Chapter 131: Destruction and Aftershocks

The F-35 fighter jet, at supersonic speed, like a steel hunting eagle from hell, swept across Xinsu's night sky.

Beneath its cold wings, a cloudburst bomb code‑named "Heaven Fire" detached from its rack, bearing a mission to end everything, and fell toward the city's heart.

Yokosuka Military Base, underground command center.

The air solidified; a pin could be heard falling.

Everyone held their breath, staring intently at the rapidly descending light representing "Heaven Fire" on the main screen.

The officer bearing the General Star, his eyes blood‑red and veined, clenched the red communication microphone tightly, his knuckles turned ghostly white from overexertion.

This was a strike that gambled the fate of the entire Dongdaoguo.

If they win, they will prove to the world that Dongdao can handle any crisis; the so‑called Weird is just a chicken and a dog.

If they lose, tonight's Xinsu will become the whole of Dongdao's tomorrow.

On the screen, Lingmu Jianer stood quietly at the center of an intersection, slowly raising his head.

He seemed to sense something.

But he still smiled.

The next moment.

Boom—!

A white flash a thousand times brighter than the sun instantly devoured the entire screen.

Immediately after, a violent shockwave capable of overturning everything!

All equipment in the command center rang wildly, the lights flickered, as if the end of the world had arrived.

All surveillance feeds, at the same moment, turned into a blinding white.

A few seconds later, the image restored.

A massive, terrifying mushroom cloud rose slowly over the core of Xinsu's CBD, bearing scorching, all‑consuming heat and destruction, tinting the sky a dreadful orange‑red.

The terrifying shockwave spread outward in concentric circles, the skyscrapers' glass façades shattering inch by inch like fragile sugar paper, countless steel and concrete structures twisted, torn, and reduced to flat ground.

Vacuum, suffocation, absolute high temperature.

This is the pinnacle of destructive power in modern warfare.

"Report! Target area life signals… all gone!"

A technician, looking at the zeroed readout on the instrument, shouted with a trembling, ecstatic voice.

"Confirmed! Repeat! Target life signals… cleared!"

After a death‑like silence, the command center erupted with cheers like a mountain‑roaring tsunami!

"We won! We won!"

"Great! That monster was burned to ash!"

The officer bearing the General Star shook his body, then burst into a wildly joyous laugh.

He slammed the microphone onto the floor, his blood‑red eyes filled with the exhilaration of surviving a disaster and unparalleled arrogance.

"Did you see! Everyone, see it clearly!"

He pointed at the still‑rising mushroom cloud on the screen, roaring at everyone.

"This is the power of modern weapons!"

"What Weird! In the face of absolute firepower, everything is no match!"

He gasped heavily, his chest heaving violently, and immediately grabbed another phone.

"Connect me to the Prime Minister's Office! Now!"

Three A. M.

Dongdao Prime Minister Xiao Yesi convened an emergency press conference.

Facing the world's cameras, his face was solemn, yet he could not hide the deep pride in his eyes.

The thermobaric bomb used in this incident caused massive civilian casualties; it should have been a governmental failure, even more a loss of governmental credibility.

Yet he turned the incident into a political tool, cleverly framing it as a horrific, inhumane terror attack orchestrated by "extreme leftist forces."

And the Self‑Defense Forces, at the critical moment, acted decisively, sparing no cost to eliminate the terrorists and become the nation's heroes.

"Fellow countrymen, we must be vigilant! Those parasites seeking to split our great nation still lurk in the shadows!"

"But trust that any enemy attempting to shake our nation's foundations will be ground to powder by the Self‑Defense Forces' overwhelming firepower!"

Xiao Yesi's speech was highly incendiary, instantly igniting nationalist fervor to its peak.

Online, the crowd was inflamed.

Countless people shouted "Heaven bless Dongdao," deifying the Self‑Defense Forces, while further fueling Dongdao's fervent push for "independence" and militarization.

Federal Weird Investigation Bureau.

Wei Gong stared expressionlessly at the screen, at Xiao Yesi's impassioned face.

The Technology Department had already presented the good news from Dongdao and the press conference content immediately.

"Too easy…"

Wei Gong, looking at the massive mushroom cloud, not only felt no relaxation but furrowed his brows even tighter.

