A chilling scene was unfolding inside an underground warehouse somewhere in New York.
With a wave of its hand, the Molten-Blood Demon sent more than a dozen Molten-Blood Seeds shooting into Justin Hammer and his bodyguards.
A chorus of agonized screams followed.
Moments later, Justin Hammer and the others had all been transformed into Demonspawn.
Waves of scorching heat rolled through the underground warehouse as demonic howls echoed from every direction.
Surveying the chaos, the Molten-Blood Demon erupted in a brilliant crimson glow.
To demons, chaos and bloodshed were the finest nourishment imaginable.
After a brief moment of consideration, the Molten-Blood Demon shoved a grotesque mass of fused blood and magma into Obadiah Stane.
The sight shocked Obadiah, but the instant the substance entered his body, he felt his strength surge.
More importantly, he could sense that he now possessed the ability to use flesh, blood, and magma to transform humans into Demonspawn himself!
[Emotion Points from Obadiah Stane +60]
[Emotion Points from Justin Hammer +40]
[Emotion Points from Lesser Demonspawn +1]
[Emotion Points from Lesser Demonspawn +1]
[…]
Obadiah was genuinely stunned.
He had never imagined that the grand promise he’d been sold would actually be delivered.
“Create chaos! Spread despair! When our kind descends upon this world, you shall receive even greater gifts!”
With those words, the Molten-Blood Demon unleashed a crushing pressure born of its bloodline.
The Lesser Demonspawn immediately dropped to their knees, utterly suppressed.
Even Obadiah was no exception.
Satisfied, the Molten-Blood Demon nodded before disappearing once more into the lava pit.
A long time passed before everyone finally returned to human form and climbed back to their feet.
Justin Hammer stared at Obadiah with a complicated expression.
He had never expected a demon to actually be summoned so easily.
“Don’t look at me like that, Justin. We’re in this together now. What we should be thinking about is how we’re going to create some chaos.”
“What is there to think about?” Justin asked.
“Just send them into the streets and have them kill a few people. That should cause plenty of chaos.”
“No, no, no.” Obadiah shook his head.
“If it were that easy, why wouldn’t the demons simply do it themselves? I still haven’t forgotten that knight who cut me down that day. There’s clearly a lot more going on in this world than we know.”
“So what are you suggesting, Obadiah?”
“We split them into groups and send them out separately.
America has no shortage of religious fanatics, and plenty of people are crazy enough to worship demons.
Have them leave New York.
Meanwhile, I’ll create more Demonspawn here.
“We strike from multiple directions. That’ll cause far more chaos than keeping everyone in New York and letting Iron Man and that knight wipe them all out at once.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do.”
Justin turned toward his bodyguards.
“I’ve been paying you people for a long time. Now it’s time you earned it. Create chaos. Draw Iron Man’s attention. Do that, and you’ll get even more money, and more power!”
Unlike Obadiah, Justin Hammer didn’t bother dangling empty promises.
He immediately threw more than ten million dollars onto the table.
The bodyguards’ enthusiasm soared.
“Understood, sir!”
Under Justin Hammer’s secret arrangements, more than a dozen Lesser Demonspawn soon began infiltrating nearby cities, while Obadiah remained in the underground warehouse to create still more Demonspawn.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Over the next several months, reports of demon sightings began appearing in cities across several states surrounding New York.
The reports were passed up through layer after layer of bureaucracy, but little was actually accomplished.
Before long, fear had begun spreading among the public.
Tony found himself developing a headache over the sudden explosion of demon sightings as well.
At first, there had only been a dozen or so reports.
But thanks to the lackluster response from local police departments, that number soon skyrocketed.
By now, the situation had grown serious enough to attract both the U.S. military and S.H.I.E.L.D.
Tony and Gawain had personally investigated several of the reported sightings, and the troublesome part was that some of them really did involve demons.
Several Demonspawn had already died at Tony and Gawain’s hands.
