Chapter 288: The True Peak

With the support of the Black Mountain Civilization’s industrial capacity—so vast that a normal civilization couldn’t even imagine it—all the tasks that originally required us to expend massive manpower and energy, such as industrial production and resource and energy supply, will now be shouldered entirely by the Black Mountain Civilization!

This way, we can free up more resources to cultivate more fighters, and the number of Warships we can operate at any given time will skyrocket to 3.2 million!

‘Simultaneously operating 3.2 million Warships… what immense combat power. Within the scope of Strong Core Level civilizations, who could possibly be my rival?’

‘Unfortunately, we can only wield this power for a short time. If we could completely subjugate the Black Mountain Civilization, then…’

Masking the flicker of desire in his eyes, Haimo Lan gently shook his head.

Full-scale war preparations had begun. In addition to the massive cultivation of fighters and the production of new Warships led by the Red Dog AI, Haimo Lan was shocked to see that the Red Dog AI was simultaneously undertaking another construction project.

Carried by innumerable heavy transport ships and large Space-Air Carriers, countless materials converged in a once-empty region of space, gradually forming a “planet.”

And as more materials were continuously added, this “planet” continued to grow, getting bigger and bigger.

Eventually, a massive planet with a radius of 100 kilometers and a total mass of approximately 1,700 trillion tons materialized before Haimo Lan.

The surface gravitational acceleration of this enormous planet, built entirely “artificially” by the Red Dog AI, reached 0.011 meters per second squared—enough to attract and hold objects to its surface.

Its escape velocity was approximately 50 meters per second, meaning any object had to exceed this speed to break free from its gravitational field.

To think that such a massive celestial body was composed entirely of resources, energy, components, and various other materials all mined by the Red Dog AI!

As for the industrial production capacity this implied… even though Haimo Lan had already been forced to re-evaluate his understanding several times, he was still utterly stunned.

“I drew inspiration from Human Civilization’s method of escape and built this artificial planet.”

“Not much time has passed since Human Civilization dismantled a planet to cleanse the electromagnetic calamity from their star. They shouldn’t have had time to escape yet.”

“Given the time constraints, they are more likely to dig in and defend their Star System against our attack.”

“Upon arriving in the Lyra G16 Star System, our primary strategic objective must be to seize a planet for resupply. However, during that initial phase, we will not have any major planets from which to draw resources.”

“So, I built one. With this, we have broken free of our initial resource constraints.”

“Now, take this artificial planet and set forth. Go to the Lyra G16 Star System, annihilate Human Civilization, and fulfill the agreement and promises between us.”

Countless giant Thrust Devices converged on the artificial planet like a meteor shower. The vast fleet began to assemble as well, surrounding it.

The acceleration process began.

In that moment, illuminated by the exhaust from the countless Thrust Devices, a massive gas giant in their path was completely lit up.

Under the fierce bombardment of high-energy Particles and intense heat, its cloud layers began to churn, and gales many times the speed of sound began to blow.

One Hydrogen Bomb after another detonated on various planets, and the vast industrial facilities that covered nearly every world were obliterated in an instant.

The “Sun” formed by the converging exhaust of countless Thrust Devices gradually dimmed, eventually vanishing from the vast, starry sky. This Interstellar System, after a brief period of prosperity, once again fell silent.

Meanwhile, in the Lyra G16 Star System, Li Qingsong was still engaged in massive, unceasing industrial construction and production, with no limit and no end in sight.

As time slowly ticked by, the number of large, medium, and small Manned Warships, Unmanned Warships, and various unmanned combat installations in space continued to climb.

On the planet’s surface, the number of factories, control bases, Supercomputing Bases, and the like was also increasing at a rapid pace.

By now, the number of Manned Warships under Li Qingsong’s command alone had risen to over four million.

The vast majority of these were Mercury-class Warships. In addition, there were 200,000 Venus-class Warships, 5,000 Earth-class Warships, and the number of newly developed Mars-class Warships had also risen to 80.

Just to operate this fleet totaling four million Warships, Li Qingsong needed to field approximately 600 million Clones.

Based on the calculation that one large control base could house about 200,000 Clones, Li Qingsong needed to build 3,000 such bases just for them.

The number of supporting power plants, Supercomputing Bases, rest facilities, supply factories, and so on was simply astronomical.

To allow these 600 million Clones to focus on piloting the Warships in battle and to maintain the daily operations of the control bases, Li Qingsong was forced to deploy an additional 200 million Clones for support.

Beyond that, even during a war, the immense tasks of industrial production and supply could not stop; on the contrary, they had to be reinforced.

All told, even though Li Qingsong’s maximum consciousness connection count had been raised to 3.5 billion, supporting the current combat scale was still stretching his capacity.

However, the full utilization of this 3.5 billion connection limit had resulted in a nearly unprecedented boost in combat power.

At this very moment, Li Qingsong’s combat strength had truly reached its apex.

A true peak of combat strength, with no restrictions, no negative shackles, no hindrances or obstacles—every aspect pushed to its absolute limit!

Li Qingsong felt genuinely, unprecedentedly powerful.

‘Let me use this peak state to confront this equally unprecedented enemy and eliminate this threat to my existence once and for all.’

Li Qingsong had truly made his resolve.

Time continued to slip by quietly. Li Qingsong, tireless and without letting up, continued to stockpile more Manned and Unmanned Warships and various other war materiel.

And so it was that deep in the distant, starry sky, Li Qingsong suddenly spotted a faint star.

Upon further observation, Li Qingsong grew grim.

He could clearly discern three different types of exhaust plumes. And all three were familiar to him.

One belonged to the Intelligent Mechanical Calamity Fleet, another to the Harville Civilization Fleet, and the last was… a Flying Star.

‘The Harville Civilization and the Intelligent Mechanical Calamity have joined forces! And their Alliance has also created a Flying Star to bring to this Star System!’

‘A Flying Star means the enemy won’t be constrained by a lack of supplies, at least not in the early stages of the war.’

‘And the Alliance between the Harville Civilization and the Intelligent Mechanical Calamity Civilization… that implies something far more terrifying.’