"William! William!"

"What's that..." At this strange sound, William, who had almost fainted, came to himself at once. Curiously, he opened his eyes and searched everywhere, trying to find the owner of the voice. Unfortunately, like You-Know-Who's voice, it had no owner. It was as if it just came out of nowhere.

Curiously, his pain quickly disappeared. He did not know why, but asked the voice weakly,

"Who are you..."

"It doesn't matter who I am, William! What matters is that you must get up as soon as possible! We're almost at the exit of the five-dimensional space, but you must shoot that fighter down! It will kill you soon, so you must get up quickly!"

The piercing alarm sounded in his ears. For an instant, just now, only that voice spoke. Then all the sounds around him died away, and the scene in front of him changed:

A slender stream appeared. It flowed happily, singing the beautiful melody. Then William looked down. Soon he caught a glimpse of countless small, low, blue-purple flowers. They all stretched out their three tiny petals and shook their bells in the breeze, cherishing these four brief hours. The sound of the stamen was very clear and pure. William thought the sound was like a cure for all ills. It made him feel comfortable and happy. He even forgot for a moment that the fighter was still attacking them.

He saw that the flowers were going to rest in peace. Their delicate petals were blown gently by the wind to the ground beside the river, yet the brilliant blue-purple light did not soon fade away.

Another sound caught William's attention. He turned around and saw the night sky filled with brilliant fireworks. Red, yellow, green... Countless colorful fireworks flew from the ground, enjoying the fun of soaring into the sky, and then blooming out the most brilliant smiles of their life hundreds of meters high in the sky.

Then, without knowing it, William smiled. Ranran could see clearly how happily he was smiling. She saw William flailing his aching arms and shouting up to his head, "Nice! I wish I were one of you!" He seemed to have completely forgotten how hard he had used his force, and he didn't feel sore.

At that moment, the others who were operating the sphere fighters glimpsed William. "What's the matter with Master? Who is he talking to?" Photon and Aria asked in surprise, "Is he all right?"

"I'm sure he is all right! You see how happy he laughs!" Ranran looked at the figure with a smile with blurred tears.

The fireworks continued to explode, with a deafening sound "boom, boom". To William, it was simply the most beautiful sound in the universe.

The instant flowers were like fireworks, he thought. They all had very short highlights and had to wait a long time for this. After enjoying it, they would disappear in the blink of an eye. "Poor thing." He thought, "I felt sorry for them when I first heard about the instant flowers at Mr Handel's."

"That's right, boy." Another voice appeared.

"Who?" William began to search again. "Ha ha ha, stop searching, boy." Said the voice. So he stopped. It sounded very like Mr Handel's voice.

"Yes, that's me." Said the voice, smiling kindly, "You have just seen the instant flowers and the fireworks, haven't you?"

"Yes, I saw that. Poor fellows, their moments of highlight are so brief."

"Well, indeed." The voice gave a heavy sigh, but at once said excitedly, "But you must have been impressed by how they shone in their most brilliant light. I know you are in danger right now, but I still want you to answer this question: if you really really can't get rid of the chase of the fighter, in the coming last moment of your life, do you want to be like fireworks bursting out the brightest light, or do you want to be like dirt buried in the deepest ground? Do you want to do your best, or do you want to say die?"

William felt that some unknown, sleeping power in his body had been awakened. Like a thawed spring water, this power began to flow from the bottom of his heart to the whole body. He felt something special that he had never felt before. He could not describe what he felt, but his eyes grew brighter and brighter. Again, the sight of the instant flowers and the fireworks flashed in front of his eyes.

Then he felt himself shouting out, with great emotion and loud voice,

"I will never say die! I must do my best, I must!"

Before Handel's voice died away, William heard these words,

"Forge your lead with rock-like faith, and fill your fuel with fire-like struggle. Then you will become the most gorgeous fireworks, interpreting the meaning of life with dazzling light."

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William came to himself. He saw again the dark figure in back of the ship firing bullets, and felt a sharp pain. But he had just regained some strength, so he could use his hands to ease the pain.

The words came to his ears again, "Forge your lead with rock-like faith, and fill your fuel with fire-like struggle. Then you will become the most gorgeous fireworks, interpreting the meaning of life with dazzling light."

William got up. He no more felt painful and sat down again in front of the sphere fighter's console. He shook his sore arms vigorously and aimed the plasma cannons at the dark figure. Then, with a deafening roar, he pressed the fire button. Countless multicolored bullets exploded on the fighter's surface, like fireworks in the night sky. The others kept shooting, too, hoping the fighter would be destroyed as soon as possible.

