Chapter 1535

"Report: the pressure on our front is enormous! The enemy's T6 Purple-Gold Silver Dragon-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship is hitting our formation hard, and our interstellar warships can hardly hold this interstellar battleship back!" a soldier reported to the Drought-Fiend Sovereign.

Before the Drought-Fiend Sovereign just then was an introduction to this interstellar battleship class as well.

Because of their earlier experience in battle, they had naturally gathered a great deal of data on the Owl Dragon-line interstellar warships.

The data was not far off from how things really were.

After all, this intelligence had been piled up from their own interstellar warships lost one after another; it had been paid for in real gold and silver!

It must be said that even the Drought-Fiend Sovereign, who loved interstellar destroyers, could not hide the liking in his heart at the sight of such an interstellar battleship.

For this interstellar battleship was truly too fine.

It could be called armed to the teeth.

Among T6-grade main-line interstellar warships, of all the interstellar warships the Drought-Fiend Sovereign knew of, almost none was a match for it.

It was hard to believe that such an interstellar warship had been built by the Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire, which had risen less than ten years ago.

It even woke envy and jealousy in the Drought-Fiend Sovereign's heart.

The Drought-Fiend Sovereign brought up the combat reports from the battlefield.

On their side, the Drought-Fiend Sovereign's legion fleet, it was not that there were no T6-grade interstellar warships,

but over eighty percent of them were T6-grade interstellar destroyers.

That, naturally, came from the Drought-Fiend Sovereign's own taste as well.

It was not only the T5-grade interstellar warships that were mostly interstellar destroyers; under the T6-grade interstellar warships, too, the great majority were interstellar destroyers.

Two interstellar destroyer classes were in service as the main equipment.

Two classes, it was said, but much of their core underlying technology was alike; the only difference lay in the hull frame.

One was a heavy interstellar destroyer, the other a medium interstellar destroyer.

Why have two different classes?

To meet different needs on the battlefield, of course.

They were the T6 Fierce-Ghost-Knight-class Heavy Interstellar Destroyer and the T6 Ghost-Warrior-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer; the core technology of the two interstellar destroyer classes was the same.

It was only to put more weight on firepower and armor

that the T6 Fierce-Ghost-Knight-class Heavy Interstellar Destroyer had been developed as a heavily reworked version of the T6 Ghost-Warrior-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer.

The latter, the T6 Fierce-Ghost-Knight-class Heavy Interstellar Destroyer, had a bigger hull, more weapon modules and thicker hull armor.

Put simply, this T6 Fierce-Ghost-Knight-class Heavy Interstellar Destroyer could take more of a beating, and was more like a simplified interstellar battleship.

The pity was that this cut-down interstellar battleship was not worth mentioning beside a real T6 Purple-Gold Silver Dragon-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship.

One against one, it was no match at all for the T6 Purple-Gold Silver Dragon-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship.

On the battlefield as it stood, a single T6 Purple-Gold Silver Dragon-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship needed only five short minutes to tear open the star shield of a T6 Fierce-Ghost-Knight-class Heavy Interstellar Destroyer,

and then one more minute to punch through the T6 Fierce-Ghost-Knight-class Heavy Interstellar Destroyer's hull armor.

And meanwhile, the T6 Fierce-Ghost-Knight-class Heavy Interstellar Destroyer's return fire, against the T6 Purple-Gold Silver Dragon-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship, could not get through even its hull armor, let alone its star shield.

Such was the vast gulf between the two!

And mind you, in a real combat setting,

when a T6 Purple-Gold Silver Dragon-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship hunted a T6 Fierce-Ghost-Knight-class Heavy Interstellar Destroyer, it often had to face many more interstellar warships from the Drought-Fiend Sovereign's legion fleet as well.

That alone showed how strong and terrible a T6 Purple-Gold Silver Dragon-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship was.

This was a true main-line interstellar warship, one that could hold a pass alone against ten thousand.

And close behind it came the Boreas-King-class Heavy Interstellar Battlecruiser.

On this battlefield, this interstellar battlecruiser more often served as a sword-bearing bodyguard to the T6 Purple-Gold Silver Dragon-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship,

making a fit hunting ground for the T6 Purple-Gold Silver Dragon-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship, and, when need be, cutting off and reaping any prey that tried to run.

