Chapter Summaries

Lin Fan's Zero-Point Bomb annihilated the allied fleet attacking the A211 Defense Zone, and the Human Federation announced the destruction to the Viers Defense Line. Belter tried to confirm the report, but could not contact the expeditionary fleet.

• Trister's fleet detected a warship emerge from an anomalous area, then was torn apart by the Zero-Point Bomb's spatial rifts and compression, killing Trister and his crew.
• Lin Fan's forces sent an unmanned probe through the Stargate and confirmed the battlefield was filled with wreckage and had no life signals.
• Lin Fan ordered the Human Federation to warn the four Level 5 Civilizations that another attack could prompt strikes on their Capital Spheres.
• Belter's adjutant read the Federation's notice claiming it had annihilated the thirty-five-billion-warship allied fleet, leaving civilizations across the defense line stunned and doubtful.
• Belter ordered his adjutant to contact the expeditionary fleet, but they could not establish communications.

After the four Level 5 Civilization leaders debated humanity’s devastating attack, three alliances agreed to negotiate with Lin Fan while Verto refused. Lin Fan met the Big Three in a Virtual Meeting Room and exchanged friendly, guarded words with Xis, who hinted that their past dealings should remain secret.

• Verto protested humanity’s destruction of the allied fleet, but Moros and Hussein argued that Lin Fan’s announcement was an invitation to negotiate and warned that humanity could strike their Capital Spheres.
• Moros and Hussein agreed to negotiate with Lin Fan, and Xis reluctantly joined them while Verto refused to participate.
• The Big Three—Xio, Zola, and Freedom—invited Lin Fan to a Virtual Meeting Room without the Vera Alliance.
• Lin Fan accepted the invitation and told the Big Three to enter a meeting room in an hour.
• Xis greeted Lin Fan warmly and implied that their contact with Lin Zhen had begun only three years earlier, and Lin Fan played along while Moros and Hussein looked confused.

Lin Fan demanded command of the Viers Defense Line and offered to close the Spatial Rift, claiming the Human Federation could succeed within three years. After the other leaders doubted Verto would surrender command, Lin Fan showed them a live image of Haiti and insisted Verto would agree.

• Lin Fan told Moros, Hussein, and Xis that he wanted command of the Viers Defense Line rather than territory or resources.
• Moros, Hussein, and Xis rejected Lin Fan’s demand and suggested making him Deputy Commander instead.
• Lin Fan claimed the Human Federation had nearly developed a way to close the Spatial Rift and could finish the project within three years.
• Hussein said he would agree to Lin Fan’s request but doubted Verto, who controlled command, would ever give it up.
• Lin Fan displayed a live image of Haiti, and Xis recognized the Vera Federation’s major trade hub near its Capital Sphere.
• Lin Fan told the doubtful leaders that Verto would agree.

Lin Fan showed Xis, Moros, and Hussein how the Human Federation used spatial technology to devastate Haiti before the Vera Federation fleet could arrive. Verto learned that Haiti had gone silent and ordered an investigation.

• Xis, Moros, and Hussein watched a Human Federation battleship emerge from a strange patch of space near Haiti.
• Lin Fan showed them spatial rifts swallowing spacecraft and part of a planet, then spatial compression began as a rift destroyed the surveillance device.
• Lin Fan told the stunned trio that the attack used advanced spatial technology and asked them to contact Verto about Haiti later.
• Verto received Xis's message and ordered his deputy to investigate Haiti after learning the Federation had lost all contact with it.
• Verto ordered the nearest spacecraft to Haiti to investigate and demanded a detailed report.

Lainer arrived in Haiti to investigate why the star system had lost contact with the Vera Federation and discovered that it had been devastated. He reported the destruction to Sarien, leaving the Federation facing the truth of Haiti’s disappearance.

• Sarien told Lainer that Haiti had lost contact with the Federation and asked him to investigate and report back.
• Lainer arrived at Haiti and found no starports or familiar signs of civilization around the designated coordinates.
• Lainer’s crew scanned the system and found wreckage, with only 32 of Haiti’s original 329 planets remaining, all destroyed.
• Lainer saw that a nearby Life Planet had been sliced apart and confirmed that Haiti had been destroyed.
• Lainer contacted Sarien and sent him the scan data, reporting that the entire Haiti was gone.

Lin Fan pressured Verto into recognizing the Human Federation as the Milky Way’s fifth overlord and handing over command of the Viers Defense Line. The agreement was signed and announced, leaving Lin Fan in charge of the war against the insectoids with three years to destroy their Spatial Rift.

