"What's that!" Zhao Waner's secretary-officer cried out, taking several steps forward one after another until her whole face was almost pressed against the video window.
Zhao Waner narrowed her eyes. "A new hive unit type?"
By its shape, apart from being big, it had two heads, and on its back wings like a bare framework of bones.
In form it looked rather like a two-headed giant dragon built of a skeleton.
"By the look of it, it seems to combine features of the Order undead races we ran into before." Looking closely, Zhao Waner found something familiar in it.
The interstellar hive-race had always had the trait of evolving itself again and again after devouring other interstellar races.
But among ordinary interstellar hive-race this took a long process.
And plainly the Hive Princess had shortened that process greatly.
Once these skeletal two-headed giant dragons had broken away from the T6 Dragon-Bones Taotie Super-Heavy Hive Mothership, they began flying toward the T6 Troll Monarch Interstellar Fortress Ship opposite.
The beating of their huge wings even scattered some of the starship wreckage the fighting had left around them.
Zhao Waner swept her eyes over them; these skeletal two-headed giant dragons were not many; no more than a mere hundred-odd had appeared so far.
Among the interstellar hive-race, the fewer of a kind there were, the stronger it usually was.
Did that mean, then, that these skeletal two-headed giant dragons were very likely a T6-grade hive combat unit type?
Only there was no telling what advantages this combat unit type had.
"Oh, something's come out over there too!" The secretary-officer had found another change in the Dragon-Bones Taotie.
On the flank of the Dragon-Bones Taotie Super-Heavy Hive Mothership several openings slowly opened, and then several "plump" figures drifted out.
At first glance they looked somewhat like hot-air balloons hung upside down, but on a closer look one would find they too were hive creatures.
Something like a kind of queen bee.
The upper half was a queen bee's body, and below it hung a huge hive.
The size of that hive was terrifying, four or five times bigger even than the upper half of the body!
This queen-bee hive combat unit type was quite numerous, a full thousand-odd of them.
And what was somewhat special was that around each "queen bee" was a great number of interstellar combat hive-race units, and even those jellyfish from before, guarding it.
Zhao Waner narrowed her eyes; she was looking forward more and more to the Hive Princess's upgrades of this Dragon-Bones Taotie.
Just how much was hidden in it?
But apart from these two new things, no other new hive combat unit types appeared after that.
Just then a video window appeared before Zhao Waner.
The caller was none other than the Hive Princess.
"Sister Waner," the Hive Princess said in a sweet voice.
Outsiders would likely find it truly hard to believe that this sweet voice came from a hive life, and one directing this super-flagship duel at that.
"Huh? Why are you suddenly contacting me? Is something important up?" Zhao Waner looked in surprise at the Hive Princess on the other side of the video window.
An ordinary Hive Mothership had no quantum communication function of this kind, but the Hive Princess had had her own ship specially refitted,
tied into the communication functions of Owl Dragon-line interstellar warships, so she could communicate with other interstellar warships as easily as any ordinary Owl Dragon-line interstellar warship.
"Just asking: how are the preparations for things on your side going, Sister Waner?" The Hive Princess blinked and said earnestly.
Zhao Waner was taken aback; she had not expected that at a time like this the Hive Princess would still be concerned about her affairs.
Mind you, at this very moment she was leading her own super-flagship in a duel against the enemy's super-flagship.
On so tense and important an occasion, she was actually concerned about other people's affairs.
One truly did not know whether to say she had a big heart, or that she thought this duel no great matter at all.
"Everything on my side is arranged. You needn't worry about it. Just do your own part well," Zhao Waner said.
The Hive Princess stuck out her tongue and said with a giggle, "Sorry, it's just the first time Brother has given me so important a task, and I'm a little nervous. So I'm worrying about everything. If there's anything you need my help with, Sister Waner, just say! So long as this task goes off smoothly, I'll do everything I can!"
Looking at the Hive Princess so earnest, Zhao Waner knew this was the Hive Princess's true attitude and true thought!
"I know Little Bug wants to carry out the task Brother gave her perfectly, and how she feels about it. But you can't rush things. So long as we act according to the plan, this task will surely get done. And Little Bug will get Brother's praise too." Zhao Waner looked at the Hive Princess, speaking as though comforting her own little sister.
That was the truth, for the Hive Princess regarded Zhao Chen as her elder brother.
So after a few times together, Zhao Waner had come to like this lovable child too, and naturally regarded her as her own little sister.
"Little Bug understands." The Hive Princess nodded obediently. "Little Bug will do well what Brother gave Little Bug to do."
Perhaps because something occurred to her, Zhao Waner truly could not hold it back.
