Chapter 511: Calabi–Yau Manifold! Annihilating the Sophon! The Final Offensive!
On the dazzling, multicolored atomic nucleus, the sophon revealed a compactified structure resembling a Calabi–Yau manifold, its appearance somewhat like a honeycomb tripe.
The three-dimensional slices of this six-dimensional geometry displayed fractal-like self-similarity. When activated, the sophon's extra dimensions existed as topological oscillations at the Planck scale.
The moment its position was locked, AI Europa raised a specially designed microscopic weapon, preparing to hunt it down.
Yet in the next instant, the sophon transformed into a Japanese woman wearing a kimono, her graceful, serene demeanor indistinguishable from a real human.
AI Europa hesitated.
Was this thing really a sophon…?
But soon, Alt Cunningham issued a command through the Matrix, ordering AI Europa to attack at once.
In higher dimensions, the complexity and structural density of a particle increase dramatically— even a single proton could encompass an entire universe. A sophon could reshape its nanomechanical structure into a human form, or any image it desired.
This ability was comparable to Sun Wukong's seventy-two transformations in Journey to the West.
From a macroscopic perspective, a sophon was still just a proton. But under an atomic or subatomic gaze, it could exhibit astonishingly complex structures and adaptive transformations.
If a human were to carry out this assassination mission, they might truly hesitate.
Because the sophon before them looked far too much like a real person. But unfortunately for it, its opponent was an AI killer. With Cunningham's clear order, AI Europa immediately pulled the trigger.
The weapon it wielded was a specially modified handgun. Its bullets were shrunken anti-hydrogen atoms, their internal matter almost entirely hollow.
Only upon being fired and striking a target would they unleash the annihilation effect.
The anti-hydrogen atoms fired by Europa streaked toward the sophon—yet failed to hit. They grazed its form and instead struck a probability cloud behind it.
The blurry probability cloud erupted in dazzling fire— the image of matter and antimatter annihilation.
The mass of a single anti-hydrogen atom was merely 1.67 × 10^-27, and after miniaturization it was reduced by tens of thousands of times more. The explosive yield displayed was so minuscule that in the macroscopic world, it was virtually meaningless.
Even the energy released by a soap bubble bursting in a child's hand exceeded that of this bullet's explosion.
But the weapon's true purpose was never to rely on the blast itself to destroy the sophon.
After all, sophons feared no explosions. Even if blown into tens of thousands of pieces, they could instantly recombine and restore themselves— the entire process taking less than a millionth of a second.
Thus, what Europa needed was the annihilation effect of anti-hydrogen to corrode its internal circuits.
When unfolded in two dimensions, the sophon's microscopic circuitry spanned a total area a hundred times that of Earth's surface. Only by destroying part of it could they achieve true functional damage, rendering the sophon inoperable.
To utterly annihilate a sophon was unrealistic, but crippling one was at least within the realm of possibility.
Yet accomplishing this was anything but easy.
The sophon was faster than the AI assassins—faster even than Europa's fired anti-hydrogen atoms. Against such speed, ordinary attacks had little effect.
In the blink of an eye, its form had shifted countless times— from the Japanese woman into dazzling, tangled line-clouds.
Viewed with the naked eye, it was impossible to discern where exactly the sophon was.
Fortunately, these AI assassins were connected to the Matrix. With its immense computational support, Europa could still lock onto its trail.
After Europa fired the first shot, the other AI assassins quickly followed suit, each locking onto their designated sophon targets and opening fire.
In an instant, a storm of bullets howled through the void. The sophons, however, showed no fear, lightly weaving around the incoming anti-hydrogen. This was their domain—how could outsiders slay them so easily?
Even more, their speed reached near light itself. Within this subatomic realm, sophons had already surpassed the limits of light, capable of superluminal displacement.
Here in the microscopic world, they were akin to gods. To them, the AI assassins' movements were as clumsy and stagnant as snails frozen in place.
Through quantum-sensing matrices, the sophons could calculate the anti-hydrogen trajectories in the briefest instant, then slip into the perfect positions to evade.
It was like the Matrix itself—dodging bullets with ease.
