Chapter 525: Unified Field Equation! Dark Matter Wormhole! Leap to Centaurus!
As time went on, the brewing anticipation of the Universal Megacorp's counterattack on the Trisolaran system only grew more intense. Many among the public were deeply curious about what methods the Corporation would adopt to deal with the Trisolarans.
But whether it would be war or peace, one thing had to be taken into account.
The Trisolaran system was 4.2 light years away from the Solar System. Even with a lightspeed engine, it would take at least four to five years to reach their homeworld.
Four years—neither too long nor too short. After all, it had taken humanity only three years to go from being annihilated—losing 1,300 warships to a single Droplet—to turning the tide and destroying nine Droplets with fewer than 700 ships.
But now the Trisolarans were in their Renaissance, a full technological explosion. Four years might be enough for them to push their science and technology to the next level.
What's more, with the current interstellar warships of humanity, traveling from the Solar System to the Trisolaran system would take at least two thousand years.
Such an immense span of time made it impossible to initiate contact or communication with them.
The best option seemed to be silence—no further communication of any form with Trisolaran civilization.
Just as the public feared that time might erode the Universal Megacorp's advantage, Li Ang had already instructed the Science Nexus to prepare a comprehensive plan.
…
Five years later.
At the edge of the Solar System, near Pluto, the Science Nexus had secretly completed a massive, top-secret astro-engineering project a year and a half earlier.
As the remotest and least significant of the Solar System's regions, Pluto was nearly forgotten. Its reputation remained cold, desolate, lifeless.
But precisely because of its remoteness and its outward-facing position on the edge of the Solar System, it was the perfect transit hub for leaving the system. It was the gateway of the Solar System.
What the Universal Megacorp had done was use wormhole technology to construct here a simplified version of a "Star Gate"!
When Luo Ji followed Paul aboard a spacecraft to Pluto's vicinity, the sight before him left him shaken.
A massive, indistinct celestial structure hung in orbit near Pluto. Its surface was a perfectly smooth curve, and within, everything was drawn by powerful gravitational pull—space and matter twisted and shifting ceaselessly.
At first Luo Ji thought it was a miniature black hole. But on closer inspection he realized it wasn't. It was something else entirely—a kind of "gate" capable of transmitting matter.
"When did a wormhole appear here?" Luo Ji asked in bewilderment. No one had ever truly seen what a wormhole looked like. To most, it existed only as a theoretical construct.
Whether it truly existed in reality was uncertain.
"Did you cross such a wormhole to come into this universe?" Luo Ji pressed Paul.
"Quite the opposite. It was only after we came here that this wormhole was created. It's a transmission gate we built."
Paul Atreides answered honestly. The project had been proposed personally by Consul Li Ang an engineering scheme using dark matter and high-dimensional wormhole technology to build a wormhole for swift passage across the galaxy.
With such wormholes, the Universal Megacorp could reach Centaurus quickly—and without leaving behind the telltale traces of superluminal navigation that would attract the attention of other advanced civilizations.
"You were able to construct a wormhole in so short a time… then why focus on small species like humans and the Trisolarans at all?"
Luo Ji still could not fathom the true motives of the Corporation. A civilization of such scale should hardly be interested in ant-like species such as theirs.
Even if they were all humans.
"Our purpose has always been simple—to unify this universe. But you and the Trisolarans are the most promising of the lower civilizations. In time, you will evolve into god-tier civilizations."
"That is why we are so interested in you."
Paul smiled, then led Luo Ji to meet the staff of the Science Nexus.
There Luo Ji met some of the Corporation's foremost scientists.
After a brief exchange, Luo Ji again asked about the wormhole's construction method.
Normally, a wormhole's mass and gravity should be unimaginably huge—though less than a black hole's, still terrifying enough. At such proximity to Pluto, it should inevitably exert dramatic influence.
And yet this wormhole was as if illusory, hanging in space without showing any mass or gravitational disturbance in its surroundings.
To this, Alt Cunningham explained:
"Strictly speaking, this is not a wormhole in the traditional sense. It is a projection from higher-dimensional space into lower-dimensional space, constructed using the Unified Field Equation."
"All the gravity is contained within, and does not manifest externally."
When the Unified Field Equation was mentioned, Cunningham could not help but marvel again. She had never seen such a beautiful equation. The formula, written personally by Li Ang, perfectly filled the Corporation's gaps in high-dimensional wormhole theory.
Of course, this equation had come from the Interstellar universe—an earlier reward Li Ang had drawn.
In Interstellar, wormholes had indeed been created by future humanity using the Unified Field Equation, in order to escape their crisis.
Now, using it to construct a concealed wormhole was more than fitting.
Hearing Cunningham's explanation, Paul quickly remembered something else and asked:
"So this universe still supports superluminal warp? Aren't you afraid of revealing your position?"
Luo Ji clearly had not yet grasped how this wormhole differed from conventional ones.
Soon, Cunningham explained again:
"This universe truly cannot sustain hyperspace jumps to achieve superluminal travel. This wormhole is not a gateway to hyperspace, but to higher-dimensional space."
In the Three-Body universe, the ultimate limit of conventional space was the speed of light. To surpass light speed without being noticed required entry into higher-dimensional space.
And civilizations able to move freely in and out of higher-dimensional space were all god-level. Such civilizations rarely interfered with one another.
The Three-Body universe had long passed its "Hundred Schools Contend" era of divine wars. Now it was the brutal zero-sum age—every god-civilization busy plundering matter to build pocket universes.
Dismantling higher-dimensional space, eradicating weaker civilizations, and looting resources—this was their true main task.
To engage in prolonged, futile struggles with other great powers was the height of folly.
