Chapter Summaries

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.

Wei ordered Aliya, whose body retained a faint life force despite severe cellular mutation, transported for study under Knox Particle isolation. At Heres, Lin Yu’s forces crushed fleets emerging from the current, leaving Latis trapped between obeying Galon’s order to fight humanity and facing Galon’s punishment.

• Wei examined Aliya’s condition and ordered her placed in a Knox Particle Isolation Device for study, with an entire galaxy to be sealed around her if she recovered.
• Ao arranged for Aliya’s body to be loaded into the Crystal Coffin and taken to an unmanned research ship for isolation treatment.
• Lin Yu’s seven Nether Legions forced the angels and elves to withdraw and destroyed Silas Empire fleets as they emerged at Heres.
• The Sallamo Republic’s fleet remained trapped in the current behind the Silas Empire, knowing it would face the same defeat once it emerged.
• Latis realized that the Zilun Empire could not commit enough fleets against humanity and that he either had to continue Galon’s campaign or wait for Galon to punish him.

Galon revealed that he had sent the Silas Empire and Sallamo Republic against humanity to weaken the Zilun Empire and use humanity as a tool to eventually eliminate it. He sent Hypnos to pressure Latis into committing the Zilun fleet to the fight, and Hypnos confronted Latis over his failure to attack.

• Latis struggled to choose how much of the Zilun Empire's fleet to send against humanity, fearing both defeat and unrest at home.
• Galon explained to Hypnos and Douglas that he expected the Silas Empire and Sallamo Republic to fail and intended to use humanity to wear down the Zilun Empire.
• Galon ordered Hypnos to pressure Latis to advance against humanity, and Hypnos left to carry out the order.
• Hypnos arrived at the Nirnikai Civilization Council building and accused Latis of withholding the Zilun Empire's forces while the Silas Empire and Sallamo Republic fought humanity.
• Hypnos demanded that the Zilun Empire attack to avenge Hegg and reverse the current disadvantage.

After defeating the Silas Empire and Sallamo Republic fleets at Heres, the Federation began clearing the wreckage and building a massive defense network to secure the Current exit. Lin Fan also prepared a scouting mission through the Iskael Node, with Lin Yu appointed to command it.

• Latis agreed to send eighty percent of the empire's fleet to the Viers Supercluster after Hypnos pressured him, gaining three years to suppress opposition at home.
• The Federation annihilated the Sallamo Republic fleet at Heres, where wreckage from both defeated Ninth Order Civilizations filled the system.
• More than a thousand companies began clearing warship wreckage at Heres under Federation inspection and compensation rules.
• Lin Fan oversaw plans for a vast starry-sky defense network at Heres, including more than ten thousand disposable Focused Dark Energy Cannon platforms.
• The Federation dispatched micro fleets to Iskael and decided to scout the Bosnia Supercluster beyond the Current, appointing Lin Yu commander of the 3S-class mission.

A Federation fleet led by Lin Yu entered the Bosnia Supercluster and discovered that the Hilderic Star Cluster was controlled by the Crete Empire, a Seventh Order Technological Civilization. Lin Yu ordered the fleet to hide and gather intelligence, leaving the Crete garrison baffled by the fleet’s disappearance.

• The chapter described the Bosnia Supercluster’s 123 rival civilizations and the barriers that sealed its three Cosmic Current entrances, forcing civilizations to compete within the supercluster.
• A fleet of fewer than a hundred thousand warships emerged from the current into the Loert Star Domain, where the Crete Empire’s garrison demanded its affiliation and purpose.
• Lin Yu was surprised to find a Seventh Order Technological Civilization controlling the region and ordered the fleet not to respond, to activate stealth mode, and to infiltrate Crete warships for intelligence.
• The fleet vanished from every detection method, prompting the Crete garrison to search the area and question whether its systems had malfunctioned.
• The technical team infiltrated a warship database and obtained basic Star Chart information, and Lin Yu ordered them to stop before they risked alerting the Crete Empire.

Lin Yu’s fleet gathered intelligence on the Crete Empire and headed for its capital system to intimidate the Seventh Order civilization into becoming a Federation subordinate. The hundred thousand warships emerged from hyperspace near the capital planet, where Crete’s military prepared to identify them.

• Lin Yu learned that the Crete Empire controlled the Hilderic Star Cluster and that its capital was in the Losak System, reinforcing his conclusion that the Bosnia Supercluster was not the Purgatory Creatures’ lair.
• Lin Yu ordered his fleet to depart for the Losak System, intending to use intimidation rather than war to make Crete a Federation bridgehead.
• The fleet arrived in the Crete Empire’s prosperous Capital Sphere, where civilians mistook its hyperspace arrival for a returning military fleet.
• Salens, commander of the fleet stationed at the capital planet, discovered that no fleet was scheduled to arrive and ordered his forces to identify the approaching ships.
• Salens’s subordinates reported that the unknown fleet was coming.

