True Apocalypse Game

"Motherfucker! They did it!" Nick slammed his hand on the console and shot to his feet, overjoyed as he watched the flight path of the aircraft formation on the radar display. At the same time, he yelled into the comms channel, "Self-propelled guns and rocket artillery, open fire now! Bombard that tower!"

The self-propelled gun and rocket artillery positions, which had been standing by, immediately let out a thunderous roar. Shell after shell streaked through the air, trailing long contrails as they flew toward the distant tower in New York City.

Their purpose was to provide cover for the air support and draw the tower’s attention.

That transparent, energy barrier-like shield immediately reappeared around the distant tower, intercepting the shells in midair and detonating them into clusters of beautiful fireworks.

Meanwhile, the bomber formation in the sky abruptly climbed higher, shrinking into tiny black dots invisible to the naked eye. From an altitude of ten thousand meters, they began to drop their bombs!

The fighter formation, meanwhile, banked sharply over New York City. From several kilometers away, they unleashed a volley of missiles at the tower, then immediately banked again, preparing to fly past it.

Just then, a dense mass of over a million eyes suddenly snapped open on the tower’s midsection. They looked like a black-and-white mosaic, and they all turned toward the fighter formation.

In the next instant, arcs of electricity flashed around the entire tower. The invisible energy barrier then seemed to expand again, instantly swelling to tens of times its original size!

Of the six maneuvering fighter jets, four exploded in midair as if they had struck an invisible wall. The other two desperately pulled up, scraping along the transparent, formless energy barrier as they climbed. But with a flash of arcing electricity, all their electronics failed and their engines flamed out. They tumbled from the sky like two kites with their strings cut!

BOOM! BOOM! With two deafening explosions, the jets crashed into skyscrapers in New York City, instantly erupting into a pair of fireballs.

The two pilots managed to eject before the crash, but tens of thousands of zombies had already gathered on the ground below them.

The moment the pilots landed, they were torn to shreds by the horde, devoured until nothing was left.

Even though it was only a virtual reality game, the sensation of pain was transmitted with 100% fidelity into the minds of the two players. It made them let out the most bloodcurdling screams before they died, leaving them with psychological trauma that would last a lifetime.

The Salvation Army Warriors in the base witnessed this scene as well. Their hearts ached, but they were powerless to help. All they could do was pin their hopes on the bombers high in the sky.

By now, the bombers high above had all reached their designated drop zone. A storm of huge, precision-guided bombs, like black raindrops, howled down from the sky, plummeting toward the kilometer-high tower.

The power of these precision-guided bombs far surpassed that of ordinary shells and rockets; a single one was enough to level an entire building.

The black bombs spun as they fell, hurtling toward the colossal tower.

In the distant temporary headquarters, the Salvation Army Warriors continued to bombard the tower with self-propelled guns, their eyes glued to the scene, hearts in their throats, waiting for the moment the giant tower would be destroyed.

In the blink of an eye, the precision-guided bombs were less than a thousand meters from the tower’s spire.

The giant tower shuddered violently once more, releasing a visible electromagnetic wave that radiated outward like a ripple.

The instant the bombs touched this electromagnetic ripple, they detonated. Dozens of precision-guided bombs exploded into massive fireballs in the sky, still hundreds of meters away from the tower.

From a distance, the giant tower looked like a flower stalk growing out of the city ruins, and the massive fireballs were blossoms of flame blooming upon it!

The invisible electromagnetic barrier remained, showing no signs of being breached.

Clearly, even the combined bombardment from the entire formation of bombers was nowhere close to reaching the energy barrier’s defensive limit!

Just as the hearts of the Salvation Army Warriors sank, five more black bombs howled down from the sky. These were far larger than the other precision-guided munitions, and they fell straight toward the tower’s spire.

This time, the five bombs made it to within about five hundred meters of the spire before they were finally detonated by the electromagnetic interference.

Five brilliant fireballs appeared in the skies over New York, as dazzling as five small suns slowly rising into the air.

Even at the base, far out in the suburbs, the Salvation Army Warriors could feel the terrifying force of the detonations.

Sophie trembled and said, "The Mother of All Bombs? A super thermobaric weapon?!"

The "Mother of All Bombs," or MOAB, is the nickname for the Massive Ordnance Air Blast—a new type of large-scale fuel-air explosive.

Aside from nuclear weapons, it’s the most powerful conventional bomb in existence. It can generate a fireball of around 2500°C, followed by a wide-area detonation shockwave that destroys targets and personnel.

A standard Eagle Army MOAB weighs 9.5 tons, with a yield equivalent to one hundred tons of TNT.

But these five MOABs had a combined yield of five hundred to one thousand tons—equivalent to a small tactical nuclear weapon!

The violent explosion instantly punched through the electromagnetic shield, enveloping the tower’s spire. The shockwave, fire, and smoke completely swallowed the upper half of the colossal structure, obscuring it from view.

Having expended their munitions, the high-altitude bomber formation was already heading back, descending toward the New York Air National Guard Base in the city’s suburbs.

The Salvation Army Warriors were ecstatic. They had seen the fireball swallow the tower’s spire with their own eyes—the first time they had ever witnessed a direct hit on the colossal structure.

Five Mothers of All Bombs detonating at once... that had to be enough to give the tower a world of hurt. It might even be enough to destroy it completely!

Nick, however, still wore a grim expression. He watched the distant tower through his binoculars, showing no sign of excitement.

The self-propelled guns were still firing. If the tower had been heavily damaged, it would surely be unable to continue defending against the artillery barrage.

But even now, every shell was still detonating in midair, completely unable to reach the tower itself.

The smoke and dust from the MOABs gradually dissipated, revealing the tower hidden within.

To everyone’s shock, apart from its spire being slightly charred, the twisted tower showed no signs of damage whatsoever!

At the same time, the charred section of the spire began to molt. The burned flesh peeled away, revealing new, living tissue underneath!

In the next instant, the countless eyes on the tower’s midsection blinked in unison. Their gaze swept toward the Salvation Army’s temporary headquarters outside New York City, then panned around to look elsewhere before closing once more.

It was as if it couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to such weak and insignificant humans.

The atmosphere in the entire base grew heavy. An attack of such intensity had still failed to breach the tower’s defenses. ’Are we going to have to use nuclear weapons? But if we do that, we’d be going completely against the Commander’s original intention for us to save this Doomsday World...’

Soon, the Legion Commander and the other pilots who had just landed at the New York Air National Guard Base arrived by vehicle, and they brought even more shocking news.

It wasn’t just New York City. There was another giant tower in the center of Washington City.

Furthermore, according to recently acquired satellite imagery, similar towers were present in every major city across the globe.

They were everywhere.