In truth the T6 Boreas-King-class Heavy Interstellar Battlecruiser was well able to fight on its own.

In single-ship fighting power, nothing in the Drought-Fiend Sovereign's legion fleet opposite was a match for it, apart from that super-flagship.

It had astonishing speed, and firepower second only to an interstellar battleship's.

At the same time, it had quite terrifying hull armor.

After all, this was an interstellar heavy cruiser!

All this meant it had a heart solid enough for it, too; without such a heart, there was no making a steel monster like this both so ferocious and so fast!

The Drought-Fiend Sovereign had naturally noticed this T6 Boreas-King-class Heavy Interstellar Battlecruiser's fine showing on the battlefield too; the T6-grade interstellar warships of the Drought-Fiend Sovereign's legion fleet it had destroyed were no small number either.

But unfortunately this too was a T6-grade heavy interstellar warship, and destroying it in a short while was no easy thing.

And besides these, there was that Owl Dragon-line T6 interstellar destroyer, which landed a heavy kick square in the Drought-Fiend Sovereign's face.

The Drought-Fiend Sovereign was a man who loved interstellar destroyers; he even had a research institute devoted to researching and building advanced interstellar destroyers,

all so as to develop ever finer interstellar destroyers.

He did not deny that these Owl Dragon-line interstellar warships were very fine; Devourer Civilization interstellar warships of the same grade were no match for them at all.

But he had still pinned some hope on his own interstellar destroyers,

believing that even if his interstellar destroyers could not surpass those Owl Dragon-line interstellar destroyers, they could at least hold their own against them on the battlefield.

But he had never in his life expected

that in fact these interstellar destroyers of the Drought-Fiend Sovereign's,

T6-grade interstellar destroyers and T5-grade alike, were no match at all for the Owl Dragon-line interstellar destroyers opposite.

The gap between them was nothing so simple as a little.

It could be said a chasm lay between the two.

"How can this be? How can this be?" The Drought-Fiend Sovereign held his head in both hands; the gap in interstellar destroyers had even made him forget the fighting on the battlefield.

His eyes were fixed on the material he had gathered on the Owl Dragon-line interstellar destroyers opposite.

The most striking of them, beyond doubt, was the T6 Lord-of-Thunder-class Heavy Interstellar Destroyer!

It was an interstellar destroyer that looked quite ordinary in every attribute, but the Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire had used a completely different weapon system on it:

the three hundred Lord-of-Thunder arc main guns.

This was a weapon of an entirely new concept. The arcs it fired could bounce among the target interstellar warships, giving the effect of an area attack,

so that it could also hit the interstellar warships behind the enemy's front.

And when several T6 Lord-of-Thunder-class Heavy Interstellar Destroyers attacked at once, and many arcs stacked up together,

it was not only very striking to the eye; it was astonishing in real combat as well.

For besides the damage these arcs did to an interstellar warship's star shield, there was an astonishing discovery: in some measure they could affect the electronic systems inside an interstellar warship, which then had a certain chance of failing.

And the more arcs stacked up, the higher the chance that the interstellar warship's electronic systems would fail.

So once these T6 Lord-of-Thunder-class Heavy Interstellar Destroyers went into action together, their effect in combat could be called a killer on a local battlefield.

Set against them, the Drought-Fiend Sovereign's legion fleet's T6 Fierce-Ghost-Knight-class Heavy Interstellar Destroyers and T6 Ghost-Warrior-class Medium Interstellar Destroyers were no match at all for this T6 Lord-of-Thunder-class Heavy Interstellar Destroyer.

One against one they were no match; there had even been scenes of this T6 Lord-of-Thunder-class Heavy Interstellar Destroyer taking on two of them, or even three, alone.

And when they fought as teams, the T6 Lord-of-Thunder-class Heavy Interstellar Destroyers crushed the T6 interstellar destroyers on this side outright.

The Drought-Fiend Sovereign, who had always had great faith in his own interstellar destroyers, took a heavy blow from this.

And this was far from all.

As was said before, apart from its T6-grade interstellar warships, the Drought-Fiend Sovereign's legion fleet was made up entirely of T5-grade interstellar warships.

