125: A miracle at the epicenter of the nuclear explosion! That hand, even in death, refused to let go!

*Click.*

A crisp sound of metal closing echoed clearly through the sensors into the command cabin.

The heavy Mechanical Arm, scorched crimson by the high temperatures of the seabed and even showing signs of melting on its surface,

finally completed its final grasp amidst the surging turbulence under Su Qingyu's extremely precise control.

The three thick alloy claws were like a sturdy steel cage.

They tightly locked onto Jiang Ran's small body and the spinal trophy in his hand, which he refused to let go of.

"Caught him!!!"

Su Qingyu's usually cold face was now covered in sweat and frantic joy.

She suddenly pulled the control lever back with both hands and roared, "Retract! Retract quickly!!!"

*Sizzle—Buzz!!!*

The hydraulic system, already on the brink of overloading, let out a dull scream.

The Mechanical Arm, extended to its limit, retracted with a violent force that almost threatened to tear itself apart.

It snapped back, forcibly pulling the man on the edge of life and death into the embrace of the black iron.

At the same time, Old Chen in the main pilot's seat had also gone completely mad.

"Move for me... AHHHH!!!"

His large hands, veins bulging, tightly gripped the power thrust lever.

He not only pulled it to the bottom but also, due to excessive force, bent the alloy control lever thirty degrees.

*Rumble—!!!*

The biological nuclear engine at the rear of the black iron let out the most terrifying roar since its construction.

Two materialized blue tail flames sprayed out dozens of meters, even forming a brief vacuum cavity in the seawater.

The massive hull let out a heart-wrenching groan from its keel under the immense counter-thrust.

The entire ship was like a shell fired in reverse, pushing against the boiling water pressure as it frantically ejected backward.

One second. Two seconds.

Carrying the man hanging from the Mechanical Arm, the black iron rushed out of the torn gap in the aircraft carrier at the critical moment.

At that very same instant.

The countdown that had been lingering in everyone's ears like the Grim Reaper's ticking finally reached its end.

[00:00]

zero's originally urgent alarm stopped abruptly.

In its place was an emotionless announcement that made one's blood freeze:

"Time's up."

"Detonating."

At first, there was no sound.

Behind the desperately fleeing black iron, in the deep darkness that had just been torn open and had swallowed countless rays of light,

an extremely tiny yet infinitely blinding point of light suddenly lit up.

The point of light was initially only the size of a needle tip, appearing in an enchanting deep blue.

That was the manifestation of cherenkov radiation at an extremely high energy level; it was the eyes of the Grim Reaper opening.

*Hum—*

In the next instant, the point of light expanded.

A "Blue Sun," seemingly from another dimension,

rose slowly and without warning at this moment, eight hundred meters deep in the icy seabed.

The speed of light is always faster than the speed of sound and shockwaves.

In that moment, the abyss, where one couldn't see their own hand, was completely illuminated, bright as day.

It was even more pale and blinding than midday sunlight.

All the seawater, rocks, and plankton lost their shadows under the intense light, becoming transparent and pale.

Through the monitoring probes at the rear of the black iron,

Su Qingyu and Old Chen witnessed the most magnificent and terrifying scene of destruction they would ever see in their lives.

The wreckage of the 100,000-ton nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, which had lain quietly on the seabed for decades like a mountain,

suffered a devastating blow under the expansion of this "Blue Sun."

Its indestructible special alloy hull was like a wax figure thrown into a steel furnace.

First it reddened and softened, then it directly liquefied and flowed.

Finally, in the core area,

under the terrifying temperature of tens of millions of degrees, its material form was instantly stripped away, gasifying directly into basic particle dust.

There was no fire from the explosion, as the seawater didn't even have time to burn. There was only pure energy release.

The "Blue Sun" greedily swallowed everything around it.

Seawater within a radius of hundreds of meters was heated to several thousand degrees in an instant, its volume expanding thousands of times.

A massive, incandescent, high-temperature, high-pressure bubble that was still frantically expanding outward was born at the bottom of the deep sea.

