The warships of the two sides attacked one another without cease, and even rammed.
Zhao Chen watched these warships destroyed one after another as one watches a game.
And one thing he marked: that those pitch-black warships, once destroyed, very soon dispersed, as though they had burned to ash and gone off upon the wind.
Whereas upon the other side the wrecks of warships grew more and more, until they were heaped up like a mountain.
"These enemy fleets we call the Undying Legion; and some in jest call them the Pitch-Black Legion," Ah-Yin said.
"The Undying Legion?" Zhao Chen drew his brows together.
"As the name tells it: these warships that are destroyed.
"Revive without limit, and appear upon the field anew.
"Like a tide, which every so often sweeps over the dyke, until the dyke is overthrown at last," Ah-Yin explained.
Zhao Chen's brows drew together; he could not understand this thing for all that. "Warships that revive without limit? How is that possible…"
"I know too that it is not possible. Long ago the Gaia Empire's fleets did not grasp either that what they fought was in fact the same fleet.
"Until, by a chance, they found this out.
"These warships are undying and unperishing; they revive without end, and then assail the enemy anew.
"As to what the principle of it is, the mistress may know; but we do not," said Ah-Yin.
Zhao Chen said nothing; this matter is somewhat too fantastical.
But thinking upon the technology of revival that he himself holds — since life may be revived, may a warship not be revived too?
Hard as it is to believe, one cannot flatly deny the possibility.
"You should have heard it.
"In the Gaia Empire's last period a vast Gaia Expeditionary Legion Fleet was raised.
"They set out, to face the source of what threatened this universe.
"And from that time they never came back." Ah-Yin swept a hand.
Time seemed to be hastened; the field that had been there fell all at once soundless.
But very soon new warships appeared here.
These warships Zhao Chen knows: they are Machine Race warships.
They began here to build fortresses, and to build bases.
"Within this space there is no resource whatever — there is not even light.
"Every resource must be carried across out of our own universe.
"We took up the Gaia Empire's will, and hold this universe here, waiting upon the return of the Gaia Empire's expeditioners.
"And this waiting… has been above ten thousand years.
"Until, some thousands of years ago.
"Those pitch-black warships appeared once more." Ah-Yin's gaze grew deep.
Within the picture before Zhao Chen's eyes those pitch-black warships welled up again.
Their coming is the herald of war.
The Machine Race warships began to fight these pitch-black warships many times over.
Round upon round of clashing.
More and more Machine Race warships fell, and the pitch-black fleets came each time in greater number.
From the outset, when the Machine Race fleets could still answer them, to a time thereafter when it grew little by little hard to keep up.
Until there began to be cases within the war of bases and fortresses destroyed.
And from what time none knows, there appeared within this space stretch upon stretch of works like a Great Wall.
Those are all piled up out of battle-damaged Machine Race warships, and they form line upon line of defense.
And those ship's guns that could still be used go on being used upon these Great Walls, giving out what heat is left in them.
"At the outset the Pitch-Black Legion's fleets appeared once in a hundred years; but afterward that became fifty years.
"Thirty years, twenty years, ten years, five years, three years.
"The interval of every assault grew shorter and shorter, and we had not time enough to repair the bases and fortresses that had been broken.
"And so we began to build these lines of defense piled up out of cast-off warships: the cost is very low, and the building time very short.
"We call them the Black Great Wall." As Ah-Yin gazed upon these stretches of Black Great Wall, the light within her eyes was exceedingly stirred.
And Zhao Chen too felt a reverence rise in him.
Cold as these Machine Race warships appear, yet at this moment.
Gazing upon these Black Great Walls, Zhao Chen felt a kind of burning.
"Half a year ago the Pitch-Black Legion's fleets appeared once more.
"And the mistress hastened to the field again; but the enemy this time was far mightier than at any time before.
"It is said that of the mechanical fleets upon the gate's other side, the loss rate went above 70 percent — above ten million warships fell."
Ah-Yin clenched her fist. "Were it not that it fell out just at this time.
"How should those Demon Race warships ever have been able to threaten our mechanical royal court!
"After half a year of great war.
"The mistress's own hull was grievously damaged; but happily she beat the enemy for all that."
Hearing this story out, there rose in Zhao Chen a heartfelt admiration for these mechanical lives.
"Then what in the end is these assailants' object?
"Would they enslave us? Or take our resources?" Zhao Chen inquired.
For since there is an enemy, an enemy's invasion must assuredly seek something.
"Upon that point we are not clear; the mistress may know.
"We know one thing only, which is to hold this gate fast.
"However it be, those Pitch-Black Legion fleets must not be let into this universe, or everything within this universe will be destroyed!" Ah-Yin said, her voice low.
Zhao Chen's brows drew a little together; by the look of it there are secrets yet that must wait upon that girl to tell him herself.
"Then how long must I wait?
"Before I may speak with your mistress?" Zhao Chen asked.
Ah-Yin paused, and said, "By the mistress's case this time, the sleep will want three months at the least."
Three months?
That time is somewhat long.
Zhao Chen hesitated a moment, and asked, "Then — you said before that your mistress left a speech for me?"
"Yes. Will you look upon it now?" Ah-Yin asked.
"Mm." Zhao Chen nodded.
Ah-Yin raised a hand, and within her palm there appeared a device for casting a holographic image.
That little girl's figure appeared once more.
Her body was very small; she sat within Ah-Yin's palm, swinging her legs as she had always done.[1]
"Hey — it is long since we met.
"I wonder how the business of the Demon Race stands.
"My strength cannot hold out until I come back to our own universe world; I can only fall into sleep first.
"But I think you will not fail my hope.
"A little demon or so — you can settle that yourself, I take it." The little girl said it with her grinning face.
Zhao Chen cast an eye at Ah-Yin, and could not keep from laughing.
A little demon, indeed.
They very nearly stole your house out from under you, and you never knew it.
"Ah-Yin should have told you everything she knows.
"And as for what she does not know, that must wait until this young lady wakes to be told you.
"And there is one thing besides that I would ask of you."