The Almighty Ring

Just when the final battle between the Mutants and the martial artists was reaching the climax, the Chinese and American Naval war was hitting a tipping point.

When Hasley contacted the Pentagon and told them what had happened and what he proposed, the whole Pentagon went amok. The reason was simple—Halsey was proposing to drop a nuclear bomb in China!

It was known that American held the highest number of nuclear warheads. It was not a question of power but the outcome of it. A nuclear launch from America would definitely be retaliated with a nuclear launch from China as well. How would they be able to stop China from launching their own nuclear bombs? Mutually Assured Destruction, or M.A.D, was a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two or more opposing sides would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender, and in this case, China and America. Even though China did not have as many nuclear warheads as America, they had just enough to completely annihilate the entirety of America.

Although America had the best airborn projectile deterrent called Terminal High Altitude Area Defence that could intercept and destroy ballistic missiles. Even so, how could they be one hundred percent sure about destroying all the ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile), preventing them from reaching American soil?

“No! We cannot escalate this war any further! China will retaliate with the same! It’s madness! Mutually Assured Destruction!” cried one of the cabinet members.

“Hmph! So what? At least we have the chance to do so. If we do not destroy China right now, our entire fleet would be destroyed and the world would be run by China! When that happens, you will be their slaves! Do you want that?!” another member refuted, obvious agreeing with Hasley’s idea. Even if it meant taking one for the team, they would have to prioritize on destroying China to ensure their position as the world’s ruler.

“Mr. President, what do you think?” said one of the moderators, placing him as the decisive vote.

“Mr. Chairperson, what do you want me to do?” said the President of the United States of America, trying to deflect the question to someone else.

The man was silent for a good minute before turning to the President and nodded.

“Alright then. It’s a go! I am now declaring a nuclear strike on China!” said the President after no one dared to voice out their opinion. The President had only dared to sanction the nuclear strike because the Chairperson was none other than the President of the Mutant Brotherhood, Xavier.

Unlike how the martial artists ran things, Mutants had infiltrated deep into the American government. Both the government and the Mutant Brotherhood shared the same interests. It was even safe to say that the Mutant Brotherhood had their hands so deep that they were controlling the government!

The sanction of using nuclear bombs reached down the chain of commands quickly. In America, silos across all parts of the land opened up, revealing nuclear ICBMs that were ready to be launched. In just a few minutes, countless of missiles were launched into the air and into sub-orbital space. Besides that, there were also missiles launched from the sea, carried by submarines that were always on standby in the Great Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean.

Besides that, there were stealth fighters in the air, the ones that Americans took pride in but were trashed by China’s alien fighter jets. They flew towards China, carrying short range nuclear missiles. It was obvious that they were going all out in this attempt to completely destroy China.

…

“What?! The Americans had done what?!”

“They dared to launch nuclear missiles?!”

“Looks like we need to answer them the same way, with fire and fury!”

…

China was not weak although their military strength was known to be weaker than America’s. However, that did not mean that they would not know about the missiles targeting them!

However, even though they had received information about Americans launching their ICBMs, they did not panic but calmly relayed the information up the chain of command. ICBMs would usually take about 30 minutes before hitting their target. It was enough time for China to launch a counterattack.

“The government has issued an order to deploy Project Iron Curtain. Attention, we are not allowed to launch a counterattack!”

The order came back, but instead of ordering a counter nuclear strike, a defensive order was laid down.

“What? We are only to defend?” said one of the officers in the National Defense Army of China. They had already made preparations to launch all their missiles in retaliation, ready to bomb America back to the stone age.

“Stop whining. We have our orders!” said the senior officers. Although they too did not understand why the higher-ups would make such a decision, they did not have time to question the order—nuclear missiles are coming!

Project Iron Curtain only took two minutes to deploy and when the Iron Curtain was up, 80% of the entire China had their electricity cut. All of the electricity were being redirected to power up a few designated places in China. From outer space, besides a few hundred tiny blinking lights, the entire China was now black!

Those few spots were military bases where Han Tianyu had installed Anti-Fission Devices and Land-To-Air missile defense turrets. When Han Tianyu was being held by the military, those bases were “confiscated” by the military and taken over by them.

Due to the sheer amount of power, those bases could not operate at all times. However, the situation called for it since there were countless of missiles armed with a nuclear warhead coming to China! Now that they had enough power to turn on, the Plant Namek machine that Jiang Fei had given, activated.

“Located Americans stealth jets! Targets locked!”

Even though the American stealth jets were strong and were able to hide away from China’s radar detection system, they could not hide away from Planet Namek’s technology! When the machine was turned on, those high altitude fighters were immediately detected and locked.

“Calculating missile count…”

“Targets locked.”

…

Besides the American bomber planes that were still in American airspace, ICBMs in the air were detected and locked on by the Land-to-Air missile defense turrets. Once they were in firing range, they would be shot down!

Everyone that was involved in this air strike was tensed. The cabinet members in the Pentagon was at the edge of their seats, waiting for the result of the first wave of nuclear strike. They were also on edge about how China would retaliate. On the far side of the world, the Chinese were also extremely worried. The alien machine was turned on for the first time and had yet to be tested. Who could know how well they would work and how efficient would they be. Even if they have a 99.99% efficiency, that would mean at least one nuclear missile would get past the Iron Curtain and strike China!

At this point, only higher government officials of both countries knew about the nuclear strikes. Neither side had informed the public about it since a panic would not benefit them.

While the government officials were nervous, the citizens of both countries were just living their lives as usual. China, however, were raging on about the nationwide blackout. All they cared about was the motherf*cking electricity!