As the cloud spread, a massive overpressure wave swept outward. Buildings that humanity took such pride in were torn apart and flattened as if they were made of tissue paper. Shattered Reinforced Concrete melted into streams of lava in the heat and rained down.
Every trace of oxygen around the blast point burned away in an instant. If someone happened to be directly below it and somehow survived both the explosion and the overpressure, they would suffocate in moments.
At the airport, Saint John XII had just ended his call with the White House. He looked outside and saw a cloud of fire and smoke.
"A Nuclear Bomb? He used a Nuclear Bomb on the Holy Mother?"
Because the effects of a Fuel-Air Bomb looked so much like those of a Nuclear Bomb, the Pope mistook it for one. When he recovered from his shock, fury seized him. "How dare Bilborn do this?"
"It's a Fuel-Air Bomb!" Unlike the Pope, Evan was a military enthusiast with extensive knowledge of weapons. He recognized the Missile from the shape of its cloud at once.
"That old bastard Bilborn dropped a Fuel-Air Bomb on Saint-Ang City!"
A Fuel-Air Bomb was fundamentally different from a Nuclear Bomb, which released energy through nuclear fusion or fission. It had neither the same vast destructive range nor the terrifying radiation. But with a lethal radius of up to 450 feet, it would still cause enormous casualties.
And having the air sucked from your lungs by the pressure waves of a Fuel-Air Bomb was no less agonizing than dying from a Nuclear Bomb's radiation.
It's over.
Evan's hands and feet went cold.
After something like this, Bilborn would certainly be held accountable. A dignified retirement was out of the question; his best outcome was prison.
And as Bilborn's