In that moment, an idea came to General Leng Qian that she would once have thought impossible.
Now it seemed to her so very possible.
And at this moment,
the two families' legion fleets had noticed this interstellar fleet of unknown origin and formidable strength too.
When repeated warnings, and even attempts to contact it and negotiate, had all come to nothing,
the commanders of the two families' legion fleets at once made a tactical arrangement that was, in theory, perfectly sound:
all their interstellar legion fleets would press forward in full, close the distance to these three thousand interstellar warships, and once the distance was closed, try to surround and wipe out the three thousand interstellar warships on the strength of their numbers.
Against an elite fleet, this was indeed the most fitting method in theory.
But it was only theory; against other elite fleets it might well have been one way to go about it.
But they were not facing an ordinary elite fleet now.
It was a fleet from the Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire, and the Emperor's Guard Fleet at that.
All one could say was that they had picked the wrong opponent.
As the two family legion fleets closed the distance in this way, forming a half-moon line to try to surround the three thousand interstellar warships that had suddenly charged out,
Commander Xiong Xiangxiang made her answer with the Emperor's Guard Fleet too.
General Leng Qian watched closely, following the changes on the battlefield.
She could see what the commander of this Owl Dragon fleet had in mind.
For the tactical arrangement was very simple.
First, a body of interstellar escorts formed the outermost line of defense, with interstellar destroyers and interstellar battleships mixed in among the interstellar escorts.
These three kinds of interstellar warship formed a triangular system of defense,
as though casting a rampart.
This was a fairly common means of defense.
The interstellar escorts could intercept the enemy's attacks and interstellar fighters, interstellar drones and the like.
And against the enemy's swarming interstellar warships, the interstellar destroyers could give fire support, while the interstellar battleships could concentrate on destroying threatening high-value targets.
It was a very simple, practical tactical scheme.
But… against the attack of nearly five hundred thousand enemy interstellar warships, wouldn't such a rampart seem rather like a mantis raising its arms to stop a chariot?
General Leng Qian held back the doubt in her heart and looked behind this line of defense.
Behind it, small fleets made up of interstellar cruisers and interstellar battlecruisers could be seen too; if she guessed rightly,
these would be strike squads waiting to look for a chance to counterattack once the enemy had attacked long without success,
using the high mobility of interstellar cruisers and interstellar battlecruisers to reap the enemy's interstellar fleets area by area.
That too was a small trick of the battlefield, one taught in basically every military academy.
And further back still, she saw four other kinds of interstellar warship.
One was the carrier starship, set in the very center.
All the carrier starships' gates could be seen standing open, yet no interstellar fighters or interstellar drones had been launched; most likely they were waiting for some chance.
And next to the carrier starships' position was a ship type as rare as the interstellar heavy-artillery ship: the interstellar missile ship.
The dense rows of interstellar missile launchers on the interstellar missile ships were all on standby, like a cat with its fur on end, ready to bare its claws at any moment.
Besides these there was a ship type with a still longer, narrower hull, a type rarer even than the interstellar missile ship.
Had Leng Qian not been widely traveled and widely read herself, she would likely not even have recognized it.
It was the interstellar long-range hunter-killer ship.
This was a very rare, little-used, seldom-seen ship type.
If interstellar missile ships and interstellar heavy-artillery ships could still be seen now and then,
this interstellar long-range hunter-killer ship she had truly seen only in books and records; she had never even heard rumor of any interstellar power owning this kind of interstellar warship.
It left her rather looking forward to seeing with her own eyes how this little-used interstellar warship would do on the battlefield.
And besides these combat interstellar warships,
at the rear of this interstellar fleet's formation were some auxiliary starships,
interstellar supply ships, interstellar transports and the like.
It could be said that this Owl Dragon fleet, though only three thousand interstellar warships in size, was truly a sparrow small in body with all its organs complete.
Back to the matter at hand.
Braving the fire of the interstellar heavy-artillery ships, the charging fleets of the two families' legion fleets were on the point of reaching the range at which they could strike the enemy fleet's position.
But the Owl Dragon fleet's position opened fire first.
No one would have thought these interstellar destroyers and interstellar battleships could reach so far.
General Leng Qian saw it at a glance, and exclaimed without thinking, "These are all T5-grade interstellar warships?"
Hearing General Leng Qian's excited words, and seeing her look of disbelief,
Zhao Chen said calmly, "In this fleet, every interstellar warship is of the T5 grade or above."
Hearing that explanation, General Leng Qian understood a great deal at once.
An interstellar fleet of three thousand interstellar warships, all of the T5 grade or above.
