Chapter 146

"Chief!"

The thought signal of the dove faction officer surged forward first: "Chief! What's wrong with you? Your life-support system..."

"What happened?" The hawk faction's thought signal followed closely: "Chief! Your thought signal is weakening! Respond to us!"

In outer space outside the fleet.

Saiwen tilted his head slightly, watching the chaotic signals emanating from inside the flagship.

"I don't know what's wrong with it either."

Saiwen's voice was transmitted via light-wave vibrations and received by the flagship's external sensors.

The sensors relayed this signal into the ship's internal broadcast system.

Saiwen's voice echoed throughout every compartment of the entire flagship.

The next second.

All Trisolarans' sensors simultaneously locked onto the fleet's exterior.

They saw Saiwen.

The red-and-silver giant hovered directly ahead of the fleet, filling the entire main screen.

The ice axe atop its head reflected starlight, like a blade of judgment hanging over the Trisolaran civilization.

At the same moment.

All Trisolarans' thought bodies simultaneously emitted a sharp, distorted explosive signal.

"Saiwen?"

"Saiwen Ultraman??"

"Saiwen Ultraman has arrived?!"

"Ultraman has arrived!!"

"The divine civilization! It has truly come!"

Chaotic thought signals swept across the entire fleet.

On the flagship, escort ships, supply vessels, and reconnaissance ships, every Trisolaran aboard screamed simultaneously.

Thought signals overlapped, collided, and interfered, causing the fleet's communication network load to exceed the safety threshold by six hundred times within five seconds.

Accompanying the extreme fear-induced thought eruption, the Trisolarans' physiological systems began collective collapse.

Life-support systems ruptured.

Bodily fluids gushed out.

One after another.

Liquid flowed across the floor of the flagship's corridors.

On the deck of the control room, it pooled into shallow puddles.

Some Trisolarans' thought bodies detached directly from their life-support systems, lying limp on the ground, twitching and emitting fragmented signals.

The entire Trisolaran First Fleet experienced a collective dehydration event within ten seconds of Saiwen's appearance.

The celestial dome broadcast this scene in full.

Dragon Ball World, King Kai's Planet.

Goku stared at the screen showing the Trisolarans collectively "leaking," his eyes widened as large as bells.

"This... what's going on? Saiwen hasn't even moved yet, and they're... just..."

He scratched his head, searching for words for a long time.

"Like a water bag poked full of holes?"

Piccolo crossed his arms, his voice dry: "They were scared."

"Scared? Just seeing Saiwen made them this scared?"

"You forgot? The Trisolarans regard Ultraman as a divine civilization."

"It's like a guilty mortal looking up and seeing a god standing at the door."

"Do you think he'd wet his pants?"

Goku fell silent for two seconds.

"Hmm... seems like he really would."

One Piece World, Thousand Sunny.

Luffy lay on the ship's lion figurehead, half-chewed meat falling from his mouth.

"Hahahahaha!"

He laughed so hard he nearly rolled off the bow, and Nami quickly grabbed his vest.

"They're leaking! They're leaking! Hahahaha, Saiwen brother hasn't done anything yet, and they've already leaked themselves!"

Zoro leaned against the mast,

the corner of his mouth slightly upturned—already an exaggerated expression for him.

"The instinctive reaction of the weak before the strong."

"No matter what you call this reaction, it's just too funny!"

Luffy laughed until tears came out.

Super Robot Wars World, Xuanwu.

Huo Linfei slapped his thigh, laughing so hard he couldn't catch his breath.

"Hahahaha, they were scared into dehydration! Dehydrated! What kind of new intimidation tactic is this?"

"Saiwen just stands there motionless, and they scare themselves into gushing water?"

Miaotiao Jun also laughed from the side: "This is more embarrassing than getting hit? At least getting hit shows the other side made a move."

"They... Saiwen didn't even lift a finger!"

Tian Yu didn't laugh.

But the curve at the corner of her mouth betrayed her.

Cybertron Star.

Megatron sat upon the Iron Throne, his crimson optical sensors flickering.

He did not laugh.

But he emitted a series of low, rhythmic metallic tremors—this is how Cybertronians laugh.

"What a Saiwen."

Megatron rose to his feet, his metallic feet tapping twice on the ground.