And among the T5-grade interstellar warships, the lion's share were T5-grade interstellar destroyers,

in six completely different models,^[1]

the T5 Ghost-Croc-class Heavy Interstellar Battle-Line Destroyer, the T5 Ghost-Hunter-class Light Interstellar Cruiser-Destroyer, the T5 Ghost-Giant-class Heavy Interstellar Escort Destroyer, the T5 Ghost-Dragon-class Medium Interstellar Armored Assault Destroyer,^[2] and the T5 Ghost-Flame-class Medium Interstellar Heavy-Artillery Destroyer.

These five T5-grade interstellar destroyers could be called the five guardian giants of the Drought-Fiend Sovereign's legion fleet.

And before, whenever the Drought-Fiend Sovereign had sent out this legion fleet of his on punitive campaigns against the universes of other interstellar civilizations,

these five guardian giants had carried all before them.

But this time they had stepped on an iron plate, and before a ship of the same type, at that:

the T5 Chaos-Knight-class Heavy Assault Interstellar Destroyer, naturally, now in service in the Owl Dragon interstellar legion fleets!

The Drought-Fiend Sovereign naturally had material on this interstellar destroyer too.

Next to the T6 Lord-of-Thunder-class Heavy Interstellar Destroyer before it, this interstellar destroyer in truth had no such great distinguishing feature.

This T5 Chaos-Knight-class Heavy Assault Interstellar Destroyer was more of a sound, by-the-book interstellar destroyer.

But it had quietly pushed every one of its figures up to a peak.

And that had made this T5 Chaos-Knight-class Heavy Assault Interstellar Destroyer very fine in every figure.

And an interstellar destroyer that was very fine in every figure, even without any striking feature, had solid enough combat figures to secure an unrivaled place among its ship type.

Besides, it was not entirely without a feature.

The reason it was so steady and solid in every basic respect was in fact for the sake of its one feature.

At its prow was a "Chaos War-Lance". As the name suggests, this carried on a tradition of the earlier Owl Dragon-line interstellar destroyers: fitting this kind of ram at the prow of an interstellar warship,

so that after closing in on an enemy interstellar warship, it could ram it head-on and do very serious damage to the enemy interstellar warship's hull.

This ram was not to be taken lightly.

And the "Chaos War-Lance" fitted to the T5 Chaos-Knight-class Heavy Assault Interstellar Destroyer not only had the armor-breaking power to ram an enemy ship and bore through it;

when it struck an enemy ship's star shield, it could draw off that enemy ship's star-shield energy directly!

The star-shield energy it drew off could either be stored in the "Chaos War-Lance" and released in electromagnetic form when it rammed a target, or be stored in the energy core inside the T5 Chaos-Knight to replenish the T5 Chaos-Knight's own energy system.

At the same time, its two qualities of heavy armor and assault greatly added to its fighting power in these respects.

And in real combat it had shown very striking fighting power, too.

Just now, for example, one T5 Chaos-Knight-class Heavy Assault Interstellar Destroyer, even when five completely different interstellar destroyers from the Drought-Fiend Sovereign's legion fleet ganged up on it,

gave no ground at all, and could even keep striking back.

Take the T5 Ghost-Flame-class Medium Interstellar Heavy-Artillery Destroyer: of the Drought-Fiend Sovereign's legion fleet's T5 interstellar destroyers, it had the strongest long-range firepower.

Naturally, it was the one charged with dealing out firepower.

But when its attacks landed on the T5 Chaos-Knight-class Heavy Assault Interstellar Destroyer, the star shield stopped them first.

And even without its star shield, the Chaos-Knight-class Heavy Assault Interstellar Destroyer's heavy hull armor alone could take the blow head-on.

This was no boast, for there was a real case on this very battlefield.

One T5 Chaos-Knight-class Heavy Assault Interstellar Destroyer had the bad luck to be ganged up on by a pack of the Drought-Fiend Sovereign's legion fleet's interstellar warships, and its star-shield energy was soon used up.

Just as it was falling back while fighting, on its superiors' orders,

a T5 Ghost-Flame-class Medium Interstellar Heavy-Artillery Destroyer's heavy guns slammed into this T5 Chaos-Knight-class Heavy Assault Interstellar Destroyer's side armor.

Mind you, the T5 Chaos-Knight-class Heavy Assault Interstellar Destroyer's front armor was its thickest; yet even its side armor,

taking at least several dozen heavy shells from the T5 Ghost-Flame-class Medium Interstellar Heavy-Artillery Destroyer one after another,

was left with nothing worse on the T5 Chaos-Knight-class Heavy Assault Interstellar Destroyer's hull armor than craters and dents.

