Chapter Summaries

Kavio learned that the fleet which destroyed Pelando had appeared at Diuertros, his home base, and could not return for three weeks. As Diuertros's defenders tried to stabilize their line, Lin Fan deployed the Hunting Squad to target their commander, and the squad began breaking through a Main Legion.

• Kavio dismissed Governor Lancalis's death as the expected result of using Pelando to test the enemy, then learned that Diuertros was under attack by the same fleet.
• Kavio discovered that his army was about seven hundred Standard Black Hole Units away and would need three weeks to reach Diuertros, whose defenders had only just begun fighting.
• Lin Fan ordered the Hunting Squad, an elite unit of thirty-four Chaos Mech pilots, to take down the defenders' commander.
• Wentiite learned that Kavio's army would take three weeks to arrive and ordered his forces to hold the defensive line until then.
• Wentiite watched the Hunting Squad advance in coordinated attacks and rapidly breach the defenders' Main Legion.

Lin Fan explained that his guerrilla campaign was meant to force the Taotie Civilization to scatter its forces across its universes, allowing his nearly hundred legions to defeat them piecemeal. Meanwhile, the Hunting Squad broke through Diuertros's defenses and raced toward Wentiite's warship.

• Liang Xue reported that the Taotie Civilization's main force had detected Lin Fan and would arrive in three weeks.
• Lin Fan explained that he had kept the other fleets at the passageway so his lone legion could provoke the Taotie into splitting its forces.
• Liang Xue realized that the Taotie would spread its troops across its universes to defend against the Hunting Squad, leaving them vulnerable to Lin Fan's larger army.
• Wentiite gathered more than five hundred Black Hole Warriors to stop the thirty-four members of the Hunting Squad.
• The Hunting Squad swiftly broke through the Taotie warriors and sped toward Wentiite's warship in their Chaos Mechs.

After the Hunting Squad killed Wentiite and shattered Diuertros’s defensive line, Lin Fan’s forces launched an offensive while Kavio learned that a likely Fifth Tier enemy had emerged. Lin Fan ordered the 071 Legion to sweep Diuertros for ten days before moving on, intending to ravage enough universes to force Kavio to divide his forces.

• The Hunting Squad killed Wentiite and broke through the Diuertros garrison, prompting Lin Fan to order a full-scale attack.
• Kavio learned that Wentiite had been killed by an enemy squad whose strongest member was likely a Fifth Tier fighter, but he ordered the remaining garrison to resist until he arrived.
• After the Diuertros garrison collapsed, Lin Fan refused to pursue the fleeing forces and ordered the 071 Legion to sweep the universe for ten days.
• Lin Fan ordered the Legion to purge planets without negotiation, then regroup and move to the next target to force the Taotie to divide their forces.
• The 071 Legion dispersed into Star-Class Fleets, each containing a billion warships, because Taotie on individual planets remained dangerous even after the garrison’s defeat.

After the enemy rapidly conquered Diuertros, Benson proposed dispersing Taotie forces across the universes to blunt the invaders’ attacks. Alex adopted the plan, but the enemy struck April before the deployment order could take effect, and its defenders were routed.

• Alex berated his ministers after Pelando and Diuertros fell and they could not identify or stop the enemy.
• Benson deduced that the enemy used extreme speed to wage guerrilla harassment and proposed dividing Taotie forces among key universes.
• Alex accepted Benson’s plan to station dispersed forces defensively and make the enemy face them.
• The enemy attacked April and routed its defenders after an hour.
• Alex ordered the four great legions and other major legions to split into two-legion units and defend nearby universes.

Lin Fan ended his year-long deception and launched the Azure Dragon Alliance’s forces against the Taotie Civilization’s scattered garrisons, capturing twenty-two universes in ten days. Alex ordered nearby forces to regroup and conscripted adult warriors as the Taotie struggled to respond.

• After learning that most Taotie forces had reached their assigned universes, Lin Fan ordered his legions to assemble at designated positions.
• The Azure Dragon Alliance divided its army into four routes and attacked Kalant, overwhelming the Taotie defenders and taking the universe at negligible cost.
• The Alliance attacked two more universes the next day and captured twenty-two Taotie-held universes over ten days.
• Alex blamed Benson’s advice to divide the Taotie forces after learning that Skant had fallen and the defenders faced overwhelming odds.
• Alex ordered forces in universes within three thousand Black Hole Units to gather nearby and conscripted every adult warrior in the garrisoned universes.

After the Taotie forces were driven back to their royal capital, Alex’s attempt to negotiate peace failed. Paulina insisted that the White Empire lead the final assault, and Lin Fan agreed to a joint attack with Federation forces as the Xilbeila people prepared to strike.

