113: Chapter 113 Icethorn Shattered to Pieces! Six Tons of Explosives Wasn't Just Six Tons

The sound of the collision crossed the entire Rustwind Wasteland.

This was far beyond the noise produced by mere metal colliding; it was truly the deafening roar of one iron mountain crashing into another.

The Ice Thorn Lv.4 Main City slammed head-on into the front wall of the Black Rock City-State at a speed of twenty-five.

Tens of thousands of tons of inertia were released at the point of impact.

The front wall of the Black Rock City-State buckled inward by three meters at the moment of impact.

Under the conduction of the shockwave, the 150-meter-high steel wall emitted a sound of metal fracturing that far exceeded any artillery barrage.

Then came the chain reaction.

Six tons of explosives detonated simultaneously within the conical shaped-charge structure of the city-piercing hammer.

The shaped-charge jet pierced through the outer layer of the Black Rock City-State's front wall at a speed of several kilometers per second, penetrating the second layer and the first half of the third-layer core defensive wall.

The fireball expanded from the point of impact within a sixty-degree cone, tearing all cabin structures within a depth of two hundred meters of the front of The City-State into shreds.

But the voice of Ice Thorn rang out in the final second before destruction.

Public frequency.

"Lin Xiao."

"Did you think there were really only six tons?"

All ammunition depots inside the Ice Thorn Lv.4 Main City exploded simultaneously.

The entire ammunition reserve for 180 artillery guns.

Hundreds of tons of artillery shells and propellant were ignited in the high heat.

A chain-reaction explosion.

The power of the second wave of destruction was five times greater than the first.

Lu Chen saw that light from three kilometers away—a white light, the pure white incandescent glow of vaporized metal.

That incandescent light split the sky from the horizon to the zenith.

The lead-gray clouds above the Rustwind Wasteland were illuminated for three seconds.

Three seconds.

The shockwave propagated at the speed of sound.

Lu Chen encountered the shockwave nine seconds after seeing the white light.

The Polaris was shoved hard from three kilometers away; the vehicle body swayed, one of the nutrient solution barrels inside the cabin tipped over, and the iron pot jumped off the floor again.

"City Lord!" Lin Wan's voice came from the planting area.

"It's fine."

Lu Chen stared at the sky outside the windshield.

After the white light faded, a mushroom-shaped black-gray cloud of smoke rose from the direction of the front of The City-State.

Within the smoke cloud, sporadic sparks of fire were still dancing.

That was the residual burning after the explosion.

The radar screen showed that the heat source signal of the Ice Thorn Lv.4 Main City had disappeared, completely vanished.

There was no transition of a weakening signal.

It was not obscured by radar interference.

The target was completely erased from the radar screen.

A Lv.4 City-State-class Mobile City, one kilometer long, four hundred meters wide, and one hundred fifty meters high, was completely destroyed in the chain-reaction explosion of six tons of shaped-charge explosives and hundreds of tons of ammunition.

Ice Thorn, along with its last thirty-two people, was obliterated.

"Zhou Yuan."

There was only noisy static in the communicator.

"Zhou Yuan!"

"Here..."

Zhou Yuan's voice squeezed out of the communicator's static—broken, hoarse; this sound was like a noise dragged out from beneath a pile of scrap metal.

"The front of The City-State..."

"How is the front?"

"It's gone."

His voice fractured in the communicator.

"The front wall is gone."

"The first half of the first to third layers is gone."

"The Docking Area is gone."

"The main engine is in the second half of the first layer; the shockwave broke three main drive shafts."

"The City-State has stopped."

Lu Chen's fingers paused on the steering wheel for three seconds.

Three seconds.

Another three seconds.

"What about the people?"

"The City Lord ordered an evacuation in advance! Most of the people are on the fourth and fifth layers!"

The voice on the other end of the communicator was trembling.

"The last fifteen people to evacuate from the first layer..."

"The shockwave arrived when the elevator reached the fourth floor..."