It was even said that this interstellar destroyer later made it safely back to the rear to rest and refit, and that the only harm was that its hull armor was badly deformed, and the deformed armor pressed in on some of the space inside the ship.

Besides that, there was no other harm.

From this alone one could see how terrible this interstellar warship was!

In some respects its defense could even rival an interstellar escort's.

And if a T5 Ghost-Flame-class Medium Interstellar Heavy-Artillery Destroyer's heavy guns could not blast open this T5 Chaos-Knight-class Heavy Assault Interstellar Destroyer's hull armor in a short time,

the other interstellar destroyers were still less able to.

And when they fought the T5 Chaos-Knight-class Heavy Assault Interstellar Destroyer, the interstellar destroyers on the Drought-Fiend Sovereign's legion fleet's side made a sorry show of themselves in every way.

Take the T5 Ghost-Dragon-class Medium Interstellar Armored Assault Destroyer, which could count as the same ship type as the T5 Chaos-Knight-class Heavy Assault Interstellar Destroyer;

it was an armored assault destroyer too.

But when it met the T5 Chaos-Knight-class Heavy Assault Interstellar Destroyer head-on,

both sides charged straight at each other without dodging, and the end of it was this:

the T5 Chaos-Knight-class Heavy Assault Interstellar Destroyer's Chaos War-Lance smashed straight through the T5 Ghost-Dragon-class Medium Interstellar Armored Assault Destroyer's star shield, then drove from its prow straight into the T5 Ghost-Dragon-class Medium Interstellar Armored Assault Destroyer's hull.

In the end, a single charge had caved in the T5 Ghost-Dragon-class Medium Interstellar Armored Assault Destroyer's prow outright, wrecking it and leaving it unable to fight on.

If the T5 Ghost-Dragon-class Medium Interstellar Armored Assault Destroyer, the stronger in a frontal fight, was no match for the T5 Chaos-Knight-class Heavy Assault Interstellar Destroyer,

then there was even less to say for the other three: the T5 Ghost-Croc-class Heavy Interstellar Battle-Line Destroyer, the T5 Ghost-Hunter-class Light Interstellar Cruiser-Destroyer and the T5 Ghost-Giant-class Heavy Interstellar Escort Destroyer.

Of these, the T5 Ghost-Croc-class Heavy Interstellar Battle-Line Destroyer did try a frontal contest with the T5 Chaos-Knight-class Heavy Assault Interstellar Destroyer, but with the same result as the T5 Ghost-Dragon-class Medium Interstellar Armored Assault Destroyer:

it was no match at all.

It called itself a battle-line destroyer, but in hull-armor strength and in firepower alike it was not in the same class as the T5 Chaos-Knight-class Heavy Assault Interstellar Destroyer at all.

As for the T5 Ghost-Giant-class Heavy Interstellar Escort Destroyer, it could only defend, and as luck would have it, the T5 Ghost-Giant-class Heavy Interstellar Escort Destroyer's kind of defense was just what the T5 Chaos-Knight-class Heavy Assault Interstellar Destroyer's Chaos War-Lance was made to beat.

It could bore through and wreck them almost with ease, leaving them unable to fight.

Of them all, only the T5 Ghost-Hunter-class Light Interstellar Cruiser-Destroyer had some "strength", and the strength meant here was not strength in fighting,

but strength in running away.

For in speed, the T5 Chaos-Knight-class Heavy Assault Interstellar Destroyer truly could not catch this T5 Ghost-Hunter-class Light Interstellar Cruiser-Destroyer.

On some open battlefield, with some tactics, the T5 Ghost-Hunter-class Light Interstellar Cruiser-Destroyer might really threaten the T5 Chaos-Knight-class Heavy Assault Interstellar Destroyer, but first its own armament would need strengthening.

Its weapons were truly too weak.

Even if the T5 Chaos-Knight-class Heavy Assault Interstellar Destroyer sat still and let it shoot, it would probably take over an hour to destroy one T5 Chaos-Knight-class Heavy Assault Interstellar Destroyer.

And on the battlefield as it stood now, there was naturally no room for this T5 Ghost-Hunter-class Light Interstellar Cruiser-Destroyer to show what it could do.