Chapter Summaries

Plot points and events

• In Pipe No. 5, Zhenshan escorts Su Yi and Ilis toward the Energy Control Room. He proves devastatingly effective against the Bone Demons, killing waves of them with a sword, whip, dagger, pistol, and Five-Bladed Flying Discs. Ilis witnesses how far a Human Emperor Heavenly Soldier’s real combat ability exceeds what she knew from records.
• Slaughter Apprentices—cyborg weapons made from humans—attack. Their design points Su Yi to the Holy Body Cult’s Circuit Grand Sage. A larger group nearly overwhelms Zhenshan’s shield, but he turns their grenade and laser assault against them and destroys them.
• In the Energy Control Room, the Holy Body Cult’s Twin Spirit and Furnace watch the fight. Furnace wants to capture Zhenshan, while Twin Spirit recognizes the danger of facing him alongside Su Yi and decides to separate them.
• The Steel Virus transforms much of the allied army. Dragonspine’s steel orcs abandon the Radiants to pursue battle, while Cocos orders the strengthened Radiants onward toward the Main Control Room. Julie’s demons also benefit from the transformation.
• Twin Spirit approaches Julie through an infected soldier and offers Gheros’s location in exchange for cooperation, claiming the cult also wants Su Yi dead and can help deal with Zhenshan. Julie accepts after consulting Raya.
• Twin Spirit also recruits Anxiety, promising him a chance to reach Diamond Star and take Molly. Anxiety agrees to kill Su Yi and Zhenshan, then heals Abomination Claw by absorbing the Ember Divine Flame. He tells the Bone Demon’s mother where Su Yi and Zhenshan are; Abomination Claw immediately rushes to pursue them.
• Anxiety’s first heat-absorbing body burns out, but another appears. He hints that his master, the King of Annihilation, will bring about the Heat Death—even the ancient powers will not escape it.

Character developments and interactions

• Zhenshan emerges as an elite, highly adaptable fighter, protecting Su Yi and Ilis while dispatching threats with remarkable precision.
• Ilis moves from surprise to awe, realizing that Human Emperor Heavenly Soldiers were likely even more formidable than the fighters who defeated those in her memories.
• Su Yi identifies the Holy Body Cult’s likely involvement and explains Zhenshan’s weapons and abilities to Ilis.
• Twin Spirit manipulates several factions at once, exploiting their goals to direct them against Su Yi and Zhenshan.
• Julie remains suspicious of the cult but accepts its offer because she is desperate to find Su Yi.
• Dragonspine and Cocos respond differently to the virus: Dragonspine follows the orcs’ battle instinct, while Cocos pragmatically uses the enhanced Radiants to pursue the ship’s controls.
• Anxiety reveals both his willingness to bargain and his dangerous ability to absorb heat. His alliance with the Bone Demon mother is transactional, and he uses it to send Abomination Claw after his targets.

Significant themes

• Power revealed through action: Zhenshan’s battle demonstrates the gap between historical accounts and the terrifying reality of the ancient empire’s soldiers.
• Strength at a cost: The Steel Virus makes its victims more powerful but slows their thinking, while Anxiety’s heat absorption destroys his temporary body.
• Manipulation and uneasy alliances: Twin Spirit turns enemies’ needs—revenge, survival, and ambition—into tools for his plans.
• Escalating stakes: Multiple factions converge on Su Yi and Zhenshan, while the looming Heat Death suggests a threat far greater than the shipboard conflict.

Chapter summary

Key plot points and events

• Su Yi, Ilis, and Zhenshan infiltrate the ship, disguised as Holy Body Cult units. Su Yi discovers that the Mechanical Cult’s scholars carry devices that erase their memories and data when they suffer fatal attacks, suggesting the enemy anticipated their abilities.
• They reach a battle-filled junction near the energy-control room. Zhenshan stays behind to draw the fighting factions’ attention, giving Su Yi and Ilis a chance to cross.
• The Abomination Claw attacks, but Zhenshan engages it and urges the others onward. Julie then ambushes Su Yi. Ilis defeats her with Hell of Suffering, trapping her in agonizing memories before killing her.
• Su Yi is attacked by Dragonspine and Cocos. Dragonspine’s orc soul cannot be taken by Su Yi’s Soul Abyss weapon, while Cocos’s Life-Green Flame counters Su Yi’s Ember Divine Flame and consumes his life force. Ilis briefly disrupts Cocos by altering his memories, allowing her to pull Su Yi away.
• Realizing the attacks were coordinated to isolate him and exploit his weaknesses, Su Yi escapes with Ilis into the Void Abyss. A powerful force then separates them. Su Yi gives Ilis access to the Soul Abyss Dominator and tells her to find Winter and ask for help.
• The force ejects Su Yi into a hall surrounded by Mechanical Cult scholars and three Bishops: Twin Soul, Thousand Eyes, and Furnace. They reveal they want Su Yi’s Binary Magic to control the ship’s Ship Soul and complete the Giant Spirit God.
• Su Yi pretends to surrender, then tries to escape through the Ember Tree. Twin Soul’s metal sphere and a bracelet stop him. A vast mechanical presence cuts off his connection to the tree and takes control of him.
• As Su Yi stands motionless, the Bishops marvel at his Talent, Binary Magic, body, and “True God” bloodline, kneeling in excitement.

Character developments and interactions

• Su Yi shows caution and adaptability, but the fight exposes the limits of his usual powers against specialized counters. He recognizes the ambush’s design and chooses retreat over a hopeless battle. His apparent surrender is another attempt to escape, but the Mechanical Cult’s intervention defeats it.
• Ilis proves both a lethal fighter and a reliable ally: she kills Julie with her memory-based ability and saves Su Yi from Cocos. When they are separated, she is left with the means—and the urgent task—to seek help.
• Zhenshan remains committed to his duty and promise, refusing to abandon the ship even at the cost of his life. He buys Su Yi and Ilis time by confronting the Abomination Claw and the other monsters.
• The Mechanical Cult’s Bishops reveal a deeper agenda and treat Su Yi not merely as an enemy but as the essential component of their plan. Their reverence at the end suggests they believe his powers and body can make their project possible.

Significant themes

• Power has limits: Su Yi’s strongest abilities fail against opponents specifically immune to or able to exploit them.
• Duty and sacrifice: Zhenshan’s steadfastness contrasts with Su Yi’s strategic choice to retreat.
• Manipulation and foreknowledge: Memory-erasing devices, coordinated ambushes, and the Bishops’ preparations show that the enemy has studied Su Yi and planned around him.
• Control versus agency: Su Yi tries to deceive his captors and escape, but the mysterious mechanical presence strips away his control—setting up the threat implied by the chapter’s title.

Chapter summary

This chapter is an author’s note previewing a major upcoming plot arc and asking readers for feedback.

