Chapter 526: Landing on Trisolaris! The Collapse of the Trisolaran World! The Trisolaran Supreme Leader!
In near-Earth orbit around Trisolaris, a colossal ring-shaped structure shimmered with metallic luster. This was the giant particle accelerator used for the sophon project.
Judging by the surrounding orbital shipyards, already mostly dismantled, this massive accelerator had become the only remaining large-scale engineering project of the Trisolarans.
They had poured every last resource into constructing sophons.
The sophon project was an immensely resource-draining endeavor. The Trisolarans had spent the equivalent resources of building an entire space fleet just to produce a single sophon.
Beyond that, the etching of sophon circuits consumed tremendous amounts of energy and time as well.
When a proton was unfolded into two dimensions, its surface area expanded to dozens of times the size of Trisolaris itself. Engraving circuits on this surface required over a thousand engineering ships and tens of thousands of hours of labor.
Resources, energy, time—the scale of consumption was astronomical.
Before communication with the sophons was severed, the only intelligence the Trisolarans received was that humanity was building ten thousand high-energy particle accelerators in an effort to break the technological blockade.
They could not determine whether this plan was real, but they were compelled to construct more sophons, fearing humanity might indeed shatter their blockade.
To ensure sophon production, they once again shelved their fleet construction plans, prioritizing sophon manufacture.
They even dismantled sections of their orbital shipyards for this purpose.
Yet sophons possessed virtually no combat power in the macroscopic realm. With their fleets destroyed, the Trisolarans were left with no reliable military force to protect themselves.
Even if they had enough sophons to monitor humanity's every move and keep enforcing the technological blockade, without the resources to rebuild a fleet, how could they hope to seize the Solar System?
At this moment, even if they manufactured countless sophons, it was already meaningless. The fleets of the Universal Megacorp were right at their doorstep.
The Trisolarans had only just received the devastating news of their fleet's annihilation and the destruction of their sophons and droplets. Before they could even react, the main forces of the Megacorp had arrived.
When the Megacorp vanguard appeared in low orbit around Trisolaris, the Trisolarans finally faced reality. They had not only suffered a crushing defeat but had also invited extinction upon themselves!
On the surface, Trisolarans looked up at the glowing starships in the sky with their mirror-like faces, sending out thought waves:
"It's humans. The human fleet has come—!"
For a moment, the Trisolarans nearly fell into despair.
The sophon blockade, the water drop strikes, the crushing might of fleets—all of it failed to kill humanity. Like cockroaches that could never be eradicated, humanity always found hope in the depths of despair.
Had they chosen the wrong opponent from the very beginning?
But Ye Wenjie hadn't deceived them. Humanity was weak, ignorant, and base—yet somehow they had defeated the mighty Trisolaran civilization.
No one could make sense of it. Meanwhile, the descending formations of the Megacorp vanguard breached Trisolaris' atmosphere.
"How is this possible? How could humans have come so quickly? Could it be they had already broken the sophon blockade?"
The Trisolaran Supreme Leader raised his gaze to the sky, puzzled beyond belief. The steadily advancing Megacorp fleet exuded a suffocating pressure. Many Trisolarans had already begun dehydrating themselves.
Only moments ago, the Supreme Leader had just learned of the situation in the Solar System. Before he could even consider the next step, humanity's fleets had already counterattacked into the Trisolaran system.
Their speed gave the Trisolarans no chance to breathe.
Now, Trisolaris resembled humanity five years ago, when all resources had been centralized to build particle accelerators.
Their market economy had long since collapsed. All materials were diverted to sophon construction and fleet programs.
Moreover, they had already decided to abandon this planet. There was no need to waste resources building planetary defense systems.
When one's home is already in ruin, there is no fear of thieves coveting it. Whoever wanted the planet could simply take it.
In Trisolaran eyes, this world had already become a crumbling ruin.
And so, when the Megacorp fleet arrived, all they could do was watch helplessly. Aside from sophons, they had no reliable technological assets left.
