"Gurkha, flying in his swift and powerful Vimana, hurled a single projectile charged with all the power of the Universe. An incandescent column of smoke and flame, as bright as ten thousand suns, rose in all its splendor."
"It was a weapon of fire, but without smoke, and of infinite power. In an instant, a fierce wind began to blow, clouds roared upward, and the very sun seemed to wobble in the heavens. Dropping a mass of dust and sand, the earth was scorched and trembled continuously, elephants were burnt by the heat, and other animals fell to the ground dead. The flames rolled on, and trees fell in rows as in a forest fire. Thousands of chariots were destroyed."
This was a record from the Mahabharata, and also the best description of a nuclear weapon.
---o---
A blinding white light suddenly rose, causing the ground to tremble, twist, crack, and churn.
The temperature climbed relentlessly, a heat that was bone-chillingly intense.
The acrid, burnt stench signified that everything had been ignited.
After an unknown amount of time, the world resumed playback from its paused state.
Crackle… crackle…
In an environment that had been sub-zero just moments before, flames now raged.
This was the epicenter of the nuclear explosion.
It was also the area where the Anti-Entropy Sovereign had dragged a 'god' down to hell with him.
Members of Anti-Entropy, clad in special protective suits, walked across a landscape that was utterly unrecognizable.
Beneath their masks, every face was devoid of expression. They combed the battlefield, searching for any trace of the two Herrschers.
"…Welt, is he okay?"
At a considerable distance from the blast zone, Tesla stared at the infernal landscape, her heart feeling hollow.
"All we can say is that it's possible he's alive."
Einstein's heart was just as heavy.
After Welt Joyce died, the members of Anti-Entropy analyzed the Herrscher of Reason's core and discovered something.
A Herrscher core could contain a conscious entity.
And the Herrscher of Reason was an existence that possessed the power of "Reconstruction."
Therefore, as long as one could store their consciousness within the Herrscher core, they could return once more by activating the Herrscher's Authority.
Hopefully, Welt made preparations in advance.
Einstein, who knew full well that Welt had likely exhausted all his strength just to hold back the 'god,' sighed inwardly.
The instantaneous destructive power of a nuclear explosion surpasses that of a star.
But that only applies to the epicenter.
At the same time, with nearly every meter of distance, the energy of the impact drops to one-tenth, or even one-hundredth, of the previous energy level.
As long as a direct hit could be avoided, the durable Herrscher core would not be instantly destroyed.
But—
Did Welt really have time to throw his Herrscher core away?
Recalling the Second Herrscher, who had been completely composed from beginning to end, Einstein's mood grew increasingly somber.
Welt had probably spent all his energy just dragging the Second Herrscher down with him.
But, one must always hold on to hope.
Einstein gazed into the distance, awaiting the report from the search party.
And then—
She heard the terrified screams of the search party members.
What happened?
Einstein hurriedly activated her advanced instruments to connect to the front line and receive the data.
And then—
A patch of snow, marked with footprints, came into her view.
Such a scene would be reasonable and unremarkable anywhere else in Siberia.
But it should not, under any circumstances, have appeared here.
An immense, oppressive feeling, like being in the depths of the ocean at night, a fear like being surrounded by endless darkness in all directions, pressed down on everyone's hearts.
In a place that had been ravaged by hundreds of millions of degrees of heat, there was snow.
"Phew~, that was really dangerous, wasn't it?"
A voice, crisp as a warbler's song but with an oddly boyish tone, sounded out, causing Einstein's pupils to contract violently.
As if a rusted machine were grinding into motion, she struggled to turn her head and look behind her.
There, the Herrscher with purple hair falling to their waist was chuckling lightly.
It was as if the sky and earth had been inverted.
Einstein and Tesla's minds went blank, a dizzying sensation washing over them as if they'd been smashed in the head with an iron pipe.
The Second Herrscher wasn't dead!
They were completely unharmed!
"Nuclear weapons, which are essentially just miniature suns, are indeed very dangerous. But in any battle, you have to consider the 'matchup'."
The boy, who possessed knowledge of the Fourth Divine Key and could perfectly simulate the Authority of the Herrscher of Wind, smiled as he spoke words that were enough to make Tesla and Einstein tremble.
"As long as you have a way to counter them, nuclear weapons are really no different from firecrackers."
"Among the many methods to resist thermonuclear weapons, the simplest one for me is to comprehend 'Ideal Fluid' and then manifest it."
Those chilling words fell upon the ears of the Anti-Entropy members.
A fluid is a substance that can flow; it is an object that will deform continuously under the action of any minute shear force. All fluids, being composed of a large number of molecules in constant thermal motion and without fixed equilibrium positions, possess a certain degree of compressibility.
When a fluid's viscosity and compressibility are very small, it can be approximated as an ideal fluid. A true ideal fluid, however, exists only as a hypothetical concept.
An ideal fluid, with no viscosity or compressibility, is the strongest shield in physics.
