Humanity is missing, luckily I have billions of clones.

Chapter 389 Drain it!
As these pumps started, a series of strange phenomena occurred in the atmosphere of this ice giant.

Under the combined attraction of various means such as fan suction, gravity attraction, and electromagnetic adsorption, the gas mixed with methane, water ice, helium, hydrogen and other substances in the atmosphere of the ice giant instantly surged in, as if a black hole that could contain infinite matter had appeared out of nowhere, and forcibly converged at the entrance of the pipe.

An unparalleled gale suddenly appeared in this area.

The climate above ice giants is already quite harsh, with gales, torrential rains, and thunderstorms never ceasing.

While the wind blowing above it won't break the sound barrier, it easily reaches speeds of over 250 meters per second. According to wind speed classifications on Earth, a wind speed of over 250 meters per second is roughly equivalent to a Force 40 gale.

This kind of wind force is completely impossible to occur on Earth because Earth does not have the environment to generate such wind force.

The theoretical maximum wind force that can occur on Earth is approximately level 20.

Under the force of the 40-level gale, these giant air extraction machines began to operate. In that instant, the wind speed near the air extraction machine inlet surged again, instantly exceeding the speed of sound.

The gases rubbed together violently, and their temperature instantly rose from tens of degrees below zero to over 200 degrees Celsius.

With the changes in temperature, conductivity, charge, friction, and other factors, an unprecedented and violent thunderstorm descended upon this area.

Various extreme weather phenomena have turned the area, totaling approximately 5 million square kilometers, where 10,000 giant air pumps are located, upside down.

But no matter how harsh the weather conditions, these giant air pumps always operate smoothly and are not affected by external factors.

This is a super machine manufactured using technology from a gravity-level civilization!

Don't be fooled by the fact that Li Qingsong's creation of these things seems simple, and that he can even delegate most of the work to the Primordial AI. These things are the culmination of all the technologies that Li Qingsong has developed over tens of thousands of years!
Even in the harsher environment on the surface of a star, they can still maintain normal operation for a period of time. How could a little breeze and drizzle on a small ice giant possibly damage them?

Endless streams of gas and various icy compounds poured into the pipes, where they began to be accelerated by pressure, electromagnetism, and gravity.

Their density and pressure increase rapidly, and their speed also begins to increase dramatically. This means that the enormous pressure and friction on the pipe walls would likely cause even the most robust steel can on Earth to burst instantly if placed here.

However, the tube wall, made of a strong core material, smoothly bore these high temperatures and pressures without undergoing any deformation.

Unable to breach the pipe wall, the pressure was forced to escape towards the outlet. The gas then rushed towards the outlet at an increasingly rapid speed, eventually exceeding the escape velocity of the ice giant.

They eventually burst forth at a speed of 21 kilometers per second, like a flood bursting its banks, and flew violently outwards from the planet, never to return.

These giant air pumps, each with a diameter of 32 meters, have a cross-sectional area of ​​approximately 800 square meters. Assuming a gas flow rate of 21 kilometers per second, a single pump would eject about 1500 million tons of gas into space every second. Ten thousand of these would amount to 1500 billion tons!

Even if Li Qingsong doesn't add more pumps, the sheer number of pumps alone would be enough to remove all the mass of this ice giant over approximately 1.8 years.

Compared to the billions of years that natural celestial bodies are often billions of years old, 1.8 years is nothing at all.

But Li Qingsong didn't want to wait even such a short time.

On that rocky planet, large-scale construction and production continued. In just one month, the second batch of giant air pumps was delivered to this ice giant.

Furthermore, the number of this batch of vacuum pumps is no longer ten thousand or twenty thousand units, but... one million units!
Once operational, the total mass of gas ejected into space every second that will never return immediately increased from 1500 billion tons per second to approximately 15 trillion tons per second!
An array of 101 million giant pumps covers an area of ​​approximately 5 million square kilometers, or about 7.6% of the total surface area of ​​this ice giant.

