267: Fireworks with a yield equivalent to 32 million tons

The grand military parade concluded amidst the endless shock brought by the "Kirov" airship, but the excited emotions of the crowd were far from settling down.

Jiang Xin was seen walking steadily onto the podium once again.

The solemnity and passion that had been on his face were gone, replaced by a strange expression that was indescribable, a mixture of anticipation and a hint of cold satisfaction, with a smile that could even be called wicked curling at the corners of his mouth.

"Fellow countrymen, today's grand ceremony has been spectacular.

However, I, Jiang, feel that there is still one last thing missing to provide a true shock for this special day."

He paused, his gaze sweeping over the puzzled faces below, his voice clearly transmitted through the microphone: "Therefore, I would like to invite everyone... to watch a grand 'firework' show."

"Fireworks?"

"What fireworks? Is this in the program?"

"I haven't heard of anything! The announcement only mentioned the parade and the commissioning ceremony..."

The crowd below immediately began to whisper, their faces filled with confusion.

Many people looked around, trying to get answers from their companions or the soldiers maintaining order, but they saw only equally blank expressions in return.

The sudden insertion of such a mysterious segment into the joyous festive atmosphere left everyone baffled.

The representatives in the front row, including General Qin Guoqiang, Yang Zhen, and City Mayor mentioned later, maintained their composure on the surface, but with their wealth of experience, they keenly caught the unusual excitement and coldness in Jiang Xin's tone.

This was by no means a simple holiday celebration.

Several military leaders exchanged a grave look, their bodies leaning forward slightly and unconsciously.

Jiang Xin ignored the commotion below; he raised his left wrist, glanced at the sci-fi-looking wristwatch, and then cast his gaze toward Chen Hao, who was standing by below, and said loudly: "It's about time.

Chen Hao, begin!"

"Yes! Commander!"

Chen Hao replied in a deep voice and immediately gave the order decisively through the encrypted communicator: "VR projection system, activate! Target area, synchronize deployment!"

The moment the order was given—

"Hum—"

A low humming sound came from all around the square.

Hundreds of high-performance drones, which had been waiting on the roofs of surrounding buildings, took off simultaneously!

They were not disorganized; instead, they quickly arranged themselves into a tight matrix formation in the air, shooting invisible calibration beams between each other.

Immediately after, in the center of Hero Square, above the open space that had just been rolled over by the torrent of steel, the air seemed to begin to twist and fold.

Countless beams of high-lumen light were projected down from the drone matrix, intertwining and merging; in the blink of an eye, an incredibly huge, shockingly clear holographic VR giant screen was generated out of thin air, stretching out before hundreds of thousands of people!

What appeared on the giant screen was not the splendor of festive fireworks as expected, but a chilling scene of hell:

The color tone was a depressing gray and dark red.

Dilapidated skyscrapers looked like skeletons gnawed by giant beasts, their glass curtain walls completely shattered, and twisted steel bars protruding menacingly toward the hazy sky.

On the streets, abandoned cars were piled up like mountains, with rust and dried dark brown blood stains mixed together.

What was even more hair-raising was that there were zombies everywhere in the scene!

They were dense, wriggling, wandering, and roaring among the ruins like maggots, and their numbers were so great that they almost filled every street and alley.

The entire scene was deathly still, yet it was filled with a frantic, evil vitality, like a purgatory on earth that had been completely abandoned.

"This... where is this?"

"Why is the Commander-in-Chief making us watch this?"

"What a terrifying place... how many monsters must there be here?"

The crowd in the square was completely bewildered, and the immense confusion even temporarily overshadowed their amazement at the VR technology itself.

This so-called "firework" show had an opening that was far too horrifying.

"It's Tokyo! That's the Tokyo Skytree! And that curved building! I've been there on vacation!"

A young man with excellent eyesight who was familiar with the landmarks of Sakura Country suddenly sprang up from his seat, pointing at the remaining iconic spire in the corner of the giant screen, and exclaimed involuntarily!

"Tokyo?!"

"The capital of the Sakura Country?!"

