Chapter Summaries

Gwen defeated Empress and returned to the shipgirls with the damaged Siren, discussing the Mainframe’s tests and the information Empress wanted to share. The shipgirls saw that Gwen was unharmed, while Lavoce remained attached to him and dependent on his energy.

• Empress said the Mainframe had issued no new orders beyond establishing contact with Gwen, though it had raised its assessment of his combat strength.
• Gwen accepted the Mainframe’s continued tests for now but said its experiments across worlds had caused debts of blood that he would eventually settle.
• Empress introduced herself to Gwen’s perspective on the Mainframe’s experiments and offered to correct errors in the information he had received from Purifier.
• Gwen led the barely repaired Empress back to the Floating Platform, where the shipgirls saw his crushing victory and Lavoce clinging to his hand.
• Yorktown checked Gwen for injuries, and Yixian examined his bandaged hand before Gwen reassured her that the blood on it belonged to his opponents.

After the battle, Gwen contracted the remaining shipgirls and told them to prepare for upgrades, then learned that the Mirror Sea held a construction machine that could revive those who had sunk. He agreed to follow Empress to the Mirror Sea’s core and collect the scattered Cubes.

• Nagato asked when Gwen would incorporate the other shipgirls, and Gwen sent invitations that hundreds of them accepted.
• Gwen told the shipgirls that the Sirens’ experiments made upgrades urgent, and asked each of them to study their preferred development paths before he upgraded them.
• Soviet Union urged the fleet to leave the Mirror Sea, but Empress said they could use its resources to revive the shipgirls who had sunk.
• Gwen asked whether the Mirror Sea contained a construction machine, and Empress explained that the mainframe had placed one there to maximize combat capability.
• After Yorktown cautioned him about Siren schemes, Gwen agreed to follow Empress’s coordinates and directed Prometheus to take them to the Mirror Sea’s core.

Gwen and his companions retrieved the Sirens’ vast stockpile of supplies and found the construction machine. He began constructing a shipgirl and used an acceleration tool to hasten the process.

• Gwen summoned Prometheus’s warship hull and asked the shipgirls to rest aboard while he explored the island.
• Taiho offered to accompany Gwen, but he declined and went underground with Enterprise, Yixian, Soviet Union, and Nagato.
• Empress guided Gwen’s group to the supplies, where they found far more Mind Cubes and resources than expected, including pink diamonds.
• Empress led the group to the construction machine, and Gwen fed it Mind Cubes, supplies, and some of his psionic energy.
• Gwen gently touched an acceleration tool to one of the resulting cocoons, causing the tool to dissolve into light and merge with it.

Gwen continued the major construction and summoned New Jersey, Anchorage, and Binhai, while Lavoce recovered from her strange attachment to him. The chapter ended with Binhai greeting Gwen and deciding he would roll with her.

• New Jersey emerged from the first cocoon, leapt into Gwen’s arms, and introduced herself as the Eagle Union’s strongest battleship.
• Garden noticed Lavoce in Gwen’s hand, and Enterprise asked her to trust that Gwen was powerful and different from the Commanders in their records.
• Gwen told the awakened Lavoce to get down; after she apologized and asked to be punished, he deferred dealing with her until later.
• Anchorage emerged from the second cocoon, called Gwen her Teacher, and hugged him; Empress and the Sirens discussed the Mainframe as Gwen comforted her.
• Gwen continued construction, and Binhai emerged as an Eastern Radiance light cruiser, appraised him, and declared that he would roll with her.

Gwen demonstrated his powers to the newly built shipgirls and established that he was not a fragile Commander. As he continued the major build, Essex appeared with her memories and level intact from before she sank.

• Chkalov greeted Gwen, shook his hand, and then spoke privately with Soviet Union.
• Gwen floated himself and the light cocoons to show the shipgirls his unusual abilities.
• White Dragon emerged, challenged Gwen, and lost control of her sword when he used his power to subdue her.
• Empress tried to win Nagato over as an ally, but Nagato resisted her teasing and warned her to answer Gwen's questions.
• Essex emerged from her cocoon, recognized Gwen as her Commander, and confirmed she retained her memories and levels from before she sank.

Gwen finished constructing shipgirls in the Mirror Sea, including the sunken Belfast, who revealed that an Insect Swarm had attacked the Atlantic fleet. After reading Belfast’s memories, Gwen ordered everyone to return to the Prometheus and reinforce the Atlantic battlefield.

• Gwen constructed sunken shipgirls and newly appearing shipgirls from several factions, who retained their memories and levels.
• Gwen’s final construction produced Belfast, who explained that she had been sunk fighting an Insect Swarm in the Atlantic.
• Belfast recalled the battle while Gwen read her memories and saw the swarm overwhelm both the shipgirls and the Sirens.
• Gwen concluded that the Atlantic forces were in grave danger and ordered everyone to prepare for spatial transfer to the Prometheus and support the Atlantic battlefield.

