[1]
Hearing this, the Lord of Frey frowned: "A space elevator? A starport? Then that means they must already have starships. Most likely T1-grade starships. So they've entered the T1 interstellar-civilization stage too."
"Master, what should we do next?" the subordinate asked humbly.
"Since we've found them, they've most likely found us too. Our interstellar plan can't be delayed any longer. By the original scheme, building a fleet of T1 starships would take us at least five years. Launch the reserve Frey Fleet Plan!" the Lord of Frey said earnestly.
"Master… are we really… really going to launch that plan?" the subordinate asked with some hesitation.
The Lord of Frey looked at the subordinate: "Are you questioning my decision?"
"N… no…"
"I know what you're worried about. That plan will consume the lives of our people. I don't want our people's lives spent at this stage either. Their souls ought to go further. But now the civilization that threatens us has appeared, and we must have a fleet able to destroy them in the shortest time. Only by launching this plan do we have a chance to fight! So long as we destroy them, this star system is ours. Go and carry out the plan!"
"Yes!"
All over the world, special warships were carried one after another to certain places.
These places all had one feature: a huge magic array in the ground.
And these warships had all originally been warships that ranged across the seas.
The Lord of Frey looked at the hundred video windows before him, each a different magic-array site.
"Master, everything is ready. The plan can begin at any moment," the subordinate said respectfully.
"Begin. Let us witness our heroes' glorious moment!"
A Frey altar.
This was a pit able to hold a whole warship.
In the pit was laid a battleship.
And around the pit were set several pipes for letting out water.
"Is everything ready?" a Frey with patterns carved all over his body asked, looking at the altar before him.
"My lord, everything is ready."
"Activate the altar."
"Yes!"
"Open the sluices!"
At a single command, several pipes began letting out water.
But what came out of those pipes was not water, but fresh blood!
Stream after stream of blood flowed out, and the smell of blood filled the whole space at once.
The blood let out flowed down over the warship and gradually filled the whole pit.
Some dozens of minutes later,
this warship's hull was covered in blood, like a warship born bathed in blood.
Very soon
the whole warship was soaking in the pool of blood.
A whole pool of blood: had this got out, it would surely have shocked everyone on this planet.
This too was why the Frey civilization had always kept this plan secret.
For this one pool of blood had been gathered by bleeding at least a million people.
If the other people on the planet had known, it was bound to have caused a mutiny.
Fortunately, most of these million-plus people had been prisoners and war criminals locked up when the planet was unified, and some criminals.
A Frey in a black robe took off his black robe and stepped one foot into the pool of blood.
But his body did not sink into the pool; he stood on top of it.
Step by step he walked toward the warship in the middle of the pool.
When he stood above the warship, he prostrated himself before it.
Then cracks appeared all over this Frey's body, and blue blood seeped from the cracks.
This blue blood merged into the pool of blood and began to envelop the whole warship.
In the end, this Frey dissolved away entirely.
And the blood in the pool began to swirl like a vortex, condensing into the warship.
The blood in the pool gradually ran dry.
What was born of it was a crimson warship, wholly new.
"Is it done?" a Frey outside the altar said excitedly.
"Not yet. Whether it's done depends on whether it can truly become one," an older Frey said earnestly.
Just at this moment,
a figure appeared behind this Frey.
"How is it going?"
"Master, what brings you here?"
On seeing the Lord of Frey appear, every Frey knelt to greet him.
"This is the vanguard of the Frey civilization's future, made by us Frey; how could I not come! Speak; how is it going?" The Lord of Frey looked at the blood-red warship before him.
"Ninety percent is done; it all depends on the last part," a subordinate said.
"Then I'll wait here." The Lord of Frey watched all this before him.
This was in fact one of the Frey civilization's ways of blood sacrifice.
The Frey people had a special constitution in themselves; they could merge with certain dead things.
And for this Trial of the Gods, the ten thousand the Lord of Frey had brought were all of the purest blood,
precisely so that, when needed, they could blood-forge starships.
So-called blood-forged starships were a technology of the Frey civilization.
It had been used in the early years of the Frey civilization's rise.
First a warship of closely similar form was built, then it was bathed in a pool of blood, nourished by the blood,
and finally, with the blood of one pure Frey as the catalyst, a Frey soul was poured into this warship, making it a starship.
Starships of this kind were generally classed as biological starships, somewhat like hive-race starships.
But the price was terrifying beyond measure.
The bigger the warship, the more blood it needed.
Just to forge these T1 starships before them, each blood pool took the blood of at least a million people.
And to forge a bigger T2 starship took the blood of hundreds of millions.
So cruel a method the Lord of Frey himself did not want to use except when necessary.
And there was another important reason too: it required sacrificing one pure Frey.
At the same time, the method did not always succeed.
In the records of the past, the success rate was in fact only about 30%.
At this point the subordinates beside him reported one after another on the other blood pools and whether they had succeeded.
Very soon the blood-colored interstellar battleship before them slowly floated up, which meant it had succeeded.
"Report. In this blood sacrifice, of a hundred blood pools, only thirty-five succeeded. Among them one T1 carrier starship and two T1 interstellar warships," a subordinate reported to the Lord of Frey.
"Thirty-five starships? So be it. Though there are only thirty-five, for now it's enough. Form these thirty-five starships into a fleet at once; after a little training, set out on the expedition at once! The civilization on that planet must be cleared away in the shortest time!" the Lord of Frey ordered!
"Yes!"
On this planet, thirty-five blood-red starships flew up into the sky, a sight that stunned many people.
But no one knew that behind these thirty-five starships, they had been forged at the price of several hundred million lives.
