Chapter 518: Struggle of a Cornered Beast! The Annihilation of the Droplets! The Trisolaran Fleet in Terror!
Coincidentally, the Trisolaran fleet commander soon realized that countless dense swarms of AI drones had suddenly appeared on the battlefield.
They were far lighter and more agile than the stellar-class warships, carrying large quantities of antimatter armor-piercing shells, with over a thousand Wasp-class medium and large combat platforms serving as ammunition resupply points.
Without the Sophons providing battlefield reconnaissance, the Trisolaran fleet's reaction had grown so sluggish that only when the AI drones had practically reached their very doorstep did they finally come to their senses.
By now, the fleet commander had realized he was trapped. The remaining eight Droplets had become completely passive.
From a probabilistic standpoint, the chance of humanity's shells destroying a Droplet was less than 0.01%—practically negligible.
If that Droplet hadn't deliberately gone after the Gravity, but instead had simply skimmed past the firepower net, it probably would never have been hit.
After all, even though the Asian Fleet had deployed seven hundred warships in this sector, there were still many areas in the middle where artillery fire couldn't reach.
Within ranges spanning tens of thousands of kilometers, trying to hit a three-meter-long Droplet with shells was like trying to shoot a mosquito outdoors with a bullet.
But if you added in swarms of AI drones to intercept them, things were very different.
The Asian Fleet's electromagnetic rapid-fire cannons could unleash several thousand rounds per minute—averaging over a hundred rounds per second—and each stellar-class warship carried close to a hundred such cannons.
The rapid-fire cannons from seven hundred stellar-class warships, combined with the defensive systems stationed along Jupiter's orbit, created a web of death that, though not enough to completely restrain the Droplets, became far more effective when tens of thousands of AI drones joined in, harassing and locking down their positions.
With ample ammunition supplies and the participation of the Universal Megacorp's AI drone swarms, the Asian Fleet's firepower net had transformed into an unimaginably terrifying deathtrap.
The Droplets twisted and darted with all their might, then began targeting the fuel depots of stellar-class warships, trying to trigger chaos there in hopes of tearing open a gap in the defense line.
It was no longer possible for them to pass smoothly through this region of space—the only option left was to destroy these obstacles one by one.
But with only eight Droplets remaining, each loss would inflict enormous damage on the Trisolaran fleet.
The fleet commander ordered them to destroy the stellar-class warships, only to realize that doing so would actually get the Droplets destroyed even faster.
The reason was simple: in long-range bombardments, the stellar-class warships didn't use their limited antimatter shells, but instead stuck to conventional electromagnetic cannons.
Only when Droplets closed in did they switch to antimatter shells.
This method conserved precious ammunition, leaving the actual Droplet-hunting mostly to the Universal Megacorp's AI drones.
Boom——!!
At that moment, another stellar-class warship was destroyed, its fuel depot erupting into a miniature nuclear sun.
But before it blew apart, the warship had launched an antimatter shell that destroyed one Droplet. Up to now, the casualty ratio on both sides had reached a shocking one-for-one!
Trading a stellar-class warship for a single Droplet—such an exchange was something no one would have believed possible after the Doomsday Battle.
Now the Trisolarans had only seven Droplets left, while the Asian Fleet's ammunition stores were still relatively abundant. With ever more AI drones pouring into the battle, the disparity in resource attrition between the two sides was growing clearer.
The choices left to the Trisolarans were dwindling.
Either retreat and cut their losses, or risk being destroyed by ramming into stellar-class warship fuel depots.
Attacking the drones was out of the question.
The reasoning was obvious: what was an AI drone worth compared to a Droplet? On top of that, they were innumerable, bristling with gunports all over—charging into them was nothing but suicide.
"Don't stop—fire everything you've got! Use all the ammunition, everything except the antimatter shells!"
At last, Admiral Lin Yun of the Asian Fleet vented his long-held frustration. Paul had told him earlier that reinforcements would arrive, but Lin Yun hadn't believed it.
He never expected the reinforcements Paul spoke of to be these densely packed drone swarms.
At this moment, Lin Yun felt unspeakable satisfaction. Never had they imagined being able to corner Droplets like this—the coming annihilation battle of prey trapped in a cage was destined to be immortalized in history.
