Chapter Summaries

The Death Star Fleet reached the Great Nebula and fired Emperor’s Breath, penetrating twelve layers of its defenses before an unknown thirteenth barrier stopped the attack. As the fleet prepared to strike again, the Great Nebula’s defenders launched a massive counterattack.

• The Death Star Fleet completed its assembly and set course for the Great Nebula while the Resistance Army retreated and drew the rebels away with signals from captured launchers.
• Sandora explained that the Homeward had once served as a colonial world, and she and A Jun reflected on the Shilin Apostles’ growing capacity to value ordinary life.
• A Jun learned that the rebel ships were malfunctioning Imperial guardians and saw that they had withdrawn their forces into the Great Nebula to defend a relic at its core.
• The Death Star Fleet reached the Great Nebula, aligned its Planet Warships, and fired Emperor’s Breath after Avalon slowed the local speed of light.
• Emperor’s Breath pierced the first twelve defensive layers but failed to break the thirteenth, and the fleet detected an incoming enemy assault as Sandora ordered the ships into combat.

The Death Star Fleet fought through a massive rebel ambush near the Great Nebula, using the Taidashir Planetary Fortress’s swarm form and trapping enemy forces inside the fleet. As the fleet advanced toward the nebula’s core, Lilina announced that Silvia was gone.

• The rebels attacked while the Psionic Death Star was recovering from Emperor's Breath, and Pandora and Viska led elite troops to target enemy command ships.
• The Taidashir Planetary Fortress disassembled into combat units to evade concentrated Star River Main Gun fire, then formed a swarm that struck the rebels.
• The narrator ordered the fleet to lure enemy fast forces inside and use directional fire, while planning a Supernova Explosion to break the core's law-level barrier.
• The Imperial Army wiped out the rebels' outer forces and advanced into the Great Nebula as the Death Star Fortress prepared for another Hyperspace Jump.
• Lilina rushed onto the bridge and told the narrator that Silvia was gone.

Silvia escaped the ship and headed alone for the Great Nebula’s core, leaving a note that suggested she intended to end everything. As the Death Star Fleet prepared to pursue her, the Resistance Army and New Eden Federation forces withdrew, and the fleet jumped into the forbidden zone for the final battle.

• Lilina realized that the Raven King had distorted the sentries’ minds, allowing Silvia to leave unnoticed.
• Sandora and the others found Silvia’s tidy room and a note saying she was going to the core; the Shipboard Mainframe confirmed she had taken a shuttle there.
• The Shipboard Mainframe reported that the fleet needed fifteen minutes before another jump, while Silvia might already have reached the Great Nebula’s core.
• Fina and Roland Gail showed the fleet a vast battlefield graveyard, and Sandora ordered the Resistance Army and New Eden Federation forces to stay behind.
• The Resistance Army and New Eden Federation forces detached from the Death Star Fleet, which then jumped past the Great Nebula’s second energy barrier.

The Imperial Army found a law-level Indestructible Structure blocking the Great Nebula’s core, where Silvia was believed to be trapped. The Ravens deactivated the barrier, and Sandora led a small team into the ruins to search for her.

• The Imperial Army reached the Great Nebula’s core and found a rainbow-colored Indestructible Structure that resisted its attacks.
• Sandora explained that destroying the barrier would also annihilate whatever it protected, so the fleet could not break through by force.
• After Older Sister recalled Silvia’s mysterious summons, Sandora sent Raven 001 and the Ravens to reproduce Silvia’s magic using her recorded soul fluctuations.
• The Ravens caused the barrier to deactivate, revealing a gray sphere covered in a yellow grid.
• Sandora, Qian Qian, the Pandora sisters, A Jun, Ding Dang, Alaya, and Tawell prepared to enter the ruins while Older Sister stayed behind with the others.

The Emperor and his companions entered the dormant Defense Barrier and followed Silvia’s trail into the ruins’ core, where they found a gigantic inactive computing structure. They reached its maintenance entrance and discovered that, despite the door resisting the sisters’ cannons, the surrounding wall was flimsy.

• Raven 001 reassured the Emperor that the Ravens could maintain the dormant Defense Barrier for two or three days, and the group passed through it.
• The Emperor tied up Tawell when she became absorbed in studying the barrier, then let her go as they explored the mist-filled core.
• Qian Qian spotted Silvia’s disabled shuttlecraft, and the group found that Silvia had damaged it herself while entering the ruins safely.
• Tawell identified a colossal structure as a standby computing and storage core and located its maintenance entrance.
• Pandora and Viska’s cannons failed to damage the entrance door, and their attempted helium flashes ended when they choked.
• Qian Qian kicked the wall beside the entrance, knocking a huge metal plate loose and revealing that only the door was sturdy.