For a long time, sophons had used precisely this ability to masquerade as target particles in high-energy accelerator experiments.
They would then deliberately provide false or chaotic data, disrupting humanity's research into fundamental physics and the microscopic realm.
[You cannot stop the sophons. Soon, they will find the right electrons to break through your electromagnetic field.]
From the surrounding probability clouds, words assembled. This was the Trisolarans deliberately taunting the Mega-Corp.
They had prepared their ambush carefully, trapping the five sophons within a confined electromagnetic cage. And yet? The sophons still claimed they could escape.
These jeering words naturally streamed through the AI assassins' feeds, entering the eyes of Mega-Corp's personnel.
David Martinez gnashed his teeth in fury. Was there truly no way to deal with these sophons?
Chisaji Fox's brows furrowed, mind racing through possible countermeasures. If Europa failed to damage the sophon, their entire operation would be wasted.
It had to be admitted: sophons were the Trisolarans' most perfect, most successful technological creation— the culmination of microscopic engineering.
Even in the original Three-Body novels, no civilization had ever managed to destroy a sophon.
The Trisolarans had relied on them to dominate the microscopic battlefield, leveraging information asymmetry to claw their way, step by step, into a godlike civilization.
Their mastery of intelligence-gathering made them one of the few civilizations capable of surviving until the death of the universe— cosmic battle royale champions.
Even the dimensional strike of the Singer's two-dimensional foil inflicted no real harm upon them.
For sophons themselves could unfold into two dimensions— even a dimensional reduction attack had no effect.
Faced with such indestructible creations, Mega-Corp's researchers had spent endless brainpower, many succumbing to despair, convinced that destroying a sophon was impossible.
Why waste time, energy, and resources gnawing on such an unbreakable bone? Would it not be better to have Jack Wells dispatch fleets beyond the solar system— to intercept the Trisolaran armada and cut off the source itself?
At this moment, Alt Cunningham sat brooding, racking his mind for a way to deal with this tenacious foe.
The microscopic world was steadily eroding the AI assassins' sense of time, direction, and distance. Without the Matrix's vast computational support, Europa would already have been lost in this quantum forest.
Here in this realm, dodging their attacks was as effortless to the sophons as sipping water. Their carefree, ethereal movements drove despair into the hearts of their enemies.
Just as some proposed abandoning the plan, Cunningham suddenly noticed: though the sophons were frantically dodging the anti-hydrogen, they had never actually left their spot.
Or rather— they had moved, but always returned to the same place.
If the sophons had chosen to flee and conceal their tracks, then even the AI assassins would have been powerless against them.
Yet the sophons simply stood in their designated zone, allowing AI Europa to attack without retaliating. Such behavior was clearly abnormal.
Almost at the same instant, as they regained their senses, Chisaji Fox and Alt Cunningham spoke the same word in unison: "Electrons!"
That's right—the sophons were waiting for a suitable electron, one that could help them neutralize their charge and break free of the strong electromagnetic field.
Electrons in an atom do not actually move along fixed orbits; rather, they are randomly distributed around the nucleus according to certain probabilities.
Their appearance or absence is entirely random, which is why quantum mechanics must be used to analyze them.
Precisely because of this, the sophons had to keep waiting for that electron to reappear. They couldn't predict its position with accuracy, so they were forced to adopt a clumsy "wait by the stump for the rabbit" approach.
The reason they didn't run, nor strike back, was out of fear of missing the chance when the right electron appeared again.
The researchers of the Universal Megacorp had long since determined that electrons are not perfectly identical fundamental particles.
Every fundamental particle carries its own slight differences, allowing them to combine in random ways to generate infinite possibilities.
Thus, finding a suitable electron was no simple task for the sophons.
For them, locating that crucial electron was the true key to escaping the electromagnetic field. As for the AI assassins in front of them—they were irrelevant.
Once Alt Cunningham understood this point, he immediately issued a command to the AI assassins:
[All AI units, immediately destroy the probability cloud around the sophons!]
The moment the order came out, the AI assassins raised their weapons toward the atomic nucleus above, aiming at the probability cloud where electrons might exist.
