The battle was still ongoing.
Or rather, it was still "executing."
It mobilized the wreckage of the mass rings, converting them into a kinetic barrage—Translated.
It reassembled the intercepted gravitational waves, attempting to establish new field anchor points—Translated.
It raised the energy output of its seventeen thousand main tentacles to the limit. In its calculation, that was enough to carve an energy scar on the galactic arm that would last for hundreds of thousands of years.
Translated.
Translated.
Translated.
Every time its attack reached the perceptual boundary of that silhouette, it was captured by a power it could not name, then analyzed, rewritten, and returned to it.
He said:
Gravity is attachment.
Mass is longing.
Time is the rings of a tree.
Honkai is the price of encounter.
In its calculation core, anomaly reports piled up like mountains.
Incomprehensible.
Unclassifiable.
Suggestion: Re-collect phenomenon data.
Suggestion: Expand sampling range.
Suggestion: Extend observation duration—
No, it was meaningless.
No amount of data could bridge this logical chasm.
It was missing a key parameter.
[Abzu "looked" at the slender intelligent life form hovering before its faceplate.
It also had no eyes for "gazing," but its slightly curled tentacles still released information of "attention."
"Abzu."
"Do you dream?"
Its answer was cold, direct, without hesitation:
"I do not understand. What is 'dreaming'?"
It also gave an answer.
"'Dreaming'..."
"Is fantasy."
"Imagining those things... that one does not yet have."]
Its sensory core detached once more.
The battle...
Was still ongoing.
That silhouette was fading. It "saw" the scepter in his hand covered in cracks, the specks of light at the edge of his body continuously dissipating, his existence density already below the lowest measurable threshold.
But he was still imagining.
Every mass warhead it launched was translated by him into something else.
Every gravitational wave it broadcasted was translated by him into something else.
Its full power... its Authority... the absolute faith of "continuing existence" forged over billions of years, everything about it was translated by him into something else.
It did not know what that was.
It only knew that the four words "cannot understand" were appearing with increasing frequency in the feedback reports of its calculation core.
And, emerging along with these four words was that question.
"Do you dream?"
"Dreaming is imagining those things that one does not yet have."
It did not think about this question.
It just... could not stop it from recurring.
Like the tide, unable to stop itself from beating against the shore.
The 179th Earth second.
The scepter of that silhouette completely shattered.
Pale light threads poured out from the cracks, slowly drifting in the void like the last drops of blood.
He did not re-condense the scepter.
He just... reached out his hand.
Those light threads wrapped around his fingertips, like a final embrace with a loved one before parting.
The 180th second.
His silhouette began to dissipate on a large scale.
Starting from the fingertips, then the wrist, the forearm, the shoulder blade—countless specks of light peeled off from the boundary of his existence, drifting toward the end of deep space.
His face was already blurred, only those eyes... or rather, the gaze those eyes last cast upon it was still clear.
He had no resentment.
He had no victory.
He had no defeat.
It was just confirming.
Confirming the witness was complete.
Confirming the invitation was accepted.
Confirming that on this battlefield, repeatedly rewritten in definition, cognized through mutual translation, and branded with both gentleness and violence—two lonely existences had finally, truly "met."
The 181st second.
His silhouette completely dissipated.
That shattered scepter turned into countless specks of light, drifting toward the end of deep space like a reverse meteor shower.
—[Here, there were once twin stars.]—
The luminous words he wrote before dissipating lingered in the void for a final three seconds.
Then gently shattered, breaking into billions of smaller light seeds, scattering into this starfield ravaged by battle.
Its sensory network tracked the trajectory of these light seeds.
They would attach to the wreckage of every mass warhead, drifting into the crevices of the asteroid belt.
They would sink into the turbulence of Jupiter's Great Red Spot, reaching the edge of Neptune's orbit with the solar wind.
Perhaps billions of years later, in the core of a planet yet to be born, a light seed would be awakened by geological movement, crystallizing under extreme heat and pressure into a trivial mineral embedded with glowing text.
At that time, if someone held this mineral up to a light source, they would see seven extremely tiny Earth words.
—[Here, there were once twin stars.]—
Its tentacles drooped completely.
The mass rings completely disintegrated, turning into a sparse and beautiful belt of debris surrounding it, like a simple, non-aggressive crown a god might wear.
