CHAPTER 142: THE TRAP

As the last supercomputing ship operating around Venus was destroyed, all the computing power demands of Venus’s unmanned combat forces were transferred to supercomputing bases on other planets.

Due to severe communication delays, the combat power of Venus’s unmanned combat forces plummeted to rock bottom, barely able to operate under the limited effectiveness of the tactical version of Goku AI running almost exclusively locally.

However, without coordination from the overall strategic level, the role of the tactical version of Goku AI was truly limited.

Thus, the situation began an irreversible collapse.

First, a large number of unmanned combat forces were destroyed, leading to greater pressure on the manned combat forces.

And without the assistance of unmanned combat forces, the manned combat forces, already at a technological and combat disadvantage, were simply unable to cope with the opponent’s fierce attacks.

Left with no choice, Tom had to decisively withdraw all manned warships from Venus, directly ceding the planet.

When the last warship belonging to Tom withdrew from the Venus battlefield, and the area around Venus completely returned to calm, inside the flagship spaceship, General Harrier’s chest heaved violently. After a long moment, as if gathering all his strength, he hoarsely roared out that single word.

"Good!"

This "good" seemed to release all the pressure, grievances, and anger accumulated over the past period.

In an instant, inside the flagship spaceship, countless people cheered together.

The celebration lasted for more than ten minutes before the sounds gradually subsided.

"Now is not the time to completely relax."

General Harrier suppressed the excitement in his heart, "Prepare for the enemy’s counterattack. We must hold Venus and await the arrival of the main fleet!"

"Yes!"

Upon receiving the news of the capture of Venus, Chief Haiwei of the Bluetoth Civilization’s main fleet finally showed a relieved smile.

In the massive conference hall, numerous high-ranking officials of the civilization simultaneously stood up and bowed deeply to Chief Haiwei, their faces full of shame and admiration.

What have we done before? We actually, actually dared to question the Chief’s decision. We were so foolish...

If it weren’t for the Chief’s unwavering insistence on keeping Harrier, if Harrier had truly been removed, looking at the entire situation’s development, we really wouldn’t have been able to take Venus...

Now it’s good. With Venus, this large planet, in hand, we no longer have to desperately scrape resources from dwarf planets like impoverished beggars!

Although Venus is a rocky planet, as a large planet, it must also have large reserves of deuterium resources. Besides deuterium, there are also virtually inexhaustible various mineral deposits.

We can finally build factories on a large scale, produce war preparation resources locally, and produce warships!

We finally no longer have to worry about insufficient logistical supplies!

"I order, the main fleet... set sail!"

After nearly a decade of staying at Eris, the Bluetoth Civilization’s main fleet finally made its move.

Under the escort of hundreds of thousands of warships and a large number of automated defense weapons, facing the enemy’s fierce attacks, the main fleet entered the solar system for the first time, then accelerated all the way, advancing continuously, and finally, with the rendezvous of the Bluetoth Fleet stationed at Venus, truly arrived in orbit around Venus.

The attacks from Tom continued, but they could at most cause a little trouble for the Bluetoth Fleet, unable to completely stop their subsequent actions.

Thus, Tom saw almost infinite numbers of small landing craft, aerospace craft, and so on, leaving the main fleet and directly entering Venus’s thick atmosphere, disappearing from his sight.

Venus’s atmosphere was too thick, and there were many sulfuric acid clouds, making it impossible to see the surface from space.

Tom did not know what kind of infrastructure the Bluetoth Civilization was building on the surface of Venus. But Tom knew that the scale would not be small.

The outcome of the Bluetoth Civilization obtaining a large amount of resources from Venus was already unchangeable.

In just two or three years, Tom detected corresponding changes.

He saw around Venus that the Bluetoth Civilization’s unmanned combat forces—turrets, unmanned warships, satellites, mines, and so on—were rapidly increasing in number, even showing a tendency to catch up to what he had deployed previously.

Not only that, the Bluetoth Fleet’s logistical supplies also seemed to be increasingly abundant.

When those warships maneuvered, they seemed to no longer care about fuel consumption, daring to accelerate at full power to investigate even minor matters. Moreover, Tom saw that they were also building huge spacefaring factories in space, and had actually begun to continuously produce warships!

Tom spared no expense, deploying hundreds of thousands of satellites, attempting to break through the Bluetoth Fleet’s defenses from various directions, and finally managed to get a mere two satellites to break through into Venus’s atmosphere, briefly exploring the Bluetoth Civilization’s construction on the surface of Venus.

Tom saw boundless, continuous vast factories, countless fully enclosed passages, countless aircraft flying in Venus’s thick atmosphere, and countless spacecraft constantly taking off and landing on the surface of Venus.

This was the infrastructural power that hundreds of billions of people could unleash!

This power was already no less than Tom’s.

Previously, these populations and this infrastructural power simply had no place to be used. But now, once they had an entire large planet, this power immediately erupted.

The satellite images only lasted for a few seconds before losing contact, obviously having been destroyed.

But these mere few seconds of images made Tom truly realize that the upcoming war... would likely be even more perilous.

His advantages lay in industrial strength, more intelligent AI, and more abundant resource supplies.

It was by relying on these three advantages that he was able to nullify the Bluetoth Civilization’s technological advantage and gain the upper hand in the war.

But now, the fall of Venus directly eliminated two of these advantages: "industrial strength" and "more abundant resource supplies."

Only the AI advantage remained.

The situation seemed to have fallen into a passive state.

But Tom did not panic.

Because at this moment, Tom’s countermeasure to the fall of Venus had been completed.

"Most of your civilization’s population is gathered on Venus? Good, good, it saves me the trouble of running around. Right here, I’ll wipe you all out."

In the asteroid belt, on a colossal asteroid with a maximum length of 60 kilometers, a maximum width of about 40 kilometers, a total volume exceeding 15,000 cubic kilometers, and a total mass as high as 24 trillion tons, a total of 2 million large thrusters had been installed.

Supported by numerous nuclear power plants, and employing a secondary pressurized propulsion method, the 2 million thrusters simultaneously activated, propelling this massive asteroid to accelerate, rushing toward the distant Venus.