The Leviathan-Monarch-class Hive Mothership brought out defensive measures of its own as well, putting out hive-race units whose charge was defense to attack those interstellar warships.
Loosing defensive spores to strike the interstellar torpedoes could offset, to some degree, the damage done to the Mothership.
And upon the Leviathan-Monarch's body there appeared hive-race units of a kind resembling gun emplacements, which opened fire upon the T3 Phantom Assassin-class Light Interstellar Stealth Bombers about it.
Much the same in function as a warship's close-in guns.
But there was nothing to be done: every T3 Phantom Assassin carried an all-round star shield — and there were 500 of them besides.
So that for the present the Leviathan-Monarch could do nothing whatever about these assailants who had appeared out of nothing.
Soon interstellar torpedoes broke through the interception and the defenses, and struck home upon the Leviathan-Monarch's biological armor.
The flame of the blasts spread by degrees until it covered the whole of its body.
This went on for several minutes.
And when the violent explosions ended, the smoke and dust soon cleared.
Xu Yifan, and everyone else whose eyes were on that scene, grew tense.
What came next gladdened some and troubled others.
For Xu Yifan and the rest it was a thing that opened their eyes wide — and their hearts dropped at once to the very bottom.
For that Leviathan-Monarch, though there were no few places about it that had taken hurt — some of them wounds a dozen-odd meters deep! —
through the wounds one could see the structure of the Hive Mothership within the biological armor.
In many places upon its body the biological armor had come out in cracks like a spider's web, for all the world like parched ground.
And even about that terrible abyssal maw several gashes had been blasted, from which a green sap ran.
But it had not killed this Leviathan-Monarch!
"How can this be… even this won't kill it!" The adjutant looked in terror at that Leviathan-Monarch, which seemed to have walked out of hell itself.
Set against what it had been before, its whole body now hurt, it carried a menace still more sinister.
Xu Yifan clenched his teeth, and clenched his fists, and felt within him a deep sense of powerlessness.
"Ha ha ha… ha ha ha, this crew of the Owl Dragon Legion very nearly frightened this marshal to death. I had not thought they would put on such a turn for me — 500 interstellar stealth bombers. It is much to that lord's credit that he could scrape so many together. But what of 500? This is a quasi-T5 Hive Mothership! These T3-grade warships are of no use however many there are!" Marshal Zhong Yan had spotted it the moment that Owl Dragon fleet appeared beside the Leviathan-Monarch.
But with the field now split into two, fore and aft, there was no way for him at present to go to the Leviathan-Monarch's support.
Which had set his heart in his throat.
Happily, this quasi-T5 Leviathan-Monarch truly could take a beating!
Under an attack as terrible as that, it could hold out still!
"Hmph. That will be the end of your devices, then. And now comes the hour for these Owl Dragon warships to suffer for it." Marshal Zhong Yan said it with contempt.
But in the next second the look in his eyes changed.
For he saw, upon that Leviathan-Monarch's flank, an interstellar warship a dozen-odd times the size of a T3 Phantom Assassin come slowly into view.
It was not the same as a T3 Phantom Assassin; but the Owl Dragon blazon upon it declared what it was.
This was an interstellar stealth bomber too!
And by the look of it, a stealth bomber of T4 grade.
And at this, Marshal Zhong Yan — whose mind had only just been set at ease — felt his heart rise into his throat again.
"That is—!" Xu Yifan and his adjutant wore looks of such excitement that it was as though they had passed in an instant out of hell and back into heaven.
Aboard the bridge of this Owl Dragon warship that had never been seen before.
Zhao Wan'er sat in the captain's chair, her face perfectly composed.
Just so — these interstellar stealth bombers were the Owl Dragon interstellar missile-ship special fleet under her command!
And the ship beneath her was her flagship, and the only T4 Shadow-Demon-class Light Interstellar Stealth Bomber to have been built and brought into service to this hour!
This was the first time, too, that this T4 Shadow-Demon had shown itself before the eyes of all.
"Report — the scan has confirmed four attack points! An attack pressed upon these four points may, with high probability, do damage of an enormous order to this Leviathan-Monarch!" The adjutant looked to Commander Zhao Wan'er.
The chief purpose of that earlier round from the 500 T3 Phantom Assassins had been to make the opening for an attack.
Against this quasi-T5 Leviathan-Monarch, Zhao Wan'er knew it was not possible to rely wholly upon striking a single point and think to kill a Hive Mothership as monstrous as this.
Because it truly was too vast.
The old means of blasting away madly at one point would have great difficulty killing it.
Better by far if several points could be struck at once.
So Zhao Wan'er had first ordered the 500 T3 Phantom Assassins to deliver a fire strike across an area.
To loosen this Leviathan-Monarch's bones for it thoroughly — and, in the doing, to look for some of its mortal spots.
And the 500 T3 Phantom Assassins' attack had achieved its effect: under the scan of the T4 Shadow-Demon's attack systems, four suitable attack points were confirmed.
Zhao Wan'er's lovely eyes went to the space beyond the bridge's viewport; she had no need of a deep-space telescope's relayed picture to see that colossus opposite directly.
Indeed, so vast was its bulk that she could not gather the whole of it within her field of view at all.
Zhao Wan'er thought back on the scene of her brother handing this T4 Shadow-Demon over to her, and on her first true understanding of this T4 Shadow-Demon's formidable performance.
Shadow-Demon-class Light Interstellar Stealth Bomber
Class: interstellar stealth bomber
Tech level: T4
Hull armor: 3,000–3,800 units
Star shield energy: 200,000 units
Cruising speed: 600 star-knots
Warp drive: grade-8
Length: 2.8 kilometers
Mass: 1,100,000 tons
Crew: 1,000
Weapons:
6,000 heavy short-range particle torpedoes
500 short-range heavy anti-ship missiles
500 short-range heavy cluster bombs
50 optical-mimicry missiles
50 electromagnetic-jamming missiles
50 thermal-decoy missiles
50 smoke-decoy missiles
Special: Shadow-Demon concealment mode (can enter cloak at speed, and for a short while thereafter sail the faster for it).
"Brother, I shall not fail you. Nor shall I fail her."
Zhao Wan'er's gaze was like an arrow loosed; her voice rang through the whole bridge. "Pass my order. T4 Shadow-Demon-class Light Interstellar Stealth Bomber, Ship No.1 — press the attack!"
Chk-chk. Chk-chk.
Upon the T4 Shadow-Demon's hull, launch-bay door after launch-bay door opened.
And each one, like a lance made for the hunting of whales, locked upon the abyssal beast before them.
Interstellar torpedoes went out in their thousands.