"Mother... fuck you! The goddamn Ten Rings actually have hypersonic missiles like these!"
The secretary of defense slammed the documents in his hand onto the table and cursed furiously.
"Point our satellites at our bases!" the air force commander roared.
The feed quickly switched over.
Of the eight missiles, three were heading straight for their bases.
"Shit! Tell them to intercept them, now!"
"They're too fast! Our bases' air defense missiles can't stop them!"
Just seconds later, the three bases on the operations screen erupted in blinding white light almost simultaneously.
A dozen seconds later, the white light faded, and the images transmitted by the satellites made everyone's scalp prickle.
An enormous, glowing red crater had appeared in the center of each sprawling base. Everything around it had either vaporized or melted.
Every building in the bases collapsed in an instant. Tanks, fighter jets, and other heavy equipment melted more than halfway, while some turned straight into molten metal that flowed across the ground.
The operations room fell deathly silent.
Three bases, one large and two medium-sized, with well over ten thousand personnel between them, had simply vanished.
"Bastards! The Ten Rings are starting a nuclear war!"
"Contact the president immediately! Launch nukes at those pieces of shit!" a general roared furiously, his eyes bloodshot.
"Quick! Analyze what kind of weapon this is!" the secretary of defense bellowed at the operators, his eyes nearly splitting with rage.
"The... the analysis is complete. It's a plasma energy explosion, with a destructive radius of over two kilometers and an electromagnetic pulse spanning a full twenty kilometers. All electronic equipment within that electromagnetic pulse will be disabled!" an operator explained, bracing himself.
The analysis left everyone dumbfounded. Wasn't that equivalent to a nuclear bomb? And without any radioactive contamination!
"Bastards! How did they acquire weapons this terrifying in just a few months? How many more do they have?"
The secretary of defense cursed furiously, then quickly contacted the president to request a nuclear strike.
A force like this could never be allowed to develop unchecked, or it would inevitably become a major enemy of the United States.
Soon, the president appeared on the screen.
Everyone immediately asked him to give the order.
However, the president was not one of these warmongers. He rejected their request without hesitation.
The generals were furious and immediately pressed the president to make a decision.
"You sons of bitches, shut up! Do you want those missiles landing on your heads in a minute?"
The president pointed at the lunatics and cursed them out.
"How confident are you that you can intercept them? Tell me!"
The president demanded sharply.
"Mr... Mr. President, there's only a sixty percent chance!"
The operator forced himself to answer.
"Oh, shit, fuck you... How much research funding do you get every year, and all you've managed is a sixty percent interception rate?"
The president cursed furiously. These lunatics received so much military funding every year, and this piece of junk was all they had developed?
If nuclear war really broke out, the United States might be the first to be destroyed!
If they launched a nuclear strike against the Ten Rings now and failed to intercept the other side's missiles, he would have nowhere to cry!
He still wanted to be reelected. If missiles like these landed on United States soil, what the hell could he do then?
The generals and commanders flushed under his tirade, momentarily at a loss for words.
"So we're just going to let the Ten Rings keep developing?" the secretary of defense asked with a frown.
"The Ten Rings have already established themselves. Even if we destroy their base in Salia, so what? Can you guarantee they don't have other bases? Can you guarantee we'll kill Wenwu?"
The president swept his gaze over everyone in the operations room and said coldly, "Right now, they're out in the open, and we can still use international public opinion to restrain them. If we push them too far and they go underground, becoming terrorists lurking in the shadows again, which of you will sleep soundly? Tell me!"
The generals fell silent.
The president was right. With weapons this powerful in the Ten Rings' hands, if they went into hiding and launched surprise attacks, a devastating missile could land on their heads in their sleep one day without them even knowing.
"For now, we can only block all resources, launch a public opinion offensive, and limit their territorial expansion," the president ordered immediately.
"After that, we need to upgrade our weapons as quickly as possible. Otherwise, the Ten Rings won't be the only enemy we face."
The president's words sent another shudder through them.
Yes, their main task now was to gather resources and upgrade their equipment. Otherwise, if their two major rivals overtook them, they would lose their position as the dominant power.
Against that concern, even the Ten Rings seemed insignificant.
Once a major power set itself in motion, it was beyond anything a small organization like the Ten Rings could imagine.
They refused to believe the Ten Rings could develop faster than they could.
As long as they fully mastered the Arc Reactor, they could naturally possess any weapons the Ten Rings had, and in quantities countless times greater.
How could the Ten Rings compete?
When that time came, dealing with the Ten Rings would be effortless.
Time turned back a few minutes.
Every news channel, scrolling headline, and trending social media topic across the globe exploded at that moment.
Live broadcasts across every continent switched feeds simultaneously, while media outlets everywhere interrupted their programming with red, top-priority breaking news alerts.
"A historic moment! The most devastating military conflict of the twenty-first century has erupted in the Middle East!"
"A five-nation coalition has joined US forces in launching a saturation missile strike against Ten Rings-controlled territory!"
"A thousand missiles fill Middle East airspace as war ignites!"
On-screen, the skies over the Middle East had long since lost their usual tranquility. Densely packed tactical and cruise missiles trailed dazzling exhaust flames, tearing through the clear skies as they screamed toward the Ten Rings' five main cities.
Their thunderous roar spread across the globe through the screens, making everyone watching the live broadcasts tremble.
High-energy air defense weapon arrays throughout Ten Rings territory fully activated. Laser interception, electromagnetic air defenses, and close-in weapons all opened up, weaving a dense net of intercepting fire high in the sky.
But there were simply too many incoming missiles. Under the saturation strike, gaps eventually appeared in the air defense arrays of all four cities apart from Amba City.
Fire bloomed across the four main cities in succession. Thunderous explosions rang out one after another, thick black smoke billowed skyward, concrete buildings crumbled and shattered, rubble flew through the streets, and residential districts were instantly engulfed in flames.
Apart from the core city, Amba City, which remained completely unscathed with a flawless air defense record, all four other major cities were hit, each taking two to five precise missile strikes.
On-screen, thick smoke shrouded city blocks, medical vehicles raced through with sirens blaring, and civilians fled in panic. Images of people clutching their heads and sobbing were captured live by cameras from around the globe, spreading the real, brutal scenes of the battlefield across the world simultaneously.
Countless people held their breath. Everyone thought the outcome of this war was already decided: the Ten Rings, which controlled its own territory, would be gravely weakened by the coalition's saturation strikes and brought to the brink of defeat.
But the next second, a counterattack that overturned the world's understanding suddenly arrived.
Within Ten Rings territory, plasma fusion missiles glowing all over with an eerie blue, futuristic sheen burst through the ground, trailing brilliant energy exhaust as they shot into the sky and disappeared.
Not long afterward, terrifying footage filmed from afar of frontline military bases in Israel, Yisi, Kuwait, Basen, and Kamaer, along with three overseas US military bases, was uploaded.
Eight core military bases in total were struck precisely by the missiles the Ten Rings had launched and that had vanished from view.
Blinding white light instantly swallowed every base. Ultra-high-temperature plasma energy erupted, and shock waves of heat far exceeding those of conventional nuclear weapons swept across the entire area.
Then static instantly filled the cameras' feeds, and the images vanished!