"Report: the Wrath-of-Heaven Goddess No. 1 has entered the combat zone. The operational area ahead is wholly cleared. The Wrath-of-Heaven Goddess No. 1 will open a saturation fire strike upon the target area!" So spoke a communications petty officer upon the bridge.
And broke the quiet among Zhao Chen and the two women.
The three exchanged a glance.
Zhao Chen gave a slight smile: "It is no great matter; I only wished to let you know. What presses most at present is still the ending of this battle before us. It cannot be drawn out too long."
Charlotte nodded in silence, and went back to her post of command.
Lilith, for her part, stood at Zhao Chen's side, and in a voice that only the two of them could hear she asked: "Have you… decided?"
"I have decided." Zhao Chen nodded.
Lilith took Zhao Chen's hand from behind and gripped it tight: "Since you have decided, then we shall all support you without condition. Whatever your standing may be, and whenever it may be. We support you."
"Mm," Zhao Chen answered.
He looked out beyond the porthole at that interstellar warship standing alone amid a throng of fleets.
The other warships were all of them close together, keeping only the standard interval.
But about this T6 Wrath-of-Heaven-Goddess-class Interstellar Heavy-Artillery Ship a great space had been set apart.
As though she were solitary, and none might come near her.
At this moment, upon her hull, the heavy guns turned their muzzles one after another, every one of them toward the battlefield of the Demon Castle star system.
Muzzle upon muzzle, ranged thick upon the surface of the hull.
With the welling forth of light upon light, pillar upon pillar of light shot out toward the battlefield opposite.
The brightness of that mass of light-pillars could match even the brightness a fixed star gives out.
It was dazzling in the extreme.
And under the rain-like assault of these light-pillars, the Demon Race's interstellar warships upon the struck face, and their lines of defense and interstellar fortresses of every kind, bore a wild and pounding bombardment.
The star-shields' energy was spent to nothing with exceeding speed.
And thereafter Demon warship upon Demon warship, under the unceasing gunfire, split into four and five, and fell to wreckage upon the universe.
Lilith raised her hand, and the brief particulars of this warship appeared before her.
She asked: "Is this that Wrath-of-Heaven Goddess mode?"
【Wrath-of-Heaven-Goddess-class Interstellar Heavy-Artillery Ship
Ship type: Interstellar Heavy-Artillery Ship
Technology grade: T6
Hull armor strength: 300,000–330,000 units
Star-shield energy value: 9,000,000 units
Cruising speed: 1,100 star-knots
Warp drive: grade-nine warp drive
Length: 65.8 kilometers
Mass: 68,990,000 tons
Complement: 30,000
Ship weapons: 10,000 Wrath-of-Heaven energy heavy cannon
1,000 fully-automatic high-density octuple-mount energy close-in guns
Special state: Wrath-of-Heaven Goddess mode】
The scene at this moment was truly as a radiant goddess with both wings spread wide, from whose plumage points of light beyond all counting swept toward the enemy in one continuing assault.
"Wrath-of-Heaven Goddess mode holds all the heavy guns to an assault of high intensity and high density for a stretch of time. This mode cannot be sustained long. For the starship's core energy cannot keep up an assault of so many heavy guns at so high a frequency and so high a density. When this mode of attack is over, two thirds of the heavy guns must commonly stand idle a while. They need a stretch of time to recover," Zhao Chen explained.
"Even with these limits. The fighting power this Wrath-of-Heaven Goddess shows is terrible enough. In these few minutes alone, even those so-called T5 interstellar warships of the enemy's are torn apart as easily as paper. If we had thirty warships such as this… No! Ten! With only ten, there would be none within this universe to match us," Lilith said in her confidence.
Hearing Lilith's words, Zhao Chen thought without thinking of the Machine Race, and of those Machine Race fleets fighting hard at the Black Great-Wall Base.
At the least, within this universe, what Lilith said was not wrong.
"Charlotte, with this Wrath-of-Heaven-Goddess-class Interstellar Heavy-Artillery Ship joined to us. How soon at the fastest can this campaign be ended?" Zhao Chen asked, coming up behind Charlotte.
"By the original plan the Demon Castle star system would be stormed before the end of December. But if you would have the pace quickened, then with this Wrath-of-Heaven Goddess to help us. We can finish before the end of November. Only it would not be the storming of the whole Demon Castle star system, but the taking of the Demon Castle. We can use the Wrath-of-Heaven Goddess's mighty power of fire to tear open a breach upon one side of the enemy's line, and then drive straight into the Demon Castle! And take the Demon Castle," Charlotte said.
Zhao Chen nodded: "That will do. Do as you have thought. This Wrath-of-Heaven-Goddess-class Interstellar Heavy-Artillery Ship is now wholly under your command."
"Aye."
Zhao Chen stared at the battlefield of the Demon Castle star system, but upon his face at this moment there was no smile whatever to be seen.
Lilith watched Zhao Chen from beside him.
Something about him was changing.
Time went quickly.
The state of the Demon Castle star system battlefield, once the T6 Wrath-of-Heaven-Goddess-class Interstellar Heavy-Artillery Ship had joined it, saw the efficiency of the assault greatly increased.
A breach was torn open at one corner of the Demon Castle star system.
Though the Demon Race's legion fleets sought to set more interstellar warships in defense at that place,
under the terrible fire of the T6 Wrath-of-Heaven-Goddess-class Interstellar Heavy-Artillery Ship, these Demon warships pressing on one after another all fell to wreckage beneath the guns.
At the last.
At the end of November, Galactic Star Calendar year 3036.
Zhao Chen saw that so-called Demon Castle.
The Demon Castle was very great, built out of a whole planet.
About the Demon Castle at this moment were gathered the strongest legion fleets of the Demon Race.
The Demon King's legion!
And a flagship besides.
A T6 Lord-of-Terror-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship!
To be exact, a warship remade from a quasi-T6 Destroyer-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship, and the Demon King's own ship now.
She was proclaimed abroad as the first T6 interstellar warship within this universe.
But she had never once appeared upon a battlefield, and none knew whether this warship truly held the strength of the T6 grade.
"The T6 Lord-of-Terror-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship; her prototype is the quasi-T6 Destroyer. The bow cannon has been altered into a single greater bow gun, which is their strongest means of attack. The hull's length reaches eighty kilometers. Before this, there is no combat record." So Charlotte read off the combat particulars of the enemy's flagship.
Zhao Chen cast an eye over it, and passed his judgment lightly: "She is no match for the Wrath-of-Heaven Goddess."
And at this moment Lilith, beside him, spoke with a strange look upon her face.
"An external communication received, from… the Lord of Terror opposite, signed: the Demon King."
"Put it through."