Chapter 105: Concussive Overpressure

Hu Hao held the satellite phone tightly, his eyes fixed on the live drone feeds displaying the massive Allied concentration in the city center.

“Counting down… ten… nine… three… two… one! Detonate!” Hu Hao commanded coldly into the receiver.

“Detonate!” the Combat Engineer Platoon Leader echoed the command to his men over the local net.

“Detonate!” The engineers roared back in unison, simultaneously slamming their hands down onto the plungers of their remote detonators.

On the monitors, the sprawling concrete of the central plaza and the manicured lawns of the public park violently erupted. Massive geysers of pulverized stone, dirt, armored vehicles, and shattered bodies were hurled hundreds of feet into the air.

The drones, caught in the immense concussive shockwave expanding outward from the epicenter, instantly began tumbling out of control, the video feeds dissolving into chaotic, spinning static.

BOOOOOOM—RUMBLE!

Seconds later, the physical shockwave reached the forest perimeter. A deafening, apocalyptic roar tore through the trees, the sheer force of the sound physically rattling the Imperial soldiers’ teeth and vibrating deep within their chests.

A colossal, terrifying pillar of black smoke and dust surged into the sky above Santong County, creating a mushroom outward and completely obscuring the sun.

The drone operators desperately fought their controls, trying to stabilize the aircraft and push them higher to escape the turbulent air, but it was futile. The entire urban center of Santong County was completely buried beneath a suffocating blanket of pulverized debris.

Down in the city, the Allied soldiers caught within the blast radius hadn’t even registered what hit them. The subterranean detonation of hundreds of thousands of pounds of high explosives packed with fragmentation material had instantly vaporized thousands of men. The massive armored vehicles parked in the plaza had been tossed like children’s toys, flipping through the air and crushing anyone beneath them when they landed.

But the true horror wasn’t the fragmentation; it was the sheer concussive overpressure.

Thousands of Allied soldiers who had managed to avoid the shrapnel and falling debris were thrown violently to the ground. They staggered to their feet, completely disoriented and deafened by the blast. Many assumed they had miraculously survived unscathed.

But as they stood there, blinking in the dust-choked air, they began coughing. With every cough, thick clots of dark blood spilled from their lips. Blood began streaming steadily from their ears, noses, and eyes.

BOOOOOOM—RUMBLE!

The massive, rolling echo of the explosion carried all the way across the river to Bopa City.

Inside the 87th Division Headquarters, Wang Yao, Mo Qin, and the newly arrived academy graduates were standing in the lobby, waiting to formally report for duty.

Before they could even hand over their transfer orders, the deafening rumble shook the windows of the command building.

“What was that?!”

“What’s happening?!”

Chief of Staff Li Jingsong and Deputy Commander Xiao Quan, who were working in the main war room, instantly leaped to their feet and sprinted toward the exit, their faces pale. The staff officers immediately followed them out into the courtyard.

“Where did that come from?! Where was the explosion?!” Li Jingsong roared over the lingering echo.

“Over there, sir! Across the river! We don’t have exact coordinates, but look at the horizon! That’s a massive smoke plume!” a perimeter guard yelled, pointing toward the northwest.

“Damn it! That’s Santong County! Hao-ge is still over there! Did the Imperial armory accidentally detonate?! Motherfucker, an explosion of that magnitude… even if you weren’t caught in the fireball, the overpressure alone would liquefy your organs!” Xiao Quan cursed, instantly recognizing the trajectory.

“What?! Overpressure?!” Li Jingsong asked, stunned by the sheer scale of the blast.

Seeing the two senior commanders sprint back into the war room, Wang Yao and the other academy graduates quickly followed them inside, desperate to know what was happening on the front lines.

Xiao Quan frantically dialed Hu Hao’s satellite phone. The moment it connected, he screamed into the receiver.

“Hao-ge! Hao-ge, are you there?! Are you alright?! Did the armory detonate?! What’s your status?!”

