The Almighty Ring

“Antimatter Main Cannon activated!”

“Target: 13.26 degrees North, 144.43 East!”

Nie Shilong activated the ship’s main attack weapon, a Hyper Mega Compressed Antimatter Beam Cannon.

“Antimatter Cannon activated! Particle compression rate is stable!”

“Target locked!”

“Start charging the cannon!”

Once the order to retaliate was received, the ship, armed with highly advanced alien weaponry, started to bare its fangs. The Antimatter Cannon was installed in the aircraft carrier and docked on the inside of the ship. Before the cannon started to charge, the ship front deck needed to be cleared before it unfolded out to make way for the 5 meter wide, 30 meters long cannon to slowly tot out by many other machinery. Even though the cannons did not manage to instill fear into the hearts of others since it was dark and Americans had lost their means of spying on China, those that were presented to the cannon knew that the weapon was made not on Earth, and was akin the Hades’ cannons.

Even though that was the first time that anyone on the ship started the machine, all crew members of the aircraft carrier had been in countless stimulation training. They knew how to operate the machines even with their eyes closed.

“Report, sir! Antimatter Cannon compression rate is now 94%! We have reached optimal firing rate!”

5 minutes into charging, the cannon’s main reactor core had reached its optimal compression rate. The cannon’s barrel was already radiating with a faint light. Even though the light was faint, Nie Shilong and everyone on the ship knew that it was the match that would light up the fireworks later!

“Gentlemen, all of you that participate in today’s war shall know that history shall be rewritten!” cried Nie Shilong. The man stuttered a little as his entire body was shaking with excitement. The cannon had not been fired before but Nie Shilong knew that that would be the first and last time that he would be able to handle such a weapon. The outcome of the war after this would change dramatically. That and the fact that Jiang Fei, that pesky businessman, had only prepared one Energy Crystal—just enough for one shot!

“Fire!” Nie Shilong yelled, pointing his hands out. He had always wanted to do that.

“Antimatter Cannon firing in 3… 2… 1…!”

Half a second later, a whirl of electricity could be felt in the air as the cannon blasted out a powerful dark beam. The beam was so powerful that the aircraft carrier was sent slightly backwards on the sea. Toppling crew members who were not on their seats.

The blast of Antimatter went on and on until the storage tank depleted all of its compressed Antimatter particles.

“Contact the North fleet and request assistance to drag our ship back to base!” said Nie Shilong as soon as the reservoir of energy was depleted entirely. There was no energy left. Not even power to start the ship’s propulsion system. As much as the ship was deemed useless, Nie Shilong could not afford to discard it. Until the day China and their research team could develop a similar power source such as the Energy Crystal, the ship would just be a hunk of floating metal.

“Mr. President! We have trouble!”

“What’s the russ?”

When Nie Shilong’s call for assistance had been answered, the Pentagon was undergoing a few changes.

“We have lost contact with Open Island!”

“Excuse me?” said the President. He had been hearing the news that were hard to digest. Things like stealth fighter jets—supposedly undetectable—being shot down before they could even enter China’s airspace. Right now, they had just lost contact with an entire island?

Losing contact was not unfamiliar in military operations. It was far too common for battlecruisers, fighter jets and even infantry men. However, not being able to make contact with an entire island group was impossible!

“Mr. President… There’s something you need to see…”

A man brought over a few pictures obtained from satellite imagery and showed it to the President.

With a face that had just seen a ghost, the man said, “Sir. 13.26 degreee North, 144.43 East. This is the location of Open Islands. This picture was taken a year ago,” he showed the President a picture of the Open Islands with clouds hovering over it, “and here is a picture taken a minute ago.”

There were written GPS coordinates printed at the top right of the pictures yet the two pictures of the same coordinates were different. One had islands and the other did not.

“Sir, Open Islands is missing.”

“What nonsense is this?!” the President roared. He was not the only one. Even the other cabinet members started to laugh. However, the President of the Mutant Brotherhood, Xavier, was quiet.

Open Islands was a huge island that was at least 550 square kilometer in size with at least 200,000 citizens living on it. Most importantly, the island was the base of four important American Military Bases of Operation. It was the virtual border that America had over China to control the entire North and South Pacific Ocean.

“Sir… I have one more thing to show you…” said the informant as he took out a remote controller and clicked on it. The monitors on the wall was turned on and played a video. The video was one of the military controlled satellites that had recorded parts of the world every few minutes. The video was only around 10 seconds long.

The video started off with the view of the entire globe and slowly focused on the broad area of the North Pacific Ocean. That entire area was placed in red alert as America and China was having their naval warfare there. Besides that, there was nothing going on. Everything was peaceful. Until suddenly a faint beam of light erupted from the corner of the screen. The footage was seen focusing on the beam’s trajectory and lo and behold, an island went missing, as if it was erased with a cloth, traceless.

“Wait! Stop! Roll back the clip and slow it down!” cried Xavier.

The informant clicked on his remote a few times until the footage was slowed down by a few hundred times. It was then everyone saw what had happened. It was a truth that they could not accept.

The beam of light was traced coming from China’s general direction and everything that the beam touched, it disintegrated into nothingness, literally. There was no explosion or any signs of destruction. Everything just… dusted off. If they had not slowed down the footage, they would not know that the island was disintegrated.

“It’s their retaliation! That’s their counterattack to our nuclear strike!” a cabinet member screamed, losing his mind.

Everyone was frozen with fear, including the President of the United States of America and Xavier. They were completely thrown. What should have been an easy target, turned out to be an enemy that they could not defeat. It was as if they were of another world. A denizen that capable of using advanced weaponry that no human on Earth could match.

It was then when Xavier realized what was going on.

“It’s alien weapons! China must have gotten their hands on alien weapons!”

“How is that possible?” said the President.

“It’s not a question of how they got it but what should we do about it!” Xavier barked.

“Should we just launch another nuclear strike at them?”

Xavier stood up from his seat, agitated.

“Did you not see what they just did to us?! We had just launched thousands of nuclear warheads and yet there they stood, unfazed! On the other hand, we had just lost an entire island to China! Unless you are blind, we are no longer capable of fighting against them! They have proven themselves to be stronger than any nation in the world. If you do wish to launch a nuclear strike, you are only condemning the entire nation to China.”

The meeting room went quiet. Nothing but the sound of electronics buzzing and beeping. Everyone looked at each other, not knowing what to do or what to say.

“Mr. Chairman. I understand what you are saying but what is our next step?” said the President. Right now, the entire military was incapable of fighting. His only hope was to rely on the Mutants.

“… I’ll have to think,” said Xavier. The man was torn. Telepathy was his ability and every Mutant that was under Level 4 were linked to his thoughts. Even without communicating with Lincoln in Japan, he could still make out the situation by collectively reading all the emotional links of the Mutants in Japan. He knew that the Mutant army was being beaten back. When they themselves could not protect themselves, what could they do for the American military?

Translator Note:

I fully understood what the author wants to write but saying that Hawaii as Winter Islands is just… what the hell? Besides that, Open Island is a name given by the author. In reality, Open Island is Guam. In conclusion: Winter Islands = Hawaii, Open Island = Guam.