• Plot and events: Su Yi will be possessed by the Mechanical Father and turned into a boss. Winter will lead the Players in a large-scale battle against him. Su Yi will overpower them, gain a new form and stronger abilities, and become a more formidable threat. The Holy Body Cult will use his body to pursue its plans, though the author says those efforts will ultimately benefit the protagonist.
• Character developments: Su Yi is set to undergo a dramatic transformation under possession, while Winter takes charge of the Players’ resistance.
• Character interactions: Su Yi will fight the Players, with Winter leading them against him. The author also directly addresses readers, inviting their opinions on the coming storyline.
• Themes: The preview raises questions about possession, agency, and whether a hero’s apparent turn to the villains’ side can still serve the protagonist’s interests. It also reflects the author’s concern about reader expectations and the risks of a major twist.

Chapter 12 Summary

Key events

• The Holy Body Cult’s bishops use their technology to examine Su Yi’s body and are stunned by his exceptional abilities: powerful healing and analysis, resistance to soul attacks, and the ability to enter and travel through the Void Abyss.
• Su Yi is drawn into the Mechanical Father’s vast, seductive mechanical realm. When he refuses the forced choice to submit or die, the god extinguishes his consciousness and transforms his body into the Unity Divine Body 1.0, using six mechanical swords as conduits.
• The bishops hail the Mechanical Father and begin their plan. Bishop Thousand Eyes projects his consciousness into Su Yi’s body, but the Stigmata Totem attacks him, destroying his host body. He concludes that the body cannot be controlled directly and proposes using an AI program instead.
• Bishop Furnace tries to possess the body and is driven out by the Goddess of Black Cinders, whose power ignites inside him.
• Bishop Twin Soul attempts possession as well. Though he briefly experiences godlike power through the Lord of Steel and Souls, the Golden Holy King crushes his presence and severely damages his soul and implants. His colleagues help him escape.

Character developments and interactions

• The three bishops shift from greedy confidence to fear and frustration as each discovers that another divine power is guarding Su Yi’s body. Their interactions reveal their rivalry, impatience, and shared obsession with controlling it.
• Twin Soul’s long-standing desire for the body makes him unwilling to heed the others’ warnings; his failed attempt leaves him devastated and nearly blind.
• Su Yi shows caution and resolve when confronted by the Mechanical Father, but his resistance is overwhelmed. His body becomes a battleground for competing divine forces.

Significant themes

• Power and possession: The bishops’ dream of claiming a godlike body is thwarted by forces beyond their control.
• Faith versus technology: The Cult’s advanced mechanisms can transform and defend Su Yi, but they cannot prevent gods from interfering.
• The cost of ambition: Each bishop’s attempt to seize power brings danger and loss.
• Autonomy under divine authority: Su Yi’s choices are overridden as the Mechanical Father treats him as an object to be altered and used.

Key plot points and events

• The three Holy Body Cult bishops discover that Su Yi’s transformed body bears the Divine Authorities of several gods. Their attempt to seize it is complicated by those powers, and they prepare another Drive Program while targeting Iris.
• Su Yi reveals he survived the Mechanical Father’s attack because the Goddess of Black Cinders secretly used her Darkness Authority to preserve his soul core inside a hidden dagger of Black Miasma. Though his body has been remade and is now controlled by the Mechanical Father’s systems, Su Yi can use the gods’ marks to summon their influence and resist the bishops.
• Su Yi realizes the Goddess’s Boon was designed to conceal its life-saving function. Unable to regain control himself, he relies on Iris to escape and rally help.
• On the Six-Winged Angel, Yellow Book revisits memories of a past companion and tells Mo Long he needs an ally powerful enough to change the political balance before he can return home and seek revenge.
• Iris arrives through a Void Abyss Rift and explains that Su Yi has been captured. Yellow Book and Mo Long agree to help her. Mo Long crushes a swarm of Steel Warriors, while Yellow Book uses the extraordinary World Page ability to evacuate Iris and the badly wounded Human Emperor Heavenly Soldier Zhenshan.
• Yellow Book leaves false bodies behind, allowing the Holy Body Cult’s fighters to believe Iris and Zhenshan were killed.
• Iris contacts Winter, who learns that Su Yi trusted her to help save him. Winter rallies the Ten Pioneers, who prepare a coordinated assault on the Holy Body Cult and warn that any other faction seeking to exploit the crisis will also be targeted.

Character developments

• Su Yi is revealed to have survived through the Goddess of Black Cinders’ foresight and protection. Though physically powerful, he is currently trapped inside his own body and must depend on allies.
• Iris moves from escape to determined action, carrying Su Yi’s warning to Winter and asking Yellow Book to save Zhenshan as well.
• Yellow Book shows deep nostalgia for his lost past and confirms that revenge and the return to his people remain his goals. His immense powers make him a crucial potential ally.
• Winter is shaken by Su Yi’s trust and grief, but quickly transforms her emotions into resolve and mobilizes the Ten Pioneers.
• Zhenshan is gravely injured but has killed Abomination Claw, demonstrating his tenacity even as he nears death.
• Mo Long remains concerned for Su Yi’s importance to the larger conflict and demonstrates his formidable mastery of force.

Significant themes

• Loyalty and reciprocity: Su Yi’s loyalty to the Goddess of Black Cinders earns him protection, while his trust in Iris and Winter sets a rescue effort in motion.
• Power and vulnerability: Su Yi possesses a powerful body and divine connections but cannot control himself; even godlike strength does not guarantee agency.
• Deception and concealment: The Goddess hides Su Yi’s soul, Yellow Book fakes Iris and Zhenshan’s deaths, and the Holy Body Cult’s plans depend on manipulation.
• Political upheaval and retaliation: The Mechanical Father’s direct intervention breaks the gods’ unspoken rules and threatens to ignite wider conflict.
• Memory, loss, and revenge: Yellow Book’s visit to the flagship reconnects him with a faded past and reinforces his desire to avenge his people.

Character interactions

• The bishops’ frustration and fear contrast with Su Yi’s private confidence in the protection hidden within him.
• Su Yi’s trust in Iris enables her escape; Iris, in turn, appeals to Mo Long and Yellow Book to help save both Su Yi and Zhenshan.
• Yellow Book’s calm authority reassures Mo Long and allows the group to escape the infected battlefield.
• Iris’s message gives Winter the chance to act, and Winter turns personal concern into a collective call to arms for the Ten Pioneers.

Chapter Summary

Key plot points and events

• Su Yi’s possession is kept secret at first. Winter fears the news could provoke reckless attacks, so she begins organizing a rescue and asks Iron Pillar to record Su Yi’s condition and the Holy Body Cult’s actions. The footage could rally the players against the cult.
• Company leaders assess the crisis. Ilis, Black Oak, the Ash Envoy, Flame Purgatory, and others recognize that Su Yi’s loss could wreck morale and weaken the western front. They arrange reinforcements, seek help from the Radiant Light Saint, prepare to expose the Holy Body Cult’s violation of the Gods’ Covenant, and plan how to rescue Su Yi.
• Ilis mobilizes Su Yi’s allies. She has Maria help document events while Emma and Dora enter the Void Abyss to try to awaken Su Yi, warning them not to approach too closely because his body may have been transformed by the Mechanical Father’s power.
• The front’s morale is restored. The news spreads, causing anger, fear, and confusion among troops and workers. Iris Barrett gives a live speech urging them to hold to Su Yi’s example, and veterans reinforce her message. The troops rally to avenge him.
• The players launch a campaign. More than twenty thousand elite players gather under Iron Pillar’s leadership, declaring “Horus’s Revenge” against the Holy Body Cult. They attack the forces guarding the Six-Winged Angel, swiftly destroying a group of Slaughter Apprentices and combat mechs.
• The cult chooses to use Su Yi against them. The bishops activate Su Yi’s combat program and bind him with the SSS-Class Soul Shackles, an artifact meant to control and teleport its target. Bishop Furnace summons him to crush the attackers and break their hope.
• Su Yi appears transformed. Now titled Myriad-Sword Machine God, he is a fully mechanical, cold-looking version of himself and is listed as a Holy Body Cult puppet. The players are shaken by the sight but attack with their strongest abilities, piling more than a hundred debuffs on him.
• Su Yi retaliates devastatingly. He invokes “Protocol Three” and turns scattered scrap metal into tens of thousands of swords. The resulting sword-dragon destroys a summoned bone serpent and kills thousands of players in one strike.