“I’m fine, relax! The city center detonated, but we’re safely outside the perimeter!” Hu Hao’s voice crackled over the line, sounding entirely too calm. “Heh. Did you hear it? Let me tell you a secret: there were two full Allied Infantry Divisions garrisoned inside that city.”

Hu Hao didn’t even need to wait for the dust to clear to know the results. He knew exactly how much explosive yield his engineers had packed into those confined subterranean spaces. Unless a soldier possessed a heaven-defying luck, surviving a concussive shockwave of that magnitude was physically impossible.

“Ah?! Two Divisions?! What happened?! Did they accidentally trigger their own munitions stockpile?!” Xiao Quan asked, his heart rate dropping slightly knowing Hu Hao was safe, but instantly spiking again at the mention of two enemy Divisions.

“Bullshit! I ordered the combat engineers to pack hundreds of thousands of pounds of high explosives into the sewer mains beneath their staging area! The moment they marched in and pitched their tents, I blew them to the sky!” Hu Hao laughed heartily.

“Ah?!” Xiao Quan was utterly stunned.

“Alright, I’m busy. We’re perfectly fine here. I’ll march the men back across the river tonight,” Hu Hao said dismissively and hung up.

“What happened?! What did he say about two Infantry Divisions?!” Li Jingsong asked anxiously, grabbing Xiao Quan’s arm.

“Hao-ge… Hao-ge just wired the entire urban center of Santong County with hundreds of thousands of pounds of explosives. He waited for two full Allied Divisions to march inside, and then he detonated the entire grid! Haha! It’s over! Those two Divisions are completely annihilated! The overpressure from a blast that size is a guaranteed death sentence!” Xiao Quan laughed, a manic, disbelieving joy washing over him.

“Holy shit… are you serious?! That explosion was Hao-ge’s trap?! He intentionally blew up two full Divisions?!” Li Jingsong gasped, his eyes wide as saucers.

“What do you think?!” Xiao Quan grinned wildly.

“Incredible. Simply terrifying. But… you just said the blast wouldn’t just burn them, it would kill them via overpressure?” Li Jingsong asked, unfamiliar with the lethal mechanics of massive subterranean detonations.

Back in the forest outside Santong County, Hu Hao climbed out of the combat engineer vehicle and stared at the towering column of smoke.

“Hao-ge, that is spectacular! I haven’t seen a dust cloud like that since the massive sandstorms in the Northern Territories!” Ye Zifeng marveled, standing behind him.

“Hao-ge, should we order the infantry to push into the city and sweep the survivors?!” Bo Gang asked eagerly, gripping his rifle.

“No. Hold your positions. There won’t be many survivors left to sweep. The ones who can still walk might survive for a few hours, but whether they live to see tomorrow is entirely up to heaven,” Hu Hao shook his head firmly.

“Ah? We aren’t going in to finish them off?!” Bo Gang asked, confused.

“I said no. The surviving Allied soldiers will inevitably attempt to retreat toward Daman City. But honestly… very few of them will actually make it. A concussive blast of that magnitude causes massive internal hemorrhage. It’s a slow death, and it’s incredibly difficult to diagnose in the field.

If we push into the city now, the dying soldiers will fight back like cornered animals, and we’ll take unnecessary casualties. Let them retreat. Let them climb into their transports and try to drive back to Daman. Half of them will likely drop dead behind the wheel before they even arrive. There’s no point in wasting our bullets or our men’s lives,” Hu Hao explained clinically.

Meanwhile, in the University City command post in Daman City, Lieutenant General Ren Kefu suddenly froze.

“What was that sound?!” Ren Kefu demanded, turning toward the window.

“It sounded like… distant rolling thunder, General. But the sky is clear. It came from the northwest… from the direction of Santong County!” a senior staff officer replied, his brow furrowing as he listened to the lingering rumble.

“Contact the 2nd and 3rd Divisions immediately! I need to know exactly what caused that explosion!” Ren Kefu ordered, a deep, icy dread settling into his stomach. He abandoned his inspection of the campus and sprinted back toward the comms array.

