195: Chapter 195 A million-strong fleet sets out, and I'll just send out a notification as a side note.

Zhang Yi watched his balance drop by another two million from six million, finally stopping at four million, and refreshedly stretched his shoulders and neck.

When it came to bargaining, he had never lost.

He switched the system interface to the deployment map and pulled his perspective to the periphery of the Solar System.

About five light-years away from the Solar System lay a patch of pitch-black interstellar void without any known celestial bodies.

He selected that "mixed fleet":

One thousand genuine Zeta Star Starships, plus 999,000 holographic illusion Starships,

Dragged them all to the exact center of that void area, and then pressed the deployment button.

Then, he pulled his perspective back to a position about four light-years away from the Solar System, selected the illusion version of the Three-Body Star System he had just bargained for, and pressed deployment again.

After doing all this, he leaned back against the sofa and took a sip from his coffee cup.

The coffee in the cup had gone completely cold, but the arc of the corners of his mouth was warmer than when it was freshly brewed.

Through the system interface, he looked at the interstellar void he had gently double-clicked twice just now, knowing that at this moment, no telescope on Earth could capture those things,

The delay of the speed of light determined that it would still take some time for their existence to reach human retinas.

But when they arrived, all of humanity would have all their cognitive defenses simultaneously pierced by that massive fleet and bizarre Three-Body Star System suddenly emerging from the darkness.

He set down his coffee cup, his tone calm and leisurely, like predicting an astrophysical phenomenon where all variables had been calculated and it was just waiting for the time window to trigger automatically.

"The good show is about to begin."

"When the light from that million-strong fleet and that illusion star system reaches Earth, all of humanity's fear, shock, despair, and fanaticism will all become mine for the taking."

At the same time, five light-years away from the Solar System, in the interstellar void.

In pure darkness without any known celestial bodies, any interstellar dust clouds, or any civilization signals,

Space itself suddenly seemed to be torn apart from the inside by an invisible giant hand,

A spatial rift spanning tens of thousands of kilometers silently bloomed, its edges shimmering with faint blue ionization ripples.

What poured out from the rift was not light, nor energy pulses, but Starships.

Dense rows of Zeta Star Starships poured out one after another from the depths of the rift at extremely high speeds,

Their hull surfaces were covered with deep bronze chitin armor, and the bottom edge of every flying saucer was embedded with a ring of pale green annular propulsion bands, dragging extremely faint ion trails in the void.

They poured out one after another, their numbers rapidly climbing from dozens at the beginning to hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands...

Then the rift itself began to expand, transforming from a linear crack into a huge circular through-opening, and behemoths of the mothership class began to slowly sail out from it.

The volume of those motherships far exceeded any flying saucer that had poured out before,

The width of the bow alone was enough to swallow the entire Manhattan Island,

The surface of the deep bronze chitin armor was densely covered with compound-eye-like sensor arrays, with each compound eye synchronously flashing a very low-brightness dark green cold light.

The frigate groups surrounding the mothership were arranged in extremely neat geometric arrays,

Attack aircraft formations continuously poured out from the launch hatches at the bottom of the mothership, forming multiple progressively deployed trapezoidal wave fronts in front of the fleet.

When the last mothership completely sailed out of the spatial rift, the full picture of the entire fleet was finally completely presented in this dark void only five light-years away from the Solar System:

One million Starships!

Every single one maintained precise formation spacing, and every layer of the array was strictly nested according to certain geometric rules far exceeding human military theory.

The light of the fleet itself gathered together, reflecting this originally completely dark void into a flowing sea of light intertwined with faint green and dark bronze.

At the exact center of this million-strong fleet, guarded layer upon layer by countless layers of escort arrays, was a giant Starship whose size far exceeded the mothership class:

The Star Destroyer "Eternal Night".

Its shape was not a flying saucer, but a nearly inverted triangular pyramid. Its base was wide enough to allow an escort fleet to dock in formation, and the height from the base to the apex of the cone was enough to pierce Earth's atmosphere.