The group entered the Sanctum’s Hall of Documents and fought its automated defenses while searching for Silvia. After defeating waves of Shadow Guards, they faced the Leader Bee’s newly revealed combat units.

• Qian Qian kicked through the powerless armor wall, and Tawell explained that the ruin’s energy system had been shut down.
• Tawell identified the facility as the Hall of Documents within the Sanctum, while Sandora urged the group to keep moving toward Silvia.
• A group of spatially mobile floating cannons attacked, and Pandora and Viska destroyed several of them.
• The Leader Bee summoned Shadow Guards modeled after Imperial Army units, and the group fought them with overwhelming firepower.
• The Leader Bee activated another defense mode, and elegant female-shaped combat units emerged above the remaining guards.

The group defeated the Leader Bees guarding the Hall of Documents and restored their leader, Aura, from a corrupted standby state. Aura revived the fallen Bees, and the group recruited the surviving forces, learning that the Bees were support units capable of buffing allies and bringing back the dead.

• The Leader Bees attacked the group with teleporting crystal wings, but Pandora and Viska destroyed every guard except their leader.
• Sandora controlled the surviving leader and had Alaya reactivate her; the restored librarian identified Sandora and the narrator as the Empire’s highest authorities.
• Sandora explained that Leader Bees were the Empire’s Third Hero Combat Soldiers, specializing in battlefield support and revival rather than direct combat.
• Aura used her crystal wings to revive the Bees the group had destroyed, easing the narrator’s guilt.
• Aura gathered the remaining three or four hundred Leader Bees, and the group restored and recruited them into their forces.

The group pursued Silvia through the Hall of Documents, where Tawell discovered that the facility had been built after the Empire’s Great Disaster and was about to shut down permanently. In the core’s Crystal Hall, they found Ockham waiting for them, while Silvia remained missing.

• Aura guided the group into the logical sector, where Tawell explained that the First and Second Control Rooms had different access conditions.
• At the First Storage Area, the power failed and Tawell decoded records showing that the Hall of Documents had been completed within a year of the Empire’s Great Disaster.
• Sandora pressed Tawell for more information about the disaster, but Tawell could find no records of what had happened to the Empire.
• The group followed Aura’s route to the core, crossed a bridge through chaotic fog, and entered a vast Crystal Hall filled with obelisks bearing fragments of records.
• The group found Ockham standing before a crystal obelisk; he greeted them and said he was the only one there, while Silvia was nowhere in sight.

The narrator and Sandora confronted Ockham in the Hall of Documents, where he claimed to be the final executor of an Empire revival plan. As the hall began a fifteen-minute shutdown countdown, Silvia appeared and declared that the Mausoleum Project had been doomed from its construction.

• The narrator recognized Ockham and threatened to kill him while the Empire Leaders held back, wary of his unknown abilities.
• Ockham revealed that the Hall of Documents preserved the Empire’s records and claimed he intended to restore the sanctuary and revive the Empire.
• Sandora acknowledged that much of Ockham’s account was true but challenged his motives as a Fallen Apostle.
• Ockham claimed he designed the Hall of Documents and supported his account with records naming him as the Mausoleum Project’s executor.
• A warning announced that the databases would fail and the sanctuary’s burial mechanism would activate in fifteen minutes, prompting Ockham to plead for help.
• Silvia appeared and told Ockham that the Mausoleum Project had failed from the moment the Hall of Documents was built.

The Emperor trusted Silvia’s hidden signal and killed Ockham before the Hall of Documents could revive an Abyssalized Empire. After escaping the collapsing Hall, the group learned it had been contaminated from its construction, and Bellavella prepared to explain the Empire’s final days.

• Bellavella identified herself through the Hand-Drawn Little Cards, and the Emperor attacked Ockham, who was trying to secure the Empire’s revival command.
• The Hall of Documents went offline and began self-disassembling, so the Emperor, Sandora, and the others escaped with the Leader Bees.
• The Emperor explained that Lin Xue’s prophecy had led him to trust Silvia’s actions, while Bellavella revealed that only she could enter the Second Control Room without exposing Silvia’s personality.
• Bellavella said the Hall’s Database had been contaminated from the day it was built, making Ockham’s plan a revival of an Abyssalized Empire.
• Bellavella said Silvia was asleep after handing her control of their body and began to tell the story of the Empire’s end.

Bellavella explained that the Shilin Empire’s Abyssal disaster began when its Apostles tried to synthesize the Void, and that arrogance helped turn the failed experiment into the Empire’s destruction. After recounting the Hall of Documents and the Fallen Apostles’ motives, she gave Chen Jun and the others advice before preparing to leave, then asked for water.

