Chapter 520: The Trisolarans' Coercive Negotiation! The First Expeditionary Legion Strikes!
To prepare for the arrival of the Trisolaran fleet, the United Nations had already arranged all emergency measures for humanity. Underground cities were placed under lockdown, while all surface defense bases and lines were handed over to the military.
The vast majority of able-bodied men would remain aboveground to resist the Trisolaran landing forces.
Although the Trisolaran civilization had already advanced to the interstellar era, if they wanted to occupy Earth, they would inevitably have to rely on ground troops.
Especially if they wished to complete a swift landing and secure a foothold, they had no choice but to rely on ground forces to establish themselves on Earth.
Unless there was no other choice, the Trisolarans were unwilling to unleash indiscriminate orbital bombardment against Earth—after all, destroying the surface environment would also damage the conditions for their own future survival.
At this point, humanity's only task was to hold on at all costs until the Asian Fleet returned.
The dawn of victory was close at hand. The Trisolarans had only this collapsing fleet left—no sophons, no droplets. Even relying only on their numbers and the advantage of home territory, humanity might not necessarily lose.
Although the Asian Fleet was slightly inferior in sheer warship numbers, humanity possessed the ultimate weapon: the antimatter armor-piercing warhead. If combined with the right strategy and tactics, this battle was not unwinnable.
After all, even the seemingly invincible sophons and droplets had been defeated by human stratagems. Could this worn-down Trisolaran fleet possibly endure much longer?
It was precisely for this reason that Jonathan had urged Paul to take the Infinity-class Carrier and leave Earth. Only by preserving their surviving forces could they hope to one day retake the planet.
But Paul had rejected this proposal outright.
Jonathan was baffled. He couldn't understand why Paul—usually rational to the point of being cold-blooded—would suddenly change his nature.
This was no time for sentimental talk of "living and dying with Earth."
Just as Jonathan was about to press Paul further about his plan, alarms blared through the vast secret base: a massive unidentified object was hurtling toward Earth.
From afar, it looked like a space meteorite.
Over a century ago, Earth had established a complete meteor defense system: a single nuclear launch from orbital space stations could easily shatter any incoming asteroid.
But to everyone's shock, after a blinding nuclear detonation lit up the sky, the meteor remained completely unscathed, plunging through the fireball as it continued toward Earth.
Its momentum and impossible hardness were identical to the legendary droplets.
In that instant, everyone realized this was no ordinary meteor—it was a projectile coated in strong interaction material, just like the droplets.
The Trisolaran fleet had smeared a single atomic-layer coating of strong interaction material over an ordinary meteor, transforming it into an indestructible super-projectile, capable of shattering Earth's most carefully constructed defenses.
The alarm system originally designed to track droplets activated. Based on its trajectory, scientists quickly calculated the impact site.
Its target: deep in Japan's Honshu Island—Tokyo.
The world's fifth-largest underground city was located there, with a population density so high that evacuation was utterly impossible in time.
Panic alone would collapse the fragile underground order and trigger stampedes. At this point, the only option was to minimize casualties.
When the meteor slammed into the ground, it was like a depth charge plunging into a lake. The earth a thousand meters deep was pierced with ease, and the colossal impact unleashed a magnitude-six earthquake.
The underground city—like a steel forest—was shattered into rubble. Along the meteor's path, structures vaporized, melted, and burned, collapsing down onto the surface.
The direct strike alone killed thousands in an instant. But the deadliest blow came not from the impact, but from the volcanic eruption it triggered.
Lava poured through fractured rock layers, flooding the underground city like a tidal wave. Those who failed to escape were instantly swallowed, reduced to charred husks.
Heat, suffocation, poisonous gases—they followed one after another, claiming countless more lives.
Despite the United Nations' frantic evacuation efforts, the Trisolaran bombardment still caused over 200,000 casualties in the Tokyo region.
It was humanity's most devastating loss since the Doomsday War.
