Chapter 1 The Beginning

A cool breeze brushed against his face, and Li Ang opened his eyes, blinking.

He was standing on a small town street.

The concrete road beneath his feet was riddled with cracks.

A large number of abandoned vehicles lined the road.

Shops, averaging one or two stories high, displayed English signs, but there wasn't a soul to be seen inside.

It wasn't some long-abandoned village.

Li Ang scanned his surroundings. Many vehicles still had keys in the ignition, and uneaten meals sat on tables by the windows in restaurants—the lingering warmth of the food suggested people hadn't left long ago.

At that moment, the Sky Arena's notification rang in his ears, and Li Ang raised an eyebrow in slight surprise.

"Exterminate five hundred million within fifteen hours... Aim entered three hours earlier than me, so this must be his setup..."

He instantly understood the situation. With a gentle wave of his hand, spiritual energy poured forth, seeping into the concrete road, forming an invisible circle around him.

"Found them."

Li Ang casually tossed down a few plant seeds. The seeds took root and sprouted the instant they touched the ground, transforming into flowers and vines that spread along the cracks in the surface, reaching towards the shops on either side of the street.

Li Ang turned his gaze towards a warehouse at the end of the street, lightly pushed off the ground, and his figure instantly vanished from the spot.

Boom!

The shutter door of the warehouse at the end of the street was forcibly smashed open.

Inside the dimly lit warehouse, three white teenagers covered in tattoos, lost in a drunken stupor with syringes in their hands, heard the loud crash and looked towards the doorway in confusion, momentarily blinded by the sudden sunlight.

Before they could make any further movements, a vast, unfathomable spiritual energy engulfed their minds, extracting their recent memories.

The history of the insectoids... the sudden national broadcasts... the emergency directives for the evacuation of all insectoids... the collective launch of multiple rounds of nuclear warheads from global missile silos... the public's panic and unease in the face of the apocalypse... their despair and hopelessness, preferring to get high until the end of the world...

Li Ang casually rummaged through their memories, quickly understanding Aim's series of arrangements. He casually released the spiritual energy that had been suppressing the teenagers' throats, allowing them to fall heavily to the ground.

"So, several rounds of intercontinental missiles have already been launched into the sky..."

Li Ang muttered to himself, then heavily stomped the ground. His figure shot up like an arrow, breaking through the warehouse roof and hovering in mid-air, scanning the surroundings.

This was a rural town near Palm Springs, a city in the West Coast of the United States. It had a population of nearly ten thousand, with beautiful scenery, adjacent to a national natural reserve, often attracting tourists.

However, what caught Li Ang's attention at this moment was not the beautiful scenery, but the dozens of blurred white dots on the horizon.

Cruise missiles.

"So they found me this quickly?"

Li Ang casually looked up at the sky, as if trying to see clearly the surveillance satellites in near-Earth orbit, across a distance of four thousand kilometers.

Whoosh—

The sound of air being torn apart grew closer, and the dozens of six-meter-long cruise missiles, equipped with main wings, rapidly approached from the east.

And in the unseen distance, more cruise missiles were speeding in from all directions.

The maximum range of cruise missiles was about one thousand kilometers or more, with some models reaching two thousand or even two thousand five hundred kilometers, and a maximum flight speed of nearly one thousand kilometers per hour, close to the speed of sound.

When a person saw the shadow of a cruise missile in their line of sight, it meant it was about to hit.

Li Ang indifferently withdrew his gaze from the distant white dots, stepped on the ladder of clouds, rapidly ascending, and drew the Colt revolver from the void with his left hand, pulling the trigger towards the west.

Bang!

As the gunshot rang out, his figure instantly vanished from the spot.

The next second, dozens of cruise missiles reached their designated positions and detonated directly in mid-air at a height of one hundred meters.

The explosions produced towering flames, and the shockwaves shattered the glass windows of the streets below.

Thud!

Far away, Li Ang flickered into existence in a bomb crater on a city street.

Here was Los Angeles.

The second-largest city in the United States, the City of Angels, one of the international centers of trade, science, education, entertainment, and sports, and also the location of Hollywood.

In ordinary times, this city's streets would be filled with pedestrians and vehicles, and tourists from all over the world would be wearing patterned T-shirts and cultural hats, touring this beautiful city.

But now, the entire city had fallen into an eerie silence. Not a single pedestrian could be seen above ground. Instead, stray cats and dogs, unaware of what had happened, excitedly occupied the deserted city, strutting down the streets.

