Humanity is missing, luckily I have billions of clones.

Chapter 397 Trump Card!

Seeing this, Li Qingsong felt even heavier.

It should be noted that our star system is a full 4 light-years away from the star system where this group of star beasts resides.

The distance of 4 light-years was covered in only about 4 months, which means that... the speed of this group of star beasts traveling faster than light was about 12 times the speed of light!
Compared to Li Qingsong's current speed of less than four times the speed of light, this is more than twice as fast.

Furthermore, based on the current mass of this star, Li Qingsong would need to be approximately one light-year away to reduce the influence of the star's gravitational field to an acceptable level before he could enter a state of faster-than-light travel.

At this moment, this group of star beasts did not break free of warp drive until they were only 3.2 trillion kilometers away from the star, about 0.34 light-years away. This also clearly means that this group of star beasts has a much deeper and more detailed understanding and control of gravity than I do.

The advancement of technological level is not about abandoning the original technological system and mastering a new one, but about further developing on the basis of the former.

Just as Li Qingsong gained a deeper understanding of strong nuclear force after advancing to the Gravity stage, this group of star beasts clearly gained a deeper understanding of gravity after advancing to Dark Force.

Such a group of enemies...

Taking a deep breath, Li Qingsong glanced at the all-stellar defense line he had set up, at the electromagnetic life forms that were already in full combat readiness, and at the universal force field components that were ready. He knew he had no way out.

We must stop the first few waves of attacks from these enemies and force them to attack the star!
The detectors deployed at the edge of the galaxy clearly saw that after leaving the warp space, this larger and more ferocious swarm of star beasts immediately began to accelerate violently at a speed of thousands of meters per second squared, quickly increasing their speed to more than 90% of the speed of light, and then violently rushing into the interior of the galaxy.

They then began to decelerate violently at a distance of only hundreds of billions of kilometers from the star, until they entered the interior of the galaxy, at which point their speed decreased to several thousand kilometers per second.

The star beasts completely ignored the numerous industrial facilities, spy satellites, and probes left behind by Li Qingsong at the edge of the galaxy, and charged straight toward the star.

Their only goal is themselves; everything else is irrelevant to them.

When the distance between the two sides was reduced to just over ten million kilometers, Li Qingsong took a deep breath and issued the battle order.

They were still far away, not yet at the engagement range of a conventional interstellar war. But at this moment, there was no time to worry about that.

At that instant, on the side of the star facing the star beast horde, on a hemisphere with a total area of ​​approximately 46 trillion square kilometers, a total of 100 trillion energy cannons of varying power, size, and volume, located in warships, artillery emplacements, armed satellites, and space-based air defense bases, simultaneously fired projectiles with varying rates of fire, muzzle velocities, and masses.

At an average firing rate of 1000 rounds per second, in just one hour, the total number of projectiles bombarding that group of star beasts reached approximately 3.6 trillion trillion!

For these approximately 1000 million star beasts, even if only one in a million bullets hits the target—after all, Li Qingsong launched a regional, overall attack rather than a precise, targeted attack—each star beast will still receive 3600 million bullets!

Just over ten minutes later, these projectiles whistled through the air and collided violently with the star beast swarm.

In Li Qingsong's estimation, it was unlikely that these projectiles would severely damage the star beast swarm, and he had no such wishful thinking at all.

However, no matter how powerful these star beasts are, with such a large-scale attack that can be said to have almost surpassed the limits of gravitational civilization, killing tens of thousands of star beasts should still be achievable.

No matter how advanced your shield technology is or how strong your protective capabilities are, even a lot of ants can kill an elephant. There's no reason why my many projectiles can't even kill a mere tens of thousands of star beasts, right?
But the next moment, something unexpected happened to Li Qingsong.

The sophisticated detection satellites deployed near those star beast hordes clearly detected that, faced with the attack of energy projectiles that were millions of times more powerful than a storm, the star beasts made almost no clear countermeasures.

They were like a group of blind people, completely oblivious to the projectiles, and continued to move forward at high speed.