Beside him, Guan Yifan was moved to tears. He rushed to the porthole, watching the battle while scribbling records with his pen.
This was the first time in human history that their firepower had overwhelmed the Trisolarans in a battle!
The fleet soldiers who realized that drone swarms had joined the fight grew ecstatic as well. They no longer feared the Droplets—in fact, they almost wished the Droplets would come at them for one-to-one trades.
That kind of bargain was more than worth it.
With a full seven hundred stellar-class warships, even trading ten for one Droplet would be acceptable.
All the more so for one-for-one.
The soldiers' expressions grew increasingly wild and frenzied. Excitement and joy drove them to tirelessly fire electromagnetic cannons in pursuit of the Droplets.
They didn't need to know the exact positions of the Droplets, nor did they need to aim precisely—just fire at the turbulence trails and the oily wakes the Droplets left behind.
All they had to do was blanket the general area where the Droplets might be, restricting their movements; the rest could be left to the AI drones.
For the Droplets, dodging the Asian Fleet's electromagnetic cannon fire wasn't hard—the true challenge lay with the Megacorp's drone swarms.
These drones were just as fast as the Droplets, some even equipped with lightweight Holtzmann shields, making them impervious to friendly fire.
The result was that the Droplets were harried into frantic flight, unable to spare a thought for whether they'd be struck by the Asian Fleet's cannon fire.
After all, the weapons mounted on these AI drones were all antimatter-based—taking even a single missile hit meant total destruction.
This stretch of space, spanning millions of kilometers, had become the hunting grounds of the Universal Megacorp and the Asian Fleet. The Droplets still darted about with agility, like wild wasps weaving through the dense storm of fire.
From time to time, electromagnetic shells struck them, sparking bursts across their surfaces.
But under the tightening, suffocating web of firepower, another Droplet was destroyed. At one point, the Droplets even tried luring the drone swarms toward the Asian Fleet, hoping to trick humans into striking their own.
Yet the AI drones cleverly chose to chase without firing. The Droplets were left with only two options: either charge the stellar-class warships and gamble on the 1% chance of being destroyed, or be surrounded and annihilated by the drones.
The desperate Droplets pushed their onboard supercomputers to the limit, wringing out every last drop of processing power—yet still, no solution could be found.
Just like that, more and more droplets were destroyed one after another. Some droplets even thought of regrouping to ram into human warships to ease the pressure.
But the price of doing so was usually the sacrifice of one droplet just to destroy a single stellar-class warship.
The Asian Fleet's formation was spread wide; even if a droplet risked its own destruction to ram one warship, it had little real effect.
Because those fireballs that had turned into nuclear fusion suns would not affect other ships, even if the droplets fought to the death, at most they could destroy only a dozen or so warships.
The Trisolarans could never again recreate the "Spring Festival's thousand firecrackers" from the Doomsday Battle.
Without sophon-supplied intelligence, the Trisolarans had been making mistake after mistake. This was the flaw brought on by inertia of thought—the Trisolarans shared the same mental weaknesses as humans.
Accustomed to the convenience that sophons once brought, they found it nearly impossible to rebuild an intelligence network in such a short time.
If the sophons still existed, these droplets would never have been struck so easily by human antimatter armor-piercing shells, nor would they have suffered such losses.
This was Paul's plan all along: the Endless-class carrier stationed on Earth as bait to lure the droplets deeper, the Megacorp drone swarms waiting in ambush, and the Asian Fleet drawing the enemy further in.
This tactic had already been used many times during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods of China more than two thousand years ago. The mighty Wei Wu troops perished in the ambush at Maling Road, forever losing their chance at hegemony.
Now, humanity had designed the destruction of a large number of droplets, causing the Trisolaran civilization to lose its chance to keep humanity suppressed.
By the time the Trisolaran fleet commander realized this, it was already too late. The surviving droplets were strangled by the tightening encirclement.
Under the continuous barrage, the droplets were destroyed one after another by antimatter shells. Thus, ten droplets in total were annihilated by humanity, and the Trisolarans lost their most crucial spaceborne force.
This exhilarating victory not only allowed human civilization to wash away the shame of the Doomsday Battle, avenging the fallen United Fleet,
It also greatly boosted the morale of the populace and plunged the Trisolaran fleet into the predicament of being attacked from both front and rear.