It was like the Warring States period of ancient China: the priority was to destroy smaller, weaker states first, avoiding direct clashes with other major powers.
What's more, the wormhole constructed by the Corporation only spanned a range of about 100 light years. In the vast galaxy, that was nothing.
The chance of encountering another advanced civilization was very small.
Luo Ji pondered. As discussions deepened, he gradually pieced together the situation of the Three-Body universe.
When he learned that this universe was already marching toward death, his heart was restless.
A crucial realization struck him: those pocket universes excavated from the Three-Body cosmos—perhaps they had forever broken away from the parent universe.
They have hollowed out this universe, leaving only death as its final destiny.
So what meaning could there be in Megacorp uniting a universe that is already dying?
"We're here."
As they spoke, the ship had already drawn close to the vast dark-matter wormhole. The Enterprise fleet that had gone ahead had already passed through it, and now they followed, slipping slowly after the rearguard.
In that moment, the ship seemed to fall into a pitch-black, silent abyss. They were entering the wormhole's surface.
The instant they crossed into its depths, a mighty pull—like a taut slingshot—hurled the ship from lower dimensions into higher ones, collapsing the endless distance of three-dimensional space in a blink.
Amid the shifting higher dimensions, Luo Ji beheld countless warped rays and lines, the entire universe twisted into a narrow, elongated tunnel before his eyes.
The Trisolaris system, once impossibly distant, now seemed only a step away.
"Alpha Centauri. We've arrived."
Alt Cunningham gave a faint smile. Such was the infinite convenience of technology—at the highest speed of a stellar-class warship, it would have taken at least two thousand years to reach Trisolaris.
But with a higher-dimensional wormhole, they needed only an instant.
Luo Ji was still overwhelmed by what he had just experienced.
The sensation of entering higher space was uncanny: countless stars shrank into mere points on a map, the vast universe compressed into something no larger than a chamber, everything suddenly insignificant.
As they walked this higher-dimensional corridor, it felt very much like the ancient legends of shrinking the earth to a single stride.
When Luo Ji voiced this fanciful thought, Cunningham showed no surprise, merely nodded calmly: "The pastoral age of the Trisolaran universe may well have been exactly like a mythic age."
"This kind of passage through higher dimensions is nothing more than the most basic trick of a god-level civilization. Their superluminal leaps can be even faster than this."
Luo Ji, sharp scientist that he was, easily grasped the meaning. Thinking of Trisolaris's bygone pastoral era, he could not help but feel sorrow.
Perhaps Adam and Eve were destined to leave Eden, just as the Trisolaran universe was destined to die.
Rising to prosperity, then falling into decline—this is the iron law.
With the wormhole's shortcut, Megacorp's expeditionary corps took less than a week to reach Trisolaris.
Meanwhile, the Hyperion, running at full speed, and the two Trisolaran ships sent ahead to deliver news had only just arrived here within the past three days.
Everything fell into place with uncanny precision.
The moment they entered the system, the first sight before them was the blazing light of three suns.
Unlike Alpha Centauri in other universes, where a binary pair and Proxima move in stable, predictable orbits—ideal for colonization—this Trisolaran Alpha Centauri was something else.
Here, the three stars danced like demons, weaving strange, twisted arcs.
Not even the Infinite Divine Engine could calculate where the suns would drift next.
The consequence was that Trisolarans saw different numbers of suns in their skies each day, rising from different directions.
This chaos had forged their hellish system: once, they had ten homeworlds, but one by one the three suns devoured them all.
Only a single surviving world remained—and even that endured no peace.
Sometimes it suffered months of frozen darkness; other times, years of relentless drought.
And those were the "good days."
When all three suns rose together, the planet baked like an iron griddle, rivers of lava flooding everything, the entire world plunged into apocalypse.
It was in this chaos that Trisolaran civilization was born.
After more than two hundred cycles of destruction and rebirth, their minds became rigid, numb, and cold.
Rich and delicate emotions flourish only in stable, secure environments.
Here, in a perilous system, emotion itself was a flaw—only a source of endless pain and torment.
That is why they were so obsessed with conquering the Solar System. Compared to their shifting chaos, the Solar System was paradise.
Seasons flowed in order, the sun rose and set with stability, the rhythm of the year was clear.
It was as if the Creator had bestowed this world with deliberate mercy.
How could humanity alone deserve such a home?
Before long, Megacorp's First Expeditionary Legion locked onto Trisolaris.
The Solar System boasted eight major planets, but here in Trisolaris, only this lone survivor remained.
All the others had long been devoured. Now, the three suns stalked like hunting fireballs, dragging their fragile companion world through space.
At any moment, the civilization clinging to it might be torn apart by its own stars.
"That the Trisolarans could survive in such a hostile place is almost beyond belief."
Luo Ji, gazing at the sight, could not suppress a gasp of astonishment. He noticed a satellite orbiting nearby.
From its appearance, that moon had likely been ripped away by the suns' shifting orbits.
Indeed, three stars in irregular motion would inevitably draw dangerously close to the planet. The tidal forces of the Roche limit would then tear it apart.
The end result: Trisolaris had a piece bitten off, which, under its own gravity, over countless ages reshaped itself into two rough ellipsoids.
Such apocalyptic upheavals forever haunted the Trisolarans, reminding them that death might arrive any day—tomorrow, next month, or at the whim of their stars.
To protect the fleet, V sent only a vanguard closer to the precarious world.
As expected, the Trisolarans had emptied themselves in their bid for the Solar System. There were few orbital defenses, no serious space fleet.
Sophon and droplet, the expedition fleet—these had drained nearly all their civilization's resources. Even maintaining stability at home was a struggle. How could they spare anything for planetary defenses?
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