The speed and course remained unchanged. Even the body's posture remained almost entirely the same.

But to Li Qingsong's disbelief, it was as if all his bullets had suddenly entered another world. Even though the star beasts did not react at all, the bullets disappeared the moment they approached their bodies.

There was no explosion, no flash, no release of energy; they simply vanished silently, as if they had never existed at all.

disappear……

Li Qingsong suddenly gritted his teeth.

He already knew that the Dark Force-level Star Beasts possessed negative particle technology and had already applied it in battle. But he hadn't expected that even such a vast number of energy projectiles, requiring extremely fast and precise control, could be neutralized using negative particle technology!
With trillions of energy cannons bombarding the area simultaneously, not only were tens of thousands of star beasts killed, but not even a single one was killed!
So……

"Keep bombarding! Don't stop!"

Li Qingsong gritted his teeth and gave the order: "These star beasts must consume energy to produce and utilize negative ions, and the production rate must have a limit. It is impossible to produce them indefinitely."

Although these energy projectiles failed to kill them, they were still consuming them!
As long as they can be consumed, they have value!

The next moment, the bombardment of these projectiles not only did not slow down, but accelerated even more.

As the distance between these star beasts and their forces decreased, more types of weapons began to join the battle. At the same time, these star beasts finally launched an attack on Li Qingsong's side.

Li Qingsong watched as countless interstellar mines vanished silently, and as numerous manned and unmanned warships suddenly and inexplicably developed wounds, some even splitting in two like small fish bitten off by a large fish. He also saw his variable energy shield easily breached, allowing energy projectiles and lasers to surge forth and instantly reduce various bases to dust.

The offensive and defensive tactics based on negative ions were incredibly powerful around this star, almost unstoppable. However, these star beasts possessed far more offensive and defensive capabilities than those related to negative ions; they also included many other methods that Li Qingsong was extremely familiar with.

Examples include lasers, energy cannons, missiles, landmines, and artillery.

The difference is that... these "conventional" offensive methods are all far superior to what I possess, even to an unbelievable and miraculous degree!

A single energy projectile can reach a muzzle velocity of over 100,000 kilometers per second, making each one truly equivalent to a small nuclear bomb.
It was just a single laser beam, yet its energy was so high that it could instantly penetrate several unmanned warships.
The missile's acceleration can reach several thousand meters per second squared, making it impossible to intercept, let alone detect or search with radar.
The stealth capabilities of the interstellar mines were so advanced that even repeated scans by high-precision radar failed to detect a single one. When the spaceship unwittingly arrived in what appeared to be an empty space, a large number of mines suddenly appeared as if they had materialized out of thin air...

The combat power and tactics displayed by these star beasts even led Li Qingsong to make a clear judgment: "Even without negative-related technology, their performance improvements in 'conventional' combat weapons alone are enough to completely crush us!"

Not to mention the addition of negative-related technologies!

The war quickly became one-sided, and the situation was so dire that Li Qingsong saw no hope of stopping them.

If the entire stellar defense line weren't so massive, requiring considerable effort even for these star beasts to destroy it, it would have been breached long ago. Li Qingsong made a decisive adjustment: "Electric Disaster, deploy!"

The original plan was to rely on the entire stellar defense line to hold off these star beasts first, and then send out electromagnetic life forms for precise strikes, but now it seems that there's no time to worry about that.

If we don't act now, we might never have another chance!

"Yes!"

The next moment, with the cooperation of Li Qingsong's electric fleet, several dozen to thousands of electromagnetic lifeforms combined themselves and, following the directional data given by Li Qingsong, jointly gathered the stellar energy in the area and fired fiercely outwards.

Beams of laser light instantly shone onto the bodies of the star beasts.

At this moment, Li Qingsong finally saw casualties among the star beast horde for the first time.

Some smaller star beasts were instantly hit by dozens of laser beams. Before they could react, their bodies rapidly expanded and exploded like balloons that had been blown up.