Before long, the Megacorp's vanguard troops landed on the surface of Trisolaris. During their descent, they encountered no resistance, no attacks.
This was because the Trisolarans had neither orbital defenses nor any functional ground forces.
They had never imagined their homeworld could be invaded by another civilization. And due to the unique trajectory of their history, no internal conflicts had ever arisen among them.
This lack of internal strife meant they had never developed any tradition of building standing ground armies.
After all, simply surviving the recurring natural disasters consumed all their effort. Who had the strength left to fight among themselves?
Soon, Paul and Luo Ji arrived on the hostile planet, accompanied by several Trisolaran captives who had already surrendered to humanity, along with a detachment of Astartes warriors.
Extreme weather phenomena like the Three Suns Rising often ravaged the planet, leaving Trisolaris devoid of vegetation.
Most regions were barren deserts. At this particular moment, it was nighttime. The climate was bitterly cold, the land cloaked in frost.
In the distance rose tall Trisolaran structures, built in topological forms without walls or separate rooms. Inside, Trisolarans stared toward the newcomers.
On an open-air anti-gravity platform, holographic pillars projected real-time data of the Trisolaran system's orbital dynamics. Hundreds of kilometers away from this platform stood the Supreme Leader's palace.
In reality, there were few large structures on the surface.
The Trisolarans had mainly constructed densely packed modular underground hives to withstand the Three Suns Rising, deep freezes, and other natural disasters.
They only emerged onto the surface during relatively stable epochs.
At first, Paul and Luo Ji expected fierce resistance. After all, this was the Trisolarans' homeworld. Surely they would fight desperately against invaders.
Yet, to their surprise, from beginning to end the landing forces faced no effective resistance. Only a few curious Trisolaran children tossed harmless stones at them.
Beyond that—nothing.
"Why do these Trisolarans seem so calm? Don't they have any other reaction?"
Pani Wells, accompanying them, looked around, unable to spot any Trisolarans showing hostility.
In the past, whenever Astartes warriors landed on alien worlds, they were either met with vicious attacks or with probing gestures of communication.
They had clearly already arranged for someone to send a signal to the Trisolaran Sovereign, yet no one came to receive them.
It wasn't until Pani dispatched a few sentinel robots to capture some Trisolarans for questioning that they finally learned the truth: the vast majority of Trisolarans here had already fallen into despair.
Ever since the Trisolaran ships that had fled back recently reported to the Sovereign that the invasion plan had failed, the long-tense Trisolaran world completely broke apart.
Countless Trisolarans chose to give up, deciding to simply lie down and await the end.
When they saw the arrival of the human fleet, these Trisolarans only sank further into self-destruction, with no intention whatsoever of struggling even a little more.
The outbreak of this war had burdened the ordinary people of both civilizations.
For the sake of the grand narrative of their respective civilizations, whether humans or Trisolarans, far too many had been sacrificed. From birth to death, most spent their entire lives inside factories, giving their blood, their youth, their prime years.
Individual life, the value of labor—none of these were respected. Everyone was fuel thrown into the furnace to be smelted. In an age of war, every person was a sacrifice.
Had humanity lost, then humans at this moment would surely be just like the Trisolarans now—resigned and collapsed.
Facing a human fleet already at their doorstep, these Trisolarans only wished for everything to end quickly. They had no thought of making any futile resistance.
After all, no matter how many defenses they built, it would all be wiped away by a single round of orbital bombardment. Why waste the effort?
The Trisolarans' Buddhist-like fatalism didn't put Paul at ease. He knew their detachment came from despair, and a species in despair might lash out in any extreme way.
With suspicion and a heavy heart, Paul boarded the Horus Hawk shuttle and quickly arrived at the temple where the Trisolaran Sovereign resided.
Unlike the rough and perfunctory buildings outside, the Sovereign's temple was built rather grandly. Yet most of the structures inside had no real function.
They existed only as decoration.
