Chapter 151. Whiplash

Tony recognised the man who appeared in front of him.

It was Ivan Vanko who had previously attacked him in Monaco.

"How did you get out?"

He clearly remembered that he had captured the other party. 'How did he suddenly appear here, and ...'

Looking at the armoured robots surrounding him and the others, Tony's expression was heavy. Due to the palladium poisoning, he hadn't put too much effort into upgrading his own armour. At this time, he was wearing the Mark 4 he had previously developed, the one he had worn during the battle with Abomination.

Although this one was good, it obviously had many flaws, and it wasn't as strong as desired in terms of combat capabilities.

"You have more enemies than you know, Stark."

In response to Tony's question, Ivan grinned an ugly smile and replied in a hoarse voice.

Tony: "Justin Hammer? "

Ivan Vanko: "..."

Under the helmet, Tony raised an eyebrow and pointed behind I can, "I can clearly see the Hammer Industries logo on the robot behind you."

Looking back, Ivan glanced at the robot behind him.

In that instant, Ryan clearly saw Ivan's rough face looking embarrassed.

"Time to die, Tony Stark!"

With a low roar of annoyance, Ivan's helmet closed around his face, and he swung his arms. The two whipcords wrapped around his battle armour's arms produced a ferocious electrical surge. They slammed to the ground, causing a terrifying electrical blast.

"Still the same attack, huh?" Tony subconsciously complained as he saw the cables in Ivan's hands.

He remembered that earlier in Monaco, his opponent was also wielding two rudimentary whipcords, trying to kill him. Now that this guy had upgraded his equipment, he didn't expect him to use the same attack as he did before.

"As long as I can kill you."

With a blank expression, Ivan gave the command, and the motionless robot battle armours around him turned their guns toward Tony and the others.

Faced with the immense firepower from the robots', Tony hastily turned to shield Natasha, knowing full well that with the strength displayed by the immortals, Master Roshi wouldn't be afraid of these bullets. However, Natasha was different. Despite being a top agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., he subconsciously treated her as an ordinary human being.

Natasha raised an eyebrow at the way Tony had shielded her from the bullets. Although she didn't think she would be hit by a bullet so easily, Tony's actions made Natasha change her opinion about him and she adjusted her assessment of Tony a little.

"Looks like you need to call for backup, Miss Agent."

"No need."

Shaking her head at Tony's suggestion, Natasha rolled sideways, away from Tony's protection and threw a seemingly insignificant disc at a robot armour in front of her.

Glancing down at the disc affixed to its foot, the simple AI programming of the robot armour couldn't quite make sense of the situation. In the next moment, a strong current erupting from the disc instantly struck the robot's body, directly knocking it out of action.

"I can fight on my own."

Successfully eliminating a robot battle armour, Natasha turned her head and gave Tony a challenging look.

"All right."

Shrugging his shoulders, Natasha's repeated actions made Tony react. The woman in front of him was not as delicate as he thought she was. On the contrary, the other party, as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., wasn't necessarily confident that he could defeat her without his suit.

Withdrawing his gaze from Natasha, Tony looked to the other side but was immediately drawn to Master Roshi's battle.

Unlike Natasha, who needed to dodge and look for opportunities, the immortal's fighting style was even simpler and brutal. With a speed that even Jarvis couldn't fully capture, he flashed to the side of a robot armour. Then, with a wave of his fist, he directly destroyed the core of the robot armour in its head.

In the blink of an eye, over five or six robot armours were easily destroyed by the immortal.

Although the clone only possessed a quarter of [Tien Shinhan]'s strength, it was obvious that these robots still couldn't defeat him. They had lost control without even landing a single touch on the clone.

"Where are you looking, Stark? "

The strength displayed by Natasha and the clone placed some pressure on Ivan. He swung his whipcords at Tony without hesitation.

Facing the menacing blow from Ivan, Tony quickly piloted his suit into the air and raised his palm to fire the blaster. However, Ivan's control over his whips was far beyond Tony's expectations. With a twist of his hand, the cords wrapped around Tony's body. In the next second, the electricity from the cord and the sheer force of it pulled him straight out of the air and slammed him to the ground.

"So that's all you can do, Stark." Looking at Tony, who had been brought down with a single blow, Ivan spoke in stiff English. He continued to swing the whip in his hand.

Noticing the whip cracking sound coming from behind him, Tony rose from the crater and rolled over to avoid the whip.

Turning around, a wave of energy that was gathered in his chest was fired at Ivan.

The powerful blast forced Ivan to take several steps back.

Against the blast, Ivan controlled the leg of his armour to eject a solid bracket to hold his body in place. Then, he raised his armoured arm to swing the whip at Tony's body.

Snap --

Zizizi --

Due to a violent electric current, sparks flashed and the blast from his chest abruptly stopped.

Tony glanced down at his suit and saw a scorched black whip mark running down his chest, from his shoulder armour to his waist. The miniature arc reactor in the centre, the most important source of power for the armour, was flickering on and off, signalling a terrible possibility.

This attack from Ivan caused serious damage to the miniature arc reactor on Tony's armour.

"Sir, damage to arc reactor at 60%. Unibeam has also been damaged. It has been rendered inoperable ..." Jarvis delivered the bad news to his ears at the exact moment.

"Any weapons left?"

"Two shoulder and arm miniature rockets... Sir, I need to remind you that the arc reactor is still losing power..."

"Looks like you ran out of tricks, Stark." As a physicist himself, Ivan saw Tony's predicament. Under his steel mask, his rough face revealed a sinister smile. He raised his whip once more and shot a powerful electric current toward Tony.

"Then it's my turn!"