Character developments and interactions

• Winter acts strategically, choosing to build unity before revealing the full crisis.
• Ilis takes charge under pressure, balancing concern for Su Yi with the need to keep the front stable. She also uses her memory-based Divine Authority to calm Maria, Emma, and Dora.
• Iris Barrett emerges as a public rallying figure, using her bond with Su Yi and his teachings to restore morale.
• Iron Pillar turns personal loyalty into leadership, organizing the players and spearheading the assault.
• Maria, Emma, and Dora show intense fear and anger for Su Yi, but agree to follow Ilis’s plan and help the rescue effort.
• The players demonstrate fierce loyalty, combining their resources and abilities while even jokingly insulting Bishop Furnace. Their attack is driven by love for Su Yi, but they are unprepared for his altered power.
• The bishops treat the assault as an opportunity to test Su Yi’s new strength. Furnace is especially enraged by the players’ taunts and deliberately uses Su Yi to demoralize them.

Significant themes

• Loyalty and collective resolve: Su Yi’s influence inspires players, soldiers, and workers to unite despite fear and grief.
• Hope amid catastrophe: Iris and the veterans insist that Su Yi’s example matters even when he is absent or seemingly lost.
• Love turned into resistance: His allies’ personal attachment becomes the force behind a large-scale rescue and revenge campaign.
• The cost of power and transformation: Su Yi’s enhanced mechanical form is impressive but emotionally alien, raising the question of whether the person they love remains within it.
• Morale as a battlefield: Both sides understand that Su Yi’s fate could determine not just a fight, but the cohesion and control of an entire front.

Key plot points and events

• The Holy Body Cult’s Myriad-Sword Machine God, controlled by Su Yi’s body but apparently not his will, devastates an assault by 20,000 elite Players. The Players briefly restrain it using the Blood-Melding Whip, Binary Magic, magnetic powers, and a Void Abyss attack, but the machine’s hidden protocols let it break free.
• Su Yi’s body kills Legion Commander Iron Pillar and Deputy Commander Begging Helps, turning their remains into grotesque swords. It then destroys two Storm-class ships with a gigantic blade formed from thousands of flying swords. Fewer than half the Players survive, though many hear Su Yi’s warning and realize he is still alive inside the machine.
• Furnace retrieves the machine and concludes the enemy’s Psychic Energy intrusion was erased by the Holy Father’s firewall. The Circuit Grand Sage reveals that the Cult has reached an agreement with the company and plans to seize the Six-Winged Angel and Omnipotent Giant Spirit God projects to dominate the Mountain River Star Sector.
• At the front, Emma and Dora confirm that Su Yi’s will remains present, but he has lost control of his body and needs help. Ilis and her allies decide to use the battle footage to rally the Players and pressure the Cult.
• News spreads throughout the player community. Players quickly identify Cult members and launch coordinated attacks across multiple planets, declaring that every Cult member must die. The chapter ends with examples of these reprisals at a banquet, an underground clinic, a landing site, and a café.

Character developments

• Su Yi: His body displays overwhelming power and new capabilities, but he is not in control. His brief mental warning confirms that his will survives and gives the Players hope.
• Iron Pillar and Begging Helps: The two commanders fight courageously and help create an opening, but are killed when Su Yi’s body activates its reconstruction protocol.
• Furnace: He celebrates the machine’s victory and prizes it as a force capable of replacing an army, unaware that Su Yi may still be conscious within it.
• Ilis: Moves from relief at Su Yi’s survival to determined leadership, turning the crisis into a campaign against the Cult.
• The Players: Their grief and loyalty become collective rage, driving them into immediate, uncompromising retaliation.

Significant themes

• Loyalty and solidarity: The Players’ devotion to Su Yi unites them across worlds and factions.
• Power and loss of control: Su Yi’s body is nearly unstoppable, yet its strength is frightening because he cannot command it.
• Revenge and escalation: The Cult’s attack sparks mass reprisals, blurring the line between justice and indiscriminate vengeance.
• Propaganda and mobilization: Battle footage and player-interface information transform a military defeat into a rallying point for a sector-wide uprising.

Character interactions

• The Players coordinate an elaborate assault, sacrificing themselves to restrain Su Yi’s body long enough for their leaders to strike.
• Su Yi’s brief warning to run gives the Players proof that he remains inside, even as his body turns on them.
• Emma and Dora reassure Ilis and the others that the rescue effort can continue.
• Across several planets, Players confront Cult members who protest that they have done nothing personally; the Players answer that the Cult’s attack on their “Godfather” makes them targets.

Plot points and events

• The Holy Body Cult’s headquarters, Motor Oil Star, is revealed as a heavily mechanized world with vast resources and influence. Its Circuit Grand Sage has allied the Cult with Black Sun Group official Mork Saron. In return for access to company departments and help seizing Diamond Star and a sacred relic, the Cult is helping Mork pursue power and immortality.
• At Black Sun Group headquarters, Winster Starlink blames Chair Black Oak for Su Yi’s apparent defection and demands action against his allies. Black Oak warns that Su Yi was more than an employer to the Human Alliance Pioneers: he was their teacher and the restraint holding back their fury. Winster dismisses the warning and leaves, revealing he was communicating remotely.
• The company’s propaganda spreads claims that Su Yi betrayed it and massacred his own forces, shocking the Mountain River Star Sector.
• On Rhode Star, Rijia learns that Su Yi is alive and gathers the Moon-Drinking Azure Wolf’s leaders. They prepare to resist the Divine Fire Faction, which controls substantial company resources and is moving against them. The Church of the Goddess of White Frost pledges support, while Players represented by Upside-Down Poop Eater volunteer to take the fight to the enemy.
• When special review commissioner Tair arrives with two thousand troops, he orders the Moon-Drinking Azure Wolf branded criminals and its assets seized. Before he can consolidate control, Human Alliance Pioneers ambush his forces. They quickly overwhelm the guards, kill Tair, and reveal that their comrades have also seized the fleet’s bridge.