• Verto reviewed Haiti intelligence and joined Lin Fan and the other three overlords in a Virtual Meeting Room.
• Lin Fan demanded recognition of the Orion Arm as Federation territory and command of the Viers Defense Line, threatening to withdraw humanity if the Four Overlords refused.
• Verto agreed to Lin Fan’s terms on condition that humanity leave the First Main Arm after the insectoid crisis, claim no territory in the Four Major Spiral Arms, and surrender command if the Spatial Rift remained after three years.
• Lin Fan and the four Level 5 Civilizations discussed the terms and signed a civilization agreement three hours later.
• The agreement made the Human Federation the Milky Way’s fifth overlord, granted it twenty percent of the voting rights in the Milky Way Supreme Council, and appointed Lin Fan commander of the Viers Defense Line.
• The announcement stirred civilizations across the Milky Way, and the Level 3 Civilizations on the Viers Defense Line respected Lin Fan for not sending them to die while he stayed behind.

Lin Fan explained his plan to reorganize the Viers Defense Line to Belt, assigning Level 4 and Level 5 Civilizations to the front while keeping some Level 3 forces in reserve. After Lin Fan announced the deployment, the higher-level civilizations objected, but their leaders ordered them to obey him.

• Lin Fan told Belt that Level 4 and Level 5 Civilizations would become the main forces in every defense zone, while Level 3 Civilizations would provide fire support and some would move to headquarters as reserves.
• Belt warned Lin Fan that the four major alliances might resist and that Level 3 fleets were too slow to reinforce the front quickly.
• Lin Fan said the Level 5 Civilizations would not dare defy him for at least three years and revealed that the Human Federation could deploy fleets to any defense zone within minutes.
• Lin Fan released the new deployment plan the next day, drawing objections from nearly all Level 4 and Level 5 Civilizations and celebration from Level 3 Civilizations.
• The higher-level civilizations appealed to their leaders, but each received the same instruction: obey Commander Lin Fan.

After a month of reduced casualties under Lin Fan’s command, the Big Four feared humanity’s Spatial Teleportation Technology and yielded to its demands. At the Viers Defense Line, two Super Swarms threatened A211, and Lin Fan prepared to lead reinforcements to the front despite Bert’s objections.

• Lin Fan told Bert that humanity’s Stargates had a maximum range of 100,000 light-years, concealing their true range of one million, and the Big Four grew too frightened to resist his demands.
• Lin Tian invited Bilodis to Earth to meet his parents after the insect race was defeated, and Bilodis agreed.
• An alarm revealed a one-trillion-bug Super Swarm advancing on A211, and Lin Tian ordered a reinforcement request and battle preparations.
• A second one-trillion-bug Super Swarm appeared, bringing the total threat to two trillion bugs.
• Lin Fan ordered Level 4 and Level 5 fleets and 100 billion Level 3 warships to prepare to depart, but Bert objected to Lin Fan going to the front himself.

Socrates sent two Hybrid Swarms to investigate why Zerg casualties had risen while Allied Forces losses had fallen, and Lin Fan personally took command at A211 Defense Zone. As the Zerg approached, they formed fleet-like assault formations, confirming Lin Fan’s suspicion that an Intelligent Zerg was directing them.

• Socrates dispatched two Hybrid Swarms to probe A211 Defense Zone after the Zerg’s attacks became less effective.
• Lin Fan rejected Bert’s offer to take his place and traveled to A211 Defense Zone with a massive reinforcement fleet.
• Lin Fan ordered Lin Tian to move the defense line forward and create a safe zone for arriving reinforcements.
• Lin Fan arranged three defense lines, placing Level 5 warships at the front, Level 4 and Level 5 forces behind them, and Level 3 warships in the rear.
• Lin Fan observed the two Zerg swarms form assault formations and concluded that an Intelligent Zerg was commanding them.

Socrates tried to command two trillion Zerg in assault formations, while Lin Fan and Lin Tian lured the swarms together and used the Gonggong’s Gamma Ray Cannon against them. The cannon’s sweep annihilated an estimated seventy billion bugs, leaving a vast empty corridor through the swarm.

• Socrates struggled to command two trillion war bugs and left half of them following the bugs he directly controlled.
• Lin Fan ordered the First Legion to charge through the gap between the two Zerg swarms as Lin Tian arranged the attack.
• Socrates ordered the swarms to encircle the First Legion, but it accelerated out of the trap before matching the Zergs’ speed again.
• Lin Fan had Liang Xue calculate a firing path for the Gonggong’s Gamma Ray Cannon and warned the Third Legion to clear the area.
• The Gonggong swept its Gamma Ray beam across the Zerg swarm, killing an estimated seventy billion bugs before its emitter components burned out.

