The Sun Shines Brightly Overhead

Fifty kilometers away, the several hundred manned fighter jets at the rear had already received a steady stream of signals from ultra-low-orbit satellites. Fifty thousand meters was a long distance for ordinary people, but for these hypersonic fighters, it was extremely close. In just over ten seconds, the two sides would collide.

"Target locked. Altitude: 7,231 meters. Flight speed: 1,831.2 m/s."

The complex data was converted into a simple description, and the pilots instantly grasped the enemy's general situation. This combat mission was against an unprecedented single enemy, and the order from above was: kill on sight.

"Preparations complete. Drone swarm, launch air-to-air missiles."

Every one of the tens of thousands of drones gathered across this vast area carried two short-range hypersonic air-to-air missiles. Equipped with the latest scramjet engines and two small lateral ion thrusters for directional adjustment, they could reach a terminal speed of Mach 15 within fifty kilometers. Even against high-speed airborne targets traveling above Mach 5, these missiles had an extremely high hit rate.

Supersonic airflow was heated by combustion before violently blasting out from the rear. These missiles, barely over a meter long, could only be used on supersonic aircraft flying above Mach 3. Every aspect of their structure had been designed for one purpose: speed.

Mach 15—over five thousand meters per second. In less than ten seconds, these terrifyingly fast missiles were within five kilometers of Li Heng. Tens of thousands of hypersonic missiles, carrying fearsome kinetic energy, compressed and tore apart the air ahead of them, forming an all-encompassing encirclement that blanketed the sky.

Li Heng, encased in a shell like that of a supersonic fighter, had already received the images transmitted by the seabirds. At terminal approach, these missiles could still withstand lateral acceleration close to 30g to adjust their trajectories. For a manned fighter, seeing these missiles meant death—one or two might possibly be diverted with decoy flares, but against tens of thousands, all one could do was wait to die.

Li Heng's fighter-like exterior began to change rapidly. To ordinary people, one second was far too short—even enough time to finish a final sentence was a luxury. But for him, one second was enough to do many things.

Mach 5 was naturally nowhere near Li Heng's limit. Even mass-produced air-to-air missiles like these could reach Mach 15; the power granted by his micrometer-level control and output of hundreds of millions of watts was naturally far greater than that.

Li Heng now looked no different from a missile. At his tip was a protruding golden, crystal-like structure, while his front end was covered by a black octagonal pyramidal shell. The force propelling him was no longer supersonic airflow expelled after compression and combustion, but extremely high-frequency explosions.

An unceasing high-frequency roar generated powerful ultrasonic waves that spread outward. His speed surged again. The explosions propelling him forward were repeated ultra-miniature nuclear detonations.

As a super lifeform capable of producing Antimatter anytime and anywhere, he used the hundreds-of-millions-of-degrees heat and light radiation generated by antimatter annihilation to ignite nuclear fuel, heating the air into high-temperature plasma for propellant. High-frequency, small-scale directional nuclear explosions pushed his speed to Mach 24.

At the tiny exhaust nozzle, the plasma temperature exceeded six thousand degrees Celsius. The thermal insulation made of flesh cells and boron-nitrogen compounds was continuously damaged and repaired. Li Heng now controlled roughly six quadrillion cells, with a total mass close to one ton. Such minor damage was negligible to him; he could fight in this state for a month.

A speed above Mach 20, the ability to withstand thousands of g's of overload, and sustained flight for a month—these combat specifications surpassed every missile currently fielded by humanity. The hypersonic missiles filling the sky could no longer pose a threat to him.

The golden crystal atop his head fired a white laser. Li Heng weaved among the missiles as violent explosions rang out without end. His body, capable of withstanding thousands of g's, allowed him to ram the missiles apart directly without suffering any damage. Smoke and dust filled the sky.

Supersonic combat was too fast for ordinary humans. The distant pilots saw only the simulation image of that super lifeform transforming at incredible speed, then abruptly accelerating into the overwhelming missile swarm. Violent explosions and smoke covered several kilometers of sky, only for the ensuing supersonic shockwaves to tear and churn them into fragments.

Before they had time to think, a white laser tore through the final thin veil of smoke. It ripped the shockwave formed by the air ahead into a cone to reduce resistance, and a figure faster than a missile charged toward the fighter formation.

