Marvel: I am Iron Man

Sahara Desert.

The vast desert shimmered with heat under the midday sun, and a huge black shadow appeared against the azure sky, distorted by the heat.

That was a Chitauri reconnaissance ship.

It was a shadow heavier than any dark cloud, brutally devouring the azure sky. It resembled an ancient whale stripped of its skin, its bones and fascia reshaped by a dark gray alloy, or a mechanical centipede that had evolved over millions of years in the starry sea, its enormous body cleaving through the air at a speed disproportionate to its size.

"They've arrived as expected."

Thor leaned against a piece of reddish-brown sandstone that was scorching hot from the sun, his eyes gleaming with a belligerent light.

Having received Heimdall's accurate intelligence, the group already knew the Chitauri's whereabouts and had laid an ambush. The Chitauri reconnaissance team indeed entered the atmosphere at the location indicated by Heimdall.

Tony's armor remained invisible as he quickly scanned and determined the enemy's position.

A Chitauri warship, like the mothership that appeared in the Avengers movie.

He knew that the mothership carried a large number of Chitauri warriors and was escorted by Chitauri air force in flying vehicles.

The Chitauri fleet, consisting of only one warship, was more than capable of handling the situation given their current strength. Furthermore, being in the heart of the desert, they didn't need to consider the potential collateral damage from engaging in war with aliens.

The Chitauri aren't exactly high-end combatants in the Marvel Universe.

When the Chitauri descended upon New York in Avengers 1, the spectacle was truly grand. The sky tore open, and hordes of alien locusts swooped down on electric scooters, followed by a few crunchy mechanical earthworms. Anyone who didn't know better would have thought the Galactic Demolition Office had descended.

But these mourners came rushing down with great momentum, yet their performance in a fight...

...It's not that it's remarkable, but rather that it feels like Loki picked up a temporary worker from some cosmic labor market, the kind that's paid daily.

Tactics? Military strategy? They don't exist.

The Chitauri strategy can be summed up in one sentence: A.

There was no flanking maneuver, no focused attack, it was just endlessly feeding troops... or at least that's how it looks in the movies.

Perhaps the most bizarre aspect is that, as an army engaged in interstellar warfare, these mourners share a single Wi-Fi network. If the Wi-Fi connection drops, the entire force is disconnected.

This is probably why remote control technology is always unstable. In the movie, Iron Man blows up the mothership with a nuclear bomb, silencing all the Chitauri soldiers on the surface.

Even Steam games at least give you an "offline mode" button when your internet connection drops, but the Chitauri army just died instantly without a trace when their internet went down. It was like a five-man squad playing Summoner's Rift in a dorm room when the power went out and everyone lost internet. I wonder if Loki, seeing that, thought, "Damn it, I want a refund!"

So, with an interstellar army of this level, and only one reconnaissance ship, the current level of Iron Man armor, Thor in his awakened state, plus Thor's good brothers and their four-person team, this configuration should be able to easily clear the current Chitauri dungeon.

This is a battle with a very high chance of being won.

Tony was confident about this. But of course, thorough preparation was still necessary.

Thorough preparation has always been Tony's motto. Even if the situation is in our favor, it's always right to make good battle plans to increase our chances of winning.

"I've scanned and confirmed, there's only one enemy mothership," Tony told the group. "Listen up, here's the battle plan. I'll land from the air while still in stealth mode. Thor, you go around to the right..."

Before he could finish speaking, Thor swung his hammer: "For Midgard!"

With that, he grabbed the hammer and flew off. His power was like a snapped string of lightning; the reddish-brown sandstone beneath his feet couldn't withstand the explosive force and shattered the moment he left the ground. Countless fragments of rock and sand formed a spreading ring of dust behind him.

Tony: "..."

So, in the minds of the Asgardian brutes, they completely fail to understand the significance of their earlier search for cover and positioning.

Or perhaps Thor was overconfident in his team's strength, feeling that a mere squad of Chitauri soldiers didn't require any fancy tactics...

...Never mind, it doesn't matter.

Thor went up, and his four good brothers, who were also his companions, did not hesitate. They all roared, drew their weapons, and jumped out of the cover to go straight up.