It pushed aside hundreds of millions of tons of seawater and crushed the hard bedrock of the seabed.

It had not only destroyed the aircraft carrier; now, it was going to destroy the black iron.

"It's coming..."

Old Chen watched the rapidly growing ball of light on the rearview screen, his voice as dry as sandpaper rubbing together.

That was divine power.

An absolute force that human power could not contend with.

Following the light came the sound.

*Rumble—!!!*

It was a terrifyingly loud noise that even exceeded the range of human hearing.

It wasn't like an explosion; it was more like the entire ocean was letting out a roar of pain at this moment.

Sound waves raced through the water at fifteen hundred meters per second.

Like an invisible heavy hammer, it slammed hard against the hull of the black iron.

"Warning! Shockwave front has formed! Time to contact: 3 seconds!"

On the rearview monitor screen, a visible white shockwave was frantically spreading around the brilliant "Blue Sun."

It wasn't just water. It was seawater steam instantly gasified by thousands of degrees, carrying billions of tons of seawater.

It formed a "high-pressure water wall" hundreds of meters high, connecting the seabed and the darkness.

Everywhere it passed, the jagged rocks on the seabed were instantly ground flat.

The hard seabed was plowed into a bottomless trench.

This white scythe of death was swinging toward the desperately fleeing black iron at a terrifying speed several times the speed of sound.

"Fast, fast, fast!! Just a little faster!!!"

Old Chen watched the white water wall on the screen getting closer and closer, occupying the entire image; his eyes were about to burst.

The black iron's engine was already on the verge of melting down, and the tail flame had even turned an unstable purple-red.

The entire ship vibrated frantically in the seawater, and the speedometer had already gone off the charts.

But in the face of nature's absolute violence, it was still as slow as a snail crawling before a tsunami.

There was no escape.

This was the cruelty of the laws of physics.

No matter how advanced the ship's technology was, no matter how superb the pilot's skills were.

Before a supercavitation shockwave triggered by a deep-sea nuclear explosion, all beings were equal.

"Shockwave contact!"

zero's cold voice fell like a judge's gavel pronouncing a death sentence.

"Brace for impact!!!"

Su Qingyu gripped the safety handrail tightly, curled her body into a ball, and roared the last command into the microphone:

"Klein Field—Full Power Overload Defense!!!"

In the next instant, the white water wall caught up with the rear of the black iron.

*Bang!!!* *Boom—!!!*

There was no buffer, and no luck.

When the physical shockwave, carrying the kinetic energy of billions of tons of seawater, slammed into the rear of the black iron,

the entire warship let out an extremely shrill metallic wail.

It didn't feel like a ship sailing in water at all.

Instead, it was like a tiny soda can being kicked away by an angry deep-sea giant.

*Zzzzt—Snap!!*

The pale blue Klein Field covering the hull's surface instantly reached its maximum brightness upon contact with the shockwave.

It seemed to become a materialized cocoon of light, attempting to withstand this heavenly might.

But it only lasted for less than half a second.

With a crisp shattering sound,

the overloaded energy shield popped like a soap bubble, exploding into a sky full of blue light fragments.

Without the buffer of the shield, the remaining violent kinetic energy slammed directly into the black iron's physical armor.

*Clang—!!!*

The command cabin was instantly turned upside down.

If everyone hadn't been tightly strapped to their seats by the highest-level anti-G safety belts,

this instant acceleration would have been enough to flatten them into meat paste.

Even so, the massive G-force caused Old Chen and Su Qingyu's vision to go black.

The air in their chests was instantly squeezed out, leaving them unable to even scream.

"Warning! Starboard armor peeling!"

"Warning! Keel structure damage at 35%! Attitude control lost! Attitude control lost!"

The entire steel warship, dozens of meters long, completely lost its dignity as a ship at this moment.

It was swept up by the terrifying current, like a withered leaf swaying in a hurricane.

Or like a pebble casually tossed by a naughty child, it frantically tumbled, spun, and collided in the murky deep sea.

