The Thermobaric Bomb's Target

Sabina immediately contacted the guards stationed in the fortified compound surrounding the coal mine, requesting them to confirm the situation.

Soon, shocking news arrived: apart from the outermost guards and the first mining team, all the other Divine Prison Guards and patrols in the coal mine had lost contact!

"Bang!" Sabina slammed her fist on the heavy oak table in anger, her knuckles turning bluish-white. The Plundering Clock truly lived up to its name, able to infiltrate so silently!

"No need for anger, this is actually a good thing." Hector rose, his face beneath his grey robe calm as still water. "The sinners have walked right into the trap, and God will give these lost sheep the punishment they deserve!" He snapped his fingers, then vanished in a flash, flying headlong towards the coal mine. The Choir members immediately lined up in neat rows, their robes fluttering in the wind, and followed closely behind.

Stanton quickly excused himself, saying, "I'll take my deputy and continue patrolling the area!"

"Thank you for your hard work," Sabina nodded.

She immediately issued a level-one alert order and simultaneously established communication with Sea of Divine Grace to inform the school principal Javier, of the situation.

"How exactly did they get in?" Javier's voice was filled with confusion. "Fortunately, Archbishop Stanton noticed the anomaly in time, otherwise the Plundering Clock might have succeeded and silently taken away those 150 evil necromancers."

"Their choice of infiltration tactics indicates they've mastered some technology we're unaware of," Sabina calmly analyzed. "This also suggests that the Plundering Clock might not be as powerful as rumored."

"Whether they're strong or not doesn't matter," Javier said confidently. "With Hector present, they're doomed!" He pondered for a moment, "However, we can't let our guard down—I'll bring some men over to provide support!"

"Good!"

With the issuance of the Level 1 alert order, all areas of Divine Might Prison immediately entered a state of combat readiness. In the artillery emplacement area located in the core region, the guards quickly removed the cannon covers from the magical rune cannons, putting these powerful weapons into a state where they could be fired at any time.

****

180 meters underground, inside a coal mine tunnel.

Dome Mountain Coal Mine has been mined for many years, and its shallow mineral resources have long been exhausted. Even the shallowest mining team, No. 1, has been operating at a depth of nearly 200 meters.

Having received a warning, the Divine Prison Guards had already fled in panic. Hansite gathered the last group of prisoners and directed them to evacuate downwards.

"Chase the guards down to a depth of fifty meters!" Rupert ordered the seven-man team. "If you can't catch them, hold the position at fifty meters for ten minutes to buy us time to evacuate!"

The seven men who had fought their way through were somewhat bloodthirsty. For these desperate outlaws who had lived on the edge of death, the battles where they could easily slicing through powerful enemies made their long-dormant blood boil.

"Can't we just chase after them?" someone asked, still wanting more, their fingers fidgeting with the blood stained their clothes.

"We must act on orders!" Rupert warned sternly. "There's a 20-man elite squad stationed outside, and there might be some tough guys inside!"

The seven men then calmed down a bit, accepted their orders, and left, their footsteps fading into the distance in the alley.

Rupert then turned around and, together with Hansite, led the prisoners away.

"Everyone, move faster!" the two urged repeatedly.

****

At the same time, at the coal mine exit, Hector landed lightly. He immediately released his powerful senses to probe, his mental energy spreading into the depths of the mine like invisible tentacles.

Radiant Chanter frowned slightly—within his perception range, seven necromancers of considerable strength were moving about in the shallow alleyways, and had killed several guards who had not had time to escape.

"The sopranos will remain!" Hector gave a brief order, then entered the coal mine. About ten Choir members immediately took up positions around the entrance, forming a defensive line together with the Divine Prison Guards.

The rest of the Choir members followed Hector into the mine.

"Prism Wall Barrier - Resonance!"

With Hector at the center, the Choir members cast spells in unison. A thick protective light enveloped them, amplifying each other's power.

Hector quickly located the seven people and precisely bound them all with a group restraint spell. Magical energy, like invisible chains, bound their limbs.

The necromancers' counter-spells were utterly meaningless against the "Prism Wall Barrier." Like ants trying to shake a tree, they couldn't even create a ripple.

The Choir members followed up with an attack, and six were killed in the blink of an eye, while the last one was deliberately left alive.

"I'll talk, I'll tell you everything!" The only surviving student, number 118, immediately gave up resisting and shouted.

Suddenly his expression changed, and the alchemical ring around his neck suddenly glowed with a blinding red light—

"Boom!"

Blood and bone fragments from No. 118 splattered everywhere, staining the surrounding rock walls dark red.

