The Divine Throne of Shipgirls

An infinite blaze of searing white light erupted in a mad rush, a brightness that even the sun would pale before. A fireball over ten thousand meters in diameter instantly formed on the sea's surface, its temperature soaring to tens of millions of degrees. The nearby seawater and weaker Abyssal shipgirls were vaporized on the spot.

Nuclear weapons deal damage through thermal radiation, shockwaves, and nuclear fallout—but when it came to Abyssal flagships, the shockwave and fallout were just accessories.

Only by placing the flagship at the very center of the blast, burning it with that infinite light and heat, could there be any hope of destroying it.

But from fifty kilometers away, the view from London was entirely different.

First, a towering fireball surged into the sky, over ten thousand meters tall. Then, the dense black clouds were swept aside, revealing a faint moon. An enormous mushroom cloud spiraled upward, full of smoke and water vapor. The blast wave, generated by high temperature and pressure, surged outward like heaven and earth collapsing.

London was still within the effective kill radius of the nuclear explosion. Each of the three bombs was one billion tons TNT equivalent, with a kill radius of about 70 kilometers and a total area of effect over fifteen thousand square kilometers.

But that was for humans. For a fully trained shipgirl like London, this distance felt like nothing more than a gentle breeze.

Gritting her teeth, London decided to take the opportunity to close in on the blast zone. The Abyssal horde had been thrown into disarray, scattered like grains of sand. And near the center of the explosion, not a single Abyssal shipgirl could be seen—an ideal chance to recon the condition of the Abyssal Barbarossa.

But in the very next moment, sprinting across the sea, London began to regret her decision.

A mushroom cloud forty to fifty kilometers wide and seventy to eighty kilometers tall—and still expanding—was now surging downward, like being forcibly dragged by some invisible force. It was being absorbed by a tiny figure on the ocean's surface.

A mushroom cloud eighty kilometers tall—nine times taller than the world's highest mountain—was collapsing before London's eyes. The scene was more awe-inspiring than dozens of snow-capped peaks crashing down at once.

Even the collapse of a pillar holding up the sky would pale in comparison.

Just then, a cold chill locked onto her.

Without hesitation, London activated her defensive ability.

The next second, a laser cannon the size of a building skimmed the ocean, tearing across dozens of kilometers, evaporating seawater in its path, and slamming directly into London. She was launched like a bullet, flung far into the distance—where, no one knew.

The Abyssal Barbarossa, her body wreathed in flames, let out a scornful laugh. Lowering her cannon, she tilted her head back and began devouring the thousands-of-meters-wide nuclear fireball.

Dark clouds quickly swallowed the sky once again, and the incoming storm surged even more fiercely.

…

The moment the blast occurred, Hikaru and the others felt it.

And not just them—more than two thousand kilometers inland, the explosion over the sea was soon detected.

The nuclear detonation generated an electric field measured in tens of thousands of volts. The electromagnetic pulse swept across the region at the speed of light, causing streetlights to black out, shortwave communication to fail, fuses to melt, electrical components to short-circuit, wireless control devices to freeze, and alarm systems to go silent.

The entire coastline trembled faintly. It registered like a magnitude 5 earthquake.

Everyone knew something massive had just happened.

Inside the command hall, the electromagnetic pulse also damaged many electronic systems. The commanders immediately understood what had taken place.

They opened the command hall doors, and even from over a thousand kilometers away, the fireball soaring ten thousand meters high could be seen clearly.

But not long after, the tens-of-kilometers-tall mushroom cloud began to collapse—drawn downward as if sucked by a vortex. Everyone aboard the Silent Horizon saw it.

Things were not looking good.

Fleet Admiral Gorou ordered the doors closed and returned to his seat to await the outcome.

Everyone's faces were grim, as if attending a funeral.

Hikaru sat by the comms, listening to the steady beep beep of the signals, quietly calculating the total output of the nuclear bombardment.

It had to be billion-ton class warheads. Lexington had said three Ghosts had carried out the mission, which meant three bombs.

Too few.

In fact, increasing the yield of a nuclear bomb didn't necessarily make it more effective against Abyssal flagships. Every tenfold increase in explosive power only about doubled the effective kill radius. For example, a 100-megaton bomb would only have four times the kill radius of a 1-megaton bomb—and only sixteen times the kill area.

And what was the kill radius of a gigaton-level nuke? About 32 kilometers.

But against a fully trained Abyssal flagship, even that 32-kilometer radius meant nothing unless the blast hit within a kilometer of the center. And they only had one shot. Abyssal flagships weren't stupid—landing multiple direct hits was a fantasy.

[End of Chapter]

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