Chapter 153: Playing with Fire
They added an assault armor maneuver test to the antimatter bomb explosion test.
It was more like checking Yu Ji-ha’s physical limit than a maneuver test.
He had undergone a modification procedure, but it was far from his original body.
Arma suggested that they should prepare in advance in case they had to fight the Plague with the assault armor, and Yu Ji-ha agreed.
“I don’t think I can sync more than 95% with this body, but I have no choice if I have to fight.”
In a battle with the Plague, a moment of 0.01 seconds could decide life and death.
If they hesitated even a little, an attack would come immediately, and the pilot had to feel and react rather than think.
But there was always a slight delay due to the BMI that connected the pilot and the assault armor.
That delay was expressed as a sync rate, and Yu Ji-ha’s original body never dropped below 99.995%.
Compared to a motion detector, it meant that a delay zone was formed within 0.005 seconds.
It was an unbelievable number considering that most pilots struggled to reduce it below 0.01 seconds.
But after returning to the past and using a Korean body, he had trouble raising it above 95%.
The modification procedure was already done, so this was probably the limit of this body.
It was not just measuring simple reflexes, but looking at the overall potential, so a complete genetic improvement was needed.
Like Yu Ji-ha’s original body.
“I’ll have to wait at least 20 years to use that…”
If the Plague attacked before then, there was no way.
He resigned herself to fate and continued his last stand until death.
Yu Ji-ha sat in the cockpit and synced with his machine, Dingo.
The number displayed on the console was close to 95%, but he still felt a sense of alienation.
He thought he needed at least 99%.
‘I can’t fight properly in this state…….’
Arma reported as if she guessed Yu Ji-ha’s mind.
「We have set the mobility of the Plague fleet to 95% in the simulation.」
“They won’t be so generous in real combat, but we have no choice… Let’s start.”
「Launching.」
Yu Ji-ha’s assault armor was shot from the Mars base toward the atmosphere.
For a brief moment, ether transferred from the Settler spewed out through the booster.
The assault armor was the second fastest thing that humanity had made at this point.
If they had to measure it, it could circle the Earth about 0.5 times in a second.
Of course, that only applied to linear maneuvers, and the speed would drop sharply if there was even a slight change of direction.
There were hardly any Plague entities that had such speed.
The only confirmed one was a Titan-class one that recognized Yu Ji-ha and stalked his.
It was ‘Princess’.
It was unusually small for a Titan-class, so everyone mistook it for a Knight-class or lower.
But its psy-field size and density were the strongest ever, except for the Queen.
It was so powerful that Yu Ji-ha, who had a psy-field comparable to a Leviathan-class Plague, lost his mind for a moment from its mental attack.
It was small and slender, so everyone called it Princess, but they didn’t know if it was really female.
They didn’t even know if the Plague had genders in the first place.
Yu Ji-ha’s sight was filled with countless bright spots as she left Mariner Valley.
「Plague sub-fleet detected, bearing 1015, distance 32 megameters, altitude 1,572 meters.」
「The commander of the sub-fleet is identified as a Kraken-class. It is designated as Theta One as of now.」
「Maverick One spotted. Transform start. Firing commence.」
Dozens of Goliath-class Plagues transformed into cannon forms and fired ion cannons.
Each white beam of light had a power that overwhelmed the ion cannon of Sibir satellite.
Yu Ji-ha’s eyes started to move erratically.
He was not in the real world, but in a virtual world inside BMI, dodging the Plague’s bombardment.
If he reacted even a little late, he would vaporize with her assault armor.
Dingo flew erratically through the countless beams of light.
It looked like a butterfly that dangerously cut through the pouring rain.
But on its back was a vicious weapon called an antimatter bomb.
With two one-gigaton bombs, it could pulverize dozens of sub-fleets and still have some left.
The Plagues, including Theta One, fired desperately, knowing that.
But Dingo dodged all their attacks and reached close range of the sub-fleet.
It happened in less than 10 seconds since the battle started.
「You have reached the effective range of the bomb. Detach the first warhead.」
It was the most nerve-wracking moment.
If it was hit by an attack before detonating the warhead, both the Plague and the pilot would disappear.
That’s why detaching the warhead was up to the pilot.
Even a pilot with incredible ether sensitivity and reflexes could end up dead if they missed the timing.
Yu Ji-ha was a veteran among veterans who had survived hundreds of battles for over 40 years.