In the Cancer Interstellar Civilization Universe, such a thing might be beyond belief.
But don't forget who the man before her was:
the supreme ruler of the Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire, the Owl Dragon Emperor.
An interstellar fleet that could follow the Owl Dragon Emperor was surely nothing ordinary; what was fitting it out with T5-grade interstellar warships?
Most likely the T6-grade interstellar warships in it numbered no fewer than two figures.
Finding that the Owl Dragon legion fleets' military strength went far beyond what she had imagined, General Leng Qian was gladder still at heart.
Since she had already chosen to sell "herself," she naturally hoped her buyer would be a good one; that way she would at least have sold "herself" at a good price.
A battle of T5-grade interstellar warships through and through: it was the first time ever that General Leng Qian had seen a battle scene of this grade!
On the forward line of defense the Owl Dragon fleet had formed,
there were only a thousand-odd interstellar warships, but the firepower of the Chaos-Knight-class Heavy Assault Interstellar Destroyers was such that even the T5-grade interstellar battleships opposite dared not take it head-on.
For the firepower of these interstellar destroyers was truly too terrifying.
As for the T5 Holy-Redeemer-class Heavy Interstellar Armored Heavy-Artillery Battleships, they had reached a level that was simply demonic.
At first General Leng Qian had wondered why this somewhat oddly shaped interstellar battleship had such terrifying fighting power.
But then she learned this interstellar battleship's name from the Owl Dragon Emperor's mouth.
It was a heavy interstellar armored heavy-artillery battleship!
Looking only at the words of the name one by one, one could see this was a quite exceptional interstellar warship.
Above all when its single Redeemer-class 300-meter-caliber super-electromagnetic railgun, its four Holy-class cluster laser cannons and its eighteen 20-meter-caliber heavy electromagnetic cannons opened fire,
the force of the attack truly seemed to set the whole star region trembling!
And mind you, besides these weapons, this Holy Redeemer had three hundred sixty-six eight-barreled heavy particle-energy rapid-fire guns!
It was simply a behemoth armed to the teeth!
With its firepower, any prey it marked had almost no chance of survival.
Under the onslaught of the T5 Chaos-Knight-class Heavy Assault Interstellar Destroyers and the T5 Holy-Redeemer-class Heavy Interstellar Armored Heavy-Artillery Battleships,
this last stretch of distance cost the two families' legion fleets quite heavy casualties.
Just as their interstellar warships, braving the wild bombardment, at last reached a range at which they could strike back,
their interstellar warships began to pour out the fury they had held in so long.
Gun after gun locked onto the opposing interstellar fleet's position.
Even though the enemy's interstellar destroyers and interstellar battleships had destroyed no few of their interstellar warships before this,
the base of hundreds of thousands of interstellar warships was still there.
At this stage, there were still a great many interstellar warships out in front.
The interstellar warships about to open fire now alone far outnumbered the three thousand interstellar warships opposite.
When those attacks came down on the position of the three thousand interstellar warships opposite,
an unexpected thing happened.
The interstellar escorts that had been quiet until now set all the guns on their hulls working, and began throwing up a barrage at these attacks,
intercepting them halfway, in one exploding fireball after another.
And the rate of successful interception was quite high:
at least half the attacks were intercepted.
As the other half of the attacks were about to land on the interstellar warships' position,
a huge screen of light rose and wrapped the three thousand interstellar warships outright.
And those attacks could only fall on this huge screen of light, like raindrops falling on the surface of a lake; after stirring up ring after ring of ripples, all was as it had been.
The sight left a great many people staring.
"This… this interstellar escort is called… the T5 King-of-the-Hill-class Heavy Interstellar Comprehensive Strategic Escort… So this is what a T5-grade interstellar escort can do to protect." General Leng Qian swallowed.
She too had only just learned about this interstellar escort.
In ordinary legion fleets, interstellar escorts bore a similar duty, true, but this scene, sheltering a whole interstellar fleet so that it came through the enemy's dense attack without a scratch,
was truly too stunning.
It was a shock beyond words.
Not only the sharpest of spears, but the thickest of shields too.
Such an interstellar fleet……
General Leng Qian's eyes were full of envy.
And this fine show was far from over.
For the two families' legion fleets, an arrow loosed from the bow does not turn back.
Having decided to storm and swallow these three thousand interstellar warships of unknown origin, they naturally could not stop.
And both their commanders were comforting themselves:
they had hundreds of thousands of interstellar warships in hand.
The enemy had only three thousand interstellar warships; the gap between the two was still very great.
