20 fleet legions. 60,000 interstellar warships.
When these warships stood ranked in their places, it was like the roaring of mountains and the rising of seas.
Yet before that very array, 6,000 warships lay across their path like a great dragon barring a chasm.
"My lord Consul, 60 seconds and we shall enter the furthest range of fire!" the adjutant reminded the Consul in a low voice.
The Southern Consul looked at that faintly smiling man opposite.
He could not make it out — that this man should dare face his Southern Sacred Fleet-Group with such confidence in him!
Did he truly wish to open war with the Holy Radiance Empire?
And in this moment, this Southern Consul weighed a great many things.
To the right of the video window was the star chart of the field as it stood, and one could see a red line upon it — the line of furthest fire between the two sides, as they had reckoned it.
Once that line was crossed, a ship action might break out at any moment!
And by then the situation would be past controlling.
The Southern Consul looked once more at the man opposite. He was steady indeed.
"Zhao Chen of the Owl Dragon Legion. Very good. I have marked you."
The Southern Consul said that one thing, and then closed the video comm outright.
Leaving Saint Cana on this side much at a loss.
This… was this to be war, then?
"Report. The Southern Sacred Fleet-Group opposite is slowing, and shows an intent to turn away and depart!" Secretary-Officer Lilith reported.
"Keep close watch on the other side; don't slacken your vigilance. Let the enemy ships once dare fire, and destroy the enemy's principal fleet strength at the first instant!" Zhao Chen gave the order calmly.
"Yes."
Zhao Chen stretched himself.
"Right then. It's over."
"It's over — just like that?" Saint Cana found it rather past understanding, there beside him.
"Of course. This Southern Consul of yours has no wish to fight, so naturally it ends here." Zhao Chen laughed, easy as a passing cloud.
Saint Cana stared at the Southern Sacred Fleet-Group slowing on the star chart; the track of their voyage was plainly turning!
This… was it truly to be let go like this?
Was the Southern Sacred Fleet-Group letting off the very author of the Sacred Lancer Legion's destruction?
And besides, there seemed still to be one Sacred Lancer T4 Retribution Angel-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship out there!
"Target locked! Open fire!" Xue Xiaoxiao's excited voice came.
And at just that moment, Xue Xiaoxiao, commanding this T4 Blue-Eyes White Dragon-class Heavy Interstellar Armored Battleship they stood aboard, had locked upon that T4 Retribution Angel that had fled these 10-odd hours.
A vast silver-white beam drove clean through that T4 Retribution Angel-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship from the flank.
And with that the Sacred Lancer Legion's flagship was destroyed, and every warship of the Sacred Lancer Legion had either surrendered or been destroyed.
The Sacred Lancer Legion had been annihilated entire by Zhao Chen, in the true meaning of the words!
Saint Cana looked at that bursting T4 Retribution Angel in the distance, and still could not altogether digest the thing.
And above all this business of the Southern Sacred Fleet-Group withdrawing.
Watching with their own eyes as the Sacred Lancer Legion's last survivor — its flagship, a T4 Retribution Angel-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship, no less — was destroyed!
"This… is over?" Saint Cana said it in disbelief.
At this hour one could tell plainly from the radar chart that the Southern Sacred Fleet-Group was indeed withdrawing.
"Of course. Or would you have them fight me to the death for the sake of a Sacred Lancer Legion that has already fallen?" Zhao Chen laughed in mockery.
"To annihilate a Sacred Lancer Legion entire — this is beyond doubt a declaration of war upon the Holy Radiance Empire! Even… even if… those so-called crimes you spoke of just now will pass muster, the Southern Sacred Fleet-Group's Consul… ought… ought to…" For a moment Saint Cana did not know how to say it.
"Ought, for the sake of your Holy Radiance Empire's honor, to have fought a great battle with my Owl Dragon Legion. To avenge the Sacred Lancer Legion, and annihilate my Owl Dragon Legion here. Is that it?" Zhao Chen said her thought aloud for her.
Saint Cana looked at him and said nothing — but her thought had indeed been exactly that.
And it was the turn of the plot she had expected to see.
"And then? Then this Southern Consul drags a Southern Sacred Fleet-Group of grievous losses back to the Holy Radiance Empire, having won what you call honor — and very likely has the other Consuls drop stones on him down the well. Mind you, of these 60,000 warships before me, I have every confidence I could swallow them. And even were I drawn into a war of attrition, and he able to call up every remaining warship of the Southern Sacred Fleet-Group and make 300,000 of them— I should still have confidence of taking at the least half his warships with my 6,000! More, even! He pays a price of that size, and what he gets is the honor you speak of, and nothing else," so Zhao Chen said.
"The other Consuls would hold him down? This… how could that be…" Saint Cana was rather unwilling to believe the supposition Zhao Chen put forward.
"Ah, you're a fine hand at war, one of your kind. But on this front, that faith in the Sacred Light of yours has left you far too simple. Do you truly believe the internal strife within your Holy Radiance Empire is as simple as it looks on the face of it? The Saint-Disciple family standing alone and supreme?" Zhao Chen gave a snort of a laugh, for all the world as though looking at some guileless little girl.
Saint Cana looked at him, not understanding.
"Truly, the man in the game is blind where the onlooker sees clearly. You said before that within your empire the Saint-Disciple family is the mightiest; but this family system of your empire's is not like the family system in our Starlight Empire. Your family system is more like a conglomerate, a company; and what makes up the Saint-Disciple family is not the descendants of one bloodline alone. By what I understand, the Saint-Disciple family appears to be made up of several clan powers, is it not — drawn close together by marriage alliance and cooperation. And since they are bodies of differing interest, then for all that they now make up so vast a Saint-Disciple family, once some occasion offers, that seemingly united body of interest will come apart in short order. The Saint-Disciple family is an existence of that kind." Zhao Chen saw that Saint Cana had not yet taken his meaning.
And said it more directly. "You said before that of your empire's five Consuls, two come out of the Saint-Disciple family, and one more had his teacher from it. And most conveniently, that answers exactly to the three currents of power now within the Saint-Disciple family. And that Southern Consul just now is one of those currents. Am I wrong?"
Saint Cana looked at him in astonishment; she had not thought a man of the Starlight Empire like Zhao Chen would understand so much.
"All along, those three currents within the Saint-Disciple family have been closely united — or one might say, in a kind of balance. But suppose the military force one of those currents has propped up were suddenly to fall away sharply in strength. What would the remaining two currents do, do you suppose?" Zhao Chen narrowed his eyes.
Saint Cana had nothing to say.
"The remaining two currents would absolutely use every means there is to swallow it!"
And Zhao Chen went on, "The more so as I guess there is another and weightier reason that let this Southern Consul withdraw so decisively. Because of that reason, saving the Sacred Lancer Legion had already lost any meaning whatever. Only that reason wants investigating and confirming by us afterward before it can be known."