Chapter 19: Total Annihilation

Words : 1448 Updated : Sep 12th, 2025

The brutal war raged on. The relentless pursuit of heat was the very essence of these insects’ existence. For the sake of heat, they were willing to die without hesitation. As a result, Xiao Yu’s flamethrower strategy failed to deter them. Instead, it only drew them in even more. Another mound of insect corpses began to rise. Ten centimeters, twenty, a meter, a meter and a half... Xiao Yu was forced to command his robot defensive line to retreat once again. Four days had passed. There was still one more day before the missile would be ready. Because Titan’s small size placed Base Three a thousand kilometers away from the main base, beyond its horizon, intercontinental missile technology was necessary to launch the hydrogen bomb. At Base Two, the nuclear fusion research center was bustling with activity as hundreds of robots worked tirelessly. Each component was manufactured and immediately transported to the massive assembly facility, where it was mounted onto a towering cylindrical structure. The Fengshen-1 helicopter made continuous trips between the main base and Base Two, ferrying components that couldn’t be manufactured on-site for the missile’s assembly. Meanwhile, the insect tide was just five meters away from Base Three. Xiao Yu had already lost 50 robots, significantly weakening his front-line firepower. Gritting his teeth, he redeployed the robots stationed around the factory buildings to reinforce the front lines. “Once the hydrogen bomb is launched, nothing else will matter! I just need to hold on a little longer,” Xiao Yu resolved internally. At Base Two, the intercontinental missile was finally complete. Standing five meters tall and one and a half meters in diameter, the missile was capable of delivering the hydrogen bomb into the atmosphere, flying through space, and reentering Titan’s atmosphere to strike Lake Two. Several robots carried out the final checks while Xiao Yu carefully analyzed the data from thousands of sensors on the missile. “Pressure chamber, check. Combustion chamber, check. Navigation system, check. Separator, check...” After completing his analysis, Xiao Yu issued the final command. “Ten-second countdown. Prepare for launch!” White mist began to billow from the missile’s tail as the engine preheated, warming the surrounding air. “Ten... Nine... Eight... Two... One... Ignition!” A pale yellow flame emerged from the missile’s tail. Initially faint, it grew stronger within five seconds, generating massive thrust that slowly pushed the rocket upward. Xiao Yu had built this missile without boosters, relying on single-stage rocket technology rather than the multi-stage designs used on Earth. Titan’s lower gravity made single-stage propulsion sufficient for the task. The rocket ascended steadily, accelerating as it climbed. Within 30 seconds, it disappeared from Base Two’s detectors. Xiao Yu shifted his focus to monitoring satellite signals. Twelve satellites orbiting Titan took over from Fengshen-1, guiding the intercontinental missile. As the missile reached an altitude of several kilometers, it began to tilt, aligning with Titan’s rotational direction. Intercontinental missiles and rockets never launch straight up. Instead, they follow a diagonal trajectory, taking advantage of the planet’s rotational velocity to conserve fuel. The missile’s velocity quickly increased to 2.2 kilometers per second. Fifty seconds later, it exited Titan’s atmosphere. At 113 kilometers above Titan’s surface, the missile left the atmosphere entirely. From this vantage point, Titan appeared as a massive sphere spinning gently in the void of space. Behind it loomed Saturn, its magnificent rings encircling the planet in breathtaking splendor. Were it not for the need to save Base Three, Xiao Yu would have been reluctant to mar such a beautiful scene. The intercontinental missile was humanity’s most powerful weapon to date—a testament to its evolutionary progress. “Begin separation,” Xiao Yu commanded through the War God-3 satellite, the closest to the missile. A burst of light and a cloud of smoke erupted two meters behind the missile’s warhead. The missile body split into two sections. The upper stage continued its ascent into space, while the lower stage lost its propulsion and began falling back toward Titan. Its velocity was insufficient to achieve orbit, meaning it would eventually plunge into Titan’s atmosphere and disintegrate due to friction. The warhead continued accelerating for five more seconds before transitioning into a glide through space. This portion of the flight relied entirely on inertia. Xiao Yu remotely monitored the warhead closely through the War God serie satellites. The