Not enough Japanese devils to kill? 1.4 billion people volunteer for the Battle of Shanghai.

The Japanese army's temporary command post was located on the north side of the Luojia Highway.

This is a brick and tile house that was seized from Chinese farmers. The original main room has been converted into a war room. A huge map of the Shanghai-Nanjing war zone hangs on the wall, covered with dense arrows and symbols marked in red and blue pencils.

Major General Yoshikatsu Kuroiwa, commander of the 22nd Brigade, was sitting in a grand chair with a cup of sake in his hand.

The sake was the finest "Kiku Masamune," loaded onto a ship at Kobe Port and transported to the front lines via Wusongkou, exclusively for the enjoyment of officers.

The wine cup is a captured porcelain cup from Jingdezhen, China. It is as thin as a cicada's wing and as white as solidified fat, with exquisite landscape paintings painted on the cup wall.

Kuroiwa took a sip of his drink, squinted his eyes, and savored the tipsiness brought by the alcohol and the thrill of impending victory.

Before him sat Colonel Chitaka, commander of the 4th Regiment, upright, but with an undisguised smile on his lips.

"Chitaka-kun," Kuroiwa said in Japanese, his voice relaxed with the tinge of alcohol, "how is the 'tea party' of the 62nd Regiment going?"

Chiyoji was visibly taken aback: "A tea party? What does Your Excellency mean, Major General...?"

"So this is your 4th Regiment's 'special hospitality'?" Kuroiwa laughed. "Your regiment's poison gas grenades, don't they look just like the tea bottles the Chinese use to drink tea?"

He gestured to indicate the name:

"The mortar fired—plop, like a teapot falling into water. It exploded—a yellowish-brown 'tea soup' spread out. Those bumpkins in the Chinese army, they knew nothing, still foolishly thinking..."

Kuroiwa paused deliberately, his smile turning cruel and mocking:

They thought our Imperial Japanese Army was inviting them for "tea."

Chiyo's eyes lit up.

He slapped his thigh suddenly: "Brilliant! Your analogy, Major General, is absolutely brilliant!"

He rubbed his hands together excitedly:

"From now on, our 4th Regiment will be codenamed the 'Teapot Regiment'! Every time we use special ammunition, it'll be like 'inviting the Chinese for tea'!"

"Hahaha—" Kuroiwa laughed loudly, his laughter echoing in the main room. "Very good! Tomotaka-kun, you're quite good. War shouldn't always be about fighting and killing; it should also have a bit of...elegance."

He raised his glass to the map on the wall—on which the blue marker representing the 62nd Regiment's position was now surrounded by a red circle—and offered a perfunctory toast.

"Come, let's raise a toast to the Chinese soldiers of the 62nd Regiment."

"Thank you to them... for savoring the 'fine tea' we've carefully prepared with their lives."

The two clinked glasses and drank it all in one gulp.

Setting down his glass, Kuroiwa walked to the map and pointed to the red circle:

"As planned, the gas has been in effect for fifteen minutes. The Chinese don't have gas masks, so they should have lost most of their fighting ability by now."

"Once our soldiers go in wearing gas masks, they only need to do one thing—"

He made a throat-slitting gesture:

"Finish off."

"Like harvesting rice in a paddy field, one cut at a time, we harvested all those still convulsing Chinese soldiers clean."

Zhiying Er stood at attention: "Hai! Rest assured, Major General, the 4th Regiment guarantees to complete the mission! Not a single survivor will be left!"

Just then—

A strange sound came from outside the window.

It wasn't the muffled sound of a poison gas bomb exploding.

It wasn't the "thud" of a mortar firing.

It's not the "bang" of a rifle shot.

It was a kind of... continuous, low sound, like a metallic storm roaring in the distance.

"Hmm?" Kuroiwa frowned. "What's that sound? The Chinese soldiers of the 62nd Regiment should be out of ammunition by now."

Chiyo also listened intently:

"It sounds...like a heavy machine gun? But the rate of fire is too fast, at least three times faster than our Type 92..."

"Something's not right, something's very wrong, Mr. Kuroiwa. I'll have the officers from the Fourth Regiment take some men over there to check it out."

A makeshift rest area next to the command post of the 4th Regiment of the 22nd Brigade of the Japanese Army...

This place was originally a grain-drying ground for Chinese farmers, but now it has been paved with teak flooring looted from the Shanghai concessions.

In the center of the venue, a gramophone creaked and spun, playing "Cherry Blossom Ballad".

The record was brought from Tokyo; it's vinyl and has excellent sound quality.

More than thirty Japanese officers sang and danced here, their steps somewhat clumsy.

They had taken off their military jackets, wearing only white shirts, their faces flushed with drunkenness.