Even if the enemy's interstellar warships were strong, unbelievably strong,
so long as they could keep up the attack, however thick the shield, the moment would come when it shattered.
Even with human-wave tactics, they could destroy these three thousand interstellar warships.
It was with such thoughts that the battle went on.
But where it went was wholly beyond what they had imagined.
Very soon the whole battlefield had slipped out of their control.
The mysterious elite fleet of three thousand interstellar warships had built a line of defense, but they had no thought of being tortoises hiding in their shells.
The first to move were the mobile cruiser fleets,
made up of thirty ships each.
They went over to the charge of their own accord, each looking for a gap to break through.
With only small fleets of thirty interstellar warships, they dared plunge straight into the enemy's mass and launch fierce attacks.
When General Leng Qian saw this, she could not help crying out.
Even T5-grade interstellar cruisers and interstellar battlecruisers, only thirty of them, plunging into a vast ocean of enemies: this… wasn't this a moth flying into the flame?
The facts proved it was not a moth flying into the flame, but a dragon swimming the four seas!
The mobile cruiser fleets, on the strength of very great speed and powerful attacking fire, tore openings in the enemy's formation by sheer force and plunged into them.
They looked as if they were charging recklessly, headlong.
But General Leng Qian, watching the interstellar holo-table, soon spotted the pattern.
These mobile cruiser fleets were not charging about at random; they were cutting through the enemy fleets and splitting them apart with purpose.
Right now, in one area, nearly ten thousand interstellar warships had been cut through and split off.
Because of the breakthroughs of several mobile cruiser fleets outside, they had now become an island, with no chance at all of linking up with the other interstellar fleets.
They did try to break out.
But just then the T5 Chaos-Knight-class Heavy Assault Interstellar Destroyers that had been building the line of defense pounced; they burst into very great speed in a short time,
and sealed off the routes the mobile cruiser fleets had torn open before; in this way a blockade line formed around these ten thousand interstellar warships!
And next,
the carrier starships that had long been waiting at the rear stirred now.
These were the heavy carrier starships called the T5 Fire Qilin, and great numbers of interstellar fighters and swarms of interstellar drones could be seen pouring out from every part of their hulls.
That black, massed swarm swept toward the enemy's ten thousand cut-off interstellar warships.
What followed was like locusts passing over the land.
Those ten thousand interstellar warships were destroyed one by one by these astonishing numbers of interstellar fighters and swarms of interstellar drones.
General Leng Qian swallowed, looking at the interstellar fighters and swarms of interstellar drones.
She could not help glancing at the Owl Dragon Emperor on the other side of the video window.
The Owl Dragon Emperor had not introduced this T5 Fire-Qilin-class Heavy Carrier Starship this time, but from her own observation as an officer,
she could estimate roughly:
this T5 Fire-Qilin-class Heavy Carrier Starship carried over a million interstellar fighters and over thirty million interstellar drones.
And these interstellar fighters and interstellar drones were all of the T5 grade, without exception.
So to the two families' interstellar warships, these interstellar fighters and swarms of interstellar drones were no less a threat than interstellar warships!
Under such an onslaught, those ten thousand interstellar warships were cleared away in under ten minutes.
The fighting after that went basically the same way,
this kind of slaughter played out again and again.
The two family legion fleets' interstellar warships fell at an average rate of nearly a hundred thousand interstellar warships an hour.
At such a rate of loss, even with hundreds of thousands of interstellar warships, they could not bear attrition on this scale.
On the Owl Dragon interstellar fleet's side, by contrast,
not one interstellar warship in the battle position came under threat; even the star-shield screen of the T5 King-of-the-Hill-class Heavy Interstellar Comprehensive Strategic Escorts was still up.
Only some of the interstellar cruisers and interstellar battlecruisers carrying out the strike-and-cut-through tasks took some hits on their hulls after their star-shield energy was spent.
But all of them withdrew safely behind the line of defense.
So in nearly two hours of fighting,
the two families' legion fleets threw away nearly two hundred thousand interstellar warships, without destroying even a single enemy interstellar warship.
In the end, once the two families' legion fleets had sunk into fear of these three thousand interstellar warships of unknown origin,
both families' legion fleet commanders chose to withdraw.
It could almost be called a rout.
And during the rout and flight, the Owl Dragon interstellar fleet did not give chase, only making a few attacks in a take-it-as-it-comes way.
And just then, the long, narrow interstellar warship that had not stirred all along at last bared its fangs.
It was a ballista!
At the ballista's tail appeared the glow of a gathering charge, and then a shining arrow could be seen shooting out,
striking a retreating T5 interstellar warship squarely!