Hector ignored the blood splattered on the outside of his shield and turned his gaze to the depths of the mine. Such a large-scale operation must involve more than just these seven enemies; he judged that there should still be remnants of the Plundering Clock below.

However, considering the complexity of the mine's terrain, Hector sent several Choir members down first to scout the situation.

****

Support base behind the Sheltered Valley.

Four Hongxing-1 missiles have completed launch preparations and stand upright on the launch pad. The silver-gray missile bodies gleam with a cold metallic luster under the crisscrossing searchlights.

High in the sky, the Rainbow One fixed-wing UAV hovered above thick clouds. Although the clouds obscured the visible light, the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) pod it carried continued to operate.

The radar waves penetrated the clouds, reflected off the ground, and produced a clear digital image, which was then transmitted in real time to the tactical tablet in Su Ming's hand.

A large number of activity points had gathered at the entrance to the coal mine—those were members of Hector's Choir, who had just arrived at the battlefield.

Soon, most of the white dots disappeared at the mine entrance, clearly having entered underground.

Su Ming knew that the seven necromancers sent into the coal mine as bait had little chance of escape.

Besides the four serious offenders, including No. 118, there were three other medium-term offenders. Although Su Ming didn't know exactly what crimes they had committed, Qiluo's long-term observation confirmed that they all belonged to the Black faction.

This trip is a good opportunity to clean things up; it can be seen as atonement for what they've done!

"Activate the wind-elemental magic array!" Su Ming commanded.

At the air intakes of the four Red Apricot Missile, the cyan Magic Power crystals were activated, forcibly pumping a large amount of air into the engine vents, emitting a sharp whistling sound.

A ramjet engine, as the name suggests, uses a high-speed airflow coming from the opposite direction to compress the airflow in the intake and inject it into the combustion chamber.

It requires a certain speed difference between the missile and the air to activate. Su Ming currently lacks reliable solid rocket booster fuel to accomplish this step.

But Su Ming used a different method: since the missile couldn't move quickly enough to get enough airflow, he would let the airflow come to the missile on its own!

The wind magic array was pushed to its limit, the whistling sound became increasingly piercing, and the airflow speed at the missile's air intake reached the speed of sound.

"Emission!"

Su Ming pressed the button, and all four Hongxing-1 missiles ignited simultaneously, with the ramjet engines starting smoothly.

A dazzling plume of flame erupted from the bottom of the rocket, propelling the heavy projectile into the air and tracing four graceful arcs across the sky.

In mid-air, the missile swarm completed its turn and flew south in unison. Guided precisely by the Rainbow One UAV, they quickly accelerated through the clouds and soared over the majestic main peak of the Dome Mountains.

Su Ming stared intently at the monitoring screen on the tablet. The four bright dots, like the eyes of death, shifted into a diving posture, further increasing their speed.

****

Above the coal mine.

The Choir and guards looked around warily, on guard against any potential enemies.

Suddenly, four blinding points of light pierced through the thick clouds, carrying with them the torn fog as they plummeted down from the sky. Because the clouds were low, in just one or two seconds, the missiles, traveling at Mach 2.5, crashed to the ground at an almost vertical angle, like divine punishment.

Those on the ground couldn't hear the shriek of the hypersonic weapon, let alone react. They only saw four blinding streaks of light flash by, and then—

"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"

Four impacts rang out in succession, raising clouds of dust. Four small, round holes were left on the ground outside the coal mine entrance. Then, a muffled explosion echoed from deeper underground.

The guards looked at each other in fear, then looked up at the sky in confusion.

The sudden attack, without warning or any indication, made them feel threatened like never before. Fortunately, the weapons did not hit anyone and cause any casualties.

Everyone looked upwards warily. Was the enemy hiding in the clouds?

In the coal mine tunnels.

When the missile struck, Hector and most of the Choir members were still in the first level of the mine tunnel, not yet deeper. Their bodies shimmered with light, and the black coal dust in the mine did not touch these noble messengers in the slightest.

Upon hearing the unusual sound of a massive object piercing through the ground, and then exploding in a deeper alley, Radiant Chanter immediately became alert.

If a collapse were to occur at this depth, they wouldn't be afraid given their strength. However, considering that there were clearly still enemies outside, the Radiant Chanter decided to retreat first.

Fortunately, the enemy's weapon had strong penetrating power but low destructive power.

"This level of attack, you think you can harm a Saint Rank expert? It's laughable! "Hector scoffed inwardly.

But suddenly a faint sweet smell filled the air in the alley, mixed with the pungent smell of metallic powder.

Air filtration!

