Begin from the original form of torture and become immortal

Chapter 1725 A Living Nuclear Bomb with a Yield of 50 Million Tons

"gentlemen,"

The oceanographer's face turned pale. "High-concentration precursors...at the earliest...six to eight weeks. Diffusion and dilution cannot solve the fundamental problem; long-term accumulation of nuclides will...the entire top layer of the North Pacific food chain...will be devastated. Fisheries...are finished. An ecological disaster...irreversible."

Only heavy breathing and the monotonous buzzing of instruments remained in the command center.

The low, grinding sound of the heavy alloy airtight door sliding open now carried a sense of tearing despair.

Tony Stark, clad in a gold and red suit of steel with sharp lines, strode into this space shrouded in the shadow of death, like an alien messenger who had stumbled into a tomb.

The armor's joints emitted a powerful hissing sound, characteristic of a sophisticated hydraulic system in operation. The metal soles of the armor pounded on the alloy floor, creating a steady, cold rhythm that clashed with the suppressed breathing and buzzing in the command center.

"I'm sorry, everyone,"

Tony's voice came through the external speakers of the armor, tinged with suppressed anxiety. Gone was his usual nonchalant air; beneath the metallic texture lay an undeniable heaviness. "Giving this new armor a full-body radiation protection coating is taking longer than expected. The current situation..."

His words were abruptly interrupted by a sharp alarm sounding from inside the armor.

“Sir!” Jarvis’s ever-calm British accent now carried a hint of urgency, metallic tone. “Warning! Ambient gamma and neutron radiation levels have risen sharply! At your current location, the instantaneous dose rate has exceeded the safety threshold by 1,243 times! It is strongly recommended to activate the full-enclosure protection mode immediately! Repeat, activate immediately!”

"Damn it!"

Tony growled, almost instinctively.

He suddenly swung his arms, and the seemingly decorative gold and red streamlined plates on the surface of his armor instantly emitted a dense series of soft "clicking" sounds, as if countless tiny metal scales were rapidly sliding, flipping, and snapping together.

A special protective layer, shimmering with a dull metallic sheen, rapidly spreads, covers, and seals the joints, gaps, and edges of the breastplate.

In just two seconds, the originally somewhat flamboyant armor became even more heavy and hard, with more closed lines, exuding a chilling aura that seemed to isolate life and death.

Inside the helmet visor, a dark light-filtering barrier also descends simultaneously, filtering the glaring red alarm light from the outside into a somber, dark color.

"The protective layer is fully activated, sir."

Jarvis reported, "But please note that the current environmental radiation intensity has an extremely high penetration rate for composite protective materials. Based on continuous monitoring data, it is estimated that the life support system and electronic components inside the armor will only have 11 minutes and 23 seconds of effective protection in such an extreme radiation field. The countdown has begun."

11 minutes and 23 seconds!
Tony's heart sank, a chilling coldness instantly gripping him, even briefly overshadowing his shock at the disaster before him.

He forced himself to look at the main screen, where the crimson color symbolizing destruction pulsed and expanded as if alive.

“I heard what the doctor said,”

Tony's voice sounded somewhat muffled through the protective shield, "But Connors... that damned lizard monster! It wasn't like this at all before! It devoured the leaked fuel rods from Fukushima like they were candy! It could even 'purify' those highly toxic nuclear wastes, leaving the emitted stuff with pitifully low radiation levels! It was more like a greedy absorber, a living radiation black hole! And now you're telling me it's become... a nuclear reactor on the verge of exploding?"

His voice was filled with an unbelievable sense of absurdity.

If we don't find a solution, the island nation is doomed, and America is doomed too.

The crucial question is, did Connors, who sank into the sea, die? This enormous paradox, like a cold, venomous snake, coiled around his mind.

The mutated behemoth named Connors exhibited biological characteristics that drove top nuclear physicists and biologists around the world crazy and confused.

It devoured highly radioactive materials like a glutton, yet transformed them into nearly inert, harmless waste. It was supposed to be the ultimate solution to nuclear waste, a living remediation furnace! But now…

"gentlemen!"

Jarvis's voice suddenly rose, becoming more solemn than ever before, "Emergency situation update! Breakthrough data has been transmitted from the deep-sea passive sonar array and the deployed radiation-resistant detectors! An abnormal and violent precursor to energy release has been detected in the target area—the sinking site of the Connors behemoth—at the edge of the trench!"

The home screen image changes instantly.

On the cold, dark simulation of the deep sea, a blinding, incandescent white-to-blue spot of light flashes wildly, its location precisely marked on the seabed where Connors last disappeared.

Countless numbers representing energy intensity refreshed and scrolled wildly around the point of light like a waterfall.

"An abnormally high-energy neutron flux burst has been detected! Accompanied by an ultra-intense gamma-ray burst! Energy spectrum analysis shows... the intensity of its core reaction is increasing exponentially!"

Jarvis spoke rapidly, "Based on all remote sensing data... a preliminary estimate... sir... the total energy accumulated and about to be released internally... equivalent to..."

A cold, impersonal number, carrying the weight of destruction, was announced by Jarvis with crystal clarity:
"Equivalent to 50 million tons of TNT".

"Fifty...ten thousand tons?"

Tony's voice caught in his throat, and his pupils suddenly contracted inside his armor.

The impact of this number even makes Jarvis's previous "11 minutes and 23 seconds" death countdown seem short and insignificant.

Fifty million tons!

This is a terrifying power that no single weapon in humanity's current nuclear arsenal could match.

It is powerful enough to create devastating tsunami walls in the deep sea and to eject immeasurable amounts of radioactive dust and heavy nuclides into the stratosphere, slowly covering the entire planet with a layer of death dust under the influence of global atmospheric circulation.

"This is impossible!"

Tony practically roared, his reason clashing against the absurd data. "Even if it swallowed all the nuclear fuel from Fukushima's No. 1 and No. 2 reactors, plus all the 'snacks' it scavenged before, it would only amount to a few thousand tons of uranium and plutonium at most! Even if it could squeeze every gram of fuel to its theoretical limit and create the most perfect chain reaction, it absolutely, absolutely couldn't reach this astronomical figure! Where did this energy come from? Created out of thin air?!"

A profound sense of bewilderment and an anger at being toyed with by an unknown force surged within him.

This violates the mass-energy equivalence equation and all the physical laws he knew!
The deathly silence in the command center was shattered, replaced by gasps of shock and suppressed, desperate sobs.

50 million tons of iron ore!

The concept is too vast and too abstract, which makes people lose the sense of reality and leave only pure, soul-cold fear.

(End of this chapter)