"Sir, if my processors were capable of feeling irony, I'd be experiencing it now," Jarvis's voice crackled through Tony's headset, smooth as silk even amidst the static. "According to high-level chatter from some of the more... secretive departments in D.C., what you're seeing isn't alien tech or a genetic mutation. They're calling it 'Martial Arts.' Apparently, it's a discipline that can be studied, practiced, and mastered."
Tony felt his left eye twitch behind the gold-titanium alloy of his faceplate. He watched as the figure below moved with a grace that defied every law of physics Tony had spent his life proving.
"Martial arts? You mean like the stuff in those old movies where guys jump over trees?" Tony scoffed, though his voice lacked its usual bite. "Jarvis, the guy just punched a multi-ton tank-on-legs out of the sky. My worldview isn't just shattered; it's been put through a woodchipper."
Down on the cracked pavement, the dust was still settling. Obadiah Stane, strapped into the pilot's seat of the Iron Monger, was having a very bad day. The impact had been so sudden and so violent that his vision was swimming in a sea of red warnings and sparking monitors. He looked at the diagnostic screen: the chest plate—the thickest part of the suit—was caved in.
"Who the hell are you?" Obadiah's voice boomed through the external speakers, but the bravado was gone, replaced by a raw, jagged edge of panic. He looked at the man standing a few yards away. No armor. No weapons. Just a guy in a tailored suit who looked like he was taking a midnight stroll.
Huang Wen didn't answer immediately. He didn't need to. Every step he took toward the downed mech seemed to carry the weight of a mountain.
He hadn't even bothered to activate the Indestructible Diamond Divine Art. After his recent breakthroughs, his baseline physical stats—his Essence, Qi, and Spirit—had already crossed into the realm of legends. His skin was now dense enough to flatten a high-caliber bullet on impact, and his muscles held the kinetic potential of a coiled spring. To Huang Wen, this 'Iron Monger' wasn't a terrifying engine of war; it was just a particularly noisy piece of scrap metal.
"Me?" Huang Wen's voice was low, but it cut through the roar of the surrounding fires. "I'm just the guy who doesn't like it when people touch my students. You tried to kill Zhong Qiang. Consider this the bill coming due."
Huang Wen had no intention of making this quick. If he wanted, he could have used his telekinesis to turn the suit into a tin can in a millisecond. But that was too clean. He wanted Obadiah to see the face of the man who was dismantling his legacy. He wanted the billionaire to feel the crushing weight of his own insignificance.
"Get away from me!" Obadiah roared, the desperation finally taking over. He bypassed the safety limiters, forcing the Iron Monger's right arm forward in a massive, piston-driven haymaker aimed directly at Huang Wen's skull.
THUD.
The world seemed to go silent for a heartbeat.
Huang Wen hadn't dodged. He hadn't even flinched. He had simply raised his left hand and caught the massive metal fist. The impact sent a shockwave through the ground, cracking the asphalt further, but Huang Wen didn't move an inch.
Then, he started to squeeze.
Creak... groan... SNAP.
The reinforced steel of the Monger's hand began to buckle and fold like wet cardboard. Tony Stark, watching from twenty feet up, felt a cold shiver run down his spine. He knew the tensile strength of that alloy. He knew exactly how many tons of pressure it took to deform it.
"God," Tony whispered.
"Not quite, sir," Jarvis replied. "But the comparison is becoming increasingly apt."
With a sudden, violent motion, Huang Wen grabbed both of the Iron Monger's arms. With a grunt of effort that looked more like a casual stretch, he swung the entire three-ton machine over his shoulder and slammed it face-first into the street.
BOOM.
The impact was so loud it set off car alarms three blocks away. Obadiah was rattled like a die in a cup, his head slamming against the interior padding, his senses failing him. He tried to fire the thrusters, to deploy the mini-guns, to do anything—but the controls were dead.
And then came the sound of tearing metal.
It was a rhythmic, terrifying sound. Creeeee-ack. RIIIIP.
Huang Wen was standing over the downed mech, his fingers digging into the gaps of the heavy armor plating. He wasn't using tools. He was using his bare hands. He peeled back a layer of two-inch-thick steel as if he were opening a bag of chips, tossing the wreckage aside with a careless flick.
Obadiah looked up, his face bloodied, his eyes wide with a terror that went beyond words. He saw the sky, then he saw the face of the man who had just dismantled a billion dollars' worth of military tech with nothing but raw muscle.
"Gulp."
The sound came simultaneously from Obadiah and from Tony, who had finally landed nearby.
"Jarvis," Tony said, his voice cracking. "New rule. We don't call these people 'humans' anymore. It's misleading. It's dangerous. It's bad for my health."
"I understand, sir," Jarvis replied faithfully. "Should I categorize them under a new 'Superhuman' database? Though, technically, given your intellectual capacity and the suit, you would qualify as well—"
"Don't. Just... don't," Tony sighed, stepping out of his battered Mark III as the faceplate slid back. He looked at the field of debris—the arm of the Monger over there, the leg over here. It looked like a giant toddler had gone on a rampage in a toy store.
