From then on,
the Owl Dragon Empire's fleets, having found the knack, quickened their advance.
And on several fronts at once,
the Hive Princess's Owl Dragon hive-race fleet had found its own means of attack as well.
The Hive Princess discovered that if her Owl Dragon hive-race combat units could get close to the areas of the great wall of flesh.
The wall of flesh could serve them wholly as food!
But being close to the wall of flesh, they were also very easily destroyed by the Order hive-race combat units lurking inside it.
Or rather, being destroyed was only a matter of time.
Sometimes a batch of Order hive-race combat units[1] that landed on the wall of flesh might fight for several hours; some might be wiped out in a mere few minutes.
And if they happened to lie in the line of fire of the Owl Dragon interstellar warships or Hive Motherships, they would be hit by their own side's attacks too.
Once the Hive Princess noticed this, she made other arrangements especially.
The Order hive-race combat units charged with landing would not go for the areas where the tree-shaped hive-race creatures stood, but spread out around them,
on the one hand, to pin down some of the hidden Order hive-race combat units,
on the other, to take the chance to swell their own numbers.
So long as they were not destroyed, these wall-of-flesh areas were nothing less than a great granary.
Leave these Owl Dragon hive-race combat units alone for ten minutes, and they might well double their numbers on you!
With these Owl Dragon hive-race combat units, Zhao Chen could even fight a war of attrition with those Order hive-race.
It was under this cooperation of many unit types and many fleets.
That the attack on the Hive Nest, apart from the interlude at the start, went very smoothly.
It was like a drill boring its way, bit by bit, into this Hive Nest.
From afar, the Owl Dragon Empire's fleet group formations had even sunk below the Hive Nest's 'horizon'!
……
In the core region of the Hive Nest.
A huge face appeared in the core region.
It roared, it raged, it howled.
"What is happening! Why can we not reach the Great Existence? Why! Didn't we descend into this world for the will of the Great Existence? Have we been abandoned! Impossible! Utterly impossible!"
Within the roaring voice were several voices besides,
as though it were a living being with many personalities.
But here, there was fated to be no one to hear its cry.
Not even the existence it had always believed in and followed.
For the existence it believed in had, just now, indeed been cut off from this universe.
……
Beyond the universe · the Black Great Wall.
"Reporting, we have taken control of several regions where space is thin, and destroyed the machinery the enemy was trying to infiltrate into our universe." The Cherubim looked to the little girl at the control console.
She was still not quite used to her Master's form.
In the past, on the battlefield, she had always taken the form of that woman officer.
But ever since she had brought the whole Machine Race out to this space, she had kept to this form all along.
In her own words, she had grown used to this form.
And she had a real name of her own now.
Mili.
At the time, she had gone round telling it to every high-level mechanical life-form, as though showing it off.
It was a thing truly her own.
"We have studied the technological wreckage. It is a technological product that can create a small planar rift. But it must be sited at a corresponding position. It may be that only where it happens to correspond to certain special regions of our universe can it make a connection!" Ah-Jin, at her side, gave the newest research findings.
Mili, as the Machine leader, sat as was her habit on a tall chair, swinging her legs, looking down at the holographic interstellar holo-table before her.
"And we have found that before this, Order had already delivered who knows what, or perhaps some combat fleets, into our universe!" Ah-Yin said just then, somewhat worried.
Somehow she was rather worried about a certain person in that universe.
"Don't worry. A little thing like this. That fellow will clean it up. If he can't even deal with a little trouble like this, he wouldn't be someone our Machine Race recognizes," Mili said confidently.
The Cherubim looked to the leader.
The leader might say so aloud, but when these signs had been found before.
She had ordered an attack on those regions almost at the first instant, to be destroyed in the shortest possible time.
She had even disregarded the optimal solution the system calculated, and chosen the tactics and strategy that were fastest, though the arrangement had only added some losses.
"Consolidate our battle line. Keep a constant watch on those pitch-black fellows. Don't forget, we still have years of fighting to do here." Mili rubbed a finger across her nose.
Just then her gaze fell on the area behind her own fleets on the interstellar holo-table.
There could be seen the projections of black structures, one after another.
That was the Machine Race, which had moved its whole household here.
Had one looked with one's own eyes.
One would have found that the old Black Great Wall region had grown several times over, and taken the structure of an interstellar city-state.
The old Black Great Wall had become the 'inner city'.
And outside there was now a new 'great wall'.
And for this defensive wall, the Machine leader Mili had specially given it another name.
"Vigil."
In this mechanical city-state were several vast storage areas, holding all the raw materials and strategic resources they had brought, the whole wealth of the Machine Race.
Enough for them to fight in this space for ten years!
Besides these, there were factories for building interstellar warships, and interstellar smelting works for smelting raw materials and old, scrapped interstellar warships.
And every kind of related industrial facility, all complete.
Beyond that, several artificial planets could be seen as well.
Mechanical life-forms now did not need nearly as much as carbon-based life.
But in view of the risk of being won over by Order,
the Machine leader Mili had still, humanely, arranged these artificial planets, so that high-level mechanical life-forms could take turns convalescing on these pleasant artificial worlds.
Of course, there was another purpose as well.
Inside these artificial planets there were also dedicated observation devices; should any mechanical life-form be found behaving abnormally.
It would be secretly held, and if it were confirmed to have been won over by Order and to have betrayed the Machine Race.
One can imagine what would become of it.
It was by these arrangements.
That the space beyond the universe, which ought to have held nothing, had of all things been forced into a complete star system.
Anyone who did not know would have thought this truly was the Machine Race's home base.