“Give me your brain, and I’ll swap it for a better one.” “Ghost brain, activate!” “Fasten your seatbelts, folks—we’re driving fast.” “Kids, don’t overthink this—this is grown-up stuff.” …
Kunar, Afghanistan.
The sunlight was scorching, and dust drifted through the parched air.
Among the yellowed mud-brick buildings, locals wearing turbans and carrying holstered pistols navigated the noisy, bustling market.
On the second-floor balcony of one mud building, a withered cactus sat beside the railing.
A burnt-out cigarette was stubbed out and casually flicked into the air, tracing an almost imperceptible arc through the blistering heat before falling into the throng below.
A moment later, a cry of pain and a string of curses echoed from the street.
Some lucky soul had had his turban set on fire by the glowing ember.
He threw his hands into the air, shouting angrily in the local dialect.
To onlookers, however, the gesture looked like a passionate proclamation—almost fanatical, like a frantic prayer.
And so, the misunderstanding escalated.
The next second, gunfire erupted—a fierce *tak-tak-tak-tak* that lasted for about half a minute.
Then, peace restored itself once more.
“My, my, why are there fireworks so early in the morning?” The perpetrator, Green, reclined on a lawn chair on the balcony.
Not a shred of guilt showed on his handsome, cold-cut face; instead, he wore a smirk that suggested he hadn’t heard enough.
He was shirtless, wearing only a pair of floral swim trunks as he bathed in the natural sunlight.
A sharp, blade-like scar ran down from the corner of his lip, adding an irresistible touch of harshness to his appearance.
Flawless serratus muscles rose and fell with his breathing alongside abdominal muscles glistening with a fine sheen of sweat.
He was Green Morgan—a prime youth of twenty-first-century Earth who loved money, loved women, and loved having fun.
Aside from studying, he had no bad habits.
Now, he was pretty much the same: he loved money, loved women, and loved killing.
Aside from studying, everything he did was a bad habit.
When he arrived in this world, he brought along a [Template System].
His starting template was [Heavenly Tyrant].
Killing raised his growth level, and killing powerful beings raised it even faster.
He had no aversion to killing.
The first person he slaughtered was the truck driver who had sent him to this world—he had executed a massive leap, plastered his body over the entire windshield to block the driver’s vision, and caused the truck to smash through the guardrail and plunge into the sea.
A real one-for-one trade.
Upon arriving in this world, he didn’t receive any special treatment either.
As an abandoned Asian child who had barely set foot in an orphanage, he was instantly put on the chopping block.
If he hadn’t been ruthless enough and quick enough with a blade, he probably would have been shipped off to Epstein’s island.
Every “benefactor” he met along the way ended up slaughtered and turned into experience points.
That was how he had survived to this day.
Now, he operated as a temporary mercenary, taking on whatever job came his way.
Case in point: SHIELD had assigned him a mission to “Save Private Stark.” On the side, he had also accepted Obadiah Stane’s bounty to “Kill Stark.” It all depended on who paid more.
*Beep, beep.* The communicator on the table rang.
Green picked it up and pressed answer.
“This is Nick Fury.
Have you found Tony Stark’s exact location?” “There are more warlords here than condoms by your bedside table.
I have to check them one by one, don’t I?” “…Hurry up.” The line went dead on the other end.
“Hurry up your ass,” Green sneered.
He closed his fist, and with a sharp *crack*, the communicator shattered into pieces, dropping scattered parts onto the table.
His direct handler was Hill, not that bald egg.
Did Fury think anyone holding a communicator could order him around?
Just then, shouts echoed from downstairs.
Green knew the time had come.
He stood up, pulled the door open, and stooped to squeeze his frame through the narrow doorway.
Across the large bed in the bedroom, several stunning women with shapely figures lay sprawled in various poses.
Naked beneath thin sheets, their skin glistened with a healthy wheat-colored sheen in the sunlight—a clear sign of heavy exertion from the night before.
He hadn’t called them over himself.
They were gifts from the Ten Rings to their buyer, Mike Thomson.
Mike Thomson was the fake identity Green was using this time.
It had taken considerable effort to establish contact with the Ten Rings, but they had too many strongholds.
He couldn’t be bothered to search for them one by one, nor did he want to startle the snake in the grass.
So he had simply enjoyed himself while waiting for them to lose their patience and contact him directly.
“I really sacrifice way too much for America,” Green, the patriot, lamented to himself.
Tony Stark was a major taxpayer in America.
Saving him was equivalent to saving America—the logic was sound.
Taking out a spare set of clothes from his duffel bag, he changed into them.
The rest of the bag was packed tight with US dollars.
He zipped it up, weighed it in his hand, and without a trace of lingering interest in the room, picked up the bag and walked downstairs.
A convoy of several vehicles was parked horizontally across the road at the entrance.
Over a dozen armed men were scattered around, guns in hand.
He casually tossed the bag of money to one of them while another pulled open the rear passenger door.
