Industrial Cthulhu doesn't believe in the end times.

Chapter 103: An Investigation of the Nuclear Explosion Center
In Haiqu, the battlefield is still filled with billowing smoke and dust. The chain reaction after the nuclear explosion is numerous, and the high-energy radiation has caused a large number of fires, which are showing a trend of escalating.

Now, the city no longer has a fire-fighting system. Although the survivors in the relevant areas have long been evacuated, the fire still needs to be controlled. After all, even if we don't consider where the fire might spread if it gets out of control, there are still many precious materials in the city that are difficult to reproduce in the short term.

Therefore, after a short rest, many soldiers quickly threw themselves back into the firefighting and disaster relief work. However, the advantage is that they still have a lot of superhuman abilities to draw upon.

Su Xun did not command this operation, but instead led several superhumans to the epicenter of the nuclear explosion to observe the situation.

These people weren't too worried about radiation, since the radioactive residue from current nuclear weapons is relatively low and will decay rapidly over time.

More importantly, superhumans have a strong resistance to radiation. Radiation can be neutralized by the spiritual energy in their bodies. In fact, for a superhuman like Su Xun, they can even digest and utilize this energy.

Of course, their trip was just a quick visit and they wouldn't stay for long.

As they approached the epicenter of the nuclear explosion, the area had become a dead zone, devoid of any living creature. In the distance, plumes of smoke and dust still billowed upwards from the mountain of alien corpses, reaching straight to the sky.

That wasn't dust formed after it burned, but rather the body itself disintegrating and 'evaporating'. It was so badly damaged that it had begun to spontaneously enter this process, just like a normally killed alien species. Only after dismantling the body and extracting the spiritual energy crystals would it reach this stage.

A pungent, indescribable odor filled the air. Su Xun waved his hand, and a wall of wind spread outward from him, sweeping away the radioactive dust that filled the area. Even though it wouldn't cause any harm, contact with these things was still unsettling.

"Commander Su, look over there!"

Before they even got close to the corpse, someone shouted. Su Xun looked in the direction of the voice and saw that the person was pointing to a building site. Of course, it was the ruins of the building, which was close to the epicenter and had been reduced to rubble.

The person who spoke was a nuclear physics student, one of the few people they could find in the field. He accompanied Su Xun to the location to work on some research with him.

This is one of Su Xun's main purposes in coming here: to study the effects of the nuclear bomb exploding in the current environment. For Su Xun, its explosion does not only mean killing a powerful enemy, but it is also an excellent experiment.

The situation collapsed too quickly in the previous life. By the time humanity regained its footing, the nuclear weapons left over from the civilized era had long since become ineffective due to lack of maintenance. Afterwards, the extraordinary individuals gained powerful personal strength, and no one thought of repairing these things.

The interaction between weapons and spiritual power in this pre-apocalyptic final battle is a rare and valuable research topic, especially since the sixth-order mutant that floated into the real world already had a large amount of spiritual power in its body.

This is almost equivalent to a super-large collider. The alien species and the nuclear bomb are like two particles colliding inside, and the various unique phenomena that emerge from it need to be carefully studied.

With the speed at which these superhumans moved, they quickly reached the designated location, even amidst the ruins.

Looking up, the buildings were in ruins, a scene of devastation after a violent shockwave. However, at the top of the buildings, there was an extremely clean cut that spanned several buildings, as if a giant had swept across with a long sword, slicing off the tops of these buildings.

"So this situation wasn't simply caused by a nuclear explosion, right?"

The young man who had spoken earlier scratched his head and said somewhat uncertainly, "Commander-in-Chief, I'm still a student, so I'm a little unsure. But I haven't seen this situation before when I was studying those materials."

After observing for a while, Su Xun nodded and said, "It's alright, we'll know once we go up and take a look."

"Go up?"

While the group was still stunned by the dilapidated building, Su Xun lightly stepped onto the ruins, which still had six or seven stories remaining, in an illogical manner, like an arrow shot into the sky, his military uniform making a rustling sound in the wind.

"Hold the grass..."

"Holy crap, did you see that, Commander-in-Chief can fly!"

"I'm not blind... wait, he can't really fly on a sword, can he?"

Some people are more meticulous: "Actually, it shouldn't be flying. It looks like they jumped and then used the wind element for leverage..."

