While Eric was waiting in the quiet luxury of the bar, deeply amused by his own impending plans for multiversal real estate, the sharp, rhythmic buzzing of his smartphone suddenly shattered his train of thought.
He pulled the device from his pocket, glancing at the screen.
The display flashed with an unknown number.
With a casual flick of his thumb, he swirled the last bit of ice in his Coke and brought the phone to his ear.
“Mr.
Eric,” a crisp, perfectly modulated British voice echoed from the receiver.
“It is Jarvis, Tony Stark’s personal AI assistance speaking.
Mr.
Stark needs your help urgently.”
Eric raised an eyebrow, leaning back against the plush velvet cushions.
“What does that rich bastard need now?”
“Mr.
Stark is dying,” Jarvis replied, the lack of typical robotic synthesized warmth making the statement drop like a lead weight.
Eric’s casual posture instantly vanished.
“What?
Is he at his house?
The Malibu mansion?”
“Yes, Mr.
Eric.
His vitals are critical and failing rapidly.”
“Okay, hold on.
I’m coming right now,” Eric said, hanging up the phone without waiting for a reply.
With a swift wave of his hand, Eric tore open a spatial portal right in the middle of the private booth.
As the tear in reality expanded, he couldn’t help but let his mind race.
What the hell could have happened to Tony?
According to his knowledge of the timeline, this shouldn’t be happening right now.
Let alone the fact that when Eric had rescued Tony in Afghanistan, he had completely pulverized the Ten Rings’ cave system into absolute dust.
He had left nothing behind—no scraps, no blueprints, and certainly no wreckage of a rudimentary Mark 1 armor.
Without those pieces, there was no logical way for Obadiah Stane to reverse-engineer a giant iron suit.
Furthermore, even if Obadiah was planning a coup, this assassination attempt was supposed to happen almost a month later.
Is it something different?
Stepping through the portal, Eric transitioned from the dim, warm light of the luxury bar directly into the sleek, high-tech subterranean workshop of the Malibu mansion.
Looking down, Eric found Tony Stark sprawling across the polished floor like a discarded, dead dog.
His skin was ghastly pale; a network of terrifying, deep blue veins pulsed violently across his neck, jawline, and face.
Eric stared at the sight for a brief moment, honestly wondering if Howard Stark had taken a secret, unrecorded trip to Jotunheim back in the day.
Was Tony secretly some kind of illegitimate, stunted child of a Frost Giant?
A long-lost, short-statured brother to Loki?
The icy, frozen blue resemblance was uncanny.
Kneeling down beside the billionaire, Eric performed a quick medical check.
Tony’s heartbeat had completely paused.
The glowing arc reactor was missing from his chest, leaving behind a dark, empty metallic socket in his sternum.
The localized paralysis device Obadiah had used had clearly done a devastating number on his nervous system, halting his vital organs.
Fortunately, Eric noted with a sigh of relief, Tony’s soul hadn’t actually left his physical body yet.
It was hovering right on the threshold, stubbornly clinging to the meat-suit.
No matter how much Eric planned to shamelessly use Tony as a slave- no, no, he meant a valuable corporate and technological asset for his future vanguard kingdom- he didn’t want to mess around with souls in this world if he could avoid it.
Eric reached into his dimensional inventory, pulling out a glowing, high-grade healing potion.
Uncorking the vial, he forced the magical liquid down Tony’s throat.
The effects were instantaneous and miraculous.
The terrifying, frosty blue veins began to recede, melting away back into the skin. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
A faint, natural rosy glow returned to Tony’s pale cheeks.
He still looked pale as a ghost, but a sharp, rhythmic gasp for air tore from his throat as his heart suddenly kick-started, beating wildly against his ribs once again.
But a restarted heart didn’t fix the giant, structurally hollow gap in his chest where the electromagnet housing sat.
If left alone, the stray shrapnel would still migrate and tear his heart to shreds within minutes.
Eric’s shadow on the floor suddenly liquefied, stretching and churning as a dense, dark aura flowed outward.
A tall, imposing hooded figure rose silently from the darkness, radiating a chilly, abyssal energy.
“Min Byung-Gyu,” Eric commanded casually, looking at the dark summon.
“Go heal him.”
Eric was naturally not a selfless, pure-hearted saint like Sung Jin-Woo.
He didn’t discard a shadow out of the goodness of his heart; he kept useful ones.
And a dead, S-rank elite healer was the ultimate insurance policy against unexpected mortality.
Min Byung-Gyu’s shadow stepped forward, its glowing hands erupting with a soft, vibrant green-and-white restorative magic.
The high-tier recovery spell washed over Tony’s broken body.
The cellular regeneration was nothing short of godly.
The ragged, metallic edges of the chest cavity began to knit together, the muscle tissue reformed, and the remaining surgical metal housing was violently rejected by the rapidly growing bone and skin, popping out onto the floor with a loud clatter.
The hole completely closed up, leaving behind perfectly smooth, unblemished skin.
Tony’s eyelids fluttered wildly, and he groggily forced his eyes open.
