Chapter 222: You Think You Can Run at Mach 6? Show Your Head and You're Dead Instantly!

On the deck of the Eagle Country's Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier, Commander James Cole spoke loudly into the microphone:

"Ladies and gentlemen, today we will showcase another breakthrough in human aviation history——the Ares High-Speed Penetration System!"

Behind him, that gray-black fighter jet had a sharp shape, a blended wing-body design, and its surface was covered with new wave-absorbing material.

The most striking feature was the huge waverider configuration under the fuselage, a lifting body optimized for hypersonic flight.

"Ares can reach a top speed of Mach 6!" Cole said proudly.

"It's more than twice the speed of existing air-defense missiles, meaning that any nation's air-defense system will be——"

He paused deliberately, then looked toward the Longguo observation ship on the distant horizon.

"——outdated."

This remark was broadcast worldwide via the livestream.

The livestream chat exploded instantly:

"So crazy?"

"Mach 6? Real or fake?"

"Aren't you supposed to be competing with Longguo? Why is there no reaction from Longguo's side?"

"What about their recently developed Penglai? Weren't they saying it had already entered service?"

Longyin Control Center.

Wang Hao stared at the livestream, gritting his teeth in annoyance: "What's this old guy showing off for? Mach 6 is awesome? Our Kuafu-3 can fly at Mach 8!"

Chen Guang pushed up his glasses: "Stay calm, Torch Dragon's monitoring shows Ares's actual heat signature indicates a top speed of at most Mach 5.2, and it can only sustain that for ninety seconds at most; their published data is full of exaggeration."

"That's still arrogant enough." Wang Hao turned to look at Feng Yan, "Feng Ge, should we strike?"

Feng Yan said nothing, merely gazing at Li Yang's holographic projection.

On the Penglai's bridge, Li Yang was intently watching the tactical screen.

At a distance of 320 kilometers and an altitude of 24,000 meters, Ares was performing a holding maneuver.

"Is Kuafu-3 ready to fire?" Li Yang asked.

"Ready to launch at any moment." the weapons officer reported.

"Should we wait for them to enter the optimal interception window?"

"No need to wait." Li Yang said, "We want to shoot it down at the moment it's feeling most triumphant."

He looked toward Feng Yan.

Feng Yan nodded.

On the carrier deck, Cole continued his performance.

"Now, Ares will demonstrate its extreme maneuverability, accelerating from subsonic to Mach 5 within thirty seconds and executing three sharp turns!"

Ares's engine nozzles swiveled, and the exhaust shifted from pale blue to blazing white.

Acceleration began.

0.8 Mach, 1.2, 1.8, 2.5……

Just as the speed surpassed Mach 3, Cole was about to utter "Look, this is the future"——

"Alert! Radar lock-on! Locked by fire-control radar!" a shrill warning suddenly blared in the carrier's command compartment.

"What?" Cole blinked, "Where did that radar come from?"

"Straight above! Orbital direction! That…… is Longguo's space-air carrier!"

Everyone looked up at the sky overhead.

In the sky, a speck of silver light emerged from behind the clouds—that was the Penglai after deactivating its optical camouflage.

The hull gleamed with a cold sheen in the sunlight, like a sword hanging overhead.

Then, the missile launchers at the bow opened.

A slender missile was pushed out by the electromagnetic launcher and ignited in midair.

The missile broke the sound barrier within 0.3 seconds, trailing a straight contrail as it shot straight at Ares.

"Intercept! Intercept quickly!" Cole shouted.

But it was already too late.

Kuafu-3's flight path utterly defied common sense, making three consecutive course changes at the edge of the atmosphere, each turn without any warning, like skipping a stone on air.

Ares's pilot tried to evade by maneuvering, but the jet's reaction speed could not keep up with the missile's bizarre trajectory.

At the final ten kilometers, Kuafu-3's warhead separated.

It released a directed electromagnetic pulse.

An invisible energy wave swept over, instantly blacking out all screens in Ares's cockpit, shutting down the engine, and disabling the control system.

The aircraft turned into a dead lump of iron, gliding forward on inertia.

Then the main warhead gently kissed its back.

A muffled cracking sound rang out; the high-energy particle stream inside the warhead vaporized the front half of the aircraft on contact.

The rear fuselage tore apart like paper ripped by an invisible hand, disintegrating in midair into thousands of fragments that scattered down into the deep sea.

Total elapsed time: 4.2 seconds.

From launch to impact, it took only the time it takes an ordinary person to blink four times.

The global livestream froze for three seconds.

Then the chat went wild:

"Holy shit???"

"It's just gone?"

"4.2 seconds? My instant noodles aren't even soaked yet!"

"Who just said it was past time?"

