Humanity is missing, luckily I have billions of clones-Chapter 291: The Starved Beast

For years, Tom became a machine.

His consciousness did nothing but oversee the grind: mine, refine, build, launch. He watched boatloads of hard-won materials vanish into the black hole of the space battlefield like common trash.

It was a stalemate of attrition. A test of who would bleed out first.

Just as the despair began to creep in—just as Tom began to wonder if this torment would last until the heat death of the universe—the sensors picked up a shift.

The battlefield changed.

The Mechanical Disaster Alliance’s warships stopped their suicidal charges. They began to coordinate, gathering into tight formations and slowly pulling back.

Ten million kilometers. Twenty million.

They didn’t stop until they reached the safety of the Flying Star.

They were retreating. The enemy had voluntarily ended the campaign.

Tom watched the telemetry for a long time, afraid it was a trap. When the distance continued to grow, he finally let out a long, shuddering breath.

His consciousness was currently residing in a clone body. It had done no physical labor, yet as the tension snapped, the body swayed and nearly collapsed to the floor.

"Finally," he whispered. "The Third Planet held."

A surge of hot blood rushed through him. It was a cocktail of exhaustion, relief, and immense, swelling pride.

I did it.

Thousands of years of fleeing. Thousands of years of hiding like a rat. But today, facing the combined might of the Mechanical Disaster and the Orthodox Intelligent Civilization—enemies with superior tech and multiplied combat power—he had stopped them cold.

If I can stop them once, I can stop them forever.

Tom zoomed in on the tactical map, focusing on the enemy’s lifeline: the Flying Star.

The massive fortress had shrunk. Its radius was now less than 60 kilometers. Its overall mass had been reduced by more than a third. It looked shriveled, a husk of its former glory.

In contrast, Tom looked at his own three major planets. Despite years of marrow-sucking extraction, they remained robust.

He could mine them for another thousand years and barely scratch the surface. This was the absolute tyranny of localized combat advantage.

"You only have two-thirds of your reserves left," Tom sneered at the distant hologram. "You couldn’t take a planet when you were at full strength. How do you plan to take one now?"

Come on. Fight. Keep fighting. I have the bread; you’re starving.

For a split second, a dangerous thought crossed Tom’s mind: Counter-attack. Chase them down.

He crushed the thought immediately.

Time was his ally. Greed was his enemy. A proactive attack risked unforeseen variables and mass casualties.

No, he decided. We rebuild. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

The cost of this victory had been staggering. At his peak, Tom commanded an armada of 4.5 million warships. Now, the counters read 2 million.

The enemy hadn’t fared much better. They had dropped from 4 million to 1.9 million.

Six million manned warships, reduced to floating scrap in the silent void. If one counted the unmanned drones and satellites, the numbers were beyond comprehension.

The battlefield had taken its toll on the environment, too.

Decades ago, the Third Planet had been bombed so heavily it glowed like a star. Over the centuries, it had cooled, returning to a dark red dullness.

Now, it was shining again.

Stray fire and debris bombardment had raised the atmospheric temperature to over 3,000 degrees Celsius, boiling the oceans and turning the crust into molten slag.

The planet glowed a sickly mix of red and faint yellow, radiating heat intense enough to distort the sensors of passing drones. It was a churning hellscape, stripped of all potential for life—a scarred monument to the war that wouldn’t recover for a millennium.

Tom looked at the glowing orb and shrugged. At least I save on lighting costs for the orbital shipyards.

With the enemy watching from a distance, Tom didn’t rest. He threw the switch back to full throttle. Production began again.

The Honor Spaceship. First Conference Room.

The mood was funereal.

The high-ranking officials of the Havilah Civilization sat in silence. Their leader, Heimerlan, wore a solemn expression.

In the past, Heimerlan sat at the head of the table. He was the authority.

Today, the head seat was empty. Heimerlan sat at the side.

The air shimmered. The 3D projector hummed to life, coalescing into a slender, pale-skinned figure—a stark contrast to the tall, thin Havilah physiology.

It was Akakenu.

Every Havilah, including Heimerlan, stood up instantly, bowing their heads.

"Your Excellency Akakenu. Welcome."

The virtual avatar of the AI leader didn’t waste time on pleasantries or diplomatic niceties. Its projection flickered with cold, mathematical precision as it raised an arm, speaking fluent Havilah.

The voice was synthetic, devoid of breath or hesitation, but it carried an undercurrent of absolute authority that made the biological commanders in the room instinctively shiver.

"The battle is a failure. We are bleeding resources for negligible gain. We require a major strategic pivot."

The avatar’s eyes swept the room. "Speak."

Heimerlan took a breath and stood up. His team had spent months running simulations, terrified of the answer they had found.

"Esteemed Excellency," Heimerlan began, his voice steady but tense. "The Human Civilization’s potential is... terrifying. In a few hundred years, they have matched our combat output. If we do not destroy them now, while we have the alliance, their retaliation in the future will be unstoppable."

He gestured to the star map.

"At this stage, the enemy holds the resource advantage. We cannot win a war of attrition. However, we still possess the technological advantage."

"We must shift the battlefield to a location where their numbers mean nothing, and our technology means everything."

Heimerlan pressed a button. The hologram shifted.

A new planet appeared in the center of the table.

It was a small, iron-gray world, desolate and rugged. Behind it loomed a colossal wall of fire—the system’s sun.

The planet was so close to the star that it looked like it was about to be swallowed by the solar flares.

"The First Planet," Heimerlan said.