And what utterly collapsed the morale of the crew members and captains aboard these interstellar warships was that they witnessed, with their own eyes, the scene of a T3 Dragon-Croc-class Medium Interstellar Battleship trading fire with several T3 interstellar frigates.
Those several T3 interstellar frigates bore up hard under the T3 Dragon-Croc's output, and at exceedingly swift speed pressed in close around that T3 Dragon-Croc. And at the last, they witnessed with their own eyes a scene of horror.
The fastest of the T3 interstellar frigates, using its three most conspicuous great black horns, directly rammed into the T3 Dragon-Croc's hull. And the great black horns began to vibrate violently, transmitting some kind of kinetic energy, wrecking the hull armor of the enemy ship before it. The positions of the enemy-ship armor that the three great black horns touched began, at a speed visible to the naked eye, to give rise to cracks. The three great black horns began to drive straight in, deep and unhindered!
Bored clean through!
A T3 Dragon-Croc-class Medium Interstellar Battleship had, of all things, had its hull armor pierced through by a single T3 interstellar frigate's ramming horns? Those who saw this scene were all dumbfounded.
"Warning! Warning! The hull's port-side armor has been bored through; 13 compartments are affected, and have been sealed off."
"Warning! Warning! The ship's navigation is affected; 30% of power lost."
"Warning! Warning! Three enemy ships are making ready to ram our ship — please evade! Evade!"
A man, his face iron-grim, hurriedly handed down the order. "Have the surrounding interstellar warships cover us at once — break out of the battlefield! Break out of the battlefield!"
He was the hegemon of one of the several main forces on the Starlight faction's side. He had, at this moment, already seen the outcome of this battle.
The enemy ships were too terrifying!
This unknown-origin interstellar fleet fighting shoulder to shoulder with the Snake-folk — the interstellar warships it was equipped with were, every class of them, monster-grade interstellar warships. Setting aside, for the moment, that world-ending divine might of terror from the two opening rounds of the missile ships — just those two classes of interstellar battleship and interstellar battlecruiser, slaughtering at their pleasure as though entering an unpeopled land — their fleet had not the least means of handling them. And now, even this class of T3 interstellar frigate before them, they could do nothing to put down. When even a mere interstellar frigate of theirs was going head-on toe-to-toe with his T3 Dragon-Croc — how was this battle to be fought?
"Reporting — the firepower of the several T3 interstellar frigates around us is too fierce; our interstellar warships simply cannot break through the encirclement to come support us."
Just as the subordinate was reporting —
The bridge began to shudder and rock violently; indeed, some of the instruments and virtual images developed malfunctions and short-circuits.
"Reporting — the right side of the hull has sustained a ramming from an enemy interstellar frigate; the hull armor is in the midst of being breached!"
"Reporting — the belly of the hull has sustained a ramming from an enemy interstellar frigate; the hull armor is severely torn open…"
Suddenly, a still more violent crash of collision appeared.
This Reef Star Region hegemon's whole person went airborne for several seconds, then slammed hard down against the floor, his very head split and bleeding. The whole bridge's illumination developed a fault, going dim for a few seconds. Thereafter the emergency power supply and lighting system started up.
"Cough, cough, cough… what's the situation," this hegemon asked, clutching at his own head; at the same time, the sound of steel being torn apart filled his ears.
This question of his went unanswered until, a full 10-some seconds later, a subordinate reported in terror, "It's bad! The front face of our hull has been rammed by a T3 interstellar frigate at exceedingly swift speed. The enemy ship's ramming horn has already driven into our hull armor, and is estimated to… to drive directly into our bridge compartment…"
Going to drive into the bridge compartment?
This hegemon stared dumbstruck; and thereupon his head was struck by something that came falling down. Before he could even fly into a rage, he caught sight of a spiderweb-like pattern of cracks appearing in the bridge wall above his head — and the thing that had just struck his head had, precisely, fallen from there. A certain premonition arose in his heart; his pupils dilated in an instant.
"No… don't… don't… come in…"
His words had not yet fallen when a black object directly tore through the bridge "ceiling" above his head. In this instant, his gaze was filled with nothing but terror.
T3 Phoenix-class Heavy Carrier Starship · bridge.
"Reporting — according to the intelligence, the interstellar warship where an enemy Starlight-faction force-hegemon was located has been annihilated by our T3 Triceratops fleet." Lilith reported this piece of intelligence to Zhao Chen.
Zhao Chen showed an expression of satisfaction. "Very good. Our combat aim this time is not to wholly annihilate these interstellar warships — the great majority of them are but fish, that's all. It's chiefly to decapitate those leader-figures, and leave these fish as dragons without a head."
The enemy fleet had a full 60,000 interstellar warships; under one round of his interstellar-missile baptism, 40,000-odd remained. But even so, the remaining number was still very vast; to annihilate them all would take a very long time. And Zhao Chen was, too, unwilling to expend his precious interstellar missiles upon these fish.
"Reporting! The Starlight faction's interstellar fleet on this side has already begun to rout and flee. By our estimation, over the coming half hour, the Starlight faction's interstellar fleet will thoroughly lose its will to fight!" the deputy captain Chitong, at his side, reported a piece of news. With their elite fleets wiped out, and their leader-figures falling one after another, this was, beyond doubt, a devastating blow to an interstellar fleet whose cohesion was, to begin with, not strong. Once a rout appeared, it would run rampant and spread, for all the world like a plague.
"Convey my order — 10 minutes from now, conduct a battlefield public-screen broadcast: any interstellar warship of the enemy fleet, so long as it shuts down its ship engines and abandons resistance, we can deal with it leniently! And at the same time, notify Medusa's side to coordinate with us in taking over the surrendered interstellar warships." Zhao Chen handed down the third-stage, wrapping-up orders.
This battle, fought up to now — everything had, in the main, already settled to the dust. One side's morale utterly gone; the other side's combat caliber exceedingly high. And with interstellar warships this advanced and powerful besides — how was this to be fought?
After the surrender broadcast appeared, the momentum of the enemy fleet's surrendering began to overflow its banks. From a few dozen ships… to a few hundred… indeed, in the bare span of half an hour, it grew to over 1,000! Surrendered interstellar warship after interstellar warship hovered where it was, awaiting the fate that would come next for it.
The third hour of the Snake-Sovereign Fortress campaign.
The Starlight faction's interstellar fleet was routing to the point of catastrophe, already unable to form any effective combat power. At the same time, the Warhammer faction's interstellar fleet on its side handed down the order to retreat; their commander had sensed the turn this battle had taken, and knew that to fight on would only add, in vain, to the casualties.
And it was just as the two sides' fleets were beginning to withdraw that, around certain high-grade interstellar warships, the figure of a single interstellar warship suddenly began to appear. And thereafter, before they could react, there rang out upon the bridges the warning of "interstellar torpedoes incoming." These interstellar warships that "appeared out of thin air" carried out precise strikes upon these withdrawing high-grade interstellar warships, and then, under the astonished gazes of the onlookers, entered stealth state once more, to hunt the next target.
"Reporting — T3 Phantom Assassin No. 03 ship has decapitated target No. 17."
Here, Zhao Wan'er received the news reported up from below; aboard her own command ship, she looked at the mission list before her, drawn up according to the intelligence the T3 Silver-Rats had reported. Upon it were hunt-and-kill target after hunt-and-kill target — as many as 50 in all. Along with the interstellar warships each was aboard. Without a single exception, they were all T2 and T3 interstellar warships.
"Continue carrying out the hunt-and-kill mission." Zhao Wan'er silently struck a line through the name of one mission target.