Tony Stark paced back and forth in his workshop.
The tap-tap-tap of his expensive, handmade leather shoes on the cold floor sounded like an out-of-tune metronome, grating on his nerves.
“Jarvis, report,” he said, his voice carrying a hint of suppressed irritation.
“Sir, external surveillance on Mr.
Obadiah Stane has been ongoing for seventy-two hours,” the AI butler’s voice echoed through the workshop.
“No encrypted communication records with suspicious armed militants in the Middle East have been detected.
All external financial flows remain within the scope of normal business activities.
Conclusion: there is no direct evidence.”
“No evidence again,” Tony muttered, stopping abruptly with a quiet curse.
He walked over to a holographic console and swiped his hand.
A folder expanded in midair, containing only a single email from a decommissioned port he had flagged with the highest threat level.
—[Obadiah is your enemy.]
—[He wants the ‘heart’ in your chest.]
This prophecy was like a splinter buried in his flesh—not excruciatingly painful, but a constant reminder of his three-month living hell.
Ever since the incident in Queens, his view of Leon Hall’s “prophecy” had shifted from mere skepticism or curiosity to an intelligence source that had to be taken seriously and verified.
He believed Leon Hall’s “diagnosis,” but Obadiah Stane, that old fox, was simply too good at covering his tracks.
Decades of friendship, a paternal figure who was like family, and a founding member of Stark Industries.
If the contents of that email were true, he was facing a massive shadow that had been operating in the very heart of Stark Industries for decades.
An enemy like that wouldn’t leave such easily detectable slips on the outside.
He was like a man chasing a ghost; you knew it existed, but you couldn’t even touch its shadow.
This sense of powerlessness left Tony feeling utterly frustrated.
He wasn’t a cop or a secret agent.
His domain was creation and problem-solving.
Yet now, he was stumped by a purely human problem.
“An advisor holding the script to the future…” Tony muttered to himself, rubbing his temples.
In the end, he still picked up the unmarked black encrypted phone.
Perhaps it was time to hear the opinion of that “professional” once again.
…
Queens, the Divination Parlor.
Leon Hall sat behind his familiar old wooden table, his eyes closed in meditation.
He was digesting the subtle feedback gained from playing the “diviner” over the past few days, while also waiting for the big fish that was bound to bite.
He knew Tony would definitely come looking for him again.
An arrogant genius accustomed to crushing everything with technology would feel a sense of frustration stronger than anyone else’s once he realized his “crushing force” was completely useless against something.
The encrypted phone rang right on schedule.
“It seems your investigation has hit a dead end, Mr.
Stark,” Leon Hall said calmly as he picked up.
“I’d prefer to call it a technical bottleneck,” Tony’s slightly weary but still stubborn voice came from the other end.
“I feel like I’m chasing a ghost—one that has hidden itself in the fog.
I can’t find a trace of him.”
Leon Hall did not reply immediately.
In his mind, he clearly presented his “question” to the boundless gray fog.
A chill crept up his spine, accompanied by the sensation of peering into the fundamental rules of the universe.
A few seconds later, he opened his eyes and spoke slowly, his tone as though he were stating an absolute truth: Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
“Mr.
Stark, your approach is wrong.”
“You can’t catch the ghost because you’ve been chasing the shadows he leaves outside, far from his nest.
With every step he takes, he cleans up his own footprints.”
Tony fell silent on the other end.
Leon Hall continued in his emotionless, outsider-like tone:
“The beast in the nest is licking its bloody paw prints clean, bit by bit.
You should look inside his den to see what he hasn’t had time to clean up.”
“His…
den?” Tony’s voice trembled slightly, a telltale sign of a Flash of Inspiration.
“Your eyes are looking too far away,” Leon Hall calmly provided the final guidance.
With that, he hung up, giving Tony no opportunity to ask further questions.
It was better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish.
Leon Hall understood that he didn’t want to be a mere information broker.
He wanted to be an expounder of “rules,” a guide of “methodology.”
Only then could he bind his own value tightly to Tony Stark, a pivotal figure of Earth’s future.
Upgrading from a problem-solving “prophet” to a direction-giving “strategic advisor”—that was his true goal.
…
Malibu, inside the workshop.
Tony stood frozen in place, holding the disconnected phone.
“The nest…
inside his den…”
“Cleaning up footprints…”
“Looking too far away…”
He chewed over these phrases repeatedly, and a brilliant light suddenly burst in his eyes!
Of course!
He had been investigating external elements the entire time!
Communications, funding, personal relationships…
these were all “shadows” that Obadiah Stane could easily disguise and clean up!
Where was his actual “den”?
It was his office at Stark Industries, his personal server, the internal network he assumed was absolutely secure!
A beast’s guard is lowest when it is inside its own nest!
“Jarvis!” Tony’s voice instantly became excited and sharp.
“Stop all external surveillance!”
“Right now!
Immediately!
Change the direction of the investigation!”
He rushed to the holographic console, staring wide-eyed at the screen.
His hands moved continuously as line after line of information flowed before him, reflecting in his increasingly bright eyes.
“Jarvis, abandon all external data stream tracking!
Concentrate all computing power on Stark Industries’ internal servers!”
“Target lock: Obadiah Stane’s personal system privileges!
Dig deep into his hard drives!
Strip it layer by layer and restore all deleted, overwritten, and formatted data!”
Right now, I want to see what shameful secrets this old fox is hiding in his den!”
“Yes, sir.”
Jarvis’s voice responded immediately.
The lights in the entire workshop dimmed for a fraction of a second, a sign that the computing core had allocated all power to this single task.
A massive stream of data cascaded down the screen in front of Tony.
Jarvis began to penetrate the database of an account that theoretically shared the same system privilege level, digging deeper than ever before.
Time passed minute by minute.
Ten minutes.
Half an hour.
An hour.
Tony just stood there, motionless, staring intently at the rapidly flashing code on the screen.
Finally.
“Sir,” Jarvis’s voice sounded, this time carrying a sense of certainty after data processing completion.
“In the low-level physical sectors of Mr.
Obadiah Stane’s personal server, I have found a heavily overwritten and deleted encrypted file fragment.”
“Data restoration is seventy-three percent complete…
performing 3D model reconstruction.”
A second later.
A massive blueprint of a mechanical suit, filled with violent aesthetic appeal, abruptly appeared in the holographic projection before Tony.
It was much larger and cruder than Tony’s Mark II.
Filled with clunky hydraulic rods and weapon mount points completely devoid of aesthetics, it looked like a bloated, monstrous iron beast.
And in a corner of the blueprint, a project codename was scribbled—
“Iron Monger.”
Every expression on Tony’s face vanished in an instant.
There was no angry roar, nor any shocked questioning.
There was only a cold, abyss-like silence.
His gaze slowly drifted from the crude armor to the small, blue-glowing Arc Reactor in his own chest.
On the design blueprint of the Iron Monger, the chest area also had a large circular cavity reserved for housing a reactor.
—[He wants the ‘heart’ in your chest.]
Prophecy, evidence, and motive.
At this moment, they formed a perfect, closed loop.
The workshop was so quiet that he could hear his own heartbeat.
Tony slowly closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, the last trace of hesitation and warmth had completely vanished, replaced by a coldness capable of freezing steel.
He picked up the black encrypted phone and dialed Leon Hall’s number.
His voice was so steady that it betrayed no emotion, as if nothing had just happened.
“I’ll deal with the beast in the nest myself.”
“Now, let’s talk about your reward.”
He paused, squeezing each word out through his teeth.
“Give me that ‘Ancient Ballad of Homecoming.'”
“The Triton can’t wait.”