Humanity is missing, luckily I have billions of clones - Chapter 418: Giant Extractors
"As expected of the strategic weapon I specifically developed, as expected of the offensive I launched at the cost of hundreds of billions of clone lives and decades of industrial accumulation.
Now, while these Star Beasts are in a state of panic and fear, quickly eliminate them, swiftly deal with the Moraise civilization, and then immediately withdraw!"
Tom launched another offensive. But the development of the situation once again exceeded Tom’s expectations.
Tom saw that after 70% of their companions were instantly killed by him, these Star Beasts, although no longer able to launch attacks like gravity disruption, did not fall into panic and fear as he had anticipated.
They became even more ferocious, their attacks more intense, fighting with a complete disregard for their lives.
If it were simply like this, it wouldn’t be much; it would just take a bit more effort to eliminate them. But...
The number of Star Beasts emerging from the ice giant to provide support actually increased again!
Tom had originally thought that the ice giant was merely a habitat for the Star Beasts.
In the previous battles, these Star Beasts should have been mostly depleted, with not many left on the ice giant.
This could be seen from the decreasing number of Star Beasts emerging from beneath the ice giant’s clouds earlier.
But he hadn’t expected such a massive number of Star Beasts to still be hidden beneath the ice giant’s clouds?
Or, perhaps, they weren’t original Star Beasts hidden there, but rather... new offspring?
Were these newly appearing Star Beasts just born? Otherwise, why would they use such a piecemeal tactic? Why wouldn’t they commit all Star Beasts to the battlefield at once?
After a moment of comprehensive thought, Tom gradually began to lean towards the second hypothesis.
Given this, merely dealing with the Star Beasts on the rocky planet would not be enough.
So...
Tom’s fleet suddenly split into two parts at this moment. One part continued to besiege the rocky planet, firmly suppressing the Moraise civilization’s fleet to prevent their breakout, while the other fleet moved against the river of Star Beasts, composed of numerous waves of reinforcements, extending from the ice giant. They pushed this river back to the ice giant through continuous slaughter and attacks, then directly surrounded this gas planet completely.
At this moment, Tom finally confirmed his previous conjecture.
This ice giant was indeed more than just a habitat; it was a true nest where Star Beasts could reproduce and thrive.
The probes that flew into the ice giant allowed Tom to personally witness the Star Beasts’ reproductive process.
A massive Star Beast’s abdomen split open with a huge maw, and a hundred-ton infant Star Beast roared into existence, then immediately began to voraciously devour the gases within the ice giant, like a whale swallowing a swarm of shrimp, where the small shrimp are kept and the seawater is filtered out.
The interior of this ice giant was similar at this moment. Useless gases were directly expelled, while useful elements were retained within the body.
This infant Star Beast’s body grew rapidly, in just ten days, its mass surged from less than a thousand tons to over three thousand tons, and it was still growing rapidly!
In other parts of the ice giant, Tom also saw many Star Beasts, once their bodies reached a certain size—some at five thousand tons, some at ten thousand tons, seemingly with different weight limits depending on their "bloodline"—they would roar and rush out of the clouds into space, launching fierce attacks on Tom’s fleet.
Tom attempted to create some special models of spacecraft, suitable for combat within the atmosphere, based on the original Jupiter plane, and deployed them into this pale blue ice giant.
But soon, Tom found that this was completely useless.
Not to mention whether they could defeat and eliminate these Star Beasts within the atmosphere, simply finding these Star Beasts while surrounded by thick cloud layers was a huge problem.
Although the ice giant is smaller in mass and volume than gas giants like Jupiter, it is still extremely large, with a radius of about 25,000 kilometers and a volume dozens of times that of Earth.
Inside them, there also exists a hot and dense fluid composed of water, ammonia, and other volatile substances, under extremely high pressure and temperature, similar to the liquid metallic hydrogen oceans of gas giants.
There is evidence that these Star Beasts can even penetrate the fluid layer and delve into the ice giant’s core. And that place, even with Tom’s current level of technology, is inaccessible. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚
Overall, as long as this ice giant exists, these Star Beasts will always receive complete protection and cannot be completely eliminated by him.
Judging by the Star Beasts’ inability to communicate, their cruel and violent nature, and their sole focus on killing and attacking, as long as they are not eliminated, they will continuously produce offspring, constantly consuming a large amount of his energy, preventing him from freeing up his hands to deal with the Moraise civilization.
This was indeed a bit troublesome.
Tom’s mind spun, and a cold smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.
As long as this ice giant exists, I can’t do anything to you? Then I’ll destroy this ice giant! Let’s see where you can hide then!
While maintaining absolute suppression over the Moraise civilization to prevent them from escaping in the chaos, Tom had his massive fleet land on the closest rocky planet to the ice giant.
Originally, Tom, simultaneously fighting the Star Beast Disaster and the Moraise civilization, didn’t have enough energy to start constructing an industrial system.
However, the industrial products Tom needed this time were relatively simple and low in difficulty, which could be entirely entrusted to Primal, thus not occupying his somewhat strained biological intelligence.
On this desolate planet, a massive industrial system was rapidly set up and completed in just one year. After that, countless factories began to roar, and under the control of Primal, they began to produce one thing.
Yes, only one thing, and for Tom at this moment, it was something with little technological content.
Otherwise, Tom would not have been able to undertake production while simultaneously confronting two gravity-level entities.
The purpose of this thing was singular: gas extraction.
To extract the gases that make up this ice giant and send them into space!
It was clearly just a giant gas extractor.
This extractor had long pipes, reaching 500 kilometers, with spray-fixed devices at the top that kept one end constantly facing space, while the other end submerged 500 kilometers into the ice giant’s interior, equipped with fans, ramjets, and pressurization devices.
At this end, under pressures several times that of Earth’s atmosphere, and with the combined operation of those fans and multi-stage pressurization devices, the gases composing this ice giant would be accelerated to a speed of 21 kilometers per second when they reached the pipe’s exit.
The escape velocity from the surface of this ice giant was only 20.6 kilometers per second!
Once an object’s speed exceeds 20.6 kilometers per second, it will break free from its gravity field, enter space, and never return.
At this moment, the first batch of ten thousand giant gas extractors that Tom "installed" inside this ice giant had begun to operate.
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