• Bellavella recounted how the Shilin Apostles ignored the God Race’s warnings and created the Abyss while attempting to synthesize the Void.
• Sandora blamed the Empire’s arrogance, as well as the failed experiment, for its downfall.
• Bellavella explained that survivors built the Hall of Documents and Sanctuary, but contamination turned the watchers into Fallen Apostles.
• Bellavella said the Fallen Apostles remained loyal to an Abyssalized Empire and had voluntarily withdrawn from the world when they realized the danger.
• Bellavella advised the group to destroy Fallen Apostles, care for Silvia, and seek help from the God Race before appearing to depart.
• Bellavella reopened her eyes to ask for water, and the group offered her a meal.

After Bellavella disappeared, Silvia regained control of her body and chose to return to her dessert shop, while the Empire decided to ask the God Race to investigate the Great Disaster’s aftermath. The Empire Admiral reunited with the Resistance Army and announced victory, but the story left the fate of the many Resistance members with no surviving homeland unresolved.

• The group mourned Bellavella’s departure and reflected on what they had learned from her brief return to clarity.
• Silvia woke, remembered everything, and said she wanted to go home to her dessert shop rather than concern herself with the Empire.
• Older Sister and Sandora decided to ask the God Race to investigate Imperial remnants, and Older Sister dictated the request for Ding Dang to report.
• The Empire Admiral’s fleet reached the Resistance Army, and A Jun and Sandora announced that the heroes could celebrate their victory.
• The group considered how to help the Resistance members who had been stranded for generations, including those whose home civilizations had been destroyed.

After the World Liberation War, the Emperor arranged homes for the Pan-Galactic Civilization Community aboard Imperial Planetary Fortresses as their universe neared collapse. With resettlement complete, the fleet prepared to leave, and the Emperor and Sandora visited the Great Nebula to bid farewell to the vanished Empire’s final emperors.

• The Emperor learned that only ten percent of the drifters and their descendants could return to their original worlds, while their universe’s celestial system was nearing collapse.
• Fina delivered the Resistance Army’s declaration that its factions had dissolved into the Pan-Galactic Civilization Community, whose members chose to become the Empire’s Kindred.
• The Emperor offered the Community twenty Planetary Fortresses and other artificial star systems as homes for its roughly ninety billion people, and Fina accepted the Empire’s protection.
• The Community’s population settled aboard the Imperial warships, and Fina relinquished her position as Queen and decided to return to the Empire with the Emperor’s party.
• The Emperor walked through the temporary capital with Fina and a crowd of Three-Headed Suigintous before the fleet departed after the resettlement work was nearly complete.
• The Emperor and Sandora visited the Great Nebula, where Sandora said farewell to her old friends, and the Emperor resolved to share her burden until the Empire was revived.

The narrator returned to the Empire after the war and welcomed Fina and the other newcomers to Shadow City and Avalon. Fina was left marveling at Avalon’s beauty while Lilina’s fabricated religious lore continued to spread.

• The narrator arrived at Shadow Fortress Starport, where Anweina and Busujima Saeko welcomed him home, and he questioned Saeko’s decision to become a maid.
• The narrator led Fina and the returning group through Shadow City, explained its copied Earth-style buildings, and stopped Lilina from misleading Fina about what “copied” meant.
• A toy-sized Suigintou army marched through the plaza, and the narrator spotted the arrival of Titan Suigintou before taking Fina toward Avalon.
• The narrator brought Fina to Avalon, where she was captivated by the Fairy Forest and Fairy Lake, while he revealed that Lilina had invented the legends describing them.

After returning from an expedition, A Jun and the others inspected Avalon before going home, where Lin Xue arrived to confront him over the Death Star Fortress disaster. She agreed to wait until after dinner to settle the score.

• A Jun, Lilina, and Fina rode unicorns through Avalon and reached the Emerald Outpost after the unicorns detoured around a road they had blocked themselves.
• Ling Yin reported that Artemis was investigating noisy Pixies near Qingyin Town, and A Jun introduced Fina to the sentries.
• A Jun finished the return inspection, instructed Siweisi to arrange support for Aura and the Leader Bees, and returned to the Surface World with the group.
• A Jun napped at home, then combed Suigintou's hair and was bitten when he asked whether water got into her ball joints.
• Lin Xue arrived just as dinner began and warned A Jun that she would hold him accountable for the Death Star Fortress accident after she ate.

