After walking for about three hours, Yinsen started counting his own footsteps.
Tony walked up ahead, taking short but rapid steps, leaving footprints spaced as evenly as if they had been measured with a ruler.
Yinsen followed behind.
After counting a dozen steps, he realized his stride was shorter than Tony’s—and getting shorter by the minute.
“Slow down a bit,” Yinsen said.
Tony didn’t turn around.
“I’m walking very slowly.”
“One of your steps equals one and a half of mine.”
Tony glanced back and slackened his pace.
“Like this?”
“Slower.”
Tony slowed down a bit more.
Yinsen stepped into his footprints for a dozen paces until the spacing matched.
Yinsen nodded with satisfaction.
“That works.”
Tony turned back to keep walking, but after a few paces, he suddenly asked, “You’ve been watching footprints this whole time?”
“What else is there to look at besides footprints?
The desert?”
“Isn’t the desert nice?”
“It’s nice.
But I’ve been looking at it for three hours.”
Tony chuckled and didn’t reply.
Lucas followed about ten paces behind.
It was a distance he had carefully calculated—it covered the movements of the two men ahead within his field of vision while leaving enough room to react.
He knew Tony occasionally looked back to confirm he was still there, but he didn’t close the gap.
Walking too close would place conversational pressure on him, while walking too far would make Tony and Yinsen anxious.
Ten paces was just right.
After another hour of walking, the sun climbed higher, and thermal currents began to shimmer across the desert surface.
Tony stopped to take off his jacket, while Yinsen squatted next to a rock half-buried in the sand to wipe away his sweat.
Lucas stopped a few paces away, facing the direction they had come from for two seconds to confirm there was no unusual activity.
He then stepped into the shadow of the rock, sat down, and unclipped a batarang from his waist, wiping its edge with his thumb.
Tony’s gaze drifted over.
“Why are you wiping that?”
“Sand getting into the joints affects its balance.”
“You wipe it every time before you use it?”
“Before and after.”
Tony watched him sheath the blade.
“Did you make that yourself?”
“Yeah.
When I have tools.”
“No tools now?”
“None in the desert.”
Tony nodded and didn’t press further.
About forty minutes later, Tony stopped at the crest of a sand dune, squinting into the distance.
“People ahead.
Three of them.”
Lucas passed him, squatted at the top of the dune, and looked out.
Two hundred meters away, three men in sand-colored robes were moving along the edge of the dunes.
The distinct outlines of hard objects were visible at their right hips and shoulders, matching the gear worn by the men in the cave.
A search patrol from the Ten Rings, positioned right along the mandatory route to the highway.
Lucas squatted in place and listened for a few seconds.
The wind was blowing east, carrying sound to the west; he couldn’t hear their exact words, but from their body language, they were advancing along a fixed patrol path. Visit novelping(.)com for the full chapter.
If they kept walking forward, they would encounter Tony’s group head-on in about twenty seconds.
He turned to Tony and Yinsen, offering just two words: “Wait here.”
He stood up and moved down the side of the dune, using the terrain to close the distance from the left.
He paused roughly thirty meters from the targets, crouching behind a rock to observe for five seconds.
He had memorized all three of their positions and postures—two standing and talking, one crouching down to tie his boot.
All had guns at their waists, but in such a relaxed state, their reaction time would be delayed by a fraction of a second.
He rose from behind the rock, his cape expanding in the wind before pulling back tightly.
He closed the distance in three long strides.
Before the crouching guard could look up, the sharp edge of a batarang swept across the side of his neck.
Lucas caught the guard’s collar with one hand before the body could fall, laying him down gently on the sand without making a sound.
The second guard turned just as his companion collapsed, his hand barely touching the gun at his hip.
Lucas had already lunged in, driving his batarang upward under the man’s jaw with a reverse grip.
The guard’s fingers stiffened against his holster as his body fell backward; Lucas supported the back of his head and eased him to the ground.
The third guard drew his pistol, but it was too late to aim.
Lucas was already a step away.
He swept his left hand upward to push the barrel away and shoved his batarang between the guard’s third and fourth ribs, driving it diagonally up into the chest cavity.
The guard’s breath hitched for a moment before his entire body went limp.
Lucas released his grip, letting the guard fall onto the sand.
He knelt, checking each man’s pulse to confirm they had all stopped.
He then dragged the corpses into a depression and covered them with sand until they were hidden from sight.
Within a few hours, the shifting sand would completely erase any surface tracks.
He retrieved his three batarangs, wiped the blood clean on the sand, clipped them back to his waist, and walked back up the dune.
Tony and Yinsen were still standing where he had left them.