But despite its small size, the impact of this small area has spread to the entire planet.

This ice giant also experiences "monsoons." Depending on the seasons and the amount of stellar energy it receives, it often experiences global winds with roughly fixed direction and force, either from left to right or from right to left.

But at this moment, Li Qingsong abruptly reversed the direction of these monsoons. The global monsoons that originally blew from the Arctic to the Antarctic now blew simultaneously from all directions around the world toward this region that accounts for only 7.6% of the world's total area.

This is because the pressure is lowest here, and gas moves from areas of high pressure to areas of low pressure.

It's like a whirlpool appearing in a pond, causing all the water to converge towards it.

A total of 101 million giant pumps simultaneously pumped out 15 trillion tons of gas per second, or about 130 trillion tons per day, into space, finally bringing about significant changes to the other celestial bodies in space.

These gases move at extremely high speeds and carry a large amount of electrical charge. This ice giant is surrounded by numerous moons and a planetary ring system.

The first to be affected are planetary rings, which are mainly composed of interstellar dust and various small celestial bodies ranging in size from a few millimeters to tens of meters.

Although they are in a vacuum environment, and the gases extracted from the ice giants diffuse into interstellar dust as soon as they enter the vacuum, this interstellar dust still has a significant impact on them.

Under the influence of heat and charge from the high-speed collisions of these gas and dust molecules, the dust in the planetary rings gained higher kinetic energy, immediately broke free of its original orbit, and was swept away by these "winds" to rush into the deeper reaches of space.

Smaller celestial bodies with larger volumes and masses quickly met the same fate.

Just like the weathering process on Earth, these high-speed dust particles are gradually reduced in size under the impact and polishing of the dust, and eventually disappear completely.

They also turned into tiny dust particles, merging with the gases.

In just one month, more than ten million giant air pumps were turned on, and the magnificent rings of this ice giant were completely "blown away" and disappeared forever.

Not only the planetary rings, but also the large moons orbiting this ice giant were severely affected.

Satellites with atmospheres are experiencing rapid stripping of their atmospheres. Furthermore, due to violent gas collisions, the temperature of the atmosphere is rising rapidly. And because of the exchange of electrical charges, incredibly violent thunderstorms are commonly occurring in the atmospheres of these satellites.

The entire sky was filled with countless bolts of lightning, like silver snakes waving, and they never stopped.

The warming of the atmosphere has also brought about a series of amazing changes.

Among these satellites, one is an "ice moon," meaning its surface is completely covered by water ice, with temperatures as low as minus 100 degrees Celsius, somewhat similar to Europa in our solar system.

But now, the temperature of the atmosphere has risen due to friction. This heat is then transferred to the ice layer through convection. As a result, the ice layer, which covers the entire planet and is hundreds of kilometers thick, has gradually melted and turned into a global ocean.

The waves surged and stretched endlessly, a truly magnificent sight.

But Li Qingsong knew that this was only temporary.

Soon, as the atmosphere is continuously stripped away, the density decreases, and the pressure gradually diminishes, the boiling point of the seawater will also decrease, eventually causing the entire ocean to boil.

Water changes from a liquid to a gaseous state, flows into the atmosphere, and is then stripped away along with the loss of the atmosphere.

All the seawater will disappear, and this planet, which has been covered by water for billions of years, will eventually be left with only a bare core.

Even this core cannot exist for long.

At this moment, other satellites have already demonstrated its future fate.

This ice giant also has several satellites around it that lack an atmosphere and are simply bare, rocky satellites.

These rocky satellites were also subjected to violent blowing and impacts from gases, causing the surface temperature to gradually rise, even melting the rocks, and eventually resulting in magma spreading all over the globe.

The geological structure was also damaged, and the once dormant planet began to experience violent volcanic and seismic activity, tearing the earth apart and causing mountains to collapse.