"Without firing a single shot, without throwing a single punch, he forced the entire fleet into collective paralysis."

"This is what true power's awe looks like."

He turned his head to look at Optimus Prime.

Optimus Prime did not laugh. But he spoke a sentence.

"Saiwen hasn't done anything yet."

"Exactly." Megatron ceased the vibrations, "So now comes the main event."

"What exactly will he do to the Trisolaran civilization?"

Megatron's optical sensors re-locked onto Saiwen's red-and-silver silhouette against the sky canopy.

"I am curious."

In the sky canopy display, Saiwen hovered before the Trisolaran fleet.

Hundreds of warships.

Countless Trisolaran thought bodies.

All paralyzed.

Saiwen tilted his head slightly.

His hand slowly rose, gripping the ice axe atop his head.

Slowly.

Bit by bit.

He drew it out.

The crescent blade of the ice axe flashed briefly in the starlight.

Inside the Trisolaran fleet,

Another violent thought-burst erupted—those Trisolarans not yet fully dehydrated emitted, at this moment, the most desperate signal of their existence.

Saiwen gripped the ice axe, gazing at the fleet before him.

He did not throw it.

He merely held it.

Then he spoke.

"Trisolaran civilization."

"I have come."

"Now, let us talk."

Saiwen's voice echoed throughout the entire fleet.

"Now, let us talk."

Inside the flagship, the Leader barely stabilized his thought core from the dehydrated state.

Its life-support system had already cracked in three places, fluids still seeping out, but it forcibly suppressed the collapsing biological signal.

"Talk."

The Leader strained to organize his thoughts,

"We can talk."

Saiwen did not rush to speak.

He gripped the ice axe, slowly moving forward a distance before the fleet.

From flagship to escort vessel, from escort to scout ship, he swept his gaze across the entire fleet.

Then he stopped.

"On the sky canopy, I saw what you did to humanity."

Saiwen's voice penetrated the hulls, calmly transmitted into every Trisolaran's perception system.

But precisely this calmness frightened the Trisolarans more than any threat.

"First. The Sophons."

"You launched two Sophons at Earth, locking down humanity's fundamental physics."

"The high-energy particle colliders became scrap iron, the scientific frontier welded shut by your hammer."

"Humanity was deprived by you of even the qualification to study natural laws."

Inside the flagship, the dovish officer's thought signal had weakened to near-undetectable levels.

Its life-support system leaked more severely, the entire thought body convulsing.

Saiwen raised a second finger.

"Second. The Droplet."

"You dispatched a probe, ostensibly for peaceful negotiation, approaching the human fleet. Then you used it to ram through over three thousand warships."

"Human soldiers vaporized in fireballs, suffocated in vacuum, torn to pieces in debris."

"Half an hour. Over three thousand ships."

The hawkish officer's thought-form fell straight out of its life-support unit the moment those words landed.

Thud. It hit the cabin floor, bounced twice, and curled into a ball.

Sa Wen raised a third finger.

"Third. Australia."

"After you occupied Earth, you drove seven billion people onto one continent."

"Rations calibrated to exactly fifteen hundred kilocalories per person per day."

"Just enough not to starve, but not enough to live well."

"In your eyes, humans don't even count as livestock. Livestock at least get fed their fill."

Sa Wen lowered his hand.

Inside the Trisolaran First Fleet, the scene at this moment could only be described with one word: miserable.

Not the misery of battle.

The misery of mental collapse.

In the flagship's control cabin, the life-support units of all twelve senior officers showed varying degrees of rupture.

Life-sustaining fluid on the floor had already pooled about three centimeters deep; several thought-forms floated on the surface, emitting weak, intermittent signals.

"It's over... completely over..."

"The god listed our crimes one by one... this is a sentencing..."

"I said long ago not to go so far with humans! Now it's completely over."

The hawkish officer struggled up from the floor, piecing together fragmented thought-signals:

"Chairman... Chairman, say something... are we going to be exterminated..."

The dovish officer's thoughts had weakened to the point of only outputting single phrases:

"Over... thoroughly over..."

The escort fleet was even worse.

Three escort ships' crews suffered collective dehydration so severe

that their life-support systems directly triggered emergency dehydration-protection protocols, forcing all crew into hibernation dehydration state.