"Matsumoto-kun, jump! Jump!" A major held up a sake bottle and swayed as he tapped his feet to the beat.

The young lieutenant named Matsumoto forced a smile, but his steps were unsteady. He felt uneasy.

"Major, there's still no news from the front..." he tried to remind them.

"Who cares about the news!" The major grabbed his shoulder.

"Brigade Commander Heiyan said that once the poison gas is released, the Chinese will become lambs to the slaughter! The soldiers our Fourth Regiment sent out are just there to harvest wheat! It'll be a piece of cake!"

He tilted his head back and took a gulp of wine, the liquid flowing down his chin and into his collar.

"Come on! Let's dance! After this dance, we'll go 'harvest' the enemy positions!"

At the edge of the field, several young lieutenants were drinking:

"Sing a song by the well! Sing 'My Hometown'!" a lieutenant shouted.

A man hiccuped by the well.

"Hometown...hometown is far away...when the cherry blossoms are in full bloom..."

This was the scene that Colonel Chitaka saw when he pushed open the bamboo fence gate to the rest area.

His brow furrowed.

"What kind of behavior is this!" he hissed, "The fighting is still going on at the front, and you're here..."

"Commander!" The drunken major ran over and gave a wobbly salute.

"You've come at the perfect time! Let's dance! To celebrate the upcoming arrival of our Fourth Regiment..."

"Shut up!" Chiyo interrupted him. "The sounds coming from the west are strange. Didn't you hear them?"

The major paused, then listened intently: "A sound? What sound? Oh... it sounds a bit like... a heavy machine gun? But the rate of fire is too fast..."

Just then—

The sound started again—

Boom-! ! !

First word.

That wasn't the sound of artillery fire.

The shelling was described as "boom" or "bang".

The sound was deeper and heavier, like someone pounding the earth's sinews with a ten-thousand-ton hammer.

The ground of the entire threshing ground suddenly shook.

The teak floorboards creaked, the phonograph needle jumped, and "Cherry Blossom Ballad" turned into jarring noise.

Everyone stopped what they were doing.

"What..." The major sobered up a bit.

Boom-! ! !

Second tone.

closer.

This time, even the air seemed to vibrate. The colored lights swayed, and the bulbs flickered.

Chiyo's expression changed.

He had fought in too many battles and heard too many cannon shots. But this sound... he had never heard before.

That doesn't look like a cannon.

Like the footsteps of a giant beast.

They walked towards them step by step from the west.

Boom!Boom!Boom!Boom!

The rhythm has stabilized.

Each sound was spaced about three seconds apart, as precise as a pendulum.

The footsteps are getting closer...

"Regimental Commander!" The communications soldier came running from the command post, his face deathly pale.

"The front lines... we've lost contact with the front lines! All the soldiers we sent out have gone missing!"

Chiyo's heart skipped a beat.

"Where is Squad Leader Sato?"

"We can't get in touch with them either! The last news we got was... the snipers... all the officers were killed!"

All the officers were sniped?

Chiyo recalled the sound of a "heavy machine gun" firing at an extremely long distance with a very high rate of fire.

No.

That's not a heavy machine gun.

That was something... even more terrifying.

"Assemble the troops immediately!" he roared. "Get into battle mode! Now—!!!"

late.

Outside the window, the western sky was brightening.

It's not the brightness of sunlight.

It wasn't the light from artillery fire.

It was a pale, blinding light, like a thousand spotlights exploding in front of your eyes at the same time.

The light was so dazzling that it instantly blinded everyone, even from several kilometers away, even in broad daylight.

"Ah—my eyes!" the major screamed, clutching his face.

Chiyo instinctively closed his eyes, but the light pierced through his eyelids, and his retina was covered in a scorching white light.

The glass cover of the phonograph shattered with a "pop" under the high temperature.

Then, another sound came.

It wasn't an explosion.

It's a shriek.

From far to near.

It got louder and louder.

Getting sharper and sharper—

Finally, it reached its peak overhead.

Zhiying Er suddenly turned around and rushed towards the door.

He was blind, but relying on his memory, he lunged toward the bamboo fence gate.

The moment my hand touched the door frame—

The world turned white.

It's not white in a visual sense.

It is white in a physical sense—white from high temperature, high pressure, and pure energy.

The first detonation of the "Dragon's Breath" thermobaric rocket occurred 20 meters above the threshing ground.

The nano-aluminothermic agent fell evenly, like a death rain.

They landed on the teak floor.

It landed on the sake bottle.

It landed on the officers who were still wearing white shirts.

It landed on Chiyoji's hand, which was reaching towards the door frame.

Dragon's Breath Thermobaric Bomb, First Wave Effect: Adsorption.