With every roll, the tooth-aching screech of the external armor scraping against seabed rocks could be heard.

With every collision, the lights in the cabin flickered violently, bursting with clusters of blinding electric sparks.

This was a gamble for survival that involved no skill whatsoever.

In this absolute chaos of a centrifuge,

the only thing that remained locked tight was the Mechanical Arm, which had been charred and deformed but was still clenched in a fist.

It was like a mother's hand, tightly protecting the fragile life in its palm amidst the world-shaking upheaval... After an unknown amount of time.

Perhaps it was minutes, perhaps centuries.

When the last aftershock dissipated into the vast deep sea, the seemingly endless frantic rolling and colliding finally slowed to a stop.

Dead silence once again ruled this area of the sea.

Five kilometers away from the epicenter of the explosion, on the edge of a trench, the black iron lay quietly on its side in the silt.

Its current appearance was wretched beyond compare.

The once majestic and smooth external armor of the hull was deformed and dented over large areas, looking like a tin toy that had been toyed with by a giant.

The stabilizer wing on the right side was snapped in half, and its entire body was covered in shocking scratches and scorch marks.

But it was still alive.

That powerful biological nuclear heart was still beating faintly deep inside, maintaining the operation of the last bit of the life support system.

"Cough... cough cough..."

Inside the command cabin, everything was in a mess.

Su Qingyu struggled to lift her head from the safety seat.

Her forehead had been cut, and blood flowed down her pale cheek and into her eye, bringing a sting.

"Old Chen... Old Chen?" she called out hoarsely.

"Ouch... my old back..."

From the pile of debris not far away came Old Chen's weak groan: "Stop shouting... I'm not dead yet..."

Hearing Old Chen's voice, Su Qingyu's tense heartstrings relaxed for a moment, but then immediately tightened again.

"Jiang Ran!"

Ignoring the blood on her face, she unbuckled her safety strap and stumbled toward the severely deformed weapons control console.

The screen was shattered, but the indicator light representing the Mechanical Arm's lock was still stubbornly glowing green.

"He's still there... still there!"

Su Qingyu didn't even have time to put on a protective suit; she rushed out of the command cabin and sprinted toward the airlock on the bottom floor.

When she rushed into the airlock covered in blood and looked out through the thick observation window, she froze.

In that dark seawater, the massive Mechanical Arm, charred and twisted,

still maintained that final grasping posture, tightly held against its chest.

Even after experiencing the nuclear shockwave and kilometers of rolling and colliding, this giant steel hand had not loosened even a fraction.

*Sizzle—*

With the activation of the emergency recovery program, the outer hatch slowly opened. The Mechanical Arm slowly let go.

A figure, looking like charcoal, slid onto the deck along with the incoming seawater.

The powered armor on his body was completely scrapped, with only a few pieces of scrap metal hanging on him.

His exposed skin was severely burned, and dark red muscle fibers could even be seen beneath the skin.

But he was still alive.

Seemingly sensing the safety of the surrounding environment, that seemingly broken body moved slightly.

Su Qingyu rushed in, knelt by his side, and reached out with a trembling hand to check his breath.

"Cough... Pfft!"

The figure on the ground suddenly coughed violently, spitting out a large mouthful of blood mixed with black ash.

Then, those tightly closed eyes slowly opened.

Though exhausted to the extreme and severely bloodshot,

deep within those pupils, that familiar, reckless, and wild light still flickered.

Jiang Ran struggled to pull the corners of his mouth, revealing a smile that looked worse than crying.

He raised his left hand, which he hadn't let go of even while unconscious.

In his hand, he tightly gripped that super-alloy spine that gleamed with a cold light.

"Still not dead..."

His voice was as hoarse as two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together, yet it carried an arrogance from having survived a disaster:

"It seems... the King of Hell is also afraid of radiation and doesn't dare to take me."

After saying this, his head tilted to the side, and he completely fainted.

This time, he had fallen asleep.