He seized the gap when the Plagues’ attacks crossed each other and detached the warhead, then escaped from the battlefield.
They say running away is the fastest, and so was the assault armor.
As Dingo left the battlefield, the warhead was bombarded, but the detonation signal reached the circuit faster.
「Detonation successful. Prepare for shock. 3, 2, 1.」
A flash that burned his retina white and a tremendous shockwave hit her assault armor.
He had trouble controlling it due to the vibration, but he retrieved his machine without a hitch and returned to Mars base.
「Explosion test successful. The power of the warhead was confirmed at 998 megatons.」
“Phew…”
He took off his helmet and sat on a chair in the command room.
The power of one gigaton was definitely amazing, enough to shake the atmosphere of Mars.
The shockwave circled the whole planet several times and caused an earthquake in Mariner Valley.
It exploded hundreds of kilometers away, but the warhead was probably fine.
“The warhead is okay. The problem is me…”
「The sync rate rose to 96% momentarily during the battle.」
It was supposed to be an encouraging remark, but it was unacceptable for an assault armor pilot who had to mark 99.99% as the baseline.
He had to find his original body.
He asked while resting.
“How are the people selected by the game?”
「The highest sync rate is 62%. We advised them all to get the United Human Federation citizenship and most of them complied.」
“What about the psychers? Are Fatima and Seo-jun getting along well?”
「They are close but not lovers. They have been together for years and feel like siblings.」
“That’s a problem… They are twenty now, so they should have more opportunities.”
Yu Ji-ha’s plan for rebuilding the United Human Federation was progressing smoothly.
But he couldn’t shake off his anxiety.
The timeline was twisted and the prophet’s relics and the Plague arrived sooner than expected.
He didn’t know what that would lead to, but there was one thing for sure.
If he let her guard down, he would be annihilated in no time.
Yu Ji-ha took a quick shower and boarded his assault armor.
A combat cruiser weighing over 100,000 tons was being built in the dock.
***
Several space agencies, including NASA, detected an unidentified flash on Mars.
The computer judged it as an explosion as soon as it occurred.
It was so huge that it swept away the surrounding sandstorms and changed the terrain.
The astronomers thought it might be a meteor, but it was denied by some clues.
“It’s not a meteor because there was also a seismic wave. It must have been an explosion of at least 100 megatons.”
“If it was a meteor explosion, there should be a crater nearby, but we don’t see any.”
“Lastly, considering the gravity of Mars, it should have fallen much higher than here.”
“So this is not an explosion caused by a meteor collision? Then what is it?”
“It must be an artificial weapon with a power of more than 100 megatons.”
The NASA director grabbed the report and headed to the White House.
A few hours later, the Oval Office was filled with a gloomy atmosphere.
They guessed it was Yu Ji-ha’s doing.
Christina Guerrero, the national security adviser, ranted.
“This bastard finally detonated a nuclear bomb on Mars. We can’t let this go.”
“Isn’t it strange? The land is wide, why did he have to explode it there…”
“He didn’t want us to find out.”
“Do we need to care about his opinion when he automatically withdrew from NPT?”
“Well…”
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty had been rendered useless long ago by the development and proliferation of hafnium-2 explosives.
The United Human Federation generously shared the manufacturing method of hafnium-2 explosives with the countries that signed the Psyker Visit Agreement.
Thanks to that, at least 20 countries had bombs with a power comparable to tactical nukes.
The US had failed to stop the nuclear proliferation.
The Congress boycotted the Baldwin administration for not being able to stop it.
But what could they do?
Hafnium-2 was clearly not nuclear, and there was no reason to prevent its spread.
The appearance of the space monster also supported Yu Ji-ha’s actions.
President Baldwin looked at the map of Mariner Valley with a weak eye.
“What if it was not a nuclear bomb but a new type of explosive?”
“According to the observation, the power of that bomb was at least 100 megatons. You know that hafnium-2 can’t produce that much power.”
The US had found out that it was hard to make more than tactical nukes with hafnium-2 after all kinds of experiments.
Although they didn’t disclose it to the public, the United Human Federation would surely know it.
But President Baldwin was not talking about hafnium-2.
“Maybe he developed something more amazing.”
“That’s absurd…”
Guerrero, the national security adviser, shut her mouth.
It was not surprising that the monster who pulled out all kinds of technologies from his magic bag made a new explosive.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