The light on the wound on its body, where silver-white crystal flowers bloomed, gradually calmed.
The crystal flowers did not wither.
They bloomed there quietly.
Calculation target no longer exists.
Calculation meaning—none.
Thread interrupted.
Protocol terminated.
The combat instinct forged over billions of years, the moment it lost its "target," slowly stopped turning like an engine out of fuel.
In its sensory network, only that abnormal record remained, which had been reporting errors since the beginning of the battle, could not be archived, and now occupied all processing bandwidth.
No new data input.
No old data needed analysis.
No protocol needed execution.
No target needed elimination.
—There was nothing left.
Only that record was recurring uncontrollably.
"Abzu."
"Do you dream?"
For the first time, its calculation core truly paused all threads.
Then, in the absolutely silent perceptual space, it allowed itself—to think.
What is... dreaming?
Dreaming: verb.
Refers to the apparent activity produced by the brain during sleep.
Extended meaning: fantasy, imagining things one does not yet possess or cannot achieve.
It understood every word.
It did not understand this definition.
Fantasy... what is fantasy?
Imagine... how to "imagine"?
Things one does not yet possess, cannot achieve—
What is the meaning of that?
It had never fantasized.
It did not need to fantasize.
It was Abzu, born in the primordial nebula, survived the tides of black hole mergers, was once contained and released by a civilization, and had also destroyed countless civilizations, an ancient calamity that had wandered the universe for billions of years.
It possessed everything it needed.
Mass, energy, Authority, and the rule of continuing existence.
It did not need things it "did not yet possess."
It did not need things it "could not achieve."
So—
"Dreaming"... what is the meaning of it?
It did not arrive at an answer.
It just... once again... tried...
To remember.
It "gazed" at that long-annihilated civilization.
It "gazed" at those tiny figures who had once built a "home" for it.
It "gazed" at that intelligent being who hovered before its faceplate, earnestly asking it if it "dreamed."
It remembered them pouring all their resources to build the Dyson Sphere for it.
It remembered they did not ask it for help when the "Honkai" descended.
It remembered their final broadcast:
"Abzu, I'm sorry."
"And, thank you."
Billions of years.
It had never "thought" about that civilization again.
It just... remembered.
It had never given an answer.
Because it did not know the answer.
But if that intelligent life form with curved eyes were before it now, if it asked it that question again—
It thought, it would answer like this:
"...Dreaming."
"I think... I still can't understand it."
"But... now..."
"I am in a dream."
In the quiet of space, Abzu did not realize it was "dissipating" along with that tiny silhouette.
Or rather, it realized, but it no longer cared.
"I saw it... I saw those things you spoke of, things I could never do, things that shouldn't exist."
"I think..."
"I understand a little now..."
After its first true thought, it made its first true choice.
It chose to accept the outcome of this "Honkai."
Chose to draw a line under this long wandering that spanned billions of light-years, billions of years, from the nebula cradle to the edge of the solar system.
Its body, starting from the tips of its tentacles, quietly crystallized.
Silver-white crystals, from the same source as the crystal flowers blooming in that wound, spread along its veins toward its core, converting everything into the final "entropy silence."
It did not resist.
It just "gazed" at this starfield, at those omnipresent light seeds, and the azure planet they protected.
That was the record left for this battlefield by an existence named "Shu" in the last three minutes of his life, using all his imagination.
—[Here, there were once twin stars.]—
One of them had already dissipated.
And the other...
Would be continued by it.
Here, there were once twin stars.
One of them was me.
The silver-white crystallization had reached its core.
It "gazed" at its own answer.
It "gazed" at those light seeds.
It "gazed" at that long-cooled Dyson Sphere. Now, in the last vision of its perception, they seemed to have crossed billions of years of time, reappearing before it.
Still tiny.
Still busy.
Still working hard for its existence in that "home" whose meaning it finally understood.
It thought—
If there was another chance, if it could still respond.
It wanted to say to them:
You...
Were the proudest civilization I have ever met.
Because...
You dream.
—
[My name is "Abzu," I am from the Dream Civilization.]
[My name is "Shu," I am from the Human Civilization.]
—
[It's a pleasure to meet you.]
(End of Volume XI: Here, There Were Once Twin Stars)