Marvel x Genshin: Mavuika, The Sun Goddess Rules Asgard — Chapter 174

Chapter 174: The Helpers You Found?

Jarvis’s voice was devoid of emotion, a stark contrast to the tension in the room. “Very well, sir. Executing.”

Tony turned his head, his gaze falling on Happy. “Happy, leave. Now. Get back to New York and have the hospital run a full diagnostic. Everything.”

Happy opened his mouth, a protest already forming on his lips, but one look at the unyielding expression on Tony’s face and he swallowed the words.

“Yes, boss.” He turned and walked towards the door. Just as his hand touched the handle, he paused and looked back, his worry plain on his face.

“Boss… be careful.”

Tony offered a dismissive wave. “Don’t worry about me. I’m not exactly alone.”

Happy’s gaze swept over Mavuika, Thor, and Loki, a silent acknowledgment passing between them. He nodded once, then pushed the door open and was gone.

The living room fell quiet, occupied now only by Tony, Mavuika, and the two Asgardian princes.

Tony sank onto the sofa, crossed his legs, and snatched the remote from the coffee table, flicking on the television. The screen immediately filled with the face of a news anchor, her voice trembling slightly as she reported on The Mandarin’s latest terror manifesto. In a split-screen window, a panel of experts was already engaged in a heated debate.

Tony changed the channel. The same broadcast. He changed it again. Still the same.

Across the entire United States, and indeed on media outlets all over the world, the same chilling video was playing on a loop.

“This guy certainly knows how to build momentum,” Tony remarked, the corner of his lip curling into a sneer.

Loki, having settled back onto his own sofa, picked up his now-cold cup of tea and took a contemplative sip. “Building momentum is one thing. Possessing the power to back it up is another entirely.”

Thor, with Mjolnir resting casually on his shoulder, paced back and forth across the spacious living room like a caged lion. “Do you think they will come tonight?”

Loki shot him a sideways glance. “If this ‘Mandarin’ is as arrogant as his performance suggests, he will. He cannot allow the world to witness him backing down after making such a grand provocation.”

Thor grunted in agreement. “Makes sense.”

Throughout their exchange, Mavuika had remained seated quietly on the sofa, her serene gaze fixed on the darkening sky outside the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Time stretched, each minute crawling by with agonizing slowness.

The sky had bled from dusk into true night. The streetlights of the exclusive villa district flickered to life, casting dim, golden halos into the darkness. In the distance, the sprawling lights of Miami glittered like a sea of fallen stars.

Tony remained on the sofa, a glass of whiskey cradled in his hand, the amber liquid untouched. His eyes were glued to the view outside, though his attention was elsewhere. Every few seconds, his gaze would drop to the smartwatch on his wrist—his direct link to Jarvis, monitoring every inch of the property in real-time.

“Sir, I’m detecting an anomaly,” Jarvis’s voice suddenly cut through the silence.

Tony set his glass down with a sharp clink. “Report.”

“Two helicopters are approaching the villa grounds. They are flying at an extremely low altitude and have not activated their identification transponders. Estimated time of arrival is under three minutes.”

Tony rose from the sofa and strode to the window. Thor moved to his side, hammer in hand, a silent sentinel. Behind them, Loki stood up, casually straightening the collar of his jacket.

Mavuika remained seated, but her eyes, deep and ancient, were now focused on the darkness beyond the glass.

“How many?” Tony asked, his voice low and steady.

“Thermal imaging shows eight to ten individuals on each aircraft. Sir, each passenger is exhibiting an abnormally high body temperature—averaging over forty degrees Celsius, with the highest reading approaching fifty degrees.”

Tony’s brow furrowed. Fifty degrees? That was a temperature no human body could possibly withstand.

Unless… they weren’t ordinary humans.

“The man who attacked Happy today also registered an extremely high body temperature,” Mavuika stated, her voice calm and clear. “His core temperature reached nearly three thousand degrees. It is likely these people possess the same ability.”

Three thousand degrees?

