The T4 Vermilion Bird-class Medium Interstellar Cruiser · the bridge.
The video window opened; Qin Hu saw the Zhao Chen before him, and Su Lan standing at Zhao Chen's side, nestling against him like a little bird.
Zhao Chen was, moreover, holding Su Lan's little hand, and even making a motion of caressing it — and Su Lan merely blushed shyly, without shrinking away.
This very nearly left Qin Hu unable to hold down the fury in his heart.
"His Highness the Third Prince's complexion doesn't look too fine." Zhao Chen looked at Qin Hu opposite, feigning surprise.
The Qin Hu of this moment was, plainly, utterly unlike the Qin Hu of a few hours before.
To put it in exaggerated terms, even, he seemed to have aged 10 years all at once.
Qin Hu glared savagely at Zhao Chen; if a gaze could kill, then by now he'd have killed the Zhao Chen before him no one knew how many hundreds of times over.
His complexion not fine?
His 20,000 interstellar warships now had under 1,000 left — how fine could his complexion possibly be?
The more so since, at this very moment, your, Zhao Chen's, interstellar warships were still firing away in attack without cease!
"Zhao Chen, on behalf of my interstellar fleet, I surrender to you. I ask that your interstellar warships cease their attack at once!" Qin Hu, forcibly holding down his feelings, brought out this stretch of words.
"Surrender?" Zhao Chen said, feigning surprise.
"His Highness the Third Prince means, of all things, to surrender to us? Who was it, just now, who kept saying, over and over, that he'd level my star system flat?"
Qin Hu clenched his fist, drew a deep breath, and looked at Zhao Chen.
"Zhao Chen, I admit that this time I've lost. I choose to surrender to you; however you deal with me is all one to me — only, do not harm my interstellar fleet." Qin Hu struck a pose of self-sacrifice.
Zhao Chen let out a pff of a laugh, and looked at Qin Hu with contempt.
"Qin Hu — is it that you think that, on account of your standing as a Third Prince, once you've surrendered I won't dare do anything to you?"
Qin Hu gave a cold smile — a smile that seemed to be, in itself, an admission of what Zhao Chen had said.
"Qin Hu, oh Qin Hu, you truly still haven't grasped your present situation. Then let me put it to you this way." Zhao Chen looked at Qin Hu, his two eyes firm.
"Today — no matter who is here, no matter what standing he holds — you and your 20,000 interstellar warships, not a single one! is to so much as think of leaving the Owl Dragon Star System. I said so — I, Zhao Chen!"
Hearing this from Zhao Chen, both Qin Hu and Qin Hu's adjutant wore looks of astonishment.
The adjutant stepped straight forward, and said gravely, "His Excellency the Owl Dragon lord, this campaign is only a private dispute between you and His Highness the Third Prince. But should you kill the Third Prince — do you imagine the royal house, and the Prince Faction besides, will let you off!"
"You say that as though, were I to spare this fellow, he'd spare me. If my guess is not wrong, what he's turning over in his mind right now is, precisely: once he's gone back, he'll personally lead 50,000 — 100,000, even — interstellar warships, and campaign against my Owl Dragon Star System again, and grind me, Zhao Chen, to powder and scatter my ashes to the winds. Is that not so?"
The adjutant said in haste, "On this point I beg the Owl Dragon lord to set his heart at ease. I can have our Prince guarantee — so long as you're willing to accept our surrender, our Prince will absolutely never set himself against you again; and, at the same time, we'll pay a sum of war reparations besides!"
Zhao Chen sighed lightly.
War reparations… in truth, set against a piece of goods like this Third Prince, he'd rather have the war reparations.
But there was nothing to be done — you, Qin Hu, were out of luck; the system had decreed you dead at the third watch, and there was no way for me to keep you on to the fifth.
Zhao Chen could only, with a tear, behead the prince.[1]
"A guarantee? Heh, heh, heh — the best guarantee is to make this person shut his mouth forever," Zhao Chen said with contempt.
"Zhao Chen, you're truly set on putting me in a place of death!" Qin Hu glared, unmoving, at Zhao Chen.
Zhao Chen looked at Qin Hu coldly.
"It isn't that I'm set on putting you to death; it's that you chose this road yourself. Had you and your interstellar fleet never appeared here, there'd be none of the present matter. The road was your own choosing, His Highness the Third Prince."
