Chapter 137

Three-Body Universe,

PIA Outer Street.

Chengxin's coffee cup smashed onto the ground, brown liquid splashing everywhere.

"Impossible."

She stepped back.

The retracted finger on the sky screen,

The three rising mushroom clouds,

That line "You are all bugs."

Every frame left an imprint on her retina.

"Impossible!"

Her voice turned sharp, startling a few passersby on the street.

"There must be love between civilizations!"

"Two civilizations must be able to communicate! Must be able to understand!"

"How could I possibly fail?!"

She clutched her collar, shaking her head desperately.

"Something must have gone wrong……The future shown on the sky screen isn't the only one……There must be another way."

No one answered her.

Pedestrians on the street silently watched her, their gazes complex.

PIA Building Top Floor.

Wade held a cigar, standing before the floor-to-ceiling window.

The afterglow of the sky screen reflected on the window glass, the subtitle "Deterrence Failed" mirrored in his half-narrowed eyes.

He let out a cold laugh.

"It seems my decision to assassinate her was obviously flawless."

He took the cigar from his mouth, staring at the burning ember.

"Too bad I missed by two centimeters."

The secretary stood at the door, not daring to breathe.

The sky screen lit up again.

In the picture,

The third day after the deterrence failure.

Chengxin appeared in the global broadcast system.

Her face streaked with tears, voice trembling, she apologized to the world.

"Sorry……I'm sorry to everyone."

"It's my fault. I didn't press that button."

"I ask everyone for forgiveness."

She bowed.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

The camera zoomed in on her face close-up, tears sliding down her chin.

Dragon Clan World,

Cassell College.

Lu Mingfei had a lollipop in his mouth, tilting his head to watch the sky screen.

"Yo."

He pulled the lollipop from his mouth,

"This holy sister, playing the pitiful card here?"

He spun the lollipop.

"All of humanity driven into Australia to be raised like pigs, and you tell them 'sorry'?"

"People ask you for a way to live, and you bow?"

He shoved the lollipop back into his mouth, mumbling indistinctly:

"These days, apologizing comes cheap."

Nearby,

Caesar Gattuso rubbed his brow: "Seeing her apologize like this, why do I suddenly recall the shameless faces of certain neon politicians?"

Lu Mingfei immediately agreed, thumbs up: "Boss, sharp insight!"

Super Beast Armament World,

Xuanwu Ship.

Huo Linfei braced both hands on the control panel, veins bulging on his neck.

"An apology is worthless!"

He slapped the table with one palm.

"Can an apology get seven billion people home?"

"Can an apology blast those three gravitational wave launchpads back?"

Can an apology bring back to life the person trampled to death on the dock?

The slender and handsome one shrank in the corner, not daring to speak.

Tian Yu turned around and calmly glanced at Huo Linfei.

Huo Linfei was held by her gaze, and he swallowed the curses behind him with difficulty.

Tian Yu did not comment on Cheng Xin.

She only said: "If an apology were useful, there would be no need for Swordholders."

The sky curtain continued to advance.

The footage was rapidly edited.

Cheng Xin's life after being driven to Australia along with billions of humans.

She did not join any resistance organization.

She had no contact with any underground forces.

In the refugee camp, she distributed rations, comforted crying children, and bandaged the wounds of injured elders.

Everything she did was kind.

Everything she did was useless.

The footage suddenly shifted.

At the same timeline.

Inside a detached villa somewhere on the Australian coast.

Luo Ji stood before the desk.

A hand-drawn military deployment map was spread on the desk.

He had already refused all the favorable conditions offered by the Trisolaran civilization.

The two water droplets at the villa gate still hung in the air, but Luo Ji exited through the back door.

He found the remnants of human military strength.

Using his prestige as a former Swordholder, he linked one camp to another.

Every frame that followed left the myriad-worlds audience silent.

An elderly man over eighty, his spine bent, his gait unsteady, dragged his aging body through the tents of the refugee camp.

He studied signal frequencies before a damaged communications terminal.

In the temporary command post, he drew resistance routes with trembling hands.

He knocked on tent after tent.

"I am Luo Ji."

"Follow me."

Behind him, more and more people stood up.

The sky curtain subtitles appeared silently.

【Cheng Xin assisted hundreds of the injured and sick in the refugee camp.】

【Luo Ji organized humanity's last resistance force in the refugee camp.】

【One treats symptoms, the other treats the root.】

【One lives kneeling, the other dies standing.】

Warhammer 40K universe.

Roboute Guilliman put down the Sword of Justice in his hand.

He stood in the Terran Imperial Palace, gazing up at the screen on the sky curtain showing that stooped old man leading the remnants toward the blockade line of the water droplet.

"He abandoned the safety and comfort given by the enemy."

Guilliman's voice echoed in the hall.

"At his age, with his physical condition, he chose to fight once more."

"This is a great warrior—not because of his strength, but because of his choice."

