Recaps

Lin Fan ordered Lin Yu to bring the First Legion of the Nether Fleet to reinforce Elio’s Fifth Attack Group, prompting Elio to abandon his assault plan and tighten his defenses. Meanwhile, Akat’s phased high-tier Stealth Blade Bugs advanced undetected toward the Federal fleet, leaving the attack group in growing danger.

• Lin Fan ordered Lin Yu to lead a Nether Fleet legion to the Fifth Attack Group and support it if the battle changed.
• Elio received the warning that Lin Yu would arrive in seventeen minutes and redirected the 28th Fleet Group to reinforce the defenses.
• Elio contracted the defensive perimeter and ordered the fleets to maintain rapid, wave-based fire rather than pursue the Royal Guard Bug.
• Federal fire passed harmlessly through the undetected Stealth Blade Bug swarms, while Akat confirmed their phased abilities protected them from conventional attacks.
• Akat’s high-tier Stealth Blade Bugs continued closing on the Fifth Attack Group, ready to infiltrate its formation and strike at close range.

Elio sensed a hidden threat and ordered Phase Bombs deployed across the Fifth Attack Group’s defensive formation while Stant’s Zerg assault drew the fleet’s fire. As the high-rank Stealth Blade Bugs approached, Lin Yu’s First Legion of the Nether Fleet secretly arrived inside the formation.

• Elio connected his unease to the possibility of Zerg war bugs that could phase shift and ordered Phase Bombs placed to cover the entire fleet formation.
• Elio’s Fifth Attack Group poured fire into ten Royal Guard Bug Super Swarms, destroying many before they reached the defensive perimeter.
• Stant used the Royal Guard Bugs to draw attention while three high-rank Stealth Blade Bug Super Swarms advanced toward the fleet.
• Akat told the other Brood Queen that the Stealth Blade Bugs would bare their fangs within three minutes.
• Lin Yu secretly brought the First Legion of the Nether Fleet into the center of the Fifth Attack Group’s formation.

Lin Yu realized that Aliya’s Royal Guard Bug attacks were bait for an unseen threat and suspected she had developed Stealth Blade Bugs capable of shifting phases. He and Elio prepared Phase Bombs for empty areas where the hidden bugs might be lurking, and the bombs began detonating.

• Lin Yu told Elio that the Zerg’s costly Royal Guard Bugs seemed to be serving as bait for a hidden attack.
• After Elio reported that scans had found nothing, Lin Yu considered whether Stealth Blade Bugs could evade detection.
• Lin Yu recalled Lin Fan’s warning that the Zerg might field upgraded war bugs and suspected phase-shifting Stealth Blade Bugs.
• Lin Yu shared his theory with Elio, and the Fifth Attack Group deployed Phase Bombs in empty areas where the hidden bugs might be.
• The crew released the Phase Bombs’ safety locks and began their detonation sequence.

Elio’s fleet used Phase Bombs to detect the hidden Stealth Blade Bug swarm, destroying its vanguard and revealing that the Zerg were dangerously close. Elio ordered more bombs prepared and authorized immediate detonations if any bugs appeared within the formation.

• Akat watched through a Stealth Blade Bug’s shared vision as the Federal Fleet suddenly disappeared, then realized the swarm was farther away than he had thought.
• The Federal Fifth Attack Group detonated more than a dozen Phase Bombs, which affected the Phased State without visible effects in the main phase.
• The scan of Phase Bomb Number Twelve’s detonation zone detected Stealth Blade Bugs 950,000 kilometers from the fleet, and the blast wiped out the bugs within its kill radius.
• Elio recognized that the swarm remained a serious threat and ordered Phase Bombs launched at the detected area and surrounding space.
• Elio ordered the Phase Bombs already positioned throughout the fleet to detonate without authorization if bugs appeared inside the formation.

Elio’s fleet used Phase Bombs to locate and destroy the Stealth Blade Bug Super Swarm, while Akat and Stant ordered a retreat. As the surviving bugs regrouped, Lin Yu’s Nether Fleet struck Akat with a Dark Energy beam.

• Akat realized Phase Bombs had devastated the Stealth Blade Bug swarm and told Stant that humans had found them.
• Elio’s staff modeled the swarm and prepared a plan to destroy it with 181,275 Phase Bombs.
• Elio’s fleet deployed the bombs, annihilating ninety-nine percent of the Stealth Blade Bugs.
• Akat and Stant ordered the surviving Stealth Blade Bugs and Royal Guard Bugs to withdraw.
• A warship appeared behind Akat and swallowed him in a silver-white Dark Energy beam.