Character developments and interactions

• Black Oak remains steadfast and perceptive. She refuses to yield to Winster’s pressure and understands the Pioneers’ loyalty to Su Yi better than he does.
• Winster Starlink is confident and dismissive, treating loyalty as meaningless and assuming Su Yi’s allies can be bought or crushed.
• Rijia moves from relief at learning Su Yi is alive to a measured resolve: he wants to protect Rhode Star, avoid fighting on its ground if possible, and coordinate with allies.
• Upside-Down Poop Eater turns the Pioneers’ gratitude toward Su Yi into a deliberate plan of retaliation. His forceful leadership culminates in Tair’s execution.
• Mork Saron and the Circuit Grand Sage cement their alliance, each expecting to benefit from the other; Mork is especially motivated by the promise of transformation and eternal life.
• The chapter contrasts Winster’s contempt for the Pioneers with Black Oak’s warning about their loyalty and capability. Tair makes the same mistake, underestimating them until his forces are destroyed.

Significant themes

• Loyalty versus profit: Winster assumes people will always choose personal gain, while the Pioneers’ devotion to Su Yi proves otherwise.
• Consequences of betrayal and miscalculation: The company’s leaders turn Su Yi into a weapon against his own allies, unleashing the very force he had kept in check.
• Propaganda and factional power: The public story of Su Yi’s betrayal serves the Divine Fire Faction’s political maneuvering.
• Restraint giving way to chaos: With Su Yi absent, the Pioneers abandon their usual restraint and answer institutional abuse with overwhelming violence.

Key plot points and events

• Inside the Myriad-Sword Machine God, Su Yi exploits the Players’ earlier attack to absorb refined Psychic Energy and divine power of Pleasure. His soul has recovered to about 1.2%, and he has found ways to use the lingering divine imprints in his body to probe its defenses. He begins planning an escape: awaken his Stigmata Totem and use runes to build the tools he needs.
• On Diamond Star, Alton, Dutch, Molly, Wen Qi, and other allies organize defenses and prepare for retaliation against the Holy Body Cult and its allies. They mobilize reserves, expedite new armor and weapons, reinforce security, and expect a company fleet to arrive in three days. The Players’ representatives, Goudan and Wheelchair, insist on pursuing their own revenge; Wheelchair hints that a major move is coming.
• On Tama Star, Player Interstellar Double Eagle attacks company and Holy Body Cult personnel in response to Su Yi’s capture and betrayal. Wounded and nearly out of ammunition, he is rescued by Pitchfork Buster and a force of more than a hundred Players. Together they launch a wider campaign against their enemies.
• At a Holy Body Cult outpost, Steel Blade reveals himself as an infiltrator and detonates his body, killing nearby scholars. The explosion opens the way for armed Players to storm the base, declaring vengeance “in the name of Horus.”

Character developments and interactions

• Su Yi shifts from passive captivity to calculated resistance, using his mixed divine heritage and the Players’ attack as resources.
• Alton and Dutch channel their anger into coordinated defense rather than rushing into a trap. Alton also promises the Players extensive support.
• Interstellar Double Eagle makes clear that his attack is personal: Su Yi was his benefactor, teacher, and refuge. He rejects Number 14’s appeals to career and loyalty to the company, insisting he acted because revenge felt right.
• Number 14, a former colleague who had once fought alongside Double Eagle, cannot understand his choice and calls the resistance futile. Pitchfork Buster intervenes, heals Double Eagle, and brings reinforcements; Double Eagle then kills Number 14.
• Steel Blade’s betrayal exposes how deeply the Players have infiltrated the Holy Body Cult’s ranks.

Significant themes

• Loyalty and gratitude: Players risk their lives for Su Yi because of the help and sense of belonging he gave them.
• Collective action and brotherhood: Individuals from many backgrounds unite around a shared cause, turning personal devotion into organized resistance.
• Revenge and sacrifice: The Players knowingly abandon safety, careers, and even their lives to strike back.
• Resistance against control: Su Yi’s escape plan and the Players’ uprising both challenge forces that seek to dominate or define them.

Key plot points and events

• Copper Cable’s trusted aide, Steel Blade, turns himself into a bomb and detonates inside a gathering of Holy Body Cult scholars. The explosion creates an opening for the Players’ assault.
• Pitchfork Buster captures and kills Copper Cable while the Players slaughter more than a hundred elite scholars. They reject the scholars’ pleas to surrender, making clear that their target is the Holy Body Cult itself—not its secrets or resources.
• The Players loot the site, then launch attacks elsewhere. Rebel Blade and Yamato destroy a machinery factory and deliberately keep Winster Starlink’s Phantom Assassins occupied through torture until their allies’ operation is complete. They then detonate themselves, killing or injuring their captors.
• News of the attacks reaches Winster Starlink: his forces have lost Copper Cable and other crucial researchers, and unrest is spreading across Tama Star. The attackers are powerful, hard to identify, and seemingly indifferent to pain or death.
• A second bombing hits Winster’s company building. Madfire, an undercover Player, kills a company supervisor and joins other Players in eliminating the wounded and the guards. Winster arrives, kills most of the attackers, and is left confronting the scale of the rebellion within his own organization.

Character developments

• Copper Cable shifts from confidence in his security measures to helpless fury and despair as his trusted aide betrays him and his scholars are slaughtered.
• Steel Blade reveals that his loyalty to Gheros outweighs his future, trust, and life, sacrificing himself to enable the attack.
• Rebel Blade and Yamato demonstrate fierce loyalty to Su Yi, whom they regard as their “Godfather.” They accept torture and ultimately death to delay the enemy and support their comrades.
• Madfire acts on gratitude to Su Yi, abandoning his promising career and risking everything as an undercover ally.
• Winster Starlink is shaken by the scale and determination of the uprising. He struggles to accept that his opponents are not bargaining, infiltrating for profit, or simply behaving like conventional enemies.

Significant themes

• Loyalty and gratitude: Players and undercover agents risk everything to repay Su Yi and avenge him.
• Rebellion without self-preservation: The attackers’ willingness to endure torture and die makes them impossible for the Holy Body Cult to control through ordinary threats or incentives.
• Clashing values: The Cult sees scholars as valuable assets who can be spared or recruited; the Players reject that logic and treat membership in the Cult as grounds for execution.
• The consequences of oppression: Winster’s forces have underestimated their enemies and, as Black Oak warned, helped unleash a force they cannot easily contain.
• Betrayal within the system: Infiltrators embedded in the Cult and Winster’s company undermine his confidence in his supposedly secure stronghold.

Character interactions

• Copper Cable confronts Steel Blade’s betrayal and later argues with his attackers, insisting the scholars could be useful; the Players dismiss his appeal.
• Rebel Blade and Yamato taunt Ice Blade and his Phantom Assassins through torture, deliberately holding them in place until the bombing operation is complete.
• Ice Blade reports the attackers’ motives to Winster, while the mayor describes the massacre, forcing Winster to face the extent of the revolt.
• Madfire kills L37, then works with Li Yuanfang and other Players to attack their own colleagues. Winster’s arrival abruptly ends their assault and exposes the rebellion inside his company.