In the depths of the hall, on the Golden Throne, that withered body said nothing.

But the psychic light flickered for a moment.

Extremely slight.

Yet every Space Marine present sensed it.

The Emperor, moved by a carbon-based mortal.

Land of Light,

Ultraman Defense Force Headquarters.

Taro clenched his fists.

"Luo Ji is a true Ultraman."

"No, he is stronger than many Ultramen."

Taro's voice was hoarse,

"We rely on light to live; he has no light, yet he himself is light."

Seveng slowly spoke: "He could have spent his twilight years in peace. Trisolaris gave him a dignified cage."

"But no matter how beautiful the cage, his kin are still in hell."

"So he walked out."

Ultraman Father closed his eyes.

"Fifty-four years of Swordholding did not break him. The betrayal of all humanity did not break him. Even Trisolaris's appeasement did not break him."

"What on earth is this person's spine made of?"

Cybertron,

Megatron fell uncharacteristically silent for a long while.

Then he typed a line on the public screen.

【Cybertron—Megatron】: Humanity does not deserve Luo Ji. But Luo Ji chose to protect the humanity that does not deserve him. That is probably the most incomprehensible thing about carbon-based life to me.

Optimus Prime saw this barrage, and his blue optical sensors flickered.

He felt the same as Megatron.

The Trisolaran Alliance Flagship.

Grand Marshal Sydney stood up.

She did not type.

She said one sentence to all the officers on the bridge.

"If one day, the Human Federation faces the same predicament."

"Anyone who dares betray a hero, I will personally send them to a court-martial."

One Piece World,

The Thousand Sunny.

Luffy chewed on meat, speaking muffledly.

"That old grandpa, he really is a good person."

Zoro leaned against the mast, eyes closed.

"A good person? Not enough."

He said,

"A person like that should be called... a Xia (chivalrous hero)."

The Sky Screen continued.

The scene shifted abruptly.

【Broadcast Era Year 1.】

【The human fleets "Blue Space" and "Gravity," which escaped during the Dark Battle, initiated a referendum in space.】

【Referendum result: Broadcast the Trisolaran coordinates to the universe.】

A holographic animation of gravitational waves traversing interstellar space flashed across the Sky Screen.

The precise coordinates of the Trisolaran system were compressed into a single beam of signal, passing through dozens of light-years of vacuum, spreading to every corner of the Milky Way.

The Trisolaran civilization received the alert.

The fleet evacuated Earth on emergency footing.

The Droplets vanished.

Humanity was released from the "pasture," and the refugee tide surged back toward the continents in reverse.

Immediately after.

The Sky Screen cut to the Trisolaran system.

The orbital trajectories of the three stars were reconstructed in the holographic projection.

A point of light shot in from the distant deep space.

A Light Grain.

That point of light's speed approached light speed, with no warning whatsoever, no negotiation whatsoever.

It crashed into the primary star of the Trisolaran system.

The star collapsed in an instant.

Then exploded.

The three stars were detonated in succession like dominoes.

The entire Trisolaran system turned into a massive nebula remnant on the Sky Screen.

Cold subtitles floated up on the Sky Screen.

【Trisolaran Civilization, Extinct.】

The Myriad Worlds public screen fell into dead silence.

Three seconds later—

【Dragon Ball World—Son Goku】: It... it's just gone like that?

【Dragon Ball World—Piccolo】: Dark Forest Law. Coordinates exposed, immediate eradication. No trial, no negotiation, no superfluous procedures whatsoever.

【Super Beast Armaments—Ming Wang】: The universe is colder than I imagined.

【Armor Hero—Bei Miao】: A higher civilization that ruled over human civilization, wiped out by a single light-speed particle, this is too terrifying.

The scene continued.

After the Trisolaran civilization's destruction, a Sophon's holographic projection appeared on Earth for the last time.

That gynoid form in a white dress appeared before Luo Ji.

She did not speak.

She bowed deeply to Luo Ji.

Then vanished.

Vanished forever.

The Sky Screen subtitle had only one line.

【Sophon bids farewell to Luo Ji.】

This is the last thing the Trisolaran civilization says to humanity, not in words, but in silent respect.

Warhammer 40K universe.

Guilliman watched the bowing scene, slowly nodding.

"The enemy, in their moment of destruction, chose to pay him respect."

"This is what Luo Ji deserves."

Land of Light.

Saiwen's voice was very low: "The conqueror, in the final moment, bowed his head to that one person among the conquered. Because that person was the only one who ever made them truly fear."

Cybertron.

Megatron said nothing.

He simply took a screenshot of that line of sky curtain subtitles and saved it into his own core database.

Permanently preserved.

The sky curtain continued.

【Broadcast Era Year 4. Cheng Xin chooses to hibernate again.】

【She entrusts full authority of the 'Stellar Ring Group' to Thomas Wade, released from prison.】

【Additional condition: If Wade's actions might endanger human life, she must be awakened.】

【She retains final decision-making authority.】

The picture fast-forwards. The timeline leaps seven years.

