5000 Little Boys

Lu Xi was no longer angry. He folded his arms and listened with interest.

A hint of mockery showed in his expression.

"And then? Go on."

Seeing that Lu Xi seemed unmoved, General Ross grew even smugger and continued confidently.

"I might as well tell you outright: even if you want to escape through the air, you have no chance."

"At the nearby air base, twelve Black Hawk fighters armed with short-range tactical ballistic missiles can take off and intercept you at any moment. The instant you dare to fly up, you'll be riddled with holes."

General Ross paused, a ruthless glint in his eyes.

"And this is only our first contingency plan. Even if anything unexpected happens, we have second and third plans."

"You're completely surrounded. There's nowhere left for you to go. If you know what's good for you, cooperate obediently and don't make this uglier than it needs to be."

Lu Xi let out a scornful laugh, his eyes filled with disdain.

"When the gap in strength is too vast, no contingency plan will matter."

"Your strongest weapons are nothing more than nuclear weapons. Do you think planting enough mushrooms makes you invincible?"

General Ross widened his eyes and retorted.

"They can easily level an entire city, and their radiation can affect an area hundreds of kilometers wide. Isn't that powerful enough?"

Lu Xi remained calm as he spoke slowly.

"Even if every nuclear weapon in the human world were detonated, it would only destroy humanity's own ecosystem."

"It wouldn't even cause much real damage to Earth itself."

General Ross frowned, his face full of suspicion.

"What are you trying to say? Stop being so mysterious."

A cold gleam flashed through Lu Xi's eyes.

"At my level, destroying a planet isn't difficult either. Do you understand the difference between us?"

General Ross's face flushed red as he shouted.

"What arrogant nonsense! Who do you think you are—"

Before he could finish, Lu Xi's eyes widened sharply. The wings behind his back spread open in an instant, and immense power surged forth.

Before any of the soldiers around them could react.

Lu Xi had already closed in like a phantom, grabbed General Ross by the collar, and shot into the sky with a thunderous sonic boom, vanishing beyond the horizon in an instant.

To keep General Ross from being torn apart by the high-speed airflow, Lu Xi kindly protected him with Divine Power.

It was just that a tiny crack had accidentally formed in the Divine Power shield.

The howling wind rushed through it, blowing General Ross's face all out of shape.

The moment he opened his mouth, the fierce wind filled it, leaving him unable to speak. He could only make muffled whimpering sounds.

Just twenty seconds later, Lu Xi arrived above Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic Ocean.

The wind howled past their ears, while endless white snow and ice stretched below them.

Ross's face was smeared with his own saliva. He awkwardly raised his sleeve and wiped it hard, and only then did his blurred vision refocus.

Once he saw his surroundings clearly, his eyes widened in terror, and he cried out in a trembling voice.

"What are you doing? Where is this?"

Lu Xi grinned, excitement gleaming in his eyes.

"I'll show you what real power looks like!"

With that, he gripped the back of Ross's neck in his left hand as Divine Power surged like a flood, gathering in massive amounts in his right hand.

His fist began to shine with a light too dazzling to look at directly.

Yet just as that power was about to burst forth, a powerful premonition suddenly arose in Lu Xi's heart.

If he released this power without restraint, it would likely trigger a series of terrifying chain reactions and bring disasters beyond estimation.

So he swiftly withdrew half of his Divine Power. Only then did the light on his fist dim by the slightest amount.

Immediately afterward, Lu Xi hesitated no longer. He gave a loud shout and threw a punch.

The energy wrapped in an enormous amount of Divine Power exploded across Novaya Zemlya.

A flash bright enough to blind people suddenly erupted, as though another sun had risen from the ground.

The light even pierced the thick clouds, illuminating the surrounding sky as brightly as day.

Even residents of a small town a thousand kilometers away could clearly see this strange light.

People in the town stopped one after another and looked up at the unbelievable glow. Someone cried out in terror.

"My God, what is that?"

Then, a gigantic mushroom cloud rose at an astonishing speed.

"BOOOOOOM~~~~~~~"

Several full seconds passed before the deafening blast rolled in with the fierce winds, making everyone's eardrums ache.

Lu Xi carried Ross a little farther back, a faint smile on his face as he quietly admired the mushroom cloud he had created with his own hands.

Forty seconds later, the mushroom cloud had expanded to an enormous size, as though it were about to blot out the sky.

Ross's jaw trembled uncontrollably in shock. It was as though his mouth had been stuffed with cotton; he could not force out a single word.

He had once overseen an artillery battalion and knew a little about calculating explosions.

With a simple visual estimate, he instinctively calculated that the mushroom cloud was at least seventy kilometers high!

General Ross had visited nuclear test detonations at the Nevada test site many times.

He knew very well that even high-yield nuclear bombs were utterly insignificant compared with the power of that punch.

Lu Xi spread his telekinesis out like a spiderweb and carefully observed the surrounding environment.

Fortunately, he had chosen the right place.

This was the vast, boundless Arctic Ocean. There was not a soul within a thousand kilometers.

Probably... it wouldn't cause any casualties or affect the ecological environment.

At that moment, major defense agencies and detection centers across the world erupted with piercing alarms, as if someone had stirred up a hornet's nest.

Inside a Russian detection center, a Russian official stared at the horrifying figures on the screen.

His eyes widened in utter disbelief.

"BANG! BANG!"

The Russian official slapped the screen hard.

"Damn it, the data from the Arctic Ocean is wrong! Is the equipment broken?"

"Did those parasites in Logistics skim kickbacks from the equipment budget again?"

Another Russian hurried over, his expression grave.

"You detected it too? The equipment isn't broken. The data is real!"

The first Russian official widened his eyes, his face filled with disbelief.

"How is that possible? The explosion exceeded sixty megatons of TNT equivalent—more than Big Ivan!"

"Could it be... that we're conducting another new weapons test? Why wasn't I notified?"

At the same time, in the United States White House, the President nearly had a heart attack when he received the news.

He shot to his feet, his face deathly pale as he roared.

"What did you say? The Russians are testing another new nuclear bomb? Are they trying to destroy the Earth?"

The official reporting to him looked helpless as he spoke cautiously.

"Mr. President, we can't be certain yet. But the data shows that the explosion occurred in the Arctic Ocean, and its power was extraordinarily immense—at least equivalent to five thousand Little Boy atomic bombs."

The President was frantic and immediately gave the order.

"Put the entire country on combat readiness. Contact the Russians immediately and make them explain exactly what is going on!"