing rate was extremely unstable.
"Can she still be saved?" Tony asked in a low voice.
"Asking this now is useless." Ye Mo stared at her pale face. "Take her out first."
Before he finished speaking, the ceiling ventilation duct snapped open with a "crack," and six or seven more guards slid down the ropes, landing with their knees slightly bent, their movements perfectly synchronized.
"The third wave is here!" Tony quickly turned around, shielding Pepper behind him, and began charging his armored shoulder cannon.
"No need to fight." Ye Mo suddenly raised her hand to stop him. "Look over there."
He pointed to the security camera in the corner. The lens, which had been flashing red light, was now pointed directly at them, and the image shook slightly.
"Someone's watching." Ye Mo narrowed his eyes. "Not an ordinary commander, but the one in control."
Almost simultaneously, the main control panel screen automatically lit up, displaying an encrypted video stream. The image showed a man in a white coat, his face calm, his eyes sharp as a scalpel.
Aldrich Killian.
"Welcome to the dawn of a new era." His voice came through the radio, calm and steady, unlike that of someone in battle. " Tony Stark, you've finally arrived. Unfortunately, what you see is not the end, but the beginning."
"What the hell did you do to Pepper?" Tony roared.
"I merely gave her a choice," Killian chuckled. "And you, you'll only ever protect, never evolve."
"Stop spouting this philosophical garbage." Ye Mo took a step forward, looking directly at the camera. "You're hiding in that evacuation passage at the far end of the second basement level. There's a backup power source behind the third door on your right, and the corridor on your left leads to the old drainage system—you're there right now, aren't you?"
Killian's smile faltered slightly.
"You traced the signal backwards?" His tone changed.
"You've left too many flaws," Ye Mo sneered. "The 0.3-second camera delay means you're remotely accessing the system; the image shake frequency matches the ventilation duct vibration, indicating your hiding place is close to the main shaft. Plus, the guards' actions just now were too synchronized, clearly under centralized control... You're not on the front lines at all; you're just a programmer hiding in the back pressing buttons."
Tony glanced at him. "When did you learn to hack?"
"It's a system notification," Ye Mo shrugged. "It says, 'The more the enemy tries to hide, the more flaws they'll reveal.'"
Killian was silent for two seconds, then suddenly laughed, "Interesting. But let me tell you something—you can't save her."
As soon as he finished speaking, a red warning suddenly popped up on the main control panel screen: [Self-destruct program initiated, countdown 7 minutes 30 seconds].
"Damn!" Tony exclaimed, looking up abruptly. "Is this place going to explode?"
"It's not an explosion." Ye Mo quickly glanced at the system interface. "It's high-temperature melting. The entire base will turn into a molten iron pit, leaving not even ashes."
"Then why aren't we running?" Tony hugged Pepper tightly and was about to rush towards the exit.
"Wait." Ye Mo didn't move, staring at the camera. " Killian hasn't left yet. If he detonates it remotely, we'll be buried the moment we step outside."
"So he wants us to be trapped here and die?" Tony gritted his teeth.
"No, he wants to see us struggle." Ye Mo took a deep breath, and the system in his mind beeped again. " Lightning Control has entered its cooldown period. Estimated recovery time is unknown."
He rubbed his temples, feeling as if a red-hot wire was stuck in his skull.
"What do we do now?" Tony asked anxiously.
"Take Pepper and get out of here first. I'll cut off the main control signal." Ye Mo walked to the monitoring terminal, his fingers rapidly typing on the keyboard. "As long as we deprive him of control over the guards, we can buy some time."
"Are you crazy? You can barely stand up!" Tony grabbed his arm.
"That's why I let you go first." Ye Mo shook him off. "You can't run while carrying someone. I'll hold them off, that'll give you a chance."
"I'm not leaving." Tony glared at him. "Who's going to fix my armor if you die?"
"Then who are you leaving to save Pepper?" Ye Mo countered.
The two stared at each other for a second, and the air froze.
In the end, Tony relented first. "Okay, I'll go. But you have to come out alive, or I'll carve your name into my armor scrap heap as a souvenir."
"Okay, remember to make it look cool." Ye Mo grinned and turned to pounce on the control panel.
Tony said no more and quickly ran towards the evacuation route with Pepper in his arms. While Ye Mo was cracking the firewall, he caught a glimpse of the guards slowly approaching from the ventilation duct. He gritted his teeth, pulled up the last backup command in the system—" False Signal Jamming Protocol "—and manually injected it into the main control channel.
On the screen, Killian's image suddenly froze and then switched to static.
"Signal interrupted." Ye Mo breathed a sigh of relief and was about to leave when he caught a glimpse of what was happening outside the glass wall out of the corner of his eye.
At the end of the passage, a figure stood quietly.
Killian.
He was wearing a white lab coat, his hands in his pockets, a faint smile on his lips, as if he were watching the final chapter of a performance. When he saw Ye Mo looking over, he nodded slightly, as if in acknowledgment.
The next second, the iron gate behind him slowly closed, and the entire passage was instantly filled with milky white gas, completely obscuring his vision.
"This guy... he actually dares to show his face," Ye Mo muttered under his breath.
He turned and ran, but just as he reached the evacuation door, Tony's voice came through the comms. "Where are you?"
"Coming right away." Ye Mo pressed the door open button, but the door didn't budge.
"The power's been cut off, take the emergency ladder over there!" Tony urged.
"Understood." Ye Mo changed course and rushed towards the side corridor, his steps heavy. His head was getting dizzier and dizzier. The lightning strike just now seemed to have drained all his strength, and even his breath smelled of rust.
When he stumbled to the emergency exit, Tony was already standing at the top of the stairs with Pepper in his arms, their armored shoulder lights illuminating an area.
"Get on!" Tony reached out his hand.
Ye Mo grabbed his arm and was pulled up. The two leaned against the wall, panting. A muffled explosion came from the passage below, and flames flickered out.
"Self-destruction has begun." Tony looked down at Pepper in his arms; her face was still deathly pale, with a faint red glow beneath her skin.
"She's still alive." Ye Mo leaned against the wall, closing his eyes to catch his breath. "That's enough."
" Killian ran away?" Tony asked.
"He ran away, but he didn't win." Ye Mo opened his eyes. "He thought he had set a trap, but we've already figured out his tricks—next time we meet, I won't use electricity, I'll use my fists."
Tony glanced at him, said nothing, but simply hugged Pepper tighter.
In the distance, the countdown is still ticking: 6 minutes and 12 seconds.
The emergency elevator lights flickered, casting two swaying shadows on the wall.