Humanity is missing, luckily I have billions of clones

The Confidential Secretary's face was filled with grief.

Tom's eyes narrowed slightly.

He said, word by word, "You're saying that the strong nuclear force-level Mechanical Disaster… is very likely to pursue us all the way to the solar system?"

The Confidential Secretary nodded.

At this moment, a surge of immense fury instantly rose in Tom's heart.

He had originally thought that the Bluetoth Civilization would only conduct predatory mining in the solar system, but he never expected them to bring such trouble along!

You, you deserve to die a thousand deaths!

Tom was furious for a while, but he had no choice but to stop, disheartened.

The entire Bluetoth Civilization had been wiped out by him, and the remaining few people had become his captives. How else could he retaliate against them?

Torture and kill these remaining captives?

There was no meaning to it. They were now his assets; killing them would only cause him losses.

"How long until the Mechanical Disaster likely catches up?"

The Confidential Secretary shook his head: "I don't know. No one knows. But we all agree that it's very likely to come.

After all, orthodox intelligent civilizations aren't like cabbages, found everywhere in the universe. How could it easily let go of the trace of an orthodox intelligent civilization once it finds one?"

Tom thought quickly and continued to ask, "As far as I know, our civilization, at a stage even earlier than the current one, had already made numerous attempts and significant progress in unifying the strong nuclear force.

We established the Standard Model and are already quite close to the goal of the strong nuclear force unification.

Your technology is more advanced than ours, so you must have gone further down this path than us.

And since one can become a Strong Nuclear Civilization by unifying the strong nuclear force, why did you choose to flee instead of developing your technology with all your might to contend with that Mechanical Disaster?"

After all, during interstellar travel, even with extensive material reserves, they are limited, and many scientific studies cannot be conducted. Choosing to flee means almost losing the possibility of continuing technological development.

The Confidential Secretary said gravely, "Unifying the strong nuclear force is not as simple as you imagine. The reason you currently believe you are close to unification is simply that your research is not deep enough, and you have not yet discovered the huge obstacles ahead.

Our civilization also once considered staying in the star system to develop technology instead of fleeing, but after evaluation by our team of scientific experts, the possibility of us breaking through to become a Strong Nuclear Civilization within at least a thousand years is almost nonexistent.

At the same time, even if we were to become a Strong Nuclear Civilization, there is a long distance from theory to practical application.

Overall, we would need at least two thousand years to potentially acquire the strength to contend with that Mechanical Disaster, and that would require us to go all out and minimize internal consumption.

We do not believe that Mechanical Disaster will arrive so late.

We could only flee.

It was precisely because time was pressing that after discovering your civilization in the solar system, we became even more determined to come to the solar system.

Because we originally intended to capture your civilization to help us gather resources for the next leg of our journey. This way, we could set sail and escape at the fastest possible speed."

Tom was noncommittal and continued, "Your civilization's data shows that the strong nuclear force-level Mechanical Disaster's fleet can fly at speeds extremely close to the speed of light, while your fleet's cruising speed is only 3% of the speed of light.

With such a vast difference, are you confident you can escape?"

"When we fled our home star system, we disguised a batch of fleets to escape in another direction, as a cover. At the same time, our main fleet deliberately optimized its thrusters to minimize tail flame brightness and improve directivity.

In the solar system, we also planned to perform another disguise.

As for whether it will work… that's not something we can decide. We only know that by fleeing, there's a glimmer of hope. Not fleeing means certain death."

Tom sneered, "You've consistently judged that it will pursue you to the solar system, so it seems you yourselves have no confidence in the disguise you made in your home star system."

The Confidential Secretary sighed again, "Time was urgent, and under such haste, being able to delay for a bit was already very good; how could we dare to hope for too much? However, we did plan to make a serious effort with the disguise here in the solar system."

Tom fell into a moment of thought.

Combining the interrogations of this Confidential Secretary and many other personnel, along with the intelligence obtained from numerous Bluetoth spacecraft, Tom knew that there was indeed a very high probability that the Mechanical Disaster would come to the solar system.

In the short term, he probably wouldn't have the strength to contend with it.

It seemed he might have to run as well.

But how to run, and how to run, could be meticulously planned to maximize the chances of success.

In any case, he first needed to digest and absorb the technology from the Bluetoth Civilization, master a series of technologies such as controllable nuclear fusion and high-speed ion propulsion technology, and truly possess interstellar navigation capabilities before anything else.

Currently, he couldn't even leave the solar system.

Tom continued, "You are only an Electroweak Civilization. How did you know so much information?"

"While exploring nearby star systems, we discovered the ruins of a long-extinct civilization. It took us a great deal of effort to obtain this information.

Otherwise, we wouldn't have been able to immediately determine that the Mechanical Disaster had targeted us when we discovered that alien spacecraft, and then immediately made the decision to flee."

Tom did not dwell on this question but said, "Tell me about the Parasitic Scourge and Microbial Disaster that you know of."

The Bluetoth Civilization collectively knew of four forms of scourges. The Mechanical Disaster and Infection Disaster had already been briefly introduced; now only the Parasitic Scourge and Microbial Disaster remained.

"The Parasitic Scourge and Infection Disaster have some similarities; both begin with silent infection. However, the purpose of the Parasitic Scourge's parasites is not to seize genes, but to control the individuals of that civilization.

Complete control, from mind to body, thereby completely replacing them.

From the outside, the individual looks no different from before; even their behavior and tone of voice are exactly the same, but the core has been completely taken over by the parasite.

Under these circumstances, the parasite quietly produces offspring and widely disperses them, infecting more individuals, until all intelligent life in the entire civilization is infected."

Recalling the situation where Human Civilization was completely infected, and all his relatives, friends, and classmates had their "souls" replaced, Tom felt a chill from the bottom of his heart.

"What is the purpose of the parasites parasitizing intelligent life? It can't just be for reproduction, can it?"

"Of course not."

The Confidential Secretary shook his head: "There may be life forms in the universe that specifically parasitize other organisms to maintain the reproduction of their own species, but that kind can only be called a disease, not a Parasitic Scourge.

The information we obtained shows that in a Parasitic Scourge, the purpose of the parasites parasitizing the intelligent life of other civilizations is to seize everything of that civilization.

All the wealth of that civilization, including all resources, technological creations, and most importantly, technological data, scientific thinking, culture, art, customs, and so on, will be taken by them.

The pathogens of the Parasitic Scourge are intentionally spread throughout the universe by the Parasitic Scourge. Once a parasite matures, it naturally knows how to contact its mother civilization.

They will attempt to return to the mother civilization, using the appearance of the parasitized civilization's life forms and the parasitized civilization's technological data and scientific thinking, etc., to contribute to the development of the mother civilization."