Tony grit his teeth, leaning on his war hammer as he shakily stood up. He looked at the hideous behemoth crawling out of the ruins in the distance; seeing that conspicuous dent on its chest plate gave him a flicker of savage satisfaction.
"You... you... bastard!"
Obadiah's voice came through the iron monger's loudspeakers, filled with incredulous rage. He drove the clunky armor forward with heavy steps, charging once more like an enraged rhinoceros, rumbling across the ground.
This time, he didn't use any long-range weapons.
The humiliation brought by that giant hammer made him want nothing more than to use the most primitive, barbaric melee combat to tear Tony and that red-and-gold turtle shell into pieces!
"Come on!"
Tony roared, gripping the hammer's handle tightly with both hands once again as he charged forward to meet him.
Clang—!
The war hammer and the iron monger's swinging giant arm collided violently, erupting in a piercing metallic screech.
This time, Tony had no room to build momentum; he relied purely on the armor's strength to parry. As a result, he was pushed back by an irresistible force, his feet plowing two deep furrows into the asphalt road.
"Useless!"
Obadiah laughed wildly, taking advantage of his superior size and strength to subject Tony to a storm of suppression.
Giant steel fists smashed down again and again. Tony could only desperately swing his war hammer to block or sidestep to dodge. He tried to find an opening for a counterattack, swinging the hammer at the iron monger's leg joints and waist during gaps in the attacks.
Clang! Thud!
The hammerhead struck the iron monger's thick armor with dull thuds, sending up a few sparks, but the damage caused was extremely limited—at most leaving a few insignificant white scratches on the opponent's plating.
This was nothing like the world-shaking strike from before.
Tony's heart sank.
The essence of the 'Warhammer Protocol' was to pour a massive amount of energy from the arc reactor into the hammerhead in a short time, dealing a devastating blow through the ultimate release of kinetic energy.
This required space, time, and a complete wind-up swing!
But now, pinned down by the iron monger in close-quarters combat, he had no chance to pull away and complete a charge. Every rushed swing was just the physical Impact of the hammer itself; to the thick-skinned iron monger, it was no different from an itch.
The damage was truly pathetic.
This couldn't go on.
The war hammer had lost its meaning in a close-quarters brawl, becoming a burden instead. Meanwhile, the opponent's armor, shrouded in whispering leech ash, rendered all of his precision-guided weapons useless.
If he continued fighting on the ground, he would eventually be worn down to death.
Tony's mind raced, his gaze sweeping over the arc reactor on the iron monger's chest—the energy core that was no longer glowing.
No, he still had a trump card. A backdoor program he had personally planted, specifically targeting this knockoff reactor.
As long as the iron monger entered a high-power operating state, its arc reactor would produce a brief energy overload peak due to defects in heat dissipation and energy scheduling.
And he only needed to send a specific high-frequency pulse through a preset Short-circuit Module at 그 moment to instantly turn Obadiah's iron shell into an immobile steel coffin!
But how could he force him into a high-power state?
Tony's eyes suddenly darted toward the towering skyscrapers of New York City and up into the pitch-black night sky.
Got it!
"Die, Tony!"
Obadiah seized an opportunity and threw a heavy punch toward Tony's face.
Tony didn't dodge; instead, he proactively abandoned the war hammer. With the sound of mechanical locks disengaging, the heavy hammer fell from his right arm and was tossed aside. Without the heavy burden, the mark iii instantly became agile.
He ducked low, narrowly avoiding the lethal punch, while the thrusters on his feet instantly erupted with a dazzling blue light.
Boom—!
The red-and-gold figure shot off the ground, ascending vertically like a Rocket, flying without hesitation into the depths of the night.
"Trying to run?"
Obadiah paused for a moment before letting out an even more disdainful laugh. "Do you think you can escape!"
The massive thrusters on the iron monger's back also spewed flames, propelling it upward at a terrifying speed completely inconsistent with its size, hot on Tony's heels!
This was exactly the result Tony wanted.
With the iron monger's bloated size and staggering weight, the only way to catch up to the mark iii—which excelled in agility and speed—in the air was to push the engine power to the maximum!
Fly, old man, fly a little faster!
Tony could even hear the massive roar of the iron monger's thrusters over the communication channel as they operated under overload.
Two streaks of light, one in front and one behind, began a desperate chase through the steel jungle of Manhattan.
Tony was like a swift being chased by a falcon, desperately weaving, spiraling, and doubling back through the rows of skyscrapers. He would skim past the glass curtain walls of skyscrapers at the limit, then dive into narrow gaps between buildings, trying to shake off his pursuer.
But Obadiah was like a piece of stubborn gum, biting hard onto his tail.
Moreover, he began to pour out firepower recklessly!