A black cloth hood was shoved over his head, and he was forced into the vehicle.
The door slammed shut, and the convoy slowly rolled out.
Green felt the bumps in the road, silently counting the time in his head.
Roughly an hour and a half later, the vehicles ground to a halt.
The door opened, and two men hauled him out.
When the hood was ripped off, the blinding, merciless sunlight forced him to squint.
They were surrounded by a desolate valley scattered with vast quantities of heavy weaponry stamped with the logo of Stark Industries.
Over a hundred armed combatants watched him like hawks, their gun barrels subtly trained in his direction.
In less than two hours, the drop from a cozy bed to a criminal den was something an ordinary person could hardly endure; most would have panicked or broken down.
Green, however, did not.
“Fuck me.
Who the hell used that cloth over my head as a seat cushion?” he spat in annoyance.
“Shut up!” one of the militia members shouted, raising his rifle.
“What?” Green bared his teeth in a smirk, slanting his gaze at the leader approaching them.
“Do your men always talk without using their brains?
Or are they just high out of their minds?” The leader didn’t answer.
He merely flashed a look to the side.
A militia member holding Green’s duffel bag stepped forward and unzipped it.
The leader glanced down, and his face instantly broke into a massive grin.
“Hahaha…
My dear Mike, don’t be angry.” He stepped up and clapped Green on the shoulder, not giving a single glance to the subordinate who had raised the gun to show off.
“B…
Boss?” Sensing the off shift in the atmosphere, the gunman lowered his weapon and looked at his comrade in confusion.
*Bang!
Bang!
Bang!* A salvo of bullets instantly turned him into a sieve.
The corpse was promptly dragged away and dumped to the side.
“Those girls last night were pretty nice, weren’t they?” The leader slung an arm around Green’s shoulders affectionately.
However, given Green’s height of 195 centimeters and his utterly natural posture—as if he were stepping into his own backyard—the leader, who had to stand on tiptoe to reach his shoulder, looked more like an obsequious crony trying to flatter him.
“Very wet!” Green replied without the slightest modesty.
“Glad to hear it!” The leader burst into laughter.
The two of them began chatting crudely like old brothers, walking side by side into the cave.
Of course, the prerequisite for all this was that Green had already disclosed during their initial contact that he knew Tony Stark was in their hands, and that he had brought no weapons for this trip—only that bag of cash.
Otherwise, he would likely have been hung up and dried into a corpse in an interrogation room long ago.
Sincerity, nerve—he lacked neither.
No warlord would refuse a businessman like him.
Deep inside the cave, Tony Stark was bare-chested and sweating profusely as he hammered away at an anvil.
A red-hot piece of iron took shape beneath his hammer, faintly resembling the outline of a mask.
He used tongs to pick up the mask and plunged it into cold water.
A sharp *hiss* erupted as white steam surged into the air.
At that moment, the balding Dr.
Ho Yinsen rushed in.
The moment he entered, he scrambled to pull a waterproof tarp over several machinery parts.
“What’s wrong, Yinsen?” Tony asked, puzzled, but stepped forward to help anyway.
“The leader is coming over with a young man…
and from the leader’s flattering attitude, I suspect he might be the true head of the Ten Rings,” Yinsen said in a low, rapid voice.
“Shit.” Tony didn’t dare hesitate; he immediately accelerated his movements.
Less than two minutes later, Green and the leader walked in, followed by several armed guards.
“What are you two doing?” The leader’s eyes darkened, staring suspiciously at the two sweating, flustered men.
“Maybe we interrupted their ‘fun,'” Green remarked from the side, a sharp glint flashing in his eyes.
“Oh, ho ho ho…
So Tony Stark is into this kind of thing too?” The leader realized, taking a couple of quiet steps back.
Tony Stark was also observing Green.
Yinsen had called him the “leader,” but Tony inclined toward thinking he was a “buyer.” Yet at first glance, Tony felt Yinsen might actually be right.
A burly, leanly muscular frame, a tight black short-sleeved shirt, and loose white pants.
He habitually stood in the shadows where the yellow electric bulb couldn’t reach, his eyes narrowed into long slits like a lurking wolf.
Tony noticed that since entering, the man had swept his gaze across his throat, heart, and other vital areas no less than four times.
“So, how about it?
The order you wanted will be completed soon.
Is my credibility good enough for you?” The leader turned his head.
He had brought Green in because he wanted to bind the man to the same boat; Tony Stark’s value was too immense, and he didn’t believe the faction behind Green wouldn’t be tempted.
“Of course it’s good,” Green said, reaching out to rest his hand on top of the leader’s head.
“With them here, my mind is at ease.” Just as the leader wondered what this gesture meant, a sharp snap rang from his neck bones—like a bottle cap being twisted off.
His head was rotated a full three hundred and sixty degrees.
In his final moment, he saw his own back, as well as the horrified faces of his subordinates around him.