Sif paused slightly after drawing her sword, then smiled at Tony: "You're lucky to have us here, mortal. Otherwise, an entire starfleet descending upon Midgard would be a disaster for mortals."

"Hmm, yes. Then I must thank you on behalf of all mortals."

Tony responded casually, his foot thrusters blasting, and the Mark 7 armored vehicle took off.

Thor and his team deliberately abandoned their concealment advantage and charged straight at the enemy. The Chitauri team wasn't deaf and blind, so they naturally noticed the enemy attack.

The escorting Chitauri air force immediately came to intercept, while large numbers of Chitauri warriors were continuously being released from the mechanical mothership.

The soldiers were ejected from the mothership's thousands of holes, tumbling onto the sand. Once on the ground, they immediately set up their energy guns and locked onto the target to fire.

Fandral, Sif, and the other four Asgardians were incredibly brave, and with shouts, they engaged the Chitauri warriors in battle.

Sif lowered her center of gravity and charged forward, dodging the continuous beam of fire. She raised her shield to deflect an energy beam, then thrust her longsword forward, piercing the chest of the oncoming Chitauri warrior.

She roared, and with a burst of strength, the blade ripped through the mechanical structure of the Chitauri warrior's chest, leaving a long gash. The warrior groaned and collapsed.

Sif's longsword, along with the weapons of the others, were forged from Asgardian metal and imbued with magical effects. Though far inferior to Thor's hammer, they were still divine artifacts rarely found in the mortal realm.

This is also one of the reasons why the people of the Divine Realm are so confident.

Their weapons are made of divine materials and are enchanted, capable of harming gods and demons throughout the Nine Realms. In contrast, most weapons on Earth are made of mortal materials.

This is why Asgardians are invulnerable to weapons and can withstand firearms on Earth, but when they return to Asgard, they seem to revert to being made of flesh and blood and can be harmed by swords.

This is also why the Asgardians, and many other alien races in the Nine Realms, look down on Earth. They believe they are like gods on Earth, and that mortal weapons and swords can hardly harm them.

Sif parried with her shield raised in her left hand, and with a swift kick of her right foot, sent a Chitauri soldier sprawling backward. At the same time, she swung her longsword horizontally, and in a flash, another Chitauri warrior behind her was decapitated, his head flying far into the air with the force of the impact.

Sif killed three people in an instant.

She is the most elite Valkyrie; even in Asgard, those with such exquisite swordsmanship are few and far between.

Sif was quite proud. After killing the enemy, she still had the energy to glance at the battlefield out of the corner of her eye and see the situation of her teammates around her.

Then, in that glance, he caught sight of Thor's newly made Earth friend, the mortal wearing an iron suit.

The seemingly decorative stripes on the shoulders of the Iron Man armor opened up, and the armor plates slid and folded backward like intricate mechanical petals, revealing honeycomb-shaped launch pods.

Each nest hole is embedded with a long, sharp miniature bullet, which gleams with a scarlet light when it locks on.

Hiss—whoosh whoosh whoosh!

A dense array of incandescent contrails, countless missiles leaving their nests, thrusters at full throttle, drawing out dense, chilling screechs in the air, as if radiating outwards in a deathly fan shape centered on Iron Man, like the God of War unfurling his cloak woven from light.

Boom boom boom boom boom—

A deafening bombing, a continuous symphony of destruction!

Dense micro-missiles burst forth everywhere, and the fan-shaped area that Iron Man flew over turned into a boiling inferno of flames and metal.

The Chitauri army's formation was torn apart by a sudden explosive storm. A series of fireballs exploded in the air, turning into countless fireworks. The scene was extremely dazzling, and countless mechanical limbs fell from the sky, trailing flames and black smoke.

In a fraction of a second, literally in an instant, Iron Man wiped out an entire squad of Chitauri soldiers.

The Iron Man armor roared through the air, tossing Sif's long hair.

The valiant Valkyrie, still holding her sword, stared at the vast horde of Chitauri warriors before her, whose ferocious attacks of a moment ago had been replaced by a landscape littered with mangled limbs, and her mouth agape.

Sif: Huh?