Even before entering the interior of this temple, the Trisolaran prisoners leading the way were already so terrified that they began dehydrating. Beside them, the sentinel robots kept pouring water on their bodies, afraid the captives might collapse.
Paul couldn't understand what inside this temple could possibly frighten these Trisolarans so much.
"Is this some kind of forbidden ground, or is there a terrifying monster inside?" Paul asked curiously, using the brainwave translator.
Soon, the captured Trisolarans who received the brainwave signal gave an answer.
It turned out the Trisolaran social system was extremely centralized. All law had been simplified to just four words: guilty or not guilty.
And guilt or innocence rested entirely on a single word from the Sovereign. This extreme trisolar-rights system granted the Sovereign supreme authority and status.
Thus, without the Sovereign's permission, anyone attempting to enter the temple would be seized by the guards and thrown onto the firewood pile to be burned alive.
This was the despotic society of the Trisolarans: an individual's life was nothing more than a dispensable digit. And here, what they had least shortage of were Trisolarans treated as digits, as data.
Yet the Sovereign's temple, regarded by Trisolarans as a privileged forbidden ground, was brutally cut open on Paul's order.
As several Astartes warriors used high-energy hard-light weapons to slice through, the seemingly impregnable gate was easily breached, then collapsed with a rumbling crash.
What met their eyes was a vast, empty interior. No expected Trisolaran guards. No hidden treasures or monsters.
There was only a wide white hall. The interior walls were made of a semi-transparent material resembling ice bricks, while the floor and ceiling gleamed with a pristine white, making one feel as though they had stepped into some massive laboratory.
Fortunately, it wasn't long before they discovered a Trisolaran at one end of the hall. In appearance, this Trisolaran looked no different from the ordinary ones outside.
At least to humans like Paul and Luo Ji, there was no way to tell Trisolarans apart by looks. But compared by presence, this one indeed felt a little different.
From the other's body, Paul sensed no abnormal discomfort. That being stood there like a monk in deep meditation, calmly watching the Astartes warriors draw ever closer.
Though the mirrored faces of Trisolarans made it hard to read their emotions, body language tended to be fairly universal across the galaxy.
Before the brainwave translator was invented, Paul and others had often relied on body movements to judge the other side's mental state.
Like the captured Trisolarans earlier, trembling in terror, or thrashing in furious panic.
But this Trisolaran before them didn't move at all. Only its head shifted slightly to follow their movement. It was observing, trying to discern who among this group was truly the leader.
"So this guy is the Trisolaran Sovereign? Doesn't look like much—frail and feeble."
Pani Wells voiced his judgment without the slightest restraint.
No sooner had he spoken than a rustling electromagnetic sound echoed from all around the hall, instantly putting the humans on high alert, fearing some hidden Trisolaran trap.
Fortunately, none of the expected dangers came. The Trisolaran turned to look at Paul and the others, using the devices in the hall to speak with them:
"I am the Sovereign of the Trisolaran civilization. I do not know whether I should welcome your coming here. As you can see, Trisolaris may collapse at any moment."
"You have defeated our fleet, but you will gain none of the spoils a victor should."
The Trisolaran captives who had come along were already so terrified before their Sovereign that they fell to their knees. But the Sovereign paid them no attention at all, its gaze fixed only on Paul's position.
If it remembered correctly, this human was none other than the Fifth Wallfacer, the human savior from the Universal Megacorp—Paul Atreides.
Seeing that the Sovereign had the will to communicate with humanity, Paul stepped forward and said:
"We did not come here to demand spoils of war, but with a vision for peaceful development."
The moment his words fell, the Sovereign let out a hoarse, crackling laugh through the device—a laugh that seemed to express inner scorn and fury.
"Peace? I understand humanity better than anyone. You will never calmly accept another species coexisting with you in the solar system. If not for our arrival, you would not even have been able to handle your own internal ethnic conflicts."
The Sovereign's reply immediately left Paul speechless. For the moment, he could find no words to refute it—for Earth's humanity did indeed suffer from exactly such divisions.
There was simply no way to argue it back.
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