"The Commander-in-Chief is... going to set off 'fireworks' in Tokyo?!"

"Holy crap! I think I get it! Brothers, my heart is suddenly beating so fast! Could it be..."

"Bombing! It's the bombing of Tokyo! Using those planes and cannons we just saw!"

"My God! Is this for real? This is just... too exciting!"

"Looking at how excited the Commander-in-Chief was just now, I suspect these aren't ordinary bombs! Do you think it could be..."

"Nu... nuclear bomb?!"

"No way?! Using a nuclear bomb as fireworks?!"

Speculation spread through the crowd like wildfire, rapidly transforming from initial confusion into unbelievable, wild conjectures.

A surge of intense shock, a sense of absurdity, and a burning emotion that had been suppressed for a long time and buried deep in the national memory began to grow wildly in everyone's heart.

Many people subconsciously held their breath, their eyes fixed on the giant screen, palms sweating.

Not only the public but also the VIP section in the front row became restless.

General Qin Guoqiang, who had been leaning back in his chair, suddenly sat up straight, his brows furrowed, his gaze shooting toward Jiang Xin on the stage like lightning, and he whispered to Yang Tian beside him: "What does Jiang Xin want to do? Bomb Tokyo? Has it been approved by the National Government?"

His tone was filled with shock and a hint of imperceptible tension.

The representatives from other military regions found it even harder to remain calm; City Mayor mentioned later and Yang Zhen quickly exchanged shocked glances; Nickname: Bingyuan Canglong's cold face also showed astonishment; Nangong Yu covered her mouth subconsciously; Xiang Wentian widened his eyes with an expression that said, "You're actually playing this big?"

Low, hurried exchanges broke out among the representatives.

Just then, the image on the VR giant screen shifted, the perspective pulled back, and it switched to the hazy sky over Tokyo.

Three streamlined, futuristic silver fighter jets, like three sharp swords, pierced through the clouds and appeared on the screen.

They were the ultimate aerial weapons of the Red Alert Legion—the apollo aerospace fighter!

"It's here! It's really here!"

"It's our planes! Apollo!"

"It's really going to happen! Brothers, get ready!"

A tsunami-like exclamation erupted instantly in the square, but this time, the exclamation was filled with extreme excitement and anticipation.

All doubts were thrown to the nine heavens, leaving only one crazy thought roaring in everyone's mind.

The apollo fighter jet formation swept over the city of Tokyo at supersonic cruising speed, while the sea of corpses below swarmed like ants, completely unaware of the destruction about to descend from above.

Suddenly, the ventral armor plate of one of the apollo fighter jets slid open to both sides, revealing a huge internal bomb bay.

Immediately after, a giant bomb with a thick shape, astonishing length, and eye-catching markings, pulled by a deceleration parachute, slowly separated from the bomb bay and began to fall toward the silent yet "noisy" city below.

The size of that bomb was shocking, even from the high-altitude perspective!

"Good heavens! It's so big! This... this is definitely a nuclear bomb!"

"I recognize that shape! It's a nuclear aerial bomb! Looking at the proportions, this yield... it must be at least in the tens of megatons?!"

"Tens of megatons?! Oh my goodness! If this is dropped, will there be anything left of Tokyo?"

"More than just scraps! The entire city, even the ground, will be overturned and burned into glass!"

Those in the crowd with some military knowledge were already so excited they were incoherent, their voices trembling.

Those who didn't understand also felt how terrifying the impending event was from the reactions of those around them and the heart-stopping size of the bomb.

After the nuclear aerial bomb detached, the three apollo fighter jets did not stop at all; the blue plasma thrusters at their tails suddenly erupted with blinding light, and the fighter jets instantly broke the sound barrier, turning into three streams of light, speeding away from Tokyo at a limit speed of several times the speed of sound, quickly disappearing at the edge of the screen.

At this moment, Tokyo.

Hundreds of millions of zombies were still wandering and roaring, driven by instinct.

The few surviving Sakura Country citizens, hiding in deep underground bunkers or cracks in the ruins, were still gasping for air in despair and numbness, completely unaware of the Grim Reaper falling from the sky above.

