Orion Project

All the members of the Red Squad remained silent for a few seconds.

Then, they all said in unison, "A madman."

One team member complained:

"Putting aside the erosion from the Esha Clouds, Azure Planet is all ice fields and blizzards. Where are you going to find a rocket launch site? Where are you going to find enough fuel and space shuttles? The weather conditions for launch are extremely harsh!"

"Besides, even if you intend to become Gamma Rank and your body can withstand the first cosmic velocity (7900 meters per second, about Mach 23.2), you still won't be able to break through the erosion of the Esha Clouds —no material can withstand the erosion of Malefic Calamity, and you will be infected and turned into a deformed monster."

"No one can go into space. For hundreds of years, we've only been able to launch satellites into the atmosphere. Even the Red Arrow couldn't do that. How could you possibly do it?"

"The Old Era of Azure Planet were ruined by its covetousness of space, which brought about the calamity of the Malefic Calamity... Do you want to repeat the same mistake?"

People didn't even question it; their first reaction was to stop it, to forbid Li Aoz from thinking that way.

Sixty percent of the problems on Azure Planet can ultimately be solved by opening cosmic channels, but one hundred percent of them cannot overcome the obstacle of Malefic Calamity.

Try, keep trying, and then fail. No country has the audacity, economic strength, technological level, or courage to send its best talents into the clouds of Malefic Calamity, only to watch them erode, rot, and wither away, or to be infected and mutated right under their noses, turning them into deformed monsters.

For both the individual and the nation, repeated spaceflight failures have caused people to forget their dreams of the stars, and many have never even seen the sun before they die.

Many people still firmly believe that there was never a sun in the world, and that darkness gave birth to humanity and life—a view that is both laughable, anti-intellectual, and pathetic. This is because humanity's narrow-mindedness and capacity for forgetting are extremely dangerous.

They will forget the people who risked their lives to protect them just days ago because of their current grievances, and may even forget the threat altogether.

For centuries, many people have become accustomed to a world ruled by Malefic Calamity and cold. They know nothing of sunshine, rain, blue skies, white clouds, and lush grasslands, and instead laugh at the scientists who record history.

"The sun and the stars are nothing but a funding scam. All that history is fabricated. I'm alive and well without the sun, so why would I fund your space missions? Don't fool me."

"You're saying that in the Old Era, satellites went into space and were launched into low Earth orbit? That's pure nonsense. According to Johns Hopkins' research, if there really was a sun and a universe, shouldn't Malefic Calamity have been riddled with holes by meteorites long ago?"

'Why worry so much? Even if they really go to space, it'll be the elite and powerful who get out. What does it have to do with a nobody like you? Instead of worrying about others, mind your own business. Your boss is asking you to volunteer for overtime.'

Perhaps it's not just Malefic Calamity.

What prevents humanity from going into space includes various phenomena, a sense of inferiority and a narrow-minded perspective, and negative emotions, which have caused humanity to completely lose the courage to look up.

"... I could have endured the darkness if I had never seen the light."

Li Aoz calmly accepted their admonitions and harsh criticism:

"I will go to space, and I don't need any spacecraft."

"Isn't that nonsense? Even if you could fly, how would your body break through the first cosmic velocity to enter orbit, and then accelerate to the second cosmic velocity (11,200 km/s, equivalent to Mach 32.91)? How would you solve the problem of Malefic Calamity?"

"That's easy, acceleration isn't an issue. For me, all I need to do is deal with Malefic Calamity."

"So what do you plan to do?"

Li Aoz said, "The Hojo Conglomerate possesses a Hydrogen Bomb left over from the Old Era — 'Hirozaki Arisa,' with an explosive yield of approximately 140 million tons. It is the national treasure of Sky Ring."

The members of the Red Squad were stunned.

"Imagine this: since the Malefic Calamity covers the entire atmosphere above the stratosphere, sealing off the entire Azure Planet, it also means that it can block Solar Storm, gamma rays, and prevent almost all heat energy from reaching the Azure Planet. So conversely, the radiation from Hydrogen Bomb explosion could also be blocked by the Esha Clouds."

Li Aoz also provided some background information:

"Let's simulate it. Hydrogen Bomb with the equivalent of 1.4 trillion tons of TNT would have a fireball radius of about 138.02 kilometers and a theoretical kill area of 770.73 kilometers. However, we should be conservative. Considering that the Hydrogen Bomb may be eroded by the 'disorderly entropy increase' of Malefic Calamity, the efficiency of the internal tritium fusion for mass-energy conversion will be greatly reduced."

"From this perspective, if an actual fireball from an explosion could reach 100 kilometers and a shockwave could exceed 500 kilometers, we should already be thankful. As an aside, the atmosphere is about 1000 kilometers thick, but the Malefic Calamity is only distributed in the stratosphere and mesosphere, within a 50-kilometer radius of the ground, with a thickness of 30 kilometers. For modern human aircraft, this is the limit."

"However, in the ionosphere, between 60 and 1,000 kilometers above the Earth's surface, the density of Malefic Calamity becomes very low due to the influence of charged particles, and the erosive effect weakens. As long as one moves away from the ground at an altitude of 300 kilometers, one can be completely protected from Malefic Calamity erosion."

"Simply put, if a Hydrogen Bomb is detonated in the middle atmosphere at an altitude of 60 kilometers, the thrust generated by the explosion would be enough to accelerate me to the second cosmic velocity, and the heat and shock wave of the fireball would be enough to temporarily destroy the Esha Clouds."

"At that moment, my acceleration will reach 350G (3430 m/s²), which is enough for me to break out of the atmosphere. In addition, the Shockwave provided by the Hydrogen Bomb explosion, the vacuum of the universe has no air resistance, and the nuclear pulse will continue to propel me forward, making me accelerate continuously. Of course, I don't need to go too fast, just one-thirtieth of the speed of light will be enough to meet my needs."

"The biggest problem with this plan is that we don't need to consider materials, astronauts, or load-bearing capacity. You don't need to worry about gravity or the endurance of flying in space, because I am the master of gravity, and the universe is my territory."

"The only trouble is on the ground. The theft of the Hojo Family's Hydrogen Bomb will inevitably cause panic throughout the country, and I will be hunted down by the four active-duty Gamma Rank warriors of the Sky Ring."

"Other things are insignificant."

The next moment, everyone looked at Li Aoz with utter Terror.

"Hey, you wouldn't be thinking of..."

"Yes."

Li Aoz calmly declared, "I will detonate a Hydrogen Bomb and launch it into space."

"In a sense, you can understand it as me blowing up a planet."

To calm everyone down, Li Aoz thoughtfully said:

"Don't worry, everyone. This isn't the first time I've done this, so I'm quite experienced."