"That range!" General Leng Qian was greatly startled.
She had long known that this interstellar long-range hunter-killer ship had a very long range, but this range was over a dozen times that of an ordinary interstellar warship!
That was truly too terrifying.
And the force of the attack didn't look like that of an ordinary T5-grade interstellar warship, did it?
Could it be?
"Your Majesty, is this interstellar long-range hunter-killer ship a T6-grade interstellar warship too?" Leng Qian could not help asking Zhao Chen.
Zhao Chen introduced it openly: "The T6 Seraph-Ballista-class Interstellar Long-Range Hunter-Killer Ship. Its proper use should really be before a battle begins, or as it begins: precise sniping at the enemy's high-intensity combat targets. But this time the opponent was too weak. Using it before the battle, I worried it would scare the enemy off. So it was set for the final mopping-up."
Hearing His Majesty the Owl Dragon Emperor's explanation, General Leng Qian showed she understood.
It was indeed so.
If before the battle began the other side had seen the power of this T6 Seraph-Ballista-class Interstellar Long-Range Hunter-Killer Ship,
they would most likely have had to weigh it carefully before attacking at all.
Next came the fine show of the hunt.
Nearly all the enemy's T5-grade interstellar warships, as they fled, were sniped from afar by the T6 Seraph-Ballista-class Interstellar Long-Range Hunter-Killer Ship.
In fact these enemy T5 interstellar warships had been located long before by the Dragon Emperor Interstellar Command Ship's radar;
it had only been waiting for this chance.
In the end, from the time the Emperor's Guard Fleet joined the battlefield, it took two and a half hours to end this battle.
The two sides in the engagement produced an astonishing battle report.
The two families' legion fleets, in their engagement with the Emperor's Guard Fleet, lost over two hundred thousand interstellar warships, and every T5-grade interstellar warship was destroyed to the last.
Both enemy flagships were destroyed as well; whether the enemy commanders died was not known.
For once the T6 Seraph-Ballista-class Interstellar Long-Range Hunter-Killer Ship had begun its hunt, fleeing shuttles began appearing from those T5-grade interstellar warships.
Most likely it was the senior officers on those T5 interstellar warships, realizing the danger of being aboard a T5 interstellar warship, fleeing one after another.
But that did not matter to Zhao Chen; those senior commanders and the like were only shrimp soldiers and crab generals to Zhao Chen.
And on the Guard Fleet's side, by contrast, there was not a single loss.
Of the three thousand interstellar warships, only some had taken a few surface wounds.
Already the interstellar supply ships following them were even putting out unmanned repair robots to make emergency repairs to the interstellar warships whose outer hulls had been damaged.
"General Leng Qian, I wonder what you make of my Owl Dragon legion fleets now?" Zhao Chen looked at General Leng Qian across from him, light and easy as wind and cloud.
General Leng Qian drew a deep breath, then said seriously, "If all your Owl Dragon legion fleets have fighting power like these three thousand interstellar warships, I take back my earlier estimate. You need only supply us with an interstellar fleet like this one, thirty thousand interstellar warships. Within twenty days… no… within half a month I can control the whole Luohe Star Region!"
T5-grade interstellar warships through and through, and no small number of T6-grade interstellar warships too.
Going only by the three thousand interstellar warships before her, she estimated there were at least nearly a hundred T6-grade interstellar warships among them.
Three thousand T5-grade interstellar warships: most likely the five interstellar kingdoms together could barely muster such a number.
If she were truly given thirty thousand T5-grade Owl Dragon-line interstellar warships, Leng Qian truly had the confidence to make good on what she said.
Zhao Chen said slowly, "This interstellar fleet is my guard fleet. Its equipment is somewhat stronger than a regular Owl Dragon legion fleet's. Regular Owl Dragon legion fleets are still fitted out mainly with interstellar warships of the T4 grade and above at present."
Hearing the Owl Dragon Emperor's explanation, General Leng Qian was not disappointed; she had in fact guessed something of the sort before.
If the whole Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire were fleets like these three thousand interstellar warships, then even an enemy on the scale of the Devourer Civilization might be no match for the Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire.
But to be fitted out wholly with interstellar warships of the T4 grade and above now, with vast numbers of T5- and T6-grade interstellar warships besides,
was proof enough of the Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire's mighty strength!
"If so, then by my estimate: give me a hundred thousand interstellar warships, and I can do what I promised within twenty days," General Leng Qian said seriously.
A hundred thousand Owl Dragon-line interstellar warships.
Beside him, Lilith's eyebrows twitched slightly; that number was one they could fully accept now.