Gwen transferred the Prometheus and its shipgirls from the Mirror Sea to the Atlantic battlefield, where the Insect Swarm was overwhelming the surviving shipgirls and Sirens. He destroyed the swarm attacking his ship, protected and healed the survivors, then cleaved the vast swarm-filled darkness with a colossal sword of light.

• Gwen brought Belfast, Enterprise, and Soviet Union to the Prometheus bridge and prepared to transfer directly to the Atlantic battlefield.
• Soviet Union cautioned Gwen against individual heroics, and Gwen donned his Moon Sky armor before initiating the spatial transfer.
• The Prometheus arrived in the Atlantic, where Gwen saw an enormous cloud of insects bearing down on the ship.
• Gwen used Quasi-Black Hole to crush and erase the swarm approaching the Prometheus.
• Gwen located the surviving shipgirls and Sirens, shielding and healing them with pillars of light as they continued fighting.
• Gwen formed a colossal sword of light and cleaved through the dark cloud of insects with one stroke.

Gwen protected the shipgirls and Sirens from the Insect Swarm while investigating how psionic energy strengthened them and what the Sirens’ creator sought to learn. He used his Quasi-Black Hole ability to gather the swarm, and the girls watched as the threat was drawn into a dark sphere.

• Elizabeth trusted Gwen after his psionic energy restored the shipgirls’ reason, and Belfast reassured her that the Commander would recover their lost sisters.
• The shipgirls and Sirens aboard Prometheus fired on the Insect Swarm while Gwen’s barrier kept its attacks from reaching them.
• Hermit questioned how Gwen had defeated Queen and Empress, and Empress noted that the Arbitration Mechanism was only a middle tier in the Sirens’ hierarchy.
• Gwen observed that killing the insects granted experience and that psionic energy greatly increased the girls’ combat strength, while he considered the Sirens’ creator’s experiments.
• Gwen noticed the swarm spreading across the world and activated Quasi-Black Hole, drawing the insects back toward him.
• The swarm gathered into a dark sphere before Gwen, and the girls recognized him and watched with relief.

Gwen stopped the Insect Swarm’s invasion by repairing the spatial rift, then cleansed the polluted sea. As the shipgirls celebrated, Gwen sensed a sudden change in his body and wondered what the Psionic Energy experiment had triggered.

• Gwen compressed the Insect Swarm into nothing, while Elizabeth and the others recognized that the unrepaired rift still threatened the fleet.
• Marco Polo and Garden explained that Gwen had brought the reinforcements directly from the Pacific, prompting the shipgirls to consider whether he could repair the rift.
• Gwen sensed a vast, deep-sea-like aura beyond the rift, returned the insects’ attacks against them, and repaired the damaged space without crossing through.
• Gwen restored the ocean after Empress warned that the insects’ remains could poison the ecosystem, and the shipgirls praised him when the sea cleared.
• Gwen noticed a sudden change within his body as he reflected on how he had supplied the shipgirls with Psionic Energy during the battle.

After the battle, Gwen received powerful feedback from the shipgirls and met Observer Zero, who offered him access to the Sirens’ information and authority. Back aboard Prometheus, Elizabeth formally transferred command of the Royal Fleet to Gwen.

• The shipgirls’ praise and first battle under Gwen’s Psionic Energy support replenished and strengthened his power, and he sensed someone watching him.
• Observer Zero appeared before Gwen, explained that she had observed him, and confirmed that he exceeded the Mainframe’s requirements.
• Observer Zero offered Gwen access to information and authority within her permissions, then left to prepare the protected core data for him.
• Gwen returned to Prometheus, where Yorktown embraced him and the shipgirls welcomed him after Observer Zero’s departure.
• Elizabeth thanked Gwen for saving the Royal Fleet and formally transferred its supreme command to him.

Gwen took command of the Iron Blood, Iris Orthodoxy, and Sardegna Empire fleets, then chose to claim the Sirens’ supplies before traveling to the factions’ ports. During a mass construction session, he awakened Little Swan and Cheshire, who reunited with Belfast.

• Elizabeth, Bismarck, Richelieu, and Vittorio Veneto formally placed their fleets under Gwen’s command, and Jean Bart felt relieved that the Iris Orthodoxy had reunited.
• Elizabeth and the other flagships urged Gwen to visit their homelands and awaken their sunk sisters, but Hermes offered the supplies stored beneath a nearby Mirror Sea core.
• Gwen accepted Hermes’s coordinates, and he and the shipgirls found the surface base ruined by the Insect Swarm while its underground supplies and construction machines remained intact.
• Gwen used the recovered supplies for mass construction, and Little Swan emerged first, greeted him, and went to join familiar sisters.
• Cheshire emerged next, clung affectionately to Gwen, and then ran to embrace Belfast after recognizing the head maid.