"...Don't you even look at what you're saying? Isn't that just flying?"

The murmurs of the crowd below didn't disturb Su Xun. He observed the gap for a moment. Concrete buildings, unless directly hit by a nuclear bomb, are actually quite sturdy. A wound this neat and regular didn't seem to be caused by a shockwave. The cut was generally flat, but upon closer inspection, the actual cut surface wasn't smooth. There was a lot of exposed gravel, and some steel bars protruded slightly from the cut surface.

The fine lines ran neatly backward along the direction of the cut, as if... this solid reinforced concrete building was a loose wad of cotton or a pile of loose soil, which was blown away by a high-pressure airflow.

Su Xun had seen something like this before, and he understood. He looked up at the sky, where the blue light had already disappeared.

The gale is a large-scale movement of spiritual energy, enough to destroy and wear down any matter that enters it. A similar situation has occurred now. After the nuclear explosion, perhaps some spiritual energy was propelled by the energy of the explosion and 'splashed' out, forming a horizontal wave that sheared off the upper part of this building.

This is not easy to achieve. To achieve an effect similar to a gale, it is not simply a matter of moving spiritual energy. Su Xun had some ideas and some new speculations. He stepped down the stairs and landed back in the crowd.

"Let's go check out that mountain of corpses; there might be some unexpected surprises there."

Several extraordinary individuals waiting below exchanged glances and quickly followed in Su Xun's footsteps.

Even though most of the colossal beast, thousands of meters tall, was destroyed, an enormous portion still lay across the land. Its twisted form made it impossible to recognize the creature's appearance; to ordinary people, it was a real mountain.

Stepping onto it, there was no feeling of flesh and blood underfoot; it felt as if they were walking on the ground. The alien's body structure had been melted and solidified by the extremely high temperature, forming a strange, glass-like texture. Some parts were cracked, and smoke and dust kept gushing out from the cracks, much like a volcano.

Leading his team to a crack, Su Xun pushed with his hand, and a strong wind suddenly rose up, blowing away all the dust and smoke. The people following him suddenly opened their eyes wide. In the crack, countless transparent crystal cubes were shimmering with light.

"hiss--"

"Don't use the air conditioning, or you might ingest some radioactive dust."

"oh oh……"

"How come there are so many spiritual energy crystals here?"

Su Xun observed for a moment and said, "The power of the nuclear explosion propelled a large amount of spiritual energy, which formed these things under intense pressure. They should be somewhat different from the crystals excavated from the alien bodies before. The spiritual energy contained within them may also be weaker, but in terms of quantity..."

This is probably one of the biggest gains of this trip. The remains of this alien species have now turned into a huge mine. Even though it is collapsing at any time, at its rate, the mountain is enough to last until they finish mining.

"Let's find someone to dig it up later. It won't get lost here. Let's go into the secret realm first and take a look."

The cognitive illusion at the entrance to the secret realm has returned to normal, and it can't even cover the broken corpse of this sixth-tier alien species. It is now entrenched in the middle of the mountain of corpses.

Everyone present was a superhuman, and they had all been to the secret realm more than once before. After entering, they found that the place had not been affected. In the distance, they even saw first and second-tier alien species spying on them.

Su Xun wasn't surprised. The secret realm was capable of nurturing tenth-order beings, and its existence was already in another dimension, not something that could be touched by a nuclear bomb.

After defeating those sixth- and even fifth-tier alien species, the group felt that these low-tier alien species, which couldn't even cross the illusion barrier, actually looked somewhat decent. Without Su Xun lifting a finger, the group dealt with these beings.

After looking around, Su Xun didn't linger any longer. He had come here to quickly confirm what was unusual about the place, so that some traces wouldn't disappear over time. After a general look, he knew that more manpower would be needed for subsequent mining and crystallization or for conducting research.

Before long, Su Xun returned to the command post not far from the secret realm. Before he could even sit down, he heard a familiar voice call out to him.

Jiang Yi walked over with light steps, her eyes filled with bright joy. Su Xun rarely saw this usually calm girl show such an expression, so he couldn't help but be curious.

"What's the occasion? Is there some good news?"

"Commander-in-Chief, we just received a message from base that the spirit lens has been successfully prototyped. Our large-scale communication device can be put into operation tomorrow!"

(End of this chapter)