But soon, the star beasts realized what was happening and seemed to have made some adjustments, causing the hit rate and killing efficiency of these stellar lasers to drop significantly.

Although star beasts are still being killed in a steady stream, their numbers have decreased by more than 90%, making them almost insignificant in terms of overall impact.

Li Qingsong knew that if these star beasts wanted to get rid of the influence of electromagnetic life, they only needed to charge forward to break through their own defenses and then slaughter those electromagnetic life forms.

But like the previous wave of gravitational peak star beasts, they did not do that. Instead, they allowed these stellar lasers to weaken their combat power and continuously inflict damage on them, as if they could not unleash their full combat power without doing so.

The trump card of the power outage has been played, but its effect has been minimal.

The situation remains one-sided, and the entire stellar defense line is in grave danger.

Li Qingsong gritted his teeth and had no choice but to reveal his second and final trump card.

A powerful field!

Billions of clones are in place once again, and force field components are deployed in space once more.

Deploying these components was a very complicated and large-scale task. In the past, Li Qingsong had always deployed them under the strict protection of his own fleet to avoid harassment from the enemy.

Now, their own defenses seem to be ineffective against these star beasts.

Their combat power is too strong. It seems, no, not just seems, but it's certain, that if they wanted to, they could break through our defenses at any time and destroy these components, preventing us from even activating them.

However... these star beasts still ignored it and did not make any harassing or destructive moves, allowing Li Qingsong to complete the final arrangements.

start up!

The next moment, hundreds of thousands of enormous star beasts simultaneously erupted with flames of varying sizes. As the flames dissipated, Li Qingsong clearly saw that more than nine thousand dark-force level star beasts had been directly blasted to pieces by the universal force field, turning into interstellar dust.

The annihilation of nearly ten thousand star beasts was Li Qingsong's greatest achievement since the start of the war. Furthermore, for a star beast population of only tens of millions, the loss of nearly ten thousand in a single attack was undeniably enormous.

but……

Li Qingsong and the high-ranking officials of the Morais civilization felt no excitement, but rather a heavy heart.

Is our last and most important trump card only capable of inflicting less than 10,000 casualties on the Dark Force Star Beasts?

Their overall combat effectiveness was almost unaffected, while our side could no longer use the Universal Force Field for a short period of time!
So, what's the next step?
Li Qingsong clearly saw that the Star Beasts' attack did not slow down at all despite the casualties of nearly 10,000 of their companions.

They continue to wreak havoc on their own defenses, indiscriminately killing countless warships and bases.

They are very patient, following somewhat rigid tactics, gradually eroding the defensive line, never resorting to tactics such as mass charges, penetrating deep into enemy territory, or decapitation strikes to destroy key targets.

Li Qingsong knew what they were doing.

They are forcing themselves to reveal more and bigger cards!
What other trump cards do you have? What other tactics do you have? Show them all. If you don't show them now, it will be too late once we start to erode your core!

but……

Li Qingsong saw that his quota of 100 billion consciousness links had been used up, and the 100 billion clones were working in shifts without daring to stop for even a second. He saw that the Primordial AI was going all out and maximizing industrial capacity. He saw that every intelligent life scientist and engineer, including those under his command and those from the Morais civilization, was giving their all.

Our industrial capacity has truly reached its limit.

Even the electromagnetic lifeforms were fighting with all their might, not daring to slack off in the slightest.

I've really used all my strength; I have no more trump cards left...

He had originally planned to withstand the first few waves of attacks from the Dark Force Star Beasts, forcing them to attack the star itself. But now it seemed that even if he went all out, he wouldn't be able to stop their first wave of attacks against the deliberately weakened Dark Force Star Beasts…

Despite the dire situation, Li Qingsong remained relentless and continued to do everything in his power to maintain the war effort.

Li Qingsong will never give up until the very last moment!

Just then, Li Qingsong suddenly realized that in the Star Beast Kingdom, which had only a little over a hundred stars, there was suddenly an extra star that hadn't been there before.

(End of this chapter)