A human fleet killed Akat and crippled Stant with concentrated Dark Energy attacks. As Stant was dragged into a crimson Spatial Rift, Bai Xuan destroyed the part of him still outside, then ordered the fleet to fire on the rift.

• A hidden human warship killed Akat with a Dark Energy beam, and Stant realized he needed to flee.
• Stant began opening a Bug Nest Channel, but a human fleet appeared nearby and fired more than a hundred million beams at him and his Guard Bugs.
• The barrage destroyed Stant’s Guard Bugs and left Stant gravely wounded, but a crimson Spatial Rift appeared and began pulling him inside.
• Bai Xuan completed her Dark Energy Matrix and struck Stant, destroying the half of his body still outside the rift.
• Bai Xuan ordered the fleet to concentrate fire on the crimson Spatial Rift, and one hundred million beams struck it simultaneously.

Bai Xuan concluded that the Nether Fleet had killed Stant by shattering the rift after its devastating attack. Aliya returned to the Zerg with Stant’s mutilated body, but after her blood drove Samiras toward madness, she attacked him with a powerful Dark Energy beam.

• Bai Xuan declared the Imperial Bug dead and ordered the final rift and its data sent to the New Melos.
• The Imperial Bugs recognized the scarlet rift as Aliya’s return, then watched Stant’s mutilated body emerge from it.
• Aliya emerged from the rift severely injured and spat out red blood that drew Samiras toward her.
• Aliya formed a Dark Energy Matrix and waited as Samiras approached her blood, hoping not to harm a fellow Imperial Bug.
• When Samiras was about to swallow her blood, Aliya fired a destructive silver-white beam at him, causing space to collapse along its path.

Aliya killed Samiras and recovered while Lin Yu investigated the crimson Dark Energy rift and reported his findings. The Federation continued its campaign in the Neumann System, but the defensive battle at the current in Heres remained dangerous as Silas Empire warships inflicted steady losses.

• Aliya killed Samiras, then used Dark Energy to heal her wounds and reflected that he would have become a mindless beast if he had consumed her blood.
• The Nether Fleet and Fifth Attack Group destroyed eight stranded Super Swarms, while Lin Yu detected that the crimson rift had been formed using Dark Energy and sent his suspicions and battle data to headquarters.
• Lin Fan kept the Federation’s ten attack groups on their planned offensive and retained Lin Yu’s Nether Fleet as a mobile reserve.
• Over the next three days, Aliya’s absence left the Royal Bugs unwilling to command the insect forces, allowing the Federation to dominate the battlefields across the Neumann System.
• At the current in Heres, Silas Empire warships continued scattered Dark Energy counterattacks, causing losses among the defending fleets, especially the Elf and Angel Fleets.

The Federation struggled to hold the Heres front as the angel and elven fleets suffered millions of losses, so Lin Fan arranged for Zi Ling to reinforce them. Meanwhile, Zi Ling prepared to leave the Minor Universe with the Tarak Civilization, which had produced a second S-Class Dark Energy Manipulator, Zi Lian.

• The angel and elven fleets lost more than four million warships each while helping suppress the Silas Empire's fleet at Heres.
• Liang Xue suggested rotating the battered fleets out, but Lin Fan judged that moving forces between Heres and Neumann would leave the front vulnerable to Aliya.
• Lin Fan learned that Zi Ling's transport fleet would arrive soon and ordered her to take the Lancer Ship to Heres after leaving the Minor Universe.
• Zi Ling protected the Tarak Civilization as it recovered over nearly a thousand years, though the limited territory and resources left it with only a few million warships.
• Zi Ling's guidance helped Zi Lian become the Tarak Civilization's second S-Class Dark Energy Manipulator, though she lacked the Federation equipment needed to match Zi Ling and Lin Yu's combat strength.

Zi Ling evacuated the Tarak Civilization from the Minor Universe and departed to reinforce Heres, where the Angel Fleet faced mounting losses against the Silas Empire. Her arrival aboard the Lancer promised to keep the enemy’s fleet at the Current Mouth below a million warships.

• Zi Ling learned that Heres was in danger and resolved to finish evacuating the Tarak Civilization before going to support it.
• After more than a year had passed in the Minor Universe, nearly eight million Tarak warships and spacecraft emerged through the rift, and Zi Ling left them in Commander Chu Tian’s care.
• At Heres, Commander Aierfei told the Angel Fleet’s anxious staff that reinforcements would arrive within half an hour.
• Aierfei revealed that the reinforcement was not an attack group but the Lancer, Vice Commander Zi Ling’s personal vessel.
• Aierfei explained that Zi Ling’s full-power strikes could devastate gathered Silas warships and keep their numbers below one million.

