45: Power grid fully open

This nuclear-powered warship, possessing humanity's top technology, had actually been rendered blind by a swarm of insects at this moment.

"Damn it, I can't see outside anymore!"

Su Qingyu looked at the pitch-black screen, her palms drenched in sweat. "Jiang Ran, open fire! Use the Close-In Weapon System to sweep them off!"

"We can't open fire."

Jiang Ran looked at the thick, impenetrable yellow mist outside the window, his calm terrifying. "Right now, the outside is a giant gas tank filled with high-pressure biogas and hydrogen."

“If there’s even a single spark—"

"Whether it's the muzzle flash of the Close-In Weapon System or the arc from the Electromagnetic Cannon."

"It would instantly ignite all the biogas within a few kilometers."

He pointed above his head. "That level of sympathetic detonation..."

"While it won't sink us, the radar, antennas, and precision instruments on this ship would likely be scrapped."

This was the swarm's conspiracy.

Even if they couldn't bite you to death, they would bury you with corpses, melt you with acid, and suffocate you with toxic gas.

It was the most primitive, yet most unsolvable, human-wave tactic.

"Then what do we do? Just let them explode?"

Su Qingyu listened to the dense sound of explosions coming from above, feeling that the shield could overload at any moment.

"Since they want to play with fire..."

Jiang Ran's fingers left the weapon console and reached toward the bottom of the power control panel.

There was a red physical lever marked with the word [High Danger].

"Then I'll light a real fire for them."

Jiang Ran gripped the lever, the blue light in his eyes momentarily outshining the bridge's lights.

"zero, cut power to the thrusters."

"Redirect all remaining reactor power into the hull's conductive layer."

"Activate—Full-Ship High-Voltage Shock Mode."

"Hummm—!!!"

As Jiang Ran forcefully pulled down that red gate.

The Cold Fusion Reactor, silent deep within the lower hold, let out an unprecedented low roar, like a dragon awakening.

This roar was no longer a mechanical vibration.

It was an atmospheric resonance caused by energy overload, even making the floor inside the bridge feel slightly hot.

On the holographic screen, the blue sphere representing power suddenly swelled, its blinding light almost filling the entire display area.

[Reactor Output Power: 5%... 15%... 30%!]

[Energy Diversion: Hull Surface High-Conductivity Grid.]

[Voltage Peak: 120,000,000 Volts.]

"Squeak?"

The thousands of Water Striders clinging to the gunwales and the shield, preparing to self-destruct, seemed to sense something.

Their simple nerve systems suddenly detected that the "black land" beneath their feet was undergoing a terrifying change.

On the surface of the originally cold, dead black armor, countless fine, blood-vessel-like ghostly blue light patterns suddenly lit up.

The free electrical charge in the air increased sharply.

It even caused the bristles on the insects' bodies to stand on end, emitting crackling static sounds.

But this was only the prelude.

"Get the hell... off!"

Jiang Ran growled, slamming down the confirmation key.

"Boom—Zzzzt!!!"

In an instant, the black iron ghost was no longer just a ship.

It transformed into a giant, man-made ball of lightning floating on the water's surface!

Terrifying current surged along the Bio-active Metal, erupting instantly through that superior conductive layer.

There was no single lightning strike.

Instead, thousands of thick, azure electric arcs exploded outward in all directions from the hull's center!

It was a carnival of electricity in all its forms.

The insects crawling on the ship's body bore the brunt of it.

In the instant they contacted that hundred-million-volt high pressure, they didn't even have time to detonate the poison sacs in their bellies.

Their internal fluids were electrolyzed and vaporized within microseconds, triggering an implosion.

"Pop! Pop! Pop!"

It sounded like countless light bulbs being crushed.

The layers of yellow-brown "insect carpet" covering the hull's surface instantly carbonized and disintegrated under the baptism of blue light.

They turned into clumps of charred ash, blown away by the powerful electromagnetic storm.

The electric arcs did not stop at the hull.

They were like greedy tentacles, following the acid still flying in the air and the connected swarms.

Spreading toward the even broader space around them.

Blue lightning tore through the yellow-green toxic mist.

At this moment, the black iron ghost was like a divine punishment sent down by the God of Thunder.

In the center of that filthy insect tide, it expanded a domain of absolute purification through lightning.

The moment the electric arcs tore through the air, they also ignited this long-accumulated powder keg.

Just as Jiang Ran had predicted.

The high-concentration biogas, phosphine, and volatile acid mist sprayed by the swarms filling the sky.

The moment they contacted the hundred-million-volt high-voltage arcs, a violent chain chemical reaction occurred.

"Boom—!!!"

A dull roar that seemed to come from the depths of the Earth's crust echoed through the canyon.

The blue lightning that had been dancing in the night was instantly swallowed by an expanding, eerie ghostly green flame.

The fire was burning.

But this was by no means ordinary orange-red fire.

This was a "Nether Fire" mixed with corpse gas, toxins, and chemicals.

It displayed a heart-palpitating emerald color, spreading wildly along every trace of combustible gas in the air as if it were alive.

In just the blink of an eye.

The entire narrow canyon waterway turned into a veritable "Green Purgatory."

"Squeak squeak squeak—!!!"

Countless swarms still flying in mid-air, attempting a second wave of charges, were instantly engulfed by this chemical blaze of over a thousand degrees.

They didn't even have time to scream.

Their fragile chitin shells carbonized and disintegrated instantly under the high temperature, turning into balls of fire.

They fell crackling into the river water below, which was also burning.

And the thick floating carpet of corpses and grease on the water's surface now became the best fuel.

Corpse oil boiled, and bones exploded.

Millions of corpses burned simultaneously in this great green fire.

The sound emitted was like a grand, yet incomparably terrifying, symphony of firecrackers.

In the center of this all-destroying green sea of fire.

A pitch-black steel giant ship.

Enveloped in blue lightning that had yet to dissipate, it was like a demon god surging out of the abyss of hell, brutally crashing through the burning wall of fire.

"Warning: External ambient temperature 800 degrees Celsius."

"Warning: Klein Field energy consumption has risen to 60%."

"Doesn't matter."

Jiang Ran stood inside the bridge, which was illuminated in a sickly green by the firelight, looking at the apocalyptic scene outside. A cold arc curled at the corner of his mouth.

"Charge through."

"Leave these filthy things completely behind us."

"Hummm—"

The black iron ghost's water-jet thrusters roared at full power, sucking in scalding boiling water and spitting out an even more violent torrent.

The five-hundred-ton hull, with unmatched kinetic energy, smashed the burning remains of the corpses in front of it to pieces.

Nothing could stop it. Not the insect swarms, not the tide of corpses, and not this sky-filling poisonous fire.

A minute later.

As the bow sliced through the rolling green waves of fire for the last time, the black iron ghost finally burst out of that suffocating canyon waterway.

Ahead, the river surface suddenly widened. Although the air was still humid, the nauseating stench of corpses and the scorching heat were finally gone.

Jiang Ran looked back.

The canyon entrance behind them had been completely sealed by a wall of green fire rising into the sky.

That great fire was still burning wildly, dyeing half the night sky a bizarre emerald color.

"Disinfection complete."

Jiang Ran withdrew his gaze and tapped his finger, turning off the ship's high-voltage grid mode.

He pulled out the pack of cigarettes he hadn't finished earlier from his pocket.

He lit another one, took a deep breath, and the exhaled smoke curled under the soft lights of the bridge.

"Continue forward."

"There will be plenty more of these appetizers in the future."