Chapter 510: Strong Electromagnetic Field! Battle in the Microcosm! The True Face of Lushan!
"Now begins the one-minute countdown. You can continue to remain silent, but when that minute is up, I will press this button and launch the War Moon out of the Solar System."
After saying this, V began counting on his own, his left wrist device displaying the 60-second timer. When it hit zero, he would press the switch.
He would give the Trisolaran civilization no chance to go back on their word.
Time ticked away, second by second. Even when only ten seconds remained, the Trisolarans still gave no reply, as though they did not believe a word of V's.
But V seemed not at all concerned that they would ignore him. He stood calmly outside the empty base, his finger slightly curled, ready to press the switch at any moment.
Five… four… three…!
At the very last second, just as the countdown was about to reach zero, three lines of bold characters finally appeared before V's eyes, all conjured up by sophon projection:
STOP——!!
Three sophons appeared at the last possible moment. During that brief minute, they had been watching V's face and movements, trying to discern whether he truly intended mutual destruction.
V's acting was flawless. The Trisolarans could not pierce through to his real thoughts, and so in the final moment, they chose to yield.
Seeing the sophons finally emerge, V knew he had won this round.
By now, the Trisolarans had already dispatched all their sophons to the War Moon. Aside from the three floating before him, two others were still conducting carpet searches, attempting to locate other signal transmission towers.
Of course, it was impossible for them to find any of those supposed dozen towers—for the simple reason that they did not exist. And to prove something nonexistent is far more difficult than finding what is real.
Within such a short span, it was impossible for the sophons to map the War Moon's entire internal structure in detail.
Yet to verify whether V was lying, they had no choice but to try. After all, this was a matter of civilizational survival—they dared not gamble.
So, at the final instant before the countdown reached zero, the Trisolarans capitulated, reluctantly revealing their presence.
This was the inherent weakness of their transparent thought process: in psychological warfare, they would forever be at a disadvantage.
If it had been another human decision-maker, they might have ignored V's monologue entirely, letting him stand there foolishly, making an empty bluff.
But against the Trisolarans, V's "melodramatic" maneuver carried absolute deterrence. Lying was still too alien, too nonsensical for them to truly grasp.
When unable to confirm the truth, they simply could not take the risk.
That was why the Trisolarans had gathered all their sophons at the War Moon—half to scavenge information, half to negotiate.
What they did not realize was that this "negotiation" was in fact a trap, crafted precisely for them.
The sophons' travel distance from Earth orbit and Jupiter orbit to the War Moon, their maximum flight speed—every variable had been calculated by V to perfection, the entire operation arranged with meticulous precision.
With his objective achieved, V casually tossed away the switch in his hand, as if he had never taken those signal towers seriously as weapons to threaten the Trisolarans.
And in that instant, the sophons had no time to register what he was doing. Only after a while did the realization strike.
The Megacorp had never intended to use signal towers as leverage. Their true target was the sophons themselves!
But by the time the Trisolarans realized this, it was already too late.
The Science Nexus Division rapidly initiated transformation protocols, ordering the planetary engines to reconfigure into designated electromagnetic emission units.
With the surge of Seed energy and flares of blue lightning, the dense network of emitters released a massive magnetic field.
The power of over a hundred planetary-class engines combined to form a colossal electromagnetic shell above the War Moon.
All the sophons were trapped within. For the time being, escape was impossible.
Caught completely off guard, the Trisolarans had never expected this. They had been preparing to negotiate with V in earnest—only to be met instead with a ruthless backstab.
Sensing the trap, the sophons tried to rely on their microphysical states to breach the electromagnetic cage. For so long, they had been untouchable, exploiting their tiny mass and immense speed—no one had been able to do them harm.
But now, the net of planetary-class magnetic fields bound them like the shackles of Heaven itself, pressing them down within the War Moon.
Magnetic fields had no gaps through which a sophon could slip. To escape, they would need to find suitable electrons to neutralize their own positive charge.
But finding perfectly matching electrons was exceedingly difficult, even for sophons, and time was not on their side. V would not grant them that luxury.
With the electromagnetic field activated, V immediately ordered the Science Nexus staff to begin contracting the field's range, steadily compressing the sophons' maneuvering space.
Meanwhile, Alt Cunningham deployed specialized AI units, miniaturized for operation within the microcosm, to engage the sophons in battle.
The AI Red Queen, AI White Queen, AI Transcendent Europa, AI Bartimos, AI Spider Murphy…
These entities would be condensed down to the subatomic level with quantum-domain equipment, entering multi-dimensional micro-realms to capture and attack the sophons.
Though far slower than sophons, which could move at light speed, the shrinking electromagnetic "kill zone" outside left the sophons nowhere to run. In the "poison circle," they would have no choice but to clash with these AI assassins.
This was V's full plan.
And only this method offered the chance to capture sophons at minimal cost.
Back in the War Moon command center, V finally exhaled and asked Alt Cunningham about the progress.
"Our AI killers are about to enter the microcosm," Cunningham replied. "But what they face will not be mere protons. At higher dimensions, the complexity and structure of particles escalates drastically."
"A seven-dimensional perspective corresponds to the scale of a solar system. An eight-dimensional view, to a galaxy. A nine-dimensional view, to the entire universe. We cannot yet determine at which dimensional state the sophons will manifest."
Cunningham's words conjured in V's mind the image of a trans-temporal pursuit: assassins chasing their quarry across dimensions, crossing back and forth through time and space.
Before their eyes, the world would shift ceaselessly—ancient dynasties one moment, majestic Rome the next, then the landscapes of Japan, then frigid Nordic tribes.
Every killing strike would traverse billions of years and worlds within milliseconds, overlapping into a dazzling, hallucinatory tableau.
