Humanity is missing, luckily I have billions of clones-Chapter 404: No, Not Like This!

At this moment, components from these numerous upstream factories surged into these assembly plants like a tide, entering the production lines.

Like a flowing stream, detectors weighing 2 tons each continuously flowed out, with one rolling off the line every 1.5 minutes on average, then quickly packed into boxes and transported away via space elevator.

And, 1.5 minutes per unit was the output of one production line. On average, each factory had at least 50 lines, and up to 200 lines, so calculated, each factory could produce about 50,000 to 200,000 detectors per day on average, and 100,000 factories combined, the average per day was about 11 billion!

These numerous detectors, carrying Tom’s hopes, orderly boarded heavy transport ships and flew into space, spreading out from the calculated standard course of that Human spaceship with a radius of 4 light-years.

A large net quietly spread out in this vast space, while Tom himself, aboard a residential spaceship escorted by numerous warships, arrived at the center of the circle.

Using superluminal communication with a range of up to 3 light-years as the axis, Tom controlled all detectors within a three-light-year radius in real-time.

As for the detectors in the outermost 1 light-year distance, they could only be controlled through Primal. This would inevitably lead to some decrease in efficiency, but it was still within the acceptable range.

At this moment, there were at least about 3 years left until the arrival of that Human spaceship. Tom did not remain idle during this waiting period.

As early as the initial stage of deploying this detector net, Tom had already thought that besides capturing and locating that Human spaceship, this large net could also be used for other purposes.

Light-year scale research on the flow of interstellar matter, micro-gravitational perturbations in interstellar space, detection of spatial expansion coefficients on light-year scales, research on interstellar high-energy radiation, and so on.

This series of projects were extremely important scientific research topics, and the research environment was extremely demanding, making it impossible for ordinary civilizations to carry them out.

Deploying trillions of detectors on a light-year scale, even if an ordinary civilization could do it, it would take a long time.

Now was a good opportunity to advance research in this area while capturing the Human spaceship.

While conducting research and harvesting numerous technological achievements, Tom waited silently.

Time ticked away, and gradually, 3 years passed, 5 years passed, until the 16th year after this detector net was fully deployed, when Tom suddenly received a slightly special signal.

Some macroscopic matter had passed through his detector net, and its speed was extremely high, reaching 88.52% of the speed of light.

Macroscopic matter?

The space where this detector net was located was interstellar space, where no natural macroscopic matter existed. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Since that was the case...

Tom’s heart instantly burned. Separated by a distance of 2.6 light-years, Tom directly controlled several of the closest warships and scientific research vessels using superluminal communication mode, accelerating rapidly towards that direction.

Only after accelerating to the same speed as that macroscopic matter, achieving a state of relative rest, did Tom initiate superluminal travel, bridging the distance between them.

After a shift in light and shadow, Tom’s tracking spaceship instantly appeared less than ten thousand kilometers away from that macroscopic matter.

At this distance, even through optical equipment, the appearance of that macroscopic matter could be clearly seen.

It was a spaceship.

A spaceship that perfectly matched the design style of the Purple Moon Civilization. And... it was a residential spaceship.

Tom’s heart instantly surged with excitement. But this excitement lasted for only a moment, followed by bottomless coldness.

At this moment, Tom seemed to freeze, a voice full of madness constantly screaming in his mind, "No, no, not like this, not like this," but his body could not move at all.

Boundless pain generated from his limbs and bones, then slowly spread to Tom’s heart, making his heart ache constantly.

The tracking spaceship continued to approach the Purple Moon Civilization spaceship under inertia. When the distance shortened to only a few hundred meters, the scene that could be clearly seen with the naked eye was transmitted to Tom’s mind.

He saw that the entire spaceship presented a fluffy texture that absolutely did not belong to metal creations, as if dense rust had grown on iron sheets.

This kind of rust was very familiar to Tom.

Back when he was still in the Electroweak stage and could only travel at speeds below 10% the speed of light, without energy shields to resist dust impacts and high-energy radiation, Tom’s spaceship had also undergone such changes.

This was clearly the situation where the spaceship’s materials were severely damaged after suffering interstellar dust and high-energy particle radiation for a long time!

But...

This was clearly a creation of a Strong Nuclear peak civilization! Where had the energy shield gone?

Observing for a while, Tom saw a large hole on the port side of the spaceship.

From the appearance, the hole was not caused by external impact, but seemed to be some kind of internal explosion. As for the time, it was impossible to determine too precisely, but it was at least over 2,000 years ago.

At that time, this spaceship should have been sailing for several hundred years.

Perhaps... at that time, this spaceship suffered a malfunction due to some internal or external influence, causing an explosion, which in turn led to the collapse of its protective system.

Afterward, it suffered high-energy radiation and particle bombardment at speeds above 80% the speed of light for over 2,000 years, eventually becoming this appearance.

Tom maneuvered the spaceship to slowly approach and released a landing craft to prepare for boarding. But during this process, the spaceship’s tail flame lightly swept over this spaceship, and Tom saw that just like strong wind blowing on dust, endless dust scattered from this spaceship, merging into space and disappearing.

The reason they could adhere to the spaceship before was simply because matter in space was extremely sparse, and there was basically nothing that could affect them.

Now, with the slightest movement, they dissipated.

As the dust dispersed, the volume of the spaceship shrunk by half, and its internal structure was completely exposed.

Thousands of robots gently approached, and through their eyes, Tom saw one completely damaged hibernation pod after another, some even completely disappeared due to "rust," leaving only some frames.

There were tens of thousands in total.

This number matched the intelligence obtained from the Purple Moon Civilization.

In front of a hibernation pod that still had its outer appearance intact, a robot stopped.

Gently brushing away the surface dust, Tom saw the internal structure.

Inside was a stiff body.

Without the protection of the life support system and temperature control equipment, under the low temperature of the cosmic vacuum, their bodies were frozen as hard as stone before they could rot.

Tom’s body couldn’t help but tremble slightly. At this moment, besides pain and anger, he also had another feeling.

A feeling of emptiness, as if life had lost hope and reliance.

"Over 2,000 years ago... at that time, I was still fighting the Purple Moon Civilization in the solar system, at a critical moment of life and death, and I had no way to save you...

Even if I could escape, my level of technology at that time was too low, and I couldn’t catch up with you at all.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, my Human compatriots, I couldn’t save you, I didn’t have the ability to save you..."