"Hahahaha… hahaha." Qin Hu suddenly rose to his feet, laughing aloud, and even turned himself about.
Then, all at once, he pointed in fury at the Zhao Chen on the far side of the video window.
"Zhao Chen, if you have the nerve, then kill me! I tell you — you dare kill me today, and my brother, the Prince Faction, will assuredly never let you off; what awaits you will be some hundreds of thousands of interstellar warships at the Owl Dragon Star System's gates. And by that time, you, and your Owl Dragon Star System, and your Zhao clan besides, will vanish, thoroughly and utterly, from this cosmos! Do you dare!"
Zhao Chen smiled faintly; the index finger of his right hand lifted slightly.
"Lilith, ask whether Baixue's side is ready."
The succubus secretary behind Zhao Chen bent at the waist and said, "Reporting, Commander — Captain Baixue's side, the 30 T3 Judicator-class Heavy Interstellar Missile Ships, stand at the ready."
"Very good. The Third Prince asks me whether I dare. You tell me — do I dare?" Zhao Chen looked at Lilith with a smile.
Lilith grasped the commander's meaning; she cast a cold glance at the Third Prince on the far side of the video window, for all the world as though looking upon a dead man.
Thereafter she tapped open a comm window, and, in a voice the Third Prince's side could hear, said, "Captain Baixue, conveying the Commander's order. Lock onto the enemy fleet's remaining interstellar warships; the bombardment may begin. Remember — not a single one is to be left."
Lilith's words were filled through and through with calm, for all the world as though this line were a thing of no consequence.
And yet one must bear in mind — this one line would decide the fate of 1,000 interstellar warships.
"Understood." Captain Baixue's somewhat agitated voice came back in reply.
Zhao Chen looked, at this point, toward Qin Hu opposite, and said with a shrug, "That's that, then. As for this brother of yours you speak of, and that pack of Prince Faction fellows — rest easy, you'll get to see them. I won't keep you waiting too long."
Amid Qin Hu's furious gaze and furious words, Zhao Chen closed the comm channel.
"Do you truly mean to kill the Third Prince?" Su Lan looked at Zhao Chen with some worry.
She cared nothing for Qin Hu's life or death — but Qin Hu's standing was, after all, that of a Third Prince, and his elder brother was the one soon to inherit the throne.
Which meant that Zhao Chen was killing the younger brother of the future Great Emperor of the Starlight Empire.
What such an act meant needed no words.
She worried that Zhao Chen's position, when the time came, would grow all the more perilous.
"From the very moment the Third Prince fleet set foot into the Owl Dragon Star System, I have already been their enemy," Zhao Chen said mildly.
…
The Imperial Capital Star.
Though most of the interstellar media had, under the Second Prince Qin Ming's order, closed off their broadcasts, Qin Ming and his people could, all the same, still see this interstellar campaign.
At this moment Consort Zhen's face was already covered in tears.
And Qin Ming's expression, all the more, had gone grim.
"Quick, look — His Highness the Third Prince's interstellar fleet has stopped attacking; he should be preparing to surrender," Huang Zhixiong said at this point, in glad surprise.
Consort Zhen, too, said, agitated, "Ah Hu has surrendered — then Ah Hu should be out of any danger to his life now, surely? Ming'er, whatever the cost, without fail bring your younger brother back as soon as may be!"
At this point, they all held that Qin Hu ought, by now, to be safe.
Qin Ming drew a deep breath.
Though this interstellar campaign had caused their original expectations to miscarry, and would tell upon the Prince Faction's prestige — at the very least, his younger brother was still alive.
"Uncle, immediately, this instant, get in contact with the Owl Dragon Star System's side; whatever war reparations they name, agree to them — without fail, ensure my younger brother's safety!" Qin Ming instructed Huang Zhixiong.
"Yes." No sooner had Huang Zhixiong finished answering—
than he saw, aghast, a certain scene within the broadcast feed — the very scene that had appeared at the outset of the battle.
Meteor-shower-like interstellar missiles had begun to come down toward those thousand interstellar warships of the Third Prince fleet.
What this scene meant — one may well imagine!
"My… Hu'er…" Consort Zhen's eyes rolled up white, and she fainted straight away.
"Zhao Chen!" Qin Ming roared out in fury.