Super Rich: Starting the game by going back ten years to buy Bitcoin

The moment the video was uploaded, Morton's fingers were still firmly gripping the upload button.

He only pulled his hand back when the progress bar in the bottom right corner of the screen reached 100%. His fingers left a sweaty mark on the table.

Thirty seconds later, in the CIC command room of the USS Ford aircraft carrier.

The giant LCD screen was lit up.

High-definition images, displayed in slow motion frame by frame, filled the entire wall. Firelight, debris, and a silver-gray humanoid silhouette hovered in the air, shooting blue-white beams of light from its palms that pierced through the turret of a T-72 tank.

Screen switch.

The same humanoid figure plummeted from a height of 500 meters, and the shockwave upon impact sent seven or eight fully armed people flying.

Cut it again.

Two miniature projectiles ejected from the shoulder, trailing white smoke, and entered the engine compartment of the second tank. A secondary explosion occurred. Fifty tons of steel were torn apart from the inside.

When the video was played for the third time, not one of the twelve senior officers in the CIC spoke.

They even held back their breathing.

Rear Admiral Jeffrey, the fleet commander, stood directly in front of the screen, the veins on his neck throbbing. He stared at the right-angle turn made by the metallic silhouette on the screen, his lips moving slightly.

Lieutenant Colonel Burns, the intelligence chief standing nearby, finally couldn't hold back any longer.

"Sir, is this some kind of Marvel movie?"

Jeffrey didn't turn around.

"Shut up."

Burns gritted his teeth. He stood up from his chair, took two steps to the console, and yelled at the communications officer.

"Have the observation station reconfirm! Three independent channels! Retrieve the raw data from the drone's flight black box; I want to compare it frame by frame! Bring out both the infrared and visible light bands!"

The communications officer's fingers flew across the keyboard for thirty seconds.

The reply came very quickly.

"Sir, all three channels have been confirmed." The communications officer's voice trembled. "The data link is intact, and the raw data from the black box matches the uploaded video. Both infrared and visible light verifications have passed. The entity in the footage... definitely exists."

CIC has fallen completely silent.

The twelve people stood there, as if the pause button had been pressed simultaneously.

Jeffrey closed his eyes for two seconds. When he opened them again, his hand was already reaching for the red secure phone.

"All intelligence is encrypted and uploaded to the Quadrant Joint Operations Center." His throat was parched. "Mark it as—highest priority, immediate assessment."

Washington.

The Pentagon's three underground floors, including the Situation Room, are brightly lit.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff, the head of DARPA, and the National Security Advisor—seven people in total—sat in two rows around a circular table.

The video has been broken down frame by frame.

Spectral analysis of plasma glow, mechanical deduction of vector maneuver trajectories, energy density estimation of palm-sized particle beam weapons—all the data are laid out on the tablets in front of everyone.

Dr. Lane, the head of DARPA, took off his glasses, wiped the lenses with the hem of his shirt, and put them back on. His hands were trembling.

"Gentlemen," he pushed the tablet to the center of the table, "I can say with certainty—this is not currently in service with any known country."

The National Security Advisor frowned. "Didn't you guys work on a similar project back in the day?"

"Project Iron Knight." Ryan's jaw tightened. "It was terminated in 2019. Reason for termination: insurmountable bottlenecks in the energy system, flight control system, and control system. Our best prototype could only fly for forty-seven seconds, and—"

He pointed to the frame that was frozen on the screen.

"Moreover, our prototype only had enough thrust to hover, not to perform a maneuver at four times the speed of sound. To be honest, we haven't even gotten close to it."

silence.

The head of the intelligence analysis team cleared his throat.

"The attribution has been determined. All 137 people trapped inside the factory are citizens of Great Xia. Considering the timing of the operation, the target of protection, and the technological level of this entity—"

He paused for a moment.

"Only the Great Xia would have the motive to expose weapons of this caliber to rescue civilians."

The National Security Advisor slammed his hand on the table.

"Threat level".

"It is recommended to upgrade to red, the highest level."

When those words were spoken, everyone present tensed up. Red, the highest color, meant that from this moment on, all Pentagon military plans targeting Great Xia had to be scrapped and rewritten.