Gwen restored the Atlantic fleet through mass construction and established a temporary base on the island chain before convening a meeting with shipgirl leaders and Sirens. The Sirens confirmed that they and the shipgirls shared a Creator, then explained the experiment’s success levels and said Gwen’s power exceeded the first phase’s limits.

• Belfast led Cheshire away while Gwen continued constructing shipgirls, including Prinz Eugen and her sister Hipper, whose reunion quickly turned into a scuffle.
• Gwen used all the available Cubes to restore and strengthen the Atlantic fleet, then rebuilt the damaged island chain and replicated Schicksal’s residential district as a temporary base.
• Gwen opened a meeting with faction leaders and Siren representatives, asking whether Sirens and shipgirls had been created by the same Creator.
• Hermit confirmed that shipgirls were the Creator’s near-perfect creations and that Sirens had been assigned to act as enemies and drive their evolution.
• Empress explained that the experiment ranged from level zero to level six, with its first phase ending when a Commander-supported fleet defeated an armed Arbitration Mechanism-led fleet; she said Gwen’s strength already exceeded that phase’s upper limit.

Gwen questioned Empress about the Sirens’ experimental sites, learning that failed experiments had not destroyed worlds and that the Mainframe had chosen worlds already threatened by outside enemies. Empress began explaining the Sirens’ rationale and revealed that the Mainframe had also tested whether human civilizations could develop defenses without Sirens or shipgirls.

• Empress told Gwen that defeating an Arbiter-led fleet was only the first phase of the experiment, and that she did not know what the second phase entailed.
• Gwen asked how many experimental sites had been destroyed or abandoned, and Empress reported 177 destroyed and 255 abandoned while denying that Sirens had caused any world’s destruction through experimental failure.
• Empress explained that the Mainframe selected worlds already facing eventual collapse or outside threats, then stopped investing in sites when experiments failed and redirected their resources elsewhere.
• Gwen accepted Empress’s explanation and soothed the shipgirls after her careless remark angered them; Empress then anticipated his question about human casualties.
• Empress admitted that the Sirens had caused human casualties but argued that their experiments sought a Commander capable of helping worlds survive threats like the Insect Swarm.
• When Soviet Union challenged her, Empress revealed that the Mainframe had established control sites without Sirens or shipgirls to observe how humans developed under different political systems.

Empress explained that the Sirens had tested human civilizations and placed shipgirls in a world whose history they had changed. In a private meeting, Gwen learned that the Arbiters had faced a powerful unknown enemy and that their mission had involved pursuing an Ember Fleet.

• Empress said human civilizations in the Sirens' experiments had been destroyed by internal conflict and the Insect Swarm, while the shipgirls' memories came from a parallel world whose wars never occurred here.
• Enterprise concluded that the shipgirls had been placed in this world before their historical hulls existed, and Empress confirmed that their instincts and memories came from another world.
• Roma challenged Empress over the Sirens' experiments, then calmed down and apologized to Gwen, who soothed her with Psionic Energy.
• After the larger meeting, Gwen asked Empress, Hermit, and Purifier about the external enemy; Empress said even the Arbiters had not seen it, or the Mainframe had erased the records.
• Empress revealed that Temperance and Strength had stayed behind to cover the other Arbiters' escape from the Insect Swarm and were being reconstructed from recovered consciousness fragments.
• Empress said the Arbiters had encountered the swarm while pursuing an Ember Fleet into unknown territory, and began explaining that the earliest shipgirls who suffered errors during Mental Awakening were called METAized.

Gwen learned more about the Ember Fleet and the dangerous Insect Swarm, then examined Lavoce after discovering that her rigging made her love dangerously intense. His Psionic Energy calmed her METAization, though Empress and Hermit noticed his unusual reaction while treating her.

• Lavoce explained that the Ember Fleet had completed the experiments and undergone Mental Awakening, giving its members abilities that might have helped them survive the Insect Swarm.
• Gwen asked how to find the Ember Fleet, but Empress said he would have to wait for them to find him; she also described the swarm's many insect types and a powerful unseen creature.
• Lavoce revealed that her rigging made her seek an emotion for the Mainframe's experiments and rendered that emotion lethally attractive, which had caused her intense love for Gwen.
• Gwen called Lavoce's condition an innate defect and used Psionic Energy to examine her while Empress and Hermit held her still.
• Lavoce's emotional turmoil and signs of METAization subsided as she absorbed Gwen's Psionic Energy, while Empress and Hermit noticed his fleeting expression and silently exchanged a knowing glance.

Gwen used Lavoce’s successful transformation to guide experiments that gave Empress and Hermite a difficult but ultimately successful Mental Awakening, while collecting data to help Yorktown and the other shipgirls evolve safely. As Lavoce grew possessive and drew close to him, the shipgirls continued discussing Gwen and came to understand him better.