"Master. If that Trial civilization opposite has more moves held back, and this fleet of ours gains nothing, or is even defeated, what should we do?" a cautious subordinate asked.
The Lord of Frey thought a moment, then said, "What you say isn't without reason. Then we must prepare several steps. If it goes smoothly, the Trial civilization opposite has its starport destroyed by us and its interstellar technology wholly broken by us, leaving them stuck on the ground to sit and wait for us to clear them away. That would naturally be best. Next best: the two sides each win some and lose some; we can't take them, and at the same time they can't threaten us. Then we quickly develop our interstellar civilization, build starports and docks, and build more interstellar warships. The method of forging starships by blood sacrifice is, after all, not the true path. Still, we must keep a move in reserve too. Tighten the laws everywhere; anyone found guilty of a crime is to be detained. Whoever dies, for whatever reason, all their blood is to be donated according to the rules; tell the world it's blood donation for the good of all. In fact, store up this blood. Keep building altars everywhere, stockpile blood, and have one or two of our people ready. Once there's need, blood-sacrifice at the altars and forge more starships!"
"Yes!"
These orders of the Lord of Frey were passed down; he raised his head and looked at the sky, toward that planet, the direction those thirty-five starships had flown.
If he could have helped it, he truly did not like taking this road of blood-forged starships.
In the past few years, to unify this planet,
of the ten thousand of his people he had brought, over a thousand had already been lost.
After unification, he had treasured every one of his surviving people.
And this time a hundred more had died outright,
and on his orders at that.
If this happened again, with only these few thousand of them, at the success rate of blood sacrifice, how many more times could it be used?
And the fewer his people, the more the future development of their civilization was bound to suffer.
So whatever happened, it was best to destroy the other civilization at one stroke.
This too was why he had chosen without hesitation to blood-forge these thirty-five starships!
——————
The Dragon Eye Space Telescope.
The artificial intelligence photographed those thirty-five black dots in the distance.
The image was sent at once to the Dragon Palace Starport.
"Report! The first images detected by the Dragon Eye Space Telescope. On the planet across the star, thirty-five very small black dots have suddenly appeared, heading our way!" a subordinate hurriedly reported this news to Zhao Chen.
"Can it be confirmed that they're enemy starships?" Zhao Chen asked at once.
"The images are being scanned and analyzed now. But it's basically certain: they're starships!" the subordinate said.
"Summon Chu Xuan!" Zhao Chen said!
A few hours later,
Marshal Chu Xuan appeared at the Dragon Palace Starport and stood before Zhao Chen in uniform.
"Your Majesty!"
"You know all about it?"
"I know; the Trial civilization opposite has sent thirty-five starships, hurrying our way!" Marshal Chu Xuan said.
Zhao Chen said, "I'll tell you the latest news. By our estimate, the other side's are probably all T1-grade interstellar warships too; at the speed of warships of this grade, they can reach the space around our Dragon Star within fifteen days!"
"Fifteen days." Marshal Chu Xuan frowned slightly.
"Yes. We have to do it within fifteen days. Chu Xuan, I'm asking you. With the forces we have now, is there hope of beating back this enemy offensive?" Zhao Chen said earnestly.
Marshal Chu Xuan raised her hand and opened a holographic display.
"At present our Fierce Dragon Kingdom has ten warships under direct command. The Dragon Star Alliance fleet has five warships. Fifteen in all! Fifteen against thirty-five; we're far short in the number of warships. Though our Fierce Dragon–built interstellar warships have always been of better quality, at present we still don't know what kind of civilization the other side is, what kind of starships they have, or how strong they are. So whether we can trade one for several as before is by no means certain. Matters like this on the battlefield, we can't gamble on! So we need several means ready."
Marshal Chu Xuan held up two fingers: "If we're the weaker, then just as against the hive-race invasion, we stay mainly on the defensive! That way we can add a little to our chances of victory. If we're stronger than that Trial civilization, then naturally we can simply fight them head-on."
Zhao Chen understood: "You mean to make a probing attack first, to sound out how strong those thirty-five starships are."
"Yes! I mean to lead the fifteen starships myself and attack those thirty-five starships. If we can fight, we fight. If we can't, I'll probe them a little and then lead the fleet back!" Marshal Chu Xuan said.
Zhao Chen thought a moment and looked at Secretary Officer Barbara beside him: "Barbara. How many starships do we have under construction right now?"
Secretary Officer Barbara stepped forward and reported, "At present we have starship construction projects totaling thirty ships. Ten of them are auxiliary interstellar warships. The remaining twenty are combat starships. And of these twenty, five can be completed within a month. The rest need at least three months."
"A month, for five more?" Zhao Chen thought a moment, then looked at Chu Xuan: "To raise our chances of winning, could you buy us another month? Five more starships are better than none."
Marshal Chu Xuan thought for a while, then said, "Delaying a month is possible. I'll find a way to do it!"
"Mm. Your own safety comes first in everything. This counts as our Fierce Dragon's first interstellar war in this Trial of the Gods. Even if we can't win, don't take losses too heavy. So long as we can hold our home, everything still has a chance!" Zhao Chen said gravely.
"Rest assured, Your Majesty!" Marshal Chu Xuan said.
Chu Xuan took her leave and went off to put the forces in order and prepare for war.
And on Zhao Chen's side there was no idleness either.
He began drawing up the production and construction plan to come.
They had to be this cautious now simply because their military strength was too weak.
So long as they had strong enough military strength, these worries would naturally cease to exist.
"The most urgent task is building T2 interstellar industrial ships, and interstellar factories able to mass-produce starships!" Zhao Chen said earnestly.
"Barbara, how is construction of our T2 Iron-Hammer-class Heavy Interstellar Industrial Ship coming along?"