159: Chapter 159 The bullets are ineffective.

"You picked the wrong target."

The Battle Armor amplified this sentence, delivering it to the eardrums of everyone on the bridge.

The voice was low.

It carried the coldness and indifference unique to machinery.

The movements of the two killers visibly paused.

They had been in this line of work for so many years; it wasn't as if they hadn't seen ruthless people, top-tier security, or hadn't imagined that several armed bodyguards might suddenly jump out from around the target.

But they had never in their wildest dreams imagined—

That in the back seat of a bulletproof sedan, an Iron Man Armor would stand up within two seconds.

It was not a concept drawing.

It was not Hollywood movie special effects.

It was a real, mechanical monster, with a faint blue light glowing on its chest, capable of shattering their worldview with a mere wave of its hand in reality.

One of the killers' eyes changed, his pupils shrinking violently to pinpricks, and he almost blurted out:

"Fuck—"

The second half of the curse hadn't even had time to escape his lips.

Lu Li had already raised his right hand.

The circular energy node on his palm lit up slightly.

There was no exaggerated energy buildup.

There was no long wind-up.

There was only a beam of intensely compressed, scorching white energy that instantly tore through the air.

Boom!

The killer standing at the very front was hit in the chest as if by an invisible heavy hammer; his bulletproof vest and clothing were instantly burned through and carbonized by the high heat, and his body flew backward, slamming hard into the side door of the van.

The metal door panel dented inward significantly.

He couldn't even finish his scream; only a short, stifled grunt, like something being choked off, squeezed from his throat before he slid down the car door.

The other killer's brain went blank for a moment.

The shock on his face was even stronger than his fear.

He simply could not understand everything happening before his eyes.

This was not a bulletproof vest.

Not a single-soldier exoskeleton.

Not equipment that any country's active-duty special forces should have.

This thing... this thing shouldn't even exist in the real world!

"Fire! Keep firing!"

He roared almost instinctively, violently turning the muzzle of his M16 rifle to fire wildly at Lu Li.

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang—!

Bullets poured onto the Mark 45's chest and shoulder armor like a rainstorm, bursting into a series of blinding sparks.

But that was all.

Let alone penetrating it, they couldn't even make the Battle Armor sway.

Behind the blue optical sensors, Lu Li's eyes were cold, without a ripple of emotion.

He couldn't even be bothered to dodge.

The Steel Battle Suit stood in the center of the bridge, amidst the dim morning light and splashing gunfire, like a deity walking out of the future, letting the crudest firearms of the old era splash meaningless sparks against it.

As the killer continued to fire, his hands began to tremble.

Not from exhaustion.

It was because his mental state had collapsed.

He watched the bullets bounce off the opponent's chest, saw the sparks exploding in strings, and saw the opponent walking toward him step by step, enduring his gunfire.

That kind of oppressive feeling was not something one would feel when a human faced another human.

It was the despair that only a prey would feel when facing a predator it couldn't comprehend.

"Explosives! Hurry—"

As if he had finally remembered something, he reached out violently to grab the directional demolition device in his bag.

But he had barely touched the pull ring.

Lu Li was already in front of him.

Not running.

It was a flash of the thrusters, and he swept across the dozen meters of the bridge as if teleporting over a short distance.

The next second.

The steel palm clamped directly onto his gun barrel.

Crack!

The M16 was as brittle as a plastic toy in that hand covered with metal armor, crushed into a twisted lump of scrap iron.

The blood drained completely from the killer's face at this moment.

"Monster..."

His throat felt dry, and he took a step back almost as a conditioned reflex.

But retreating was completely meaningless.

Lu Li just looked at him calmly.

Then, he raised his palm.

The killer finally broke free from the massive shock, a bit of survival instinct surfacing, his eyeballs bloodshot, his voice cracking:

"No! No—"

Boom!

The second palm cannon blast erupted at close range.

High heat and impact instantly pierced his chest at an extremely short distance; his clothing, bulletproof plate, and flesh were all scorched into charred black by the terrifying energy in that instant.

