Humanity is missing, luckily I have billions of clones-Chapter 313: Investigation

Tom traversed a journey of hundreds of light-years, taking less than 130 years, including deceleration time.

When there were still hundreds of billions of kilometers left to reach the star, and the surrounding space was largely devoid of macroscopic celestial bodies, Tom had already released tens of billions of probes, forming a vast net to conduct a grid-like search of all space within this solar system.

This continued until the main fleet entered the solar system and docked around the nearest large planet.

At this moment, the enormous star was still in a relatively violent state.

Normally, given its mass and elemental composition, it should not have such a high surface temperature and such intense radiation.

Tom knew the reason.

Of course, it was because it had suffered a violent bombardment thousands of years ago.

The aerospace carrier carrying the Electromagnetic Creatures moved forward, opening a passage, and numerous Electromagnetic Creatures, led by Electric Disaster, arrived on the star.

After a long while, a message was sent to Tom.

"I can clearly sense that my ancestors once lived on this star.

But now, they are all gone."

Evidently, the Purple Moon Civilization took them all when they left.

"Can the Purple Moon Civilization control all your ancestors even when you Electromagnetic Creatures hide on a star?"

"Yes. The Purple Moon Civilization’s technology is very advanced; the special spacecraft they built can approach the star very closely. We were unable to break free from the Purple Moon Civilization’s control at that time."

Can approach the star very closely...

Tom pondered silently.

That was something even he couldn’t do. From this alone, the power of the Purple Moon Civilization could be seen.

However...

"When I find the Purple Moon Civilization and defeat it, perhaps you and your ancestors will have a chance to reunite."

Tom still made a solemn promise.

"Thank you."

Leaving the Electromagnetic Creatures to operate on the star, Tom focused his attention on the many planets orbiting it.

These planets were desolate and lifeless, with no trace of any life or artificial structures having ever existed.

However, there were very obvious traces of violent explosions on them.

Clearly, before leaving this solar system, the Purple Moon Civilization also adopted the same method as himself, using hydrogen bombs to clear all traces they left behind.

Large-scale, grid-like searches failed to find any valuable clues in this solar system.

Tom also began attempting to use the method the Mechanical Disaster used to track him, analyzing exhaust trails, trying to find any faint traces of the Purple Moon fleet’s exhaust in space.

But unfortunately, Tom was once again disappointed.

Too much time had passed; even without the influence of stellar radiation and the self-movement of interstellar dust, those traces had completely dissipated and could no longer be distinguished from the vast void.

This search seemed to be fruitless.

"If it’s fruitless, then so be it. At least the starting point of the Purple Moon Civilization’s route has been confirmed. Following their trajectory, I should still be able to find some traces."

Tom thought to himself, temporarily setting aside this issue and beginning preparations for the next long voyage.

At this moment, the radius of the Flying Star had shrunk to only 20 kilometers, and its total mass was less than one percent of its peak, so it needed to be replenished again.

While busily constructing an industrial system to acquire resources from this solar system, Tom also did not forget to continue with scientific research tasks and maneuvered the vast number of warships to conduct real-world combat exercises and confrontations again within this solar system.

This confrontation included both manned warships and unmanned combat forces.

Although Primal was powerful, there was no end to its performance improvement and self-growth; a little more training would make it a little stronger.

As for manned warships, it is worth mentioning that after thoroughly digesting the technological data of the Havilah and Black Mountain civilizations, Tom’s maximum consciousness connection count experienced another significant increase.

At this moment, the number of clones Tom could simultaneously control had risen to approximately 10 billion, and including those prepared for the Unified Force Field, the total number of clones under his command had increased to 30 billion.

However, the number of warships Tom could control simultaneously had decreased, from 4 million during the confrontation with the Havilah-Mechanical Disaster Alliance to half that amount.

He estimated that if a full-scale war were to break out now, while ensuring the logistics and industrial system operated at full capacity, he could only control approximately 2 million warships simultaneously.

There was no other way; the performance of the warships had improved, the technology was more advanced, and their complexity had correspondingly increased.

In the past, a mere ten clones could control a smallest Mercury-class battleship, but now that number had surged to sixty.

The largest Mars-class battleship required tens of thousands of clones to work together to unleash its maximum combat power.

However, although the overall number of warships had decreased, the overall combat power had increased by more than ten times compared to before.

This could be seen from the impact of the warring parties on the surrounding environment during live-fire exercises. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Often, a single ordinary stray bullet could create a crater more than ten meters in diameter on a planet’s surface. A medium-scale battle in just one exercise caused an entire massive gas giant to heat up and begin glowing.

Tom was even confident that he could defeat a previous Venus-class battleship without damage using only one of the smallest Mercury-class battleships he currently possessed.

Dozens of Mercury-class battleships combined could even defeat a previous Earth-class battleship.

A total of no more than 400,000 warships would be enough to completely defeat the Havilah-Mechanical Disaster Alliance at its previous peak.

This was the visible increase in combat power that technological advancement brought to Tom.

Sixty years passed in a hurry. In just this short amount of time, Tom completed all resource collection tasks in this solar system.

The Flying Star’s radius had once again climbed to 150 kilometers, and all spacecraft had completed maintenance, their status restored to peak performance.

The previously empty transport spacecraft and numerous warehouses were once again filled with various supplies.

It was time to set sail again.

Under the bright exhaust flames, the massive fleet, following the path of the long-departed Purple Moon Civilization, accelerated simultaneously along a direction 16 degrees off the Galactic Core, and numerous spacecraft once again entered the vast deep space.