“Yes, sir!” The staff officer instantly dialed the satellite phone number for the Commander of the 2nd Division. The line rang continuously, but there was no answer.

Frowning, the officer disconnected and dialed the Commander of the 3rd Division. Again, the line rang endlessly. No answer.

Ren Kefu had no idea that both Division Commanders had been standing directly above the central plaza when the subterranean charges detonated. They had been violently launched hundreds of feet into the air and were dead before their shattered bodies even hit the ground. The blast had instantly vaporized the majority of their command staff as well.

Inside the ruins of the central plaza, the scene was a literal depiction of hell.

“Help me! Please!”

“Medic! I can’t feel my legs! Help!”

Thousands of mangled, bleeding soldiers lay scattered across the pulverized concrete, screaming and moaning in agony. But there were no medics coming.

On the very outer fringes of the park, a few Allied soldiers who had barely survived the initial shockwave stared at the devastation in paralyzing horror. The once-pristine plaza was gone, replaced by massive, smoking craters. Severed limbs, shattered weapons, and burning debris were scattered everywhere.

“Hurry! We have to help them! Move!” a surviving Company Commander yelled, sprinting toward the screaming wounded.

He didn’t make it twenty meters. He suddenly stopped, swayed on his feet, and collapsed face-first onto the rubble, a massive torrent of dark blood spewing from his mouth.

“Captain! Captain, what’s wrong?!” a young radioman sprinted after him, dropping to his knees to roll the officer over.

But the moment the radioman knelt down, he tasted copper. He opened his mouth to scream, but instead, a geyser of thick, arterial blood violently erupted from his throat.

They had both been caught in the outer edge of the overpressure wave. Outwardly, they appeared completely uninjured, but their internal organs—their lungs, their livers, their spleens—had been completely ruptured by the concussive force.

“Quick! Call Corps Command! Tell them we’ve suffered a catastrophic explosion! We don’t know what caused it, but we need immediate medevac! We need every doctor in the Corps! The casualties… they’re staggering!” a severely wounded Colonel gasped, propped up against a jagged slab of concrete, yelling at a radioman lying a few feet away.

The radioman, trembling violently, managed to grab the satellite handset and dial Corps Command.

“Corps… Corps Command… we… we’ve suffered a massive explosion… massive…” the radioman gasped into the receiver. He convulsed violently, spewing a massive mouthful of blood over the radio, and then his eyes rolled back, his body going completely limp.

“Hello?! Hello?! 3rd Division, report! What is happening?! Hello?!” the frantic voice of a staff officer echoed from the blood-soaked speaker.

The Colonel saw the radioman die. He desperately tried to crawl toward the dropped handset, but the exertion triggered a massive coughing fit. He hacked violently, spraying blood across his uniform.

“We… we need medevac… massive casualties… need… doctors…” the Colonel whispered into the air, his head slumping forward as he died.

As the thick, choking dust slowly began to settle, a handful of soldiers who had miraculously survived the overpressure staggered to their feet. They stood there, covered in grey ash and blood, staring blankly at the incomprehensible slaughter surrounding them.

“How… how is this possible? How did this happen?” a young private sobbed, falling to his knees.

The moment he finished speaking, his chest hitched. With a wet, tearing sound, he violently vomited a massive pool of black blood onto the rubble and collapsed.

These horrific, agonizing scenes were being broadcast live via the drone feeds back to the Imperial command vehicle. Hu Hao stepped back into the vehicle and stared grimly at the monitors.

“My god… did… did we really just wipe out two full Divisions like that?” Ye Zifeng whispered, following Hu Hao inside and staring at the screens in absolute horror.

The plaza was littered with thousands of bodies. Very few of them were moving.

“I told you. A concussive blast of that magnitude in a confined urban space is a guaranteed death sentence. If they hadn’t marched into our cities and slaughtered our civilians like animals… I would never have resorted to a tactic this brutal. It is a violation of the natural order” Hu Hao stated quietly, his eyes cold as he watched the enemy die.

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