The interstellar battlefield where fighting had raged only minutes before was now a place everyone gave the widest berth.
The Shadow Hunter ace fleet group had pulled out completely, every last ship.
The upper ranks of the Owl Dragon interstellar hive-race, and some main hive fleets, had all pulled out too.
The remaining hive fleets of middle rank made wormholes one after another and went off who knew where.
The remaining low-grade Hive Motherships, at any cost, tangled with the Devourer Civilization interstellar fleets that were left, keeping them from escaping from here quickly.
On the other side, the Troll Monarch's own ship, the T6 Troll Monarch Interstellar Fortress Ship, had long since pulled out and vanished without a trace.
The Devourer Civilization's other elite fleets had pulled out first as well, and the Devourer Civilization interstellar fleets left behind were trying every way to pull out too.
But mind you, they had nearly 10 million interstellar warships; the lanes of withdrawal had long since been hopelessly jammed.
At the least misstep, their own starships might even collide with one another.
Add to that the entanglement of those maddening bugs, and these Devourer Civilization interstellar fleets were driven to distraction.
So much so that in the end some interstellar fleets, to seize a lane of withdrawal, opened fire outright on other friendly interstellar fleets,
with every sign of if I can't get away, none of you will either.
And very soon those five giant red-gold eggs began slowly to bloom, like five red-gold flowers of matchless splendor.
But no one dared think lightly of these flowers.
And very soon these flowers would show their true radiance.
A light could be seen surging out from within these flowers,
from a single point at first, until it filled the whole sky.
And the first to be covered by the light were the Devourer Civilization interstellar warships entangled by the Owl Dragon interstellar hive-race, which had had no time at all to escape.
On the bridges of these interstellar warships, alarms such as had never been heard before were sounding almost everywhere.
It was the warning of a super-high-energy body!
And by now the strength of that energy body's ripples had gone past the limit of the starships' detection equipment.
And the conclusion the databases gave was "suspected supernova explosion"!
Almost everyone who saw that line of text felt their heart sink.
They had still been imagining that the explosion might be very powerful, but that so long as they fled fast enough, with the protection of their interstellar warships' hull armor and star shields, they could survive.
But!
This was a supernova explosion!
They did not know by what means the Owl Dragon Empire had made this black-technology weapon.
But even if it was not a true supernova explosion, reaching this level of power was enough to show how terrifying it was.
The first wave of interstellar hive-race and Devourer Civilization interstellar warships was swallowed by the light, swallowed without a sound.
There was no strange sight at all; it was as though dawn had shone into the dark of night.
Only these interstellar warships would never appear again!
Vanishing along with them were the universe-space fold-jump points the Devourer Civilization had built within those five areas to invade the Owl Dragon Empire's universe.
As the light spread, more and more Devourer Civilization interstellar warships were covered.
And at this very moment the Troll Monarch, relying on the performance of the T6 Troll Monarch Interstellar Fortress Ship, had long since fled several star systems away.
"We should be safe here." The subordinate officer let out a breath.
"Find out at once what's happening at the front-line combat base now!" The Troll Monarch's gloomy voice came.
"Yes!" The subordinate officer went at once to see to it.
But very soon one piece of bad news after another came in.
"Report: we can't contact the front-line base."
"Report: every military installation at every front-line position has lost contact."
Hearing this, the Troll Monarch's heart sank.
He gave the order again in a deep voice: "Contact any interstellar warship that can be contacted. Find a way to learn just what has happened!"
Before, the Troll Monarch Interstellar Fortress Ship had sensed that those things dropped by the Owl Dragon-line interstellar stealth reconnaissance ships were an enormous threat, true.
But no one at all had known what exactly would happen.
To be safe, he had ordered the retreat all the same.
But he had never thought that, in the space of a few minutes, no news at all would come.
Could it be……
Impossible!
Impossible!
The Owl Dragon Empire could not possibly have a technological weapon of this grade.
But the result you least want to see is so often the one that appears before you.
"Report: we've contacted some interstellar fleets that got out safely, and passed on your order to send some interstellar warships back to find out exactly what's happened," the subordinate officer answered.
The Troll Monarch nodded in silence; then he thought of something. "This time, how many interstellar warships got out?"
To his thinking now, the Owl Dragon Empire had prepared such a plan, so they had likely lost a good many this time.
Two or three million interstellar warships, say.
"This…… this……" The subordinate officer's face was rather pale.
The Troll Monarch sensed something; he lowered his head and looked down at this subordinate, and asked in a deep voice, "Speak. How many were lost?"
The subordinate officer glanced at the report figures he had seen before, swallowed, and answered, "So far, the interstellar warships we've contacted and heard back from come to…… come to fewer than 1 million……"
Before his words had died away, his body was seized by a huge hand and slowly lifted into the air.
