Chapter 281: Chapter 276: World War III Part 6
After completely vaporizing several kilometers of land, Arias turned his attention to what was below the fort, the vault which held the gold of the United States Bullion Depository, worth over 250 billion United States dollars.
What better way to deal a blow than to destroy such in a matter of minutes? So, wasting no time, he pointed his hand to the ground under him then repeating the action once again, he snapped his fingers, and another bright light emerged.
This time, spherical in shape, with half of it above ground and the other below. And like before, the light destroyed everything it touched. After it faded, Arias's bright white figure was hovering above a huge crater where billions in gold were once kept. This action alone was a huge blow to the US, and one they likely wouldn't recover from so easily.
However, Arias wasn't just there to do a fatal blow in terms of meaning. He was there to deal a literal fatal blow to the country, one they simply couldn't just ignore. So as quickly as he had arrived, his figure vanished before reappearing in a vast, sprawling expanse of desert land. As he appeared, he looked at the sign mounted just a few feet away from him, reading "Area 51," and he smiled before beginning to walk again.
Given the nature of his current form, it didn't take long for patrolling drones to catch sight of him. Yet again, warnings were granted, but Arias completely ignored them. And yet again, attacks were launched, but they did nothing.
It didn't take long for communication to reach Area 51 about the entity they were facing, and rather than fight, they were urged to evacuate. Given just how isolated it was, Arias didn't hesitate to do what he had done before. The moment he saw aerial vehicles taking off, with a snap of his fingers, an enormous dome, the size of a small city, engulfed the area, vaporizing anything and everything it touched: people, vehicles, rocks, and so on. Anything and everything had gone in just a simple flash.
And so the cycle continued. After doing this, Arias's figure vanished before reappearing at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, known for being the birthplace of the atomic bomb and the leading government-owned facility for science and military research. So its value was evident, but much like the other two locations, it soon suffered the same fate.
What then followed was the National Strategic Stockpile, a collection of critical medical supplies and commodities designed to respond to public health emergencies such as pandemics. Its value couldn't be overstated, and yet years of contributions vanished in a flash of light.
And still, Arias was not done as he then appeared directly in the vault of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, known for holding a significant portion of the world's gold reserves. However, what made this an especially ideal target was the fact that the gold there didn't belong to the Federal Reserve system but instead to international banks, governments, and other international organizations, with a value of over $450 billion.
Though Arias knew this wouldn't affect the US much, as the US's currency, the dollar, was not backed by gold but rather by military might, this was instead done to ruin international relations and confidence in US security.
With that done, Arias shifted to military targets, something that would truly cripple the U.S, starting with the Pentagon, the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense. Arias's figure arrived at its center, and without so much as a warning, it was vaporized.
Arias then proceeded to attack the following: Fort Bragg in North Carolina, a central hub for special forces operations; Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia, which was the largest naval base in the world; Joint Base San Antonio in Texas, crucial for Air Force training and testing; Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay in Georgia, home to the Atlantic fleet's Ohio-class ballistic and guided missile submarines; Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, a major Marine Corps base; Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station in Colorado, known for housing NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command); and lastly, Fort Meade in Maryland, home to the US Cyber Command, the National Security Agency (NSA), and the Defense Information Systems Agency, central for cyber operations and intelligence.
This was all of course far from enough to truly bring the US down, but that was never Arias's goal. What he had instead done was brutally cripple them, both military wise and economically.
As to what extent exactly, well, that was a matter better left for analysts to discover. And Arias fully looked forward to hearing about it.
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