On the aircraft carrier deck, Korel held up a microphone, his mouth still half‑open.

Behind him, on the sea, the wreckage of Ares was bubbling and sinking, not even a big fireball erupted.

Because the fuel was vaporized before it could detonate.

A calm voice of Li Yang came over the comm channel: "Longguo aerospace mother ship Penglai kindly reminds: there is a fish‑farm zone beneath the exercise area; please do not discard waste arbitrarily."

And it was in English, with precise, rounded diction.

Yanjing, Lao Wu's barbecue stall.

At four in the afternoon there were usually few customers, but today was special; Lao Wu set up a projection screen in front of his stall and streamed the exercise live.

Over a dozen regulars gathered to watch, forgetting to eat their skewers.

When Ares was suddenly killed in an instant, the whole place fell silent for two seconds.

Then Lao Wu was the first to jump up and shout: "Awesome!!!"

He grabbed a bottle of beer, pried the cap off with the thumb of his mechanical arm—"Bang!"—raised it and shouted:

"Beer half‑price today! All skewers 20% off! Let's celebrate!"

The customers only then realized, and the cheers nearly blew the roof off.

"I told you our country has a backup!"

"That missile can even turn! Did you see? It turns!"

"4.2 seconds… what does that even mean?"

"What concept? You just turned to run, and the missile was already behind you!"

A young man pulled out his phone: "I have to post this on Moments; we're right here, this is witnessing history."

An uncle beside him slapped him: "Which scene are you at? You're at the barbecue stall scene!"

"Spirit present is also present!" the young man declared confidently.

Everyone burst into laughter.

Charcoal crackled, skewers sizzled in oil, the smell of smoke mingled with beer foam, and the bizarre technological crushing three thousand kilometers away blended under the same sky.

Inside the Penglai bridge.

Wang Hao watched the transmitted footage, slapping his thigh with glee: "Did you see? That commander's face turned green!"

"4.2 seconds! Brother Hao, the propulsion system I designed is awesome, right?"

Chen Guang calmly poured cold water: "The main credit still belongs to the hive‑mind AI collaborative algorithm."

"Multiple warhead independent trajectory shifts, directed electromagnetic pulse release, precise main‑warhead finishing strike—this whole process was optimized by Torch Dragon."

"But I also built that missile!" Wang Hao retorted.

"And I have an even gentler plan that I haven't used yet."

Feng Yan raised an eyebrow: "What plan?"

"Just strip its paint." Wang Hao chuckled.

"Let that Ares fly back naked—that's art."

Li Yang shook his head helplessly: "Stop being cheap, see what the Jiaobanji side is reacting with?"

Chen Guang pulled up the surveillance footage.

At that moment the Reagan command cabin was in chaos, while on the deck of Sea Fog, sixty nautical miles out, Jiaobanji commander Sato Ichiro stared tensely at the screen, his forehead drenched in cold sweat.

The intercom in front of him crackled; it was Korel's irate voice: "Sato! Is your Yagiri finally up or not? Use the laser to knock that guy above down for me!"

Sato wiped his sweat, gritted his teeth: "Up!"

The arrow is on the string; it must be released.

The Yagiri project has poured in too many resources; Jiaobanji's higher‑ups need to see results, even if Ares was just killed instantly.

He lifted the microphone, facing his own live camera, his voice a bit hoarse: "Next, we will showcase our nation's latest Yagiri aerospace platform…"

He said that, but his heart was pounding.

Because the capabilities displayed by Kuafu-3 earlier had already exceeded all their contingency plans.

On the Penglai bridge, Li Yang looked at Feng Yan.

"Next?"

Feng Yan watched the screen as the Yagiri prototype lifted off from Sea Fog's deck, its shape bizarre, like a strange fish that grew wings.

He nodded: "Wait until it fires its laser, then we'll talk."

Three hundred kilometers away, inside the Yagiri platform's cockpit.

Pilot Yamamoto gripped the control stick with both hands, his palms slick with sweat.

He had just witnessed Ares's destruction with his own eyes; that overwhelming technological gap sent a chill down his spine.

But an order is an order.

"Activate laser weapon system." He pressed the button.

In the platform's belly, a set of lens assemblies began charging, emitting a pale red glow.

"Target locked…" He swallowed.

"Longguo aerospace mother ship, Penglai."

Fire.

A red beam slashed across the sky, striking the distant silvery‑gray ship silhouette.

Yamamoto held his breath.

Will it succeed?

What he didn't know is that, at this moment on the Penglai bridge, Chen Guang was watching the monitoring data, murmuring:

The energy reading is only one third of our Dingyue system, at this power…

He pushed his glasses:

It's not even enough to polish the Dragon Scale Space Type II.