hydrogen bomb, now under tight surveillance, was approaching its final phase of deployment. With the insect tide closing in on Base Three, this strike was Titan’s only hope for reprieve. The warhead was crafted into a conical shape by Xiao Yu, a design optimized for precision, atmospheric reentry speed, and maximum impact. At the base of the cone were small vents from which pale blue flames intermittently erupted. These were micro thrusters under Xiao Yu’s control, fine-tuning the warhead’s orientation. Gradually, the warhead adjusted, positioning its base upward and its tip aimed squarely at Titan. The inertial glide lasted for three minutes, and the warhead reached its designated position. Xiao Yu issued the command. “Activate atmospheric reentry sequence!” The satellite relayed the command to the warhead’s control system. Instantly, the engine at the base of the cone roared to life, generating immense thrust that sent the warhead spinning rapidly as it began its descent. The target: Lake Two. At less than 100 kilometers of vertical distance from Lake Two, the warhead needed only about a minute to reach its destination, heralding the arrival of a devastating nuclear strike. As the warhead spun rapidly, it pierced Titan’s atmosphere. The immense friction heated it to over 1,000°C, turning its exterior a fiery red. A long white trail of smoke streaked behind it, and its sharp tip screamed through the air, emitting a piercing wail. From the ground, it looked like a wandering meteor from space. This meteor would bring total annihilation to every lifeform in Lake Two. On Earth, during intercontinental missile launches, decoy warheads would often be deployed at this stage to prevent interception. On Titan, there was no need for such measures. Xiao Yu was confident that nothing here would intercept his missile. The nuclear warhead rapidly closed in on its target. “Fifty kilometers... twenty kilometers... one kilometer... five hundred meters... two hundred meters... Detonate!” Xiao Yu issued the detonation command. Inside the warhead, a series of extraordinary atomic reactions were set in motion. First, the atomic bomb detonated. Within its trigger mechanism, immense heat and pressure triggered a fission reaction, unleashing a cascade of neutrons that collided with uranium atoms. The uranium atoms underwent fission, releasing additional neutrons that continued the chain reaction, culminating in a massive energy release. The atomic bomb’s detonation triggered the hydrogen bomb. The energy from the atomic explosion heated the warhead’s fusion fuel to millions of degrees Celsius. Under such extreme conditions, deuterium and tritium fused into helium. A portion of their mass was converted into energy according to the equation E=mc^2 , unleashing an unimaginable force. Ten meters above Lake Two, the hydrogen bomb exploded. Standing at Lake Two, one would witness an awe-inspiring sight. A meteor descended from the heavens, trailing a magnificent, radiant tail. In the dim atmosphere of Titan, the meteor was starkly visible as it plummeted toward Lake Two, only to detonate just before impact. A blinding explosion of light and heat erupted. A colossal mushroom cloud soared into the sky as the lake’s liquid methane, subjected to temperatures of billions of degrees, instantly vaporized. Blinding white vapor, searing heat, and intense radiation burst outward. The lake surface roared into colossal waves. But before the waves could crest and fall, they were vaporized mid-air, disappearing entirely. The intense heat and pressure differential created an enormous shockwave, generating winds far more powerful than any terrestrial hurricane, carrying devastating heat across the land. At Base Three, the robots stood motionless, staring at the distant display of sheer elemental force—a power that seemed to belong only to the heavens. This single hydrogen bomb raised the air temperature within a 40-kilometer radius by at least 20 degrees. The area’s new temperature: -140°C. To humans, -140°C would still be uninhabitable. But for the black insects, this increase meant their internal liquid methane reached its boiling point, causing their bodies to rupture from within, leading to their deaths. The devastation was absolute and left no room for escape. The endless insect tide that had stretched from Lake Two to Base Three was annihilated in an instant. The massive Lake Two was completely vaporized by the high-yield hydrogen bomb, leaving behind a vast, empty crater. The black insects hiding within were eradicated without exception. With one hydrogen bomb, Xiao Yu had utterly exterminated the black insects.

Chapter 19: Total Annihilation

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