"Based on past experience, Weird is never something that physical destruction can erase."

In his calm tone lay a hint of doubt and gravity.

"Relay my orders."

"Technology Department, do not relax; for the next 7x24 hours, monitor all data related to the Laughing Demon! Report any anomaly immediately!"

"Yes!"

Late night, Dongdao, inside a high‑end apartment.

High‑school student Sato Kenichi turned off the computer.

On the screen, the Prime Minister Xiaoyeti's uplifting speech footage still lingered.

He was flushed all over his face, his heart brimming with hot blood and excitement.

"That's absolutely right! Our Dongdao should have been independent long ago! That bunch of Federation guys only know how to point fingers and give orders!"

Zuoteng Jianyi then glanced at his phone.

He saw a private message on social media where someone was retorting him.

Zuoteng Jianyi raised his hand and typed a harsh mockery at the other party.

Not long ago, he had watched a Smiling Devil video online, but he paid it no mind and posted a comment in the comment section.

Isn't it just viral marketing by a film company for promotion? He's seen that kind of tactic many times.

"A bunch of idiots, actually believing there's some kind of demon."

Zuoteng Jianyi sneered, then recalled that during the day at school he had cornered that frail classmate in the restroom and snatched a month's worth of lunch money from him.

The classmate's terrified, pleading look back then still seemed amusing to him now.

Heh… If demons truly existed in this world, they should have come looking for him long ago.

Zuoteng Jianyi put down his phone, stretched lazily, and prepared to turn off the lights and sleep.

Just then,

He suddenly felt something off with the muscles in his face.

The corner of his mouth seemed to be slowly pulled upward by an invisible force.

One tug.

Another tug.

He tried to pull the corner down, but found he couldn't do it at all.

A nameless panic rose from deep within his heart.

Finally, his mouth involuntarily stretched into a stiff, weird curve.

"What... what..."

Zuoteng Jianyi, terrified, rushed to the full‑length mirror in his room.

In the mirror, a young face bore a huge, jaw‑splitting Weird grin.

In those eyes, extreme terror and pleading were evident, yet the mouth smiled blazingly—identical to the 'terrorist' Lingmu Jianer in the video.

"Ugh... ugh ugh..."

He tried to scream, but only a discordant whimper came from his throat.

He wanted to flee the room and find his parents.

But his body betrayed his will.

He smiled, stepping stiffly, one step after another, toward the window.

The night wind ruffled his hair.

"No… don't!"

He screamed wildly in his mind, using all his strength to try to reclaim control of his body.

Yet it was all in vain.

He smiled.

Calmly, he pushed open the window.

Then, facing the empty street below, he spread his arms and leapt.

His body, like a kite with its line cut, traced a desperate parabola through the air.

In the instant of falling, his grin widened even further.

Meanwhile,

Yokosuka Military Base.

A young drone operator was discussing the previous 'Great Victory' with a comrade.

"The thermal‑pressure bomb was truly fierce, a single boom! Hey, the world's clean now! And those high‑and‑mighty guys in the CBD who usually look down on our Self‑Defense Forces—now they've been completely slaughtered by us."

He was one of the people who had previously looked directly at Lingmu Jianer through a drone's camera.

"Haha, yeah, and that Smiling Devil—claimed to be a physically untouchable terrifying entity, but we took it down with a single shot!" his comrade laughed along.

The young operator was about to say something else when his words suddenly halted.

The expression on his face froze.

"Hey, what's wrong with you?" his comrade asked, looking at him oddly.

The operator gave no reply.

In his comrade's astonished gaze, he slowly, slowly revealed a huge, stiff Weird grin identical to Lingmu Jianer's.

"You… what are you doing? Don't make jokes like that!" his comrade, hair standing on end from the grin, instinctively stepped back.

The operator only smiled, saying nothing.

He slowly raised his hand and drew the pistol at his waist, a self‑defense weapon.

Amid his comrade's incomprehensible scream, he aimed the cold barrel at his own temple.

A chill shot from the comrade's coccyx straight up to the Heavenly Spirit Cover.

At the same time, he felt his facial muscles begin to twitch uncontrollably… slightly.

The corner of his mouth was slowly rising.