His whole body arched violently, his pupils dilated, a trace of blood foam with a scorched smell spilled from the corner of his mouth, and then he fell heavily to his knees.

A scalp-tingling, scorching heat permeated the air.

The surroundings were silent for a moment.

Not because there was no one.

But because everyone was stunned stiff by this scene.

The crowd that had originally been fleeing in all directions on the bridge, now standing a dozen or dozens of meters away, looked at that steel figure standing in the middle of the road from afar, having forgotten to run.

Someone's hand was still shaking, but their phone had already been raised subconsciously.

In the frame were the bullet-riddled black sedan, the two armed thugs convulsing on the ground, the smoke of gunpowder that had not yet dissipated on the bridge, and that Battle Armor bathed in firelight and morning colors, slowly retracting its palm.

This scene was too much like a movie.

So much so that people doubted whether they were still in a dream.

On the other side of the car door.

No. 18 maintained an absolute defensive posture.

Su Qingxue was shielded beneath her.

Through the bulletproof glass of the car window, she watched that tall steel back in the middle of the bridge.

Su Qingxue also looked up when the gunfire ceased, looking toward Lu Li in the middle of the bridge.

That figure was tall and cold, covered in cold metal armor, the blue light shining in its eyes like two low-burning fires.

Killers, firearms, explosions, chaos...

Everything that was enough to make ordinary people lose control seemed so fragile in front of that Battle Armor.

The last bit of lingering fear in her heart also completely dissipated at this moment.

This was her husband.

A man who clearly couldn't even be bothered to go to work, but when it truly mattered, could hold up the sky all by himself.

In the distance, the security forces hidden in the surroundings finally rushed up.

Two camouflaged vehicles opened their doors almost simultaneously, and several fully armed special security personnel occupied key points on the bridge at the fastest speed, muzzles lowered, guarding the surroundings, their movements as fast as a well-trained drill.

But when they actually rushed to the scene, they all froze for a moment.

Because the battle... was already over.

Too fast.

So fast that from contact, confirmation, sprinting, to arrival, the entire process took less than ten seconds.

Yet those two killers were already lying on the ground, one on the left and one on the right.

Their chests charred black, their breathing weak, on the verge of death.

The guns in their hands had become piles of scrap iron, and the explosives were scorched black at the edges by the high heat, with no time to detonate.

And Lu Li just stood there in front of them, raised his hand to lift the faceplate, revealing that face that was overly calm.

He looked down at the two half-dead killers at his feet, then looked up at the approaching special forces, his tone even quite casual:

"This shouldn't... count as excessive self-defense, right?"

The special forces soldier rushing at the very front couldn't help but twitch the corner of his mouth.

Excessive self-defense?

Brother, they were firing at you with an M16 on the bridge during morning rush hour, and they even had explosives in their bags.

This is the most standard self-defense possible.

The kind of standard case that no one would dare to criticize even if it were written into textbooks.

He immediately shook his head and answered decisively:

"Of course not!"

"This is self-defense!"

Lu Li said "Oh," as if simply confirming a procedural matter, and then asked nothing more.

This nonchalant attitude actually made the hearts of those few special forces soldiers even more complicated.

Before, when they received reports that Lu Li was test-flying and test-firing that unknown model of Battle Armor, there was still a bit of a barrier in their minds—"it sounds outrageous, but after all, I haven't seen it with my own eyes."

But now—

They were standing on the bridge, standing amidst the bullet casings and the smell of gunpowder, watching that Steel Battle Suit with their own eyes, watching two professional killers beaten into such a miserable state by two shots from the palm.

The impact was far beyond what those few lines in the report could compare to.

Someone among them swallowed subconsciously, their eyes looking at the Mark 45, almost unable to control their glowing gaze.

This is no Battle Armor.

This is clearly the physical embodiment of the next generation of warfare rules.

On the other side, the onlookers were becoming increasingly restless.

Someone was holding their phone and filming frantically, shouting with a trembling voice:

"Holy shit! Iron Man! It's really Iron Man!"

"Did you get it? Did you get it?!"

"Post it to Moments! Post it online!"