Chapter 31: Chapter 31
A large area of extremely cold air engulfed Tony in an instant. When the air dissipated, Tony had been frozen into an ice sculpture.
The grenade blew up a huge hole in the road. The road surface was torn open, with a crack several inches wide stretching over more than ten meters. Gravel was scattered everywhere, making the scene look messy.
The drivers on the highway covered their ears in horror, staring at the scene. The French police's emergency line was almost overwhelmed.
Tony looked at the readings in his suit in surprise. The outer surface temperature of his suit was now as low as minus 40 degrees Celsius. Thankfully, after improving the suit post-Mark II, it could withstand such extreme low temperatures. This minor issue didn't bother him.
The reactor in Tony's chest lit up rapidly, and the hard ice shell around him melted at a visible speed.
Meanwhile, the air combat mecha's telekinetic shield had already been restored to its original state. Luke cast the telekinetic shield again.
"How did you recover so quickly?" Tony asked, surprised.
He couldn't help but wonder what kind of reactor Luke was using. In terms of energy supply, it seemed no weaker than his own Arc Reactor.
The two stood facing each other, over 20 meters apart, not continuing the fight for now.
Tony was silent as he looked at the 1.2-meter-tall mecha before him. The difficulty of this battle had far exceeded his expectations.
The combat capabilities demonstrated by Luke's mecha—melee combat, machine gun fire, grenade launching—were on par with the Mark V. At least for now, after several rounds of fighting, both sides realized that it would take some time to determine the winner, and neither could decisively defeat the other.
Luke had given up using the shock grenade. Whiplash had confirmed it wouldn't work against Tony.
Luke was envious of the high-end materials in Tony's suit. Tony was a material-piling enthusiast and used the best materials in every version of the Mark suit.
After this battle, aside from a few bullet marks and charred skin from the grenade explosion, the Mark V's external armor remained mostly undamaged and could continue to fight.
Tony was also envious of Luke's strange defensive force field. It wasn't that he hadn't researched this kind of technology, but it was full of challenges. There were many technical difficulties he couldn't solve at present. He really wanted to know how the creator of this mecha managed to do it.
At that moment, the sound of roaring engines filled the air. Two fighter jets appeared in the distance—the French Air Force had deployed fighter jets.
Tony and Luke had brazenly entered French airspace without permission, and radar had detected them.
At first, this might not have been a big deal, but the two were fighting openly, in full view of the public, on a highway, causing massive damage and creating a very bad impression.
The French government, which had planned to ignore the incident, could no longer sit idly by. They sent two Dassault Rafale fighter jets from a nearby air base and attempted to contact the two men on all channels.
Tony had heard the call but was too lazy to respond. He was busy exchanging punches and kicks with Luke at that moment.
As for Luke—sorry, he couldn't receive the call. He didn't even install a radio in the air combat mecha…
Seeing that things were escalating, the French military couldn't ignore the situation anymore. They recognized Tony and immediately opened fire on Luke.
A Rafale fighter swooped down from a low altitude, launching a Mica missile. The missile, trailing a fiery tail, zoomed toward Luke.
A rapid alarm blared inside the mecha, and Luke immediately controlled the mecha to take off and soar into the sky at high speed.
The missile chased relentlessly, finally catching up with him. With a loud BOOM, a burst of fireworks exploded in the air.
Before the fireworks had even dissipated, and the French military hadn't even had time to determine whether the target had been destroyed, a silver-white shape emerged from the explosion—it was Luke.
The air combat mecha was unharmed, the energy shield having blocked the missile.
Luke, like a streak of white lightning, pursued the Rafale fighter that launched the missile.
"What's he planning to do?" Tony said, his voice filled with uncertainty as he watched Luke chase the fighter jet. Was he really going to shoot down the French plane?
Though Tony was very confident in his abilities, he would never provoke the military like that, especially over a disagreement. Shooting down their fighter jets would cause a lot of trouble.
But that's exactly what Luke was planning to do.
He wanted to shoot down this fighter!
The air combat mecha's supersonic cruise speed could reach an impressive Mach 2.5, which it could maintain for over 10 minutes.
If it weren't for the material limitations of the mecha's outer shell, powered by colorless small crystals, the air combat mecha could maintain this top speed the entire time.
The French Dassault Rafale's normal supersonic cruising speed was around Mach 1.4. The gap between the two was clear.
Luke quickly closed in on the two returning fighters.
The pilot of the fighter was shocked when he saw the scene on his radar. After reporting the situation to the base, he turned and saw the white mecha waving at him outside the window.
Luke threw a punch, shattering the cockpit glass of one of the fighter planes and pulling the pilot out of the cockpit along with his seat.
"Kill him! Luke!" Ross cheered from the mecha's cockpit. What Luke was doing was exactly to his liking and made his blood boil!
But Luke shook his head, turned on the mecha's speaker, and said to the pilot, "Remember to open your parachute when you go down." Then he tossed the pilot out of the fighter from a great height.
"Learn from me and give people some hints in advance. This is called humanitarianism," Luke said seriously to Ross.
Luke then destroyed the Rafale fighter's cockpit with another punch. Four machine guns on the mecha's shoulders began firing, and the fighter exploded into a fiery ball in the air!
Tony stood frozen on the ground, dumbfounded.
The other Dassault Rafale quickly sped away in fear. Luke didn't bother to chase it.
Anyone could see that conventional fighter jets stood no chance against this kind of futuristic combat mecha. It was no wonder the U.S. military envied Tony's Iron Man suit.
After shooting down a fighter jet, Luke flew back contentedly and began to descend.
He felt that the situation had escalated enough. If he kept going, things would get out of hand. He didn't want to be hunted by every country on the planet, so he decided to leave while he still could.
As always, when something big happens, the media is the first to know.
Before the French police arrived, some news outlets with a keen sense of smell had already dispatched live broadcast vehicles to the scene and started streaming.
Iron Man was always a popular figure with the media. A swarm of reporters quickly gathered around Tony, asking questions about the battle that had just unfolded.
Tony, his attention still on Luke, casually answered the reporters' questions. "I don't know where he came from. Who do you think knows him? Me? Do you think I know him?"
Tony, to be honest, didn't look great. The suit was full of dents and charred streaks, all courtesy of Luke.
The reporters weren't willing to give up, though. A group of them immediately turned their attention to Luke, who was hovering in mid-air.
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