It was about to explode, but it could hold on for some more moments. In order to shoot down the fighter as soon as possible, William asked Ranran to return to her sphere fighter and continue to fight.

More bullets burned the surfaces of the sphere fighters. Now they had almost completely lost their bright white coats, but no one else cared. There was only one command left in their minds: shoot down this fighter.

A piercing alarm sounded in William's ears. He didn't want to hear the sound, but he couldn't cover his ears and shoot at the same time. He just stared angrily at that blood-red eye and poured all his ammunition on the fighter.

The fighter was still dodging nimbly. Fortunately, although the ship was not as nimble as that fighter, yet the hail of bullets from the fighter was not as dense as that from sphere fighters. William heard the evil voice groan in pain.

"Do you know if we can go home now?" William sneered. Too bad he didn't know that the fighter had not yet fired the antimatter bomb. The voice told him that he would be able to destroy the ship before William and his party could shoot it down, and that he would trigger the antimatter bomb ten minutes later.

"Impossible!" William roared angrily, asking Photon to speed up at the same time. The others in the sphere fighters continued to fire wildly. The black fighter was damaged even more.

At this moment, from the spaceship came the sound of the countdown, "Tick, tick..."

That voice sneered, "Ha ha ha! See what's on the spaceship? Didn't expect that, huh?"

Ranran noticed an object with a red light flashing in the back of the ship. It was it that gave out the sound of the countdown.

"What is this!" She screamed.

"You were so focused on attacking me that no one noticed when I fired the antimatter bomb at your ship! It's easy to stop it from exploding: all you have to do is to destroy it!" Laughed the voice.

"What? No!" William roared desperately, "All the rest of you, keep shooting! I will destroy the antimatter bomb!" Then he told the captain plane to reorient and aim at the antimatter bomb. In an instant, a barrage of bullets flew toward its shell. He wished the plasma shells were more destructive, or the antimatter bomb's shell was more fragile.

The countdown began. "Tick, tick..." 500 seconds to go.

"No!" Cried William desperately. His arms were shaking violently with anger and fear.

Finally, after firing all the bullets, the black fighter could no longer withstand the barrage of bullets from the sphere fighters. The party saw it explode with a brilliant light.

"Oh." Natalie gasped wearily, "We finally shot it down." She looked at the riddled sphere fighters.

William's voice roused the others, "Come and help me! We must destroy this antimatter bomb before the countdown ends, or we will all die!"

The rest of the sphere fighters quickly surrounded the dangerous object. William distributed all the weapons they carried to the others. Photon also came to help, so Natalie went to fly the ship.

The rain of bullets that poured onto the surface of the antimatter bomb became even denser. William was delighted to see that a tiny crack had appeared on its shell. "It starts to be damaged!" He cried excitedly, "We can't stop shooting!"

"Tick, tick..." The countdown continued. 400 seconds to go. "No!" William growled in despair again, pressing the fire button harder.

It was a good thing that sphere fighters had enough ammunition to carry, otherwise they would have a harder time destroying this dangerous object. They hadn't destroyed it yet, but it was more damaged than ever.

Aria saw a bigger crack. "Come on!" She encouraged the others. Then the hail of bullets became denser.

"Tick, tick..." As time was running, the cracks in the antimatter bomb grew larger and larger.

"NO!" William growled in despair.

"How long will it take us to destroy it?" Photon asked.

"We're almost there! "Said William, looking at the cracks. As the cracks grew larger, the antimatter shell began to wobble.

Natalie told the others that they would soon reach the exit of the five-dimensional space. "We have about four minutes to fly!" She called from the front of the ship.

"Tick, tick..." 200 seconds to go.

"NO!" William was still growling. In about three minutes, the antimatter shell would explode. It was not destroyed yet, although it was badly damaged.

The hail of bullets did not stop. All they could hear was the alarms, countdown, roaring of the ship's engine, and the explosion of the plasma shells. At this moment, their minds were blank.

"Tick, tick..." Only 100 seconds to go.

Some pieces fell off the antimatter bomb. William knew it was going to be damaged. All they needed to do was to destroy it before the countdown ended.

More pieces fell off. But time was running out. Only 60 seconds to go.

"NO!" William was still growling. How he wished the antimatter bomb would break down the next second. But it seemed that that second would never come.

Only 20 seconds to go.

"NO!!" Roared William, his heart being torn. The antimatter bomb was nearly destroyed, but the countdown didn't stop.

Only 10 seconds to go.

"NO!!" Cried everyone desperately. They felt faint and then passed out.

But before they passed out, they heard three sounds. First it was everyone's desperate "NO!!"

Then it was the sound of countdown zeroing, "Beep -- !"

Finally it was a deafening bang,

"BOOM!"