"We… we don't know either. Two more forces of interstellar stealth bombers really did appear out of thin air. Each of these two interstellar stealth bomber fleets has twenty thousand interstellar warships, so they're putting enormous pressure on our line!" His subordinate's forehead was covered in sweat, and he spoke nervously.
The Drought-Fiend Sovereign stared fixedly at the interstellar war holo-table, still murmuring to himself, "How can this be? It shouldn't be. Under our anti-stealth equipment, how could the enemy still have interstellar stealth bombers able to stay hidden? How could they possibly hide…"
The Drought-Fiend Sovereign's words broke off suddenly.
He stared at the spots where those two forces of interstellar stealth bombers had appeared, and enlarged them again and again.
When he saw it all clearly, his pupils jolted.
For he had found that, at the spots where those two forces of interstellar stealth bombers had appeared, the interstellar stealth bombers already exposed before had seemed only to be fighting in the ordinary way,
but their interstellar warships had been drawn up in a formation shaped like an umbrella.
And as luck would have it, all the anti-stealth equipment their Drought-Fiend Sovereign's legion fleet was using was of the scanning kind.
It could break the stealth of any interstellar warship in a stealthed state,
and it reached over a very wide range, too.
But its one weakness was that the waves this scanning equipment sent out could be blocked.
And once they were blocked, a shadow side might appear in the area behind.
But the Drought-Fiend Sovereign's legion fleet had a hundred thousand interstellar warships and made up a huge fleet formation, with anti-stealth equipment of this kind all around the whole fleet.
So at first they had all thought that even if some blocking of this kind happened,
over so wide a range, with dozens of anti-stealth devices scanning it over and over, how much shadow could there be?
How much could there be?
Now the answer lay before them:
a shadow big enough to hold twenty thousand interstellar stealth bombers.
And the Shadow Hunter ace fleet group opposite had made that shadow on purpose.
They had known long before that the Drought-Fiend Sovereign's legion fleet had this equipment, and had made a shadow by design with a fleet drawn up in that umbrella formation.
The interstellar stealth bombers that had not given up hiding had hidden in that shadow, and so slipped past the Drought-Fiend Sovereign's legion fleet's scouting.
It had given the Drought-Fiend Sovereign's legion fleet the false picture that the Shadow Hunter ace fleet group had only sixty thousand interstellar warships on the whole battlefield just then.
In fact, beneath the surface, another forty thousand interstellar stealth bombers lay hidden!
"How did they do it? How could they manage that?" The Drought-Fiend Sovereign could hardly believe it. He could follow the theory well enough, but to his mind such an operation was very hard to carry out.
The interstellar warships making the shadow on purpose had only to be a little out of position, and the interstellar stealth bombers hidden behind them might well have been exposed.
And how could the Owl Dragon interstellar fleets have worked out the scanning range of their anti-stealth equipment so precisely?
It was all too incredible.
But at the moment there was no one to explain it to them.
And after his brief astonishment, the Drought-Fiend Sovereign had no time left to dwell on it.
For through this gap, the forty thousand extra interstellar stealth bombers
were attacking his Drought-Fiend Sovereign's legion fleet's battle formation from two directions now,
and attacking very fast, and smoothly!
On the interstellar war holo-table, the Drought-Fiend Sovereign could see very clearly two arrow-like markers driving from the flanks straight into his Drought-Fiend Sovereign's legion fleet's battle formation, deeper and deeper.
And the direction of the attack pointed straight at the Drought-Fiend Ghost-King-class Heavy Strategic Interstellar Multirole Destroyer he was on.
Plainly, they were coming for his flagship.
Had it been only these twenty thousand interstellar stealth bombers in each of the two directions, the Drought-Fiend Sovereign's legion fleet might not have worried too much.
After all, however many small fry there were, they could not threaten a strong one.
But!
He saw it: he saw the enemy's quasi-T7 Golden-Scarab-class Heavy Interstellar Dreadnoughts closing on those two routes along the two lines of attack.
At this sight, the Drought-Fiend Sovereign's pupils jolted again.
A chill went over him.
He knew what the other side was after.
The interstellar stealth bombers would quickly tear open lines of attack driving straight at the Drought-Fiend Ghost-King-class Heavy Strategic Interstellar Multirole Destroyer,
making a way for the quasi-T7 Golden-Scarab-class Heavy Interstellar Dreadnoughts to strike straight at the Drought-Fiend Ghost-King-class Heavy Strategic Interstellar Multirole Destroyer.
This was the Owl Dragon legion fleets' decapitation plan,
and the head it meant to take was his own, the Drought-Fiend Sovereign's!
Having seen the quasi-T7 Golden-Scarab-class Heavy Interstellar Dreadnought's fighting power with his own eyes, the Drought-Fiend Sovereign knew very well that this quasi-T7 interstellar warship from the Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire
was certainly able to finish off his Drought-Fiend Ghost-King-class Heavy Strategic Interstellar Multirole Destroyer.
