Villain? No, I'll catch up with the protagonist after passing the civil service exam.

drop!drop!drop!

The sirens blared like deadly hammer blows, pounding on the eardrums of everyone in the vault.

The air was distorted and warped by the heat. The green waterproof paint on the wall was visibly bubbling and turning black.

Finally, it turned into pieces of brittle black ash, swirling and falling down.

The entire underground three levels were filled with a pungent smell of burning rubber and the acrid odor of molten metal.

Qiu Kun closed his eyes.

Sweat plastered his crazed face. It dripped down his chin, but before it could reach the control panel, it was instantly vaporized by the intense heat.

He is waiting.

Waiting for that white light, enough to instantly vaporize this entire block, to illuminate.

Outside the passageway.

The retreating SWAT officers crowded at the narrow stairwell. Heavy military boots clattered haphazardly on the concrete steps.

Faced with a threat on the scale of a miniature nuclear explosion, anyone would instinctively feel their legs go weak.

Zhao Tiezhu clung tightly to the heavy security door frame with both hands.

He leaned half his body into the corridor, braving the sweltering heat, and shouted into the corridor in his hoarse voice.

"Old Lu! Are you fucking crazy?!"

Zhao Tiezhu's eyes turned red with anxiety, and his voice cracked, clearly trembling with sobs.

"That damn metal shell's about to explode! Run!"

He reached out to pull the person in, but the scorching air made it impossible for him to move his legs.

Lu Jingyan didn't run away.

He had one hand in his trouser pocket and his back was ramrod straight.

The leather shoes on his feet clattered steadily on the broken glass, without moving an inch.

He stared at the miniature reactor that was completely exposed on the mech's chest.

The fist-sized sphere had now turned a glaring scarlet red.

The energy inside was like a pot of boiling magma, churning and colliding wildly. The high-frequency vibrations caused ripples to spread through the surrounding space.

Hot. Extremely hot.

The hot wind blew Lu Jingyan's black hair back and forth.

The old police uniform shirt, faded from washing, was soaked with sweat and clung tightly to the muscles of his back.

He even slowed his breathing.

The air I inhaled felt like red-hot blades, scraping painfully against my trachea.

The system no longer possesses the high-dimensional superpower of freezing space.

He's currently just a carbon-based body weighing a little over 100 pounds. If this sphere explodes, not even a single hair on his head will remain.

"Warning. Core meltdown countdown, 15 seconds."

The mech's built-in AI emitted distorted electronic sounds that echoed through the empty vault.

Qiu Kun opened his eyes and looked at Lu Jingyan, who was motionless, through the bulletproof glass mask that had been softened by the heat.

"Are you scared out of your wits?"

He burst into unrestrained laughter. His shoulders twitched from laughing, causing the mechanical arms of his exoskeleton to creak and groan.

"You think you're so great? You think you can teach the law to everyone in the galaxy? Well then, try teaching the law to this bomb!"

Qiu Kun's face was contorted with grotesque glee, a mixture of triumphant revenge and smug satisfaction.

Lu Jingyan turned his head away.

His gaze shifted from the crimson fireball to the wall to the right of the vault entrance.

There was a red metal fire extinguisher cabinet embedded there. A thin layer of dust had settled on the glass door.

Nuclear fusion chain reactions require extremely high temperatures to be maintained.

This thing is a smuggled, black market assembly. Once the outer restraining rings break, the energy will indeed go berserk.

But as soon as the temperature drops sharply, falling below that critical value.

The reaction will be like a duck being choked, instantly going out of control.

This is basic thermodynamics from the junior high school physics textbook.

Lu Jingyan strode forward.

Braving the scorching heat, I took a few steps to the fire cabinet.

He didn't go looking for a hammer. He simply raised his left elbow, right where the skin had been scraped and bleeding.

He aimed at the thick glass door and slammed it hard.

"Splash—"

The glass shattered with a crack. Shards of all sizes scattered across the floor, landing on his military boots.

Several shards of glass grazed the back of his hand, leaving two new cuts.

He didn't even frown.

He reached his right hand into the cabinet and grabbed the cold metal handle.

Pull it outwards.

The base scraped against the metal cabinet, making a screeching sound.

This is a 30-kilogram industrial-grade liquid nitrogen fire extinguisher. It is a special piece of equipment specifically designed to deal with fires involving precision laboratory instruments.

Very heavy.

Lu Jingyan's arm muscles bulged, and blue veins stretched down his forearm to the back of his hand.

"nineteen."

The mechanical voice continued its emotionless countdown.

He carried the large red steel cylinder in one hand and turned to walk towards the mech.

When Qiu Kun saw him carrying a fire extinguisher, he laughed even more maniacally, almost choking on his own breath.

"Are you out of your mind?"

