novelraw Chapter 434
Chapter 434
In an instant, millions of bright blue exhaust plumes, like light swords, pierced through the thick, moisture-rich atmosphere, pointing directly into space.
Under the impact of these high-speed plumes, the material molecules composing the atmosphere also acquired extremely high kinetic energy, rushing into space like mud swept away by a breaching flood.
After only one month of operation, the thickness of this planet's atmosphere was reduced by about 1%.
Although it was only 1%, converted, it meant a mass of about 700 trillion tons, which was equivalent to about one-seventh of Earth's total atmospheric mass.
This month of full propulsion also brought the rotation of this massive rocky planet to a screeching halt. The cost was that the entire globe entered a geologically active period, with frequent volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.
Of course, this had no impact on Tom.
After stopping, the planetary engines restarted, beginning to decelerate its revolution, causing it to fall towards the star.
This process lasted for about 10 years, until its distance from the star shortened to only 2 million kilometers before stopping.
It's worth noting that the diameter of this star alone is about 1.5 million kilometers; a mere 2 million kilometers distance means this planet has already entered the star's atmosphere.
Even if Tom no longer interfered in the future, due to constant friction with stellar material, this planet would eventually fall into the star within a million years due to continuous deceleration.
Its ultimate demise was inevitable.
Even if it had not yet perished, it had already been severely affected.
Due to constant friction with stellar material and the strong stripping effect of stellar radiation, its own thick atmosphere began to thin rapidly at a rate hundreds of thousands of times higher than before.
It is estimated that the entire atmosphere will completely disappear in just a few decades.
This also triggered a series of peculiar changes.
Although the temperature on the side facing the star again sharply climbed, even reaching a level capable of melting metal and covering that entire side of the planet with scorching lava, the temperature on the back side sharply decreased due to the lack of atmospheric insulation and convection effects, with even substances like water ice, methane ice, and dry ice beginning to appear.
One side was extremely hot, the other extremely cold; it could truly be considered a real hell of ice and fire.
By this point, Tom's massive industrial construction was almost complete, and the plan immediately entered its second phase.
Using this planet as a base, with an almost endless supply of materials, countless unmanned warships, space mine clusters, turrets, satellites, missiles, and so on were scattered into circum-stellar orbit.
The production of manned warships also entered a state of frenzy.
One Mercury-class, Venus-class, Earth-class, Mars-class, and even the largest Jupiter-class battleship emerged from the shipyards like an assembly line.
The production of Jupiter-class battleships was too difficult, and the output was limited; no matter how much effort was concentrated, rapid production was impossible, but other types of warships were different.
In a short period, Tom increased the number of Mercury-class battleships to over ten million!
Of these many warships, only a minority could be controlled by Tom; the majority were stockpiled by him.
As for the only strategic weapon, the Universal Force Field, the production speed of components was limited, but the production of clones could be accelerated. Thus, with the construction of large hibernation bases, the number of clones stockpiled under Tom's command rapidly increased: fifty billion, one hundred billion, two hundred billion...
The Electromagnetic Life forms were all released onto the star, beginning to cooperate with the "Shepherd Electric" fleet assembled by Tom himself, researching and training new tactics, striving to further enhance their offensive power.
Time flew by rapidly; in just a few years, this star was armed by Tom like an impenetrable fortress.
This was the strategic deployment made by Tom and the Moraise civilization after joint discussion.
Relying on the star, primarily on Electromagnetic Life forms, supplemented by their almost countless gravity-level manned and unmanned combat facilities, they would confront the approaching Dark Energy-level Star Beasts at the edge of the star!
Yes, just confronting, not defeating.
Tom had already made it clear that even if the Dark Energy Star Beasts did not use their full strength, and even if their side revealed all their trump cards, defeating the Dark Energy Star Beasts was impossible.
Tom's intention was only to confront them.
As long as they could withstand the first few waves of attacks from the Dark Energy Star Beasts, making them helpless like a tiger facing a hard-shelled turtle, and consistently failing to defeat their side, then they might resort to the attack their side desperately desired.
To use an attack likely primarily composed of tachyons, or rather, negons, to strike the star and detonate it!
This was a "flaw" Tom intentionally left for his opponents.
The situation was clear: Tom's side fully relied on the star to build defenses, and due to the presence of Electromagnetic Life forms, they had a significant advantage around the star. If the Star Beast side could not break through the defenses in a short time, they would almost certainly think of attacking the star.
If their side had the ability to detonate the star, why wouldn't they?
Once the star, this large bomb, was detonated, then the defenses built around the star, no matter how sturdy, would be instantly annihilated.
Reviewing the entire plan, Tom and the high-ranking officials of the Moraise civilization were all aware that there were only two potential loopholes in the plan.
The first was whether their side could withstand the first few waves of attacks from the Dark Energy Star Beasts.
After all, only by withstanding these attacks and rendering the Dark Energy Star Beasts helpless against them would they potentially directly attack the star, attempting to use this method to annihilate their defenses.
After comprehensive analysis, Tom believed that even if their side revealed all their trump cards—Electromagnetic Life forms plus Universal Force Field plus the full star defense system—and the Dark Energy Star Beasts did not use their full strength, the probability of their side withstanding their first few rounds of attacks was only about 20%.
The second loophole, or rather, key point, was whether the Dark Energy Star Beasts had the ability to directly attack the star with negons and detonate it.
On this point, after comprehensive analysis, Tom and the high-ranking officials of the Moraise civilization unanimously agreed that the probability was also about 20%. After all, Dark Energy level also had stages, and Star Beasts or civilizations in the early Dark Energy level might not possess such large-scale offensive capabilities.
Multiplying the two 20% probabilities, the final probability was only 4%. Furthermore, the detonation of the star and the opening of a space channel for their escape was only their conjecture; even if it was generously estimated at a 10% probability, the final probability of their escape was only about 0.4%.
A final probability of 0.4%...
"What a despairing probability..."
Tom sighed softly: "And, even if it truly succeeds and we escape the Star Beast Nation, we might still be captured again the next moment.
But, as the saying goes, you have to take things one step at a time; let's complete the task at hand first."
The all-star defense line had been successfully constructed, but Tom still did not stop the engineering progress, continuing to frantically produce more combat supplies to supplement it.
As if sensing that Tom was ready, a massive Star Beast cluster finally stirred in a relatively inner solar system.
A total of approximately ten million Star Beasts gathered from various planets, disappearing at a distance of less than three trillion kilometers from the star, entering superluminal travel.
And in just another 4 months, they appeared at a location only 3.2 trillion kilometers from the star where Tom was located.