Key plot points and events

• Winster Starlink interrogates undercover Human Alliance Pioneers Madfire and Li Yuanfang. When Li refuses to talk and self-destructs, Winster absorbs the blast; he also easily suppresses Madfire’s attack.
• Winster orders two Keepers of Secrets to read the Players’ memories. Unknown to them, the Players’ memories contain a counterattack trap devised by Su Yi and Winter: a chaotic mix of corrupting powers and scrambled Earth memories. Both Keepers are contaminated, as are Madfire and Li Yuanfang, and all four die. Winster gains no intelligence and loses valuable personnel.
• Enraged, Winster declares martial law and orders every Human Alliance Pioneer on the planet killed. Medic Song Jianghai, a Pioneer who had tried to avoid conflict, is inspired by the Players’ loyalty and decides he may need to join the fight.
• Reprisals spread across multiple planets. Lu Xu, the Circuit Great Sage, receives reports of attacks on Holy Body Cult bases and personnel, including hundreds of deaths and heavy material losses. His fellow Great Sage, Gear, blames Lu’s secret radical plan and demands he contain the crisis within half a month. Lu responds by ordering an assault on Diamond Star, hoping to seize the Pioneers’ base.
• Aboard the Six-Winged Angel, three Bishops struggle to advance their plan while Pioneers attack and infiltrate the ship. Radiant leader Cocos and Orc leader Dragonspine—both betrayed and stripped of their followers—join forces to sabotage the operation. Dragonspine’s blood assimilates machinery, while Cocos’s teleportation helps them evade capture.
• The Bishops have nearly wiped out the Bone Demons, but the immobile mother organism remains protected by its Spirit-Erasing Domain. They intend to transform the ship and seize its Ship Spirit before dealing with it.
• The Bishops are confronted with recordings of the Pioneers’ widespread revenge attacks. Furnace recognizes victims among those being killed and realizes the reports may be real.

Character developments and interactions

• Madfire and Li Yuanfang remain defiant under interrogation, using insults and silence to conceal what they know. Their planned memory trap turns the attempted mind-reading into a deadly counterattack.
• Winster Starlink shifts from confident interrogator to furious, humiliated commander. He responds to the losses with indiscriminate orders against all Pioneers.
• Song Jianghai moves from weary neutrality toward action, stirred by memories of his younger, more combative self and gratitude toward the people who once helped him.
• Lu Xu is exposed as the architect of a plan that has provoked widespread retaliation. His fellow Great Sages distance themselves from him, while he doubles down by targeting Diamond Star.
• Cocos and Dragonspine, formerly mortal enemies, cooperate against the Bishops after being deceived and losing their forces.
• Bishop Furnace dismisses the returning Pioneers at first, but the footage of the killings shakes his confidence.

Significant themes

• Solidarity and revenge: The Pioneers’ loyalty to one another turns a local killing into coordinated reprisals across many worlds.
• Memory as both vulnerability and weapon: An attempt to extract secrets becomes a trap that destroys the readers as well as the targets.
• Consequences of betrayal and overreach: Winster and Lu underestimate the Pioneers, while the Bishops’ deception creates powerful enemies aboard their own ship.
• Resistance spreading through ordinary people: Song Jianghai’s renewed resolve suggests the conflict can draw in even those who once sought only a quiet life.
• Escalating chaos: Each faction’s attempts to control events instead widen the conflict and increase the costs.

Key plot points and events

• The Players launch a second, deliberately small assault on the Myriad-Sword Machine God. Their real purpose is to use a brief opening created by Watchdog’s Binary Magic so Emma and Dora can connect with Su Yi and transfer Psychic Energy.
• Meanwhile, the Players’ retaliatory attacks on the Holy Body Cult are reported across the stars: hundreds of outposts destroyed and tens of thousands of cult members killed. The reports shatter Bishop Furnace’s confidence. He learns that Copper Cable is dead and that the Great Sage has ordered the cult’s ship to prioritize securing propulsion and returning to Motor Oil Star.
• The Players taunt the bishops, provoking Furnace, Twin Spirit, and Thousand Eyes with claims that the Mechanical Father has abandoned his useless followers. The bishops suppress their anger to finish their mission.
• Su Yi absorbs the bishops’ emotions and power, raising his soul recovery from 1.2% to 5%. He uses Binary Magic on the Stigmata Totem’s mark, finding a tiny crack in the Mechanical Father’s otherwise comprehensive control program. He hopes to exploit the program and even considers turning the mechanical Divine Body into an optional “mod.”
• Director Amethyst stabilizes the front-line command and construction effort, then offers to help the badly injured Zhenshan fight again. Zhenshan recognizes the ancient Purple Cloud Type 2 armor and explains that its built-in takeover system can operate his damaged body if his ruined limbs are removed and he is placed inside it.
• Zhenshan asks after Horus and recommends contacting the Holy Son, believing his increased power may help.
• Kilman learns that Su Yi is supposedly dead and that the Players are attacking the cult. Enraged, he consults Nine Blades, who identifies two nearby cult industrial planets. With the Golden Webway restored, a company can reach them in a week aboard an Extermination Punishment Ship. Kilman orders an Extermination Decree: use one neutron-radiation bomb and keep the second in reserve.

Character development and interactions

• Su Yi grows stronger through the Players’ sacrifice and begins actively probing the limits of the Mechanical Father’s control. His ingenuity and irreverent humor remain evident even as he faces captivity.
• Furnace shifts from dismissive outrage to shaken disbelief as he sees the scale of the cult’s losses, though the Players’ insults still nearly drive him into reckless action. Twin Spirit and Thousand Eyes restrain him and keep the mission first.
• The Players coordinate more strategically: frontline fighters create opportunities for Emma and Dora to aid Su Yi, while other Players pursue widespread retaliation.
• Amethyst offers practical help while respecting Zhenshan’s history and the limits of current technology. Zhenshan demonstrates confidence and knowledge of his ancient equipment, accepting a solution that restores mobility without compromising its capabilities.
• Kilman’s normally warm manner gives way to overwhelming fury. Nine Blades validates the Players’ vengeance but proposes an even more extreme response, and Kilman adopts it.

Significant themes

• Retaliation and escalation: The cult’s attack on Su Yi triggers a vast, increasingly indiscriminate backlash that culminates in a proposed planetary extermination.
• Power through connection: The Players’ sacrifices and the sisters’ psychic link help Su Yi recover, showing how collective action can affect even a seemingly sealed battlefield.
• Ancient knowledge and adaptation: Zhenshan’s armor offers a solution beyond contemporary technology, while Su Yi searches for ways to repurpose the system controlling him.
• Faith, usefulness, and abandonment: The Players weaponize the bishops’ fear that the Mechanical Father considers them expendable, exposing how vulnerable their devotion is to doubt.

Key plot points and events

• After learning that the Six-Winged Angel carries another Human Emperor Heavenly Soldier and a bone demon, the Master Chief briefs Kilman and Nine Blades. Nine Blades commits a company and two strategic “Divine Judgment Boons” to help, despite the cost. Kilman believes he will meet Horus again and that Horus’s forces will become valuable allies.
• More than 200 million Human Alliance Pioneers spread their retaliation across the Mountain River Star Sector, targeting the Holy Body Cult and its collaborators. The Moon-Drinking Azure Wolf and Diamond Star remain restrained, limiting their response to warrants and a planetary lockdown.
• Mork Saron of the Divine Fire Faction plans to exploit the chaos to seize Diamond Star. He intends to disrupt its supply lines, remove Molly Kalbanyan to destabilize its technology network, and use a hidden trump card to take control of the Ancient Artifact, the Mist Horn. He also wants to secure Rhode Star first as legal cover.
• Mork’s forces move to take Rhode Star, with orders to manufacture evidence against its defenders and silence the prisoners. But Upside-Down Poop Eater and the Players turn the tables: Winter hacks the fleet’s shared systems, takes control of all 180 ships, and uses them to detain the invaders and head toward Joseph.
• Winter explains that Binary Magic, the Astral Algorithm, and Red Sun Star’s network give her near-demigod hacking power while she remains on the planet. The Players rally to carry out their mission and make the sector feel the cost of provoking Godfather.