"Jarvis, evade!"
"Warning! Incoming missiles detected! Two! Three!"
From the launch pods on the iron monger's shoulders and back, miniature missiles trailing long plumes of fire whistled out. They no longer attempted precision locking; instead, they wove a dense web of explosions in the airspace Tony was likely to pass through.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Buildings around Tony exploded continuously, and countless glass shards and concrete chunks fell like heavy rain. He could only dodge and maneuver clumsily amidst the flames and shockwaves of the explosions.
Several times, he was nearly blown away by the air currents, only managing to stabilize himself because Jarvis adjusted the flight attitude at the critical moment.
The armor's energy was depleting rapidly during the intense maneuvers and weapon interceptions.
"Sir, energy at thirty percent! The left leg thruster was damaged in the previous explosion!"
"Ignore that! Keep your eyes locked on the iron monger's reactor data!" Tony roared, his nerves stretched to the limit.
"Yes, sir! Monitoring... target reactor power is continuing to rise! Ninety percent... ninety-five percent... peak reached!"
Now!
A flash of determined joy appeared in Tony's eyes.
"Jarvis, activate the Short-circuit Module!"
He shouted the final command, as if he could already see the iron monger falling from the sky trailing black smoke.
However... a second passed.
Nothing happened.
Two seconds passed.
The massive killing machine behind him continued to chase him with unstoppable momentum.
Three seconds... the expected paralysis did not occur. Obadiah didn't even pause; a new wave of missiles had already launched from the pods.
The joy on Tony's face instantly froze, replaced by utter shock and disbelief.
"Why?"
He cried out, "Jarvis? Why didn't it work?!"
"The module has sent the command, sir... but the target has no reaction. Repeat, command ineffective!"
"How is that possible... I designed that backdoor myself!"
Just as Tony's mind reeled and went blank, Obadiah's triumphant and cruel laughter reached his ears word by word through the public channel.
"Yes, Tony, you are an absolute genius. None of the engineers under me can compare to you. They couldn't build an arc reactor as exquisite as yours, nor could they design armor with such high performance."
Obadiah's tone was filled with the playfulness of a cat catching a mouse.
"However, they are also the elite I hand-picked from the thousands at Stark Industries. It might be hard for them to create from scratch, but..."
"...it is quite possible for them to find a tiny vulnerability in the code you left behind."
These words were like a thunderclap, exploding in Tony's mind!
He was stunned.
He remembered. Those engineers—the ones he usually wouldn't even spare a glance for, responsible for maintenance, testing, and optimization. He had always viewed them as tools, screws to execute his genius ideas.
He never thought that these "mediocre talents" in his eyes would one day turn around and dismantle the safety lock he was so proud of!
A fatal lapse in focus only takes a moment.
"Goodbye, Tony."
A miniature missile that had been lurking on the flank seized this fleeting opportunity, striking the back of the mark iii at an extremely tricky angle!
Boom—!!!
A violent explosion bloomed in mid-air. Tony felt as if his back had been slammed by an invisible giant hammer; his vision went black instantly, and all control and balance were stripped away in a flash.
The red-and-gold armor was like a bird with broken wings, trailing black smoke and electrical sparks as it fell uncontrollably from the sky toward the ground.
The last thing he saw was the rooftop of that familiar building below, topped with the giant "STARK" logo.
Bang!
With a loud crash, the mark iii slammed heavily onto the Stark Tower helipad. The solid concrete platform was smashed into a giant crater, with cracks spreading out like a spider web.
"Cough... cough cough..."
Tony came to from the violent Impact, feeling as if his internal organs were all out of place. His throat tasted of copper, and he couldn't help but cough up a few mouthfuls of blood.
"Warning... warning... armor integrity at forty-one percent... flight systems completely paralyzed... weapon systems offline..."
Jarvis's voice was intermittent, filled with the static of data corruption.
He struggled to climb up, but his body wouldn't listen.
A massive shadow slowly loomed over him.
The iron monger hovered above the rooftop, looking down at him from on high, like a god judging a mortal.
"Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat—!"
There was no further talk.
The Gatling guns on both of Obadiah's arms began to spin wildly, spitting out scorching tongues of fire. A torrent of steel composed of countless large-caliber bullets poured down toward the immobile Tony on the ground!
In an instant, countless dense sparks erupted across the surface of Tony's armor!
He felt like he had been thrown into a giant metal blender. The terrifying Impact caused him to roll and twitch uncontrollably on the ground. That solid titanium alloy armor was being stripped away and torn to shreds layer by layer in the face of this bullet wash that could only be described as a massacre.
He just lay there on his own company's rooftop, trembling helplessly like a pathetic Parkinson's patient amidst the dense rain of bullets.