Crunch, crunch.
Zhao Chen chewed the potato chips in his mouth and looked at that warship within the picture, now a thing of wounds from end to end, with no strength left to struggle.
"It is over at last.
"I had not seen it, but this quasi-T6 Destroyer's hull armor takes a beating rather well.
"Her star-shield broken, she bore it by main force five minutes more."
Charlotte beside him had updated the hull-armor data upon this quasi-T6 Destroyer besides, and had reckoned out the rough compass of her star-shield energy value too.
"At the price of five T5 Chaos-Knight-class Heavy Assault Interstellar Destroyers destroyed outright.
"And two T5 Chaos-Knights and one T5 Lightning-Wraith grievously wounded.
"They have taken this quasi-T6 Destroyer-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship of the Demon Race's.
"Is that a good bargain, or a bad one?" Zhao Wan'er, gnawing a great pig's trotter beside them, asked in her curiosity.
Charlotte weighed it a moment and said, "For the Holy Dragon Angel Legion, and for a field of three hundred and thirty thousand warships against four hundred thousand.
"To trade away at such a price the enemy's mightiest fighting strength, a quasi-T6 warship, may be reckoned a fair enough record.
"At the least it may be said to have steadied the whole case of the Angel Race's campaign against the Demon Race.
"So long as the Demon Race send no further relief hereafter, the Angel Race can in the main gain the advantage of the field.
"Whether that advantage can be turned into a winning position must rest upon what strength the two sides put in hereafter.
"Though by the two sides' intensity in the fighting — by the fierceness of the fighting upon this field alone — a month at the least is wanted before the end of it may be seen."
Once the fierce clash of a field's first round is past, and the enemy cannot be destroyed outright, the fierceness of the field thereafter falls away in a straight line.
Which is why the Owl Dragon Legion can always carry a campaign within a dozen hours, or within a few days.
Where other interstellar powers commonly want weeks, or even months.
"Well then, we have seen what there was to see.
"When are we to send out troops?" Charlotte stretched herself, and threw this question at Zhao Chen once more.
Not a week has gone by yet, and it is far from the three months the mission requires.
Zhao Chen put her off. "Do you but see to the training of our legion fleets; when there is a task of war I shall tell you at the first moment."
"Pah.
"My starships will be growing fur from idleness." Charlotte pursed her lips; before this the Owl Dragon Legion fought the year round, and could hardly come by so long a time of rest.
And by now it is going on three months and more without a war.
And no few of them do not much like so long a holiday.
Zhao Chen did not take up Charlotte's words; he looked at the picture of the field, where the fighting went on still.
The Holy Dragon Angel Legion, having destroyed that quasi-T6 Destroyer, did not at once open a fierce assault, but gathered in its own T5 warships and its fleet's array instead.
At this moment the quasi-T6 Destroyer is destroyed; and for the fighting before, the Holy Dragon Angel Legion's starships are in no good state, and the fleet's array is somewhat disordered.
At such a time the initiative lies already in the Holy Dragon Angel Legion's hand, and there is no need to go at once to a fight of fish dying and net breaking with the enemy; for though they carried it, that would work exceedingly great casualties upon the Holy Dragon Angel Legion.
This engagement has already cost them several T5 warships in losses; were that number of losses to grow, Tilia herself could not bear it.
And so: first rest and make the line firm, and then seek the moment to open the general assault.
That is the wisest choice of all; at present she need only drag out the enemy's assault.
Those who ought to be anxious are the side opposite, that has lost its quasi-T6 warship.
"That the Demon Race should of a sudden have so many more warships — there must assuredly be some secret place of starship industry and building.
"What we set you to look into before — has any word been found?" Zhao Chen inquired.
Charlotte shook her head.
Lilith said with her brows a little drawn, "Upon this business we are perplexed too.
"By our inquiry we have found that within the Demon Race there has now appeared a new establishment, called the demon group-fleet corps, set down as the Demon Race's conventional legion fleets.
"And those six demon legions that survived the campaign at last year's end are set down as picked legion fleets.
"This demon group-fleet corps, by what we have observed to the present, already holds above a million Demon Race warships.
"And even to this present moment they go on sending Demon Race warships into Machine Race territory without cease, as though… as though it were a thing without end.
"And yet the interstellar stealth scouts we sent into Demon Race territory have never had any word of the Demon Race's building a new base of starship industry."
Zhao Chen drew his brows together. "How is that possible?
"Those carriages of raw material — have they been looked into?
"To produce interstellar warships must consume a vast quantity of raw materials; the warships can hardly have appeared out of the empty air.
"By that thread one may very easily find where those warships are produced."
Lilith shook her head and said helplessly, "We have made trial of seeking it.
"Within Demon Race territory there are indeed no few more interstellar transports; but once these transports enter a star gate we simply cannot find where in the end they have gone.
"And by the time these transports appear again, the raw-material cargo upon them is long since gone.
"And those newly appearing Demon Race warships are likewise thrown by star gate straight to the Demon Race's front-line field, and once formed into squadrons are sent off into Machine Race territory!"
Interstellar transports vanishing without cause?
And Demon Race warships appearing out of the empty air.
How is it that all of this looks so uncanny?
"For this we looked into every star gate within Demon Race territory besides, and found nothing whatever.
"From which we draw one conclusion.
"Either there is some place we have not found — a secret Demon Race base.
"Or else the Demon Race has certain star gates joined to star systems further off, beyond the compass of our searching," Lilith set out.
Zhao Chen's heart sank; the more there is unknown about an enemy, the more one has a misgiving that will not be still.
"Go on tracing this business, and find as soon as may be where in the end these Demon Race warships are produced and built.
"This is very important to us!" Zhao Chen said, his face set.
"Yes."
------
The Demon King's castle
"Reporting — the latest word has come back from the front-line field against the Angel Race.
"One of our quasi-T6 Destroyer-class Heavy Interstellar Battleships has been… destroyed." A demon sergeant knelt before the Demon King's throne and said it timidly.
Not daring to raise his head and look at the Demon King.