"Bang!"
A muffled gunshot, followed by Yinsen's pained grunt, reached Tony's ears with terrifying clarity.
*It's over.*
The thought pierced Tony's mind like an icicle.
Trapped inside this cold iron shell, his eyes were bloodshot. His heart felt as if it were being squeezed by an invisible hand, making it hard to even breathe.
[SYSTEM LOADING... 4%]
The damn progress bar crawled along at a snail's pace.
Outside the cave, the sound of gunfire intensified, mixed with the angry shouts and approaching footsteps of the terrorists.
Tony could picture it: Yinsen lying in a pool of his own blood. The gentle doctor who had saved his life, now sacrificing it just to buy him these few precious minutes.
"Die!"
Another gunshot rang out, but this time, it was followed by a piercing scream—the voice of one of the terrorists.
*What's happening?*
Tony froze.
Outside, Yinsen was leaning against the rock wall, gasping for breath. He glanced down at his chest. The bullet had hit him square on, but it had been stopped by an invisible barrier, leaving only a scorched mark on the suit.
*Is this... Tony's son's suit?*
A flicker of astonishment crossed Yinsen's eyes. He had been wearing this well-made suit the whole time, thinking it was just a random garment the kidnappers had tossed him. He never imagined it held a secret.
The will to survive overwhelmed everything else. He stopped thinking, rolled to dodge a spray of bullets, and snatched an AK-47 off the ground.
The moment he raised the rifle, a strange sensation coursed through him.
His arm muscles seemed guided by an unseen force, holding the weapon steady. His eyes felt like they had an 8x scope, instantly locking onto an enemy charging toward him.
No aiming, no hesitation. His finger pulled the trigger.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
A three-round burst drilled precisely into the man's forehead.
The enemy dropped without so much as a grunt.
Yinsen himself was stunned.
He was a doctor, a man who'd spent far more time holding a scalpel than a gun. Where had this skill come from?
Before he could process it, more enemies swarmed in.
This time, his body moved on its own, completely out of his control.
An unbelievable side-slide dodged a hail of bullets. His body twisted at an impossible angle, the rifle an extension of his arm. Every lift, every shot, felt like it had been calculated a thousand times over.
Every shot found its mark.
Amidst the rain of bullets, Yinsen moved like a phantom, dodging and weaving, executing maneuvers that defied human limits. His mind was blank, but his body moved as if possessed by a master martial artist and a legendary sharpshooter.
"Is... is this me?"
He stared at the carnage he had wrought, completely bewildered.
Inside the suit, an inconspicuous chip was blinking with a faint light. It was the "Kung Fu Chip" Paul had prepared for his father, loaded with countless martial arts and firearm techniques. It was originally intended to let Tony look cool in a dangerous situation, but it was getting an unexpected "beta test" on a Middle Eastern doctor instead.
"Ha... hahahaha!"
Yinsen's shock turned to wild ecstasy. He felt the power surging within him, the thrum of battle lust with every heartbeat.
To hell with despair! To hell with dying!
"Today, I, Yinsen, am reborn!"
He let out a ferocious roar and charged toward the enemy, the gunfire in his hands composing a symphony of death.
Inside the cave.
[SYSTEM LOADING... 98%]
[SYSTEM LOADING... 99%]
[SYSTEM LOADING... 100%]
"System load complete. Welcome to 'Paul One'."
A mechanical voice sounded as the virtual screen in front of Tony lit up, displaying a live feed of the chaos outside from a crude camera.
He saw Yinsen, fighting like a god of war.
"Power up!"
Tony roared, and energy from the miniature Arc Reactor instantly flooded every corner of the armor.
"BOOM!"
The heavy iron body shot to its feet, smashing through the rock ceiling of the cave.
The terrorists outside were startled by the sudden commotion. Before they could react, a heavy iron door was blasted outward by an immense force from within.
A monster over two meters tall, clad in crude iron, appeared before them.
"Time to settle the score, you bastards!"
Tony's voice boomed through a speaker, metallic and filled with overwhelming rage.
He raised his left arm. The flamethrower on his wrist roared to life, engulfing several enemies in front of him in a searing inferno.
"Tony!" Yinsen shouted, overjoyed.
"Nice work, Doctor," Tony replied in a deep voice, the mini-missile on his right arm already locked onto a heavy machine gun in the distance.
"WHOOSH!"
The missile shot out, trailing fire as it blew the gun emplacement sky-high.
One was a god-tier sharpshooter cheating with a high-tech suit; the other was an invulnerable iron behemoth.
They fought side by side, one delivering precision kills, the other providing covering fire. The once-arrogant Ten Rings fell like wheat before a scythe.
They carved a path of destruction from the cave to the base's exit, leaving a trail of fire and wreckage in their wake.
"Let's go!"
Tony grabbed Yinsen as the thrusters on his back and feet ignited simultaneously.
"VWOOM—"
The immense thrust launched them into the sky, leaving the entire terrorist base behind them.
Freedom!
The wind roared in his ears. As he watched the base shrink below, a surge of exhilaration filled Tony's heart.
But his joy was premature.
The suit was, after all, cobbled together from scrap metal. Under the strain of overload, the thrusters began to whine protestingly.
"Warning, right thruster failure!"
"Warning, insufficient power to left thruster!"
The armor lurched violently, and the two of them spiraled down toward the desert below like a kite with its string cut.
"Dammit!"
Tony cursed, desperately trying to stabilize their descent, but it was useless.
CRASH!
With a tremendous impact, they slammed into a soft sand dune, sending up a cloud of yellow dust.
An unknown amount of time passed.
Tony struggled out of the armor, dizzy and disoriented from the violent crash. He shook his head to clear it and looked over at Yinsen nearby.
Yinsen was lying face down on the sand, his body trembling uncontrollably.
Tony's heart clenched, and he scrambled over to him.
"Yinsen? Are you okay?"
He helped Yinsen up, only to find his face streaked with tears.
This strong man was now on his knees like a child, pounding the sand with his fists and sobbing uncontrollably.
His cries held no sorrow or despair, but the raw elation of survival and an overwhelming gratitude for life itself.
He was alive.
He was truly, unbelievably alive.
After crying for a long time, Yinsen slowly calmed down. He lifted his tear-stained face to Tony, his gaze solemn.
"Tony, we made it."
"Yeah," Tony's voice was hoarse. "We made it."
"Promise me," Yinsen said, grabbing Tony's arm, his knuckles white from the force of his grip. "Don't waste your life. Don't waste it... like I did."
Tony looked into Yinsen's eyes and saw a plea, a glimmer of hope, and the most sincere request from a friend.
He thought of Paul, of Pepper, of all his own wasted, reckless days.
In that moment, he felt a clarity he had never known before.
He nodded gravely, enunciating each word.
"I promise."
The promise echoed across the vast desert.
In that instant, the fates of two men quietly diverged onto entirely different paths. On the distant horizon, the first light of dawn was breaking, but what they didn't know was that a far greater storm was just beginning to brew.