Chapter 260: You’ve done well.

Man yearns for the unknown, so he explores the stars.

Man fears the unknown and therefore fears the darkness.

The unknown means variables, full of infinite possibilities, and people fear such variables, fearing a future they don’t want to see.

Rightfully so.

The figure with its head bowed, the figure that Ailee was so attached to, and its abnormal behavior made the machine servant feel uneasy.

“…… Master.”

“What is it, Ailee.”

Lucky.

The soft call was answered.

Inside the bridge where the lights were flickering, the environment became a bit bleak, emphasizing a bit of sadness and misery, and even the Xu system’s face looked a lot paler.

However, it was true that there were no wounds or blood on the surface of Xu’s body.

Looking at the familiar features of the face, Ailee’s restless machinations calmed.

“No, I’m fine”, the machine that had been given humanity offered a blessing in a calm voice, “Ailee just wanted to tell you that you will definitely be protected.”

The words were so solemn.

So much so that the Xu system froze.

Spinning around, he nodded his head with a light smile, too heavy to even manage a complete false smile.

It only allows the corners of the mouth to curve up a little.

“Well, I trust Ailee.”

Outside the ship, the curved space was more pronounced, the stars pulled into the shape of abstract paintings.

The curvature engines are running at overload with gravitational generators, antimatter engines, and elemental decay engines, all working together to support the FTL voyage of the pitch-black starship.

From a distance, the high-speed sailing starship was located in a twisted bubble of space.

With the Neutron Battlestar in the rear.

Embark on a FTL-level curvature chase.

Calling it a chase is actually a bit of an exaggeration of the pitch-black starships, which have neither breakthrough sophisticated weaponry nor viable defenses.

The Neutron Battle Star is a trinity of attack, defense, and speed in an ultimate creation.

The only thing the pitch-black starship could do before that desperate oppression was to keep increasing the output of the warp engines in an attempt to break out of the breakaway cage.

“Deviation calculation in progress, time calculation in progress, success rate decreasing ……”

The computer inside the starship.

Ailee kept making fine maneuvers, and the result of all the data algorithms was that her side’s starship would be caught up and crashed dry by the neutron battlestar.

With the same curvature engine, the Neutron Battlestar’s output is significantly higher.

“…… Never…never ……”

Couldn’t accept that.

Fear fears facts like that.

Data that does not exist emotionally ebbs and flows like a human being in this moment, doing everything it can to overdraw the limits of its arithmetic.

But it’s still useless.

The starship had managed to leap to the top of the high wall, only a short distance away from breaking out of the cage altogether.

But that distance was enough for a neutron war star to close in for more than a hundred spatial ruptures.

“No. ……”

“I must protect my master ……”

The overly desperate reality, and the heart’s good prayers, form an unprecedented conflict, Ben even power amazing machine soul, seems to usher in another subtle change.

But that change still doesn’t lead to victory.

“Wait, this is ……”

It’s very sudden.

The overall outpouring of starships has increased again.

A miraculous leap in performance was made at the supposedly impossible, limit-reaching apex.

Punch out, must punch out!

There is no longer any desire to think about the reasons for the change in performance.

Ailee takes control of the starship and rushes into the gravitational opening to the real universe by virtue of a brief uptick in performance as she transcends and disintegrates everything.

Light, in stasis.

Time, standing still.

Space, transformed into a string.

Freed from the prison of the stars, the landscape of things changes in response to the sound and presents a splendid and bizarre spectacle.

And, at the first moment of successful detachment, the warp starship malfunctioned and was destroyed on the spot.

It’s amazing.

Carrying multiple spatial ruptures hard and overloading the warp engines, this starship, which was only a pilot model, managed to hold up until now before being scrapped.

The Neutron Battle Star did not come after it, seemingly confined to that side of the cage.

Since it is impossible to tell if there is a follow-up pursuit.

As such, Ailee decided to activate the escape pods, ditch the useless scrapped hull, and take the Xu system further to escape.

“…… Master?”

Ailee re-entered the humanoid body.

She opened her eyes to see a familiar figure, still in the position of resting with his head bowed.

The angle at which he tilted his head down made his face hidden in shadow, making it impossible to see his exact expression.

Not a single movement.

Particularly quiet.

The body remains young, but the invisible things within are already like candles in the wind, so weak as to be imperceptible.

“…… I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.”

The mechanical body trembled slightly.

Ai Lei half squatted down, and in the lightless darkness, slowly took hold of one of Xu System’s palms, the overly gentle trembling movements like she was touching something extremely fragile.

Perhaps it was the sound of Ailee’s voice that was heard.

Or maybe it was feeling the warmth of the hand.

The Xu system, which had overdrawn its own spirit, tiredly opened its eyes and inquired softly in a hoarse voice.

“Ailee, are we out of the cage yet?”

“Leaving, master.”

“Haha …… cough, it’s good to be gone.”

“But I didn’t do enough, I didn’t protect you.”

“It’s okay, Ailee …… you’ve done a really, really good job…”

Xu System squinted, his eyes feeling a little cloudy, making it difficult for him to see the machine servant in front of him, so he tried to get up.

But the moment he tried to stand up.

Loss of eye sight.

“Miracle” is the name often given to incredible feats.

[And you are the miracle itself.]

[Your perseverance has moved the spirit of the machine, making the power of the curvature engine reach unprecedented heights, and the spirit of the machine keeps it from collapsing.]

[Correspondingly, you are more eroded]

[That’s not just a mental change, even the body is equally debilitated, you’re somewhat unable to control your weakness]

[From Ailee, you learn that you have escaped from your cage, and you are so relieved by this news that you pass out in front of Ailee again.]

[Loyal machine servant carries you away in the starship’s escape pod to the nearest planetary system, where you were not long gone when the scrapped hull of the warp starship was destroyed.]

[When you wake up again, you’re in a medical pod prepared by Ailee.]

[Your body is being treated]

“But it seems to you that your body and spirit are dying.”

[In the past, you only lost the change of emotions when you were infested by the spirit of the machine, but now, you fall into a deeper void]

[You can’t feel the cold anymore, you can’t feel the heat anymore, and the nothingness begins to eat away at you.]

[It’s an indescribable feeling, like everything is being stripped away, leaving you overworked and passive, waiting for the final demise.]