Tony watched Lucas walk back, then looked toward the dune—the three men were gone, and the sandy surface had been smoothed over by the wind, leaving no trace behind.
“You took out all three?” Tony asked.
“All three.”
Tony was silent for a moment, then remarked, “I thought since you were cosplaying Batman, you’d adopt his no-kill rule.
Guess not.”
Lucas clipped his last batarang into his belt and raised his head to look at Tony.
“First of all, I’m not cosplaying Batman.
Second, you don’t fully understand Batman’s no-kill rule.”
Tony tilted his head.
“So what’s your rule?”
Lucas stood at the edge of the dune, his cape fluttering as the wind blew from the side.
He looked toward the highway, then withdrew his gaze.
“There’s nothing wrong with the no-kill rule itself.
But that principle relies on a society with laws and prisons to take over afterward.
Gotham has prisons, courts, and police.
Even if the system is corrupt, at least the framework exists.”
He paused.
“There’s nothing here.
This is a desert.
These men belong to an armed organization.
I don’t know how many people they’ve kidnapped, but if they go back alive, they’ll be out searching again tomorrow, finding another captive and continuing what they’ve always done.
Their society doesn’t have prisons to handle them.
There are only two options: let them go, or kill them.”
Tony listened in silence.
Yinsen stood beside him without interrupting, though he didn’t look away either.
“I don’t like killing,” Lucas said.
“But if this environment forces me to choose between two options, I’ll pick the one that lets you and Yinsen make it to the highway alive.”
Tony remained quiet for several seconds before nodding.
“Makes sense.”
“Argument for what?
You could’ve taken a detour, but that would’ve meant forty extra minutes of walking, wasting energy and water.
You could’ve knocked them out, but they would’ve woken up, returned to their camp, and come back with a more precise search area.
You chose the most efficient option.” Tony spoke without judgment, merely stating facts.
“I don’t agree with everything you do, but your judgment is sound.”
Lucas glanced at him and didn’t reply.
A system prompt flashed briefly at the edge of his vision.
[Behavior aligns with roleplay logic: Batman’s shell, but the host’s judgment.] [Role Completion: 25% → 27%.] [Evaluation: Principles are not dogmas, but judgments based on context.
Continue.]
Lucas withdrew his gaze, turned, and strode toward the highway.
Yinsen followed behind for a few steps before finally asking, “What were you thinking about when you moved back there?”
Lucas didn’t turn around.
“I was thinking about whether you two had enough stamina to walk another forty minutes.”
Yinsen was silent for a few seconds and asked no more.
After walking for over an hour, Tony stopped and pointed ahead.
“The highway.”
A weathered strip of greyish-white asphalt stretched across the desert.
The road surface was severely cracked, with weeds growing through the fissures and a few black cables hanging from a leaning utility pole nearby.
Tony walked over briskly, squatted beneath the junction box, and popped open the cover to examine the wiring inside.
“I can splice this.”
Lucas didn’t approach the pole.
He walked to the edge of the highway and stood facing the direction they had come from, his cape draped behind him.
From this position, he could monitor both directions of the highway and the horizon across the desert.
The three corpses behind the dunes were completely invisible now, buried under another layer of loose sand blown by the wind.
Behind him came the sound of Tony snapping the junction box cover shut.
“Signal sent.
JARVIS will pinpoint our location in six hours at the earliest.”
Lucas withdrew his gaze, walked over to the embankment on the other side of the road, and sat down about four paces from Tony and Yinsen.
Leaning against the base of the pole, Tony glanced over at him.
“Done standing?”
“Stood long enough.”
The three of them sat by the highway in the twilight.
The wind slowed, and the temperature began to drop.
Lucas pulled his cape tighter, leaning against the weathered rock as his gaze swept across the horizon beyond the road.
After sitting on the embankment for a moment, Yinsen suddenly spoke up.
“Why didn’t you just broadcast an emergency distress signal?
You’re Tony Stark.
Your name alone is enough to get half a military base out here looking for you.”
Tony didn’t move.
His voice came from the side, carrying a chill caught in the dying breeze.
“Call who?”
“Any military base.
If the US military in Afghanistan hears the name Stark, they’ll send helicopters immediately.”
Tony was silent for two seconds.
When he finally spoke, his pace was slower than usual, as if assembling fragments before letting them out.
“When I broke out of that cave earlier, there were dozens of crates of ammunition stacked at the entrance.
All Stark Industries stock.
Clear serial numbers, batch numbers, manufacture dates, logistics codes—all printed right on them.”
Yinsen didn’t interrupt.
“Those things shouldn’t have been in a cave in Afghanistan.”