Boom!
The blast wave from the explosion spread across the empty wilderness. The silver Iron Man armor stood at the edge of a charred, smoking deep pit, the Repulsor in his palm aimed directly at it. Inside the pit, everything had already been incinerated into nothingness.
Jarvis's voice rang out inside the helmet: "Sir, sensors indicated that Obadiah Stane was completely deceased after the first repulsor blast. Is this really necessary?"
The Iron Man AI butler seemed confused by his master's behavior of double-tapping the corpse until not even ashes remained.
Tony lowered his arm and said, "Ever heard an old saying, Jarvis? You can never be too careful."
Jarvis: "I will keep that in mind, Sir."
It wasn't that Tony had some strange fetish for desecrating corpses. It was just that he knew deep down that in this hellhole called the Marvel Universe, a villain simply stopping breathing absolutely did not mean you could let your guard down.
First of all, he could be faking his death. Even if his heart appeared to be pierced, one could not be careless; in the Marvel worldview, there were definitely ways to survive without a heart.
Secondly, even if he really croaked, the possibility of future resurrection couldn't be ruled out. Destroying the body and scattering the ashes significantly reduced the probability of coming back to life. In fact, if cremation were mandatory in Marvel comics, many dead villains and even superheroes might lose their chance to pop back up like zombies.
Yes, although his name was still Tony Stark, he was no longer the original model. He was a transmigrator.
In his previous life, he was a promising young man from China who read a lot of web novels and anime. Although he had fantasized about transmigration, when it actually happened to him, it was quite a pain in the ass.
Soul-transmigrating into Tony Stark, the famous Iron Man, suddenly having endless money, luxury cars, and beauties—it sounded wonderful.
Well, that part was wonderful, but it would have been better without the deadly little piece of shrapnel trying to crawl into his heart every single moment.
Inheriting the identity of Iron Man naturally meant inheriting the shrapnel in his heart. If he left the chest reactor for even a short while, he would be done for.
Not only that, but the identity of Iron Man itself was a heavy burden.
There is a saying that if the sky falls, the tall guys are there to hold it up. However, the situation now was that he had coincidentally transmigrated into this "tall guy."
Various Marvel spin-off comics and animations had shown the possibilities of parallel worlds where "there is no Iron Man" more than once.
Facts proved that in a disaster-prone place like Marvel Earth, without Iron Man as a pillar, the world might be ruled by some supervillain, might be nuked, or might be turned into a slave colony by aliens...
In short, the results never looked very good.
So this was a headache Tony had to deal with right now. If he didn't do as well as the original Iron Man, even with just a slight error, he might end up doomed along with this world.
And what was even more of a pain was that just doing as well as the original probably wasn't enough. Because everyone knows that Iron Man heroically sacrificed himself in the battle against Thanos in Avengers: Endgame. A single snap brought down the curtain on Marvel's glorious decade and also ended his legendary life.
Moreover, that snap was called the "only possibility" by Doctor Strange, who had experienced 14,000,605 timelines. In other words, if calculated by fatalism, Tony was probably destined to die in that battle.
However, the current Tony was absolutely not mentally prepared to sacrifice himself for a world he wasn't even familiar with.
Of course, he didn't intend to just give up and rot, waiting for everyone to be doomed together when Thanos arrived.
So, after accepting the reality and facts of his transmigration, Tony set a small goal for himself.
Ten years.
Ten years later, in the Endgame, he would not only beat back Thanos but also achieve a perfect ending that even the original Iron Man never achieved.
He was going to survive the Endgame!
This was, of course, not a simple task. But following the movie plotline, if the story didn't deviate, there were still ten years before Thanos personally arrived on Earth. He had ten years to prepare for this.
He had made up his mind. During these ten years, he would make absolutely foolproof preparations. When Thanos came to Earth, whether it was artifacts, black technology, magic, or cheat-level superpowers—anything that could be used would be thrown at Thanos.
From landing to the coffin, a full-service package. He would inevitably give Thanos, a newcomer to Earth, the most "at home" experience.
Of course, this was something even the original couldn't do. Tony wouldn't arrogantly think he was stronger than the original Iron Man, and so far, he hadn't found any "System" or golden finger to rely on.
But a blessing in disguise was that, as a soul transmigrator, he had at least inherited most of the original Tony Stark's memories. This naturally meant he also acquired all the genius ideas in Tony's brain, as well as all the black technology that was fifty or even a hundred years ahead of the entire world.
In addition to that, he possessed the memories of a veteran Marvel fan from his previous life.
Tony Stark's knowledge, plus the memories of the movies and understanding of the plot—these were his only reliance to surpass the original and survive the Endgame through the layout of the next ten years.
"So, perhaps tonight's activities are over, Sir?" Jarvis asked.
"Almost. One last stop," Tony said. "Plot a flight course to Obadiah's villa for me... Oh right, I remember we found out he has a private secret laboratory. Mark that too, we'll visit it on the way."
Jarvis: "Pulling it out by the roots? Sir?"
After this period of adjustment, Jarvis had begun to get used to his master's new style of doing things recently.
In one word: Steady.
Tony's creed was either don't do it, or do it as thoroughly as possible. Since he had already made the move to kill Obadiah, the job had to be done cleanly.
Destroying the corpse and erasing the traces was just the first part. Next came Obadiah's residence and laboratory, Obadiah's accomplices in the attempted murder of Tony, the technology Obadiah stole, and so on. Every single one of them had to be destroyed.
Although the man was dead, Tony didn't want some wild kid popping out of nowhere in a few days, getting hold of Obadiah's leftover technology and assets, and becoming an Iron Monger II or some supervillain to seek revenge on him.
The silver armor soared into the sky. Gravel was ground into tornado dust under the propulsion flames, and the steel afterimage pierced through the clouds like a meteor.
"Speaking of which, Jarvis, Obadiah said just now that he wasn't the only one who wanted to kill me. Sounds like there are others who want my life."
Tony asked during the flight.
"Do you have any clue who those people might be, old J?"
"If you ask me, Sir?" Jarvis said. "If you want a list of all personnel worldwide who might be interested in your life, then with all due respect... the list might be very long."
Tony sighed: "You're right."
The armor dragged a tail of flame and disappeared among the stars of the night.