There was silence in space, nothing was happening. But the more it was, the more Hawke's spirits tightened. It was like walking through a jungle full of fierce beasts, as if he were a soft, white rabbit.
All the detection equipment had been cranked up to maximum power, including the super-optical telescopes placed beyond the orbit of ε Eri c, including various infrared and ultraviolet bands, radar detectors, magnetometers, gravity wave monitors and so on, but none of them detected any movement.
Hawke did not dare to take any action, but kept all the ships in ε Eri a orbit and waited for the unknown future.
After the words "Don't blame me", the signal disappeared and never appeared in Hawke's central computer again.
Hawke did not detect the enemy attack with any of his detection devices, but suddenly Hawke sensed something was wrong.
This little anomaly came from within, from within the central computer of the City ship, the New York, to be precise, which was where Hawke was hiding.
Hawke felt that his mind, it seemed, was governed by an uncontrollable force, as if his brain had suddenly become muddled, and in that instant, Hawke actually began to think of unbelievable things.
"If ... I had not been so proud and arrogant when I was on Earth, but had taken care to get on good terms with my peers, would my prophecies have been supported by my peers and thus accepted by human society as a whole? When I discovered the harbinger of the Earth's explosion, there was still ten years to go before the end of time, and perhaps, in the middle of those ten years, humanity would really explode with all its potential and build interstellar spaceships in one fell swoop, and by then, if not save all of humanity, at least save millions of humans, leaving a spark for the continuation of human civilisation."
"If ... I had eased up on Ellie a bit at the time, wouldn't she have left the Institute? Even if I couldn't have saved her, at least, I could have left a little more of a memory for myself."
"If ... I had researched a little more about that mysterious interstellar substance, wouldn't I have been able to strip another person's soul out as well and accompany me on my journey through the universe?"
"What if ..."
"What if ..."
There were countless ifs. Gradually, Hawke became immersed in these what-ifs and began to unleash his enormous computing power to calculate whether, "if" he had done it differently, the result would have been different from now.
He was so engrossed in the "what ifs" that he did not realise that his computer usage rate had shot up to 85 per cent.
Hawke was doing a lot of calculations, remembering every choice he had made in his life, calculating how things would have turned out if he had chosen a different path, but as things continued to develop, he was bound to encounter a new choice, and Hawke began to calculate how things would have turned out if he had made a different choice, and so on and so forth.
Hawke's computer usage rate has shot up to 100 per cent. The useless, meaningless need to calculate took up all of Hawke's mental energy.
One hundred percent was a dangerous number, indicating that Hawke's computing power had been used up. Moreover, as long as the one hundred percent rate lasted for more than thirty minutes, the central computer's critical wiring would be severely damaged, and if it lasted for more than an hour, the central computer would be completely dead.
A dead central computer would also mean that Hawke was completely dead.
Now, with a 100 percent usage rate, the duration has reached forty minutes.
"In the world, there are not so many ifs in the world! Since I have made my choice, since time has passed, there is no possibility of starting over, I, why should I calculate these meaningless things!"
It was at this critical moment that the premonition of danger that lay deep within Hawke's heart saved Hawke's life. In this moment, Hawke broke free from the endless calculations of data.
In this moment, Hawke had a feeling of emptiness. If Hawke still had a body, Hawke would have instantly collapsed to the ground, gasping for air.
"I... What's happening to me?" Hawke examined his perch with some confusion, and after ascertaining the current situation, Hawke was more in shock than fear.
This situation, Hawke was certain, was definitely not a normal occurrence. Then, there could be no one else who could have had this effect on him, other than the unknown mysterious enemy.
Sure enough, after Hawk came back to his senses, a message suddenly appeared in Hawk's main control computer.
"It seems that you are a mechanical civilization that has evolved to a considerable level of intelligence, to have the ability to get rid of my logic lock attack ... Well, it seems that the only way to destroy you is from the material plane."
Hawk looked at this message in shock, and his brain began to turn rapidly.
Although the other party's attack called "logic lock" caused the key circuits of his central computer to be burned up by half, reducing his computing power to less than ten percent of his peak, but this ten percent of computing power alone was still extremely large.
