A slaughter that ran five minutes.
Every one of the 300 Qian warships was destroyed; toward the last some of the Qian captains caught the wrongness of it and ordered a withdrawal.
Only a pity that what they faced was a T4 interstellar destroyer.
From the moment they opened fire on that warship, their end had already been settled.
Within the Qian family's City in the Sky, there was silence.
That Little Skeleton, going off at her leisure and dwindling to a 'star', seemed in the going to mock the Qian family for a laughingstock.
Though it was only because that terrifying ship had left that the Qian clansmen dared come out from within the shelter at all.
The Qian family's people and the guests present alike were, at this hour, astonished by the five-minute slaughter that had just passed before their eyes.
"Heavens above! 300 Qian family warships, and several T3 warships among them, wiped out in a bare few minutes…"
"Whatever power under the sky is that warship, to have fighting strength of such a kind? I've never seen this model of warship anywhere!"
"T4! It's absolutely a T4-grade interstellar warship."
With the guests it was more astonishment, and envy, and marvelling.
But with the Qian family's people it was the feeling of their own hearts bleeding.
These warships had every one of them been bought with the Qian family's own good silver — and those destroyed this time were all of them T2-grade and above.
There had even been several T3 warships.
The loss standing behind that had come, for the Qian family, to an astronomical figure!
For even in the Qian family's case, the number of T2-grade and better warships across all their holdings put together had only just passed 1,000 to this day!
And of T3 warships the number was fewer still.
This slaughter amounted to the Qian family's losing near half its military strength in a single instant!
Family Head Qian Feng's eyes had gone bloodshot, and the whole state of the man just now was very bad indeed.
"How could— how could it come to this! This must be a dream of mine. I must be dreaming."
Family Head Qian Feng muttered away in a daze; he took the whole of it for a dream.
And to prove the point, he even looked round at the Qian Dafu beside him.
And swung a slap at him outright, muttering as he did it, "This must be a dream!"
Struck a slap out of nowhere, Qian Dafu went straight down on the floor with a hand to his face, and looked at his father, whose feelings had got away from him altogether, in bewilderment. "Father… you… what are you hitting me for?"
"Does it hurt very much?" Family Head Qian Feng asked it blankly.
"Of course it hurts. I think my teeth have shifted," Qian Dafu said pitiably.
"Then… then is this no dream after all?" Family Head Qian Feng murmured to himself; and when he looked out again into the cosmos beyond, at the wreckage of his own Qian family's warships, his heart gave a lurch.
And at once he set to kicking the fallen Qian Dafu several times over. "Impossible! This must be a dream, all of it is a dream."
"Agh… Father… what are you kicking me for… agh… no… not there… oh… don't… don't… stop—"
In that moment the place presented an uncanny scene: Family Head Qian Feng, for no reason anyone could name, set about kicking his own son on the floor in a fury, while Qian Dafu howled without pause — only that toward the end the howling began to sound rather off.
…………
The Star-Shark Guild president's flagship · bridge.
President Guiji stared blankly a good long while at the wreckage of the Qian interstellar fleet before her.
It took a reminder from the adjutant beside her before she came to herself.
"President, the people who were in the wedding hall just now have sent us word. The Qian family head's feelings got away from him and he set about beating his son Qian Dafu. In the end the Qian family head was pulled off him by his own people, and physicians were arranged to treat him; it's supposed to be a disorder of behavior and cognition brought on by loss of emotional control. Qian Dafu is injured… and… and someone noticed that Qian Dafu's injury appears to be to his lower body… the particulars do not admit of optimism."
Hearing this report from her subordinate, President Guiji could not help laughing. "I'd never have thought this Qian family wedding feast, prepared with such care, would put on so fine a play as that. And it's Qian Feng himself lifting a stone to drop on his own foot. He meant beforehand to make a great parade of it, and climb a rung higher by treading on our Star-Shark Guild. And all those preparations, as it turns out now, have become the pit Qian Feng dug for his own Qian family."
Word of this business would be through the whole Stellar Alliance before long.
Had it been no more than a humiliating wedding, that might have passed — but the destruction of the Qian family's 300 warships afterward would set the thing fermenting.
And would make everyone lower their estimate of the Qian family sharply.
For as the Qian family rose before this, they had built their image up rather well.
And now, after a turn like this, the Qian family had lost face in front of every soul alive.
It might even lead their partners to doubt whether the Qian family had the ability to work with them at all — and most important of all, those two great mountains standing behind the Qian family.
Whether they would go on trusting the Qian family as before.
A small matter, to look at it — but the consequences behind it would work a butterfly effect upon the Qian family past anyone's imagining.
"The Qian family has indeed come off very badly this time," the adjutant said, holding down her laughter.
The Star-Shark Guild had, over this stretch of time, carried nothing but hatred and loathing for the Qian family; and were it not for the hard passage the Guild had been in before, those hot-tempered members of Star-Shark's own leadership would have given a great deal to have it out with the Qian family gun to gun.
"Enough. Let the Qian family clear up their own wreck of a business. But our own posture in it can't be left out; if the exercise is to be played, it's to be played entire. Once we're back, prepare several statements strongly denouncing the Qian family over the carrying-off of the bride our Star-Shark Guild arranged for the marriage, and expressing our anger at it. Demand that they give us a satisfactory explanation. And in the meantime, break off every trade dealing between ourselves and the Qian family!" President Guiji instructed.
"Break off every trade dealing? This… won't the loss be rather too great?" the adjutant muttered from beside her.
President Guiji raised a hand, and several file panels appeared before her.
She pointed at them. "The business inside these runs more than 10 times over what the Qian family gave us, and it can be developed for the long term besides. And by my reckoning, this is still only a portion of what the Owl Dragon has brought out. And now that lord has already delivered everything he promised. So we too must show where we stand. If we go on keeping some half-severed thread of a tie with the Qian family— then however good Xiaoxiao's relations with that lord may be, it will certainly affect the place our Star-Shark Guild holds in that lord's regard."
The adjutant nodded; and then something occurred to her, and she asked in a small voice, "President, that lord has come all this long way from the Owl Dragon holdings this time to take our part. And has given us so much fat besides. Do you suppose… his relations with our Xiaoxiao… are that sort of thing? Or else why put out such an effort?"
President Guiji's eyes flickered a few times, and she coughed. "Ahem, ahem, ahem. What ought not to be inquired after should not be inquired after. Everything must be let to take its own course!"
The adjutant shut her mouth in haste — but she had seen the corner of President Guiji's mouth lift slightly.