Tony’s pupils contracted. He knew the thermal tolerance of his suits down to the last decimal. Three thousand degrees was well beyond the operational limit.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, Tony walked to a corner of the room. There sat a sleek, silver suitcase he had brought with him from New York. He knelt, flipped the latches, and pressed a button set deep within the foam casing.

A few seconds later, Tony Stark was gone. In his place stood a gleaming suit of red-and-gold armor. The faceplate slid down with a hiss, and a soft blue light glowed where his eyes would be.

“Bring it on,” the synthesized voice of Iron Man declared.

The roar of helicopter rotors grew from a distant thrum to a deafening thunder.

Two black, unmarked helicopters materialized from the night sky, their running lights extinguished. They swept over the villa like a pair of monstrous birds of prey. The gale-force winds whipped up by their rotors thrashed the trees in the courtyard, bending them nearly double, while the surface of the swimming pool churned into a frenzy of violent waves.

The helicopters hovered directly above the villa. The cabin doors slid open, and a dozen dark figures began to descend.

Their method of disembarking was less a jump and more a human meteor strike. CRUNCH! One after another, they slammed into the manicured lawn and concrete patio, each impact cratering the ground and sending sprays of earth and shattered stone into the air.

They rose to their feet, casually brushing dust from their clothes as if they had merely stumbled.

Through his armor’s advanced sensors, Tony watched them, his jaw tight. A fall from that height would have shattered the bones of any normal person into dust. The sheer physical strength of these individuals was far beyond human limits.

There were fifteen of them in total. Men and women, all clad in identical black combat suits. Their skin glowed with an unnatural, dark red luminescence, and a evident, scorching heat radiated from their bodies. In the darkness, their eyes burned with a malevolent red light, making them look like fifteen demons clawed up from the depths of hell.

Then, one more figure leaped from the helicopter.

His landing was heavier, more devastating than the others. The ground beneath his feet buckled, collapsing into a pit half a meter deep.

He lifted his head, his gaze locking onto the floor-to-ceiling windows of the villa. A smile stretched across his face—a near-pathological, fanatical grin.

Killian.

Aldrich Killian.

The founder of A.I.M., the creator of the Extremis virus.

The Mandarin was nothing more than a fiction, a persona he had fabricated to sow terror, to capture the world’s attention, and to mask his true objective. He was the real mastermind, the architect of it all.

A dozen years ago, he had been a crippled scientist, brushed aside and humiliated by Tony Stark. He had stood on the roof of a skyscraper on a cold New Year’s Eve, the biting wind slicing through him, waiting all night for a meeting Tony never intended to keep.

He had waited until the first light of dawn broke over the city before leaving, utterly alone.

In that moment, he had sworn an oath: one day, he would make Tony Stark pay the price.

Now, that day had finally arrived.

Killian strode toward the front door of the villa and raised his hand. His palm began to glow, shifting from red to a brilliant, incandescent orange, like a piece of freshly forged iron.

With a gentle push, the heavy, solid wood door didn’t splinter or break—it instantly carbonized, crumbling into a cloud of black ash under the searing heat.

He stepped into the villa.

In the center of the living room, Tony stood waiting, his red-and-gold armor gleaming with a cold, metallic luster under the lights.

To his left stood Thor, Mjolnir held loosely in his hand, faint sparks of lightning flickering across the hammer’s head.

To his right stood Loki, arms crossed over his chest, a smirk of detached amusement playing on his lips.

And on the sofa, Mavuika sat, not having even bothered to stand. She held a cup of tea in her hand, taking a slow, deliberate sip, as if the intruders weren’t fifteen super-soldiers, but a group of lost tourists who had wandered in by mistake.

Killian’s gaze swept from Tony to Thor, then to Loki, and finally, it settled on Mavuika. He studied her for a moment, his brow furrowing slightly in confusion before his manic smile returned.

“Tony Stark,” he said, spreading his arms wide as if to embrace a long-lost friend. “Long time no see.”

His eyes flicked back to the others. “And a few unfamiliar faces. Are these the helpers you found?”