That nuclear aerial bomb, carrying destruction, at an altitude of about 10,000 meters above the ground of Tokyo, had a precise fuse device activated by a preset program, pressing the final shutter for the chain reaction.

First, the highly concentrated fissile material at the center of the bomb (such as Uranium-235 or Plutonium-239) is precisely compressed by the implosion wave generated by the simultaneous detonation of circumferentially arranged conventional high-energy explosives (such as TNT), reaching a supercritical mass.

In an instant, a chain reaction of neutrons striking atomic nuclei with unprecedented violence was triggered! An unimaginably massive amount of energy was released in a hundred-millionth of a second, generating a terrifying heat of hundreds of millions of degrees Celsius!

This high temperature acted like a spark igniting the final fuel, instantaneously triggering a thermonuclear fusion reaction in the light nuclear fusion material surrounding the fissile material!

The fusion released even more violent energy and more neutrons, and these neutrons, in turn, accelerated the unreacted fissile material...

The violent cycle of fission-fusion-fission was completed in an instant!

Ultimately, the entire bomb transformed into a source of extreme light and heat that should not exist in the real world!

"Boom——————"

On the massive VR screen, a point of extreme white light first lit up above Tokyo!

The moment that white light appeared, it surpassed the brightness of the sun, as if God had opened an angry eye in the human world!

Immediately following, this point of white light expanded crazily at a speed the naked eye could not capture, transforming into a blindingly white sphere of light with an ever-expanding diameter that made it impossible to look directly at! The surface of the light sphere churned with hellish flames and energy turbulence.

At the same time, the perspective of the VR screen switched rapidly, becoming an overhead view from a high-altitude reconnaissance satellite, coldly and clearly recording this ultimate destruction.

The first to reach the ground was the devastating light radiation. These were electromagnetic waves accelerated to extremely high energy, primarily in the form of visible light and infrared rays, carrying a terrifying heat of tens of millions of degrees Celsius, spreading across the earth at the speed of light.

In the footage, within a ten-kilometer radius centered on the projection of the blast epicenter, at the same microsecond the light sphere lit up, all exposed objects—reinforced concrete buildings, cars on the streets, abandoned furniture, and even zombies and unfortunate survivors who were exposed—had their surface temperatures heated to thousands or even tens of thousands of degrees within a ten-millionth of a second!

Then, vaporization!

Not burning, not melting, but direct sublimation, instantly turning from a solid or liquid state into a gaseous state! Sturdy skyscrapers vanished silently from the top down, as if they were pencil drawings erased by an eraser; dense swarms of zombies, whether they were first-tier walking corpses, thick-skinned second-tier fatties, or even the Third-Tier Corpse King with astonishing defensive capabilities, could not leave behind even a trace of ash under the irradiation of that divine judgment-like light. They were instantly and thoroughly disintegrated at the molecular level, turning into the most basic atoms and plasma, merging into the searing storm that swept everything away. The asphalt and concrete on the ground also vaporized, revealing the instantly vitrified soil beneath.

Following the light radiation, a more terrifying shockwave followed in quick succession! This was the high-pressure, high-temperature air wave formed by the massive amount of energy released by the nuclear explosion violently compressing the surrounding air, spreading outward at supersonic speeds.

From the satellite footage, a constantly expanding, nearly perfect circular wall of dust swept outward from the epicenter, destroying everything in its path like a scythe!

Wherever it passed, the image became both blurred and clear—blurred by the dust that blotted out the sky, and clear in the process of everything being destroyed:

Buildings ten kilometers away that had not been directly vaporized by the light radiation, whether they were low-rise residential houses or sturdy factory buildings, disintegrated instantly the moment the shockwave arrived, as if swept away by the broom of an invisible giant god! Walls collapsed, structures were pulverized, and they were swept into the dust storm.

Those zombies that had luckily been in the shadows of buildings and not destroyed by the light radiation, whether hiding at the entrance of a basement or behind ruined walls, were equally vulnerable in the face of the shockwave. The violent pressure differential tore their tough bodies apart like popped balloons, and their hard bones were ground into powder, mixed with building debris and thrown thousands of meters into the high sky.