But Jeffrey's suggestion, added fifty seconds later, sent chills down everyone's spine.

"Gentlemen," his voice came through the secure phone, carrying the distinctive whistling of the bridge, "since we can't build one—we'll just steal one that's already there."

The National Security Advisor exchanged a glance with the Joint Chiefs of Staff personnel.

Three seconds later, the command was issued.

"Seize the target entity at all costs."

The scene cuts back to Casal.

After Li Yichen tore open the factory's main gate with his bare hands, 137 compatriots emerged from the darkness one after another.

The moonlight shone on their faces, illuminating a dehydrated, terrified, yet still alive expression.

Li Yichen stood on the east side of the factory area, where the engines of twelve captured military trucks roared.

"Men with good physical strength will be in charge of driving." The armor's loudspeaker broadcast the instructions to everyone. "Each vehicle will carry ten to twelve people. The elderly and children will be given priority to sit in the middle compartments where there will be less bumping. The last two vehicles will be reserved for the wounded."

Someone is moving.

Although my legs were weak, I was still moving.

The convoy was assembled. Twelve trucks formed a long line, their headlights cutting through the night, and advanced southward along the rugged dirt road.

"Ling'er, synchronize the navigation route with all drivers. Continue scanning for the next 50 kilometers."

"Synchronized. Bro, there's a temporary checkpoint 12 kilometers ahead, about 20 men, and a DShK heavy machine gun."

Li Yichen didn't waste any words.

The vector nozzles emitted white and blue flames, and the armored vehicles rose from the ground, soaring over the convoy and rapidly advancing forward.

Four seconds.

Two palm pulse cannons.

The checkpoint, along with the heavy machine gun, was reduced to parts.

As the convoy drove past the smoking ruins, no one spoke in the carriages. Only the howling wind filling the canvas awnings and the deep breathing of a child in his mother's arms could be heard.

The convoy traveled more than 40 kilometers.

Ling'er's notification tone suddenly changed.

It wasn't the usual lighthearted "bro," but a sharp frequency that popped out from the underlying system protocol, making one's scalp tingle.

"Emergency! Five F-35C carrier-based aircraft detected, bearing 215, altitude 8,000 meters, speed Mach 1.6. Expected to enter engagement range in five minutes. Radar lock-on characteristics confirmed—US Navy active-duty aircraft."

Li Yichen was suspended 500 meters in the air.

On the HUD, five red triangles approached rapidly from the southwest, with very little spacing, a standard attack formation.

The smile on his face disappeared.

It's been completely taken over.

He glanced down at the headlights of the convoy winding its way forward. Twelve trucks, one hundred and thirty-seven people, eighty-seven kilometers from the port of Zubala.

The armor's intercom channel is turned on.

"All vehicles, full speed ahead! Do not stop, do not look back! There are warships waiting for you at the beach!"

There was a moment of silence in the channel. Then a man's hoarse voice replied.

"clear."

The engine roared two notes higher. The convoy accelerated.

Eight thousand meters above the ground.

Five F-35Cs entered the target airspace in a close wedge formation.

Inside the cockpit of the lead aircraft, Hound One's fingers were gripping the control stick, his joints stiff.

The helmet's aiming system locked onto the silver-gray dot below.

Really.

Live.

It can fly.

A whisper came from the wingman's channel: "Jesus Christ, it's real."

Hound Number One gritted its back teeth.

"All units, AIM-120 medium-range missiles, salvo. Give it no time to react."

Five plumes of white smoke billowed out from under the wing pylons almost simultaneously.

Five active radar-guided missiles hurtled toward the hovering point of light at Mach 4, their exhaust trails leaving five straight white lines in the night sky.

Li Yichen looked at the five rapidly approaching red lines on the HUD.

The corner of his mouth twitched.

"Ling'er, decoy grenades."

"receive!"

Five consecutive clicks echoed from the ejector at his waist. Five heat-generating tracer projectiles were launched, exploding into a blinding white light screen around the armor, their infrared signal intensity instantly surpassing that of the armor itself by an order of magnitude.

At the same moment.