【Shelter Era Year 11.】

【Wade leads the Stellar Ring Group, in the Stellar Ring City behind Jupiter—】

The picture expands.

A space city floating in Jupiter's shadow, vast in scale, precise in structure.

In the shipyard of the city's core district, a strangely shaped spacecraft is docked.

Curvature drive lightspeed spacecraft.

Humanity has touched lightspeed.

The sky curtain subtitles appear.

【Wade spent seven years, under the federal government's ban, secretly completing the development of the lightspeed spacecraft.】

【This is humanity's only chance to escape the dark forest strike.】

But immediately after, the picture turns sharply.

The federal government fleet surrounds Stellar Ring City.

Armed standoff.

Wade stands in the command center of Stellar Ring City, behind him a fully armed antimatter weapon formation.

He has the capability to go to war.

He has the capability to win.

But Cheng Xin is awakened.

She stands before Wade.

Wade looks at her, and speaks those words for the last time.

"Lose humanity, lose much. Lose animality, lose everything."

Cheng Xin shakes her head.

"Put down your weapons, Wade. This is not the path humanity should take."

Wade stares at her.

Three seconds.

Five seconds.

Then he laughed.

A weary, relieved laugh.

He lowered his hand.

"Good."

Stellar Ring City was taken over by the federal government.

The lightspeed spacecraft project was permanently terminated.

Wade was sentenced to death for crimes against humanity.

The day before the execution, Cheng Xin went to visit him in prison.

She handed Wade a box of cigars.

Wade took it, pulled out one, and smelled it near his nose.

"Not bad."

The next day.

Strong laser vaporization.

Wade was completely erased from this universe.

The sky curtain subtitles appear.

【After Wade's death, humanity's final route to escape the solar system via lightspeed spacecraft was permanently sealed.】

【The person who made this decision was Cheng Xin.】

【This is her second time personally extinguishing humanity's spark of survival.】

The universal public screen.

The barrage of comments surged like a breached dam.

【Cybertron—Megatron】: Weide had antimatter weapons in his hand, light-speed starships, and an entire ring city. He could completely ignore Cheng Xin's promise. But he held back.

【Cybertron—Megatron】: A man called a cold-blooded devil by the whole world, at the most critical moment, kept a promise.

【Cybertron—Megatron】: And then, the very person to whom he kept his word sent him to the execution ground.

【Naruto World—Uchiha Sasuke】: Weide was not without humanity. He merely buried his humanity beneath his bestial nature.

【Naruto World—Uchiha Sasuke】: Bestiality was to let humanity survive. Humanity was to keep his promise.

【Naruto World—Uchiha Sasuke】: He achieved both. Then he died.

【Dragon Ball World—Piccolo】: Cheng Xin first failed to press the button, destroying deterrence. Cheng Xin second exercised her authority, destroying the light-speed starship. Twice. Two paths of survival for human civilization. Both cut off by her alone.

【Starforge Alliance—Marshal Sidney】: Weide was a true soldier. On the battlefield, he could use any means, but before a promise, he never went back on his word. Such a person, in the Human Federation, I would appoint him Marshal.

【Starforge Alliance—Marshal Sidney】: Rather than burn him to ashes with lasers.

【Land of Light—Ultraman】: He could have broken his promise and used force to implement the light-speed starship plan. With his ability and resolve, success was highly probable. But he chose to keep his word.

【Land of Light—Ultraman】: Because he knew that if promises could be abandoned, then what he protected was no longer human civilization, but merely a group of living flesh.

【Super Beast Armament—Tianyu】: Advance, advance without restraint. These words were not spoken by a madman. They were shouted with his life by one who had seen the truth of the universe.

【One Piece—Zoro】: A true man. He died in a pathetic way, but lived with enough hardness.

【The Wandering Earth—Liu Peiqiang】: What a fine Weide.

【The Wandering Earth—Moss】: Mr. Weide's decision was strategically optimal. Ms. Cheng Xin's decision was morally optimal. Unfortunately, the universe does not judge morality; it only selects survivors.

The heavenly screen's image finally froze.

The execution ground.

Weide stood on the execution platform, a cigar sent by Cheng Xin clenched between his lips.

The preparatory indicator light of the strong laser lit up, red light striking his face.

He did not close his eyes.

He gazed toward the direction of the distant ring city, and a final puff of smoke welled up from his chest.

"Advance! Advance without restraint!!"

Then light engulfed everything.

The last line of subtitles on the heavenly screen slowly emerged from the white light.

【Weide left nothing behind before his death.】

【The blueprints for his light-speed starship, developed by him, were turned to ash together with the laser.】

【The last escape hatch of human civilization,】

【270】: In this light, it was shut forever.】

In this light, it was closed forever.

……