The orks' every move had always been under Noah's watchful eye; every night, he would, out of boredom, use his reconnaissance equipment to observe the ork camp's every action.
However, every day he saw the orks' behavior, he would be utterly bewildered.
Those green monsters danced around a huge bonfire, playing ear-splitting music on crude instruments, and occasionally a few drunken orks would wrestle, eliciting a cheer.
For a long time, they did this every night.
"Truly perplexing creatures," Noah said after he stopped observing the orks' movements and performed some eye exercises to maintain his vision.
"Despite suffering heavy losses every day, they still maintain such high morale. In the galaxy, the federation has never encountered such an enemy. It's truly baffling."
His chief of staff—a young officer brought from the underground city—handed him a data pad.
"Governor, according to our statistics, the orks' losses in the past 16 days have exceeded 98 million. But their numbers seem... to be increasing rather than decreasing?"
Noah took the data pad and glanced at it.
Indeed, the orks' reproduction rate far exceeded expectations.
Mushrooms growing on the bodies of slain orks could give birth to new ork warriors in just a few days.
Except for the few that were annihilated by gauss rifles, leaving no trace, orks eliminated by the ordinary Betel Empire Planetary Defence Force always had more orks growing from their corpses.
While this also meant that the mushroom farm he was about to cultivate would have such high productivity that it could serve as a unique product to supply the residents of the planet.
However, reproduction was not the most vexing problem with the orks.
"Governor, in the statistics of these past few days, we've noticed an increasing number of large ork war machines.
At the same time, their power has also become increasingly fierce. Although still within our manageable range, the enemy's combat power is indeed constantly rising."
Noah's adjutant brought up another problem that troubled Noah: the orks' development speed.
The orks' proliferation was not a bad thing for Noah; after all, these constantly multiplying orks meant that he wouldn't have to worry about food in the future.
Even if his hydroponic farm wasn't built yet, this was still the case.
What truly troubled him was the terrifying speed of the orks' reproduction, and later, their technological and weapon development speed could be described as incredibly fast. They passed through the atomic age military era in a very short time.
They were now advancing towards the early space age.
The orks had always been monitored by Noah, but yesterday he saw them hand-craft a spaceship that looked like it had already flown halfway to the planet's surface!
This kind of development speed could only be described as somewhat defying nature.
Moreover, Noah also discovered that the more the orks fought and the more intense the fighting became, the faster their development speed.
After he took over as governor and fought several high-intensity defensive battles against the orks, these guys' development speed accelerated even further.
After thinking for a moment, Noah asked his adjutant beside him.
"I am now entrusting all Mechanical Legions to your command, plus our PDF. How confident are you that we can eliminate the orks around us?"
The adjutant's fingers slid rapidly across the holographic sandbox, his brow furrowed in calculation: "Governor, if we deploy all 1.6 million Mechanical Legions and the existing 20 million PDF troops, theoretically we can clear ork strongholds within a 500-kilometer radius in 36 hours. But..."
His finger stopped at the edge of the virtual sandbox: "According to reconnaissance data, the main ork force has retreated to the other side of the mountain range.
This mountain range is the largest on this planet, and its steep terrain is absolutely the most difficult area to cross on the entire planet.
At the same time, there are also a large number of ork spawn points here, where a large number of orks can be born every day.
If we rashly attack and cannot quickly take the entire mountain range, we are very likely to get bogged down in a war of attrition."
Noah stared at the constantly flickering ork markers on the virtual sandbox, suddenly noticing an anomaly: "Wait, bring up the ork activity tracks from the past 24 hours."
The holographic image quickly reassembled, showing the movement paths of the ork forces.
Disturbingly, all routes pointed in the same direction—towards the location of the second largest hive city on the Bethel hive world.
"They are concentrating their forces?" the adjutant asked, puzzled.
"No..." Noah's pupils suddenly contracted, "They are transporting parts!"
He abruptly brought up the holographic image of the planet's second hive city.
The mountains of discarded machinery that were once piled high were now more than half gone.
And in an open space in the hive city, a huge metal structure was taking shape—it was clearly a crude but complete space warship!
????
With so many unscientific experiences before, Noah would not doubt that this thing could fly; they were almost certainly able to fly.
Looking at the interstellar warship that these orks were constantly piecing together, Noah couldn't help but exclaim.
"These creatures are truly amazing!"
"Our war with them has accelerated their development. We can't drag this out any longer; we must use unconventional methods."
As he spoke, Noah walked out of the governor's Palace and arrived at the largest open space in this hive city.
This place was usually used to dock Imperial warships, and now Noah walked here.
He opened his small spatial backpack and pulled out a Terran Federation smart cruiser, a model that had been phased out long ago.
Myriad-class cruiser—
Length: 12.64 kilometers
Its weaponry primarily consisted of gamma lasers, plasma cannons, phase Disintegration Cannons, cyclone missiles, gauss cannons, and phase light lances.
The warship's armor was necrodermis armor.
This was the most powerful weapon Noah had hidden in his small spatial backpack.
If he hadn't once been a triple-system researcher for the federation and made significant contributions, it would have been impossible for him to hide a smart cruiser in his backpack.
After all, this was necrodermis armor, which was not ordinary civilian technology; even now, it belonged to the federation's military technology.
Of course, the federation's military necrodermis armor had already been enhanced by nearly 1000 cycles of technological augmentation.
The cruiser in Noah's possession had not undergone 1000 cycles of technological augmentation; it had only gone through 600 cycles.
However, this did not mean that this cruiser was weak; it was equipped with particle light lances.
If this level of light lance hit any planet, without shield protection, it could destroy at least half of the planet.
It was still effective when used against space pirate fleets in the federation.
This was the weapon Noah had on hand for critical situations; besides this smart cruiser, he only had eight frigates and two destroyers left.
The orks' development speed had undoubtedly startled Noah; they were now hand-crafting warships. How could this be allowed?
Preventing these guys from actually flying into space would directly disrupt his plans.
So Noah decided to nip their development in the bud with an orbital bombardment from the cruiser.