Li Yichen's body jerked backward. The thrusters were fully deflected, the overload surged to fourteen Gs, and the armor pulled from hovering to a vertical position in 0.3 seconds.

All five missiles engaged the decoy flares.

White smoke swept past him three meters away.

The explosion created five orange-red fireballs on the distant sand dunes, and the shockwave slapped against the armor's backplate like a tickle.

Hound One stared at the radar screen.

"Hit... Is it confirmed to be a hit?"

He hadn't finished speaking.

The signal on the radar screen disappeared.

0.5 seconds.

When it reappeared—it jumped from one kilometer away to within three hundred meters.

Three hundred meters.

For a fighter jet, this distance is like having a knife to its throat.

Before Hound One's pupils could contract, a burst of silvery-gray metallic light exploded outside the cockpit.

fast.

It's so fast it doesn't seem like something that should exist in the physical world.

In the final fractions of a second of their rapid approach, Li Yichen completed all his actions—the ejection hatch on his back pylons popped open, and four miniature guided missiles were launched simultaneously. Ling'er assigned each missile an independent target within 0.03 seconds, locking onto the engine exhaust nozzles of the four wingmen.

Ejection complete.

The empty rack was detached and tumbled in the airflow as it fell toward the ground.

The armor weighed ten kilograms less.

Then he slid to the front of Hound One.

Raise your right palm.

Blue-white light condensed from the depths of the palm. The brightness reached its limit in a fraction of a second.

A powerful, charged strike.

Release at zero distance.

A thick beam of light pierced through the entire body of Hound One—entering through the air intake and exiting through the tail nozzle.

Five F-35Cs were destroyed in the same second.

Four missiles precisely penetrated the tail nozzles of four wingmen. High-temperature fragments shredded the turbofan blades, and aviation kerosene exploded. The cockpit of Hound One was burned through by the beam of light, and the fuselage broke in two.

Five fireballs burst open in succession in the night sky.

The fragments, trailing fiery tails, crashed to the earth, creating five fiery craters on the desert surface.

From the missile attack to the end of the battle.

Eleven seconds.

Everyone in the ground convoy saw it.

First, five plumes of white smoke rushed towards the silver dot of light—someone cried out, "It's over!"—then a burst of white light exploded, the dot of light disappeared and reappeared, and then—

Five fireballs bloomed simultaneously in the night sky.

Debris fell.

There was a three-second silence in the carriage. A full second.

A middle-aged man leaned against the side panel of the carriage, his voice trembling.

"Five...five fighter jets...all gone?"

No one answered him.

In a corner of the carriage, a seven- or eight-year-old boy lay on the tailgate, looking up at the sky. The flickering light of the falling flames reflected in his eyes.

He said it in a low voice.

"Superheroes".

Ford CIC.

Five green cursors turned gray simultaneously.

The words "Signal lost" appeared next to each marker.

No one was breathing in the command room.

Major General Jeffrey's face went from ashen to deathly pale. Fifteen seconds. Five fifth-generation fighter jets, five elite pilots, all killed in less than fifteen seconds after engagement.

He stared at the screen. His Adam's apple bobbed twice.

Then he picked up the red secure phone.

"Second wave. All ten F-35Cs are armed with long-range air-to-air missiles and cluster bombs."

The communications officer was stunned.

"Sir?"

"This time—I'm not asking to be captured alive." Jeffrey's voice was lowered to the lowest possible level, each syllable squeezed out from between his teeth.

"Destroy it."

Five thousand meters above the ground.

Li Yichen hovered there, his armor still covered in dust from the explosion zone.

Ling'er's notification sound rang again.

"Brother, a large-scale carrier-based aircraft catapult launch signal has been detected in the direction of the aircraft carrier. A formation of ten aircraft will enter the combat radius in eight minutes. They won't make the same mistake again this time."

Li Yichen lowered his head.

Eighty-seven kilometers away at the port, warships are waiting.

The headlights of the convoy behind us were still crawling along the dirt road, moving so slowly it was agonizing.

He clenched his fist. The blue light from the pulse cannon in his palm flickered faintly in the night.

"bring it on."