Without the support of the droplets, this weary and resource-starved Trisolaran fleet no longer had the strength to turn around and flee the Solar System.
They were desperately short of resources; without replenishment, this fleet would sooner or later perish in the vastness of space.
Not long after the interception battle ended, the people on Earth were first stunned, then erupted in joyous celebration.
Who could have imagined that the same humanity, once wiped out by a single droplet, would, in less than four years, suddenly evolve into a fearless force that annihilated all droplets?
From the beginning, no one had any expectations for this fleet marching to its death. Even the soldiers of the Asian Fleet themselves felt this mission was nothing but a suicide run.
Everything they did was merely to buy time.
Yet a miracle had happened.
Humanity's brilliantly devised strategy disrupted all of the Trisolarans' arrangements. This species, which had crushed humanity for more than two centuries, finally lost its most important battle because of its own arrogance.
The Trisolarans could not afford to lose—for once defeated, the outcome was extermination.
At this moment, the great victory on the frontlines dispelled the fear that had weighed on humanity's hearts for so long. Everyone felt the dawn had come, that the overall situation was decided, and that human civilization's advance was now unstoppable!
Any discerning eye could see that the Trisolarans were already a spent force. They would never again be capable of mounting any effective attack against humanity.
With just those thousand or so warships, humanity had all the time and resources in the world to wear them down!
If space battles could not be fought, then fight on the ground. If ground battles could not be fought, then fight underground. In short, as long as humanity dragged out the time, the Trisolarans would eventually be ground to death.
Now, everyone looked at Paul as though beholding a radiant deity.
His judgments had never once been wrong.
Perhaps this was the greatness of human civilization—no matter how desperate the situation, a hero would always descend to turn the tide.
Next, humanity needed only to concentrate on dealing with the Trisolaran fleet. Once that distant fleet was eliminated, the Trisolarans would completely lose their chance to colonize the Solar System.
By now, the destruction of the droplets naturally caused a huge uproar within the Trisolaran fleet.
Who would have thought that the humans, once so easily annihilated by their droplets, would now in turn annihilate those same droplets? It was completely beyond the Trisolarans' expectations.
In their view, the droplet formation should have been like the tanks of humanity's World War II era—unstoppable charges that crushed all obstacles in their path.
Yet humans had managed to destroy their droplets with nothing more than a few ragtag drones and outdated, shabby ships.
They found this utterly unacceptable.
Before the battle began, every Trisolaran officer had believed that the droplets would first destroy the stellar-class warships, then rendezvous with the fleet on Earth to completely dominate the human world.
But that plan had been mercilessly crushed before even reaching one-third completion. The Trisolaran officers now had to re-evaluate the possibility of victory in this war.
The consecutive defeats of the sophons and the droplets led many of the Trisolaran fleet's high-ranking officers to question whether there was any point in continuing the battle at all.
If they kept clashing head-on with human civilization, would it only lead them to death?
As this thought grew stronger, the fleet commander naturally noticed the panic in his subordinates.
To quickly determine a new course, he ordered an internal meeting, summoning all the captains to the flagship to redefine the fleet's objectives and the future of Trisolaran civilization.
Without the sophons, the Trisolarans had no way of reporting the Solar System's latest situation back to their homeworld.
Now, the rulers and populace of Trisolaris knew nothing of the war here. The only ones who could truly decide the fate of their civilization were this very small group.
At the meeting, the fleet commander began by stressing a basic fact: they no longer had any retreat. The fleet's reserve resources were far from enough to support a return journey out of the Solar System.
Either they advanced and won everything, becoming heroes who opened a new home for Trisolaran civilization, or they perished in this foreign land, burying with them all hope of Trisolaran survival.
" The droplets have already been destroyed. Our fleet possesses hardly any combat strength. Without the droplets' attacks, how can we possibly fight against humanity's warships?"
One Trisolaran captain stated bluntly.
Their core combat power had always been the droplets. Only with droplets could the fleet carry out the colonization mission. Those thousand-odd warships might look imposing on the surface, but in truth they were nothing but a showpiece.
Oversized transport ships that looked impressive but were useless.
Forget the Endless-class carrier stationed on Earth—even if the Asian Fleet's seven hundred ships came against them, they might not be able to win.
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