Li Ang stood up from the huge crater created by the Colt revolver, and his gaze turned towards Palm Springs.

He had previously thrown a few plant seeds on the ground in that town, as nodes for divine power.

And now, those divine power nodes were sending back information—all the cruise missiles were Tomahawks. Judging from the fire of the explosions, most were Bgm-109d with cluster warheads, containing nearly 166 BLu-97B small-caliber bombs.

A small number were Bgm-109B equipped with B-61 blast warheads,

But none were Bgm-109A loaded with w-80 nuclear warheads (with a yield of up to 150,000 tons of TNT equivalent).

"No nuclear warheads? I wonder if it's a deliberate show of weakness, or if the land-based missile launchers in that direction weren't equipped with Bgm-109A."

Li Ang muttered to himself, and spiritual energy poured out.

————

"Launch! Launch!"

On a Ticonderoga-class cruiser in the Pacific Ocean, a cruiser captain named Kelsen was holding a microphone, issuing orders to launch cruise missiles.

This Ticonderoga-class cruiser was stationed in the sea a hundred kilometers west of Los Angeles, with four other cruisers as support.

Normally, Ticonderoga-class cruisers served as the main command centers for aircraft carrier battle groups (CvBg) and amphibious assault battle groups, providing protection for aircraft carriers.

The Aegis system equipped on it provided excellent air defense capabilities, giving the aircraft carrier battle group ample power to resist missile attacks from the surface, air, and underwater, but now, its only purpose was,

To follow the instructions of the near-Earth orbit monitoring satellites and continuously launch cruise missiles.

Tzzzzz—

On the cruiser's deck, one rectangular cover after another automatically popped open, and cruise missiles were launched from the vertical missile silos, changing direction in mid-air and speeding towards Los Angeles.

Everything was proceeding as predicted in Project B-23.

Captain Kelsen's face was tense, and his left hand, hanging down on the left side of his pants, was clenched tightly.

To cope with the unprecedented disaster, governments around the world had been working feverishly for three hours, following Aim's arrangements, to formulate a complete set of complicated and cumbersome doomsday contingency plans.

In Project B-23, they anticipated that Li Risheng would use his psychic abilities at the first opportunity to extract the memories of nearby residents in the landing area,

To find out his location and current situation.

Then, after seeing the cruise missiles, he would teleport directly to a nearby big city over a long distance.

Because the American military's main Tomahawk cruise missiles could carry w-80 nuclear warheads with a maximum yield of 150,000 tons of trinitrotoluene equivalent, with a kill radius of up to three kilometers.

When he realized he was exposed to near-Earth orbit satellite surveillance, he would be continuously bombarded by cruise and ballistic missiles from all over the United States and even the world,

The optimal choice would definitely not be to stay in place and test the power of nuclear weapons, but to quickly transfer, and to transfer to nearby big cities.

Big cities had relatively complex and dense high-rise buildings that could effectively block low-flying cruise missiles, and the underground facilities of big cities also had a large number of insectoid people taking refuge...

He was wrong!

Captain Kelsen stared at the rising flames on the deck through the bridge glass, a cold glint flashing in his eyes.

Perhaps that otherworlder named Li Risheng possessed unimaginable personal power,

But the collective wisdom of the insectoids was definitely not weak.

They had a chance,

As long as everything proceeded according to plan...

————

In the distance, white dots lit up again, and a new round of cruise missile bombardment had arrived.

Li Ang frowned slightly, and pressed his palm lightly on the ground. The soil instantly melted and loosened into mud, exposing the subway tunnel beneath the bedrock.

He jumped into the subway tunnel, and what greeted him was a dense hail of bullets.

The American military had repeatedly emphasized in the doomsday contingency plan that facing Li Risheng with conventional weapons, mortal armies were extremely weak and powerless.

Therefore, whether it was the American police, or the National Guard, the Coast Guard, or the Marine Corps, they all took shelter on the spot.

If they were in a city, they would assist city residents in evacuating and taking refuge, carrying weapons to ensure evacuation order.

At this moment, what was in the subway tunnel was such an army—they chose to fire at full force the instant they saw someone descending from the ground.

The flames bursting from the muzzles even overwhelmed the light from the searchlights in the corners of the tunnel. Gunshots echoed back and forth in the empty tunnel, noisy and chaotic.