Silas Empire general Selter emerged from the Current Mouth with a Tenth Order war star and learned that the vanguard fleet had been devastated by Lin Kexin’s forces. Lin concentrated a massive attack on the war star, but it retaliated with a destructive beam that forced Wang Hai to raise his Dark Energy Shield.

• Selter emerged at the Current Mouth and found wreckage from the vanguard fleet surrounding its few remaining warships.
• Selter read the vanguard’s reports and learned that they had faced another Ninth Order Technological Civilization with powerful Dark Energy Users and an overwhelming defensive position.
• Selter ordered the remaining vanguard ships to raise their Dark Energy Shields and prepare their main cannon as his Tenth Order war star entered the battle.
• Lin Kexin concentrated hundreds of millions of attacks on Selter’s war star, engulfing it in silver-white light.
• The war star fired a silver-white beam toward the Nether Fleet, and Wang Hai raised a powerful Dark Energy Shield to meet it.

Wang Hai’s Nether Fleet blocked a devastating attack from Selus’s battle star, but the strike destroyed more than three hundred warships and ended the fleet’s record of zero losses. Wang Hai and Lin Kexin agreed to keep up continuous attacks until the Vice Commander arrived, while Selter suspected the humans’ strength came from their people rather than their ships.

• Wang Hai raised two Dark Energy Shields to block the battle star’s attack, but its spreading energy destroyed more than three hundred Nether Fleet warships.
• Wang Hai learned the attack had reached the third tier of A-Class and warned Lin Kexin that the battle star had to be restrained before it could target the other fleets.
• Wang Hai proposed seamless, continuous attacks on the battle star, and Lin Kexin agreed.
• Selter learned that only one human warship had withstood the attack and suspected the humans’ Dark Energy abilities came from their people.

Selter’s battle star endured a concentrated attack from more than ten billion Federation warships by diverting its Dark Energy supply to a powerful shield. After the barrage failed to break through, Selter ordered the main cannon charged to target the other fleets and secure a safer landing zone for the Silas Empire’s reinforcements.

• Selter learned that the Federation’s Dark Energy User was at least Ninth Order, though he did not believe the opponent was the one who had killed Hager.
• Selter ordered his warships to stop charging the main cannon and divert Dark Energy to the battle star’s shield as nearly all enemy warships prepared to fire.
• More than ten billion warships struck the battle star, but its shield remained at 97–98% integrity.
• Selter ordered the main cannon recharged and changed its target from the human fleet to the other fleets.
• The attack ended, and Selter’s crew began redirecting energy and charging the main cannon.

Selter kept his battle star protected while the Silas Empire fleet attacked the Dauntless Fleet, inflicting catastrophic losses. As Selter’s forces gathered at the Current Mouth, a Tenth Order Dark Energy Matrix appeared nearby, shocking him.

• Selter stopped charging his battle star’s main cannon and redirected its energy to strengthen the Dark Energy Shield while ordering his fleet to attack the human defenses.
• Lin Kexin and Wang Hai concentrated the Nether Legions’ attacks on Selter’s battle star and pulled the elf and angel fleets behind the Dauntless Fleet.
• The Silas Empire fleet attacked the Dauntless Fleet, destroying tens of thousands of warships in its first volley and more than one million within three minutes.
• Selter learned that his assembled fleet had grown to twenty-two million warships and ordered it to keep gathering toward one hundred million.
• Selter received a report of a Tenth Order Dark Energy Matrix reaction nearby and exclaimed that it was impossible.

Selter prepared the Silas Empire’s forces for a likely Tenth Order attack, while Zi Ling led the Lancer’s assault on his war star. Zi Ling’s focused Dark Energy Cannon shattered the war star’s shield and struck its outer shell.

• Selter learned that evasion was nearly impossible and ordered the war star to power its Dark Energy Shield while the crew prepared for impact.
• Zi Ling brought Zi Luo aboard the Lancer to experience a Federal battlefield and serve with the Federation.
• The Lancer exited hyperspace into a battlefield filled with attacks, and Zi Ling shielded the ship from a direct strike.
• Zi Ling constructed 101 Dark Energy Matrices and fired a Focused Dark Energy Cannon at Selter’s war star.
• Zi Ling’s cannon overwhelmed the war star’s Dark Energy Shield and struck its outer shell.