The whole ship turned into a warehouse of desiccated corpses drifting in space.

Sa Wen took all this in.

He added no further words. He simply stood there, gripping the ice axe.

Waiting.

Warhammer 40K universe, Macragge.

Guilliman stood in the exact center of the throne hall, the Emperor's Sword planted before him, both hands resting on the hilt.

He finished watching Sa Wen's three accusations against the Trisolaran civilization, tilted his head slightly, and spoke to Sicarius beside him.

"Restrained."

Sicarius froze: "Primarch?"

"Sa Wen's attitude," Guilliman said. "When he listed the crimes, he carried no emotion. No anger, no contempt. He was stating facts."

"That is more terrifying than rage."

Guilliman released the hilt and took two steps in the hall.

"Rage implies impulse; impulse implies room to maneuver. But a calm judge usually has only two outcomes."

"Pardon, or annihilation. No middle ground."

Sicarius swallowed: "Which does my lord think Sa Wen will choose?"

Guilliman did not answer. He gripped the Emperor's Sword again, gaze turned to the sky-screen.

"I don't know. But whichever he chooses, I will have no objection."

Trisolaran flagship.

Grand Marshal Sydney set her coffee cup on the armrest, legs crossed, posture looking relaxed, but her thumb kept rubbing back and forth along the rim.

The Chief of Staff stood beside her, tentatively asking: "Grand Marshal, do you think Sa Wen will act directly?"

"Hard to say."

Sydney glanced at the Trisolarans collectively leaking fluid on the sky-screen, let out a snort of laughter, then quickly recomposed her expression.

"From a military standpoint, what the Trisolaran civilization did warrants three death sentences."

Armor Hero world.

Duanmu Yan leaned against the wall, arms crossed, staring at the sky-screen for a long time.

"Interesting."

Ma Lingling came over: "What's interesting?"

"Ultraman Sa Wen didn't just attack right away."

Duanmu Yan tilted his head,

"If it were me, after seeing those images on the sky-screen, I'd have rushed over and smashed that Water Drop first, then talked."

"But Sa Wen didn't. He's waiting for the Trisolarans' reaction."

"Waiting for what reaction?"

"Waiting for them to give a reason why they shouldn't die."

Duanmu Yan thought a moment, then added: "But given the current situation, they probably can't produce one."

Marvel Universe.

Tony expanded the holographic projection to its maximum, the frame freezing exactly on the shot of Ultraman Seiji gripping his ice axe as he faced the Trisolaran fleet.

"Jarvis."

"At your service, sir."

"Help me calculate: if Ultraman Seiji goes all out, roughly how long would it take him to obliterate the fleet before him?"

Jarvis fell silent for half a second.

"Based on the Ultraman combat data displayed on the sky-screen, Ultraman Seiji's ice axe attack range and energy output... sir, I cannot compute it."

"Cannot compute it?"

"Because the variables exceed my calculation model. Simply put, Ultraman Seiji's combat power has no reference point in my database."

Tony leaned back in his chair.

"So it's no wonder the Trisolarans are terrified."

He rubbed his chin.

"But the question is, will Ultraman Seiji actually destroy them? He's listed three charges, yet he hasn't passed judgment."

"Sir, what do you want Ultraman Seiji to do?"

Tony picked up the whiskey on the table and swirled it twice.

"I want to watch a good show. Whether it's pardon or annihilation, the process must be spectacular."

"So far, the spectacle on the sky-screen has already exceeded expectations."

He took a sip of wine.

"Keep watching."

The sky-screen reverted to the Trisolaran universe.

Ultraman Seiji had waited long enough.

No effective response came from within the Trisolaran fleet.

Only chaotic thought signals kept colliding across frequencies, noisy as a pot of boiling water.

Ultraman Seiji tilted his head.

Then he moved.

No unnecessary preparatory motions.

He raised his left hand, pressed his index and middle fingers together, and pointed them at his own forehead.

The indicator light on his forehead lit up.

A beam of light shot out.

The beam pierced the flagship's hull, passed through bulkheads, corridors, and three alloy blast doors.

It struck the water droplet docked in the flagship's core hangar.

The Trisolaran probe that had reduced over two thousand human warships to ash.

That perfectly smooth surface, capable of reflecting the entire universe, the ultimate weapon.