Its shell was no longer the deep bronze chitin armor of ordinary flying saucers, but a layer of extremely deep and dark pure black quasi-crystalline material,

Its surface had no rivets, welds, or sensor openings, only a completely smooth absolute dark side that almost devoured all incident light.

Above its apex floated a faint blue energy core with a diameter of over tens of kilometers, its light stable and cold, like an artificial star imprisoned at the top of the hull.

Inside the Eternal Night, the central command dome.

This space was close to a small city, with a dome height exceeding hundreds of meters, and all four walls were covered by holographic tactical screens, rolling in real-time with the status data, formation positions, engine power, and weapon system warm-up progress of every single Starship in the million-strong fleet.

In the exact center of the dome was a huge spherical holographic star map suspended in mid-air,

The Solar System was marked at the very edge of the star map, and next to it was lit a neighboring coordinate point marked as the "Three-Body Star System".

Below the star map was a conical command platform rising from the ground, its surface embedded with constantly flashing touch light symbols.

Nailong, the Grand Commander of the Zeta Star Expeditionary Fleet, was kneeling on one knee in front of the command platform.

His figure was nearly two heads taller than an ordinary Grey Alien, and his grayish-white skin was covered with fine dark patterns,

Those were battle totems carved by the Zeta Star Royal Guard during the coming-of-age ceremony, with each pattern representing a campaign personally commanded.

He wore a deep black half-armor combat suit, with two faint blue light symbols embedded on his shoulders representing the rank of Grand Commander, and wore black tactical gloves matching the combat suit on his hands.

At this moment, he was kneeling on one knee with his head slightly lowered, and his huge black elliptical eyeballs reflected a holographic image playing above the dome:

The imperial edict from His Highness Fourth Prince Daodun.

Behind Nailong, a whole row of senior generals of the Zeta Star Expeditionary Fleet were all kneeling on one knee in the same posture, their light-symbol military ranks shimmering under the cold light of the dome.

"The command of His Highness the Fourth Prince: annihilate all humans."

Nailong's voice was deep and powerful, every syllable carrying a penetration like metal resonance, echoing repeatedly in this huge dome space,

"Our expeditionary fleet will strictly fulfill Your Highness's will!"

"Million-strong fleet, accelerate forward!"

After the generals behind him responded in unison, they stood up one after another, and the acceleration orders of each fleet on the holographic tactical screens lit up in turn.

Just at this moment,

A Zeta Star general walked out quickly from the control array on the right side of the command platform, touching one knee to the ground, positioning himself precisely at the standard communication reporting position half a step obliquely behind Nailong's right.

His carapace color was slightly lighter than ordinary generals, and a long-range communication officer insignia representing communication and interstellar foreign affairs liaison functions was embedded on his chest.

"Grand Commander, one light-year ahead is a stellar system named the 'Three-Body Star System'."

"There is a Level 2 civilization in this stellar system."

The long-range communication officer "Nanbei Lvdou" pushed a holographic briefing marking the basic parameters of the Three-Body Star System onto the secondary screen in front of Nailong. His tone was steady, but his wording was extremely prudent,

"When our million-strong fleet accelerates for transition next time, our trajectory will pass directly through the edge of this stellar system."

"To avoid causing unnecessary misunderstandings, should we send a communication to Trisolaris in advance to explain that we are merely passing through?"

Nailong moved his gaze away from the fleet acceleration progress table on the main screen, glanced at the small Three-Body Star System marked as a Level 2 civilization on the secondary screen, and his tone carried undisguised impatience:

"A mere Level 2 civilization deserves for our million-strong fleet to proactively say hello?"

Then he interrupted the silence himself, tapped the edge of the command platform lightly with his glove, and his tone suddenly switched from his previous arrogance back to a deeper impatience,

"However, His Highness the Fourth Prince has ordered that we must accelerate our forced march."

"To avoid unnecessary trouble, just casually send a communication to tell the Trisolarans:"

"We are a higher civilization from the Zeta Star System. This time we are merely passing by, and we have no intention of destroying them."

"Tell them to stay put and not make a fuss."