Space Odyssey from Abandoned Mining Space Station

Therefore, when these small outposts were attacked, Chen Ming generally had time to take away the Dusk cores.

Only a few were unlucky, discovering the attack late and having their cores directly hit, resulting in the destruction of the unfortunate Dusk cores during this assault.

The number was about twenty or so, not too many.

However, although Chen Ming’s Maintenance Spiritual Energy can repair the Dusk cores themselves, it cannot repair the consciousness within them.

So, if these Dusk cores are lost, it is truly a loss.

Chen Ming currently only has tens of thousands of Dusk cores, losing a few still makes him feel pained.

Not to mention that some of the equipment at the outposts and quite a portion of resources had to be abandoned there, either destroyed by the Mechanical Race or plundered by them.

With Chen Ming’s Pioneer Fleet having already performed four leaps, these small outposts near the Empire were numerous, accounting for about 40% of Chen Ming’s resource inflow.

This allowed Chen Ming to be less reliant on the Empire for resources needed for expansion.

If these small outposts were lost, to maintain the Pioneer Fleet, he would have to spend extra money to fill this gap and bear the increased dependency with the Empire.

For Chen Ming, who always considered escaping from the Empire, these losses were indeed substantial.

Chen Ming also assumed the Mechanical Race would directly target the main forces.

That’s why he didn’t evacuate the Dusk from these areas.

Since the investment cost had long been recouped, extracting resources for even an extra day meant additional income.

He truly didn’t expect the Mechanical Race’s attacks would be so ”thorough and grassroots.”

Through those Dusk cores scattered along the entire expansion route.

Chen Ming could see that at least one-third of the ships from the lower-tier fleets of the Mechanical Race Star Realm had been deployed to clean out Chen Ming’s small outposts.

As for the remaining two-thirds, other than keeping some in their star realm.

The rest were likely tasked with searching for the coordinates of Chen Ming’s outposts and continuing to look for the real location of his stronghold now.

Chen Ming’s small temporary outposts were extremely scattered and spread over a large area.

If it weren’t for the massive fleet conducting a carpet search, it would have been impossible to lock down almost all of Chen Ming’s small outposts.

Such a large-scale effort was unprecedented.

Of course, Chen Ming said this from his perspective, as well as from a historical standpoint within the Mechanical Race Star Realm.

Additionally, he could tell that a Mechanical Race cruiser was leading a large fleet, filling surrounding star realms, and further searching the star system where Chen Ming’s main Pioneer Fleet was located.

Rather than lower-tier Mechanical Race ships relying on superspace for their searches.

So if Chen Ming did nothing.

In a few hours at the earliest, or three days at the latest, the two temporary outposts he currently possesses, positioned before and after the third and fourth leaps, would surely be discovered.

And once the Mechanical Race found him, a large fleet from the Mechanical Race would immediately press in.

Chen Ming wouldn’t exaggerate, but from the actions of the Mechanical Race, he could only believe they had deployed practically all their lower-tier ships to search for him in the surrounding star realms.

Since the entire star realm’s lower-tier fleet was mobilized, there would definitely be at least a thousand cruisers dispatched, or even the possibility of deploying main ships.

The last time the Mechanical Race besieged Chen Ming was when Chen Ming attacked a Mechanical Race outpost to expand the Mechanical Race’s hive network and seize their colony ships.

At that time, the Mechanical Race deployed two waves of fleets, one with twenty to thirty ships and the second with over eighty ships.

Although the second fleet was followed by a Phase Giant Beast.

It clearly showed that the Mechanical Race prepared with far more strength than the threat level demanded.

Moreover, Chen Ming had just demonstrated a destructive capability against the Mechanical Race.

This time, what they prepared for might exceed Chen Ming’s expectations.

There might even be an external fleet from the Mechanical Race involved.

According to information from Bai Quan, the Galor front line had not faced substantial resistance recently, even though the Empire hadn’t invested significant war efforts yet their progress was smooth.

Not only was there no significant resistance, but also no signs of external Mechanical Race fleets arriving.

Even some reconnaissance fleets, relatively deep at the front, completely failed to find any ambushes.

The Mechanical Queen controlled by Chen Ming couldn’t possibly provide false information.

So, what’s left as a possibility?

The Mechanical Race truly regards Chen Ming as a greater threat than the Empire.

It makes sense.

For the Mechanical Race in this region, the threat from the Empire and Chen Ming is similar, potentially leading to the destruction of a star realm.

But for the Mechanical Race in the entire universe, Chen Ming’s danger outweighs that of the Empire.

The Empire’s expansion takes time and is limited.

But Chen Ming could move around at will.

Especially with Chen Ming having fleets for expansion and various outposts set up, these actions further heightened the Mechanical Race’s perception of Chen Ming’s threat beyond that of the Empire.