A Pitch-Black Legion fleet of a million warships.
Zhao Chen's heart sank.
It was fully ten times the size of before.
And, what mattered most, there was no knowing whether the interval would still be ten minutes.
If it were ten minutes,
that could very well make the pressure on the Owl Dragon Empire's fleets on every battlefield rise sharply.
"Tell the three ace fleet groups to be ready to give support at any moment." Zhao Chen looked to Lilith beside him.
Lilith nodded; she too was aware of how serious things now were.
"Yes."
With the surfacing of these million pitch-black interstellar warships,
another round of fierce fighting began.
Happily, before this the Owl Dragon Empire's First Legion Fleet Group had found time to rest and refit for a while,
and had got back a good deal of its condition.
But the crux of the matter now was
whether, from here on, this 'ink' would send in another batch of the Pitch-Black Legion fleet every ten minutes.
If it did,
then they must, in the shortest time,
destroy more of the Pitch-Black Legion fleet's warships before them, to keep the enemy's standing count of warships from growing.
Marshal Shen Bing, the supreme commander of the Owl Dragon Empire's First Legion Fleet Group, now brought out the trump card she had kept hidden.
"Holy-Blood Hell-Angel No. 6, prepare a blanket strike upon the area where the enemy's T6 warships are thickest!" Commander Shen Bing drew a circle upon the interstellar holo-table.
That was the area that would next receive 'Hell's Judgment.'
As the newest batch to enter service, T6 Holy-Blood Hell-Angel-class Heavy Interstellar Strategic Missile Ships numbered only ten in active service all told.
All served in the Hell-Angel ace fleet group, and in this battle Marshal Baixue the wolf-girl had assigned one of its corps fleets to give fire support to the Owl Dragon Empire's First Legion Fleet Group.
And among it was one T6 Holy-Blood Hell-Angel-class Heavy Interstellar Strategic Missile Ship.
This would also be the first time this warship showed its might!
【Holy-Blood Hell-Angel-class Heavy Interstellar Strategic Missile Ship
Ship type: interstellar strategic missile ship
Technology grade: T6
Hull armor strength: 260,000 units – 280,000 units
Star-shield energy value: 12 million units
Cruising speed: 900 star-knots
Warp engine: grade-nine warp engine
Length: 46.77 kilometers
Mass: 59.98 million tons
Complement of posts: 30,000
Starship weapons:
20 million Holy-Blood Hell-Angel Type I conventional interstellar missiles
5 million Holy-Blood Hell-Angel Type II medium-range heavy interstellar missiles
2 million Holy-Blood Hell-Angel Type III ultra-long-range medium interstellar missiles
500,000 Holy-Blood Hell-Angel Type IV medium-to-long-range mother-and-child cluster missiles
100,000 Holy-Blood Hell-Angel Type V ultra-long-range dark-matter high-explosive interstellar missiles
10,000 Holy-Blood Hell-Angel Type VI black-hole-property-imitating antimatter interstellar missiles】
Zhao Chen folded his arms and looked at the data he had called up on the T6 Holy-Blood Hell-Angel-class Heavy Interstellar Strategic Missile Ship.
To put it plainly and crudely, it was one interstellar missile launcher.
Only every missile it carried was a T6-grade interstellar missile,
with a more astonishing power,
and in still greater numbers.
Zhao Chen turned his head and looked toward the super-giant ship beneath the starry sky in the distance, which had already gone to launch readiness.
The hidden missile ports all over its hull had every one of them opened, and some had even extended outward.
Most striking were the two flanks of the hull,
where 'wings' had stretched out one after another,
like the twelve wings of an angel,
thick with interstellar missile ports.
So many missile ports ensured that so enormous a number of interstellar missiles could all be launched in the shortest time.
Those thick-packed missile ports were enough to make anyone with trypophobia feel a chill across the scalp.
Very soon,
after the captain of this T6 Holy-Blood Hell-Angel-class Heavy Interstellar Strategic Missile Ship reported everything ready and launch possible at any moment,
and at Marshal Shen Bing's order,
this T6 Holy-Blood Hell-Angel-class Heavy Interstellar Strategic Missile Ship, like an angel gone berserk, sent out interstellar missile after interstellar missile.
So thick were they that they were even like one great meteor shower.
And in the course of it, the Pitch-Black Legion's warships naturally tried every means there was to intercept these interstellar missiles.
Some were indeed intercepted, and burst halfway.
But there were simply too many.
And with the cover of the other Owl Dragon warships besides, far more of the interstellar missiles struck the warships in the target area smoothly and with precision.
