CHAPTER 136: RETREAT, RETREAT!

Upon realizing that the opponent had committed the vast majority of their combat power to the battlefield, the massive amount of supplies—various types of unmanned battleships, huge quantities of chemical fuel, uranium, and plutonium nuclear fuels, enormous amounts of electromagnetic cannon shells, parts, satellites, and space mines, and so on—that had been continuously produced during this period and accumulated in warehouses to the point of overflowing, finally found a destination.

Using the space elevator, which stretched for tens of thousands of kilometers, as an exit, these supplies poured into the vast starry sky like a flood after a dam collapsed, at an unimaginable speed.

Countless huge warehouses were instantly emptied.

But it didn’t matter.

In addition to these finished military supplies, Tom also stored enough raw materials.

The accumulated raw materials such as gold, silver, copper, iron, chemical raw materials, and fuels even filled several giant canyons on the planet.

Besides these pre-stored raw materials, within the Neptune system, Tom’s various mines, bio-resource factories, and so on were also operating at full capacity.

Mountains and oceans of raw materials poured into the various factories, and under the full effort of over 100 million clones, huge quantities of finished products were produced, quickly filling the empty warehouses.

Heavy-duty trains once again transported these materials to the space elevator base, delivering them to the interstellar battlefield, while the factories continued to produce more materials.

Deployment and production basically reached a balance.

But this was not all.

In addition to unmanned combat weapons, Tom was even producing manned battleships on-site.

The production cycle for Earth-class and Venus-class battleships was too long; on-site production would likely be too late, so they could only rely on transfers from other planets.

Then, only Mercury-class battleships would be produced!

In the spacecraft assembly plant, Mercury-class battleships, each with a diameter of about 16 meters and a total mass of about 300 tons, were produced one after another.

As each Mercury-class battleship appeared, eight clones would immediately step forward, requiring no prior training or learning, and instantly transform into qualified and excellent space warriors, manipulating the Mercury-class battleship to swiftly head toward the starry sky and join the war.

An average of 500 manned battleships were added to the interstellar battlefield every day, which meant that approximately 8,000 clones, solely for piloting spacecraft, were replenished from the planet to space daily.

Besides frontline soldiers, on the logistics front, clones responsible for maintenance, repair, deployment, and support duties suffered over 100,000 casualties daily, also requiring replenishment from the planet.

However, this total consumption of approximately 110,000 clones only accounted for a small portion of all clones Tom had at the moment.

The largest portion of casualties occurred in the various ground factories, due to clones accidentally dying from stray bullet attacks.

Ground anti-aircraft fire had intercepted at least 99.99% of attacks from space. However, the remaining small number of weapons, such as electromagnetic cannon shells and missiles, still caused significant casualties among the clones.

Furthermore, there were more indirect casualties.

For example, a factory being hit, causing an explosion or fire leading to clone deaths, or clones dying in an accident while rushing to repair a factory.

The number of clones killed or wounded in this category reached over 900,000 per day!

The total amounted to an average of over a million clone casualties per day!

Such immense casualties would be unbearable for any civilization.

But for Tom, it didn’t matter.

In the hibernation bases built underground on Neptune’s various moons, clones were awakened from hibernation every moment, then lined up to leave the base, like a water tower supplying tap water, following different routes to different terminals, either supplementing factories, or battlefields, or ground-based anti-aircraft bases, or mines...

As many as were lost were replenished, without any delay.

Under these circumstances, Tom’s replenishment of unmanned combat forces on the interstellar battlefield truly reached its peak.

There were as many as 50 large factories solely producing space mines, each with 1,000 production lines, totaling billions of units produced per day!

Unmanned battleships, armed satellites, turrets, missiles, and so on, were all the same.

In the interstellar battlefield, the Bluetoth Civilization fleet indeed had the upper hand, and was indeed annihilating its own unmanned combat forces with extremely high efficiency, and its own side was powerless to stop it.

Then, it wouldn’t be stopped!

No matter how few casualties you suffer, there will always be some, and one less destroyed means one less. But my supplies are endless!

Why do you think I didn’t bring out so many unmanned combat weapons before?

If I had brought them out at the beginning, how could you have committed so many battleships to the battlefield!

You thought this was my weakness, but this was the trap I laid!

Now that you’re here, don’t even think about leaving!

Amidst the near-frenzied production and supply, the war in the vast star sea became increasingly brutal.

General Harrier’s expression grew increasingly grim.

He vaguely sensed that something was wrong.

The development of the situation didn’t seem right.

Even though his side clearly had the upper hand on the battlefield, why did he feel increasingly restricted?

The feeling was like a strong insect stumbling into a spider web; even though the web was fragile and could be easily broken free from, as soon as it broke one strand, ten more silk threads would entangle it, and the more it struggled, the more there were, more and more...

He issued a reconnaissance order. In a moment, the relevant data was compiled by his staff and presented before him.

He then saw, with some horror, that the number of space mines replenished by the opponent every day reached billions!

Tens of thousands of various unmanned battleships!

Thousands of those strange nuclear missiles!

Hundreds of thousands of armed satellites!

A cold sweat gradually seeped from his silvery-white, fine scales.

The opponent’s logistical supply power was actually so strong...

If this was the case, how could his side possibly achieve the goal of annihilating the opponent’s unmanned combat forces?

Since it couldn’t be achieved, then...

"Retreat! I order, retreat immediately! Second, Third, and Ninth Fleets cover the rear, all other fleets, retreat!"

What?!

Many staff members looked at their commanding officer with horror.

At this time, an emergency retreat? His side clearly had a great advantage!

Furthermore, with the battle so fierce, a forced retreat would inevitably lead to heavy losses for their side.

"Commander, you..."

"I said, organize the retreat immediately! Any later, it might be too late... I will explain to the Head of State afterwards!"

...

The fierce and brutal battle finally came to an end. Tom felt a slight regret as he watched the Bluetoth Fleet accelerate away from the battlefield.

"The opponent’s commander was surprisingly decisive, which was beyond my expectation. However..."

Looking at the compiled battle results, Tom’s heart began to pound with excitement again.

"In the first battle, being able to annihilate 20,000 enemy battleships is not bad!"