At the same time, upon the side of the Agares Legion's main legion fleet, which had but now ended its warp voyage and reached the coordinate of its destination, word came from that other part of its own fleet.
Marshal Agares looked at this message with a face exceedingly heavy.
And for a long while said nothing.
"My lord? What is it?" His trusted adjutant beside him asked it out of his care.
"The King-of-the-North… is gone."
Those few short words fell upon this trusted adjutant like five thunderbolts upon the crown of his head.
"The King-of-the-North gone? Can it be that the King-of-the-North was beheaded by the enemy?" The trusted adjutant gulped, and asked it past all belief.
"It is not so; it is that the King-of-the-North Legion's three hundred thousand interstellar warships all fell in battle.
"And the King-of-the-North… died with them." Marshal Agares said it, his voice low, and there was something of grief upon his face.
The King-of-the-North, as one of the elder generation among the original twelve marshals, is an existence of high standing and great honor.
And though the King-of-the-North Legion's number has always stood at some three hundred thousand warships, which set against certain demon legions of a full million warships is a wide gulf indeed.
That has never been able to shake the King-of-the-North Legion's standing among the twelve demon legions.
And the King-of-the-North's own character above all has brought no few demon marshals to be his friends, in a relation at once of teacher and of friend.
Such a thing as Marshal Red Demon's being gone, and the Red Demon Legion's being gone.
Is, to the general thinking, no more than a small interlude, it may be.
But that the King-of-the-North Legion should be gone is, for the whole Demon Race, a great event to shake heaven and earth!
"This… this… this…" The trusted adjutant, hearing it, could not still the feeling within him for a long while.
"Reporting — a suspicious body of interstellar fleets is found upon the course ahead; scout ships have been sent to close and observe!"
Before long, word came back.
"Reporting — the suspicious body of fleets ahead is our enemy of this business, Owl Dragon Legion warships.
"Near fifty thousand interstellar warships!"
Hearing these reports, and seeing besides those points of light already appearing within the radar's compass.
Fifty thousand Owl Dragon warships, facing three hundred thousand demon warships.
The difference in strength between the two is a wide gulf still.
"Make ready for battle.
"Tell the commanders of every rank that with the Owl Dragon Legion they may on no account be careless.
"Since they have the strength to destroy the King-of-the-North Legion to the last ship in so short a time, they are not to be made light of!" Marshal Agares said, his voice low.
"Yes!"
Three hundred thousand Agares Legion warships slowed their sailing and began to make ready for battle, setting out an exceedingly wary formation.
Had this been in former times, and had high commanders of other demon legions seen the Agares Legion set out so wary a formation against an enemy six times fewer in number.
They would beyond doubt have made some mockery of it.
But now, with the King-of-the-North Legion's bones not yet gone cold, no one dares hold the Owl Dragon Legion light in any degree.
"The enemy looks to be very wary.
"Three hundred thousand interstellar warships, and setting out a battle formation of this kind." Commander Su Lan looked at Commander Charlotte across the video window.
Those who have charge of this interception this time are the Owl Dragon legion fleets of these two.
Commander Charlotte cast a careful eye over it a while, then said in a manner somewhat helpless, "The enemy is very wary; by the look of it there is no chance of taking an advantage.
"Let us go forward by plan B.
"At the least cost in casualties, drag out the pace of the enemy's advance.
"If we can but drag it out until the other parts of the field have gained the advantage, that is our victory.
"Su Lan, do you take command of both our legion fleets; unless there be some urgent case, of which you are to tell me, you may determine everything else for yourself.
"I must command the fighting upon the several parts of the field."
Commander Su Lan nodded a little, without any change of look whatever.
She is no longer the raw recruit newly out of the North Star Starship Military Academy that she was then.
Having been washed in the fires of war several times over.
And with the Owl Dragon-line warships besides — that reliable great tree of technology — she has confidence to face any enemy at all.
Though the enemy's warships be six times her own!
Without a stroke struck, who is to know the winning from the losing!
And the more so as this task of battle is only to delay, and not to destroy — which is far less hard.
Having charged Su Lan with it.
Charlotte too gave the whole of her mind to the case of the war.
She looked at the interstellar sand-table before her as one looks at a board of chess.
The board covers three parts in the main.
Two great parts and one small.
The small part is the sweeping-up campaign in the Mechanical Divine Church's star system, chiefly the gathering of whatever intelligence the Mechanical Divine Church may have left behind, and the keeping of those mechanical planets as whole as may be.
By her earlier consultation with Commander Zhao Chen.
The best case is that these mechanical planets be preserved; for by the intelligence come to hand at present.
These mechanical planets are so many starship manufactories; and though somewhat damaged by the war, to repair them is no hard business.
And if they can be repaired, then hereafter the Owl Dragon Legion will hold a base of starship industry second only to the Owl Dragon Star System!
Its capacity for producing interstellar warships would be doubled outright!
Which is why Zhao Chen, in the reduction of the Mechanical Divine Church's planets, has been careful and small in every step, and gone forward one step at a time.
Were it not so, and had he simply set the interstellar missile ships to wash over them sheet by sheet, this campaign could have been ended long since.
And one may see that the Demon King's going to such vast trouble as to move near half the demon legions to the relief here is, upon the one hand, a wish to save his own partner.
And upon the other a hankering after this vast base of starship-building industry!
For once this place is lost, the demon legions lose a supply of production of three hundred thousand to five hundred thousand demon warships a month!
The demon legions' output of new ships each month would fall by more than half at a stroke!
Which is just what the War Angel Star Region means to the Angel Race.
It may not be lost!
To the look of it the smallest field — but its value is the highest of all.
Of the other two parts of the field, one is the clash of the Angel Race against the Demon Race; and though the Owl Dragon Legion has no part in it, it is bound up close with the case of the war upon the Owl Dragon Legion's side.
And the other is the clash of the Owl Dragon Legion against the Demon Race.
Upon the Owl Dragon Legion's side at present this has become five local fields of small and middling campaigns.
The Owl Dragon Eighth Legion, whose case was the best of them, has now taken a sharp turn downward.
For what they must face is that part of the Agares Legion come to the relief, near two hundred thousand interstellar warships.
And having but now been through a hard battle with the King-of-the-North Legion, this is beyond doubt the greatest test for Ye Xiaotong and her Owl Dragon Eighth Legion.
And upon the other three local fields the case is exceedingly locked; there may be an advantage, but it cannot for the present be turned into a winning position.
"By the look of it, the last trump must be brought out.
"Whether this campaign may be carried or no.
"Hangs upon this!"