After getting Obadiah's strong backing, Tony Stark quickly built a miniature Arc cold fusion reactor.
His Iron suit successfully powered up, but considering Zodhis's War Machines and Iron Overlord, plus Zodhis himself running around in that Dark Knight armor, Tony did not immediately throw on his suit and go play vigilante, dishing out justice.
Because his Iron suit was already seriously behind the curve. Tony Stark felt like he could not afford that embarrassment. If he was going out there, he had to make something better than Zodhis's suit.
What he did not know was that the moment he returned, Zodhis had Black Queen send a set of footage and files to Nick Fury's computer.
The footage and files were evidence of Obadiah smuggling Stark Industries weapons to terrorists.
After receiving the evidence, Nick Fury's first move was not to throw Obadiah in prison. Instead, he called in the information department to figure out how the hell his computer had been breached.
Joking aside, he was the director of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, and someone could still hack his computer?
That meant they could do whatever they wanted.
As for Tony Stark, Zod had Black Queen send him HYDRA's old files from back then.
They were records of Obadiah hiring HYDRA to kill Howard and his wife. Of course, Obadiah did not know it was HYDRA. He just contacted assassins, that was all.
Tony Stark did not believe it at first, until the grainy, old-looking footage appeared. Only then did Tony accept it.
The video looked like it had been smeared with filth. Even after Tony used his own black-tech restoration, it was still only 360p quality, but he recognized Obadiah anyway.
Tony Stark was in agony.
He had handed Stark Industries to the man who murdered his father and mother.
But he did not need to worry. Zodhis had already told Black Queen to prepare things so that the moment Obadiah got into trouble, Stark Industries would be driven into bankruptcy, to make sure Tony would not be affected.
As for what came after, Zod believed Tony would definitely rebuild a new Stark Industries.
After all, he was Tony Stark.
After screwing Obadiah over once, Zod stopped paying attention to him. Obadiah was nothing worth watching.
…
Deli was Hungarian, and also a game streamer.
Recently, Blade Tech Industries released a game called Bloodfight to the End, and it exploded overnight. Naturally, he joined in too.
Bloodfight to the End was simple.
It randomly dropped a hundred players into an area. That area could be a city, a forest, snowy terrain, and so on. After landing, players could search the zone for randomly spawning guns, medicine, and other supplies, then fight.
Every minute, a poison circle would shrink the playable area. In the end, the last person standing was the winner.
The game fit the Western love for individual heroism perfectly, so it became wildly popular.
Of course, that was not the main reason.
The real reason was that it was a full-dive VR game. It made you feel like you were truly there.
Back when "full-dive VR" was not even a concept yet, this game was absolutely terrifying in its shock value and monopoly potential.
Just look at it. Other games were bleeding users in bulk, while Bloodfight to the End had already passed five million players.
The only thing holding it back from growing even faster was the hardware requirement. To play, you had to buy the game helmet, and it was not cheap.
Five thousand dollars.
For a lot of lower and middle class gamers in the U.S., that price tag was enough to make them back away. They could only save up and wait.
Of course, selling helmets also made Blade Tech Industries twenty-five billion dollars in revenue, even if it was pre-tax.
The outside world cursed Zodhis for neglecting his real work and going to make games instead.
Because of that, Stav even called Zodhis. His miracle cancer drug still was not finished yet.
Back to the point.
Deli did not care whether Zodhis was being irresponsible or not. He only knew Zodhis was a genius, someone who could do what nobody else could.
If you had the ability, then you make a game like this too.
Once you had experienced full-dive VR, it was hard to go back to the old games. The physical sensation was just not in the same universe.
Deli was one of the people who could not go back.
He got deeply addicted. Plus, he was young and his nerve reflexes were fast, so he became a well-known streamer and made quite a bit of money.
His parents, who originally thought he was insane for spending five thousand dollars on a helmet just to play games, stopped complaining. Sure, five thousand could buy a decent used car, but Deli had already earned it back, and then some.
"Hey, everyone watching my stream," Deli said. "Today I'm taking you to a live fifty-kill run in Bloodfight to the End. Last time I almost wiped the whole lobby, but I ran into a shady bastard lying in the grass. No warrior spirit at all. He did not even dare to take a gunfight with me head-on!"
He complained while showing off his gun skills. Then, the moment he climbed over a hill, he felt a light tap on his head, like someone had poked him with a finger.
Deli knew that feeling. It was a hit indicator, telling you where you got struck.
"You have been killed. Range: 950 meters!"
The system prompt made Deli's eyes go wide.
Nine hundred and fifty meters?
And it was a headshot?
"Oh my god, the streamer got one-tapped!"
"And it was almost a thousand meters!"
"I remember this game goes for realism, right? Wind direction affects sniper trajectories and all that!"
"Unbelievable. Did someone already figure out an aimbot for Bloodfight to the End?"
The chat instantly exploded, because Deli had just been talking huge, and then he got slapped in the face in a blink.
Deli refused to accept it and demanded the death replay.
He wanted the killer's perspective.
That was allowed. Bloodfight to the End supported it, because it could help find bugs or cheats, even though they did not believe this game could actually be cheated.
Then he saw the killer's perspective, and the name was weird as hell.
"My damn… he was dealing with three enemies at the same time?"
In the killer's view, Deli watched the guy sprinting like a madman. Then, from an inconspicuous corner, a head quietly peeked out. Even Deli had not noticed it, but the killer did.
The killer snapped his muzzle over at a speed that made no sense, and in less than 0.1 seconds he scoped in with the sniper rifle, aimed, and popped a headshot.
Right after that, two enemies in front of him appeared, and he scoped and headshot them too, at a terrifying speed.
His reaction time was beyond human.
/-\
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