Because he hadn't yet built the Jericho missile that the Ten Rings had requested, Tony was currently getting a good beating from several burly Afghan men.
His assistant, Dr. Ethan, fared even worse...
The bald leader was about to stuff a red-hot piece of coal into his mouth.
Seeing this, Tony had no choice but to shout that he still needed Ethan, otherwise he wouldn't be able to build the Jericho missile to threaten the other side.
And this trick really worked; the bald leader's movements actually stopped.
But the bald leader also gave Tony a final deadline.
If he still doesn't see the Jericho missile he's been longing for by tomorrow, not only will Ethan die, but Tony himself won't escape death either!
As it turns out, Lock Parker, this little butterfly that stumbled into this universe, did eventually influence Tony.
In the original movie, Tony had a full three months to build the first generation of the Iron Man suit.
But now, only two months after Tony was kidnapped, he is facing a death threat from terrorists that would have occurred three months later in the original story.
This left Tony feeling utterly dejected after the terrorists left...
Because forget about assembling a complete Iron Man suit by tomorrow, he hasn't even finished building all the parts, let alone the internal wiring system...
Even Ethan, Tony's mentor, who had been comforting and encouraging him for the past two months, which was why Tony had been able to persevere until now, couldn't help but fall silent.
Although he wasn't a professional in the Iron Man armor field, he was well aware that it was still a long way from the complete Iron Man armor depicted in Tony's blueprints...
Ethan slumped weakly to the ground and looked at Tony:
"Tony, what do we do?"
Tony sighed and shrugged:
"What else can we do? Forget about the armor, even if I assembled the Jericho missiles they wanted right now, it would be too late..."
"So, in my opinion, we should just grab a wrench and wait at the door tomorrow. When that bastard comes in, we'll give him a good whack on his bald head. That way, at least we can take one of them with us!"
Seeing Tony still in the mood to joke at a time like this, Ethan smiled helplessly:
"Please, Tony, you know this is impossible. We have surveillance cameras here. Do you think he's stupid enough not to see us lying in ambush at the door?"
Tony's mentality had already started to give up:
"Otherwise, what else can we do? If we don't fight with a wrench, are we just going to sit here and wait to die?"
Ethan wanted to give Tony a negative answer, but he couldn't think of any other way to escape.
Therefore, after half a day, he could only manage to utter one sentence:
"You're Tony Stark, the smartest man in America, and perhaps even in all of humanity. Can't you use your explosive brain to come up with a more dignified way to win than fighting them with a wrench?"
But Ethan's casual remark actually gave Tony an idea, and his eyes lit up:
"Wait! Ethan, you just said explosive, right? You're a genius!"
"I've actually thought of a way to die more gracefully!"
"Remember all the explosives we secretly collected before, and the fuel we planned to use for the jet flames on the armor after the MK1 was completed?"
"I can modify them into a hybrid incendiary bomb and blow those sons of bitches of terrorists up in the cave tomorrow!"
Ethan:???
Ah?
Did I just say that you should go down with the terrorists and perish together?
But Ethan had no other choice at that moment.
Compared to being tortured to death by terrorists, being burned alive was indeed the most dignified way to die...
What's more, it could also take away a group of terrorists!
Both of them were science-oriented men and action-oriented; they did what they said they would do.
Upon hearing the idea of modifying incendiary bombs, they immediately threw themselves into the work with great enthusiasm...
In the monitoring room, the bald leader smiled with satisfaction as he watched the two men working with great enthusiasm.
Sure enough, a mule won't work properly unless it's given a good whack; it only knows how to slack off!
Meanwhile, Lock Parker, sleeping on the back of a hill not far from the cave, was completely unaware that his intrusion had caused so many changes...
Tony was even going to modify the Iron Man suit he used for escape into an incendiary bomb for self-destruction...
As evening approached, the sky gradually darkened.
Lock Parker finally woke up from catching up on sleep he hadn't had in the past few days.
After waking up, he first looked at the sky and estimated that it would be completely dark in less than an hour. Then, he slowly pulled out a bag of compressed biscuits and a bag of water from his tactical vest and began to eat them slowly.
Once Death had eaten its fill, it would be time for its scythe to reap heads...
By the time Lock Parker finished eating the biscuits, the night had completely fallen.
Lock Parker took his hood out of his tactical vest and put it on.
When the night vision function was turned on, the pitch-black night turned into a clear green in Lock Parker's eyes.
Meanwhile, the Ten Rings terrorists outside the cave below, thanks to the heat-sensing function of his hood and eyes, became conspicuous red figures amidst the green surroundings.
Wearing a pure black combat suit, concealing the scarlet suit inside, and even with a black hood, Lock Parker blended seamlessly into the night!
Scarlet Suit (Tactical Limited Edition) Spider-Man, here he comes!
With the right timing and location, the hunt begins!
Whoosh!
Lock Parker's primary target was the sentry on the watchtower.
The sound of spider silk is much quieter than a gun silencer, and the sentry on the watchtower didn't even notice that the spider silk was stuck to the structure.
Lock Parker, who swung along the web, weighed a full three hundred pounds but landed on the watchtower without making a sound.
The sentry on the watchtower didn't even realize someone had come up behind him until Lock Parker snapped the guard's neck from behind.
From his vantage point, Lock Parker found it much easier to deal with the other terrorists patrolling outside the cave.
It was just a simple target-shooting game where he silently hung terrorists in the dark using spider silk, like teru teru bozu.
The adage "FPS players never look up" also applied to the Afghan terrorists, whose focus was entirely forward.
Even after Lock Parker hung all the terrorists outside the cave on the watchtower like teru teru bozu, not a single person noticed anything amiss.
With the terrorists guarding outside the cave dealt with, those inside posed even less of a threat to Lock Parker.
Because the Ten Rings had placed their heavy weapons and ammunition outside the cave, and those people were already hanging.
Lock Parker estimated that the most powerful weapon the remaining terrorists inside might have left was their AK-47s.
And that was indeed the case.
As Lock Parker leaped down from the watchtower and crawled like a spider along the cave ceiling, he saw no one carrying a weapon that posed a real threat to him.
Lock Parker didn't hold back either. As he went deeper into the cave, he either snapped the necks of the terrorists who were chatting, joking, eating, or standing guard, or used spider silk to trap them on the wall before crushing their skulls.
Soon, Lock Parker quietly eliminated all of the more than one hundred members of the Ten Rings.
For Lock Parker, ordinary people in the dark were far too vulnerable; it was no more difficult than stepping on insects.
Even the bald leader, in the only decent office in the cave with a computer, was interrupted by Lock Parker's intrusion while celebrating the coming Jericho missile, becoming a truly desperate captain...
After confirming that there was no one else alive in the entire cave except himself, Tony, and Ethan, who were imprisoned in the deepest part, Lock Parker slowly walked toward the iron door that held his fifty million dollars.
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