Aboard the shuttle
Saint Cana looked through the viewport at the quiet starry heavens outside.
"So this time the Disciple family's responsibility is not to be pursued? Not even an investigation of that interstellar research institute, the very root of the crime?" Saint Cana demanded.
Chieftain Saint George beside her said gravely, "I know you are furious now. The several powers within the Empire are furious at this secret experiment of the Disciple family's too; and though the Disciple family have made nothing public, no one is a fool, and all can guess roughly how the matter stands. But it is as I said before: to clean up this sorry mess, we must still rely upon the Disciple family's strength. As for… how the Disciple family are to be dealt with afterward. That must depend upon the circumstances then."
Hearing her father's last words, Saint Cana could not help glancing at him.
She heard the subtlety within them: the Disciple family's standing in the Holy Radiance Empire had already been shaken by this affair.
As for the Disciple family's development hereafter, that would presumably depend, once this business was over, upon what strength the Disciple family had left — and upon whether they could truly settle this sorry mess.
A permanent Grade-5 cosmic bug-nest!
This was no small mess; large enough, indeed, to burn the whole Holy Radiance Empire to ash.
And that T5 Hive Mothership above all.
One T5 Hive Mothership alone had cost the Holy Radiance Empire two Sacred-Light Legions outright, with a third suffering above 90% losses and existing now in name only.
And near 100,000 interstellar warships lost besides.
The trouble being that after so great a sacrifice, they had still been unable to kill that T5 Hive Mothership.
And the existence of that permanent Grade-5 cosmic bug-nest meant that a second and a third T5 Hive Mothership might appear at any moment.
This was a bottomless pit, and the Holy Radiance Empire must pour its interstellar fleets and its soldiers into it without cease.
If only there were T5-grade interstellar warships.
But within the whole Galactic Alliance, the three great empires had not yet studied T4-grade starship technology through to the bottom; who could possibly have a T5-grade interstellar warship?
At this thought, into Saint Cana's mind came, unbidden, that man she had met at the Stellar Alliance.
That man possessed a technological capacity hard to credit; if it were he…
Impossible…
Saint Cana rejected the notion in her own mind.
"Ah, right — there is one further piece of important news. Over in the Warhammer Interstellar Commonwealth, a T5-grade interstellar warship has appeared." Chieftain Saint George spoke suddenly.
Saint Cana's expression froze, and she then cried out, "A T5-grade interstellar warship? How is it I did not know of this!"
"I learned of it only lately myself; the Imperial Senate, upon receiving this news, sealed it away. And our Sacred Angel family, on account of your affair, and the Sacred Angel Legion's showing in that Sacred War Duel besides, have been squeezed out this whole while; so naturally no one told us of it. It was only because the Sacred Angel Legion and our family's strength must now be employed that the Imperial Senate informed me," Chieftain Saint George explained.
"Is there any news of this T5-grade interstellar warship — combat intelligence, and which power built it? That someone could build a T5-grade interstellar warship without a soul the wiser? It is truly hard to credit." Saint Cana said it with some excitement.
"This power you are likely rather familiar with." Chieftain Saint George looked at his own daughter.
"Familiar?" Saint Cana was taken aback; then her pupils dilated and she cried out in astonishment, "Surely not? Can it be that fellow?"
"The Starlight Empire's Owl Dragon Legion." Chieftain Saint George's answer confirmed Saint Cana's thought.
Saint Cana's astonished look showed that she could not digest this business in any short while.
That man had, in so short a time, actually built a T5-grade interstellar warship?
"As for the combat report, we have one on our side. Whether it counts as fortune or misfortune, there is no telling. We are the only power possessing a combat report upon this T5-grade interstellar warship. Because we were precisely its opponent."
Chieftain Saint George produced a top-secret combat data report and handed it to Saint Cana, then said, "Before the hive-race disaster broke out, our expeditionary fleets sent to the Warhammer Interstellar Commonwealth. In the course of a general offensive, our Sacred Wing Legion was ambushed by a single interstellar warship."
Ambushed by a single interstellar warship?
Had she not known beforehand that this was a T5 warship, Saint Cana would assuredly have thought her father had misspoken.
"Thereafter, in an exceedingly short time. Our Sacred Wing Legion was destroyed by this T5 interstellar warship; and the eight legion fleets that hastened to their support were annihilated by this T5 interstellar warship as well, with only a few interstellar warships escaping back."
Chieftain Saint George said with feeling, "By the strength of one interstellar warship alone, it destroyed near 30,000 interstellar warships all told. Including our elite legion fleet, the Sacred Wing Legion. Were I not certain that these combat reports are true. I truly would not dare believe such a thing. That a T5-grade interstellar warship should possess so mighty a power of destruction."
Saint Cana listened to her father while looking over that combat data report.
Within it were descriptions of that interstellar warship.
'That monster possesses an exceedingly powerful bow-gun weapon — a keen sword able to tear space itself. It merely drew an arc across the sea of stars, and our interstellar warships fell, one after another, every one of them.'
'We crossed a field of interstellar warship wreckage; our captain judged it the wreckage of the Sacred Wing Legion, and above all the wreck of that T4 Retribution-Angel-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship, like a gravestone afloat.
'Damn it — at that moment we should have withdrawn at once! Immediately!'
'When first I laid eyes upon that interstellar warship, I felt it was a castle of death; from the bottom of my heart I did not wish to approach it.
'Had I been captain, I would have ordered us out of that cursed place at once.
'Afterward we launched an attack upon that castle of death. And perhaps it was precisely because of that attack that we angered the castle's master, and he brought his punishment down upon us.'
The above were all of them survivors' accounts.
Within this material there were besides several rather blurred images of that T5 interstellar warship.
Saint Cana looked only a little while before she felt an unease over her whole body.
"Very well. Think no more of these things. At the least the Owl Dragon Legion will not come troubling us for some time; I hear that in the northern frontier of the Warhammer Interstellar Commonwealth there has appeared a body of invaders called the Demon Race fleet. Even the Dragon-folk tribe's Dragon Emperor has fallen in battle. And that crowd of Warhammer tribes, formerly at civil war, have raised some alliance or other to resist the Demon Race's invasion together. So now let our two great empires each handle our own sorry mess." Chieftain Saint George shrugged.
Thereafter he delivered Saint Cana to the Sacred Angel Legion's flagship.
And as Saint Cana stood within the hangar, having taken leave of her father, watching the shuttle draw away.
Her handheld terminal flashed, and a message sprang open.
"It has been a long time, my friend. — Zhao Chen"