Chapter 286 The Approaching of Humanity's Lightning Strike

The 400 warships that had been released from their moorings left the coverage of the Bunker at high speed during a break in the Trisolaran Sophon Field attacks and were not hit by the Sophon Field.

Of course, it wasn't just these 400 warships that had burst out of the Bunker; numerous non-military high-speed spacecraft were also involved. The Bunker housed millions of various technicians, who also had to evacuate as quickly as possible, or else they would inevitably be reduced to dust in the Trisolaran assault.

By this point, the velocity of these spacecraft had already reached two-thousandths of the speed of light, and they were still accelerating wildly. The Trisolarans launched a concentrated attack approximately every five minutes, so they had to get as far away as possible before then.

The Trisolaran warships on the periphery of the Solar System were still bombarding the interior of the Bunker. Instantly, the Bunker's remaining military ports, tens of thousands of Etching Ships, and the Giant Ring Accelerator were torn apart by the Sophon Field, and countless human creations were reduced to interstellar dust.

The Bunker had become a pile of ruins, and even the surface of Ganymede had been stripped away. A mixture of the debris of warships, equipment, and countless drifting dust particles intertwined to create a tragic and desolate picture of chaos. Amidst this chaos, scarcely a single intact item could be found; everything had turned to dust in the attack.

The invasion by 600 Trisolaran warships of the Solar System's interior also decreased due to the need to modify their own flight paths, lessening the attacks on humanity's last 400 warships. At a distance of two astronomical units, an attack would take 16 minutes to reach its target, making the efficiency of such attacks extremely low.

Of course, the Trisolarans didn't care about humanity's 400 warships.

...

An hour later under this low-frequency attack, the Trisolarans began to sense something unusual. By now, those 400 human warships had accelerated to 20% of the speed of light.

The acceleration of the human warships reached an incredible 1100G. Even immersed in Deep-Sea Acceleration Fluid, such an extreme acceleration was extremely difficult for humans to endure.

At such a velocity, any encounter with an obstacle would inevitably result in the destruction of the ship and the death of its crew.

These warships were now just one astronomical unit away from the Trisolaran warships. Although the Trisolarans had urgently altered their course, changes in direction were not that quick, and for the time being, the human warships were rapidly narrowing the curve between them.

Given the current speed and direction of both sides, they were set to meet in about two hours, which also suggested that the human warships surely carried a weapon powerful enough to threaten the Trisolaran Interstellar Fleet.

The behavior of humanity was too abnormal, and the speed of their warships was far too fast, already twice that of the Trisolaran warships and still accelerating. It seemed as if humanity was making a final, desperate charge.

In addition, the 600 Trisolaran warships on the periphery of the Solar System also encountered human warships, with less than one astronomical unit between them, and these human warships had also accelerated to 20% of the speed of light.

In the Trisolarans' inherent way of thinking, it was impossible for humanity to possess technology that surpassed the Trisolarans, so they truly didn't understand the significance of humanity's actions.

When the human warships got close to the Trisolaran warships, they would first be destroyed by the attack of the Trisolaran Warship's Sophon Field. Such close-quarters combat was clearly more advantageous for the Trisolarans, and the Trisolarans wouldn't believe that humanity would dare come so close after learning about the Sophon Field.

As time passed, the Trisolaran warships increased their offensive power and even coordinated all the warships to concentrate fire.

But to their surprise, no matter how hard they tried, not a single attack could strike the target. After several attempts and verifications, the Trisolarans had to acknowledge the fact: humanity had successfully developed Sophons.

With the help of Sophons, human warships could monitor the Trisolaran warships in real-time, and whenever the Trisolarans launched an attack, the Sophon would immediately relay the information to the human warships, allowing them to evade precisely.

This forced the Trisolarans to give up on their last shred of hope, as the war might have been a mistake from the beginning.

If it were only the Sophons, the Trisolarans thought they could cope, but they didn't know if humanity would come up with other unknown technologies. The Trisolarans had completely lost their ability to understand humanity.

...

Another hour and a half passed.

The speed of the human warships had now reached 25% of the speed of light, and the Human Fleet was less than 0.2 astronomical units from the Trisolaran Fleet. At such a close distance, the tension of the war became even more intense.

