Humanity is missing, luckily I have billions of clones

At this moment, Tom felt a slight sense of emotion as he looked at the 160 million Bluetoth spread across thousands of large cargo ships that had undergone emergency modifications and were equipped with temporary life support capabilities.

A powerful civilization with an original total population of over a hundred billion had been wiped out, with over 99.9% of its population dead, leaving only this small number of people.

After the Bluetoth Civilization occupied Venus, it placed the vast majority of its population on Venus to construct various facilities, perform various tasks, collect various resources, and serve as supplies for this war.

Later, as chaos descended, only a small portion managed to secure seats or had their own spacecraft and could take off from Venus independently.

The vast majority of people did not manage to escape.

Roughly estimating, Tom calculated that at least 80 billion people had been swallowed by Venus's harsh environment.

Of the remaining approximately 20 billion people, some died on the battlefield, and the vast majority of the rest died in the previous chaotic battles.

Ultimately, only these 160 million people remained.

The ferocity of this war was evident.

For Tom, there was still some regret. After all, many of the deceased Bluetoth were scientists, possessing a wealth of knowledge.

But this was unavoidable. However, it didn't matter much; the experts and scholars among the remaining 160 million people were actually enough to piece together the general scientific framework.

Tom could research the rest of the details himself.

After leaving enough clones to clean up the Venus battlefield, diligently collect valuable warship wreckage, and salvage intact spacecraft, Tom, laden with these captives, flew toward Mars while simultaneously directing the clones on Mars to quickly construct a new town.

In the coming period, this city, named "Bluetoth City" by Tom, would be the gathering place for all Bluetoth.

Building a new city might seem like a massive undertaking, but if livability wasn't a major concern and only life support was considered, the difficulty wasn't that great.

It was merely a matter of fully enclosed steel frames, plus some air exchange systems, temperature control systems, and the like.

Various factories were already in place and could directly produce the building materials required for this city. Coupled with the capabilities of Hestia AI, Bluetoth City was already initially constructed by the time these cargo ships reached Mars.

Thus, filled with anxiety, bewilderment, fear, and various other emotions, these Bluetoth captives entered the city.

Interrogation followed.

Tom was actually only concerned with two questions.

First, what exactly was the Disaster? Or, to extend it further, what was the situation around the solar system, and even the entire Milky Way and the entire universe? How did different civilizations interact, and what taboos existed?

Tom had never even left the solar system, and the Bluetoth Civilization was the first alien civilization he had dealt with, so he was truly clueless about these matters.

Second, it was the technologies mastered by the Bluetoth.

The Bluetoth already possessed full interstellar travel capabilities and had mastered a series of technologies that Tom was extremely interested in, such as small-scale ship-borne controllable nuclear fusion, high-speed ion propulsion technology, and layered space scanning radar technology. Tom was bound to acquire this portion of technology.

Once acquired, it could save him at least several centuries of hard work.

Technological matters could not be rushed and could be taken slowly. However, questions about the Disaster could be answered immediately.

After simple screening and selecting the highest-ranking individuals among the survivors, Tom immediately began the interrogation.

While interrogating, Tom also controlled the clones to search for relevant data from every surviving spacecraft and every surviving computer for cross-referencing.

Among this group of high-ranking survivors, a Confidential Secretary from the Head of State's office was the highest-ranking.

His identity determined that he would be heavily involved in core confidential matters concerning the entire civilization, making him the best target for obtaining intelligence.

"Why did your Bluetoth Civilization leave your home star system and embark on a migration?"

The Confidential Secretary, trembling, began to confess like spilling beans from a bamboo tube, without any intimidation or torture: "Because, because we discovered signs of the Disaster. If we didn't escape, the Disaster would descend."

This statement corroborated Momolans's words from before.

"What is the Disaster?"

The Confidential Secretary, trembling, said: "The Disaster is a collective term for a type of non-naturally formed disaster that can lead to the demise of a civilization, originating from beyond the sky."

Tom paused for a moment before understanding what this somewhat complex statement meant, and he couldn't"But scoff: "Isn't it just alien civilization invasion? Why give it the name 'Disaster'?"

Non-naturally formed means it was intentionally done by intelligent beings. From beyond the sky means alien civilization. Leading to the demise of a civilization means invasion, doesn't it?

Putting the three together, isn't it just alien civilization invasion?

"No, it's different. Uh, actually, it's not wrong to classify it as an alien civilization invasion, but, this invasion might be somewhat different from what you originally thought."

"Oh?"

"Do you think that alien civilization invasions are all like the current conflict between our two civilizations, where each side pilots technological weapons to attack and defend each other? No, they are not. That is only the way we 'orthodox' intelligent civilizations engage in combat.

Combat between orthodox intelligent civilizations is generally referred to as war, not Disaster. Disaster is the threat posed by non-orthodox intelligent existences to our orthodox intelligent civilizations, which we refer to as Disaster."

Tom was somewhat puzzled: "It's also divided into orthodox and non-orthodox?"

"Yes. Orthodox intelligent civilizations are like us, researching technology bit by bit, improving the performance of technological creations bit by bit, and ultimately possessing powerful combat and survival capabilities.

This is the most orthodox way to enhance one's strength in the universe—at least in the part of the universe we know—which is why it is called an orthodox intelligent civilization.

But non-orthodox intelligent existences—they can only be called existences by us, not a civilization, because they are very complex, diverse, and strange, truly difficult to describe as a civilization.

For example, we already know of one type of intelligent existence that specializes in infecting other life forms, using the bodies of other life forms as nutrients, interception, and merging the excellent genes of other life forms to optimize themselves. After fully developing, they abandon this entire destroyed ecosystem and continue their cosmic journey.

The invasion launched by this type of intelligent life is called the Infection Disaster.

In addition, there are the Parasitic Scourge, Microbial Disaster, and the Mechanical Disaster, which forced our civilization to undertake interstellar migration, and so on."