As humanity reeled in shock and rage, the Trisolaran fleet broadcast a message to the world.
For the first time, their commander appeared before humanity. Through its smooth, mirror-like face, it reflected human speech, addressing all of Earth:
[This was not a simple attack, but a solemn warning. Do not think you can hold back our fleet. Whenever we wish, we can destroy every underground city in your world.]
[Surrender now. Lay down your arms, and we will grant humanity a reservation of land. Stop your futile struggle; do not throw away lives needlessly.]
The Trisolaran fleet did not possess many cannons, but each of these projectiles could be recovered and reused.
Although they lacked the agility of droplets and could only fire along straight trajectories, their overwhelming destructive power was enough to obliterate any defense humanity could muster.
With over a thousand Trisolaran warships firing one after another, it would take less than an hour to level every underground city on Earth.
From the very beginning, the Trisolarans had never intended to waste time on tedious ground warfare with humanity. Their target was humanity's weak point: the underground cities.
Using the lives of the old, the weak, and the sick as leverage against humanity's leaders.
Despicable—but the Trisolarans did not care.
[Your courage commands our respect. To preserve a spark of your civilization, we are willing to leave humanity traces of survival—on Mars, and in Australia.]
[You will still have space to develop and live.]
The Trisolarans never lied, but that did not mean they kept faith.
If humanity accepted this "reservation" plan, their fate would be sealed. Their end would be even more tragic than that of the Native Americans.
Humanity had long proven through its history what colonized peoples suffered.
Scalped Native Americans. Africans bought and sold like livestock. Chinese laborers worked to death on the railroads.
All tragedies screamed the same truth.
Concession and weakness only shrank one's space for survival.
In earlier days, perhaps humanity—clinging to comfort and small hopes—might have chosen such an arrangement and gone meekly to Australia.
But not now.
Humanity no longer felt despair or fear.
Instead, the blood of the fallen had ignited an unquenchable will to resist. The world stood united in fury, and their battle cry shook the heavens.
No one thought of clinging to luck. No one sought cowardly compromise.
They feared genocide and massacre, yes—but they feared even more a death marked by submission and weakness.
The arrogance and contempt revealed by the Trisolaran fleet commander made everyone abandon the last shred of illusion. Fighting to the end might not bring hope.
But surrendering would certainly mean no chance of survival.
Rushing from the secret base to Tokyo, Paul saw countless wounded victims. In a monstrous crater nearly three kilometers wide, molten magma surged and bubbled.
Paul hadn't expected the Trisolaran fleet to launch such a sudden assault. After all, Earth was the second home their civilization relied upon. Surely, they wouldn't want to turn it into scorched wasteland.
Yet they had done just that.
"This region of Honshu is dispensable to the Trisolarans. No abundant mineral resources, no stable living space, just frequent hurricanes and earthquakes."
Agent K looked at the chaos in Tokyo and mused, "If humanity refuses to surrender, the Trisolarans might use their ship cannons to sink the entire island of Honshu."
Paul checked the time, then lifted his gaze to the steadily approaching Trisolaran fleet. The Endless-class carrier was now within the range of their ship-mounted cannons.
Only because the Endless-class was on the far side of Earth's orbit would it not come under fire immediately.
Judging from the current situation, humanity had no defensive strength whatsoever to oppose the Trisolarans.
The only possible strategy was guerrilla warfare. Yet the Trisolaran commander clearly understood this as well.
Thus, they issued mere warnings—forcing humanity to surrender—not out of any real concern for humankind, but simply to avoid damaging Earth's surface environment.
For if all their thousand cannons rained fire, the resulting earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis would transform Earth into a living hell in short order.
Earth was the most beautiful planet in the Solar System. Of course the Trisolarans wished to seize it with as little damage as possible. That was why they had suggested ceding Australia.
Otherwise, they would not have left humanity even a scrap of land.
After long anticipation, the United Nations finally responded to the Trisolaran warning. Both sides would conduct a remote conference.