The earth trembled, being forcibly plowed into radial gullies several meters deep and hundreds of meters wide, as if the planet's surface had been fiercely clawed by a giant hand.

When the initial wave of destruction subsided slightly, the massive fireball at the center, which had already expanded to several kilometers in diameter, began to rise slowly. It was like a newborn sun filled with the aura of death, dragging a long "tail" composed of dust, ash, and vaporized matter as it climbed toward the high sky.

The fireball cooled, forming that iconic mushroom-shaped cloud that symbolizes humanity's ultimate military power. The smoke cloud churned and expanded, with lightning and thunder inside, as if gestating a new storm.

It rose higher and higher, eventually reaching a breathtaking height of nearly a hundred kilometers, penetrating the troposphere and stratosphere, and almost touching the mesosphere! This pillar of death, standing between heaven and earth, formed an incredibly spectacular yet terrifying apocalyptic scene against the backdrop of the hazy sky.

At this very moment, inside an Eastern Military Region reconnaissance aircraft on duty in a certain airspace off the southeast coast.

The pilot was routinely scanning the radar screen when suddenly, the optical sensor sent an abnormal alarm. He adjusted the lens in confusion and looked toward Sakura Country.

The next moment, his pupils contracted sharply to the size of pinpricks, his mouth opened unconsciously, and the blood in his entire body seemed to freeze instantly.

In the distant sky outside the porthole, a mushroom cloud—one he had only seen in textbooks and top-secret footage, and so vast it was beyond imagination—was slowly rising from below the horizon, its scale so immense that it was clearly visible even from hundreds of kilometers away!

"Head... Headquarters! This is Eagle Eye Three! Emergency report! In the direction of Tokyo, Sakura Country! A super-large-scale nuclear explosion has occurred! Repeat, nuclear explosion confirmed in the direction of Tokyo! The height of the mushroom cloud... God, it's immeasurable! It exceeds all known records! Please verify immediately! Over!" The pilot's voice trembled violently due to extreme shock, even cracking.

The entire process of the "firework" being deployed and blooming, broadcast in real-time through the massive VR screen, lasted for over half an hour.

For the hundreds of thousands of people in Hero Square, as well as the hundreds of millions of Chinese people watching this scene through broadcasts across the country, these thirty minutes were a time when their souls were repeatedly impacted, cleansed, and burned.

At first, there was extreme shock and disbelief.

Then came the most intuitive, instinctive fear and awe toward that destructive power.

But in the end, all complex emotions were swallowed and ignited by an older, more fervent, and more magnificent emotion—

That was the searing heat of national memory, deeply rooted in the blood and bone marrow, being awakened in an instant!

It was the satisfaction of witnessing one of the symbols of a century of humiliation vanish into nothingness in the flames of revenge!

It was an excitement that could not be described in words, yet was vented to the extreme at this very moment!

"Ah——————!!!"

It was unknown whose first shout broke through their throat.

Immediately following, like an ignited ammunition depot, the entire square—no, the entire Xijiang Province, and every corner of China where people were watching—erupted into unprecedented, hysterical shouts and cheers, mixed with tears and wild laughter! The sound wave almost overturned the sky!

Many people hugged each other and wept, pounding their chests hard; young people jumped up and threw their hats into the air; old people stood tremblingly, tears streaming down their faces, muttering about history and pain that only they themselves understood.

They had waited for this moment for too, too long, never daring to dream that it would be realized for them in such a way, in such an era, by such a person.

Jiang Xin stood on the stage, quietly watching the boiling, tearful crowd below, and watching the mushroom cloud gradually dissipating on the massive screen. The evil, charming smile on his face had long since vanished, leaving only a deep, cold calmness.

This "firework" was not just for the conclusion of a military parade; it was also to draw a cruel and thorough period, full of radiation and fire, to the shame of an old era.

(Brothers, doing something big; don't know if it will get censored.)