• Lin Fan ordered the fronts to abandon battlefield cleanup and accelerate their advance, causing the Taotie’s universes to fall at a much faster rate.
• Thirty-seven days later, the Taotie Civilization had lost nearly all its forces, and more than eighty Azure Dragon Alliance legions encircled its royal capital.
• Alex sent an envoy to seek peace, but Lin Fan had the envoy detained and sent to Paulina.
• Paulina demanded that the White Empire’s thirty legions lead the assault, and Lin Fan agreed to pair them with the Federation’s Civilization Guardian Legion to contain the Taotie Black Hole Lifeforms.
• Lin Fan mobilized additional powerhouses and Rowan’s seers, while the White Empire’s legions took the front of the encirclement and waited for the order to attack.

Lin Fan secretly used Bai Zhi’s Black Hole Cavity Suppressor to weaken Taotie’s forces while the White Empire fought its blood-feud battle. After the White Empire destroyed the Taotie defenders outside the royal capital, Lin Fan ordered Paulina to withdraw before confronting the powerful forces within.

• Lin Fan refused to openly reinforce the White Empire, but arranged for Liang Xue to secretly use the Black Hole Cavity Suppressor against concentrated Taotie forces.
• The suppressor weakened Taotie’s warships and Black Hole Lifeforms, allowing Paulina to launch a full-scale offensive as their combat strength fell.
• Alex learned that an unknown force had reduced Taotie’s combat effectiveness while leaving the enemy unaffected.
• With Lin Fan’s covert assistance, the White Empire wiped out the Taotie defenders outside the royal capital.
• Lin Fan stopped Paulina from attacking the royal capital, where nearly a hundred powerful combatants remained, including a mid-Fifth Tier fighter, and Paulina agreed to withdraw.

Lin Fan stopped Alex from self-destructing and fought him as the alliance army defeated the Taotie forces. During their battle, Lin Fan broke through to the Sixth Tier and killed Alex, leaving the royal city mostly destroyed.

• Alex ordered his guards and council ministers to charge the alliance army while he prepared to self-destruct and destroy the royal city.
• Lin Fan sent the Federation's lower-tier fighters to retreat, then rushed to Alex and annihilated the Black Hole Energy he had gathered.
• Lin Fan and Alex fought at full strength, while the surviving Taotie were defeated and the alliance fleets retreated beyond the battle's destructive shockwaves.
• Lin Fan gained the upper hand and revealed that the fight had helped him break through to the Sixth Tier.
• Lin Fan overwhelmed Alex's attack and swallowed him completely, leaving no trace of him.

After the Alliance divided the conquered Black Hole Cavity Realms, its leaders planned the third expansion, which would target realms about which they had no intelligence. Montero proposed openly trading Ninth Generation Black Hole Engines to those civilizations, allowing the Alliance to plant backdoors in their upgraded fleets.

• The Federation lent the Divine Radiance Civilization the military merit it lacked to claim a Black Hole Cavity Realm, and other civilizations arranged similar loans.
• The Tailo Empire exchanged some of its universes and borrowed merit to acquire the Hengluo Realm, while the Federation, White Empire, and Divine Radiance Civilization also claimed entire realms.
• Alliance leaders met to plan a third expansion, but they had no intelligence about the distant Black Hole Cavity Realms they would target.
• Lin Fan listened as the leaders debated how to scout those realms without alerting their inhabitants, while watching Montero for a solution.
• Montero proposed forming a merchant fleet to sell Ninth Generation Black Hole Engines and upgrade the distant civilizations’ fleets, giving the Alliance an opportunity to exploit the engines’ backdoors.

Lin Fan approved Montero’s plan to sell military equipment to neighboring Black Hole Cavity Realms and exploit the resulting dependence during the Alliance’s next expansion. In Federation Year 1091, an Alliance fleet cautiously entered the war-torn Weisen Realm, where an unknown ship made contact with Gramm United as its leaders feared an impending attack by the two empires.

• Lin Fan endorsed Montero’s arms-sales plan and proposed supporting weaker factions in realms that were not yet unified.
• The chapter introduced the Weisen Realm, where the Miluo Empire, the Delra Empire, and Gramm United had maintained a tense balance for a hundred thousand years.
• Commander Wang Hai ordered an unmanned ship to approach the nearest universe while his fleet waited on standby.
• Gramm United’s five strongest civilization leaders discussed signs that the Miluo and Delra Empires were preparing to eliminate them.
• The Roselo Universe reported that a ship from another Black Hole Cavity Realm had contacted its garrison.

Wang Hai introduced his fleet as a merchant force from the Azure Dragon Alliance and offered Gramm United Ninth Generation Black Hole Engines in exchange for resources. After testing a gifted engine, Gramm United officials concluded that equipping their legions with it could let them defeat the two great empires and dominate the Weisen Realm.

