“Who the hell is this?” Sharon Carter’s brain went over these four words repeatedly; her CPU was about to burn out.
She glanced down.
The man was still holding her waist.
A yellow suit, a floral shirt, crooked sunglasses, and a smile on his face that was hard to describe—he radiated an aura that said, “Although I saved you, you owe me a favor.” No.
It was even more ridiculous than that.
He was radiating an aura of “Although I saved you, you should be swooning over my handsomeness.” Sharon’s snarky comments were lined up in her brain, waiting to be fired.
She had been saved, her life was spared—that was fine.
The problem was.
The one who saved her was an uncle who looked greasy enough to be a topping for a cold dish.
What was the meaning of this?
God, what kind of joke are you playing on me?
Luke raised an eyebrow.
He noticed Sharon’s silence and that subtle, indescribable stiffness on her face.
This expression…
Something wasn’t right.
Luke mused to himself: Could she be stunned by his dashing arrival?
That made sense.
A hero saving a damsel, after all; it was a standard reaction.
He cleared his throat, pushed his sunglasses up, adjusted to a more mature and steady angle, and spoke seriously.
“Although I saved you, things like offering your hand in marriage—” “Can you put me down?” Sharon interrupted quickly and crisply.
Luke’s words stuck in his throat, and he didn’t even have time to finish his sentence.
“…Fine.” He let go, Sharon’s feet touched the ground, she steadied herself, stepped back half a pace, and put a safe distance between them.
Luke looked at that half-pace.
Accurate to the centimeter.
Well-trained.
But that wasn’t the problem.
The problem was the speed at which she stepped back.
That speed was filled with disgust.
Luke’s mind raced.
That’s not right.
This reaction was clearly disgust.
Impossible.
No exaggeration, the face he got after transmigrating was model-tier.
The facial proportions were the golden ratio, the jawline was clean and sharp, the nose bridge was at the perfect height—a standard handsome Asian face.
He had checked it in the mirror no less than forty times.
Forty times.
He was satisfied every single time.
How could he be disliked?
Luke pushed his sunglasses down two millimeters and stared at Sharon through the gap.
“You don’t recognize me?” Sharon wrinkled her nose.
“Why should I recognize you?
Have we met?” Luke was silent for half a second.
Sharon stared at him.
To be honest, she was grateful for being saved.
But.
This person’s appearance…
how should she put it.
It wasn’t ugly.
It really wasn’t ugly.
It was just that, at first glance, you’d think this person wasn’t a good guy.
With this face, this outfit, and the angle of his crooked sunglasses, no matter how you looked at it, you’d think he was about to pull a stack of business cards from his pocket and tell you he was a gold-medal salesman for some resort.
This wasn’t about her being a princess or anything.
It was just that the other person, with this look, you just…
Think about it.
Think about it carefully.
Luke stood on the rooftop, the wind blowing the hem of his yellow suit.
He pondered for two seconds, and a terrifying thought flashed through his mind.
Could this Admiral outfit have a hidden effect?
A face-changing feature?
Appearance masking?
He looked down at his yellow suit.
That shouldn’t be it…
This was the standard combat uniform of an Admiral.
No one told him that his face would become ugly after putting it on?
Was this forcing him to debut?
Luke pushed his sunglasses down and walked two steps in front of Sharon.
“As your savior, I will ask you a question now.” Sharon stepped back half a pace, vigilant.
“How would you judge my appearance?” The air went quiet for a moment.
Sharon opened her mouth.
“Your…
appearance?” “Yes, objective evaluation, be realistic.” “Hmm…” Sharon tilted her head, stammering, “It’s okay…
I guess…
uh…” Enough.
Luke understood.
The seconds of hesitation, the shifting gaze, the vague wording—all things considered, the impression wasn’t very good.
He took a breath and pushed his sunglasses back into place.
“Fine.” He turned and strode toward the edge of the rooftop, his coat flared by the wind.