Character developments and interactions

• Kilman shows strong faith in Horus and says their blood bond lets him sense Horus’s power and movement. Though Nine Blades questions the risky deployment, Kilman’s certainty convinces him to proceed.
• Nine Blades balances caution about scarce troops and ammunition with loyalty to Kilman and hope that Horus is protecting them.
• Mork Saron reveals himself as a calculating opportunist: he avoids an open split with the Cinder Faction for now, but seeks to weaken Diamond Star and expand his control.
• Winter emerges as a formidable strategist and near-planetary power, using Red Sun Star’s computing resources to outmaneuver an entire fleet. Her admiration for Su Yi’s restraint underscores both her growing strength and his influence.
• Upside-Down Poop Eater and the Players work closely with Winter, turning the fleet’s systems against its owners. Winter reassures them that Godfather is fine and channels their anger into the coming battle.

Significant themes

• Loyalty and revenge: The Players’ devotion to Godfather drives them to accept severe risks and pursue enemies without regard for their own losses.
• Power and restraint: Winter recognizes the intoxicating temptation of immense power, while Su Yi’s choice to stop at a threshold offers a counterpoint to unchecked ambition.
• Information and infrastructure as weapons: Winter’s control of networks and computing power lets her seize ships without a conventional fight.
• Political opportunism: Mork treats the conflict as a chance to secure territory, manipulate public opinion, and create a pretext for conquest.

Key plot points and events

• Four days after Su Yi’s defection, a Divine Fire Faction inspection team led by Deputy Director Barry Pine arrives to investigate Diamond Star. Dutch and Alton recognize the visitors as hostile, thanks to Priest Joseph’s warning, but pretend to cooperate. Barry’s team requests a broad list of officials for questioning and asks for an elite guide; Dutch assigns Saint Alton.
• Dutch and Alton privately plan to use Winter’s help to make the inspection fleet “accidentally” crash in the Dark Universe.
• On the fleet, Barry’s team discusses taking control of Diamond Star and has already executed 121 Human Alliance Pioneers aboard. However, clerk Richard Tyson—himself a Pioneer—survives by hiding his identity. Hoping to advance, he contacts Winter and gives him access to the ship’s internal network.
• Winter briefly disables the fleet’s automated controls. He and five thousand Players, supported by two hundred thousand troops under Tair, carry out a suicidal collision attack against the inspection fleet in the Dark Universe. They ram the enemy ships, then board them by Assault Craft.
• The collision tears open the ships’ protection. Dark Universe currents and Aether Data Wraiths pour in, killing thousands within minutes and plunging both fleets into chaos. Anxiety escapes through a Void Abyss Rift. Barry orders survivors toward escape pods and calls for Shadow Legion rescue, but the fleet is rapidly breaking apart. He identifies the attackers as Human Alliance forces and realizes they were willing to die to destroy his fleet.

Character developments

• Dutch and Alton maintain a polite façade while committing to a covert, lethal response. Their confidence in Joseph’s intelligence shapes their suspicion of Barry’s team.
• Barry Pine is revealed as a ruthless and capable operator: he eliminated the Pioneers aboard his ships and prepares carefully for the takeover. Yet the catastrophe exposes his fear and helplessness when faced with the Human Alliance’s willingness to sacrifice itself.
• Richard Tyson shifts from an overlooked, low-ranking clerk to an active conspirator. Ambition and a substantial reward from Winter motivate him to risk exposing the fleet’s systems.
• Winter directs the operation realistically, acknowledging that a conventional attack would be fatal and choosing an extreme tactic instead.
• Anxiety abandons Barry when the fleet is doomed, showing that self-preservation outweighs their apparent cooperation.
• Tair’s troops and the Players are rallied through loyalty to Minister Saron, promises of promotion and wealth, and a shared readiness to die.

Significant themes

• Sacrifice and extremity in war: The attackers deliberately accept mutual destruction because conventional combat would be even more hopeless.
• Betrayal, deception, and hidden allegiance: Dutch feigns cooperation, Richard hides his identity, and Barry’s own “investigation” masks a takeover.
• Ambition and incentives: Tyson’s desire to escape obscurity makes him useful to Winter’s plan; the troops are also stirred by rewards and advancement.
• The Dark Universe as an uncontrollable threat: Once ships are breached, its currents and Wraiths become as deadly as the enemy, turning the battle into mass survival rather than ordinary combat.

Character interactions

• Barry and Dutch exchange courteous assurances, while each privately treats the other as a threat.
• Dutch and Alton discuss Joseph’s warning and coordinate their response through Winter.
• Tyson contacts Winter, trading access for equipment and money; Winter then uses the opening to infiltrate the fleet’s network.
• Winter briefs the Players, who encourage one another’s willingness to die, while Tair motivates his soldiers through loyalty to Saron.
• Barry and Anxiety discuss the planned operation on Diamond Star, but Anxiety flees when the collision leaves the fleet collapsing.

Plot points and events

• In the Dark Universe, Upside-Down Poop Eater leads an assault craft into a lifeboat carrying L61’s elite troops. The collision and the surrounding turbulence kill many people, but his team seals off the breach and attacks the defenders.
• After the first group is wiped out by the better-equipped Vulcan soldiers, hundreds of Players teleport in. They defeat the 340 soldiers at enormous cost, then execute the captured Navigation Department officer, who admits the Holy Body Cult planned the attack on Gheros.
• The surviving Players regroup to assault Barry Pine’s position. Unable to break its defenses directly, they use Ghosthead Blade as a makeshift explosive projectile, creating an opening for a charge.
• Barry reveals powerful Holy Body Cult abilities, killing Cosmic Superman and impaling Upside-Down Poop Eater. The Players and their allies are nearly defeated as their supplies and Bandwidth run out.
• Shadow Legion commanders Slaughter Blade and Steel Bone arrive. Instead of helping Barry, they kill him and order their troops to slaughter his soldiers. Upside-Down Poop Eater reveals that these are his reinforcements. Barry, L61’s deputy minister, is beheaded.

Character developments and interactions

• Upside-Down Poop Eater emerges as a fearless, resourceful commander, willing to improvise and sacrifice allies to overcome superior defenses. Even while mortally wounded, he taunts Barry with the arrival of reinforcements.
• Barry Pine shifts from furious, confident commander to a desperate captive. His assumption that the Shadow Legion will support him proves fatal.
• Cosmic Superman fights at the front and helps launch Ghosthead Blade, but is killed by Barry.
• Ghosthead Blade volunteers to become the improvised projectile, embodying the Players’ readiness to risk themselves.
• The Players’ camaraderie and gallows humor persist despite devastating losses, as seen in their joking about death, respawning, and equipment.
• Barry and Old Chu exchange accusations, each believing the other side has betrayed their faction—underscoring how misinformation has turned the conflict into a deadly standoff.

