Seven minutes after the Annihilation Insectoid Race landed in the material realm, Knowhere's Base Two was the first to declare itself overrun. Then came Base Three, Base Five defended by Daisy, and Base One defended by Gladiator. All the soldiers and civilian personnel, along with their fiercest warriors and the Celestials, held out for another thirty seconds at Base Four.
Every prisoner, no matter what heinous crimes they had committed before, picked up a weapon and joined the defense as sentient beings.
At seven minutes and twenty-two seconds after the Annihilation Insectoid Race landed, the bases began evacuating personnel.
Alvin, the young man Daisy had once looked after, who had a wife waiting for him back in Shi'ar, did not see this scene. He had fallen in the earlier battle, and his body could not even be found.
At seven minutes and forty-nine seconds, Knowhere's defensive line was completely overrun.
All 1,700 small warships and more than 200 medium warships were destroyed. Of 50,000 professional soldiers, only a little over a hundred escaped the battlefield aboard transport ships.
Of the fifty-five Nova soldiers, only two ultimately retreated to the second defensive line. One of them had lost a leg to the insectoids' bite. After Daisy healed him, he only barely recovered his fighting spirit.
Of the 5,000 soldiers and 35,000 prisoners in Knowhere, fewer than two hundred escaped alive.
The Annihilation Insectoid Race had gained a foothold in the material realm. Even if that foothold was nothing but ruins, it was still a hundred times richer than their own world. Countless insectoids crossed the barrier between worlds and entered this world, a world so abundant in resources that it drove them mad.
The two Celestials were the first to leave the group. In their own words, they would resist the