A familiar formula.
A familiar taste.
Before that final celestial body, any defense was as fragile as paper.
The starships crumbled, spacetime shattered, and visible distortion fields swept through the dark void, bringing about ultimate annihilation.
When the turmoil finally subsided,
the universe returned to silence, and the starlight no longer wavered.
Xu Xi revived once again, repeating the same actions as before, until Ailei arrived to bring him back to the safety of the backup starship.
"Master, please rest here."
The loyal mechanoid servant refused to let Xu Xi overexert himself.
She took on the task of recycling and production alone,
reshaping the destroyed starships into their own units once more.
Force field technology, gravity technology, speed technology... The old starship materials were quickly reconfigured into more powerful models.
Xu Xi stood on the bridge of the backup warship,
watching the cold, quiet, yet somehow bustling starship production.
Within that unique mechanical aesthetic, amidst the reshaping and assembly of metal, Xu Xi's thoughts gradually drifted, leading him to ponder more.
"A strike every hundred years?"
"No, it's too soon to conclude. Even with faster-than-light travel, the intervals between strikes can't be perfectly consistent."
"With a hundred years as the baseline, there should be some margin of error."
Flowers will eventually wither.
Young leaves will eventually dry up.
A hundred years is the limit of an ordinary person's life, a span both glorious and fleeting.
Xu Xi silently calculated in his heart how long he had left if the strikes came every hundred years.
"The first death, I was struck by the Old Federation's orbital bombardment."
"The second death, I was saturated with bombardment by the rebel AI from the Southern Main Base City."
"The third death, I encountered the first strike in space."
"The fourth death was today."
"The effect of 'Ten Deaths to End' means I won't truly end the simulation until the tenth death. In other words, I still have six lives left."
"Six lives, six centuries, six hundred years..."
On the bridge,
the circulating air from the life support system carried a faint warmth, brushing against Xu Xi's nose.
Soft and warm, like the gentle touch of dawn.
Xu Xi opened his palm, mechanical energy surging within, rising and falling like an invisible mechanical heart, resonating with the starship beneath his feet.
Mechanical energy is useful, and Ailei is formidable.
But before the absolute power of the Neutron Warstar,
everything is fragile and insignificant.
It has nothing to do with effort or talent; it's a gap born from the passage of time.
In the realm of technology, the civilization controlling the Neutron Warstar has walked a path long enough to surpass countless others.
To catch up in just a few hundred years,
that is impossible.
"Perhaps I can find a loophole to evade the Neutron Warstar's automatic strikes?"
"Still, I shouldn't hold too much hope for that."
"Countless civilizations have perished, and among them, there must have been those who sensed something amiss. What I can think of, surely others have tried."
"Yet they still vanished into the depths of space..."
Xu Xi pondered, speculating that the Neutron Warstar's strike protocols possessed unimaginable detection capabilities, possibly even involving logic-based technology.
The remnants of countless civilizations served as a warning,
proving that escaping the Neutron Warstar's strikes from beyond the stars was nearly impossible.
Xu Xi felt no regret about this.
The sci-fi simulation had now lasted 155 years, far surpassing the previous three simulations.
Whether it was the knowledge gained or the experiences along the way, Xu Xi was satisfied.
He also knew that even if the simulation continued, he wouldn't be able to unravel the true nature of the simulator. The simulator was far more mysterious than he had imagined.
Thus,
for Xu Xi, whenever the sci-fi simulation ended, it was acceptable.
"It's just... what will become of Ailei after I leave..."
Xu Xi slowly clenched his fist.
Within the curl and squeeze of his fingers, the mechanical energy was ground into fine, glowing particles, shimmering with a pale light before dissipating into nothingness.
Illusory and fleeting, wondrous and dazzling.
Just like the radiant humanity he had once glimpsed within the mechanoid servant's heart.
Once the simulation ended, Xu Xi would return directly to reality, but Ailei could not. She would remain trapped in this starry expanse.
Without Xu Xi's mechanical resonance and the joy of the mechanoid spirit, the fleet's strength would greatly diminish, making Ailei's situation even more perilous.
Enduring strike after strike,
wandering in the lonely void,
trapped in an eternal cage.
"I really can't help but worry..." Xu Xi sighed softly in his heart.
He wanted to do as much as he could, while he still lived, to help the mechanoid servant carve out a future and escape this bottomless, inescapable prison.
"Master."
The voice drew nearer,
calm and gentle.
It was Ailei, carrying a steaming lunch, saying she wanted to use food to soothe the shock Xu Xi had experienced today.
"Thank you, Ailei."
Xu Xi smiled at the girl.
They walked side by side, sitting down at a nearby integrated table and chairs, the surface covered with a red-and-white checkered cloth prepared in advance by the mechanoid servant.
"Master, please enjoy your meal."
Her movements were steady and graceful, her fingers firmly holding the tray. With meticulous precision and a calm, composed expression, the mechanoid servant set the table for Xu Xi.
Afterward,
she sat quietly by his side,
her hands folded on her lap, waiting for Xu Xi to finish his meal.
The mechanoid servant's body couldn't digest food. Even if she imitated humans, it was merely transferring the swallowed food to a storage space called a stomach.
Thus, whenever mealtime came, the loyal mechanoid servant would sit by Xu Xi's side,
her silver-blue face serene,
gazing at Xu Xi intently.
Xu Xi had once found this atmosphere too strange, but gradually, he grew accustomed to this way of being together.
"Ailei, how is the starship wreckage recovery going?"
"Please rest assured, everything is proceeding as planned."
"Is that so? Then I'm relieved. Did you record the gravitational wave frequency of the Neutron Warstar?"
"Yes, the backup starship has automatically logged it."
Settling his thoughts, casting aside his worries,
in the pure silence of the dining environment,
the sound of their conversation was particularly clear, carrying a simple, warm, and flawless tranquility.
"Master... are you feeling unwell?"
After a while, the mechanoid servant keenly noticed that Xu Xi seemed to be carrying some burden in his heart.
"No, not at all."
"I was just thinking about some things I must do in the future."
Xu Xi shook his head, using a smile to dispel Ailei's concern, chewing the delicious food and praising her cooking for having improved even further.
Twitch.
Twitch again.
Ailei's ears flickered rapidly.
"Thank you for your praise. I will continue to work hard," the mechanoid servant's face blossomed into a smile.
Having replicated data from the archives countless times, learning human smiles from recorded images, by now, Ailei's smile was truly beautiful.
Like a budding flower, revealing a dazzling, meteor-like brilliance within.