Nanoscale thermite powder, due to its extremely small particle size and special surface treatment, has extremely strong adsorption properties.

They adhere to all surfaces.

It's in the gaps between the fibers.

Inside the pores of the skin.

In the gaps in the hair.

On the cornea of ​​the eye.

Even on the mucous membranes of the respiratory tract.

The drunken major was screaming in agony as the powder was poured directly into his throat, trachea, and lungs.

Chiyo's hand froze in mid-air, powder covering every inch of his skin.

0.5 seconds later, it detonated for the second time.

The mixture of nano-aluminothermic agent and oxidizer was detonated.

It wasn't an explosion.

It is combustion.

But this is not ordinary combustion.

It is a self-propagating high-temperature synthesis reaction.

Each nano-aluminothermic powder becomes an independent, miniature combustion source.

They were ignited simultaneously, releasing an astonishing amount of heat.

The temperature soared to 3,500 degrees Celsius in a fraction of a second.

What happened next was not death.

It is vaporization.

It is a complete physical annihilation in which matter changes directly from a solid state to a gaseous state, skipping the liquid state stage.

The first thing to disappear was sake.

The liquid in the bottle didn't even have time to boil before it turned into alcohol vapor.

The second is the floor.

Wood has a ignition point of 260 degrees Celsius. But here, there is no "burning" process.

The floor disappeared.

Then comes the human body.

The major was still covering his face.

But under temperatures of 3,500 degrees Celsius—

His skin carbonized in one second.

Subcutaneous fat melts into oil within 2 seconds and then vaporizes.

The muscle tissue dehydrates, carbonizes, and then turns into carbon-containing gas within 3 seconds.

The skeleton—its melting point is 1600 degrees Celsius—begins to soften and melt within 5 seconds.

But before it could completely melt, it was torn apart by the more intense vaporization process around it.

Then, where the Major had once stood, only a carbonized, humanoid black outline remained, imprinted on the molten glass floor.

Everything else—flesh, bones, organs, brain tissue—turned into gas.

Then there's the well, where the officer singing the cherry blossom ballad is kneeling in a very standard posture.

Because of his kneeling position, his buttocks and thighs had a larger contact area with the ground. The skin, muscles, and bones in these areas were welded to the molten glass floor under the high temperature.

It's not burnt, it's fused together.

His body, together with the black glass floor, formed a seamless, smooth, integrated surface.

The upper body remains in a singing posture, but the inside is empty.

All the soft tissue vaporized, leaving only the bones twisting, melting, and finally collapsing into a pile of carbonized fragments in the high temperature.

He became a twisted, carbonized sculpture, half-melted into the ground.

Colonel Chitaka.

He was the closest to the door.

His hand had already touched the bamboo fence gate.

Bamboo is carbonized instantly at high temperatures and then turns into ash.

But it did not vaporize immediately.

Because part of his body was obscured by the shadow of the bamboo fence gate—although the shadow was almost meaningless in such high temperatures, this tiny difference prolonged his death process by 0.1 seconds.

In 0.1 seconds, at a temperature of 3,500 degrees Celsius, a lot can happen.

His military uniform disappeared first.

Then it's the skin—starting from the hands and spreading upwards.

He felt pain—no, not pain, but a storm of signals beyond human comprehension generated by the instantaneous overload of his nervous system under high temperatures.

He tried to scream, but his vocal cords had already vaporized.

He wanted to run, but the muscles in his legs were turning into gas.

His last conscious thought was watching his own hand melt, drip, and disappear before his eyes like a candle.

Then, consciousness itself vaporized.

Three seconds later.

The effect of the "Dragon's Breath" thermobaric rocket has ended.

The high temperature dissipated—no, it didn't dissipate, it just meant the energy was completely released.

The scene turned out like this:

A circular area with a diameter of fifty meters, more than two hundred Japanese soldiers, and even all objects ten centimeters above the ground, all disappeared.

In the very center of the threshing ground, there are the carbonized silhouettes of thirty-seven Japanese military officers.

The Japanese soldiers from the Fourth Regiment who hadn't yet entered, or who were on guard in the surrounding area, survived, a few hundred meters away.

But they witnessed the whole process.

They saw a white light.

I heard a shriek.

I can feel the heat wave.

Then I saw that the thirty-seven Japanese officers in the threshing ground, the more than two hundred Japanese soldiers around them, and everything else, all turned into sculptures and vaporized in three seconds.

One of the Japanese soldiers knelt down and began to vomit.

Another Japanese soldier's eyes were wide open, his pupils dilated—he had gone mad.

The third Japanese soldier muttered to himself, "Amaterasu...Amaterasu is punishing us..."

They didn't know what kind of weapon it was.

All they knew was that it wasn't a human power.

That was divine punishment...