• Wang Hai told Tommy and the other Gramm United leaders that his fleet came from the Kunsa Realm and sought to trade on behalf of the Human Federation under the Azure Dragon Alliance.
• Wang Hai offered Ninth Generation Black Hole Engines, and the leaders learned they could reach 1,187 Standard Black Hole Units per day, far beyond the engines used in the Weisen Realm.
• Tommy agreed to provide Gramm United's resource list and requested a sample for performance testing.
• Wang Hai gifted Gramm United an export-model Ninth Generation Black Hole Engine, which arrived in the Rosero Universe an hour later.
• Gramm United tested the engine the following day and senior military officials said it could enable them to defeat the two great empires and become the Weisen Realm's sole hegemon.

Gramm United secretly received Ninth Generation Black Hole Engines from the Azure Dragon Alliance, then faced a joint invasion by the Miluo and Delra Empires. The empires’ commanders were surrounded and hunted down soon after the war began, leaving their leaders bewildered.

• Gramm United received its first batch of ten quadrillion Black Hole Engines and kept the alliance and trade secret from the two empires.
• The Miluo and Delra Empires announced they would unite more than a thousand legions to attack Gramm United.
• Tommy reassured the United Council that the empires had miscalculated, while the five major civilization leaders concealed the engines as a military secret.
• Abigail led the Miluo Empire’s expeditionary force toward Korser Universe with an escort fleet of ten legions.
• A large enemy fleet approached Abigail’s force, and ten days later both empires’ expeditionary commanders had been surrounded and hunted down.

After the two empires halted their offensives following the deaths of their commanders, Wang Hai refused to sell weapons to the five civilizations but urged them to unify the Weisen Realm to qualify for Alliance trade. He increased Black Hole Engine shipments, while Gramm United mobilized for mass mining and rapidly upgraded its fleets.

• The Miluo Empire and Delra Empire halted their offensives after their commanders were killed in ambushes by Gramm United.
• Wang Hai rejected the five civilizations’ request to buy weapons and energy systems, then told them they would need to unify the Weisen Realm to purchase them from the Alliance government.
• Wang Hai doubled the supply of Ninth Generation Black Hole Engines, raising deliveries from one trillion to two trillion every three years, and required payment upfront.
• The five civilizations told Gramm United that they had jointly developed the engines and ordered its civilizations to increase resource extraction more than tenfold.
• Gramm United’s upgraded fleets grew to 105 legions in less than ten years, despite losing ten legions in the ambushes.

The two empires resumed their invasion of Gramm United, but United used scorched-earth tactics, raids, and a strike on the Miluo Empire’s royal capital to disrupt their advance. With the war stalemated by Federation Year 1139, Wang Hai offered the five great civilizations the services of a powerful Federation mercenary company, whose strength astonished them.

• The two empires resumed their invasion with fleets of at least one hundred legions, while United devastated outer universes and attacked enemy supply lines.
• At Tommy’s suggestion, United sent five legions into the Miluo Empire’s royal capital, destroying more than half of it before the defenders annihilated them.
• Eighteen years later, the two empires’ advances had stalled, and both sides avoided risking a decisive battle.
• Wang Hai invited the leaders of the five great civilizations to discuss hiring a Federation Outsourced Defense Company.
• Wang Hai revealed that the company had ten Fifth Tier, one hundred Fourth Tier, and three thousand Third Tier powerhouses, stunning the leaders.

Gramm United hired the Azure Dragon Alliance’s Outsourced Defense Company to strengthen its forces and prepare a counterattack against the Miluo Empire. When 140 Gramm United legions engaged the Empire’s main force, Lin Yu led a small fleet through a weak point in the defenses toward the Empire’s War Fortress.

• Tommy and the other Gramm United leaders agreed to pay Wang Hai roughly thirty million standard units of resources per year to hire the Outsourced Defense Company.
• More than two years later, Lin Yu arrived in Gramm United with over a thousand powerhouses, all at least Third Tier, and the five civilizations began planning a counterattack.
• In Federation Year 1121, Li Aris held a combat conference at the Miluo Empire’s frontline headquarters in Dokalite as his forces struggled with supply shortages and ambushes.
• After scouts reported 140 Gramm United legions approaching, Li Aris ordered his fleets to prepare for battle and trap them.
• Gramm United’s legions engaged the Miluo Empire’s main force as bait while Lin Yu’s dozen-plus warships sped through a weak point in the defenses toward Li Aris’s War Fortress.

Gramm United killed all five Fifth Tier experts accompanying the Miluo Empire, then turned its attention to Serat and the Delra Empire. Serat prepared a defensive formation against another decapitation, but the opening bombardment inflicted losses on his forces more than ten times greater than Gramm United’s.

