69: force

After the meeting, the representatives of the major powers left Tianqiong City with extremely complex emotions.

Their hearts were filled with shock, awe, unwillingness, and a trace of deep powerlessness.

The massive fleet Lei Wen had shown them, capable of crushing any existing military force on Earth, weighed heavily on everyone's heart like an insurmountable mountain.

From the moment Lei Wen showed his hand, this world actually had no other choice.

Upon returning to their respective countries, they immediately reported all details of the meeting and Lei Wen's ultimatum-like demands to their highest decision-making bodies.

After the initial shock and suspicion, rational analysis began to prevail.

Most visionary national leaders, especially those from major powers with seats on the Security Council, quickly reached the same conclusion.

"We have no choice."

At the highest-level meeting in Beijing, Academician Chen Haikang's voice was hoarse but firm.

"What Lei Wen showed us was not just his muscles, but a fact—in the coming interstellar war, our current fragmented and uncoordinated state of civilization has no chance of winning."

"A unified and efficient leadership core is our only path to survival."

In the Kremlin in Moscow, the president known for his iron fist also said to his generals: "Rather than being passively integrated, it is better to actively embrace change and strive for a more favorable position in the new order."

Even the European Union, which had always been wavering on major international affairs, reached a rare unified consensus after several rounds of emergency internal consultations—to support the establishment of an Earth Council with higher authority under the framework of the United Nations.

However, the entire Earth could not have only one voice.

When the "Emergency Proposal on Accelerating the Establishment of the Earth Council" was submitted to the United Nations General Assembly for discussion, many countries still expressed strong opposition and doubts.

These countries were mostly small and medium-sized nations with strong traditions of nationalism or religious beliefs.

They were unwilling to give up their hard-won sovereignty.

They were even more unwilling to hand over the command of their national armies to a so-called "Earth Council" dominated by a few major powers.

"This is imperialism of the new era!" A representative from a Middle Eastern country spoke passionately at the United Nations General Assembly, "You are just using a vague alien threat as an excuse to deprive us small countries of our right to self-defense and turn us into your vassals!"

"Our faith tells us that any attempt to establish a unified World Government is an act of hubris against God! We will never submit to such secular power!" Another representative from a religious country said righteously.

Their doubts and opposition also reached Lei Wen's ears through various channels.

Lei Wen sat in his command room, quietly watching the representatives arguing until their faces were red on the United Nations General Assembly screen, his face expressionless.

He knew that expecting everyone to put aside their prejudices and reach a consensus through peaceful negotiation and rational persuasion was an unrealistic fantasy.

The human species is sometimes like this.

They don't shed tears until they see the coffin.

Without being stung by real pain, they will never understand the true meaning of unity.

"It seems that the carrot alone is not enough," Lei Wen muttered to himself.

"A sufficiently thick stick is also needed."

He turned to the silver-haired girl beside him, who was boredly using nanomachines to transform into various small animal shapes in the air.

"Grey Wind," his voice became cold and resolute, "I need you to help me act in a play."

"Acting?" Grey Wind stopped what she was doing and looked at him curiously, "What kind of play? Do you want me to play an evil demon king?"

"Exactly," Lei Wen nodded, "I need you to play a true natural disaster."

He knew it was no longer the time for womanly kindness.

He had to use a "terrorist attack" sufficient to make the entire Earth civilization feel immense pressure to completely shatter the last shred of luck and fantasy in those people's hearts.

The target of this terrorist attack must be the few major powers with the greatest strength; only when seeing the strongest helpless will the other rabble realize the status quo.

For this, he had to coordinate with the leadership of a few countries first.

After all, everything is for Human Civilization.

...

Three days later.

A nightmare without warning descended.

The first to see abnormalities was the observatory in Hawaii.

Their all-weather surveillance system suddenly captured three unidentified objects rushing into the vicinity of Earth at a trajectory that defied all laws of physics.

"My God! Their speed... their speed is almost reaching the speed of light!" The observatory observer looked at the three flashing trajectory lines on the screen and let out a terrified scream.

Before they could report this alarm to the dome project command center, the three unidentified objects had already crossed hundreds of thousands of kilometers and arrived at Earth's atmosphere.

Their shapes were revealed as they passed through the atmosphere due to intense friction with the air.

It was a spindle-shaped aircraft full of cold, murderous beauty.

Pitch black all over, without any wings or thrusters, the surface as smooth as obsidian.

They were not large, only a dozen meters long.

But the capabilities they displayed were enough to make all military experts on Earth despair.

Under optical telescopes, they performed various incredible maneuvers within the atmosphere at a terrifying speed exceeding thirty times the speed of sound—right-angle turns, instant hovering, vertical climbing...

