"Quick! Come about to starboard!" The captain of the Retribution Angel thought at once of a way to save the situation — but at their present speed, to complete the turn within 30 seconds and evade the enemy ship's bow-cannon attack…
One could only say it would be very hard…
Those 30 seconds were, to the people of the Sacred Angel Legion, nothing short of a torment.
Soon, as the platinum-gold beam's energy waned, it was swallowed outright by the silver-white beam.
The thick silver-white beam rose like a pillar propping up the heavens, and struck, still true and unerring, hard against the bow of the T4 Retribution-Angel-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship.
The bow cannon at that position on the T4 Retribution-Angel-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship would soon be swallowed by the silver-white beam, and then the warship's armor would begin to cave in and crack.
"Warning! Warning! Warning! Bow-region armor under attack, bow-region armor under attack!"
"Warning! Bow-cannon weapon module disabled! Warning! Bow-cannon weapon module disabled!"
The captain sank at last into his chair; he felt the violent pitching of the bridge, felt the ringing in both his ears, and even his heart was trembling.
He had already seen the ending of this duel.
It's over — all of it is over…
……
Saint Cana watched that silver-white beam hammering the bow armor of the T4 Retribution-Angel-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship; because the T4 Retribution Angel was trying to come about—
—the point where the silver-white beam struck began, bit by bit, to slide across.
It was for all the world like a laser blade driven into a beast's skull, and then slowly drawn open along its side.
"We've lost," Saint Cana murmured to herself, a trace of complicated feeling in those pale-gold eyes.
"My lady, we… we haven't lost yet! We still have hope — so long as the Retribution Angel fights on, we might yet…" the adjutant looking on said, a touch hysterical.
As a part of the faith of their Sacred Spirit race, the T4 Retribution-Angel-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship had always been a symbol of their pride and confidence.
And now, in a duel against a battleship of the same grade, it was about to lose!
This was a fact these people could not accept.
"Under an attack like this, even if the Retribution Angel's bow cannon isn't destroyed, it won't be repairable in the short term. And the enemy's bow cannon — even if this round can't destroy the T4 Retribution Angel, then what of the next round? What's more, our remaining weapon modules are no match for that battleship across the way either; to this moment, our weapons haven't even done effective damage to the enemy ship's armor. To fight on would only make us watch, with our own eyes, a T4 Retribution-Angel-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship fall. Is that what you want to see? You want to watch 4,000-odd warriors of the Sacred Spirit race throw their lives away here for nothing!" Saint Cana fixed her eyes on her adjutant.
She had thought this adjutant of hers merely carried the arrogant temper common to some of their race; she'd never dreamed he'd cling, even now, to so absurd and stubborn an obsession.
Heedless of the safety and lives of the crew aboard that warship.
She resolved that after this Sacred-War Duel, she would relieve this adjutant of his post.
The adjutant didn't yet know his job was forfeit; at this moment he still stared in disbelief at the scene of the first battlefield.
He couldn't accept it… within, he truly could not accept it.
Were this to reach the Holy Radiance Empire, the whole empire would likely boil over — no one would be able to accept such a thing.
At this moment, Saint Cana pressed a comm button before her — the key that opened a channel to her opponent alongside.
She thought back to what Zhao Chen had warned her of earlier… never had she dreamed it would truly come to pass.
"Your Excellency Zhao Chen, this first battle — we, the Sacred Angel Legion, concede."
Hearing this voice, Zhao Chen answered lightly, as though it were nothing: "Very well."
Once the two commanders had spoken and confirmed that the first battle of this Sacred-War Duel was the Owl Dragon Legion's win, the two T4 interstellar battleships ceased their attacks too.
The bow cannon of the T4 Blue-Eyes White Dragon-class Heavy Interstellar Armored Battleship died away, and the silver-white beam dispersed.
Both sides' main guns, secondary guns, and close-in guns fell silent one after another.
Keeping their speed unchanged, the two interstellar battleships drove slowly out of the engagement zone, out of the dense fog where they'd clashed.
First to emerge was, naturally, the T4 Blue-Eyes White Dragon-class Heavy Interstellar Armored Battleship.
Every gaze was fixed on this victor.
And first of all, every eye couldn't help turning to that giant cannon.
They all knew that, before this, the T4 Retribution Angel had made its last attempt — using 300 interstellar missiles to attack this giant cannon, striving for a sliver of a chance.
But who would have thought that, under the interstellar missiles' onslaught, this giant cannon would come through wholly unharmed!
At this moment, that giant cannon stood there before them all.
The cannon's body bore plain marks of attack — some spots even blasted into craters three meters across and half a meter deep.
Some armored areas were covered besides with spiderweb cracks.
These were all traces left by the barrage of interstellar missiles it had weathered.
It left no few of the Sacred Spirit race marveling.
Just how thick was this giant cannon's armor, that it could withstand so ferocious an assault?
"So close… so close…" the adjutant said, clenching his fists, seething.
To his mind, it truly had been so close — let but the enemy ship's bow cannon fall silent, and the odds of winning would have been theirs.
Saint Cana moved her gaze from the giant cannon to the hull.
The hull armor of the T4 Blue-Eyes White Dragon-class Heavy Interstellar Armored Battleship was everywhere strewn with marks of attack.
Small ones no more than paint-scraping grazes; large ones, explosion-craters near a meter deep.
It looked grave — but Saint Cana found that not one of the struck areas had laid bare the compartment structure within the hull.
That showed one thing.
The T4 Retribution-Angel-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship's attack just now had done no substantive damage to the T4 Blue-Eyes White Dragon at all.
This raised, by another step, Saint Cana's estimation of this T4 Blue-Eyes White Dragon-class Heavy Interstellar Armored Battleship's strength.
Meanwhile, alongside, Lilith patted her own chest.
"That was close, that was close. By the look of it, it truly was a near thing."
"A near thing?" Zhao Chen let out a short laugh, and pointed at the T4 Blue-Eyes White Dragon-class Heavy Interstellar Armored Battleship.
"This is a long way from close. Don't take it for some desperate, gory affair just because it looks that way — this is nothing at all. You know, the armor of this bow-cannon region is the thickest on the whole warship — 12 layers of separate structural armor, inside and out, all told. By this damage, the interstellar missiles' attack just now destroyed the sixth layer at most; there's still half of it left. Look again at the hull armor. At the most gravely damaged spot, I'd estimate the hull armor's strength still has at least 50% left. Against the firepower of that T4 Retribution Angel across the way — it's a long way off. By my reckoning, our T4 Blue-Eyes White Dragon could take on two of them, no trouble at all!"
Lilith looked at the Commander, astonished.
"Don't be surprised — what did you expect, when ours is a Heavy Interstellar Armored Battleship," Zhao Chen said with a light laugh, a confident look on his face.
At this moment, the loser at the Blue-Eyes White Dragon's hands, the T4 Retribution-Angel-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship, drove slowly out of the battle-dust.
That wretched sight, seen by the people of the Sacred Spirit race, left their faces as ugly as ugly could be.
This was the gap between them!