Zi Ling destroyed the Selus battle star and helped the Federation suppress the enemy at the Current Mouth. After Lin Fan learned Aliya’s location, he began assembling a force for a final campaign against the Zerg and sought ways to counter her Crimson Channel.

• Zi Ling’s attack shattered the Selus battle star, killing its survivors and destroying nearby warships in the resulting Spatial Collapse.
• Lin Kexin ordered the fleets to reestablish a firepower net, and the Federation quickly suppressed the Cyrus Fleet at the Current Mouth.
• Lin Fan learned that a reconnaissance ship had found Aliya alongside at least fourteen Imperial Bugs, but the ship self-destructed before its crew could be captured.
• Lin Fan ordered each assault group to secretly redeploy ten percent of its fleet to rendezvous with Lin Yu’s Nether Fleet at Alternative Coordinate Sixteen.
• Liang Xingchen reported that Lin Yu’s team had found three possible ways to suppress the Crimson Channel and continued running simulations.

Lin Yu secretly gathered the Nether Legions while Aliya recovered and discovered the Federation’s fleets had been disappearing from the front lines. The Federation launched a surprise attack in the Lombard Arm, but newly revealed Zerg war bugs shielded their swarms from most of the Zero-Point Missiles.

• Lin Yu oversaw the final stages of assembling the seven Nether Legions at a hidden location in the Neumann System.
• Aliya awoke after four days and found that her evolution had advanced to at least the mid-stage of the eighth order.
• Aliya checked the battlefronts and realized the human fleets had lost about ten percent of their forces, suggesting they had secretly redeployed.
• Aliya ordered the Zerg swarms to retreat, but Federal fleets emerged from hyperspace across the Lombard Arm and launched 78,125 Zero-Point Missiles.
• Bai Xuan reported that strange Zerg war bugs had formed Dark Energy Shields to protect their swarms, reducing the first strike’s effectiveness to 17% of its projected value.

Lin Yu’s fleet launched a surprise attack on Aliya’s forces, but Dark Energy Protectors shielded most of the war bugs. With retreat impossible, Aliya ordered an all-out assault while Lin Yu deployed Nether Legions to target the Protectors and kept two legions hidden; Aliya then spotted Nether Fleets on every battlefield.

• Aliya deployed Dark Energy Protectors to shield the bug swarms from Lin Yu’s surprise attack, limiting the fleet’s results and reducing bug losses.
• Aliya discovered that transport abilities were unusable and ordered the bug swarms to attack the human fleet.
• Lin Yu sent the Third through Seventh Legions to support the five fleet groups and ordered them to focus on the Dark Energy Protectors, while keeping the First and Second Legions hidden.
• Aliya watched the battle, hoping to draw out the Nether Fleet and create an opening for her final trump card.
• Aliya noticed Nether Fleets appearing on every battlefield.

The Nether Fleet turned the battle against Aliya’s forces, but Qin Tian suspected the easy victory was a trap. Aliya sent ninety-eight powerful Star Punishers toward his fleet cluster, and their energy signatures began rising as they prepared to attack.

• The five Nether Legions arrived and rapidly destroyed the Dark Energy Protectors, leaving the bug swarms exposed to the Federation’s conventional fleet.
• Aliya chose to deploy her ninety-eight Star Punishers, powerful war bugs cultivated from the genes of Heger and other Purgatory Creatures.
• Qin Tian warned his fleet cluster to stay alert, suspecting that Aliya had not yet revealed the bug race’s true high-end combat power.
• Qin Tian’s forces detected ninety-eight unknown high-energy signatures approaching from seven AU away, and he requested that the Nether Third Legion intercept them.
• When the signatures began rapidly increasing, Qin Tian ordered his fleets to disperse and requested defensive support from the Nether Third Legion.

Qin Tian’s fleet suffered heavy losses when Aliya’s ninety-eight near-Eighth-Order war bugs attacked, while Lin Fan decided to deploy the untested Doomsday Bomb. The chapter ended with Lin Fan ordering Wei to bring the weapon to the battlefront as he prepared to use it against the insectoid race.

• The Star Arbiters attacked ninety-eight different points in Qin Tian’s formation, destroying more than eighty Nether Fleet warships and over two hundred thousand Federal warships.
• Commander Lawrence offered half the Nether Third Legion to help eliminate the Star Arbiters and transferred temporary command of the rest to Qin Tian.
• Lin Fan and Liang Xingchen agreed that Aliya had to be stopped before the insectoid race could grow stronger.
• Lin Fan decided to use the untested Doomsday Bomb, and Liang Xingchen agreed to support him.
• Lin Fan ordered Wei to cancel the bomb’s scheduled test and transport it to the battlefront.

