Zhao Chen fixed his eyes on it.
It was a Bone Dragon!
A Bone Dragon possessed of vast wings, whose span, spread to the full, reached an astonishing hundred kilometers and more!
It was not that no such dragon-kind creatures existed in this universe.
But most of them topped out, in size, at a few hundred meters, a thousand or so.
A super-dragon over a hundred kilometers long had never once appeared.
It seemed, then, that undead infection carried a certain chance of making the infected grow gigantic.
The Undead Angels seen before.
And this Bone Dragon seen now.
As for why this Bone Dragon was judged to be of T6 grade,
it was because on the starship radar, this Bone Dragon's energy fluctuation was T6 grade, genuine and unmistakable!
The Bone Dragon, relying on its own powerful spirit-energy shield, pressed on through the Owl Dragon interstellar warships' furious bombardment and charged to within a very short distance of the Owl Dragon interstellar warships' defense line.
Just then, the Bone Dragon opened its skull, and blue-white particles gathered within it.
Soon a blue-white beam of energy shot from the Bone Dragon's mouth.
The star shields that had been raised were, of all things, simply ignored by this blue-white beam of energy.
And so a T5 King-of-the-Hill-class Heavy Interstellar Comprehensive Strategic Escort behind them took the hit squarely on its hull.
When the blue-white beam of energy struck this T5 King-of-the-Hill, a remarkable thing happened.
The blue-white beam of energy, like blue-white fire, set this T5 King-of-the-Hill alight.
This T5 King-of-the-Hill began, plainly to the eye, to be scorched and eaten away by the blue-white flames.
"This Bone Dragon's ranged attack can ignore star-shield defense too!" Captain Tao Beibei cried out beside him, unable to believe it.
Zhao Chen said nothing, and only went on watching the scene on this battlefield.
Command on this battlefield lay with Chu Xuan; Zhao Chen would do nothing to interfere beyond his authority.
And that T5 King-of-the-Hill-class Heavy Interstellar Comprehensive Strategic Escort soon made its response.
From the hull sections not yet affected, escape pods began to eject one after another, like a goddess scattering flowers.
It seemed this T5 King-of-the-Hill had chosen to abandon ship.
By now the blue-white flames had burned through nearly a third of this T5 King-of-the-Hill.
Zhao Chen watched the escape pods come fewer and fewer, until at last, when no more appeared, the uninfected sections of this King-of-the-Hill exploded.
The burning flames utterly destroyed part of this King-of-the-Hill.
It seemed the crew of this King-of-the-Hill had set the self-destruct program before they abandoned ship.
Even abandoning ship, they would not hand this interstellar warship to the enemy.
"This T6-grade Bone Dragon is too great a threat. An attack like that, no T5 interstellar warship at all could withstand it. If it is not destroyed in time, it may cost our line heavy losses in interstellar warships!" Tao Beibei said worriedly at his side.
Zhao Chen only said calmly, "Trust Chu Xuan."
The best means of dealing with a T6-grade undead creature was naturally a T6-grade interstellar warship.
A tooth for a tooth.
And that was indeed how Chu Xuan, as fleet group commander, arranged it.
She brought out the one kind of T6 interstellar warship their Third Fleet Group[1] had on hand.
That was the first mass-produced T6 interstellar warship to serve in the Owl Dragon Empire's fleets: the Wrath-of-Heaven-Goddess-class Interstellar Heavy-Artillery Ship!
The Third Fleet Group happened to have four of them.
One for each of its four legions, where they served in the important post of deputy flagship.
As for why not flagship,
it was because this interstellar warship's special combat ability did not suit it to the flagship's post.
The flagship was often the strongest interstellar warship, but whether a ship was suited had to be weighed as well.
But to return to the matter at hand,
the stretch of defense line that this T6 Bone Dragon was attacking happened to be the charge of Zhao Ruyue's Second Legion.
"Destroy this T6 target in the shortest possible time! Meanwhile I will have other interstellar warships give you covering fire!" Zhao Ruyue gave the order to her deputy legion commander!
"Yes! I guarantee the mission will be done." Having answered, this ponytailed deputy legion commander.
At once passed her orders on her own bridge.
"Lock on to the target! Open fire as fast as you can. Don't give it another chance to be a threat!"
"Yes!"
As this T6 Wrath-of-Heaven-Goddess-class Interstellar Heavy-Artillery Ship joined the battle, heavy gun after heavy gun on its hull was brought to bear on that T6 Bone Dragon.
Very nearly ten thousand Wrath-of-Heaven energy heavy guns all locked on to the huge target in that moment.
"Reporting, two-thirds of the energy heavy guns have locked on to the target. The remaining energy heavy guns still need one more minute to shift position and lock on."
"We won't wait. Pass my order: open fire!" The ponytailed girl, deputy legion commander and captain of this T6 starship both, gave the order to fire without hesitation.
The next moment, interstellar heavy gun after interstellar heavy gun began to roar.
Energy shells flew out one after another at tremendous speed and landed hard on that T6 Bone Dragon.
But because that T6 Bone Dragon had a spirit-energy shield, for now they did not directly threaten its body; they only spattered its spirit-energy shield with scattered points of light.
"By the last data recorded by that destroyed T5 King-of-the-Hill-class Heavy Interstellar Comprehensive Strategic Escort, the energy beam this T6 Bone Dragon fired in fact used spirit-energy. That is why it could ignore our star-shield energy and strike our hull armor directly." Chu Xuan's video window appeared beside Zhao Chen.
It seemed she, as commander of the Owl Dragon Second Fleet Group, was watching this battle too.
After all, it was aimed at the enemy's T6 undead creature; experience gained against it in real combat would let them prepare, guard against it and respond in later battles, and lessen their own losses.
"But so far as we can see now, the spirit-energy shells the undead starships use do not have this ability. Only the mid- and long-range spirit-energy attacks of spirit-energy creatures like this have the property of ignoring star shields," Chu Xuan added.
The undead's spirit-energy had, from their first appearance until now, always been a very mysterious and peculiar thing; even now several research institutes within the Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire were studying it.
Yet so far none had got to the bottom of it.
"Undead creatures are very peculiar; handle them with care," Zhao Chen said; he did not question Chu Xuan's battle command, but only gave a word of warning.
His eyes were still fixed on that Bone Dragon, now blanketed by the fire of the interstellar heavy guns.