"Warning! Intense high-energy reaction detected! Ultra-high-speed object approaching! Target speed approximately 8,439 m/s! It will enter within one thousand meters of the drone swarm in 3.3 seconds!"

The air around Li Heng had now been heated past a thousand degrees Celsius by violent friction and the laser at his head. The ionized air shone in a blend of blue, green, and red, forming an aurora-like sheath of superheated gas around his body.

The supersonic fighters once again launched a sky-filling barrage of hypersonic missiles. Tens of thousands of drones, having lost their means of attack, rammed toward Li Heng at the same time. All of them had reached speeds above Mach 7, and the shells fired by their Electromagnetic Cannons joined the missiles in trying to block Li Heng's advance.

The several hundred manned fighters flew in the opposite direction. Their weapons could no longer threaten this lifeform. Every qualified pilot was now a commander and decision-maker in aerial combat, and training them required enormous time and resources. They could not be sent to their deaths in such a hopelessly uneven battle.

The roaring never ceased. Violent explosions burst across the sky like fireworks, casting dazzling flashes one after another. The distant sun had already sunk to the horizon, its crimson afterglow reflecting across the sea like a pool of blood.

A brilliantly colored object performed countless sharp turns that would have torn an ordinary fighter apart. It darted back and forth through the drone swarm, white lasers melting and destroying the fighters' tail fins and engines. The drones, stripped of their complete forms, continuously broke apart and exploded in midair. These hypersonic fighters, powerful enough to suppress an entire nation, were completely destroyed within just over ten minutes.

At the carrier strike group where Long Yuan was located several hundred kilometers away, two medium conventional-powered aircraft carriers had already been sunk under the siege of Jelly creatures. Only five frigates and destroyers remained, and the other two carrier strike groups were in much the same condition.

The hundreds of submarines in the Inner Sea had also been completely destroyed. Of the more than one hundred missile destroyers, fewer than half remained, and they were still being sunk one after another. This fleet, which possessed ten percent of the Hong Alliance Navy's strength, might be wiped out in this battle.

Long Yuan looked sorrowfully at the combat reports. This was the Hong Alliance's greatest loss since its founding. Even though artificial intelligence had reduced the number of frontline soldiers to one-tenth of what it once was, nearly a thousand lives had still been lost in these brief dozen minutes.

The Jelly creatures formed high-speed biological torpedoes numbering in the millions. They could alter direction at any time, evading anti-submarine missiles and light torpedoes. Even though carrier aircraft and destroyer-launched anti-submarine missiles had killed tens of thousands of Jelly creatures, it did nothing to change the overall situation.

Wu Siyang studied the battle report grimly. The enemy's strength had exceeded everyone's imagination. What the Hong Alliance researchers had obtained from cells and genes was merely a tiny portion of his power—perhaps even information deliberately revealed to them.

This super lifeform had long prepared for war. This sudden attack had caught them completely off guard. Perhaps even being discovered had been intentional, all to lure in a large military force before destroying it in one blow.

Most troublesome of all was that terrifying maneuverability. Flight at speeds exceeding Mach 20 and overwhelming maneuverability made it impossible for any existing missile to catch him. Even low-yield nuclear weapons would be escaped in moments as he fled their blast zones at ultra-high speed.

"The Extermination Plan has arrived."

The notification sounded. In a short time, the rear command staff had formulated a feasible plan based on the enemy's performance:

Use layered low-yield nuclear explosions to constrict the target's route and suppress his speed. Then detonate ten one-megaton Hydrogen Bombs simultaneously within a small surrounding area. The air temperature at the center would be heated to one hundred thousand degrees Celsius, with pressure exceeding ten million atmospheres. Estimated extermination success rate: 63.4%.

A Hydrogen Bomb explosion would make the surrounding air expand violently, forming a high-temperature, high-pressure shockwave. If ten Hydrogen Bombs covered the same location, the overlapping central zone would become an environment more terrifying than Earth's core. In theory, no life could survive there.

However, the final success rate of 63.4% reflected unknown variables. The Hong Alliance could only formulate its plan based on what had already been demonstrated; no one knew whether Li Heng's current performance represented his limit.

