The campaign was at its 130th hour.
By now a day had passed since Charlotte led the Owl Dragon mixed legion fleet deep into the swarm's compass to fight.
This one day left Zhao Chen more anxious than any day before it.
Not a moment passed but he was watching the fighting upon Charlotte's side.
And that fighting the highest commanders of the other legion fleets saw as well.
From anxiety and tension at the outset, to astonishment, admiration, and marveling thereafter.
Even the three high-order angels of the angel legion fleets, looking at this one day's battle record, sighed that they could not match it.
"In a bare day, shifting the war to seven places, slaying two T5 Leviathan-Sovereign-class Hive Motherships one upon another, and grievously wounding a third. And killing near 300,000 hive hulls. Past belief; past all belief." The high-order angel Berkeley stared at this battle report and praised it without cease.
This report he had gone over some tens of times himself, first and last; every step of it looked past belief, and yet this Commander Charlotte had accomplished them all.
"And above all that, having completed this train of tasks, this Owl Dragon mixed legion's loss rate is only some 10 percent! Which means their loss of interstellar warships to the present is under 1,500 hulls. It may fairly be called a miracle!" the high-order angel Jessie said in praise.
The angel Tilia looked at these two high-order angels, whose bearing toward the Owl Dragon Legion was now as of two different people, and it was proof enough that their experience since coming to this stretch of the universe had wholly changed their notion of the Owl Dragon Legion.
Above all in the matter of the Owl Dragon Legion's capacity for battle.
Convinced in mouth and in heart.
The angel Tilia looked at the whole field against the interstellar hive-race. "By the case as it now stands, what we had was a slow death. But this hazardous stroke of the Owl Dragon Legion's has brought about an enormous change outright. Hereafter, having lost the command of three T5 Leviathan-Sovereign-class Hive Motherships, the fighting power of that portion of the hive fleets will fall by a wide margin, and the strength of their attack drop sharply. And the want of combat stores that was in prospect will be eased besides. Once the combat stores they are producing come up to the front-line field in an unbroken stream, then even a long see-saw war holds no danger — so long as no more of the interstellar hive-race pour out of that cosmic bug-nest."
The two high-order angels beside her nodded in agreement.
The whole case had, by this one stroke, been turned upside down at a stroke.
It looked simple; in fact behind it lay the enormous pressure Charlotte bore.
To take the hazard, to slay two Leviathan-Sovereigns one after another and grievously wound a third — had one move gone wrong, those 15,000 Owl Dragon interstellar warships would all have been buried in the bellies of bugs.
"How stand our own losses at present?" The angel Tilia drew her thoughts back and asked how her own Angel Race's fleets now stood.
The Angel Race's 370,000 interstellar warships, being elite fleets.
Had been given a good many tasks of battle by Charlotte, and broken up among the several defensive positions.
Chiefly to assist those five Owl Dragon legion fleets that had not yet completed their expansion.
Together with the Owl Dragon Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth and Tenth Legions, they held the lines of five main positions.
On average some 30,000 angel interstellar warships were assigned in support of each.
The remaining 220,000 angel hulls served as a reserve, ready at any moment and any place to support the several main positions — though to the present only 20,000 had been drawn off to support certain main positions.
"Our own losses to the present are under 3,000 interstellar warships. Though that lord is nothing if not unceremonious in his command and disposition of us — wherever we are wanted, there we are truly sent. Yet he has not, because we are not legion fleets under his own hand, held any notion of spending us. In certain fields he will even require that such of our interstellar warships as want star-shield energy withdraw of their own accord to refit, and so lessen our losses," the high-order angel Berkeley said in agreement.
The high-order angel Jessie said as well, "And in the matter of logistics and supply he treats us all alike; the Dragon Emperor's side arranges the whole of it, and there has been no trouble whatever to the present. And above all in the matter of the wounded.
"The Owl Dragon Legion has sent interstellar medical ships expressly to every position, great and small, fitted with battlefield medical and rescue technology exceedingly professional and advanced. Well ahead of our Angel Race's.
"By a first estimate at present, at the least 100,000 of our wounded have been properly seen to; and of those, a third would nine times out of ten have died without timely battlefield medical rescue.
"It must be said the Owl Dragon Legion has truly put a great deal of effort into this side of things; they set very great store by the lives of their crews!"
To hear such words of praise.
Were the other races living within the Angel Race's territory to hear it, they would likely find it hard to imagine — since when did the people of the Angel Race praise anybody else?
"The Owl Dragon Legion is truly unlike others." The angel Tilia nodded, agreeing with it too.
Beep, beep, beep, beep.
Just at this time a yellow warning window sprang up before all three high-order angels.
"Warning! Warning! Warning! All battle positions to enter second-grade alert!"
The angel Tilia's brows drew together.
This was a system of alarm the Owl Dragon Legion had drawn up before, meaning that the field's situation stood under some crisis; above yellow there was red besides.
"What is it? Why should an alarm come at such a time?" The high-order angel Berkeley looked in surprise toward his own field, and found that all upon his No. 6 Main Position field was as it should be, with no trouble whatever.
The high-order angel Jessie on the other side had sensed no danger either.
But very soon their puzzlement was answered.
An urgent message was sent to the highest commanders of every legion fleet.
Seeing the content, the angel Tilia's face was none too good either.
"This case…" The high-order angels Berkeley and Jessie both darkened.
"By the Dragon Emperor's report, the interstellar hive-race have used some particular hive unit having something like our T4 Lucent-class Interstellar Jump Ships, and established outright several spatial lanes, akin to star gates, running straight through to the rear of our field. And launched an attack upon our rear.
"Latest word: an interstellar transport fleet on a scale of 300 hulls has been attacked… annihilated to the last ship.
"Though the Dragon Emperor's side has already sent legion fleets to see to these matters. We are to go on carrying out the plan of battle as first fixed," the angel Tilia said, her voice low.
The rear attacked?
And the logistics fleets attacked besides.
That was as good as taking them by the throat.
That they could fight the interstellar hive-race upon the front positions until now rested upon a line of logistics and supply that still ran as it should.
Once those lines were cut, or even affected.
That was a turn enough to change the whole state of the war!