"Master, there’s no time to explain. You must come with me now."
"Ailei will protect you at all costs!"
Faced with Xu Xi's confusion,
the mechanized servant was about to offer an explanation when she suddenly sensed something—her stance shifted instantly, as if confronting a dire threat—before grabbing Xu Xi and warping through time and space.
"Whoosh!" Time froze, space shattered.
Before the might of a universe-forger,
even an ascended and transformed Earth could not resist in the slightest.
In the blink of an eye,
Xu Xi was whisked away by Ailei, vanishing swiftly from the courtyard, slipping beyond the gaze of the three Supreme Ones, and traversing the boundless sea of stars.
The cosmic ocean—cold, desolate—was a tapestry of billions upon billions of stars, coalescing into radiant cascades left far behind by Ailei,
reduced to mere flashes in Xu Xi’s vision.
Xu Xi was bewildered. Had things spiraled too far off course?
Shouldn’t a long-awaited reunion be warm and harmonious? Why had it turned into a frantic escape?
"Ailei, have you… misunderstood something?"
As the depths of the starry expanse swallowed them,
and Earth grew ever more distant,
Xu Xi spoke up: "Truthfully, I’m in no danger. There’s no threat to me."
Being taken away by Ailei didn’t trouble him—he trusted his loyal mechanized servant meant no harm.
But back in the courtyard, his younger sister, the Witch, and the Noble Princess—three Supreme Ones—would surely react unpredictably upon discovering his absence.
"Please rest assured, Master. There is no misunderstanding,"
Ailei replied solemnly, her silver-blue eyes glimmering faintly. She insisted that the three Supreme Ones in the courtyard posed a grave danger to Xu Xi’s safety.
Thus, she had resolved to take him far away,
to a place secure enough
to serve and protect him once more.
The starlight, dazzling and radiant, illuminated Ailei’s resolve—and Xu Xi’s stunned disbelief.
"No, no, Ailei, listen to me… This is entirely a misunderstanding…" Xu Xi finally realized: his loyal servant had misjudged the others.
Clearly, Ailei had mistaken the immense power of his sister and the others for a threat.
And so, acting out of concern for his safety, she had made the drastic decision to spirit him away from Earth.
Xu Xi was torn between laughter and exasperation. He reiterated that he was perfectly safe, that no danger existed.
He wanted Ailei to stop,
to prevent an unnecessary conflict.
But then—
A familiar voice pierced through the fabric of time and space, icy and laced with killing intent.
"Elder Brother, Xu Moli is here."
"Mentor…"
"Sir, I’ve come to aid you!"
Xu Xi’s disappearance and the disturbance in the room had not escaped the notice of the three Supreme Ones.
They had given chase almost instantly.
And so, Xu Xi witnessed a spectacle of cataclysmic grandeur—
Sword Dao divine arts cleaving through galaxies,
Martial Dao true intent crushing the cosmos,
Creation and Annihilation reshaping the chaos of origins.
"Then let it be war."
Ailei met them head-on.
Stars shattered. Reality twisted. The clash of four Supreme Ones collapsed the universe, warping all existence into singular threads of extreme distortion.
And this—was but a fraction of their power.
At the critical moment, it was Xu Xi who intervened, halting the battle and clarifying the misunderstanding.
Thus,
the cosmos returned to tranquility.
Every shattered star reversed through time, restored to its former glory.
"So, they are not enemies…" Under Xu Xi’s gaze, Ailei had an epiphany. She realized her mistake and offered a sincere apology.
Perhaps it was an illusion,
but Xu Xi thought he detected a faint trace of… regret in her voice.
"Hello, I am Xu Moli."
"Hello, I am Wu Yingxue."
"I am Krisha Christina, the Mentor’s disciple."
"I am Ailei, Master’s mechanized servant."
With the misunderstanding resolved, the four girls exchanged friendly handshakes. The harmony of the scene finally eased Xu Xi’s tension.
This was how it should be.
This was the proper atmosphere for a reunion—
Warm, peaceful, united.
"Now that everything’s settled, let’s return," Xu Xi said, glancing at the dark void around them. He shook his head, still processing the surreal events of the night.
"As you command, Master." Ailei raised her hand. Space caved in, twisting and spiraling inward, forming a temporal passage back to the courtyard.
With a single step, they crossed from the distant sea of stars back to Earth.
Oddly,
the frigid emptiness of space should have been colder than Earth’s autumn.
Yet upon returning to the courtyard, Xu Xi felt an even deeper chill.
"Strange… Could it be the weight of tonight’s events?"
Xu Xi murmured to himself.
The night had been a whirlwind—
First, Ailei’s sudden return.
Then, the chase across the cosmos.
The rapid succession left him feeling as though he’d stepped into a dream.
"Mentor, you should rest now."
The Witch—Krisha—spoke softly.
She noticed Xu Xi’s weariness and suggested he retire for the night. There would be time tomorrow, after sunrise, to catch up with Ailei.
A reunion after so long certainly warranted conversation.
But it need not be rushed.
Krisha’s advice was sound—even Ailei, the one most eager, agreed.
They were all concerned about Xu Xi’s health.
“Well… alright then,” Xu Xi hesitated for a moment before finally deciding to return to his room to rest, yielding to the girls’ well-meaning insistence.
The night was late, and it was no time to push himself.
With so many things happening at once, exhaustion weighed heavily on Xu Xi, leaving his mind in a daze.
“See you all tomorrow, then.”
After bidding the girls farewell, Xu Xi shook his head lightly and made his way back to his room, soon lying flat on the bed to rest.
The coldness receded.
Warmth enveloped his body.
Dispelling the lingering chill that had clung to him all day.
No—to be more precise, the cold was drifting away from Xu Xi, retreating to some distant place.
“Continue?”
“Come on.”
In the depths of sleep, Xu Xi faintly heard the sound of fireworks.
Clear and melodious, like a string of bubbles bursting one after another in the caress of a gentle breeze.
In his haze,
the voices of several girls accompanied the sounds.
The dream began to shift, growing chaotic, restless, morphing into a dazzling spectacle of multicolored lights.
Perhaps influenced by the day’s events, this dream unfolded as an all-out battle between his sister, the witch, the princess, and the mechanical servant—a cataclysmic clash that shattered the heavens and tore the universe apart.
Xu Xi wanted to stop it.
But his voice couldn’t pierce through the chaos of the battlefield in the slightest.
“Stop fighting! All of you, stop!”
The collapsing fabric of space and time surged like a monstrous tidal wave, utterly submerging Xu Xi’s presence, roaring and raging until everything before his eyes was washed into blinding whiteness.
Dawn broke.
In the slightly harsh light of the morning sun, Xu Xi opened his eyes, weariness etched across his face. “Just a dream… scaring myself for nothing…”