Socrates recognized Gonggong’s Gamma Ray Cannon as a threat and sent five Hybrid Swarms toward the A211 Defense Zone. Lin Fan used Gonggong as bait, surrounding it with Bilodis’s fleet and one-way Energy Shield modules to keep the Zerg focused on the warship while Federation forces prepared to attack.

• Socrates witnessed Gonggong’s Gamma Ray Cannon destroy Zerg and judged the warship the greatest threat.
• Socrates awakened five nearby Hybrid Swarms and sent them toward the A211 Defense Zone.
• Lin Fan ordered Bilodis’s First Fleet to escort Gonggong toward the first defensive line and directed Level 4 Civilization fleets to prepare to attack.
• Bilodis’s fleet formed a tight escort around Gonggong and reached the first defensive line before the two Super Swarms could catch up.
• Lin Fan had 2,785 one-way Energy Shield modules deployed around Gonggong to make it appear shielded and tempt the Intelligent Zerg to attack.
• Lin Fan ordered the remaining modules readied as the two Super Swarms closed to within five million kilometers.

Socrates’s Zerg swarms struggled to breach Lin Fan’s layered defensive formation until he devised a way to use tightly packed War Bug Aggregates to force their way between the warships. The first aggregate reached the Gonggong and scattered its bugs toward Lin Fan’s personal warship.

• Socrates focused the Zerg assault on the Titan-class Gonggong, while his swarms’ attacks failed to penetrate the Federation’s Spatial Shields.
• The Zerg swarms pounced on Lin Fan’s tightly packed first defensive line, but its close-defense systems and the Level 4 fleets’ outer fire held them back.
• After three hours without progress and heavy Zerg losses, Socrates ordered the bugs to form spherical War Bug Aggregates.
• Ten million aggregates charged between the warships, where the fleet’s close-defense systems could not destroy them quickly enough.
• The first War Bug Aggregate reached the Gonggong, scattered apart, and sent its War Bugs rushing toward Lin Fan’s personal warship.

Lin Fan kept the bug swarms focused on Gonggong while the Federation’s second line of defense continued destroying them. When barrier modules began running out of energy, Combat Bugs slipped through a gap during a replacement, and Socrates ordered the swarms to attack the warship through it.

• Lin Fan had the barrier modules replaced in rotation and ordered Greed Wolf Mechs and the Space Knight Corps to guard each breach.
• As Combat Bugs battered Gonggong’s barriers, Module E1752 ran low on energy and its replacement operation began.
• A Combat Bug cut through the weakened barrier, and three nearby Combat Bugs entered through the opening.
• Socrates saw the breach and ordered all nearby War Bugs to enter it and destroy Gonggong.

Gonggong’s forces fought to keep the energy barrier sealed as the insect attack intensified, while Lin Fan’s fleet held the first line for three days. Socrates realized the scale of its losses and summoned five Hybrid Swarms, which Lin Fan had anticipated were approaching.

• A squad of Greedy Mechs and Cosmic Knights killed three Combat Bugs that entered through a barrier breach before the replacement module sealed it.
• As more barrier modules needed replacement, Gonggong’s defenders fought increasingly large numbers of Combat Bugs, and one breach required three squadrons to seal at the cost of three mechs and five Cosmic Knights.
• After three days, Lin Fan and Bilodis’s First Fleet still held the first line, while the insect race had lost more than a trillion forces and over half its total strength.
• Socrates recognized that most of its losses came from the enemy’s second line of defense and remembered that five Hybrid Swarms were nearing the battlefield.
• Lin Fan learned that five Super Swarms were 5 AU away from the A211 Defense Zone and expected to arrive in one day.

Lin Fan drew Zerg reinforcements toward the A211 Defense Zone and had the First Legion stage a desperate attempt to rescue the Gonggong. The act convinced Socrates to tighten the siege, while the First Legion appeared to break apart under the swarm’s attack.

• Lin Fan ordered six nearby Star System Legions to gather near the A211 Defense Zone, with five assigned to attack separate swarms and the arriving Eighth Legion sent to the second line of defense.
• Lin Tian led the First Legion toward the Gonggong to make Socrates believe the Federation was trying to rescue the besieged ship.
• The Zerg formed a Bug Wall of over one hundred billion War Bugs in front of the First Legion and surrounded its formation.
• Lin Tian ordered the First Legion to fire on the Bug Wall and have its outer ships intercept the encroaching War Bugs.
• The swarm breached the First Legion’s formation, which collapsed and scattered into separate groups.
• Lin Fan and Liang Xue watched the apparent rout and praised Lin Tian’s convincing performance.