The very first thing his genius, concussed brain registered wasn’t the clean, familiar ceiling of his workshop.
Instead, it was a towering, terrifying shadow figure standing directly over his head, with eerie blue flames rising like a crown from its head and eyes.
“Shit…
there really is a hell,” Tony croaked out, his voice incredibly raspy and dry.
He blinked against the light, staring at the terrifying entity.
“I knew it.
I should have donated a lot more money to charity while I was still alive.”
“Yeah, honestly, dude?
I don’t think Heaven would have taken a guy like you anyway,” a deeply amused, highly sarcastic voice sounded from right beside him.
Tony hurriedly turned his head, wincing slightly as his muscles protested, only to see a very familiar, distinctly un-demonic face looking down at him.
“I knew it!” Tony gasped, pointing a trembling finger at him.
“You’re a high-ranking demon from hell!
You brought your flaming minion to harvest my soul!”
Eric rolled his eyes dramatically, stepping forward and planting a swift, entirely unceremonious kick right into Tony’s covered backside.
“Even the devils in hell would hesitate to let someone as annoying as you through the front gates.”
Tony groaned, rolling over on the floor and slowly pushing himself up into a sitting position.
“Get up, you lazy bum,” Eric said, crossing his arms.
“And tell me how exactly you ended up looking like a dead dog on your own living room floor.”
Hearing the question, the residual humor instantly drained from Tony’s face.
His expression distorted into a mask of pure, unadulterated fury, his eyes turning bloodshot with a mixture of rage.
“That bastard…
Obadiah Stane,” Tony spit out, his knuckles turning white as his fists clenched.
“He came over today.
I thought it was just a normal, casual visit.
But out of nowhere, that bald snake used some kind of high-frequency ultrasonic device that completely paralyzed my entire body.
I couldn’t move a muscle, couldn’t even scream.
Then he just smiled, reached right into my chest, and directly ripped the arc reactor right out of my body.”
Tony shook his head, staring blankly at the floor in utter disbelief.
He genuinely could not understand it.
He had treated Obadiah like absolute family, a surrogate father figure ever since Howard Stark had passed away.
“I mean, sure, he was privately thinking about permanently closing down the company’s weapon production line,” thoroughly confused.
“But that was just an internal thought.
It’s not like the guy can read minds, right?
How could he possibly know?”
Then, a sudden, terrifying realization hit Tony.
“Oh, fuck!
My arc reactor!
The shrapnel!” he panicked, his hands frantically flying to his chest, expecting to feel a gaping, bleeding void or the cold metal of his life-support system.
But as his fingers pressed against his shirt, he froze.
His eyes widened in absolute astonishment.
His chest was completely smooth.
There was no metal ring, no gaping hole, and not a single scratch or scar remained where a life-threatening vacuum used to be.
His head snapped upward, his eyes locked directly onto Eric.
“Yeah, I healed it,” Eric said with a lazy shrug, tossing an empty potion vial into the air and catching it.
“Consider it a partial repayment for that three percent of Stark Industries shares you sent over to my account.”
“How…
how can that even be possible?” Tony stammered, staring at his unblemished skin.
“And wait a minute, that three percent share was my official thanks for saving my skin from that miserable cave in Afghanistan!
Now you’ve literally saved my life all over again from actual, medical brain-death!”
“Great!
Then give me more shares,” Eric directly interrupted him, flashing a sharp, unbothered grin before Tony could finish his emotional, heartfelt speech.
Tony’s mouth twitched violently.
He stood there, completely paralyzed by a whole new kind of capitalistic dilemma.
Before this, his massive billionaire ego had kept him somewhat confident that he might have engineered his own escape from the Ten Rings cave even without Eric’s flashy magic, which is why he felt three percent was a perfectly generous tip for the trouble.
But this time?
He had been one hundred percent, undeniably dead on the floor.
Without Eric, he would currently be a cold corpse on an autopsy table.
A terrible internal conflict erupted in his mind.
If he offered too little, he would feel like an absolute cheapskate who valued his own life at a bargain-bin price.
But if he gave away a larger chunk of Stark Industries…
his actual heart ached.
All that money.
While Tony was trapped in a state of painful capitalistic deliberation, the smooth, British voice of his AI assistant suddenly echoed through the workshop speakers.
“Boss, although I deeply apologize for interrupting this highly moving financial negotiation, there is an urgent, pre-recorded voice message from Ms.
Potts.”
Tony snapped out of his trance, glaring up at the ceiling.
“What?!
Jarvis, why the hell didn’t you play that message earlier?!”
“I do not know, Boss,” Jarvis replied with a completely deadpan robotic delivery.
“Perhaps it was because you were dead.”
“What the fuck?
Who taught you to talk back to me like that?
I swear I’m going to downgrade your programming into a solar-powered calculator.
Anyway, skip the sass and run the message!”
A sharp crackle echoed through the workshop, and Pepper’s panicked, breathless voice filled the room: “Tony, I found something suspicious about Obadiah’s recent offshore transactions.
I’m going into his private database right now to investigate—”
“Fuck,” Tony swore loudly.