When antihydrogen atoms encountered electrons, they naturally produced annihilation effects. Although Alt Cunningham and the other scientists could not pinpoint where an electron would appear,
doing this could continuously disrupt the chances of an electron appearing.
Within the probability cloud, electron positions were uncertain. When faced with annihilation from antihydrogen, they did not evade the way sophons would.
The result was that large clusters of probability clouds were wiped out by matter–antimatter annihilation.
This unexpected tactic instantly broke the sophons' defenses.
After they had gone through so much trouble to lock down potential electron locations, these AI assassins had wrecked everything, driving the sophons into a rage.
And so, the sophons finally moved.
Their method of attack was simple: impact.
They condensed themselves into high-speed projectiles, ramming into the AI assassins to destroy them.
The sophons' speed was so great that human eyes couldn't track them at all. Fortunately, the assassins' matrix-calculated perception endowed them with sufficiently sharp vision to just barely make out the sophons' positions.
Amid a flurry of close-quarters combat, sophons were slashed apart by the strong-interaction weapons wielded by the assassins.
Unlike the droplets, sophons were not especially hard; one could even call them fragile.
But their regenerative ability was extraordinary. The ramming attack had only been a probe, and once they realized the assassins' skill and weapons were formidable, the sophons began seeking other angles for a lethal strike.
They kept seizing fundamental particles from the micro-world to fashion weapons, leaving faint wounds on the assassins with their speed. But the assassins' armor was forged entirely from strong-interaction material.
Against such defenses, the sophons' harassment had little effect.
Seeing that this wasn't working, the sophons switched tactics, exploiting their speed advantage to repeatedly strike the same spot on the assassins at an extreme frequency, slicing at Europa's armor.
This method, of course, had merit.
Strong-interaction materials had weak points at the micro level: if one could disrupt the cohesion of fundamental particles, the material would collapse.
This was impossible on the macro scale, but in the micro-world it was entirely feasible.
Yet just as the sophons were about to break through Europa's strong-interaction armor, they suddenly found their movements growing sluggish.
Their whole bodies felt weighted down with lead, unable to move freely.
The only explanation for this was magnetic field restriction.
But not the strong electromagnetic fields of the macro-world—rather, subatomic-scale magnetic fields deployed inside the AI assassins, specifically to target the etched circuits within the sophons!
Caught in such a field, the sophons grew clumsier by the moment, every movement laden with resistance. Within this magnetic mire, the harder they struggled, the stronger the resistance grew.
Against such immobilized foes, all Europa needed to do was complete the simplest act of target shooting.
With bullets flying, antihydrogen atoms struck the sophons, and the blazing light of annihilation burst forth.
No matter how complex a sophon's interior was, at its core it was still just a proton, and could not escape the physical laws of matter–antimatter annihilation.
Europa fired continuously, giving the sophons no chance. The explosions blasted them off the atomic nucleus and into the probability clouds formed by electrons.
The light of annihilation flickered again and again, as antihydrogen atoms alternately struck sophons and random electrons, wiping everything away.
Until the sophons had been utterly consumed in the radiance of annihilation, Europa did not stop, patiently awaiting updates from the others.
Before long, AI Spider Murphy, AI Batmoss, and the other assassins had each finished off their own targets.
The staff of the Science Hub were exhilarated: with the most troublesome sophons destroyed, they were now one step away from defeating the Trisolaran civilization!
As Alt Cunningham issued the order to withdraw, the AI assassins prepared to return to the macro-world. Behind her, the others were already breaking into joyful, excited cheers.
"It's finally over." Chisaji Fox let out a long breath—at last, the sophons that had tormented them for so long were dead.
If they hadn't managed to win this battle, their only option would have been to develop micro-world technology on their own, and then match the Trisolarans' sophons with their own corporate versions.
But now that they had killed those five sophons, the research could be put on hold. Once the Trisolarans were defeated, they could simply take the technology for themselves.
Yet even as the sophon problem was resolved and the team had barely begun to relax, a new crisis loomed.
The Trisolaran civilization had already launched its final all-out offensive against the Solar System!
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