"This mission won't be easy," V admitted with genuine feeling. "Clumsy human reflexes and sluggish minds could never bear it."
Only supercomputers could kill supercomputers.
The internal structure of the sophon itself concealed an extremely powerful AI, and coincidentally, the Megacorp had no shortage of formidable AIs either—such as Red Queen, White Queen, and Europa.
These were AI monsters that had consumed centuries' worth of the Megacorp's vast data, in no way inferior to the Trisolarans' five sophons.
Alt Cunningham nodded slightly, betraying no emotion, tacitly acknowledging V's view: in the microscopic world, a sophon could present itself in any form or guise. With mere human eyes, it was simply impossible to recognize it.
On the contrary, one would more likely become lost in the microscopic world, never to return.
No one would be foolish enough to shrink humans down to the subatomic level to fight sophons directly.
At this moment, the electromagnetic field that sealed the sophon had already been compressed to a few hundred kilometers, and would soon be reduced further—to just a few kilometers, a few hundred meters, even to the size of a laboratory, or a basketball.
To prevent the sophon from collecting electrons and breaking out, AI killers had already been released ahead of time by Alt.
Through the AIs' first-person view, V first saw bacteria trailing long flagella swimming freely, followed by a lumbering, mysterious giant-beast-like tardigrade drifting lazily across.
Smaller viruses appeared in countless bizarre and fantastical shapes. Most viruses bore protruding spikes on their surface, looking like strange, demonic fruits.
But these things only appeared for a moment. As the descent into the microscopic world continued, the AIs' perspective widened further. A single cell now presented a vast expanse, like that of a galaxy.
V, David Martinez, Jack Wells, and the others stared blankly at the sight before them. Soon, the AI that had reached the molecular scale beheld immense, planet-like spheres.
They were the extranuclear electrons and atomic nuclei that made up atoms.
"I never imagined an atomic nucleus could be this huge. And within it are still protons and neutrons—further down, it's quarks and gluons."
David Martinez let out a gasp of astonishment.
V remained silent, unmoving as he fixed his gaze on the holographic screen. He could already see Europa and the other AIs descending upon an atomic nucleus.
All around, probability clouds resembled psychedelic paste, endlessly shifting in color and pattern.
The disorder and randomness made these things especially mesmerizing.
This was perhaps exactly what string theory and membrane theory described—that the basic structures of matter were lines and surfaces in constant vibration, with vibration frequency determining different subatomic forms.
There were no finely ordered constructions here, nor any fairytale kingdoms—only surreal, shifting colors and tangled lines.
And yet, it was precisely these interweaving, ever-changing colors and lines that created such a dazzling, multifaceted microscopic world.
"It's beautiful… like something you'd only find in a child's dream."
Song Zhaomei's words of wonder drew nods of agreement from all the researchers. Adults' dreams were always too real, too specific, filled with concrete images.
Only children's dreams brimmed with radiant colors and wild, unbounded creations.
"As expected, every electron has a different form!"
As a Megacorp researcher, Chisaji's understanding of these colors and lines wasn't limited to their appearance—their properties carried deeper meaning.
Through the microscopic eyes of the AI killers, they saw that each electron possessed a different form, starkly contradicting the scientific consensus that electrons had fixed mass, charge, and structure.
"Humanity still has a very long way to go before truly understanding the microscopic world," Chisaji sighed.
If they continued to delve deeper, even quarks themselves might reveal individual variations.
Meanwhile, the AI killers carrying out the hunt had no idea what their sight meant to the humans watching from outside.
After checking their weapons and equipment, the AI killers officially set out.
Having been reduced to this microscopic scale, they could no longer perceive the outside macroscopic world at all.
Without the matrix's information relay system, V, Alt Cunningham, and the others would have no way of seeing what was happening inside.
After all, once any sensor was shrunk down to subatomic scale, all electromagnetic waves became longer than the sensor itself, and thus could no longer function normally.
It was precisely for this reason that, for so long, human civilization had been powerless against sophons—the dimensional mismatch between them made it impossible for humanity to find a foothold.
"The good news is, the sophon is now trapped within this electromagnetic field, and it has shrunk itself down to the size of a proton, unable to continue probing the War Moon's different domains."
"The bad news is…"
Alt Cunningham hesitated before speaking: "This battle in the microscopic world could last for months—possibly even years!"
Just as he finished, the holographic screen displayed an image of the sophon. At that moment, the sophon was standing still, unmoving—a most unusual sight.
Normally, sophons needed to be in constant near-light-speed motion to sustain their multithreaded operation. To stop was tantamount to shutting down.
"No, the sophon hasn't stopped—it's stripping electrons from atoms. It's already found a suitable electron!"
Hardly had Dr. Halsey spoken when the AI Europa shot forward. It leapt from one atomic nucleus to another, weaving through the electron probability clouds.
Everything around shifted rapidly, like a surreal dreamscape.
The Megacorp had fought countless blood-pumping space battles on the macroscopic scale, but this—this was their very first engagement at the quantum level, a microscopic war this fine-grained.
The so-called "quantum" referred to the smallest units expressing matter and physical properties, and the theory used to describe the microscopic physical world was quantum mechanics.
Based on this, Red Queen, Europa, and the other AI killers had already stepped into the first layer of the quantum domain, entering a subatomic world at the scale of mere fractions of atoms.
It was a realm brimming with uncertainty, where no one could predict what might happen next.
Soon, Europa and the other AI killers finally reached the atom where the sophon resided. Passing through the mist-like probability clouds, they landed on the atomic nucleus like astronauts setting foot on the moon.
And here, humanity finally caught its first glimpse of the sophon's true face—this demon that had shackled human civilization for more than two hundred years had at last revealed its real form!
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