At that moment Zhao Chen was watching one defense-line battlefield, where the fighting was against an attack by over a thousand of these Undead Angels.
The Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire's database now held an entry on the Undead Angel.
Beyond doubt, after the planets where the angels lived had fallen, those who had been angels were infected and became undead.
On becoming undead, they underwent special changes, the most obvious of which was that their bodies grew gigantic.
Next, they gained the ability all undead have: spirit-energy.
And by the rule of undead infection,
the stronger the original, the greater the strength it would have once infected.
These Undead Angels, for instance, now generally had T4-grade fighting power.
A very few Undead Angels among them even had T5-grade fighting power.
And those with T5-grade fighting power were generally called T5 Undead Archangels.
"The Undead Angels are over two hundred meters tall, yes. But they are very fast and mobile, and compared with other combat units of the same grade, their bulk counts as small. Small bulk plus high mobility makes them hard to hit. The one blessing is that these Undead Angels have no means of ranged attack; like the great majority of undead creatures, they attack at close range. Otherwise the threat of these Undead Angels would be too terrible," Zhao Chen muttered.
"Yes. And these Undead Angels can ignore our starships' star shields as well, which will be a tremendous threat to our starships!" Tao Beibei, at his side, said with a frown.
"Luckily we now have countermeasures to match," Zhao Chen said.
He watched the combat footage.
A batch of over a hundred Undead Angels had just broken through the star shields of several Owl Dragon interstellar warships and were trying to attack those Owl Dragon interstellar warships' hulls directly.
The close-in defense guns on the interstellar warships poured out a frenzied barrage.
Some of the Undead Angels could not in the end withstand the fire, and were killed in that last stretch of distance.
But more of the Undead Angels, relying on their spirit-energy shields and their speed, made it through that last zone of death.
They broke through the close-in guns' net of fire.
Before, that would for the most part have put the interstellar warship in the worst of straits.
But that was before, not now.
Having fought undead creatures,
the Owl Dragon interstellar warships had some combat experience of their own.
So it was now.
A T4 Undead Angel that had only just touched down had not yet had time to attack the starship's armor,
when a sharp sword from beside it ran straight through its body.
The skull turned its head.
It saw an interstellar battle mecha standing there, a sharp sword in hand.
It was a T5 Cerberus-class Interstellar Battle Mecha!
On the hull armor of this Owl Dragon interstellar warship, interstellar battle mecha were appearing one after another.
T5 Cerberus-class Interstellar Battle Mecha, every one.
But because Cerberus-class Interstellar Battle Mecha could be freely recombined, they differed somewhat in outward form.
The largest were the heavy battle mecha, next the medium battle mecha, and smallest the light battle mecha.
The different sizes let these T5 Cerberus-class Interstellar Battle Mecha play wholly different parts in battle.
The heavy battle mecha stressed firepower output.
The medium battle mecha were more all-round.
The light battle mecha were highly mobile, able to move freely and support any part of the field.
Now these T5 Cerberus-class Interstellar Battle Mecha of every form made up the last line of defense on the interstellar warship.
The mecha pilots worked these battle mecha and fought the undead creatures.
"Fire support! Don't let these bone-racks break the interstellar warship's armor!"
"Remember to keep your fighting distance. The moment there's any chance of infection, start the self-destruct program that was fitted!"
"Don't you shame our mecha squad, kill!"
Zhao Chen watched the battle scenes on the screen.
Battle scenes of interstellar battle mecha like these could be said to have grown rare.
For in this interstellar age, interstellar battle mecha had sunk to a second- or third-line combat arm, one might even say an auxiliary arm.
They saw use only in the few planetary landing battles, and even then generally in the middle and later stages of the fighting.
So they had never had any very dazzling showing.
But this time,
these T5 Cerberus-class Interstellar Battle Mecha were wholly different; they showed a bloody ferocity never seen before.
The mecha pilots, one and all, were like enraged beasts locked in mortal combat with the undead creatures.
Zhao Chen even saw with his own eyes a T5 Cerberus-class Heavy Interstellar Battle Mecha surrounded by several hundred undead and about to be infected.
The pilot of this heavy interstellar battle mecha resolutely chose to blow up her machine.
Self-destruct had never been a function of battle mecha to begin with.
True, it would have some use on the battlefield.
But the equipment and modules that self-destruct required would also take up room in the mecha, and hurt its fighting power and all-round ability.
So before this, the T5 Cerberus-class Interstellar Battle Mecha had had no self-destruct function.
Only after weighing the undead legions had it been decided to fit self-destruct equipment to every interstellar battle mecha.
An interstellar battle mecha's self-destruct could destroy the ring of undead creatures around it along with it, and so avoid infection by those undead creatures.
"They are all proving themselves," Tao Beibei said at his side.
Tao Beibei paused, and said with a complicated look, "I have a younger cousin who joined the Owl Dragon too. But her gift lies in piloting mecha. As everyone knows, the prospects in battle mecha are not good now. So she often used to bring it up with me. Until, because the undead legions appeared, the marshals, after discussing it, decided to refit these interstellar battle mecha specifically against the threat undead creatures pose at close quarters to interstellar warships. When that order came down, nearly every mecha squad acted as though it were New Year's. They had no objection whatever to fitting the self-destruct program. Each was keener than the last. For at last they had a chance to prove on the battlefield what they could do."
Zhao Chen nodded, his eyes fixed on those Owl Dragon interstellar battle mecha fighting to the bitter end.
"Whether they fly starships or pilot mecha, they are all the bravest warriors of the Owl Dragon Empire!" Zhao Chen said gravely.
The battle went on.
Just then Zhao Chen turned to one relayed feed.
For on that feed had appeared the trace of what might be a T6 undead creature!