"What did you say!" The Troll Monarch's corpulent face glared at him with furious eyes.
"I…… I…… I'm only reporting the truth…… aaah…… no…… no……" Amid the screams,
this subordinate officer was duly relieved of his post.
The rest of those on the bridge all felt a chill down their backs, and dared not raise their heads.
The Troll Monarch's jaw was working, and blood ran from the corner of his mouth.
He raised his hand and used his own authority to bring that report straight up before his eyes.
Seeing the black that filled almost the whole screen, his heart sank.
So many…… so many interstellar fleets all gone.
How could this be!
How could this be!
Fury rose in the Troll Monarch's heart; he suddenly coughed, and blood came out with some bits of flesh, falling straight to the floor.
Whether the blood was his own or someone else's, there was no telling.
Nearly 10 million interstellar warships, and in this short while fewer than 1 million were left!
This…… this……
Even for the Devourer Civilization, this was an extremely heavy loss.
How could it have come to this?
The Troll Monarch could not for the life of him understand this result.
But he was very lucky, for he would soon know the answer.
In the flight, the interstellar warships that fled fast naturally did not know what happened behind them.
But some interstellar warships had escaped the blast radius of the T6 Supernova Ultimate Bombs by the narrowest of margins; their star shields had even taken the attack, and their hulls were covered with cracks, before they survived.
In their systems the relevant data had been recorded.
A supernova explosion!
The Troll Monarch stared in disbelief at the few conclusions that had been tallied, and at some video footage that had caught the white light from its sudden flash to its fading.
Never in the world had he imagined the Owl Dragon Empire could bring out a super-weapon on the order of a supernova explosion.
This was wholly beyond the scope of T6 technology.
And very soon more detailed data came out.
In the five star systems the Devourer Civilization had set up as bridgeheads for this attack on the Owl Dragon Empire, every object within the bounds of the star systems had vanished.
No matter of any kind remained!
What that meant, everyone knew very well.
In the space of a few short minutes, five star systems had been destroyed,
and destroyed along with them were millions of Devourer Civilization interstellar warships.
"How could this be, how could this be!" The Troll Monarch's face wore a look of disbelief.
At this moment two figures of light rose beside him.
They were the other two Devourer Civilization Sovereigns.
"Troll, take a good look at just what you've done!"
"Five star systems destroyed, nearly 10 million interstellar warships turned to ash in an instant: what in the world have you done?"
"Do you know what our Devourer Civilization is facing now?" How could the thin Sovereign let slip this chance to mock his archrival?
But it could be seen that he truly was furious now.
Even the armored Sovereign, whose face could not be seen, gave off an air that made one very uncomfortable now; it could be seen that he was very angry too.
The Troll Monarch was not in the least surprised that these two had appeared so quickly.
Command on the front-line battlefield had been handed to him, true.
But among so many interstellar fleets, these two Sovereigns naturally had their own minions and eyes and ears; with so great a thing happening, they would naturally know at once, and naturally could not sit still but would come looking for him.
"This isn't my fault. I didn't expect the Owl Dragon Empire could bring out so strong a weapon either. A weapon that can imitate a supernova explosion and destroy a star system in a short time. Even if you two had been here, you wouldn't necessarily have done much better than me!" The Troll Monarch argued his case hard; to his mind the state of the war now really was bad, but not because of him!
At least this final situation had not come about through any failure of his.
"Hmph. Are you making excuses for your own mistakes now? Even if we might have had no way to deal with this last weapon either, look at how you fought before that: it wasn't worth a damn. You let the Owl Dragon Empire's interstellar warships run riot on our Devourer Civilization's own ground for so long. If it hadn't been for that, how would they ever have had the chance to use this weapon!" the thin Sovereign said with a cold laugh.
The Troll Monarch wanted to explain something more.
But the armored Sovereign cut him off outright.
"Enough; this isn't the time for all that. Since things are as they are, they can't be changed; what matters most is dealing with the mess in front of us first. Troll, do you know that the Owl Dragon Empire is already attacking every part of our universe!" The armored Sovereign's unfriendly voice came.
"What? How could that be? They clearly all pulled back……" the Troll Monarch said in disbelief.
"Pulled back? Then what are those Owl Dragon interstellar hive-race swarms turning up all over our universe! The moment they appeared they began attacking our star-system domains everywhere, and they've caused us enormous trouble!" the thin Sovereign said with a cold laugh, and brought up several video clips.
In the video footage those Owl Dragon interstellar hive-race swarms could be seen clearly, and it was the Devourer Civilization's own universe domains that were suffering.