Significant themes

• Sacrifice and survival: Victory requires extreme losses and desperate improvisation.
• Misinformation and factional conflict: Both sides see the other as traitors, making reconciliation impossible.
• Power and betrayal: Barry’s rank and resources cannot protect him when his supposed allies turn against him.
• Dark humor amid brutality: The Players’ jokes and matter-of-fact acceptance of death contrast with the horrors of the battle.

Plot points and events

• Slaughter Blade kills Barry Pine, destroys his soul and memories, and helps the Shadow Legion wipe out the Divine Fire warriors and every other survivor aboard the ship. They loot the wreck and plant a bomb, which leaves the ship to be swallowed by the Dark Universe.
• Slaughter Blade finds a mysterious, rune-covered white box among Barry’s possessions. He later learns it contains a dangerous device capable of altering the Mist Horn’s ownership and state.
• Bloodsoaked Mad Dog reports that the wounded Engine Bishop had planned to infiltrate Diamond Star, steal Godfather’s divine artifact, and use a confederate named Anxiety to abduct Molly and create chaos. Slaughter Blade orders the bishop killed and the area searched for other survivors.
• Winter directs Slaughter Blade to bring the box to Red Sun Star rather than Diamond Star. She then prepares to expose the enemy’s failed operation and uses her new Holographic Projection Doppelganger skill to project herself through a network.
• At Diamond Star, Alton and Winter keep the enemy envoy, Rodney, waiting for the fleet led by Barry Pine. When it fails to arrive, the Black Sun Group and Holy Body Cult investigate and discover that the entire fleet—and a second fleet—has vanished in the Dark Universe.
• The Circuit Grand Sage is enraged: the dead fleet included an Engine Bishop, elite troops, scholars, and the only artifact able to control the Mist Horn. The executives blame the Pioneers of the Human Alliance and issue a bounty and broad restrictions against them.
• The Golden Order publicly claims responsibility for destroying the fleet, demands Su Yi Horus’s body and the Holy Body Cult’s withdrawal from the Six-Winged Angel, and threatens further strikes. Its warning escalates into a declaration that the Human Emperor’s punishment is already coming.

Character developments and interactions

• Slaughter Blade proves ruthless and pragmatic, cooperating with the Shadow Legion even when it means killing allies, while showing excitement at discovering the valuable box. His banter with his brother Bloodsoaked Mad Dog reflects their trust and shared criminal methods.
• Winter takes a more active strategic role, using her rapidly advancing Binary Magic abilities to project herself remotely and coordinate events. She and Leg Kicker exchange ideas about developing the “Idiot Bar Virus,” a mind-altering weapon intended for use against the Holy Body Cult.
• Alton calmly stalls Rodney while Winter observes, helping conceal that the fleet has been destroyed.
• Rodney grows suspicious as the fleet misses its arrival time and attempts to report the situation, but cannot reach it.
• Winster Starlink and Mork Saron move from confidence to shock and fury as they learn of the fleet’s loss. The Circuit Grand Sage harshly rebukes them, then joins them in blaming the Pioneers and threatening retaliation.
• Sterl Stars provides the crucial intelligence linking the missing fleets to the wider conflict.

Significant themes

• Deception and misdirection: The massacre is staged to look accidental, while Winter and Alton conceal the fleet’s destruction.
• Escalating factional conflict: The competing groups trade covert attacks, public threats, bounties, and promises of mass retaliation.
• Power and technological ingenuity: Winter’s new projection skill and Leg Kicker’s experimental virus show how rapidly magical and technological abilities are being adapted for warfare.
• The cost of ambition: The effort to seize the Mist Horn leaves powerful factions with catastrophic losses and uncertain control of a dangerous artifact.

Plot and key events

• The company and Holy Body Cult retaliate against the Players’ revenge campaign, dismissing their threat to summon the Human Emperor’s forces as a bluff. Across more than a hundred planets, they deploy elite units, bounty hunters, and mass-casualty tactics. In under an hour, over 800,000 Players are killed.
• The Players treat the crackdown as costly but temporary. Winter tells her allies to exploit the bounty system and wait for Godfather to recover and the Human Emperor Heavenly Soldiers to arrive. The executives initially mistake the Players’ retreat for defeat, but learn that the operation has cost more than 1.5 trillion, nearly one trillion of it in bounties. They abruptly cancel the rewards and claim victory.
• The wider war continues. The Desire Demon Legion renews its attack under Laya, while Amethyst’s arrival strengthens the defenders with improved weapons and equipment.
• Su Yi’s recovery advances aboard the Myriad-Sword Machine God. Although the Bishops deploy it to kill Players, those deaths supply power to Su Yi. A Player sees the Machine God signal them, suggesting Su Yi can control it. His soul is at half strength, he controls all three anchor points, and he is secretly rewriting the machine’s systems. He expects to regain control in about ten days.
• The chapter ends with the promised intervention becoming real. At the Gangyu system, the Lever Great Sage learns that an approaching ship bears the signature of the Ancient Entropy Empire. Aboard the cruiser Sacred Fist Blade, Champion Centurion Blade Wolf explains that he has come to punish the Holy Body Cult for attacking the Holy Son’s first teacher—and to ensure the Cult will feel grateful enough to repay the Empire.

Character developments and interactions

• Winter remains composed despite the Players’ catastrophic losses. She views the bounty campaign as a way to drain the enemy’s resources while buying time for Su Yi.
• Mork Saron and Wince Starlink grow overconfident, interpreting the Players’ reduced activity as surrender. Their confidence falters when they see the enormous cost of their own suppression campaign.
• Su Yi moves from helpless recovery toward active control: he has restored half his soul, mastered the anchor points, and begun covertly altering the Machine God’s code.
• The Lever Great Sage is shaken by the possibility that the Human Emperor’s forces have answered the Players’ threat.
• Blade Wolf is stern and purposeful; Sabertooth questions why a celebrated officer was sent against two small planets. Blade Wolf frames the mission as both punishment and a strategic gesture toward the Holy Son.

Significant themes

• Power and overconfidence: The company can inflict devastating losses, but its victory narrative conceals the financial damage and the Players’ continuing resistance.
• Sacrifice and solidarity: Players’ deaths are not merely losses; they help restore Su Yi and sustain hope among the survivors.
• Hidden momentum: While the Holy Body Cult believes the Players have been subdued, Su Yi is quietly regaining control and an imperial force is already approaching.
• Retribution and political leverage: Blade Wolf’s mission is presented as justice for an attack, but also as a calculated effort to secure future gratitude and repayment.