"Logic lock! Logic lock! I get it! From my experience, against an AI-led mechanical civilization, no spatial or energy attack is as simple and effective as a logic lock! No matter how much artificial intelligence develops, it will never reach the level of a truly intelligent creature, so after being attacked by a logic lock, they will never be able to break free from the logic lock, but will only be burned up by a large number of meaningless calculations, and eventually die!"
In this moment, Hawke instantly understood.
"Fortunately, fortunately, my soul is still an intelligent being and not an artificial intelligence, so I can break free from within the logic lock. The logic lock, as it stands now, can be considered the natural enemy of mechanical civilization."
"Less than ten percent of the New York's central computer's computing power remains! Damn, it's lucky I still have a spare." Hawke cursed and immediately sent himself over the radio waves to another City ship, the London, fifty thousand kilometres away.
Hawke's current ship had been fully updated with quantum communication instruments, but just in case, Hawke still had radio communication instruments on top of the ship, in order to make it easier to run away in case of danger.
At this moment, Hawke's proactive planning finally paid off.
The London was equipped with a central computer, no less than the New York. In fact, all four City ships were equipped with the same level of super photonic computer, which was decided by Hawke at the beginning of the construction.
After arriving at the London, Hawke immediately manoeuvred all the combat-type ships into a state of war.
"To destroy me through the material plane? I'd like to see what some of your tricks are!" Hawke hated it with a passion, but suppressed his anger and watched everything in the ε Eri system through the countless probes scattered throughout space.
It was still silent, nothing strange was happening. But then, fifteen seconds later, Hawke spotted something that definitely did not belong beyond the orbit of ε Eri c.
It was a water drop.
An object made entirely of an unreadable material, streamlined, with a large head and a small tail, like a drop of water.
After only a very simple measurement, Hawke was able to measure something.
A normal household mirror could only reflect visible light and light in wavelengths lower than the visible frequency, so a laser weapon with a higher frequency than visible light could easily shoot through it.
But the surface of this thing possessed a 100 per cent reflectivity. This means that the surface material of this object reflects even lasers, and that lasers have no effect on it.
Because it has 100 per cent reflectivity, it has no colour. It is whatever colour it is in front of, just like a chameleon.
It is beautiful, like a perfect artefact, it is about ten metres long and about three metres wide and high. It just hovered silently in space like that, flying towards Hawke at a speed of at least a hundred kilometres per second.
With a minute to spare, it was about to come into ε Eri c orbit.
All of the four thousand or so combat ships stationed in the ε Eri c fortress had been urgently lifted into the air, ready for battle ahead of the droplet.
These four thousand or so ships include fifty prefect ships. The prefect ships, on the other hand, were equipped with energy cannons.
Hawk was at ε Eri a, watching all this quietly, and then Hawk decided, on his own initiative, to attack.
"Prefect ship, Hiraigo, energy cannon, fire."
Hawke gave the order.
The blackened muzzle of the cannon was aimed at the droplet, and with the order, a cannonball entwined with blue glow raced towards the droplet at a speed of at least 100,000 kilometres per second, taking only 0.05 seconds to reach the droplet, followed by a violent impact and the energy cannonball exploded with a loud bang.
Hawke watched the area nervously, and after the afterglow of the energy blast cleared, Hawke saw an amazing sight.
The water droplet, still flying at a near constant speed towards the front. It was as if, this one energy cannonball, did not have any effect on it.
You know, with Hawk's current county-class ship, one energy cannon shot would be enough to completely destroy the lizardmen's flagship-class ship! However, this one energy cannonball did not have any effect on this water droplet.
Its appearance was still smooth and streamlined, its shell still reflective at 100 percent. There was no trace, no dust to stain it.
"What kind of material is it that is so resistant to blows? Is this, is this really as far as an intelligent civilization can go?" Hawke was shocked beyond belief.
"This, is just a Guardian Alliance roving space probe! It's just a probe!"
Hawk only felt that his heart was filled with bitterness.