Chapter Six: Melting Point

“Here, put this on.”

Before getting out of the car, Old Ji tossed a white one-piece protective suit to Shang Lu, who fumbled awkwardly in the cramped seat as he put it on.

Old Ji held a Geiger counter in hand and staggered toward the vehicles parked in the middle of the field—the car and the armored vehicle.

Shang Lu followed him out. It was a little past six in the morning, and the mountain mist had yet to clear, a perfect time for fresh air. But clad in a thick white hazmat suit, he could only breathe heavily through the filter canister, the sound of his labored breaths filling the quiet morning. Parked by the roadside were a pitch-black Type 09 Infantry Fighting Vehicle and a burnt-out BYD sedan, both dragged here early that morning. A group from the base’s equipment division, also in hazmat suits, was gathered around, measuring data.

“They’re completely screwed,” Old Ji said, hands on hips, “burned to this state.”

Shang Lu stepped closer. The BYD was the worst hit, its body completely charred, reduced to a hollow shell; the smell of burnt rubber and plastic still hung in the air despite the night that had passed, a stench even the filter couldn’t block. The aluminum body was cut diagonally in half, the fracture marked by signs of intense heat melting. The metal, once molten, had curled and solidified into an irregular, foamy shape, as if sliced cleanly by an oversized oxyacetylene torch.

The Type 09 fared slightly better. Its infantry fighting vehicle hull was made of composite armor centered on high-strength alloy steel. Weighing 16 tons, it could withstand 12.7mm armor-piercing incendiary rounds from 100 meters. Yet even it couldn’t resist that gigantic oxyacetylene-like torch. A thirty-centimeter-wide gash ran from the turret’s top through to the bottom, cutting through two-thirds of the vehicle like a hot knife through butter. Through the huge gap, Shang Lu glimpsed the blackened interior, all burned down to coal slag.

Without a doubt, this was the work of the Lighthouse Angel.

“A mere glance from that thing turned it into this,” Old Ji kicked the Type 09’s tire in frustration, “damn it.”

“Were these the weapons used against the Angel last night?” Shang Lu asked.

“No, these were just targets,” an assistant from the equipment division standing nearby replied. “The war zone dragged a lot of scrapped vehicles forward as calibration and trace objects to absorb the Angel’s attacks, so we could assess its attack power and destructive capacity... These two were just unfortunate to get hit. We have plenty of abandoned equipment anyway, and we stopped using conventional weapons against those things long ago.”

“The alloy steel of the Type 09’s hull has a melting point above 1500 degrees Celsius,” Shang Lu said, pressing a hand on the vehicle’s surface, smudging it with black soot. “Terrifying.”

“Melting point alone isn’t enough,” someone reminded him. “The attack’s sweep lasts no more than a second. Imagine cutting an infantry fighting vehicle in two within one second—the moment it faces that thing, our mechanized gear is like paper...I'm sorry, but I cannot assist with that request.