Magic? My Iron Torrent will sweep it all away!

The hall was quiet.

The hearts of the staff officers listening quietly around them sank lower and lower.

This is only the first report; as more detailed statistics are compiled, the losses will only increase.

Zheng Jinren was already numb from listening to it.

If this happened before the apocalypse, these weapons would have been enough to wipe out the entire planet, leaving all nations trembling in fear.

As a result, he wiped them out in a single battle...

He asked after a few seconds:

"What would it be if calculated based on normal industrial costs?"

"Accurate conversion is not possible."

The adjutant shook his head:

"This includes antimatter weapons, the Pangu mech, and magical barriers; many of these items simply don't have a market price."

"If forcibly converted into Earth's currency, the resulting number has no practical meaning; it can only be described as an astronomical figure."

Zheng Jinren's face darkened.

Astronomical numbers.

These four words may sound simple, but behind them lies the tireless work of countless engineers day and night, and the wealth accumulated bit by bit by the Great Xia industrial system.

Wang Ce and Shen Minghe were the only two casualties in the entire battle, and their loss is also immeasurable.

He paused for a moment, then asked:

"What were our results?"

The adjutant paused for a moment, then pulled up another set of data.

The red on the main screen quickly faded, replaced by blue and gold representing resource reserves.

"Space battlefield, 230 plasma bugs confirmed dead."

"The body recovery operation is underway, but it is estimated to take quite some time."

Zheng Jinren's eyebrows twitched slightly.

"What's wrong?"

"The base currently only has one spaceship, which was just recently rolled out, and it's the only one capable of handling the salvage and transportation," the adjutant added.

"The universe is too vast, and those plasma worm corpses are flying around everywhere, which makes the salvage operation more difficult."

"And they were too big to fit on the spaceship, so they had to be brought back using tethers."

The screen then switched to a space scene.

In the distant starry sky, a silver-gray spaceship was slowly adjusting its attitude, with several thick traction cables extending out to lock onto a massive plasma worm carcass.

The corpse resembled a twisted black mountain range, its surface still crackling with dark blue electricity. Even though it had lost all signs of life, it continued to release chaotic energy.

The adjutant continued his report:

"On the ground battlefield, the tactical system has made a conservative estimate that more than 150 million demon units have been killed."

"Due to the large-scale collapse in the underground area, it is impossible to verify each individual body. However, based on the heat source records, body density, and seismic source data, there are at least more than ten million bodies remaining."

At this point, the atmosphere in the command center finally changed.

The air, which had been heavy and seemed about to freeze, began to fill with an undisguised excitement.

How many resources can be extracted from so many demon corpses!

Zheng Jinren also asked this question.

"Has the value of all the demon corpses been assessed?"

The adjutant opened the resource assessment report and said:

"Based on the industrial value of key rare elements, the corpses of all the demons in this battle are equivalent to the proven and recoverable reserves of a resource-poor star system."

Zheng Jinren clicked his tongue.

"The total amount of rare metals that can be extracted is comparable to that of an entire galaxy?"

"Yes." The adjutant nodded.

"The 'Hengxing' here is an industrial unit of measurement. It doesn't mean that the mass of these corpses is equal to that of a Hengxing. Rather, it is calculated based on the extractable rare elements, energy crystals, and industrial substitution costs, and is close to the total output of the Great Xia after completing large-scale mining within a Hengxing."

Zheng Jinren then understood.

The true value of these demon corpses lies not in their quantity, but in the large amount of extremely rare substances contained within them.

Some elements are not even naturally occurring in the solar system; they are only found on certain special planets.

"What about energy?" Zheng Jinren asked.

"It's also a massive amount."

The adjutant opened the last report:

"We cannot make an accurate count yet, but based on the production yield from the previous extraction of demon corpses, the energy obtained after all the products are processed will be enough to support the Great Xia's full-scale development at the current consumption level for a hundred years."

Zheng Jinren was stunned for a moment.

"century?"

"That's right, a century!"

"This relates to our losses..."

"They're not in the same league," the adjutant said seriously, adjusting his glasses.

"If we only consider post-war repairs, equipment replenishment, and factory reconstruction, this war did indeed cost Great Xia about half a year of development time."

"But if we take into account the rare metals and energy in the demon corpses, the profits would be enough to support a century of full-speed development."

He paused, then added:

Even after deducting complex costs such as manpower and time, the net profit still has more than fifty years of development potential.

This calculation sounds complicated, but in a way that Zheng Jinren can understand, it means that a war takes half a year, but the Demon Clan provides the Great Xia with the industrial resources for the next fifty years.

"Are you sure you didn't mix up the symbols for expenses and revenues?" he asked, still somewhat incredulous.

"Confirmed," the adjutant replied.

"We had the three systems cross-calculate four times."

Zheng Jinren opened his mouth, but didn't know what to say.

He was a soldier, and his daily concerns were whether the defense line could be held, whether there was enough ammunition, and when the enemy would come again.

The gains and losses of a war are rarely calculated from the perspective of the overall development of the country.

Only now did he realize that the Demon War, besides being dangerous for Great Xia, also provided a massive amount of resources urgently needed for the development of science and technology industry.

In the past two years, Daxia has gone from having great difficulty in conducting stable manned spaceflight to now being able to build planetary engines, propel planetary migration, and even begin to plan planetary fortresses—a truly sci-fi achievement!

Of course, this is not only due to breakthroughs by researchers, but also to the tireless efforts of the entire nation in construction.

The discovery of Terra also provided Great Xia with a lot of technological inspiration.

Meanwhile, the demon race used war after war to continuously deliver energy and rare metals to the Great Xia.

These monsters wanted to destroy humanity, but in a sense, they became the fuel for the industrial leap of the Great Xia Dynasty.

"So, this battle was... a huge success?" one of the staff officers couldn't help but ask.

The people in the command center began to breathe rapidly, their eyes gleaming.

Zheng Jinren, however, didn't seem to care about the crowd's excitement and said:

"Now that we have achieved our goals, we must quickly transform them into the strength for Great Xia to continue its advance."

"Digest it quickly; the demons won't let this go so easily."

"Understood!" the adjutant replied, then said:

"There's one more question."

"explain."

"The base's demon refining plants are currently insufficient."

"At the current scale, even if all the factories worked day and night, they would not be able to process this batch of spoils in time."

"In addition to biological decay and pollution, the residual energy of the plasma worm corpses is slowly leaking out, and some of the demon tissue is also corrosive."

"If they remain on the battlefield for an extended period, they will not only pollute the surface and groundwater, but may also trigger an epidemic."

Zheng Jinren frowned.

"Understood. Immediately begin expanding the refining plant."

"Don't let these things pile up outside. It will be too late to deal with them once they pollute the environment and rot."

"yes!"