Six T2 heavy pulse-laser secondary guns trained as one on the T3 Gargoyle-class Medium Interstellar Frigate opposite. Six pulse-lasers loosed forthwith — like six spears of starlight nailed into the T3 Gargoyle's shield.
The Gebo clan chief stared, aghast, at a shield gone to nothing in an eyeblink; the 34% of shield energy that had been there was, all at once, 0%!
"How… is that possible?" the Gebo clan chief gasped. Six pulse-lasers, and his shield was spent. Energy-type weapons might do more to a shield, yes — but this was a T2 warship, for pity's sake. Could it not know its place!
"Chief… that T2 battleship's secondary guns… they look like T2-grade heavy pulse-laser cannons!" the sharp-eyed adjutant beside him said, swallowing.
Heavy pulse-laser cannons?
You had to be joking. Your T2 battleship must be running cheats. A weapon like that, an ordinary medium T2 battleship used as its main gun — and on yours it's a secondary… with six of them mounted! Just what kind of T2 battleship was this!
Even as the Gebo clan chief railed on, the main-gun muzzle of that distant T2 battleship suddenly bloomed with a ring of "vortex"-shaped ripples. Then the alarm sounded on the ship's bridge. Before he could react, he felt his whole body flung up and slammed hard to the floor, nose bloodied and face bruised. And this was far from the end; ear-splitting alarms rose and fell across the bridge.
"Warning! Warning! Warning! The ship's energy system has suffered a grave fault; it will explode within 30 seconds. All personnel aboard, evacuate at once — evacuate the ship at once!"
The Gebo clan chief was left speechless. You had to be joking! A T2 battleship — one shot, and it had knocked his ship's energy system into a fault, and left it on the verge of exploding? An energy-system explosion was a danger no less than the ship's largest magazine going up.
"Just what kind of T2 battleship is this!" the Gebo clan chief cursed, his feelings a tangle. But he had no choice now; he dashed at once into the escape pod on the bridge, ready to flee this command ship of his. All around, the bridge crew's escape pods launched, one after another. Yet the pod the Gebo clan chief was in didn't so much as stir.
"Alert! Alert! Escape-pod ejection sequence fault, escape-pod ejection sequence fault!"
Hearing that accursed system prompt, the Gebo clan chief had half a mind to curse the heavens themselves. Today he truly was luckless — had he used up a whole lifetime's ill luck at once? The very next second, this T3 Gargoyle exploded, its fireball dazzling in the black.
Watching this, Shen Bing was stunned herself. "This T3 Gargoyle-class Medium Interstellar Frigate isn't very sturdy at all, is it?" Shen Bing murmured. By her plan, the first wave would break the enemy's shield and do a measure of harm to its hull; then she'd weather a round of the enemy's fire, and once her main and secondary guns had reset, deliver a second wave and take the enemy ship. But she'd never imagined it would end so fast — fast enough that she hadn't quite caught up to it.
Completion rate updated: killed target figure "Gebo clan chief" — completion 50%.
Completion rate updated: destroyed one T3 warship — completion 55%.
The system prompt sounded in Zhao Chen's ears, and he swept an eye over the battle. He was a little surprised that Shen Bing had actually taken out a T3 Gargoyle. The T2 Snow Mastiff's performance was formidable — in a sense it could be called a near-T3 warship — but who, an ordinary person, would dare pilot a T2 warship to challenge a T3 above its class? And right under the eyes of an enemy fleet, no less. It had to be said, this commoner class-flower Shen Bing's reputation was well and truly deserved!
With the Snake-folk fleet joining the fight, the rate at which Han Tianwang's ships fell quickened greatly too. After all, by Zhao Chen's earlier requirement to Queen Medusa, of these 500 Snake-folk warships 100 had to be T2 warships — so their combat power was quite considerable.
Completion rate updated: enemy ships destroyed reached one thousand — completion 60%.
The number of enemy ships destroyed broke 1,000, and the enemy's remaining T3 warships numbered only three! The T3 Venomous Scorpion-class Medium Interstellar Cruiser Han Tianwang was aboard; the T3 Arkham-class Medium Interstellar Battleship the Fire Salamander chieftain was aboard; and the T3 Porcupine-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer the pirate boss was aboard.
By now Han Tianwang had received word of another T3 warship destroyed, and of the deaths, one after another, of the Black Boar-folk chief and the Gebo clan chief. His face was ugly to see; sweat beaded on his brow. This situation had utterly outstripped anything he'd foreseen. He'd thought that losing a few hundred warships would let him take Zhao Chen's fleet — at most paying the price of a T3 warship or two while surrounding that T3 Blizzard. And now? Of 10 T3 warships, only three were left, one of them a "cripple." His 800 T2 warships had lost over half, and the surviving half were in utter disarray.
All that battlefield theory he'd learned at Northstar Starship Military Academy, Han Tianwang found, simply didn't hold water here. The advantage of ship numbers he'd counted on? The generation gap between T2 and T3 warships? The rule that a T4 shield could only be mounted on a T4 warship? The line that the T3 stealth bomber was an obsolete, cast-off class? The strength gaps between ship classes? Here, every bit of it was so much garbage.
"Young Master Han, this doesn't look right. We've lost too many T3 and T2 warships; it's badly hurt our morale. My advice… we'd best withdraw first and reconsider!" The pirate boss stepped forward now to propose it.
"Withdraw? With things come to this, you tell me to withdraw!" Han Tianwang ground his teeth. Not one of Zhao Chen's warships had fallen; only a few dozen Snake-folk ships had been destroyed. The kill ratio, ours to theirs, had reached a terrifying one to 50 — and was still climbing!
The pirate boss's face turned grave. "Young Master Han, you must understand. If you truly let all this strength Young Master Sun left in the Reef Star Region be burned away, then even should we win in the end — would Young Master Sun spare you?"
At these words, Han Tianwang shuddered from head to foot. At the thought of just how vicious a man Young Master Sun was — for all his smiling, ordinary-seeming face, the evil beneath it was something that frightened even Han Tianwang and Zhang Haoran.
Han Tianwang sat trembling in his captain's chair; at this moment he truly seemed a loser. In what was left of his voice, he said, "Then… withdraw."