Meanwhile, the kinetic energy carried by these high-speed gaseous dust particles is constantly transferred to these planets, continuously altering their orbits and pushing them further outward.

The decrease in the mass of this ice giant also accelerated this process.

According to Li Qingsong's estimate, even if he only maintains the current jet rate and does not accelerate, these satellites will be pushed out of their current orbits within just 100 years.

They will enter orbits around the star and transform from satellites into dwarf planets.

But clearly, Li Qingsong doesn't even want to wait 100 years.

Li Qingsong's true plan was to quickly eliminate these star beasts, silence them, then swiftly deal with the Morais civilization to obtain the information he wanted, and then quickly escape this star field to avoid potential future risks.

Guided by this philosophy, even though the gas extraction speed was already so fast, Li Qingsong still did not stop the rapid construction.

As a result, more giant vacuum pump components were transported to the Ice Giant and added to the gas extraction work.

Time passed slowly, and the number of vacuum pumps continued to increase rapidly.

One million units, two million units, five million units... it didn't stop until it reached 1500 million units.

This ice giant's surface area is only about 78.5 billion square kilometers. Li Qingsong deployed a whopping 1500 million giant air extraction units, averaging one unit for every 500 square kilometers!
From the South Pole to the North Pole to the equator, this ice giant has left no place untouched.

With 1500 million vacuum pumps, the average daily vacuum volume would be approximately 2000 quadrillion tons. At this rate, it would only take about 12 years to completely drain this ice giant.

Of course, this is only an idealized scenario. Actual engineering projects will be affected by many factors. Furthermore, the core of an ice giant is rocky, making it impossible to remove, and since the core accounts for about 20% of the total mass, Li Qingsong believes he can complete the entire project in approximately 10 years.

Destroying an ice giant with a mass approximately 15 times that of Earth in 10 years is something that would have been unimaginable in the past, but with Li Qingsong's current level of technology reaching the mid-gravity stage, it has become something truly within reach.

Time passed quietly in this way. With the continuous operation of numerous air pumps, Li Qingsong saw the ice giant visibly shrink in size.

At this moment, the star beasts lurking deep within the ice giant star seemed to finally realize their future fate and could no longer restrain themselves, so they began to take action.

Millions of star beasts, large and small, surged up from the depths of the planet like giant sea monsters, and began to attack Li Qingsong's numerous air extraction machines.

Seeing this, Li Qingsong felt not anger, but rather excitement.

"That's exactly how it should be!"

Anyway, these air pumps only extend to a depth of 500 kilometers at their deepest point, and the gas density is not high enough to have a significant impact on my specially designed spaceship. My combat capability can still be maintained at a high level.

If you dare attack these air extraction machines, I'll wipe you all out right here. If you don't attack the machines and remain lurking deep within planets I can't easily reach, then slowly wait for me to drain the entire planet dry, and you'll still die in the end!
No matter what, you will all die!

Li Qingsong immediately maneuvered numerous warships deep into the planet's interior, using these air extraction machines as the core of their defense.

It's just a defensive maneuver. If the star beasts don't attack these air extraction machines, Li Qingsong won't bother to actively hunt them down.

Anyway, time is on our side. If you don't attack, then just wait to die.

In the third year after all the pumps were in place and started working, the mass of this ice giant shrank by about 20%, but its volume did not decrease.

As its own weight decreases, its density also decreases. The gas that was originally compressed by gravity expands, yet still maintains its original size.

But it is becoming increasingly "empty".

Li Qingsong continued his pumping action. Finally, 10.5 years later, the massive planet, which had taken hundreds of millions of years to form, disappeared.

Instead, there is a rocky planet with a radius of only about 4000 kilometers, smaller than Earth, whose surface is completely covered by lava and whose geological activity is extremely active.

It was the core of what was originally an ice giant. Now that all the gas that had gathered on the outside had been pumped out, it was finally exposed.

(End of this chapter)