It was as if inertia and air resistance did not exist for them at all.

All military radars in the world were like blind men in front of them.

Their shells, made of special materials, seemed to perfectly absorb and deflect electromagnetic waves of all frequencies.

And when the fighter jets scrambled by various air forces tried to intercept them, a one-sided massacre began.

"Calling headquarters! I've been locked on! Missiles... oh, my god! That's not a missile!"

In the cockpit of an F-22 fighter jet, the pilot looked at the red dot that suddenly appeared on his radar screen rushing toward him at an incomprehensible speed, and let out the last exclamation of his life.

He didn't even have time to make any evasive maneuvers.

From discovery to being struck, it took less than three seconds.

A black "thin line," thinner than a laser and seemingly capable of cutting through space, flashed past from the front of that spindle-shaped aircraft.

The F-22's airframe, made of the most advanced composite materials, was silently split in two like butter cut by a hot knife.

Only two halves of burning wreckage fell toward the ground.

These three unmanned fighter jets, like black reapers, were in the Earth's atmosphere as if entering an unpopulated area.

They did not attack any civilian targets.

Their targets were very clear—all military facilities of the nations.

In New York Harbor, an unmanned fighter jet slowly hovered above the Statue of Liberty.

It faced the Federal Second Fleet below, which had just assembled and was preparing to go to Europe for peacekeeping missions.

A strange blue halo suddenly lit up beneath its fuselage.

The next second, the electronic equipment on all warships of the Second Fleet—from radar to navigation systems, to weapon fire control systems—exploded with electric sparks at the same instant, and then completely paralyzed.

An entire carrier battle group turned into a pile of steel coffins floating on the sea in just a few seconds.

At an intercontinental missile silo base in Russia, another unmanned fighter jet demonstrated its power in a more violent way.

It did not use any weapons.

It just slammed into the silo cover of the reinforced concrete underground launch silo, which was dozens of meters thick, like a meteorite at an extremely high speed.

However, the violent explosion that was expected did not happen.

At the moment of impact, the form of the unmanned fighter jet suddenly changed.

It suddenly expanded into a huge sphere with a diameter of three hundred meters, and then returned to its original state after just a few seconds.

And the area covered after it expanded into a sphere was empty, leaving nothing behind.

...

Panic.

Unprecedented panic swept across the entire Earth.

In the technological leap of the past few years, the pitiful confidence and pride that humanity had built up because of having nuclear fusion and the voyager.

Were completely crushed in front of these three black drones that looked like gods descending.

Everyone desperately realized a fact.

Those most advanced weapons we were proud of—aircraft carriers, stealth fighters, intercontinental missiles...

Were as fragile as children's toys in front of a true interstellar civilization.

And just as the entire Human Civilization was shrouded in an atmosphere of despair and fear.

A declaration without any emotional color rang out simultaneously in all communication devices that could still work on this planet through a method that could not be blocked.

【We are the Faleim Scientific Conglomerate.】

【What you have just seen is only the lowest-end drone that has long been eliminated in our civilization, and an insignificant one among the thousands of advance teams we have sent to various star systems.】

【Our main fleet will arrive in half a year.】

【At that time, you will have two choices.】

【Either offer your loyalty, become a part of our great Conglomerate, and accept our guidance and transformation.】

【Or, in front of our fleet capable of purifying the stars, turn into cosmic dust.】

【The choice is in your hands.】

【Do not disappoint us.】

The declaration ended.

But the fear it brought was like an ever-present shadow, covering the heart of every Earthling.

The third day after the attack.

In the United Nations headquarters meeting hall, which was once full of quarrels and buck-passing, it was dead silent at this moment.

Those representatives who once refused to give an inch for their own country's petty interests were now sitting in their seats, faces ashen, without saying a word.

In the face of an irresistible death threat, all differences and contradictions seemed so ridiculous and meaningless.

The Chinese Representative slowly stood up, looked around at everyone present, and said in a heavy voice like never before:

"I think no one opposes the 'Integration Process of the Earth Council' anymore, right?"

This time, no one raised any objections.

Everyone silently pressed the green button in front of them that represented "Agree."

In the face of the fear of annihilation, Human Civilization was finally forced to move toward unification in the most embarrassing and helpless way.

And in the underground command room of Tianqiong City, Lei Wen looked at the result of the unanimously passed motion on the screen, the corners of his mouth twitching slightly.

He gently stroked the head of the silver-haired girl beside him, who was eating potato chips while watching anime.

"Grey Wind," he said softly.

"Well done."