Unfortunately, gangs, drug traffickers, and cult activity across the region provided excellent cover for the creatures.
There was one silver lining.
Throughout the crisis, Iron Man’s rapid response capabilities and ability to deploy almost anywhere at a moment’s notice had attracted intense interest from the military.
As a result, Tony was once again summoned to a military hearing.
Already overwhelmed by the demon problem, Tony finally made a concession.
He personally designed a suit of armor for his good friend Colonel Rhodes and named it War Machine.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
One day, Tony was at Stark Tower, suiting up in his latest Iron Man Armor.
Gawain had already gone out to continue hunting for demons, and Tony was preparing to fly to a more distant demon sighting when a deafening explosion shattered his plans.
“J.A.R.V.I.S., what was that?”
“Sir, we have an intruder. The defense system is currently engaging the hostile. The nearest police precinct has already been notified.”
“Great. I haven’t even gone looking for the demons yet. What, did they decide to come looking for me?”
Tony shot into the air and flew out of Stark Tower.
To his surprise, however, the intruder wasn’t a demon.
It was a man wielding a pair of crackling electrical whips.
Whiplash, Ivan Vanko, had spent the past several months smuggling himself into the United States before finally making his way to Stark Tower.
Now, he had come for revenge.
Ivan lashed out with one of his whips, blasting open the entrance to the Stark Industries Campus, then charged inside.
He didn’t get very far.
The campus defense system stopped him before he’d even made it halfway through.
Seeing that, Tony descended until he was hovering closer to the ground.
“So what’s your deal?” Tony asked, studying him through the faceplate.
“Because I’m pretty sure I’ve never done anything to you.”
He was certain he’d never met this man before.
And with Ivan Vanko’s appearance, he wasn’t exactly the kind of guy someone easily forgot.
Ivan didn’t answer.
He simply swung an electrical whip straight at Tony.
Tony barely reacted.
Just before the whip could strike him, a brilliant blue energy shield flashed into existence and blocked the attack cold.
When the first strike failed, Ivan wrapped his other whip around one of Tony’s luxury cars and hurled it at him.
The thrusters beneath Tony’s feet flared, sending him effortlessly out of the vehicle’s path.
That, however, clearly pissed him off.
“Holy shit. Okay, apparently somebody needs to calm down.”
Tony surged forward.
His fist slammed squarely into Ivan Vanko’s face.
Ivan went flying several yards before crashing to the ground, his head spinning from the impact.
To his credit, the man was tough.
Ivan gritted his teeth, forced himself back onto his feet, and swung another whip at Tony.
Tony caught it.
Then he yanked.
Ivan was ripped off his feet and flung away, crashing down hard enough that this time, he wasn’t getting back up.
Tony walked over and pulled the Arc Reactor from the device mounted on Ivan’s chest.
The moment he saw it, he fell silent.
It looked almost identical to one of his own previous generation Arc Reactors.
Tony’s brow furrowed beneath the Iron Man helmet.
“Where did you steal this technology?”
He was confident that no one else in the world should have been capable of independently developing Arc Reactor technology yet.
At Tony’s question, Ivan suddenly burst into laughter.
He admitted that he’d underestimated Iron Man.
But the Arc Reactor technology?
That was absolutely not stolen.
“Tony, you and your family are thieves!” Ivan snarled.
“You’re the ones who stole it!”
Tony stared at him.
What the hell was this guy talking about?
Before Tony could question him further, however, the police came rushing onto the scene and hauled Ivan Vanko away.
When someone with Tony Stark’s money and influence called the cops, apparently the response time became remarkably efficient.
And so, Whiplash’s grand revenge ended in spectacularly miserable fashion.
He hadn’t even managed to scratch Tony before getting arrested.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
After several months of Demonspawn wreaking havoc, Evan Mercer’s Emotion Points had finally broken past the one million mark.
Which meant one thing.
Evan could now open an Earth-Tier (𝐈𝐈𝐈) Chest.