At this thought, the faces of Tesla and Einstein turned deathly pale, and their bodies began to sway.
They understood why the Second Herrscher before them was unharmed by the silver bullet.
The shockwave, the radiation, the gamma rays, the high temperature…
None of it could ever reach him.
The Ideal Fluid, both the strongest spear and the strongest shield in physics, had completely isolated him from all harm.
If he was never hit in the first place, how could he be harmed?
Even if he had only used a power approaching that of an ideal fluid, it would be enough to negate 99.9% of the silver bullet's damage. The remaining fraction of damage posed no threat whatsoever to a genuine Herrscher like the Second Herrscher.
An enemy who was already terrifying to the extreme had just demonstrated control over the strongest spear and shield in physics…
This should have been a moment of utter despair.
But this was not the true reason Einstein and Tesla had fallen into a complete panic.
What truly terrified them was something else.
The Second Herrscher's Authority was space. Even if they wanted to evade the attack, they should have done so by entering the Imaginary Space to dodge the silver bullet.
But—
The Second Herrscher had used Ideal Fluid to resist the silver bullet.
So, how did they transform the surrounding gas into something infinitely close to an ideal fluid?
"Simulating something like Ideal Fluid is not a difficult matter for the Herrscher of Reason."
As if seeing through the fear of the Anti-Entropy members, the answer that Einstein and Tesla absolutely did not want to hear came from the Second Herrscher's mouth.
The Second Herrscher had used the Authority of the First Herrscher.
In that case, what happened to the original First Herrscher?
"I really should thank the First Herrscher properly."
"Otherwise, I would have had to shamefully hide in the Imaginary Space to dodge that silver bullet."
With a lighthearted air, the Second Herrscher extended their hand. A crystal clear Herrscher core that exuded an air of intellect materialized in their palm.
Tesla's face instantly became as white as a sheet of paper.
That was Welt's Herrscher core.
Without any hesitation, he stuffed the Herrscher core, containing Welt's very soul, into his own chest in front of all the Anti-Entropy members.
"So, how should I thank him?"
As if he had been deep in thought for a long time, the boy who had just devoured the First Herrscher's core clapped his hands and said with a beaming smile, in words that would make the blood of anyone who understood nuclear weapons run cold:
"As thanks, should I use the power of the Herrscher of Reason to launch a 27-ton cobalt bomb into the stratosphere?"
The cobalt bomb. It is the most powerful nuclear weapon known to man, a modification of the "Uranium-Hydrogen Bomb"—a hydrogen bomb specialized for maximum lethality. To maximize the yield, the development team wrapped a layer of uranium-238 around a normal hydrogen bomb's thermonuclear charge. This causes a fission reaction to follow the fusion reaction, releasing even more energy and neutrons, with the goal of multiplying the bomb's power several times over.
The cobalt bomb is a further upgrade of this "three-phase bomb," replacing the outer layer of uranium-238 with cobalt-59.
With this seemingly simple replacement, the cobalt bomb can achieve world-ending lethality.
When cobalt-59 is struck by intense neutron bombardment, it transforms into the radioactive isotope cobalt-60. It is extremely radioactive, with a long half-life of 5.27 years.
If a single cobalt bomb were detonated, releasing a massive amount of radioactive dust, any human exposed to the radiation zone would die within half an hour. Even after one half-life of 5.27 years, anyone exposed would not survive for more than an hour. Even after 20 half-lives, 105 years, living in such a radiation zone would lead to high rates of cancer.
And this horrifying lethality was not the reason for its infamy even before it was ever built.
What truly made it famous was its genuine ability to kill all life on the surface of the planet.
If a ten-megaton-class cobalt bomb were detonated in the stratosphere, the cobalt-60 would spread throughout the atmosphere, releasing gamma rays through beta decay. The massive amount of gamma rays would decimate the atmospheric layer, allowing huge amounts of ultraviolet rays and cosmic gamma rays to reach the Earth.
And a 27-ton hydrogen bomb…
That was the mass of the fifty-megaton Tsar Bomba!
Once a fifty-megaton-class cobalt bomb was airdropped into the stratosphere and detonated, the entire world's atmosphere would be completely destroyed!
Just imagining the sight of ultraviolet and cosmic gamma rays reaching the Earth completely unmitigated was enough to make the Anti-Entropy members tremble.
Absolutely no one could survive in such an environment!
Humanity would go extinct.
Or rather, all life on Earth would be exterminated!
"It seems humanity has failed the trial," the person who was just there to coast but had amassed a brilliant track record announced flatly, as if passing a death sentence.
Was humanity about to be wiped out?
Tesla and Einstein's minds were completely blank.
"But for humanity to be destroyed so easily would be boring for me."
The boy, who was about to play the role of a flamboyant boss who dies a dramatic death, tossed a Siegfried—who, when powered up, was equivalent to a base-form Kevin—in front of the two acting leaders of Anti-Entropy.
"So, let's play a game."