• Li Aris discovered that thirteen Fifth Tier experts and thousands of other experts had breached the Miluo Empire’s defenses, but the attackers destroyed his command fortress and killed him.
• Gramm United withdrew after the decapitation, then repeated the tactic four more times and killed all five of the Miluo Empire’s Fifth Tier experts at the cost of eleven legions.
• Serat learned of the Miluo Empire’s losses and ordered his scattered forces to gather, forming a tight turtle-shell defense around his position.
• Serat’s forces met Gramm United in battle, and after three minutes of bombardment, his subordinate reported that their losses were more than ten times Gramm United’s.

Lin Yu exploited the Delra Empire fleet’s dense formation with fleet combat, then used the threat of decapitation tactics to keep Serat from regrouping effectively. Gramm United annihilated Serat’s forces, and later reports showed the Delra Empire had suffered 139 legions of losses while Gramm United’s high-end combat losses remained zero.

• Serat learned that the Delra Empire had suffered losses ten times greater than Gramm United’s and ordered his fleet to spread out after realizing its dense formation made it an easy target.
• Lin Yu told Gramm United’s commanders to switch back to decapitation operations if the Delra Empire dispersed and to fleet combat if it regrouped.
• When Lin Yu’s forces approached the defensive line, Serat ordered his fleet back into an ultra-dense formation, and Lin Yu withdrew his decapitation force.
• Serat kept his fleet concentrated despite his deputy’s warnings, and the Delra Empire lost its hundred legions over ten hours before Lin Yu’s decapitation force attacked again.
• Several days later, the empires reported that the Delra Empire had lost 139 legions and five Fifth Tier powerhouses, while Gramm United had lost only twenty-six legions and no high-end combatants.

Lin Fan persuaded the Alliance to wait until the three major powers in the Weisen Realm had made peace, so their forces would disperse before the Alliance attacked. In Federation Year 1238, the peace left the Delra Empire’s garrisons underprepared, and alarms suddenly sounded at its Grosso Universe station.

• Lin Fan reported that 118 years of war had depleted the three major powers’ forces and reserves, and recommended that the Alliance prepare to act.
• Lin Zhen questioned whether the Alliance could defeat the remaining legions, but Lin Fan explained its technological and speed advantages.
• The Alliance approved Lin Fan’s plan to wait until peace talks ended, allowing the empires’ fleets to return to scattered garrisons.
• In Federation Year 1236, Wang Hai reported that the three major powers had agreed to a ceasefire, and the Alliance prepared to launch through a Cross-border Channel.
• In Federation Year 1238, the Delra Empire’s Grosso Universe garrison had only 47 Main Legions, and alarm sirens suddenly blared across the station.

An unidentified fleet from beyond the Weisen Realm overwhelmed the Delra Empire’s three major garrisons, revealing an invasion no native power could have carried out. Emperor Maltidis ordered an urgent summit with the Miluo Empire and Gramm United to coordinate a response.

• Commander Costello learned that more than one hundred legions of unidentified ships were approaching the Third Fleet garrison and ordered soldiers recalled from the Grosso Universe.
• After three hours of rushed transports, only nineteen of the Third Garrison Region’s forty-seven legions were combat-ready when the Alliance army arrived.
• The Alliance army crushed the Imperial Fleet in less than an hour, while the Delra Empire’s other two major garrisons suffered similar defeats.
• Emperor Maltidis received reports that all three garrisons had been swiftly defeated by a likely Outer Domain civilization.
• Maltidis ordered an immediate summit with the Miluo Empire and Gramm United to discuss the threat to all three powers.

Maltidis revealed that a civilization from beyond the Black Hole Cavity Realm had attacked the Delra Empire, while Tommy recognized the invaders as the Azure Dragon Alliance and concealed his connection to them. The surviving empires agreed to face the threat together, but learned that the enemy's most powerful warships were at least fifty times stronger than their own.

• Maltidis summoned Tommy and Kadir to a virtual meeting and announced that an outside civilization had invaded after slaughtering all three Delra Empire garrison zones.
• Tommy recognized the invading warships and fighters as belonging to the Azure Dragon Alliance but denied knowing anything and disconnected from the meeting.
• Kadir and Maltidis suspected that the Azure Dragon Alliance had secretly supported Gramm United's technological advances and powerful forces.
• Kadir urged Maltidis to set Gramm United aside and focus on stopping the invaders, and Maltidis agreed that they could settle the matter later.
• Maltidis said the garrison zones had fallen in one to two hours and reported that the enemy's two warship types were roughly three to five times and at least fifty times stronger than the empire's main warships.