"Pass on my order! Pull in the defense line at once, pull the interstellar warships in! Intercept those incoming interstellar stealth bombers and those quasi-T7 Golden-Scarab-class Heavy Interstellar Dreadnoughts at once, at any cost!" the Drought-Fiend Sovereign roared; beads of sweat had broken out on his forehead now.
It could be seen that he really had begun to grow anxious.
It was as if he could see a guillotine blade already hanging over his head, about to come slowly down.
He felt a threat of death, a feeling he had known only once before, when he faced Order!
How could he not be afraid?
But the attack of those two forces of interstellar stealth bombers was simply too fast and too fierce; it gave the Drought-Fiend Sovereign's legion fleet no chance at all to defend.
And they were using lightning-war tactics, too.
The interstellar stealth bombers charging at the very front would drop every interstellar missile, interstellar torpedo and interstellar bomb they carried at once, without hesitation,
and then, without even looking at what the attack had done, turn away to the flank to clear the way for the friendly ships behind.
And the interstellar stealth bombers following behind kept repeating the same move,
one wave after another.
By attacking this way, they could very quickly tear open gaps in the Drought-Fiend Sovereign's legion fleet and drive at astonishing speed straight for the place where the Drought-Fiend Ghost-King-class Heavy Strategic Interstellar Multirole Destroyer was.
Some even found, to their astonishment, that these interstellar stealth bombers broke through so fast that the quasi-T7 Golden-Scarab-class Heavy Interstellar Dreadnoughts coming up behind at full speed were not held back at all.
That alone was enough to show
how astonishingly fast these interstellar stealth bombers broke through.
"That's it, keep breaking through! Keep attacking. We have to tear open two gaps in a short time and let our Golden-Scarab-class Heavy Interstellar Dreadnoughts charge in!" Zhao Waner said gravely, looking at the interstellar war holo-table before her.
In truth her Shadow Hunter ace fleet group was now at full strength, a hundred thousand interstellar warships.
But before the battle, she had thought of showing the enemy weakness; besides, in the first campaign, what the Devourer Civilization had seen was sixty thousand interstellar stealth bombers.
On top of that, unlike the other interstellar legion fleets, the Shadow Hunter ace fleet group was a special case: the interstellar stealth bombers that came to fill its ranks always came very quietly,
and the tasks it carried out were all hidden ones as well.
So unless the Shadow Hunter ace fleet group revealed its numbers of interstellar warships itself in some combat task,
the enemy could hardly know exactly how many interstellar warships the Shadow Hunter ace fleet group had in service.
Zhao Waner had used this gap in the intelligence to hide forty thousand of her interstellar warships,
saving them to drop like a bomb at just this moment and catch the Drought-Fiend Sovereign off guard.
By the look of it now, this tactic had indeed gone rather well.
Very soon,
on the interstellar war holo-table it could be clearly seen that, in the two gaps torn open by the Shadow Hunter ace fleet group, the foremost fighting positions of the fleets that had broken in were only a last little distance from their target, the Drought-Fiend Ghost-King-class Heavy Strategic Interstellar Multirole Destroyer.
What had been sent in this time were two quasi-T7 Golden-Scarab-class Heavy Interstellar Dreadnoughts.
It was not that they did not want to send more quasi-T7 Golden-Scarab-class Heavy Interstellar Dreadnoughts in; it was truly rather hard to do.
This was the most that could be sent in as things stood.
Just then Zhao Waner got in touch with the captains of these two quasi-T7 Golden-Scarab-class Heavy Interstellar Dreadnoughts.
These two Golden-Scarab-class Heavy Interstellar Dreadnoughts were No. 2 and No. 5.
"Hello, both of you." Zhao Waner looked at the two major-general captains and saluted first in greeting.
"Marshal." The two major-general captains saluted at once at the sight.
"You should both know how things stand now and what the combat task ahead is. My interstellar stealth bombers have torn open two gaps for you now, and sent your Golden-Scarab-class Heavy Interstellar Dreadnoughts in. I've made the battlefield and the chance for you. Whether you can seize it and carry out this battle plan is up to you. But remember one thing: my interstellar stealth bombers can hold these two lanes open for fifteen minutes at most. After fifteen minutes, whether or not you've destroyed the enemy's Drought-Fiend Ghost-King-class Heavy Strategic Interstellar Multirole Destroyer, you must come back. Otherwise you'll fall into the enemy's encirclement. Understood?" Zhao Waner said gravely.
"Understood."
"Fifteen minutes. We guarantee the task will be done."
So said the two major-general captains.
"Good. I'll be waiting for your good news." Zhao Waner saluted again.
The two major-general captains returned the salute.
For now, the call was at an end.