Wu Siyang did not hesitate. He chose to execute the order immediately, then said to Long Yuan, "This failure isn't your fault. Retreat."

Long Yuan gritted his teeth and issued the retreat order. The remaining soldiers no longer tangled with those incredibly fast, fearless Jelly creatures. A destroyer now required only around twenty people to operate, so the soldiers aboard the remaining ships boarded armed helicopters and left, handing the destroyers entirely over to artificial intelligence for autonomous combat.

The destroyers, now commanded entirely by artificial intelligence, began carrying out the newest plan. They no longer sought to preserve themselves, allowing the Jelly creatures to attack while aiming every radar at the colorful high-speed object in the sky dozens of kilometers away. After precise calculations, dozens of Tactical Nuclear Bombs were launched in succession.

A roar greater than the detonation of tens of thousands of missiles erupted, accompanied by violent shockwaves. Enormous orange-red fireballs hundreds of meters wide appeared above the sea one after another. Scorching gales threw the air currents into chaos, and the thunderous blasts carried over a hundred kilometers away.

The continuous violent supersonic shockwaves finally forced Li Heng from high-speed motion into near stillness. The massive fireballs filling the sky made him sway continuously amid the turbulent air, like a lone boat in a raging storm.

Yet just as Wu Siyang had expected, Tactical Nuclear Bombs of around one kiloton could not even harm him. As long as he remained more than ten meters from the center of the nuclear blast, the high-temperature shockwaves could not hurt him at all.

The neutron streams and Gamma Rays released by the nuclear explosions did indeed shatter some of his cells and genetic chains. But to Li Heng, whose every single cell could grow into a complete body, those damaged, chaotically mutated, uncontrolled cells were merely flesh and blood. They quickly became nutrients for repairing his cells.

The chaotic particle storms and powerful electromagnetic radiation unleashed by the nuclear explosions nearly disabled every radar. But Hong Alliance Intelligence had already calculated Li Heng's likely position amid the nuclear impacts: an area only one hundred meters wide. Ten one-megaton nuclear bombs would detonate around that area simultaneously, turning it into the most terrifying death zone on Earth.

Li Heng, like a small boat tossed about in wind and rain, controlled every cell in his body to twist and transform. He became a layered white sphere several meters in diameter, wrapped in coils of red-black threads.

They had used so many Tactical Nuclear Bombs merely to block his path. This was the Hong Alliance's final wave of attacks. If he could endure this, killing Li Heng would never again appear as an option in their plans.

Ten conical missiles spun at high speed as they descended from beyond the atmosphere. They were no slower than Li Heng had been before, streaking across the sky with orange-red flames. They surrounded a one-hundred-meter area and, upon reaching their designated positions, faithfully executed the detonation command at the same time.

Fireballs even larger than before appeared in the sky. Compared to these ten fireballs, the afterglow at the horizon became an unnoticed backdrop. The ten Hydrogen Bombs bloomed here like ten suns, releasing endless light and heat.

They twisted and merged into a dazzling fireball several kilometers wide. Its blazing white light illuminated the skies above this sea, while chaotic particle streams and high-energy radiation completely destroyed the electronic systems of satellites two hundred kilometers above the ground.

The sea surface across several kilometers below was compressed by high-temperature, high-pressure gases into a concave curve. At the center, seawater was heated to boiling, while raging waves dozens of meters tall formed at the edges and surged outward.

The violent shockwaves spread hundreds of kilometers. The seabirds serving as monitors were reduced to ash in the scorching air currents. The heavily armed helicopters that had just escaped over a hundred kilometers away spiraled down into the sea, while the remaining destroyer wreckage on the surface shattered into even smaller fragments and sank to the ocean floor.

On more distant islands and the mainland, even the windows of high-rise buildings were shattered by the soundwaves. Fortunately, air raid warnings had been issued in advance. Otherwise, residents might have believed World War III had begun—though that was not far from the truth.

Finally, as the light and heat gradually subsided, the violently expanding high-temperature gas was hurled dozens of kilometers into the sky, reaching the top of the stratosphere. An enormous white mushroom cloud was clearly visible from a thousand kilometers away, becoming the only remaining sight of the nuclear explosion in people's field of vision.