A fleet of one hundred thousand unknown warships appeared in the Crete Empire’s Capital Sphere, while Emperor Charlie Crete’s ministers concluded that a previously vanished fleet might belong to a civilization far more advanced than theirs. Charlie recognized the ships in the new footage and reacted with alarm.

• Lin Yu admired the prosperous Crete Capital Sphere aboard the Melova and ordered his crew to request talks with the Empire’s upper echelons.
• Minister of Science Orlando told Charlie Crete that the vanished fleet was real and likely used stealth technology from an Eighth or Ninth Order Civilization.
• Charlie learned that an unidentified fleet had appeared in the Capital Sphere and approved Salens’s plan to capture its hundred thousand warships.
• Charlie asked to see footage of the unknown ships, and the conference hall gasped when it appeared.

Lin Yu met with Charlie after the Federation fleet appeared in the Bosnia Supercluster and demanded that the Crete Empire either fight the Federation or become an affiliated civilization. Charlie had locked down the Capital Sphere before the talks, and the chapter left him stunned by Lin Yu’s ultimatum.

• Charlie ordered Serens to stop trying to capture the unknown fleet and arrange talks with its leader after learning it claimed to be an Eighth Order civilization, the Human Federation.
• Charlie considered whether the Federation was trapped in the Bosnia Supercluster and prepared to cooperate with it or surrender if necessary.
• Charlie locked down the Capital Sphere, detaining nearby spacecraft, closing its Super Star Gates, and jamming civilian communications.
• A day later, Lin Yu met Charlie in a virtual venue and declared that the Bosnia Supercluster belonged to the Federation.
• Lin Yu offered the Crete Empire a choice between becoming an affiliated civilization and fighting the Federation, leaving Charlie stunned.

Lin Yu sent a team to investigate the Current Mouth after Charlie hinted at an abnormality, and they found a vast Dark Energy barrier sealing the route to the Viers Supercluster. The discovery suggested the puppet master might be a Tenth Order civilization, leaving Charlie fearing the Crete Empire could never escape its control as Lin Yu asked whether the barrier could be broken.

• Charlie asked Lin Yu whether he had found anything abnormal at the Current Mouth, so Lin Yu ordered Bai Xuan to send warships to investigate.
• Bai Xuan dispatched ten Nether Class Warships carrying B-Class Dark Energy Users and experts, who quickly reached the Loert Star Domain.
• Jiang Hao's team discovered a Dark Energy barrier covering the Current Mouth and judged that deploying one of such scale required a Tenth Order civilization or technology like the Federation's Dark Energy Auxiliary Calculation Technology.
• Jiang Hao reported the findings to Lin Yu, while Charlie was shaken by the Federation's speed and the possibility that a Tenth Order civilization controlled the passage.
• Lin Yu asked whether the Federation could break the barrier sealing the current.

Lin Yu explained that the Federation could bring in another S-Class Dark Energy User to help break the barrier, leaving Charlie to reconsider his options. After reading the Federation’s subordinate civilization terms, Charlie agreed on behalf of the Crete Empire to join the Federation.

• Jiang Hao reported that Lin Yu had only a 2% chance of breaking the barrier alone, but that another S-Class Dark Energy User could raise the odds to 97%.
• Charlie realized the Federation was powerful enough to overcome the blockade and that Lin Yu had not needed to scheme against him.
• Lin Yu showed Charlie the Federation’s subordinate civilization framework, which offered contribution points in exchange for resources, technology, and other benefits.
• Charlie asked whether the terms were genuine, and Lin Yu confirmed the Federation had no need to fabricate them.
• Charlie agreed for the Crete Empire to join the Federation’s subordinate civilization system.

Lin Yu learned that the Bosnia Supercluster was a sealed experiment designed to cultivate powerful civilizations, but its progress had stalled after the survivors reached the Seventh Order. At the Alphart Civilization’s council, Lin Aotian revealed that God-Making Plans One and Three had converged, leaving the council stunned by the possibility that Plan One’s civilization had advanced from the Third Order to the Sixth Order in a century.

• Lin Yu learned that the Bosnia Supercluster had been created to pit civilizations against one another, but the surviving Seventh Order Civilizations had avoided large-scale war and stagnated.
• Lin Aotian and eight council members gathered at the center of the universe, where he lamented Lin Hong’s choice to drag Farn into Zero-Dimensional Space.
• Lin Aotian told the council that Plan Three in the Bosnia Supercluster had encountered an unexpected development and might require intervention.
• A council member asked what had happened, and Lin Aotian announced that God-Making Plans One and Three had converged.
• The council members doubted that Plan One’s Third Order civilization could have crossed two Superclusters in a century, then considered that it might have reached the Sixth Order.