The Solar System, Pluto.
After the Solar System entered an era of large-scale development, if there was anywhere humanity had yet to set foot, it was this dark region at its outer edge.
It was not that it was too far from Earth. In fact, Earth's cutting-edge military engine technology had advanced at a cheat-like pace to its eighteenth generation. With no expense spared, conventional cruising speeds within the Solar System now approached one percent of the speed of light, compressing the journey from Earth to Pluto to an astonishing one month.
However, this was a dedicated high-risk experimental base belonging to the Cloudtop Research Institute, so the tens of millions of kilometers surrounding Pluto were all designated a "military exclusion zone."
As the Solar System grew increasingly bustling and its shipping lanes filled with newly launched spacecraft, many of the Cloudtop Research Institute's high-risk laboratories had been forced to relocate from the Solar System's "downtown" to its "suburbs."
Fortunately, Remote Robot technology was unaffected. For the scientists, it was merely a matter of logging in at a different physical address.
Still, on all of Earth, only a dozen or so people, including Elder Yu, possessed the highest research clearance needed to log into this dark place, where even the Sun appeared dim.
And at that moment, inside an enormous crater on Pluto...
"Prepare the countdown for the first test detonation of the Hades Type I Planetary Destroyer Bomb. All personnel, please evacuate immediately. Anyone insisting on remaining should check their pain settings one last time..."
"Preparations complete. Beginning countdown! Ten, nine, eight, seven..."
Boom! The moment the countdown ended, a dazzling ball of light exploded inside the crater and shot into the sky!
An enormous spherical shock wave swept outward, gradually spreading across nearly half the planet's surface. The