"Colonel Rhodes, what happened to you this afternoon? Ah..."
Before the President could finish his sentence, Rhodes pushed him directly into the wormhole.
Pepper was visibly uneasy about becoming an Extremis-enhanced warrior and worried she might accidentally harm Tony due to her inability to control her temperature. Tony gently comforted her in a soft voice.
Natasha suddenly stepped forward and hugged Blake tightly.
"Blake, although I know I shouldn't be thankful to that bastard Killian, I want to say this: the organs inside me, the ones that were removed when I was in the Red Room, have been restored. It feels strange, but… I don't know… Am I now a complete woman again?"
Leaning on Blake's shoulder, two tears rolled down Natasha's cheeks and landed softly on his shoulder.
"Blake, I understand Natasha's condition. The Extremis virus is fundamentally a malformed genetic modification; it has no perfect, stable form. I'll cure both of them. By then, Natasha will be no different from a normal woman!"
Tony spoke calmly as he led Pepper over.
"Alright, alright! Let's see this as a blessing in disguise, shall we? Stop crying. Besides, there's no immediate danger here. Once I take care of that bastard Killian, we'll head back together!"
Blake gently pushed Natasha away as he spoke.
"Blake! Leave Killian to me. I've thought it through—this whole ordeal was caused by me. I should be the one to finish it. Besides, I need this victory to give myself some sense of security."
"Alright!"
Blake waved his hand, shutting the wormhole. With their respective women by their sides, they flew directly onto a cruise ship.
At the same time, Thor used his lightning to finish off the last enemy. The group landed together on the deck, surrounded by a ring of Iron Man suits hovering in midair around the large vessel.
"Sir, I've scanned an intense heat source beneath the ship's deck. It seems to be the only human left aboard aside from you all. Should I eliminate him immediately?"
Jarvis's voice came through.
"No need. Just send someone down to relay a message. Tell him I'm waiting for him on the deck. Just the two of us, one-on-one. He'll come up, for sure."
As expected, for Killian, nothing was more tempting than defeating Tony Stark.
Besides, knowing escape was impossible, he wouldn't pass up even the slimmest chance to turn the tables.
When Killian appeared on deck, he was no longer the confident, poised man who had everything under control.
His suit jacket was nowhere to be seen, his neatly combed hair was now a disheveled mess, and his T-shirt was stained with dirt and grime.
Looking at the utterly disheveled Killian, Blake suddenly recalled a line from a movie he had once watched.
"I liked you better when you were that arrogant guy at the start, Killian!"
"You see that big guy over there with the hammer? He killed quite a few of your henchmen. His brother, Loki, is the one responsible for the Wakandan War, a trickster God of Asgard—a brat who's always talking about conquering the world."
"You know what makes you different from him? He's just a kid who hasn't experienced the real world, filled with naïve fantasies. But you? You're just an ignorant fool who doesn't know his limits."
Blake's gaze at Killian was full of disdain. If it were any more obvious, he might have spat on the ground in front of him.
It wasn't that Blake enjoyed mocking endlessly, but he genuinely disliked people like Killian.
It had nothing to do with whether he was a villain. It was similar to his irritation with Nick Fury, who constantly talked about global security.
"You can't represent the whole world. Don't impose your own values on others."
Killian is no exception. Whether it's seeking revenge, being mentally unstable and wanting to destroy the world, or having the ambition to conquer it—just do what you need to do. Why drag in all this unnecessary nonsense and preach your values? Blake was utterly fed up with that.
Having spent so much time in this world and hanging out with the so-called Avengers, Blake had indeed gained a greater sense of responsibility compared to before.
But at his core, he was still just an ordinary guy—a socially awkward nerd, or perhaps no different from the common folks.
Killian, enraged by Blake's words, lost control of his temper. His body temperature began to spike, flames igniting from within his T-shirt and engulfing him in a fiery blaze.
"Calm your fury. Your flames pose no threat to me. Today, your opponent isn't me—it's him!"
Blake took a step to the side, revealing Tony standing behind him.
"I know—I was a pretty big jerk over a decade ago. Honestly, I still am sometimes. But no matter what, that doesn't justify what you've become. I'm giving you a chance, Killian. Surrender, and I'll remove the virus from your body. Then you can face justice under the law!"
Tony's gaze was complex. After learning the full story, he couldn't help but feel a twinge of guilt about the situation.
However, to Killian, Tony's expression looked like mockery and disdain, making it more infuriating than all of Blake's earlier words.
"Spare me your fake pity, Stark. All I want now is to burn that smug, hypocritical face of yours to ashes."
With those words, Killian lunged at Tony, skillfully dodging a repulsor blast mid-charge.
In the blink of an eye, Killian was in front of Tony. With a quick pivot, he slipped behind him, wrapping his right arm tightly around the waist of Tony's suit and moving seamlessly under the armor's arm.
The entire sequence of movements was fluid and precise, executed with incredible speed. It was clear he had rehearsed this scenario countless times in his mind.
From behind, Killian grabbed Tony, his hands pressing firmly against the arc reactor on Tony's chest.
Both of Killian's arms turned a glowing orange-red as his body temperature reached its peak.
"Here's a little secret: my stabilizer is different from everyone else's. I can withstand much higher temperatures—up to nearly 4,000 degrees Celsius."
"Gold-titanium alloy? Let's see how long you can last," Killian sneered.
His hands flared even brighter as his ten fingers dug into the edges of the arc reactor, aiming to melt through the suit and disable its power system.
"You know, I probably should've mentioned this earlier: this suit is made of vibranium. You'd need at least 6,000 degrees to melt it—plus, I added two layers of thermal insulation paint."
As Tony's calm voice echoed, two slender vibranium blades—about ten centimeters long and a few millimeters thick—popped out from the arms of his suit.
Without any effort, the blades sliced cleanly through Killian's arms, severing them in an instant.
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