"Pepper, run!"
Tony shoved Pepper Potts toward the ergency elevator leading into the underground shelter.
"Tony!"
She barely had ti to react before Bug God smashed through the wall in a shower of concrete and twisted steel, landing directly in front of them.
Chunks of debris rained across the hallway.
But Tony had already slapped his chest reactor.
Nanotech armor surged over his body in an instant.
The Iron Man suit ford around him just as Bug God lunged forward.
The impact hit like a truck.
Tony was hurled backward, smashing through another wall before crashing into a support column hard enough to crack it down the middle.
"JARVIS," Tony muttered while shaking dust from his helt, "remind to reinforce the walls next ti."
Concrete fragnts slid off the armor as he rose back to his feet.
He raised his arm cannons toward Bug God.
Too slow.
Royal Ripper burst from the side corridor in a blur, twin blades carving across Tony's body in a single flash of motion.
The nanotech armor coating both of Tony's arms split apart instantly.
The severed armor fragnts scattered across the floor.
Fortunately, the suit itself was durable enough that the blades lost montum after cutting through the nanotech layers. Otherwise, Tony would've lost both arms.
Even so, cold sweat ran down his back.
That had been way too close.
"Demon-level monsters. Bug God and Royal Ripper."
Tony recognized both of them imdiately from the database.
What he didn't understand was why they were attacking like trained assassins.
Since when had monsters started using strategy?
"And don't forget !"
A massive rhinoceros humanoid burst through several more walls in succession, charging straight into the mansion like a living battering ram.
"Wrestler Rhino?"
Tony's expression darkened inside the helt.
Three Demon-level monsters?
The Monster Association really thought that highly of him?
"That's flattering and deeply annoying," he muttered.
Still, this wasn't hopeless.
They'd been fighting monsters long enough for Tony to develop counters.
The damaged nanotech rapidly regenerated over his arms before reshaping into weapons.
A pulse of blue energy erupted from his palms.
Royal Ripper charged directly into it without hesitation.
The beam punched straight through his torso.
Cleanly.
The monster staggered.
Bug God imdiately took his place, relying on his overwhelming durability as he drove a punch toward Tony's head.
Tony's right arm suddenly expanded, nanotech swelling outward into an oversized kinetic hamr. Multiple micro-thrusters ignited simultaneously behind the weapon.
The strike landed like a missile.
Bug God was launched across the mansion in a brutal full-body horun swing, tearing through walls as he disappeared into the distance.
Then Wrestler Rhino grabbed Tony from behind.
The monster planted his feet and tried to slam him into the ground.
Tony's boots instantly transford into cross-shaped anchoring spikes, locking him in place.
Wrestler Rhino couldn't move him.
At the sa ti, Tony's left arm reshaped into a vibrating energy blade.
He spun and slashed.
Sparks exploded across Wrestler Rhino's hide.
The cut barely broke skin.
Before Tony could follow up, Royal Ripper ca charging back in, twin blades flashing toward his neck.
A compartnt opened along Tony's back.
Several tallic pods fired outward.
The mont they struck Royal Ripper, they unfolded into swarming nanotech restraints, wrapping around the monster's limbs and pinning him in place.
Simultaneously, Tony's chest reactor blazed white-hot.
The unibeam fired.
Wrestler Rhino was blasted off his feet and sent crashing through the mansion.
Then Bug God returned.
A single elbow strike smashed into Tony's side hard enough to launch him across the room.
Tony skidded through shattered marble and wrecked furniture before stabilizing himself with thrusters.
"Three Demon-level monsters at once is a little excessive," Tony said. "JARVIS, where the hell is everyone?"
He continued firing repulsor blasts to keep the monsters from closing the distance. Even Bug God couldn't tank repeated direct hits without getting blasted backward.
"The other S-Class heroes are already en route," JARVIS replied.
"Great. Then I'll improvise until they get here."
Tony activated a hidden protocol.
Deep beneath the mansion, several dormant Iron Legion units powered on simultaneously.
Their eyes lit up one after another in the darkness.
Then the battlefield changed instantly.
Royal Ripper suddenly vanished.
One second he was struggling against the restraints.
The next, a blast of incandescent energy erased him completely.
No corpse.
No scream.
Just ash.
Bug God and Wrestler Rhino froze in shock.
Standing near the ruined hallway was another Iron Man armor holding an enormous weapon resembling a futuristic anti-armor cannon.
Bug God recognized it imdiately.
"That's Drex Valen's thermal fusion rifle!"
Tony blinked.
"Huh. You actually know what this is?"
Of course they knew.
The Monster Association considered Drex one of the most dangerous humans alive. He appeared unpredictably, vanished for months at a ti, and every weapon he developed bordered on absurd.
Dragon-level monsters were wary of his technology for good reason.
Royal Ripper had just proven why.
A Demon-level monster had been erased without even leaving remains.
Truthfully, Drex himself probably never expected Tony to reverse-engineer the weapon.
The thermal fusion rifle's core technology had never been publicly released.
Tony built one anyway.
Then another shot rang out.
A crack of electromagnetic thunder tore through the battlefield.
Wrestler Rhino's horn exploded apart instantly.
A fraction of a second later, the hypervelocity projectile punched through his body, blasted through the mansion floor, and detonated beneath the structure.
Half the estate collapsed.
Bug God only reacted after Wrestler Rhino's corpse hit the ground.
He imdiately dove for cover.
Tony glanced toward the smoking crater.
"Okay... maybe that was a little too much power."
The electromagnetic kinetic rifle fired sub-Kryptonian alloy rounds capable of penetrating multiple skyscrapers in a straight line.
Tony had already lowered the output specifically because he was fighting inside his own house.
Apparently not enough.
Bug God stared at him in horror.
This man was insane.
"Alright," Tony said casually. "What are you waiting for? Send him to hell."
At his command, dozens of Iron Legion units opened fire simultaneously.
Electromagnetic railguns thundered in unison.
Unlike the kinetic rifle, these weapons fired concentrated electromagnetic penetrators rather than ultra-dense projectiles. Individually, they were weaker.
Collectively?
Devastating.
The mansion's support pillars disintegrated first.
Then the walls.
Then the entire structure began collapsing inward.
Bug God hid within the wreckage, only to be shredded apart under the barrage. His armored body was riddled with holes as the remains of the estate collapsed around him.
Nearby, Pepper stood outside wearing an ergency evacuation armor, still visibly shaken.
She stared at the smoking ruins of the mansion in disbelief.
The entire estate was gone.
Flattened.
A lifeti of luxury vaporized in minutes.
And they'd just paid property taxes on it.
Pepper pressed a hand against her forehead.
She wasn't even sure insurance would cover "self-inflicted anti-monster artillery devastation."
Tony misread her expression completely.
"It's okay, Pep," he said gently, pulling her into a hug. "You're safe now."
At that mont, reinforcents finally arrived.
War Machine units and Iron Monger armors flooded the periter while the S-Class heroes descended on the scene one after another.
"Stark! Are you alright?!"
Tony looked at the smoking crater that used to be his ho.
"If you'd arrived any later," he said dryly, "I'd have had to rebuild the planet too."
But jokes aside, the assassination attempt sent shockwaves through the Divine Sword Bureau and governnts worldwide.
The Monster Association had finally made its move.
And this ti, they were hunting heroes directly.
User Comments
0 comments from readers