“Stay here, don’t do anything.” Luke turned his head and glanced at Sharon from the corner of his eye.
“I’ll handle this crisis.” Sharon was stunned.
“You—” He had already jumped.
The kind of jump where he flipped directly off the edge of the rooftop.
Sharon rushed to the edge to look down.
She saw nothing.
…
On the street.
The Iron Monger’s mecha roared, the thrusters running at full power, and the giant metal arm was raised high.
Tony lay in the ruins, the armor mostly shattered, the joint actuator in the left arm completely destroyed, and the servo motor in the right knee making a harsh grinding sound.
He tried to prop himself up, but as soon as his elbow exerted force, his whole arm slipped, and he fell back down.
“You can’t do anything, Stark.” The Iron Monger looked down from above, his metal footsteps treading on the rubble, each step carrying a dull vibration.
“What your father couldn’t do, you can’t do either.” The Iron Monger stopped in front of him and looked down at him.
“Now—” The muzzle charged.
The blue light gathered for the third time.
“It’s over.” The Repulsor Ray blasted toward the ground.
The entire street was torn up, concrete blocks, steel bars, and dust exploded everywhere, the Impact spread out, and the exterior glass of buildings within thirty meters was shattered.
Smoke rolled.
The Iron Monger straightened up, the system scan results fed back, life signs vanished.
He laughed.
“Finally—” “How scary~” The Iron Monger’s smile froze in place.
In the smoke, a voice with a drawn-out ending drifted out, oily, lazy, and carrying a sense of relaxation that was extremely uncomfortable.
“I just wanted to live a peaceful life, but you monsters, you’re really more terrifying than the last~” The direction of the voice was the blast center.
Right in the center.
The Iron Monger’s thermal imaging system captured a silhouette in the smoke: humanoid, standing, upright, motionless.
The smoke cleared.
A man stood there.
But it wasn’t the yellow suit from before.
Luke was wearing a crisp white Admiral uniform, double-breasted with gold buttons, thick epaulets, and a straight, upright collar.
His face was clean, wearing the same sunglasses, but his aura had completely changed.
Behind him, a white cloak hung naturally.
There was nothing on the front of the cloak.
On the back.
Two large Chinese characters.
Justice.
Pure black, written on a white background, the brushstrokes showing ink marks, powerful and vigorous.
Luke rubbed his chin and looked down at the crater at his feet; the floor tiles at the bottom of the crater had melted, but the spot where he stood was intact.
Elementalization.
Can you attack light?
The Iron Monger’s system issued three warnings.
First: Target not eliminated.
Second: Target armor level—unable to identify.
Third: Target combat power assessment—data overflow.
“You—” Before the Iron Monger could finish his sentence, his scanning system suddenly captured another anomaly.
On the right, fifty meters away, on the rooftop of a half-collapsed building— Tony Stark was sitting there.
Alive.
Intact.
His armor was still shattered, and he was still half-paralyzed, but he had been transported from the blast center to the rooftop.
The Iron Monger’s system couldn’t provide any reasonable explanation.
The previous strike had hit.
Thermal imaging had confirmed that there was only one life sign within the blast center.
If Stark wasn’t in the blast center, then who was the person who took that blow head-on in the blast center?
The Iron Monger slowly turned his head, staring at the man in front of him wearing the white uniform with two red characters he couldn’t understand written on the back.
Luke lifted his sunglasses.
Tony sat on the rooftop, half of his leg dangling and swinging over the edge.
His condition was: body intact, brain crashed.
A moment ago he was lying on the ground waiting to die, and the next second he was sitting on the rooftop feeling the breeze.
What happened in between?
He didn’t know.
He had no idea.
The only thing he was sure of was that someone had moved him.
He looked up.
He saw the figure in the white military uniform in the middle of the ruins facing the Iron Monger, hands in his pockets, his posture ridiculously relaxed.
Is this even human???!