The one to speak with the Trisolaran commander was none other than Paul Atreides.
But unexpectedly, the Trisolaran commander had no desire to converse with Paul. Instead, it specifically demanded to speak with a woman named Cheng Xin.
Cheng Xin was a member of the Planetary Defense Council's Strategic Intelligence Bureau. Though she held a prestigious position among humanity's elites, compared to a Wallfacer like Paul, her rank was clearly far lower.
That the Trisolaran commander would rather speak to an obscure human woman than Paul himself was intriguing indeed.
Paul did not insist, however, and had someone find Cheng Xin to communicate with the Trisolaran commander.
He had little interest in wasting words with the Trisolarans anyway. The only reason he hadn't ordered the Endless-class carrier to counterattack was to buy time, to calm the enemy and allow the War Moon headquarters to prepare its strike.
Now, that time had nearly come!
In the orbit of the Solar System's third planet, the War Moon had already entered stealth mode. Since the sophons had been trapped by the Megacorp's powerful electromagnetic fields, the Trisolaran fleet could no longer receive intelligence updates.
As a result, their understanding of the War Moon was vague at best. In their commander's eyes, it was merely a large, cloaked mobile platform—hardly a formidable spacefaring weapon. In their view, the Megacorp's entire fortune lay only in the Endless-class carrier.
Their plan, therefore, was to seize Earth first, then gradually secure control of the entire Solar System, and afterward hunt down the cloaked War Moon.
So long as it remained within the Solar System, it could not escape their carpet-search.
For in truth, the Megacorp's optical cloaking and energy-shielding did not make the War Moon vanish completely; they merely absorbed and bent light to render it seemingly transparent.
At this moment, the Trisolaran commander was pressing Cheng Xin aggressively, its imperious bearing suffocating her, this gentle human woman.
But what it did not anticipate was that the Megacorp had already dispatched a fully armed expeditionary legion, rushing swiftly toward Earth.
It was the First Expeditionary Corps, personally led by V. Under his command were the Covenant, the Prometheus Legion of the preacher, and the Transformers Legion.
Just as the commander was about to break Cheng Xin's psychological defenses and force her to sign a humiliating agreement, a dark curtain of space suddenly lit up with a battle formation of warships, their aura overwhelming.
This was the supreme legion forged from the power of ten different worlds. At the same instant the expeditionary force departed, the War Moon dropped its cloak.
The colossal megastructure and the vast fleet revealed themselves together. Sublight engines roared, spewing searing anti-matter flames, while blazing plasma beams proclaimed the vitality of these steel behemoths.
From Mars and the Moon's orbit, people could clearly see azure starlight piercing the darkness of space, streaking directly toward the Trisolaran fleet.
The Megacorp's super-fleet had finally launched!
Every warship's drive and sublight engine flared at full capacity. The expeditionary force's unstoppable charge shocked every human closely observing outer space.
Though the fleet could not yet employ fast jumps or superluminal engines to display its full might, the sheer thickness of its energy shields alone was enough to make the Trisolarans shudder in fear.
After all, the Trisolarans merely coated their meteors with atom-thin layers of strong-interaction material.
Meanwhile, the Megacorp could afford to clad its warships in neutron armor plating.
The Trisolarans' vaunted cannons, in the eyes of this fleet, were little more than toys for children.
A moment ago, the Trisolaran commander had been basking in smug triumph. But at the sight of the Megacorp's fleet, it froze in shock.
The turn of events was far too sudden. The commander had no time to react.
By all logic, the Megacorp should not have possessed such a vast armada. Otherwise, they would already have intercepted the Trisolarans outside the Solar System—
not waited until now to act.
Something so abnormal could only mean one thing. In that instant, the commander realized the most terrifying possibility of all:
From beginning to end, the Megacorp's true goal had never been to defend the Solar System or protect humanity.
Their target was the Trisolaran fleet itself!
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