He slammed his hand on the control panel and shouted sarcastic remarks.

"This is a nuclear reactor! The temperature is about to break 10,000 degrees! What are you trying to do with that broken fire extinguisher? Try to cool it down for me!"

Lu Jingyan stopped less than a meter away from the mecha.

The temperature here is so high it's making your skin ache.

He held the black rubber nozzle in his left hand.

Use your right thumb to grip the safety pin on the metal duckbill valve of the fire extinguisher. Pull it out forcefully.

"bite."

The tiny metal ring fell to the ground and rolled twice.

"May 4th." The countdown is still relentless.

Lu Jingyan ignored Qiu Kun's incoherent ramblings.

He gripped the bottle firmly with both hands and aimed the black, trumpet-shaped nozzle directly at the crimson core that was flashing wildly.

He slammed his right palm down on the metal handle, pressing it all the way down.

"Sizzle—!!!"

A deafening roar of high-pressure gas ejection instantly tore through the air inside the vault.

The sound was so loud that it completely drowned out the mechanical countdown.

A thick, violent stream of white air, with overwhelming force, shot out from the nozzle with a thunderous roar.

This is liquid nitrogen at -196 degrees Celsius.

Upon contact with air, it vaporizes violently, turning into a thick, dry ice mist.

A white, frigid storm crashed violently into the red reactor that was radiating intense heat.

Extreme heat meets absolute cold.

"Sizzle—"

A deafening, high-pitched explosion rang out. A massive amount of water vapor was instantly released, completely enveloping the mech.

The originally dazzling red fireball dimmed slightly under the continuous flushing of liquid nitrogen.

It was like a frozen wild beast, struggling to reignite, but relentlessly suppressed by the relentless physical attacks of extreme cold.

The metal surface began to shrink rapidly.

It made a cracking sound. That was because the alloy material could not withstand the intense thermal expansion and contraction, and was undergoing structural damage.

The originally scarlet core quickly developed a thick layer of white frost on its surface.

Lu Jingyan did not let up.

He pressed down hard on the handle, letting the liquid nitrogen pour wildly down on the mech's chest.

The cold air swirled back, coating his short black hair with a fine layer of white.

Inside the cockpit.

The maniacal laughter on Qiu Kun's face froze, stiffening at the corner of his mouth.

The temperature dropped too quickly.

The cockpit, which had been like a sauna just moments before, plummeted to below zero degrees Celsius in just a few seconds.

The hot sweat on his body instantly froze into ice crystals, sticking tightly to his skin.

"Achoo!"

Qiu Kun sneezed loudly without being able to control himself.

He started shaking all over. His upper and lower teeth clashed together, making a crisp "cluck cluck cluck" sound.

"This...this is fucking..."

His hands trembled as he pushed the control stick, trying to control the mech to avoid the damn cold air.

Useless.

Inside the exoskeleton's hydraulic lines, the remaining engine oil and coolant were instantly frozen solid by the absolute low temperature.

All the joints were completely jammed. This mech, which was over two meters tall, had become a veritable iron ice sculpture.

"Warning. Temperature too low. Fusion chain reaction interrupted. Core shutdown."

The AI ​​system's voice slowed down, like a tape recorder running out of power, dragging out a long trailing tone, before finally fading completely.

That reactor went completely black.

The countdown stopped at "two". It didn't go any further.

The crisis is over.

There were no earth-shattering energy waves. There were no superdimensional rules to suppress it.

There was a red jar that cost two hundred yuan, right by the corner of the wall.

The special police officers outside the corridor heard the commotion but didn't explode; instead, they all cautiously peered inside.

Zhao Tiezhu wiped the cold sweat from his face. His legs went weak, and he slid down to the ground, leaning against the door frame.

He was panting heavily, feeling that he had never experienced such excitement in his life.

In the vault.

Lu Jingyan loosened the reins.

The ear-piercing screech stopped. Only the faint crackling of metal cooling remained.

He looked at the mech in front of him, covered in a thick layer of frost and radiating a chilling aura.

Qiu Kun huddled in the cockpit, his face blue from the cold.

Snot dripped from his nose, forming two small icicles on his philtrum. He stared blankly at the blackened core, his mind completely blank.

An alien nuclear fusion experiment was extinguished by a can of fire extinguisher?

Lu Jingyan reached out and patted the white frost off his clothes.

"Nuclear fusion is a physical phenomenon. Cooling breaks the chain reaction; that's common sense."

His tone was flat, with a slight panting from the exertion.

Looking at Qiu Kun, who was frozen solid, his eyes remained completely unmoved.

"If you're uncultured, read more books. Stop making a fool of yourself here."

Cold air permeated the vault.

The thick white fog of dry ice gradually dissipated. Lu Jingyan casually tossed the empty fire extinguisher onto the ground with a muffled thud.