He watched as Huang Wen reached into the exposed chest cavity of the mech. With a deft twist, the martial artist ripped out the glowing Arc Reactor, the very heart of the machine.
"Hey!" Tony called out instinctively. That tech was dangerous. In the wrong hands, it was a city-level threat.
Huang Wen turned, the blue glow of the reactor illuminating his calm features. He looked at the device, then tossed it through the air. Tony scrambled to catch it, hugging the warm metal to his chest.
"Thanks for looking out for my boy back there," Huang Wen said, his voice actually softening a bit. "If you hadn't distracted this oversized toaster, I might have been too late to save him."
Tony looked at the reactor, then back at Huang Wen. "The kid... Xiaoqiang? Is he... I mean, he was practically a ghost when I saw him. Internal bleeding, crushed ribs, the works."
"He's fine," Huang Wen said, and there was a strange certainty in his voice that made Tony believe him without question. "He's tougher than he looks."
Huang Wen then reached down, grabbed Obadiah by the collar of his expensive suit, and hauled him out of the wreckage like a sack of laundry. With his other foot, he casually stomped on what was left of the Iron Monger. The remaining chassis flattened into a two-dimensional pancake of chrome and wires.
"Let... let me go..." Obadiah whimpered. The "Merchant of Death" was gone. In his place was a broken old man who had realized he was no longer at the top of the food chain. To him, Huang Wen wasn't a man; he was a demon sent from some forgotten hell to punish him for his greed.
"Killing you myself feels like a waste of a good evening," Huang Wen muttered, looking at Obadiah with pure indifference. "Besides, there are people waiting for you. People who have much more to say than I do."
"Wait!" Tony shouted, taking a step forward. He had a million questions. He wanted to know about the 'Martial Arts,' about the suburban explosion, about how a man could turn his body into a living weapon.
But Huang Wen didn't feel like talking. He tightened his grip on Obadiah, and in a flash of shimmering white light, both of them simply... vanished.
Tony stood alone on the empty, ruined street, the silence of the night rushing back in. He blinked, staring at the spot where Huang Wen had been standing.
"Jarvis? Is teleportation a 'Martial Art' now? Because if so, I'm signing up for classes tomorrow."
"Scanning, sir. The individual has reappeared at the coordinates for the Stark Industries main entrance. It appears to be a form of high-speed movement or spatial manipulation. And sir... Ms. Potts is currently at that location."
"Pepper!" Tony's heart skipped a beat. He slammed his faceplate shut and ignited his thrusters, streaking back toward his headquarters.
Back at the entrance of Stark Industries, the atmosphere was thick with tension. Jack and Reese Fisk stood like twin towers of muscle in front of Zhong Qiang, who was sitting on the ground, his eyes closed. Across from them stood Agent Coulson and a dozen S.H.I.E.L.D. tacticals.
The agents were professionals, but they were nervous. They had seen the footage from the streets. They knew that the two men guarding the kid weren't just bodyguards—they were part of whatever 'club' Huang Wen belonged to. A few of the agents shifted their grips on their weapons, their eyes darting toward Reese Fisk, sensing the dark, predatory energy that always seemed to follow the son of the Kingpin.
Suddenly, the air rippled.
Huang Wen appeared in the center of the clearing, dropping a disheveled Obadiah Stane onto the concrete. The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents instinctively recoiled, their boots scraping against the ground as they fought the urge to run. Even Coulson took a half-step back, his hand hovering near his holster.
"Teacher!" Jack shouted, his face splitting into a grin. "You got him!"
Reese Fisk nodded, his eyes cold as they landed on Obadiah. "So this is the pilot. He looks smaller without the tin can."
Huang Wen ignored the agents and walked over to Zhong Qiang. The boy's eyes were open now, glowing with a new, terrifyingly sharp intensity. The Blood Bodhi and Huang Wen's guidance had done their work. Zhong Qiang wasn't just healed; he was forged.
"Xiaoqiang," Huang Wen said, stepping aside to reveal the shivering Obadiah. "I promised you the man who did this. He's all yours. How do you want to handle it?"
Zhong Qiang stood up. It was a slow, deliberate movement. The air around him seemed to hum with the new power circulating through his veins. He looked at Obadiah, and for a moment, the image of the Iron Monger's massive foot coming down on his chest flashed in his mind. He remembered the feeling of his ribs snapping, the taste of copper in his throat, the cold certainty that he was dying.
"I died tonight," Zhong Qiang said, his voice surprisingly calm. "Or I should have."
He looked at his hands, then at Huang Wen. He remembered the three months they had spent as vigilantes—cleaning up the trash of Hell's Kitchen. They weren't heroes in capes; they were hunters. And they didn't believe in the 'no-kill' rule if the prey was rabid.
"Brother Wen," Zhong Qiang said, his eyes locking onto Obadiah's. "I think he's lived long enough, don't you?"
Obadiah looked up, his breath hitching as he realized that the "weakling" he had crushed earlier was gone. In his place stood something far more dangerous.
Zhong Qiang took a step forward, his fist tightening, the air around his knuckles beginning to distort with a faint, crimson heat.
The night was far from over.