Hector and the Choir members immediately cast purification spells on themselves.

The next moment, blinding red filled everyone's vision, and the violent heat and shockwaves, like the raging waves of hell, instantly swept through the entire alley, engulfing everyone within.

The Hongxing-1 is equipped with an air-fueled warhead, the core of which consists of aluminum powder and ethylene oxide painstakingly produced by Su Ming.

With its streamlined design, robust bunker buster warhead, and impact velocity of up to Mach 2.5, four missiles, each weighing 5 tons, penetrated tens of meters of ground and detonated inside the coal mine.

However, this was only a pre-explosion caused by a small amount of explosives. Its purpose was simply to blow open the ethylene oxide storage tank, scatter the mixed aluminum powder, and allow these fuels to quickly diffuse and mix in the coal mine air, forming a high-concentration aerosol cloud.

A fireball at 2500 degrees Celsius rapidly expanded within the confined underground space, ionizing the air wherever the spherical shockwave passed. The entire mountain trembled violently in the explosion.

The shallow areas of the coal mine collapsed instantly under such a terrifying impact.

****

Coal mine entrance.

The explosion stopped, and the air began to fill with a pungent smell of burning and sulfur.

Many of the weaker Divine Prison Guards lay on the ground, unable to rise. They showed no outward signs of injury, but their internal organs had been shattered by the explosion.

However, almost all of the Choir's soprano members survived thanks to the magic protecting them.

When the thick smoke cleared, they were horrified to find that the original entrance to the coal mine had been completely buried by collapsed rocks, as if it had never existed.

"Lord Hector is still inside!" Several members were pale-faced, their voices trembling with fear.

"The master is a Saint Rank expert, he will definitely escape safely!" The leader of the high-pitched section tried to calmly reassure him, but the knuckles of his fingers gripping the staff were already white.

No one dared to imagine the possibility that Radiant Chanter had perished. He quickly organized everyone to begin digging at the entrance to the landslide and to launch a rescue operation.

Seeing this scene through real-time radar imaging, Su Ming admired the resilience of the otherworldly superhumans and carefully recorded the damage results.

Fengshou is right, these chubby babies need to get bigger to put people's minds at ease!

****

Deep underground, Hector, whom everyone had been longing for, was indeed still alive. This Saint Rank powerhouse was doing his best to maintain the "Prism Wall Barrier," resisting the coal dust and rubble that were constantly pressing in from all sides. A golden light curtain flowed around him, keeping the collapsed material out.

Thanks to his powerful Magic Power, he survived the earth-shattering explosion.

But when he opened his senses to probe the life force of the Choir members, his heart sank – at least half of them were already dead here!

Hector's eyes blazed with fury. These Magic Power synchronizers were all carefully nurtured with enormous resources, and they were just going to be wasted here!

"Hymn and Chorus!"

Hector unleashed the Choir's personal domain, a golden halo radiating outwards from him, connecting the surviving Choir members. All their Magic Power resonated harmoniously within the domain, creating a perfect chord.

With coordinated efforts, they quickly cleared a safe area and found a section of the alleyway that had not yet completely collapsed.

They rushed inside, but the temperature inside the alley was astonishingly high, the air thick with a suffocating heat. This was the deadly effect of the thermobaric weapon—the intense burning had almost completely depleted all the oxygen in the area!

Everyone quickly cast "Frost Baptism" and "Slumber Breath" on themselves, temporarily freeing themselves from dependence on oxygen.

The spell "Transmute Rock to Mud" shone brightly, and the hard rock layer softened like butter, easily pushed aside.

Radiant Chanter was very confident that, with the help of his domain, he would soon be able to dig an upward passage and escape to heaven!

Outside the cave, on the surface, the high-pitched section, led by their captain, had dug a passage about ten meters long, sparing no Magic Power energy. Suddenly, a jet of dark energy fell from above.

"Negative Energy Torrent!"

A black beam of light struck a Choir member, shattering his shield and sending him flying. Immediately afterward, a slender figure descended from the sky, landing gracefully in the center of the arena.

With her long hair flying, Zijin casually cast a few spells, sending the closest girls flying again. Then, the girl's lips curled up, revealing her signature fangs.

"Natural Rhythm!"

An invisible Saint Rank domain unfolded, covering the entire area like ripples on water. All magical effects that attempted to distort the laws of nature were instantly sealed off.

Deep underground, Hector and the Choir members' "Slumber Breath" and "Transmute Rock to Mud" spells simultaneously failed!

"Bay Owl!" the Saint Rank Radiant Chanter cursed furiously, "Fuck your grandma!"