Chapter 27: Battle
During the experiments with various combat styles, if Tom found a certain style ineffective, he would immediately discard it and try another.
Thus, cold weapon team combat experience was continuously generated and, through Tom’s consciousness control, instantly synchronized to every Clone, including those currently on an emergency train to the copper mine base.
Although the remaining total of over a hundred thousand Clones were doing other work or resting, in just a few hours, they also gained a large amount of cold weapon combat experience.
Consequently, the Clones defending Copper Mine Base No. 1 quickly formed the most powerful combat formation after experimentation.
At this point, the train that had come from the Main Base for support also arrived. A large number of fully armed Clones jumped off the train and joined the layered battle formations.
In an instant, the defending force at Copper Mine No. 1 surged to 3,500 people!
And this formation was extremely dense.
The core facilities of Copper Mine No. 1 were a mine pit, a complete set of mining and crushing equipment, ore dressing equipment, an auxiliary power plant, a dock, and a rest area, with a total footprint of only tens of thousands of square meters. One side was also a canyon, requiring no defense.
The total length of the defensive line that needed to be protected was only a few hundred meters.
On a few hundred-meter front, at most a thousand people could be engaged in combat at the same time. The remaining armed Clones were kept by Tom as reserves, temporarily on standby.
Once a Clone on the front line died, Tom’s consciousness link would immediately transfer to a reserve Clone, who could instantly step in, always maintaining sufficient troops on the front line.
Amidst the strict preparations, several hours passed quietly. Accompanied by a slight tremor of the earth, under the illumination of searchlights, a dark shadow appeared in front.
Tom knew that it was not actually a shadow, but a swarm of Monster Birds.
Their numbers were so vast that they covered the ground.
Tom immediately reallocated the consciousness link shares temporarily diverted to the Main Base for production, stopped some less important production tasks, and connected a thousand shares of consciousness links to the armed Clones on the front line.
Accompanied by the silent roar of the Monster Birds swarm, seemingly realizing that there was too much delicious food here, the Monster Birds swarm instantly charged, and the armed Clones stood ready, and the two sides instantly collided.
In an instant, dozens of fully armed Clones were directly knocked away, or bitten by Monster Birds in mid-air and torn apart, or fell into the Monster Birds swarm and were immediately trampled to death or bitten to death. Those who were not dead immediately stood up and joined the subsequent battle without hesitation.
Countless long spears rapidly thrust and stabbed, countless long blades heavily struck down, and countless shields were raised high, doing their utmost to block attacks from the Monster Birds for themselves or their comrades.
For a time, the battlefield was a chaotic mess of flesh and blood.
Tom was highly concentrated, controlling a total of 1,000 front-line combat personnel, not daring to relax in the slightest.
Under his control, the combat Clones’ coordination was perfect. Every thrust of a spear, every strike of a long blade, every raise of a shield, was so coordinated, so smooth and natural.
Moreover, whenever a front-line Clone died, a fully armed Clone from the rear reserve team would immediately stand up and unhesitatingly join the front line to continue fighting.
All kinds of deployments were orderly, as if they had been rehearsed millions of times, without a single mistake.
Furthermore, no matter which reserve Clone was dispatched to join the battle, he could instantly integrate into the battlefield and fight in close cooperation with his surrounding comrades.
But even so, the pressure of the battle remained immense.
There was no other way; these Monster Birds were too large, and their strength was much greater than that of humans.
Moreover, occasionally, some Monster Birds would briefly take flight. Although they would fall down after not flying far, more like jumping than flying, they still caused some trouble for Tom.
Whenever this happened, Tom had no choice but to allocate more consciousness link shares here, controlling more armed Clones to join the battle to resolve the trouble.
On average, even with such tacit cooperation among the Clones, and with continuous combat experience and skills being generated in actual combat and instantly synchronized to all Clones, Tom still had to pay the price of three Clones’ lives to kill one Monster Bird.
"It’s a pity I didn’t have time to construct fortifications, so I can’t use them to resist these monsters. To protect the base, I can only fight in the open like this."
Tom thought to himself, "But it doesn’t matter, watch the explosives!"
A Clone, like a desperado, rushed out with a large package of explosives and threw it like a grenade.
Due to the low gravity of Loshen Star, the explosive package was thrown over a hundred meters before exploding with a bang.
In an instant, four or five Monster Birds were directly blown to pieces, their remains flying into the sky.
The ground trembled slightly, and amidst bursts of fire, one Monster Bird after another was directly blown apart.
The number of Clones was continuously decreasing. But with the addition of explosives and the constant replenishment from the reserve team, the front line was ultimately held.
While the battle was fierce at Copper Mine No. 1, Clones at other mining bases were standing by, and at the Main Base, numerous Steel Plants and metal smelting factories were still desperately producing at full throttle.
After several days of integration, Tom’s production speed for complete sets of cold weapons had increased again, reaching an average of 3,000 sets per day.
In the collective dormitory, under Tom’s control, a large number of Clones got up, left the dormitory building in high spirits, went to the equipment department to collect full sets of equipment, and then rushed to the front line.
The stock of equipment in the equipment department was not large, only maintaining around two hundred sets.
At the current rate of consumption, these two hundred sets of equipment seemed like they would be used up very quickly.
However, this situation did not occur. The reason was simple: with dozens of factories producing at full capacity, a continuous supply of combat equipment was being replenished here.
Every time a Clone took a set of equipment, a new set of equipment would be replenished.
While Clones continuously took equipment, newly produced equipment was constantly delivered, and through this ebb and flow, the inventory of equipment consistently remained between 150 and 200 sets, no more and no less.
These Clones who took the equipment would orderly and quickly board trains, heading at the fastest speed to the next base that was about to be attacked by the Monster Birds swarm.
Upon arrival, they would temporarily sit and rest there. At the same time, Tom’s consciousness link would instantly disconnect, withdraw back to the Main Base, and then continue to control a continuous stream of armed Clones to depart and continue to supplement the defensive forces of other bases.