"Your Highness, we are shortly to reach the area where the Demon Race fleet lies stationed!" the adjutant reported to Princess Leona.
Leona stared at the interstellar holo-table before her. "Order all fleets to make ready for action!"
In this moment Leona felt her own heart beating very hard.
Setting out, she had been hot-blooded, looking forward to all of it.
But now that all of it was truly about to happen, there was in Leona's heart a certain unquiet after all.
"Your Highness, you need not be anxious. This time we shall assuredly defeat the Demon Race fleet and avenge the late Emperor! And let that crowd of cowards with their peace talks know that only under your enlightened leadership is the road the right one!" A middle-aged Half-Dragon beside her spoke heartening words.
"General Bolton… I think, ought we not after all to contact my sister? After all, in acting on our own authority this time, we have drawn out 200,000 Dragon-folk interstellar warships, and 100,000 of the tribal fleets besides." Leona was somewhat tense.
"No! Princess Leona, if you contact Princess Blanche at such a moment, Princess Blanche will assuredly oppose your every action. And then are you to withdraw with your tail between your legs? And then you will become the laughingstock of the whole Dragon-folk tribe. The bow once drawn sends no arrow back; and you are the strongest warrior of our Dragon-folk tribe — you will assuredly lead us to victory. And in that hour you will become as well the true future sovereign of our Dragon-folk tribe!" said General Bolton.
Hearing this, Leona hesitated.
General Bolton pressed his advantage and went on with his heartening words without cease.
He could by no means allow Princess Leona to beat a retreat at such a moment; this time, for his own family's future, he had staked everything.
This General Bolton was one of Leona's teachers, and at the same time head of one of the several great families of the Dragon-folk tribe.
Since the Dragon Emperor's death, besides the trouble from without.
There existed within the Dragon-folk tribe another trouble — the trouble within.
Which was: whom to raise up as the Dragon-folk tribe's next chieftain.
There were only two choices.
The two ablest of the offspring.
Princess Leona and Princess Blanche.
In bloodline, Princess Leona held the advantage past dispute.
But if it came to ability, then Princess Blanche had the hopes of all upon her — above all after that affair of pushing through the founding of the defensive alliance against the Demon Race.
Among no few of the factions that supported Princess Leona, it was held that.
If in this war of resistance against the Demon Race the alliance system led by Princess Blanche should at the last carry off the victory.
Then past dispute Princess Blanche would become the Dragon-folk tribe's new chieftain.
Which, for those faction families that supported Princess Leona, would be an exceedingly ill thing.
At such a time, the Dragon-folk factions that supported Princess Leona in private determined to alter this state of affairs.
They sought Princess Leona out, and playing upon the fact that Princess Leona herself opposed the peace talks, unfolded one round of incitement after another.
And brought Princess Leona in the end to support their military operational plan.
And so produced the present business.
In Princess Leona's name, and by the family strength of these supporters of hers, 300,000 interstellar warships were at the last swept up into this military operation.
"But the Demon Race fleet's combat power is mighty…" Leona too had looked over those battle-report materials her father left behind; she knew these Demon Race interstellar warships were strong.
"Your Highness, I do not deny that the Demon Race interstellar warships are strong. But that great defeat which cost the late Emperor 150,000 interstellar warships came in great part of the Demon Race fleet's sudden assault, and of our not understanding the Demon Race fleet's way of fighting. Add to which our attention at that time lay wholly upon the Warhammer civil war, and so the Demon Race were given their opening. But this time it is otherwise. This time we come prepared. We have researched the Demon Race fleet's way of fighting through to the bottom, and made our preparations in full. And at the same time, what we bring this time is 300,000 interstellar warships — far beyond what went before. And consider: the Demon Race fleet came to us over a long and toilsome road, and fought besides a great battle against the late Emperor's hundred and fifty thousand interstellar warships. They must have suffered grievous losses. That they have held their station this whole while without attacking is the greatest proof of it. And here lies Princess Blanche's greatest strategic error. That she should choose to make defense her chief business is quite simply laughable! Not to attack the Demon Race fleet now, and so let slip this fine chance of destroying it. But wait instead until the enemy has finished refitting — until reinforcements come from further off, even. That is the greatest error of all! And above all this cooperation with those rebel forces, in which we are actually to sell out our own interests besides…" General Bolton discoursed on without pause.
By his bearing and his look, one would have thought he were at this moment holding up a Dragon-folk tribe that tottered on the brink.
No few of these words left Leona wholly dizzy.
But she did take in several of them.
Something about cooperating with the Owl Dragon and selling out the Dragon-folk tribe's interests…
About surpassing Blanche and becoming the ablest leader of the Dragon-folk tribe…
These words, past dispute, went straight to Leona's heart.
For these were all of them feelings she had pressed down within her over this last while.
She was strongly against cooperating with the Owl Dragon Legion, and she was unwilling to allow that Blanche was abler than herself.
She wished to prove herself!
She urgently needed an opportunity to prove herself.
General Bolton's words amounted to an endorsement of these convictions of Leona's.
"Just so! What we do is right. So long as we destroy this Demon Race fleet, it will prove that our action was right past all measure!" Leona swore it, the will to battle blazing in both her eyes.
General Bolton smiled faintly and withdrew to the rear.
"Here — somehow I am not altogether easy either. That Demon Race fleet… can it truly be defeated by us?" another general muttered quietly to General Bolton.
General Bolton said with a cold smile, "This is our only chance. Because of Princess Blanche's peace talks, the interests of several of us have been carved away. If in future Princess Blanche comes to the high seat, do you suppose our families will still have good days? Whereas if we can support Princess Leona to the high seat, then our families' standing will rise as the tide rises!"
"But…" The general was anxious still.
"Say no more. There is no road back for us now. And besides — have you never heard the old saying? The rougher the sea, the costlier the fish." General Bolton said it with something like madness.
He was gambling. He was gambling his own family's fate.
And at the same time he had dragged these 300,000 interstellar warships onto the gaming table with him.
And in the sea of stars not far off, 27,000 Demon Race interstellar warships hung quietly in place.
Within a huge black interstellar castle.
A harsh sound rang out.
A man with black skin and two horns upon his head, seated in the captain's chair, opened his blood-red eyes.
"Report. 300,000 interstellar warships are coming upon us. They belong to the same power as the hundred and fifty thousand interstellar warships that fought us before."
Hearing his subordinate's report, this demon commander laughed coldly.
"Since when does the prey dare bare its fangs at the hunter?"