Over the years, Tom had never relaxed his efforts to receive information from the solar system.

Although the vast distance between them caused a delay of over a decade in the information, meaning the scenes he saw were events from more than ten years ago, this was still the first-hand information Tom could obtain.

This was only possible thanks to the connection between Tom's own consciousness and his clone, the principle of which he himself did not understand. Any other Electroweak Civilization would not even be able to get this information, even with a decade-long delay.

Thus, through countless pairs of eyes hidden in the vast deep space of the solar system, and with the help of automated observation equipment, Tom personally watched that dim star gradually brighten and expand in size, until now, it was like a bright nebula, appearing several times larger than the moon.

Tom's heart grew heavier.

After an observation and estimation through a telescope, Tom saw that the overall scale of this fleet was even larger than his previous solar system migration fleet.

It contained at least 800 super-large Aerospace Carriers, each of which was densely packed with small and medium-sized spacecraft, numerous giant cylindrical spacecraft, and an uncountable number of unmanned warships!

Including the unmanned warships, their total number was at least 50 million!

"Such a massive fleet…"

Tom narrowed his eyes slightly.

Through the information obtained from the Bluetoth Civilization, and the knowledge he gained from developing intelligent AIs over the years, Tom knew that what limited the scale of this Mechanical Disaster fleet was probably not technological level, but how many captives it had.

Only with enough captives, through a special algorithm conversion, could the AI have more intelligence, sufficient productivity, and the precise control capability to produce spacecraft.

Estimating from the scale of this fleet, the number of intelligent life forms currently serving as "brain-mines" within this fleet would probably not be less than one hundred billion…

At that time, the total population of the entire Bluetoth Civilization was only about one hundred billion.

Considering the extremely high attrition rate of intelligent life within the Mechanical Disaster, it is likely that this one hundred billion or more "brain-mine" population originated from at least two civilizations, or even three or four.

If the Bluetoth Civilization had not been destroyed by him, now, what awaited the intelligent life of the Bluetoth Civilization would also be to become "brain-mines," making the Mechanical Disaster fleet even larger.

Under Tom's close attention, this fleet finally completed its deceleration and docked in the Jupiter System.

Tom saw countless mining spacecraft leave the fleet and land on various planets.

During this process, one detail caught Tom's attention.

He saw that when facing an unexpectedly approaching asteroid, a small warship flew out and fired only one unknown projectile, and that asteroid, with a size of over 20 meters, exploded and disintegrated with a bang.

What kind of weapon is this! How can it have such great power?

If it were his electromagnetic cannon weapon, even the most powerful one could at most penetrate this asteroid. To pulverize it with a single blow would be impossible.

This seemed to imply that their projectiles possessed a mechanism for higher energy release.

After being pulverized, the asteroid's debris still advanced at an extremely high speed. However, the spacecraft in its path did not dodge, as if they had not detected the debris.

When the asteroid debris flew past the spacecraft, Tom saw that a faint yellow light curtain of some unknown material simultaneously lit up around those spacecraft, flashing by in an instant. Blocked by this light curtain, the asteroid debris was directly deflected, causing no damage to the spacecraft.

Energy shield?!

Tom felt a renewed sense of shock.

Does such technology really exist? And… can a third-level Strong Nuclear Civilization master it?

In that case, if a Strong Nuclear Civilization fleet can reach seventy to eighty percent of the speed of light, is it also energy shield technology that they rely on to solve the problem of particle collisions?

No wonder their cruising speed can reach such high levels…

If such small spacecraft can be equipped with energy shields, then there's no need to mention the larger spacecraft.

In terms of offense, Tom did not know how many types of weapons they possessed. But just from the weapon that shattered the asteroid earlier, one could infer the whole picture.

Now, with the appearance of such a powerful defensive facility as an energy shield, if he were to face this Mechanical Disaster at this stage, how would he fight?

No matter how strong his armor was, it probably couldn't withstand the strike of that kind of weapon. No matter how powerful his electromagnetic cannon, missiles, or mines were, they probably couldn't penetrate that kind of energy shield!

In this situation, even if his warships outnumbered the enemy tenfold or a hundredfold, it would probably be useless.

This was not a gap that could be compensated by numbers, unlike with the Bluetoth Civilization!

But after observing secretly for a period, Tom discovered an even more terrifying thing.

The scale of this fleet was extremely vast, and its dispersed range was also very large, with the fleet width reaching over one hundred million kilometers.

Under normal circumstances, this would mean a significant delay in communication from one side of the fleet to the other, because electromagnetic waves travel at the speed of light.

One hundred million kilometers would mean a delay of at least 5 minutes.

However, judging from the overall deployment of this fleet, their movements were extremely coordinated, as if there was no communication delay at all.

Then…

Stellar communication technology?

A technology that allows real-time communication regardless of distance, ignoring communication delays?

If he could master this technology, then why would he have to endure a communication delay of over a decade from the solar system to the Altair System?

With stellar communication technology, to what extent could the coordination of the entire fleet be improved, and how much combat power enhancement could it bring to the battlefield?!

Even more importantly…

Upon realizing that this Mechanical Disaster fleet most likely possessed stellar communication technology, Tom's heart instantly tightened, and his spirit became taut.

If they possessed stellar communication technology, allowing real-time communication between two different star systems up to a dozen light-years apart…

Their main fleet would seemingly not need to personally reach a certain star system to determine if intelligent civilization existed there.

They could completely launch a probe with stellar communication technology, or even a probe fleet, toward every suspected target star system, every star system he might reach, and determine whether that star system was indeed their long-range destination without the main fleet needing to move.

In this way, all of his disguises would become completely ineffective. After detecting his location, the main fleet could go straight for the kill, reaching his star system in a very short time, and then completing the capture!

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