Lin Xue explained that the Red Moon Cube’s technologies were idealized constructs that distorted reality, and she warned Wood to treat them only as research references. After confessing that she had worried about him during the seventy-three days he was away, she kissed him, but the two struggled to say what they felt until Lilina arrived with news of a special envoy from the God Realm.

• Lin Xue told Wood that the Red Moon Cube made theoretical technologies appear real, which had caused Tawell’s Pure Energy Body experiment to collapse and destroy its Timeline.
• Lin Xue said the Cube’s surface-level data could still guide research, but warned Wood that its core Database remained dangerous.
• Lin Xue admitted she had worried about Wood throughout the seventy-three days he was away, and Wood kissed her.
• Wood and Lin Xue awkwardly avoided discussing their feelings until Lilina came onto the balcony and interrupted them.
• Lilina informed Wood that a High-level God Race Special Envoy would descend from the God Realm in a few days.

The narrator prepared for a Star Domain God envoy while reflecting on his growing closeness with Lin Xue and learning of a major discovery about the late Empire’s cube technology. Unable to sleep, he comforted Suigintou, who admitted she missed her sisters, and encouraged her to invite them over.

• Lilina took charge of preparations for the Star Domain God envoy and teased the narrator and Lin Xue about their awkward feelings.
• Lin Xue left after asking the narrator not to forget their encounter, and he later shared her discovery about the cube with Sandora.
• The narrator lay awake thinking about how his relationship with Lin Xue had grown more intimate.
• The narrator found Suigintou hiding in a box because she could not sleep, and she confessed that she missed Little Hui, Shinku, and the others.
• The narrator invited Suigintou’s friends to visit, and she eagerly accepted while pretending she only wanted Little Hui to come.

Qian Qian proposed opening the Time-Space Hub so friends and people from different worlds could gather, and Sandora turned the idea into a plan for a recurring interworld festival that would strengthen the Empire’s alliances. The gathering remained a proposal as the family planned to consult the Protoss envoys and prepare to receive them.

• Qian Qian suggested inviting friends and leaders from across the worlds to play together through the Time-Space Hub.
• Sandora argued that an interworld gathering would help the Empire’s vassal races share their histories, cultures, and military knowledge.
• Sandora explained that she wanted the Empire to avoid the Old Empire’s mistreatment of vassal civilizations, and the family agreed to take the proposal seriously.
• The family discussed inviting Imperial vassals and selected people from Macro Worlds, while proposing activities including a gala, sports meet, preaching, recruitment, and a children’s event.
• Sandora proposed turning the gathering into a recurring festival for cultural exchange, cooperation, and Imperial morale.
• Suigintou asked whether she could still invite her friends, and Sandora said the celebration preparations could wait until after the Empire received the Protoss envoys.

As the Empire waited for the Divine Realm’s envoy, Chen spent a quiet morning caring for Suigintou and waking Little Pao Pao and Jill. A delayed message forced the Empire to scramble together a welcoming party in Avalon, where a two-headed golden dragon descended and Ding Dang recognized it as Lin.

• Chen and Suigintou followed their morning routine, and Suigintou said she had sent letters to Shizaki Megumi and the others announcing their coming transfer.
• Chen found Jill asleep on the floor in Little Pao Pao’s treasure-filled room and carried the child downstairs for breakfast.
• Siweisi notified Chen that the God Race had arrived, while Sandora and Ding Dang discovered that the World Tree’s vibrate setting had delayed the message.
• Chen and the others hurried to Yu Ge Plains, where Artemis gathered the heroic spirits and the group rushed to prepare a welcoming party.
• A golden rift opened above Avalon, and a gigantic two-headed golden dragon emerged as the Divine Realm’s envoy.
• Ding Dang recognized the dragon as Lin, easing Chen’s fear that the envoy was her mortal enemy.

A God Realm delegation arrived in Avalon, but Dragon God Lin’s disastrous landing injured Ilson and devastated the welcoming party. The delegation revealed it had been sent because Ding Dang’s report was incomprehensible, leaving her embarrassed as Chen tried to comfort her.

• Ding Dang welcomed Lin, whose failed landing carved a canyon across Avalon and sent several Hall of Heroes warriors back to the Hall of Heroes.
• Viska, Ilson, Monina, Kenser, and Lin emerged from the crash site, and Viska reunited with Sandora and greeted Chen enthusiastically.
• Ding Dang introduced the delegation, and Monina tied up Ilson after he teased her about Ding Dang being Chen’s owner.
• Monina explained that the Pantheon had ordered the squad to investigate Ding Dang’s garbled report and that Father God had sent her a divine-language grammar textbook.
• Chen comforted the devastated Ding Dang by comparing her report-writing struggles to his own high-school essays.