She looked at the Hive Princess and asked, "Little Bug, if it won't get in the way of what you're doing right now, I'd like to ask: what are those new hive combat unit types that have come out of your Dragon-Bones Taotie?"
Hearing Zhao Waner ask this,
the Hive Princess's eyes lit up; as if showing off her grades to a parent, she began at once: "Those? They're all things Brother and I researched and bred together. That huge flower before is called the T6 Ghost-Face Sunflower. It sits at the Dragon-Bones Taotie's bow, but it's actually not one body with the Dragon-Bones Taotie. Er…… how to put it, it's like a kind of symbiont. It's there to protect the Dragon-Bones Taotie; it can defend against attacks from the bow, by absorbing the other side's energy-weapon attacks and turning them into the T6 Ghost-Face Sunflower's own energy. Then it fires it back out as an attack."
Zhao Waner thought back to the scene; so that was called a Ghost-Face Sunflower.
The Hive Princess went straight on: "And those cute little things, the ones shaped like little jellyfish that intercept enemy attacks on their own. They're called Bastion Jellyfish Guardians, a T5-grade hive unit type. You saw what they do, Sister. When they sense an enemy attack coming, they can track it and intercept it on their own, just like the defensive missile systems on our interstellar warships. And so they'd intercept more cost-effectively, I gave them a mid-level brain, so they have a certain intelligence and can pick which attacks to intercept first, and which attacks don't need intercepting and can just be taken on the biological armor. The great big handsome thing I've let out now is a T6-grade hive unit type called the Twin-Headed Skeleton Dragon King! Isn't that a mighty, domineering name? I picked it. The other one is a T5-grade hive unit type too, called the Swarm Empress! I picked that too, hee hee!"
The Hive Princess blinked now and said, somewhat impishly, "As for what these two hive unit types can do, that's a secret for now. You'll see in a little while, Sister."
Zhao Waner could not help laughing; for all that the Hive Princess already seemed steady and seasoned in directing a battle, in the way she got along with people she was still every inch a child.
"All right, I'll take a good look at these two little fellows my little sister Little Bug has bred," Zhao Waner said, all smiles.
Now the Hive Princess simply left the video call open, and directed the fighting with the link still up.
Zhao Waner, too, looked toward those two new hive combat unit types with curiosity and expectation:
the T6 Twin-Headed Skeleton Dragon King and the T6 Swarm Empress.[1]
The enemy had plainly noticed the appearance of the T6 Twin-Headed Skeleton Dragon Kings too.
The T6 Troll Monarch Interstellar Fortress Ship's weapons were concentrating their attack on this target.
And the T6 Twin-Headed Skeleton Dragon Kings were huge and not very fast, so they could not dodge this attack at all.
But something unexpected happened.
Just as those shots were about to land on the T6 Twin-Headed Skeleton Dragon Kings, a cloud of black mist actually appeared around them!
And this black mist, like a star shield, actually held off the other side's attack.
"I've got it! Isn't this a lot like those Order undead bone dragons we ran into before!" the secretary-officer beside her cried out.
The Hive Princess's giggling voice came over: "Hee hee hee, you're right, little sister. The inspiration for this T6 Twin-Headed Skeleton Dragon King actually came from those undead bone dragons."
"But don't those undead bone dragons just turn to dust the moment they're killed? There'd be no food for you to eat there either, would there?" the secretary-officer asked, puzzled.
"That really was a problem. But luckily, after several tries on the few prisoners Brother and I caught back then, we finally got the knack of it. And then we bred them successfully! This T6 Twin-Headed Skeleton Dragon King has not only the traits of us interstellar hive-race, it has the traits of an undead creature too; its biological armor even beats our hive-race biological armor in some ways. Besides that, that layer of black mist outside its body works like a star shield, so it's got two layers of protection!"
Hearing the Hive Princess's account, Zhao Waner's eyes lit up in spite of herself.
Defense like that truly was formidable: it was like an interstellar escort with the armor of an interstellar battleship!
And led by these T6 Twin-Headed Skeleton Dragon Kings, great swarms followed in their wake.
Facing the enemy's T6 Troll Monarch Interstellar Fortress Ship, they came on like black clouds bearing down.
Then those T6 Twin-Headed Skeleton Dragon Kings could be seen opening the gaping maws of their two huge dragon heads.
Beam after terrifying beam of energy shot out, slamming straight into the T6 Troll Monarch Interstellar Fortress Ship's star shield.
The attack was extremely fierce!
Zhao Waner quickly found a whole new place for this interstellar hive unit type.
Wasn't this a "heavy interstellar battleship," pure and simple!