Li Ang watched the American soldiers firing hard without any expression on his face, walking forward as if taking a stroll in a courtyard.

Small-caliber bullets hit his skin, all bouncing off, not even leaving a dent.

Medium-caliber bullets could damage the white coat he was wearing, revealing the Scarlet Dragon's Mane outer garment hidden underneath.

"Ahhhhh!"

The American company soldiers in front of the tunnel burst out with hoarse shouts, not knowing whether they were cheering themselves on or venting the fear and despair that could not be released from the depths of their hearts.

Snap.

Li Ang raised his hand and snapped his fingers.

Spiritual energy poured out, and the American soldiers in front of the company instantly stopped firing, dropped their weapons, and in each other's despairing gazes, raised their hands, left and right, holding their heads.

Crack.

They forcibly twisted their own necks, and the crowd fell neatly from front to back, like cut wheat.

The American troops behind the tunnel screamed in panic, and several soldiers turned and ran back, lying behind the xm777 155mm howitzer.

This howitzer was a joint project of the Marine Corps and the Army, developed by British Aerospace (BAe), using titanium alloy materials. The 155mm howitzer shells it fired had a super long range of thirty kilometers, and could easily tear apart any heavy vehicle.

Boom!!!

The howitzer fired, and the huge sound echoed wildly in the tunnel, directly tearing the eardrums of these American soldiers, causing blood to flow from their ears.

And Li Ang was still standing in place.

Countless plant tendrils extended from under his feet, firmly hooking the ground. He raised his right hand forward, and through the Scarlet Dragon's Mane outer garment, grasped the 155mm high-explosive howitzer shell with his bare hands.

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Squeak—

Li Ang's palm slowly tightened, and the metal shell of the high-explosive howitzer shell made a teeth-aching twisting sound, and finally, unable to bear the weight, exploded.

The fire illuminated the subway tunnel as bright as day.

The only remaining dizzy and deaf American soldiers, in a daze, saw the figure that was still standing in place after the fire dissipated.

Swish.

Li Ang casually shook the palm of his hand, which was covered in smoke and dust, and continued to move forward.

The invisible and intangible circle of spiritual energy radiated and spread out, like a lawnmower, reaping the Los Angeles insectoids in front of the subway tunnel

All the insectoids saw were people constantly raising their hands and twisting their own necks.

The efficiency is still too slow.

Li Ang stopped, frowning slightly. Time was limited and could not be wasted.

After thinking for a moment, Aim had indeed prepared very well. Most of the insectoids hiding in the subway tunnels were wearing gas masks, and some soldiers were even wearing full-coverage protective suits.

This also meant that the most effective poison gas weapons could not achieve rapid extermination in the subway tunnel environment.

Then, use spiritual energy.

Li Ang smiled slightly, and with a gentle wave of his hand, the spiritual energy quietly changed its nature.

"Ahhhhh!"

The American troops stationed in each section of the subway to protect the people instantly burst out with uniform roars.

Their eyes were bloodshot, and the world in their eyes quietly changed. The surfaces of all objects were smeared with a strange flesh and blood color.

The ordinary people they were protecting were no longer in the form of ordinary insectoids,

But turned into hideous and terrifying monsters, waving their claws and roaring sharply, ready to harvest their lives at any time.

"Don't come over!!!"

Hundreds of American soldiers instantly went crazy, collectively turned their guns, and pulled the trigger towards the insectoids who were taking refuge in the subway tunnel.

Gunshots,

Continuous bursts of automatic gunfire echoed in the subway tunnel, and the tunnel road surface covered with gravel was instantly dyed red and soaked with blood.

Efficient extermination?

Li Ang smiled, squatted down, and pressed his palm to the ground.

The glowing pattern of an alchemical array quietly appeared on the ground.

The soil was refined, reconstructed, and shaped.

Soon, a huge subway train appeared in the tunnel.

The entire train was painted black, and the surface was covered with hideous and terrifying steel thorns. There were no windows on the surface. The entire train looked flat and ugly. Only on the streamlined front of the train, the words "Hope" were painted with iron hooks.

"Go, Brave Express."

Li Ang gently patted the train body, and the Hope train slowly started and rushed forward into the tunnel.

Thanks to Aim's decision, a large number of insectoids were hiding in the subway tunnels.

This also meant that the speed of the spread of death would be equated with the speed of the subway train.