The Trisolaran attack could hit the Human Warship in less than 100 seconds, and at this moment, the simultaneous fire from the Trisolaran Warships became extremely lethal. If aimed at a small number of targets, it could completely block the Human Warship's paths of evasion, leaving nowhere to escape.

However, once again to the Trisolaran's surprise, faced with their barrage of fire, the Human Warships did not adopt any evasive or dodging strategy but chose to head directly towards the Trisolaran attack.

Just as the Trisolarans were confidently believing that this attack would certainly destroy the Human Warships, a scenario unfolded before their eyes that they found unbelievable: The Human Warships were completely intact, seemingly unaffected by the attack.

Whether it was the leader or the various Governors, especially the Science Governor, they were so shocked by what they saw that they were at a loss for words for a long time, unable to believe that they were not in a state of clarity.

In their understanding, an attack from the Sophon Field could disaggregate any material into protons and neutrons at the atomic level, and its power was so great that at sufficiently close distances, it could even split protons further into quarks.

Theoretically, such attacks were unstoppable, and even the substance of neutron stars would struggle to withstand its powerful disintegrating capability. Yet, the Human Warships before them were miraculously undamaged, completely overturning their scientific knowledge and common sense.

The scene before them sent shivers down the soul of every Trisolaran.

The technology and capabilities displayed by humanity had completely surpassed the Trisolarans' understanding. The unknown power filled them with an unprecedented sense of shock and fear. It seemed that they were not facing humanity, but some other advanced civilization.

Confronted with the formidable Human Warships bearing down on them, the Trisolarans dared not harbor any illusions of luck anymore. With the appearance of an absolute defense that even the Trisolarans could not comprehend, humanity must also possess weapons capable of destroying Trisolaran Warships. Now, the Trisolaran Warships could only choose to scatter and flee.

At this point, opting for curvature-driven flight was too late, because this method of travel requires a period of acceleration, while the Human Warships needed only half an hour to catch up with the Trisolaran Interstellar Fleet.

The original work also mentioned that Lightspeed Spacecraft have a spatial acceleration phase before reaching the speed of light, during which space is twisted to create a Dark Domain. When the spacecraft reaches lightspeed and enters the gliding state, it does not distort space.

Furthermore, if these 1,200 warships activated their curvature engines simultaneously and twisted space, they could potentially transform the Solar System into a Dark Domain, where the speed of light within the system would be reduced to only 16.7 kilometers per second.

In the original work, a region of reduced lightspeed with a diameter of 50 astronomical units was created by just 400 Trisolaran Warships.

Such an action would undoubtedly reveal their position in the Dark Forest, which would also be extremely dangerous for the Trisolarans.

…

10 minutes had passed, and now the distance between the Human Warships and the Trisolaran Fleet had rapidly closed to 20 million kilometers, and at this moment, the Trisolaran Warships had scattered in escape.

These Human Warships chasing the Trisolaran Fleet were actually Special Transport Ships, each carrying six Thunderstrike Ships.

The Special Transport Ships were designed with the sole purpose of achieving extreme speed; even their ship main guns were fake.

Now, nearly 340 Special Transport Ships released the Thunderstrike Ships they carried, which had the capability to accelerate further. A total of 2,040 Thunderstrike Ships were rushing furiously towards the 500 Trisolaran Warships, with an average of four Thunderstrike Ships targeting each warship.

The only regret was that 100 Trisolaran Warships were too far away, almost 3 astronomical units apart, making them difficult to pursue. While humanity had dispatched 60 Special Transport Ships to attempt pursuit, they also knew that the chances of success were slim.

Humanity's Special Transport Ships, capable of 25% of the speed of light, struggled to catch up with Trisolaran Warships traveling at just 10% of the speed of light. This was mainly due to issues with trajectory and resources.

If the Trisolaran Warships changed course, and as the speed of the Human Special Transport Ships was too great, they would also need more resources to change course; resource limitations became the biggest constraining factor.

In the original work, even with abundant resources and the assistance of Sophons constantly updating on the fuel reserves of the Blue Space and its rough direction, it took 50 years to catch up.

In interstellar warfare, pursuit is the most difficult task. Thus, interstellar battle tactics strive for the surprise element in an attack – to hide, strike fatally, and then quickly retreat.