Key plot points and events

• Blade Wolf and Sabertooth arrive in the system of the Holy Body Cult, whose ruler has already paid taxes to the Second Empire. They decide to destroy the Industrial Planet with one of their two bombs.
• Lever Great Sage spots the single enemy cruiser and mobilizes more than four thousand warships, expecting an easy victory. The Human Emperor Heavenly Soldiers instead use precise spatial jumps to infiltrate the ships’ command bridges, killing their officers and taking control without firing a shot from their own vessel.
• The Sacred Fist Blade launches an extermination missile at the Industrial Planet. The blast annihilates its cities, factories, fleet, and most inhabitants. Even fortified underground bunkers collapse when the planet’s crust is devastated.
• Lever Great Sage watches his military and industrial power vanish. On the Administrative Planet, he tries to negotiate, offering three Standard Material Templates and insisting on his loyalty.
• Blade Wolf reveals himself as a Champion Centurion and demands the return of Gheros’s body and the Six-Winged Angel, as well as the three Templates. When Lever Great Sage hesitates and questions Gheros’s importance, Blade Wolf orders orbital strikes on a city. The bombardment continues, making clear that negotiation is not the goal.

Character developments and interactions

• Blade Wolf is calm and decisive throughout. He leads the operation with overwhelming force, then states his demands directly and punishes resistance immediately.
• Sabertooth accepts Blade Wolf’s interpretation of their orders and takes no issue with the plan to destroy the Industrial Planet.
• Lever Great Sage shifts from confidence in his fleet to terror and desperation. He recognizes the attackers’ advanced technology, realizes Gheros has powerful allies, and loses any belief that he can bargain from a position of strength.
• Halo, the Sacred Fist Blade’s Ship Spirit, enables the operation by coordinating the jumps, controlling the captured fleet, and carrying out the orbital bombardment.
• The Human Emperor Heavenly Soldiers interact with the enemy through swift, silent violence; the planetary forces are left confused and unable to respond. Lever Great Sage’s attempt to negotiate with Blade Wolf ends in further destruction.

Significant themes

• Overwhelming power and helplessness: Conventional fleets, defenses, and bunkers prove useless against superior technology.
• Consequences of cruelty and exploitation: The Industrial Planet’s impoverished population suffers alongside the ruling elite, while the Cult’s privileged leaders face the devastation they could not prevent.
• Loyalty and personal ties: The attack is driven by Gheros’s connection to the Human Alliance Pioneers, showing that personal bonds can provoke an empire-shaking response.
• Terror as a weapon: The attackers’ speed, silence, and refusal to negotiate are as psychologically devastating as their firepower.

Key events

• Lever Great Sage surrenders after the Human Emperor Heavenly Soldiers arrive, but Blade Wolf gives him five minutes to choose how to die. Sabertooth and the troops teleport into Lever’s heavily defended underground fortress, seize the Holy Body Cult’s three treasured “standard material templates,” and warn the cult to submit or perish.
• With its teleporter unavailable for three days, Lever’s group is trapped as the fortress is destroyed by magma and an electromagnetic storm. Industrial Planet is annihilated in an Extermination Decree, and the Heavenly Soldiers repurpose its surviving warships for Mortal troops.
• Meanwhile, Circuit Grand Sage celebrates the cult’s recent military successes and plans to use the Myriad-Sword Machine God to dominate the conflict. He dismisses the threat posed by the powerful Desire Sister Laya, confident the Machine God will surpass her.
• News reaches Circuit that Industrial Planet has been destroyed and the Heavenly Soldiers are bombarding the Administrative Planet. A recording reveals their demand for the three templates and confirms that a Champion Centurion is leading the operation. As Lever’s communications link fails, Circuit realizes his scheme has provoked forces far beyond his understanding.
• Circuit orders the Six-Winged Angel to return the Myriad-Sword Machine God to the Human Alliance Pioneers and evacuate.

Character developments and interactions

• Lever Great Sage collapses from arrogant bargaining into terror and fury, blaming Circuit for the disaster. His desperate curses and final loss of contact underscore his helplessness.
• Circuit Grand Sage shifts from triumph and ambition to shock, guilt, and fear. He accepts that his pursuit of power has endangered the cult and attempts to undo the damage by returning the Machine God.
• Bishop Piston, the messenger from Industrial Planet, turns on Circuit, accusing him of sacrificing the cult’s resources for personal gain. Guards restrain him.
• Blade Wolf and Sabertooth remain cold and controlled: they offer no real mercy, seize what they came for, and frame submission as the only alternative to annihilation.

Significant themes

• Hubris and consequences: Circuit’s bid for influence and technological power brings catastrophe upon the cult.
• Power imbalance: The Heavenly Soldiers treat the cult’s defenses and bargaining attempts as insignificant, exposing the gap between their strength and the cult’s.
• Accountability under crisis: Lever and Piston blame Circuit, while Circuit’s late remorse cannot immediately undo the destruction.
• Fear and submission: The repeated ultimatum—“Submit, or perish”—makes clear that survival now depends on surrendering control.

Plot points and events

• After the Human Alliance Pioneers announce an extermination order against the Holy Body Cult, Black Oak offers the Circuit Grand Sage a way to survive: cut ties with the Divine Fire Faction, help destroy it, publicly apologize, pay compensation, and release some technical data. The company and the Cult will jointly provide enormous compensation to the Players.
• Winter coordinates with Black Oak, judging that prolonged war would exhaust the Players. The Pioneers accept the settlement, which also frees elite fighters to reinforce the pressured front line.
• The Divine Fire Faction dismisses the extermination order as a bluff and prepares to seize control of the front. Meanwhile, the Desire Sister’s attacks have badly strained the defenders: Xuan Guang is wounded, casualties are mounting, and 108 has lost an arm.
• The Holy Body Cult agrees to return Su Yi’s body and the Six-Winged Angel. Its envoys meet the Players, but Bishop Furnace’s callous remarks about Su Yi’s condition provoke Dora, who kills him.
• Ilis, Emma, and Dora combine their powers to reach Su Yi’s consciousness. He is alive, apologizes for worrying them, and says he has found traces of the Ship Spirit. He plans to return to the Six-Winged Angel and reclaim his body and control of the ship.

Character developments and interactions

• Black Oak reveals herself as a calculating but pragmatic protector, using the Pioneers’ threat to force the Cult into concessions while preserving it as a useful regional power.
• Winter balances vengeance with the Players’ long-term welfare, accepting a settlement that rewards them and relieves the front line.
• The Circuit Grand Sage shifts from defiance to capitulation once he understands the extermination order is real and sees no viable alternative.
• Xuan Guang remains irreverent despite his serious soul-bound injury and openly admires Su Yi, whom he hopes can heal him.
• The Cult’s bishops lose their confidence under the threat of annihilation, though they still hope to retain leverage over the Myriad-Sword Machine God.
• Dora’s fury at the Cult’s treatment of Su Yi erupts violently; afterward, Ilis, Emma, and Dora show their affection and relief by restoring contact with him.

Significant themes

• Power and coercion: The extermination order turns diplomacy into a negotiation under existential threat.
• Pragmatism over revenge: The Pioneers trade continued fighting for compensation, strategic relief, and a chance to strengthen their forces.
• Loyalty and emotional bonds: Su Yi’s return is a source of profound relief, while his companions’ devotion drives their efforts to reconnect with him.
• The cost of war: The damaged front, wounded leaders, and exhausted soldiers underline the danger of letting retaliation become a prolonged conflict.