At the instant the beam struck, the water droplet's mirror surface spiderwebbed with cracks.

The cracks spread across the entire surface within 0.01 seconds.

Then it shattered.

The water droplet exploded into billions of tiny metal fragments, slowly diffusing in the zero-gravity environment of the flagship's hangar.

The fragments reflected the cabin's lighting, like a silent fireworks display.

This once-ultimate weapon that had destroyed humanity's entire space fleet, under Ultraman Seiji's single strike, was reduced to uniformly fine debris.

Inside the Trisolaran fleet.

Deathly silence.

All thought signals severed simultaneously at the moment the water droplet was destroyed, as if someone had unplugged the main power of the entire communications network.

Five seconds later.

Signals returned.

But not normal communication signals.

They were wails.

"The water droplet! The water droplet is gone!"

"It shattered in an instant! Our strongest weapon! Just like that!"

"A god used only a finger! Less than a finger! He merely glanced!"

"It's over, over, over, over, over..."

In the flagship's control chamber, the Leader's thought-body shuddered violently.

Its life-support system had nearly leaked dry, presenting a pathological semi-translucent state.

Yet it was still thinking.

It was desperately thinking.

The surrounding Trisolaran officers had completely collapsed.

The hawkish official's life-support device exploded with a pop,

bodily fluids spraying the floor, his thought-body collapsing to the ground, emitting signals that couldn't even form complete words:

"Par... par... plead... plead..."

The dove official was worse off.

It directly abandoned the effort to maintain thought, entering a spontaneous dehydration hibernation.

In plain terms, it was scared unconscious.

And outside the flagship,

in the hundreds of warships of the entire First Fleet, the same scene was unfolding simultaneously.

The Trisolarans began to collectively kowtow.

Not metaphorically. It was a physical kowtow.

Their life-support devices all tilted toward the direction where Sophon was located,

their thought signals tuned to the lowest-power broadcast mode, which in Trisolaran civilization signifies absolute submission.

On the fleet's public communication channels, dense pleas for mercy piled up into a heap.

"God, spare our lives! We know we were wrong!"

"We shouldn't have launched sophons at Earth! That was our mistake!"

"The water drop too! We shouldn't have used the water drop to attack the human fleet! That was an atrocity! We admit it!"

"What happened in Australia was even more wrong! Locking seven billion people on one continent is bestial! We apologize!"

"We will absolutely never do this again! Absolutely never!"

"Please, God, give us one chance! Just one!"

The pleas for mercy swept across all frequency bands like a blizzard.

Several hundred warships,

tens of thousands of Trisolarans,

at the same moment, in the same posture, bowed their heads and begged for mercy before the red-and-silver giant in space.

Sophon stood there, watching all of this.

He said nothing.

Nor did he lower his ice axe.

The audience of the myriad worlds held their breath.

What would happen next?

Would Sophon annihilate the Trisolaran civilization?

Just as everyone thought the Trisolaran civilization was about to meet its end.

Inside the flagship's control cabin.

The leader's thought body shuddered violently.

That thought core, already weakened to semi-transparency, suddenly regained stability at a certain moment.

Its signal output, from chaotic fragments, recondensed into orderly pulses.

It came back to life.

Not a physiological recovery, but a spiritual one.

The Trisolaran leader forcibly suppressed all fear signals within itself,

stabilizing its thought frequency at sixty percent of normal output.

This was already the limit of what it could do.

Then it spoke.

"God."

These two words were transmitted via the flagship's external broadcast system.

Sophon slightly tilted his head, looking toward the flagship.

The leader continued:

"Respected Sophon Ultraman, great warrior of the Land of Light, guardian of cosmic order."

"I, the leader of the Trisolaran First Fleet, representing the entire Trisolaran people, hereby beg your forgiveness."

Sophon gave no response.

The leader did not stop.

"But."

When it uttered these two words, its thought signal exhibited an extremely brief fluctuation.

"You cannot annihilate us."

As soon as this sentence was spoken,

the barrage on the myriad worlds' public screen suddenly slowed, because everyone was staring at this sentence.

"It is absolutely impossible to annihilate us."

"We, we have sufficient reasons"

The leader repeated once.

Sophon's ice axe rotated half a turn in his hand.

"Oh?"

……