Lin Fan exploited Socrates’s focus on the Gonggong to delay the enemy reinforcements while the First Legion staged a slow regrouping. The First Legion recovered its formation and launched another assault into the swarm.

• Lin Tian ordered the First Legion to regroup five million kilometers behind the swarm, while requiring its commanders to take at least three hours.
• Lin Fan concluded that Socrates was focused on the A211 battlefield and ordered the five intercepting legions to draw the reinforcement swarms away from the defense zone.
• The five legions kept the swarms engaged while moving away from A211, and Socrates continued attacking the Gonggong without noticing the deception.
• The First Legion’s commanders staged mishaps and confusion to stretch its regrouping to three and a half hours, then slowly restored the fleet’s formation.
• Lin Tian ordered another assault, and three minutes later the First Legion charged into the swarm again.

Lin Fan lured Socrates's swarm into pursuit, then unleashed the Gonggong's Gamma Ray Cannon against the tightly packed bugs. The attack destroyed more than 190 billion warbugs, leaving fewer than 100 billion of Socrates's forces combat-ready.

• After five days of fighting, Lin Fan ordered the Gonggong to shut down its energy barriers, activate its Spatial Shield, and charge the Gamma Ray Cannon.
• Socrates formed a massive Bug Wall to block the Gonggong, but Lin Fan's fleet and the First Legion blasted a path through it.
• The Gonggong and Bilodis's fleet broke through the Bug Wall and sped away, drawing the swarm into pursuit.
• Lin Fan stopped the Gonggong once the pursuing bugs had stretched into a long line, and Socrates's swarm closed in around it.
• The Gonggong fired its Gamma Ray Cannon and swept its beam across the pursuing swarm, destroying more than 190 billion warbugs.

Lin Fan’s allied fleet crushed Socrates’s remaining war bugs after five and a half days of fighting in the A211 Defense Zone. The battle ended in victory, but Lin Fan suspected the Zerg had withdrawn their reinforcements to gather a larger force for another assault.

• The allied fleet assembled more than 70 billion warships, stripping the Zerg of their numerical advantage against fewer than 100 billion remaining war bugs.
• Socrates abandoned the doomed bugs and discovered that five reinforcing Hybrid Swarms had been lured three days away from the battlefield.
• Lin Fan ordered the allied fleet to attack and told the interception corps to stop pursuing the withdrawing reinforcements.
• The allied forces encircled and destroyed the remaining Zerg, losing roughly 300,000 warships during the final counterattack.
• After the victory, Lin Fan warned that the Zerg might be gathering more swarms to overwhelm the A211 Defense Zone in a single assault.

Lin Fan confirmed that an Intelligent Zerg commanded the swarms and planned to locate and assassinate it using a Zero-Point Bomb. As Belt organized a rapid search across the spiral arm, Lin Fan ordered the defense zones to expand their reconnaissance range ahead of the Zerg’s expected attack.

• Lin Fan told Belt that he had confirmed an Intelligent Zerg could command swarms broadly or control about one trillion battle bugs precisely.
• Lin Fan proposed dividing the end of the First Main Arm into regions and using Interstellar Gates to search each region within three months for the Intelligent Zerg.
• Belt agreed to organize the search, while Lin Fan planned to destroy the Intelligent Zerg’s star system with a Zero-Point Bomb once its location was found.
• Lin Fan anticipated the Intelligent Zerg would soon launch a major assault on the A211 Defense Zone and judged the current 5 AU reconnaissance range inadequate.
• Lin Fan ordered Liang Xue to have military factories produce surveillance devices and expand every defense zone’s monitoring range to 50 AU within one month.

Lin Fan concentrated forces and defenses around the A211 Defense Zone while preparing for the insect race’s expected largest attack. As exploration continued, a combat readiness alarm sounded aboard the Gonggong, signaling the anticipated threat may have arrived.

• Lin Fan positioned eleven Federal Fleets, 115 billion warships, and hundreds of billions of withdrawn garrison ships around the A211 Defense Zone.
• The Federation completed surveillance coverage across every defense zone, while the A211 Defense Zone finished deploying its Warp Interruption Devices ahead of schedule.
• Bert reported that exploration had covered nearly one-fifth of the area without finding unusual insect race units and said the remaining reinforcements would arrive in twelve days.
• Lin Fan told Bert that the insect race had stopped attacking because it was gathering its forces for an assault on the A211 Defense Zone.
• The combat readiness alarm rang throughout the Gonggong.