"Five people were ejected from the elevator shaft..."

The voice in the communicator shattered into fragments.

"What about the others?"

"Still counting..."

"Where is Lin Xiao?"

The communicator was silent for four seconds.

"City Lord Lin Xiao is in the fifth-layer command center. The command center's blast-proof cabin closed before the explosion shockwave arrived."

"Is he alive?"

"He is alive."

Lu Chen gripped the steering wheel tight.

"I'm coming over."

The Polaris turned its head and drove at full speed toward the Black Rock City-State.

A distance of three kilometers, two minutes.

The entire Rustwind Wasteland became two shades darker than usual under the shadow of the mushroom cloud.

The air was filled with the acrid, bitter smell of burning metal.

Rust dust was pushed up by the impact, mixed with the residual particles of destruction, forming a murky orange-gray mist in the night sky.

The Polaris rolled over the first piece of debris, a deformed steel plate about one square meter in size.

A corner of a blood-red skull paint job still remained on it. The Ice Thorn's livery.

Further ahead, the fragments became more numerous and larger.

Some fragments were scattered on the ice, steaming.

Some fragments had charred bolt remains embedded in them.

From the cross-sections of some fragments, one could clearly see the layered structure of the armor plates that had been forcibly snapped.

The wreckage of the Ice Thorn Lv.4 Main City was scattered within a radius of one kilometer.

This one-kilometer-long iron giant city had been violently torn apart; the largest remains were no more than ten meters, and the smallest were only the size of a fist.

Fragments were everywhere.

Not a single intact section of the hull structure remained.

Total destruction.

Lu Chen's gaze swept over this scrapped metal without lingering.

He looked ahead.

The front wall of the Black Rock City-State had disappeared.

It was by no means as simple as being pierced by a few small holes.

It was not just the outer layer peeling off.

The entire front wall had been torn apart and disintegrated from bottom to top.

The 150-meter-high front wall collapsed to both sides, with twisted rebar and broken rib structures exposed on the remaining wall cross-sections.

Looking from directly in front, the entire front half of the Black Rock City-State had been forcibly torn open by immense force.

The internal cabin structures were exposed.

The first-layer Docking Area was completely destroyed, the ground covered with crushed steel and debris.

The first half of the second-layer industrial zone had collapsed, and the equipment in the smelters and military workshops had been pushed into a pile of scrap metal by the violent impact.

The first half of the third-layer storage area was on fire, with stored coal crystal and ammunition burning under secondary ignition.

Above the fourth layer, one could see large areas of outer wall deformation and numerous cracks, but fortunately, the main structure remained intact.

"Lin Wan."

The carriage was silent.

"Lin Wan."

"Here... here."

Lin Wan's voice lowered.

"Your brother is alive."

"I... I know."

Her tone was steady.

Without excessive fear, without superfluous sorrow.

It was just that everything had happened too fast, and she hadn't completely processed it yet.

The Polaris bypassed the collapsed front of the Black Rock City-State and approached from the side.

The side wall was still relatively intact, but large areas of cracks and deformation had appeared.

Several places were smoking.

Lu Chen parked the Polaris three hundred meters from the side wall of The City-State.

He looked at the silhouette of this 800-meter-long Lv.4 City-State-class Mobile City.

Eight hours ago, when he first drove out of this city-state to attack the vanguard of the Icebreaker Swarm, this city was intact.

120 artillery guns, 30,000 people, an 800-meter-long iron giant city.

Now, The City-State had stopped.

The three drive shafts of the main engine were broken.

The front wall was gone.

The first three layers of the front half were destroyed and disintegrated.

The artillery array was on top of the wall; after the wall collapsed, the gun positions collapsed with it, and at least sixty pieces of heavy firepower were buried under the ruins.

Lu Chen sat in the driver's seat and watched for five seconds.

Five seconds.

His fingers tightened on the steering wheel.

Several veins bulged on the back of his hand.