In the target area were several thousand T5 warships and thirty or forty T6 warships, and one quasi-T7 pitch-black interstellar warship.
That was also why Shen Bing had set the T6 Holy-Blood Hell-Angel-class Heavy Interstellar Strategic Missile Ship to lay a blanket strike upon that area.
Supposing the enemy's following reinforcements would appear at ten-minute intervals,
then within those ten minutes they must find a way to destroy these principal fighting ships of the enemy's!
The fire of the explosions dotted this ink battlefield,
like fireworks blooming over a pitch-black lake,
with a beauty of a different kind.
Zhao Chen watched the scene.
What he watched most closely was still that quasi-T7 pitch-black interstellar warship.
For this was the first time a quasi-T7 pitch-black interstellar warship had been met on a battlefield, and very little was known of the enemy ship's data.
So there was need to be careful and on guard.
The interstellar missiles, launched for near ten minutes, were very soon all spent.
It was hard to imagine: aboard a single interstellar missile ship, tens of millions of interstellar missiles fired off entirely in a few short minutes.
At this moment, warnings of high temperature had even appeared over no small part of the Holy-Blood Hell-Angel-class Heavy Interstellar Strategic Missile Ship's hull surfaces.
Had any soldier come near the hull of this warship, even in an individual exoskeleton combat suit, he would likely have been vaporized in an instant.
For with the launching of the interstellar missiles just now, the hull was as though it had been thrown onto the surface of a star and roasted.
And it was thanks only to T6-grade hull armor technology; with T5-grade hull armor technology, even had so many interstellar missiles been loaded, it would have had no power to fire them.
Likely, before even half a round was fired, the warship itself would have been ruined.
"Report: Holy-Blood Hell-Angel No. 6 has emptied its missile magazines," the captain of No. 6 reported.
"Very good. Your ship is to withdraw at once to the rear resupply area and take missile resupply from the interstellar missile ships, and wait for orders for the next phase," Marshal Shen Bing said.
"Yes."
This T6 Holy-Blood Hell-Angel No. 6 had not yet had time to look at its own results before it had already withdrawn from the front-line battlefield.
On reaching the appointed rest area,
not only did a squadron of T4 interstellar escorts keep guard around it,
but more than ten T5 Ark-class Heavy Interstellar Supply Ships even gathered around to resupply this terrifying giant ship with missiles.
Because of the terrifying missile stock,
even interstellar supply ships were needed several at once to finish the resupply work at the greatest speed.
And the resupply would take at least three hours.
If there were T6-grade interstellar supply ships in future, this resupply time could be greatly shortened.
Zhao Chen fixed his gaze on the area the T6 Holy-Blood Hell-Angel-class Heavy Interstellar Strategic Missile Ship had 'looked after.'
Several hundred T5 pitch-black interstellar warships were nothing now but slowly dissolving wreckage, and the T4 pitch-black interstellar warships destroyed along with them were past counting.
In the main, not one T4 pitch-black interstellar warship had survived within the area the blanket strike covered.
Twenty-odd T6 pitch-black interstellar warships had been destroyed outright as well, and the rest were in the main battered to ruin, 'shedding crumbs' there as though they might dissolve at any moment.
As for that quasi-T7 pitch-black interstellar warship,
its hull bore many marks of explosions, marks like meteor craters.
But on the whole, this quasi-T7 pitch-black interstellar warship had not been brought to the point of grave damage.
"By the look of it, this pitch-black interstellar warship really is a half step to T7." Zhao Chen folded his arms, his fingers rubbing at his chin.
As to the pitch-black interstellar warships,
Zhao Chen knew only that they were spirit-body warships, made by the lifeforms merged into Order in imitation of their enemies' warships.
What the principle of it was, in the end, Zhao Chen could not understand either.
And it was said that when these pitch-black interstellar warships were destroyed, they would be revived and reborn over and over at their Order matrix.
All along Zhao Chen had been wary of Order's T7-grade fighting strength.
For everyone knew Order belonged to the T7 technology grade, and so it must surely possess armed force of T7 grade.
Only it had never yet appeared.
It was a guillotine blade hanging over the heads of Zhao Chen and the Owl Dragon, liable to fall at any moment.
If the quasi-T7 pitch-black interstellar warship before him alone had such terrifying fighting power, what terrifying abilities would a true T7 pitch-black interstellar warship have?
It was past imagining.
Suddenly!
At that very moment, from the huge bow gun of the quasi-T7 pitch-black interstellar warship that had weathered a round of attack, a black pulse beam of light shot out.
