Vill-V pulled the brass whistle.
"Woooooo—!" The sound reverberated throughout the Fog Forest.
If anyone could have seen the mysterious train racing through the Fog Forest, they undoubtedly would have been astonished.
Unfortunately, this place had already been plowed into something resembling an underground world.
Not only that, but biological toxins now permeated this subterranean region. No living human could possibly survive here.
Upon hearing the train whistle, a mechanical voice suddenly rang out from within the fog.
"Peace!" it declared in an ancient Indo-European language.
An unknown electromagnetic pulse slammed into the front of Cosmic Juggernaut in an instant.
Yet the massive electromagnetic pulse had no effect whatsoever on Cosmic Juggernaut. Cosmic Juggernaut, which wielded authority over space itself, was invincible.
"Yes, yes, I know you love peace... Run it over! Key of Eternal Calamity—Su Cosmic Juggernaut."
Driving Su-powered Cosmic Juggernaut, Vill-V tore through the fog. With a spatial blink, the train slammed into the unprepared "Tenmon Soji," its sharp cowcatcher launching both "Tenmon Soji" and the underground ore behind it into the sky.
"@#%@..." "Tenmon Soji" let out a bizarre scream of agony.
Rumble—
Cosmic Juggernaut ignored Earth's inertia entirely, accelerating at an exponentially explosive rate. Even its own sonic booms could not keep up and were left far behind.
A moment later, the sound of air friction disappeared.
Everything around them had become the pitch-black void of space. In a single encounter, Cosmic Juggernaut had already charged straight off Earth.
This was also Vill-V's first time entering outer space in this life.
In her previous life, Vill-V had spent almost her entire existence in space. The universe had practically become her second home.
From the moment humanity first reached toward the stars, the stars had begun staring back.
Then again, perhaps humanity had already encountered the stars tens of thousands of years ago, during the civilization before the Previous Era. But that was not something Vill-V needed to consider right now.
What Magician cared about was how to liven up the atmosphere and create surprises.
Magician found this sudden silence unbearably boring. Silence and darkness could all too easily extinguish a person's enthusiasm.
Magician snapped her fingers, and Cosmic Juggernaut's headlights illuminated "Tenmon Soji" from every direction, bathing it in brilliant light.
"Now this is much more atmospheric for outer space. Stage lights on! The show's about to begin!"
"Xipa!"
"Tenmon Soji" did not care in the slightest. It had no eyes to begin with, so no matter how powerful the beams of light were, they could not interfere with its movements.
Star-like patterns flickered across its back as a boson-particle barrier unfolded before it, blocking Cosmic Juggernaut's spatial severance.
Immediately afterward, new arms extended from "Tenmon Soji's" back and braced themselves in front of it.
Then came more arms.
And more.
Countless human hands tore through the spatial partition and grabbed onto Cosmic Juggernaut's triangular cowcatcher.
Creak.
The sound of twisting metal rang out as the triangular cowcatcher was forcibly bent out of shape.
Even the cockpit shook violently under the tremendous force.
Vill-V stumbled around inside the cockpit before finally managing to grab a handrail.
Seeing her signature masterpiece damaged, Expert complained irritably, "Since when could a boson-particle field cancel the Second Divine Key's spatial severance? Is this supposed to be a tribute to an AT Field?"
Conductor spread her hands. "Maybe nobody in the Three-Body universe ever performed a similar experiment? Besides, the underlying logic of the Honkai universe and the Three-Body universe is different."
Expert nodded. "After all, in the Three-Body universe, even the laws of physics can be arbitrarily altered by advanced civilizations. Something similar may also occur in the Honkai universe. We'll have to include it in the deviation statistics."
Id: "Huh? The Honkai universe can have things like that too...? Uh, maybe we shouldn't be discussing this right now. Aren't we supposed to use Cosmic Juggernaut's teleportation to exile this alien into outer space? Or throw it into the Sun and burn it up?"
A peculiar ripple swirled inside Tenmon Soji's mouth.
Needless to say, nothing good would happen if it were allowed to release whatever that was.
Conductor shook her head, rejecting Id's proposal. "Absolutely not. How could we send something this dangerous somewhere beyond our control? Every possible seed of danger must be strangled in the cradle."
"Exactly, exactly! We can't keep the audience waiting!"
Magician removed her top hat and tossed a few "little gadgets" into it.
Then, from who knew where, she dug out an old-fashioned film camera from the 1860s or 1870s, switched it on, and filled the cockpit with the mechanical scrape of its moving parts and the click-click of the shutter.
In front of the lens, Magician's brown hair floated in the weak gravity, her eyes glittering like stars as she thrust out her chest with a resolute expression.
"Ta-da! Dear members of the audience, this is a historic moment!"
Magician spread both arms, thrusting her chest forward with overwhelming momentum. "You will have the honor of witnessing humanity's first contact with extraterrestrial life!"
"What? You're saying this alien is fake? That it's all chemicals? Technology and trickery? Hmmmm."
"The stage lighting uses attosecond light pulses across the 3 Hz to 10^19 Hz frequency range, while this frontline camera I developed is also capable of collecting attosecond light pulses across those frequencies. Feel free to analyze the data and determine whether this is real."
"This is an exhilarating moment. And now, I, Vill-V, shall represent humanity in offering our most sincere greetings to the extraterrestrial!"
"The alien wants peace, so naturally I must satisfy its desperate wish and present it with humanity's traditional greeting—nuclear peace!"
Magician violently swept her right hand outward, and the space before Cosmic Juggernaut erupted in dazzling brilliance.
"Planet-Destroying Bomb! Audience members seated in the front row, please savor this once-in-a-lifetime feast!"
Unlike a nuclear explosion, the Planet-Destroying Bomb erupted immediately into blue light and torrents of plasma current.
"On behalf of humanity, I hereby... declare war on you!"
The light swallowed "Tenmon Soji" in an instant.
...
"Outrageous!"
Inside the highest-level office of Heliopolis Life Sciences, a little boy gnashed his teeth and hurled the jeweled teacup in his hand at the screen.
He was Granny Tao's grandson, yes, but only in terms of the body's genetics.
In truth, he had long since been replaced by the memory construct of "Magellan," a high-ranking member of MOTH... using technology provided by the aliens.
As long as he continued replacing his body with younger ones, he could remain eternally youthful and forever enjoy the supreme authority in his hands!
But all of it had been disrupted by Vill-V's sudden declaration of war.
Using her authority as a MOTH department head, Vill-V had distributed this video to every high-ranking member of MOTH. Every one of them could now watch this historic Interstellar Civilization Summit.
And this Interstellar Civilization Summit was clearly going terribly, completely disrupting the plans of every MOTH senior official within Heliopolis Life Sciences.
"But surely it wouldn't believe one-sided claims, would it? Normal people don't believe what their enemies say."
And purely in terms of rhetoric, how could Vill-V alone possibly represent the opinion of all humanity?
Everyone thought differently!
The moment Magellan finished speaking, the various machines surrounding him began behaving abnormally.
Countless highly mechanical guns and cannons "grew" from every direction, all aiming directly at "Magellan."
Cold sweat poured down Magellan's face.
It believed her.
It believed her completely.
"Uh... is there still room for negotiation?"
His answer was a baptism of countless cannon blasts.