3000°C—this is the extreme temperature that these Extremis soldiers are so proud of. It's their limit, and also their most formidable weapon.
If they exceed this temperature by 10%, they lose control of the energy within them and become walking bombs. And if it exceeds 60%?
Blake had the answer—2000°C. This wasn't just a number.
"Now, can we talk about things we're interested in? Like, where is Killian's base? Where are Natasha and Pepper being held?"
After an awkward silence, Blake finally broke the ice with these words.
Of course, the awkwardness was directed at the Extremis female soldier and Maya Hansen, who was hiding behind Tony.
"Dream on! Go to hell!"
The female soldier's ferocity far exceeded Blake's expectations.
Faced with Blake's overwhelming strength, which surpassed hers by a wide margin, the soldier resolutely detonated the energy within her body.
Her entire body temperature skyrocketed, and the orange-red glow beneath her skin churned violently.
Her clothes instantly turned to ash.
"She's going to self-destruct!"
Maya Hansen finally came to her senses and shouted loudly.
"Hey! Let's talk this out! You don't have to go that far just because you can't beat me! Hey!"
Blake hadn't expected this woman to be so extreme. Ignoring his words, she instead clung to him like an octopus, her now entirely glowing orange-red body completely exposed.
"Sigh! Tony, why do you get a sweet scientist chasing after you, and I get stuck with... this?"
Blake could feel the energy within the soldier growing more and more volatile. He sighed helplessly and said,
Suddenly, a portal appeared beneath their feet, and with a whoosh, the two of them fell through it.
Seconds later, a thunderous explosion echoed from the wormhole.
Curious, Maya Hansen stretched her neck to peek inside, only to see a frozen wasteland on the other side. The portal opened hundreds of meters above the ground, and at the bottom was an icy crater, with Blake sitting in it.
Maya curiously reached out a finger, wanting to feel what it was like to pass through a wormhole.
But before she could, the portal slowly closed. A moment later, another door-sized portal appeared beside her, and Blake stepped out with a resigned expression.
"I should've just left that guy behind. Damn it, why are all of these maniacs so hot-headed?"
Blake plopped onto the couch in frustration. With a flick of his right hand, a cigar materialized between his fingers. Lighting it with a small flame in his hand, he took a puff and said,
"They're all soldiers who lost limbs on the battlefield. Society abandoned them, and it was Killian's project that gave them hope. They're filled with hatred for society and the government. There's no way they'd betray Killian."
Maya Hansen stared curiously at Blake's fingers and said,
"And what about you, Miss Hansen? You're a core member of their project, yet you don't know where Natasha and Pepper are being held? You don't even know where their base is?"
Blake exhaled a puff of smoke in Maya's face.
"Killian doesn't trust me. Ever since I discovered his true nature, he's met me at a different location every time."
Maya shrugged indifferently. Then, curious again, she asked,
"By the way, what was that fire thing you just did? Is it one of your powers? Why didn't you use it during the Wakanda battle? And that cigar—was it some kind of spatial manipulation, or did you just conjure it out of thin air?"
Now that the danger had passed, Maya Hansen was like a curious child, circling Blake with endless questions.
"Let's head back to the base. Hill might already have some answers," Tony interjected, worried about Pepper's safety.
Back at the base, Tony casually assigned one of the widows to show the curious Maya around.
Blake and Tony went straight to Agent Hill.
Hill was already prepared. Seeing the two approach, she turned her computer screen toward them.
"Killian—a relatively unknown scientist and businessman who owns multiple tech companies," Hill began.
"The most prominent of them is called AIM. This company has been involved in several classified projects with the military. In fact, Rhodey's War Machine suit had its operating system redesigned by this company."
"The network here doesn't have S.H.I.E.L.D. clearance, and the military's records are highly classified. I'm working on hacking into them, but it'll take some time," Hill explained efficiently.
"No need!" Tony waved her off, signaling her to stop hacking. He pulled out his phone and dialed Rhodey directly.
In some remote part of Pakistan, Rhodey was investigating a signal that Killian had deliberately sent out, supposedly revealing the Mandarin's location. Upon arriving, he discovered it was nothing more than a group of illegal laborers making clothes.
Rhodey, with his arm raised to signal the workers not to move, answered Tony's call.
"Tony? I'm in the middle of checking in with some folks. If you've got something, make it quick."
Glancing at the workers, Rhodey felt the situation was under control but kept his arm raised just in case.
"I need some critical data. I need your military network account and password!" Tony said urgently.
"The account is still the same—WarMachine68—but I've changed the password. You keep hacking into my database, Tony!" Rhodey complained.
"I won't do it again. Just give me the password now—I don't have time for this! I'm in a rush to rescue Pepper!" Tony snapped.
Feeling slightly embarrassed, Rhodey looked at the laborers in front of him and lowered his voice.
"The password is… WarMachineSuperAwesome!"
"Haha!" Tony, though in a hurry, couldn't help but laugh at the ridiculous password. Grinning, he turned to Hill and said, "You heard that? Get started!"
Rhodey hung up and, raising his arm even higher, sternly warned the chuckling workers, "Shut up! Or I'll blow your heads off!"
As the military's golden boy—and the only man besides Iron Man with a suit of armor (Blake's gear didn't count; at best, it was a full-body flight suit)—Rhodey had high-level clearance.
Hill quickly accessed the database and uncovered footage of human experiments.
Blake and Tony recognized the man and woman from earlier in the footage.
One had only one arm remaining, and the other had lost both legs completely.
In the video, as the experiments succeeded, their entire bodies turned into orange-red magma. From the stumps of their severed limbs, magma flowed and reformed into their original limbs. After cooling, their bodies returned to a completely normal appearance.
As for the failures, their bodies swelled uncontrollably and exploded into nothingness.
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