It struck a T5 King-of-the-Hill-class Heavy Interstellar Comprehensive Strategic Escort on the forward line of the battlefield squarely.
With almost no power of resistance whatever,
this T5 King-of-the-Hill-class Heavy Interstellar Comprehensive Strategic Escort was destroyed outright.
The force-field star-shield, famed for its defensive power, was used up entirely in an instant.
Zhao Chen saw flames blooming one after another.
Those were Owl Dragon-line warships destroyed one after another beneath that black pulse beam,
most of them T5 King-of-the-Hill-class Heavy Interstellar Comprehensive Strategic Escorts.
In the end, only after destroying more than ten Owl Dragon warships in a row
did that black pulse beam at last dissolve.
But that was far from the end of it.
For on the hull of that quasi-T7 pitch-black interstellar warship, besides this bow gun, there were dozens of main guns and more than a hundred secondary guns!
"This fellow must be destroyed in the shortest time." A thought rose in Zhao Chen's mind.
This quasi-T7 pitch-black interstellar warship was a ravening beast, a flood unleashed, and on this battlefield its effect was that of a crushing weight.
If it could not be destroyed within a short time,
it could very well cost the Owl Dragon Empire's First Legion Fleet Group enormous losses.
Marshal Shen Bing, the commander, was aware of it as well.
"Begin the decapitation plan. Carrier starships, launch your interstellar fighters and clear a stretch of airspace. Cover the decapitation fleet in carrying out the decapitation strike on the target." Marshal Shen Bing gave her latest order decisively.
At this point the carrier starships of a corps fleet the Queen of the Starry Sky ace fleet group had sent in support began to launch interstellar fighters and swarms of interstellar drones.
One carrier starship among them was the most dazzling of all.
For it was the largest warship on the field.
The T6 Divine-Wing Empress-class Super-Heavy Carrier Starship!
Like the T6 Holy-Blood Hell-Angel-class Heavy Interstellar Strategic Missile Ship, it was a new warship of the latest batch delivered into service.
There were only ten of them, and all had been assigned to the ace fleet groups.
The interstellar missile ships had gone to the Hell-Angel ace fleet group.
The carrier starships, naturally, to the Queen of the Starry Sky ace fleet group.
Of the interstellar fighters this T6 Divine-Wing Empress-class Super-Heavy Carrier Starship carried, the crewed fighters alone numbered in the tens of millions.
And interstellar drones came to as many as a billion.
So now, when this T6 Divine-Wing Empress-class Super-Heavy Carrier Starship opened every launch channel for its interstellar fighters and interstellar drone swarms,
like a divine bird spreading its wings, countless 'little birds' swarmed out, like a storm.
And more terrifying still,
by the figures shown, this T6 Divine-Wing Empress-class Super-Heavy Carrier Starship, in its combat state, could launch every interstellar fighter and interstellar drone swarm it carried
in no more than five minutes from first to last!
Don't make light of those five minutes.
For a carrier starship, fighting power translates into the number of these interstellar fighters and interstellar drone swarms,
and into the efficiency of launching them in battle.
Another's carrier starship needs half an hour to launch the same number of interstellar fighters, and you need only five minutes.
That is how a carrier starship's fighting power shows.
As these flights and swarms of interstellar fighters and interstellar drones began to assemble,
some of the elite warships of the Owl Dragon Empire's First Legion Fleet Group began to assemble as well,
every one of them a warship of T5 or T6 grade,
some 300 warships in all.
These were the warships that, in special circumstances, would carry out the decapitation mission.
Among them the T5 warships served chiefly in support.
The true main attack was still those T6 warships.
The T6 Lord-of-Thunder-class Heavy Interstellar Destroyer could be seen, the most numerous T6 warship of all.
But another T6 warship could be seen as well.
The T6 Wind Sprite-class Light Interstellar Cruiser!
It was the newest batch of T6 interstellar cruisers to enter service; compared with the T6 carrier starship and the T6 interstellar missile ship,
this T6 Wind Sprite-class Light Interstellar Cruiser had lower building requirements and a lower building cost.
So a great many were built in the first batch,
enough to be fitted out in every fleet.
Though it was a light interstellar cruiser, in firepower it still surpassed the T6 Lord-of-Thunder-class Heavy Interstellar Destroyer, at present the most numerous of all!
And on the strength of its unmatched speed, the T6 Wind Sprite-class Light Interstellar Cruiser was very well suited to a decapitation plan of this kind.