Wei halted the Doomsday Bomb test and prepared to take the weapon to Allied Headquarters after receiving Lin Fan’s emergency order. In the Lombard Arm, Qin Tian and Lawrence struggled against the Star Arbiters, then accepted Headquarters’ order to prepare to evacuate.

• Wei received Lin Fan’s order to suspend the Doomsday Bomb test and send the weapon to Allied Headquarters.
• Lawrence’s fleet suffered heavy losses while pursuing the elusive Star Arbiters, who also struck Qin Tian’s fleet formation repeatedly.
• Qin Tian objected to Headquarters’ order to prepare to evacuate the Lombard Arm because the Federation had already lost millions of warships.
• Lawrence reminded Qin Tian that commanders had to obey orders even when they did not understand their purpose, and Qin Tian accepted the reminder.

Lin Yu joined Qin Tian and Lawrence’s battlefield to strengthen the containment of the Star Arbiters while Lin Fan prepared to test the Doomsday Bomb against the insect race’s main force. The chapter left the Federal fleets set to begin withdrawing from the Neumann System in thirty minutes.

• Lin Yu recognized Lin Fan’s order as a plan to test the Doomsday Bomb in battle and decided to reinforce Qin Tian’s battlefield himself.
• Lin Yu left Bai Xuan in command of his fleet and ordered him to withdraw immediately when the Marshal’s retreat order arrived.
• After reaching the battlefield, Lin Yu told Lawrence and Qin Tian that seven other Nether Legion commanders were assembling to help contain the Star Arbiters.
• Lin Fan told Wei to prepare the Doomsday Bomb for deployment in the Lombard Arm and assured her that Federal fleets would leave the Neumann System first.
• Lin Fan ordered Liang Xue to notify every fleet in the Neumann System to begin withdrawing in thirty minutes.

Lin Yu and the Legion Commanders hunted Star Arbiters while the Federation prepared to retreat and deploy the Doomsday Bomb. Aliya recalled her Star Arbiters, giving Lin Yu an unexpected chance to escape as the evacuation deadline approached.

• Lin Yu learned that six minutes remained before the emergency evacuation deadline and that the Doomsday Bomb had entered the Space Teleportation Channel.
• Lin Yu and the seven Legion Commanders struggled to locate and kill the Star Arbiters, which concealed themselves and adapted to their traps.
• Aliya questioned why the Federation was retreating, then ordered all Star Arbiters to return to base rather than continue fighting.
• The Star Arbiters suddenly fled from Lin Yu, removing the danger that would have threatened the fleet while its shields were down.
• Lin Yu ordered everyone to activate their Hyperspace Engines and head for Expeditionary Force Headquarters.

The Doomsday Bomb’s Knox Particles spread through the Lombard Arm, killing the Zerg in vast numbers until Aliya herself succumbed. Lin Fan’s unmanned probes confirmed that the warbugs, king bugs, royal bugs, and Aliya were all dead.

• Thirty minutes after the Doomsday Bomb detonated, low-tier warbugs began losing control of their bodies and dying by the quadrillions.
• Aliya failed to identify the strange energy killing her forces, and the symptoms spread from high-tier warbugs to king bugs and eventually to her.
• Aliya contacted Lin Fan through the Dark Energy Network and demanded to know what he had done, but Lin Fan refused to answer before the connection went silent.
• Lin Fan ordered unmanned probes sent throughout the Lombard Arm, and their footage showed motionless, lifeless bugs everywhere.
• Lin Fan and Liang Xue spotted thousands of dead king bugs and planet-sized royal bugs before finding Aliya’s lifeless body drifting in the void.

After three days of research, Wei sent an unmanned ship into the Knox Particle-filled Lombard Arm to recover Aliya’s body. The recovery succeeded, but the ship’s operator discovered that Aliya might not be completely dead.

• The Federation’s fleets began clearing the leaderless Zerg while Wei’s research ship approached the Lombard Arm.
• Wei’s unmanned research ship entered the corpse-filled starfield and found Aliya beside the King Zerg and Emperor Zerg.
• The operator deployed a Knox Particle isolation coffin and carefully captured Aliya with a mechanical arm.
• The operator noticed unexpected data and told Wei that Aliya seemed not to be completely dead.