• Gwen observed Lavoce complete her transformation, then promised Empress and Hermite he would preserve their consciousness if their experiments failed.
• Gwen forced Psionic Energy into Empress and Hermite, suppressing their resistance and correcting severe complications until their transformations succeeded.
• Lavoce awoke, realized Gwen was transforming the other Arbitrators, and struggled to contain her jealousy before approaching him afterward and asking to repay him.
• The exhausted Empress and Hermite woke and joined a conflict with Gwen as he dealt with the experiments’ aftermath.
• At the conference, Yorktown answered the shipgirls’ questions about Gwen, and they discussed his strength, his humility about grand titles, and the person behind his reputation.

Baltimore spotted the Ember Fleet descending on the island, and Gwen stopped them before they could crash. Enterprise.META introduced herself and asked to meet him, while Gwen offered the exhausted fleet a place in his port and dismissed their concerns about the Arbiters.

• Zhenhai asked Yorktown whether Gwen already had a family, and Yorktown said he could make every sister happy while leaving each shipgirl's chance at his love open.
• Anchorage spotted figures in the sky, and Baltimore raised the alarm when dark-red meteors began falling toward the island.
• Yorktown relayed Gwen's orders to prepare for battle and evacuate, while the shipgirls gathered beneath the barrier Gwen had raised over the island.
• Gwen recognized the falling figures as the Ember Fleet and used telekinetic power to halt their descent.
• Enterprise.META identified Gwen as the source of the immense spiritual energy and introduced herself as the Ember Fleet's flagship, explaining that they had come to find him.
• Enterprise.META warned that the Ember Fleet's enemies were the Siren Arbiters, and Gwen offered them shelter, saying he had already questioned Empress, Hermit, and Lavoce.

Gwen brought the Ember Fleet to the island and began integrating them with his forces, while the fleet's arrival stirred emotions among the shipgirls who recognized their alternate selves. Black Helena volunteered to serve as Gwen's liaison, and the chapter ended with the fleet looking forward to the new port and competing for places on his secretary ship team.

• Enterprise META accepted Gwen's command for the Ember Fleet after sensing his powerful Psionic Energy, and Gwen suppressed the remaining objections with his aura.
• Yorktown comforted Bumblebee and their sister as they watched the Ember Fleet, while Yorktown META and Yorktown recognized each other through their Psionic Energy.
• Gwen introduced the Ember Fleet to Belfast and explained that Empress, Hermit, and Lavoce were his prisoners and potential allies.
• Black Helena teased Empress, analyzed Gwen's Psionic Energy, and asked to join his secretary ship team as the Ember Fleet's liaison.
• Gwen agreed to reserve Black Helena a place on the team, and the shipgirls turned their attention to the planned port and the chance to become secretary ships.

Gwen met with the Ember Fleet to discuss their METAization and whether his Psionic Energy could reverse it. Black Yorktown explained the cause and risks, and the group began deciding who should undergo the first treatment.

• Gwen left the gathering with Enterprise, Black Enterprise, Yorktown, Black Yorktown, Helena, Black Helena, Empress, and the others to discuss the Ember Fleet.
• Black Helena teased Helena about becoming like her and asked whether Gwen wanted help winning Helena over, but Gwen redirected the conversation to METAization.
• Black Yorktown explained that Ember's METAization stemmed from flaws in shipgirls' souls and warned that it could consume them without outside intervention.
• Empress said Gwen's unusually powerful Psionic Energy might reverse METAization, though treating Ember's deeply affected members would cost far more energy than the earlier experiment.
• Black Yorktown admitted that she had analyzed information from Yorktown during their Psionic Energy interaction, and Gwen warned her not to do so again.
• Gwen asked who would be the first to test his treatment, and Black Enterprise volunteered.

Gwen successfully purified Yorktown META’s twisted Psionic Energy and repaired her damaged soul, though she needed time to regain control of her power. Enterprise META then revealed three corrupt Origin Cubes containing the lingering consciousnesses of shipgirls lost to METAization, hoping Gwen could restore them.

• Black Yorktown volunteered to undergo Gwen’s experiment, and Black Enterprise and Black Helena accepted her reasoning.
• Gwen used his Psionic Energy and Cosmo to suppress and eradicate the twisted energy in Yorktown META, soothing her scarred soul as she purified it.
• Yorktown META awoke with calm, transformed Psionic Energy that she could not yet control, and Gwen explained that her soul needed time to adjust after being repaired.
• Enterprise META and Helena META performed a safeguard verification, and Enterprise META took out three dark-red Origin Cubes left by shipgirls who had lost their physical forms to METAization.
• Gwen sensed stubborn consciousness within the corrupt Origin Cubes and recognized that Enterprise META wanted him to find a way to restore the shipgirls.