Chapter Summaries

The Crystal Civilization’s Forty-Ninth Unit held its position as the Substitute Plan reduced battlefield casualties, while Lan Feng chose to enter the cloning program and become one of the replicated researchers. At a council meeting, Nagus heard that the plan was largely viable, but the war still faced severe supply and technology shortages.

• The Forty-Ninth Unit used a particle shock wave to clear the region, then vanished as it engaged another enemy fleet.
• Botan Shiwuya monitored the Substitute Plan’s battle data as the Crystal Civilization and the Long Lantern Nebula Constellation’s forces continued fighting.
• Lan Feng entered an empty cultivation tank among thousands of genetic copies of himself, choosing to join the replication program.
• Automated production lines grew more Lan Feng copies to serve as researchers.
• At the council meeting, Nagus learned that the Substitute Plan had cut casualties by 90%, but the Crystal Civilization still faced warship losses, limited supplies, and difficulty reproducing spatial-jump technology.

Number One Thousand recalled awakening among the Replicas and resenting the fate planned for him as he confronted Beilunde inside Luo Qi’s microcosm. After a mysterious force erased their devastating attack and summoned chairs and spatial-device owners from other civilizations, the newcomers cautiously scanned their surroundings and exchanged covert messages.

• Number One Thousand awakened among thousands of Replicas, realized his memories and personality had not caught up with reality, and resented being created as a numbered tool for the Crystal Civilization.
• Number One Thousand recalled mechanically spending his days researching and waiting for death before returning to the present inside Luo Qi’s microcosm.
• A radiant hand halted the collision between Number One Thousand and Beilunde, erased the dark spatial rifts, and restored space.
• Number One Thousand and Beilunde noticed twenty-three starry chairs and considered whether a space-level civilization had created the microcosm.
• Controllers of spatial creations from other civilizations appeared, bringing the number of gathered individuals to twenty-two.
• Beilunde raised his spatial defenses as the wary arrivals scanned the microcosm and secretly communicated with one another.

Luo Qi gathered the holders of space technology in the Long Lantern Nebula Constellation and gave them a choice between preserving their civilizations in a virtual Source Universe or facing eternal death. After showing them a universe contained within a particle, he ordered them to build the virtual world and transfer every intelligent being into it.

• Luo Qi gathered twenty-three holders, including Number One Thousand and Beilunde, and declared that no new holders would emerge in the Nebula Constellation.
• Luo Qi told the holders that an unseen existence had forced him to offer them a choice between uploading their civilizations into a virtual Source Universe and eternal death.
• Number One Thousand asked whether their universe was real or created by a super civilization.
• Luo Qi transported the holders to a red particle-universe and explained the technology that could make a single particle contain a universe.
• A holder suggested creating a new universe, and Luo Qi ordered the group to build a realistic Source Universe and transfer every intelligent individual into it.

Luo Qi accelerated his technology research while monitoring a region where thousands of stars had vanished, as Destroyer expanded its assimilation swarm and tried to escape. Luo Qi redirected Destroyer’s spatial passage to the rogue planet where the twenty-two holders were gathering to plan their source universe.

• Luo Qi sent the holders out of his microcosm to build a source universe, then scanned the conventional universe and found that more than 70,000 stars had disappeared from a region 400 light-years across.
• Luo Qi accelerated research on thousands of harvested technology trees, sacrificing the microcosm’s mass to advance his technology.
• Destroyer spread assimilation particles across the Long Lantern Nebula Constellation, occupying 3,000 planets and transforming 300 of them into sources of military strength and computing power.
• Destroyer used its modular metal planet to open a spatial passage and flee, but Luo Qi rerouted it toward a black rogue planet.
• The twenty-two holders arrived on the rogue planet, where the Aude Civilization made a table and chairs, and Beilunde began the source universe project meeting.

The holders of the Long Lantern Nebula Constellation agreed to build a Source Universe where their civilizations could continue developing and perhaps return to the real universe. Before beginning the project, they turned their attention to the spreading darkness threatening the constellation.

• Number One Thousand explained that the Source Universe would simulate the real universe and preserve the departed as data, though he warned that it would become a prison for those who entered it.
• Beilunde outlined the choice between building a Source Universe that could enable a future comeback and surrendering to extinction in a world of indulgence, and the holders chose to preserve hope for future generations.
• Beilunde described how a virtual civilization in the Virtual Solar System Project had halted its development and embraced death after the Church of Life emerged.
• Number One Thousand warned that revealing the Source Universe could cause panic and data collapse, and the holders agreed to create separate versions before supporting the strongest one.
• The holders noticed the darkness spreading at the edge of the constellation, where altered particles multiplied and metal beasts destroyed those who resisted.

Feifei recorded how the fleet became trapped inside an expanding darkness and fought metal beasts attacking its shield. The fleet began a near-light-speed retreat, but the darkness kept spawning more monsters as the beasts pressed their assault.

• Feifei reported that the fleet’s defensive wall had failed, its communications were cut off, and the surrounding darkness prevented it from navigating or using faster-than-light travel.
• A metal beast attacked the fleet’s Energy Shield, and Ship 33 blasted it back into the darkness.
• The fleet commander ordered the vessels to coordinate their defenses and retreat toward their home-base star domain at near-light speed.
• The metal beasts regrouped and attacked the shield, while the fleet deployed its aircraft to defend the route ahead.
• The fleet’s energy field forced jumping beasts to appear at the shield’s edges, where the warships rammed and destroyed many with red beams.
• Assimilation particles from darkened celestial bodies produced more metal beasts, which continued swarming toward the fleet.

The Alta Civilization’s fleet faced annihilation as assimilation darkness consumed its region, but Beilunde used spatial powers to rescue the fleets and erase the threat. With the immediate crisis over, Luo Qi turned to a new problem: investigating the missing stars and the civilization capturing them.

• Assimilation darkness overwhelmed the Alta fleet, and Fei Fei watched the ships and soldiers fight their final battle.
• The Alta Civilization ordered a mass evacuation of its planets, laboratories, and spacecraft ahead of the darkness’s arrival.
• Beilunde used the Eye of Space to retrieve hundreds of thousands of Alta peacekeeping fleets, then annihilated the darkness between his hands.
• Beilunde declared the old crisis resolved, and the civilizations created twenty-two devices to build a near-real virtual universe for their populations.
• Luo Qi wondered whether his own universe was one layer in an endless hierarchy and planned to investigate the place where the stars had vanished.

Beilunde completed the twenty-two source universes with the other spatial holders and began a trial run by copying the Orlan civilization into them. Meanwhile, the Long Lantern Nebula Constellation remained sealed off as its civilizations tried to restore order.

• Beilunde upgraded his computing capacity by multiplying and superimposing copies of himself, then continued constructing his source universe.
• Luo Qi observed the disappearance of more stars in a distant chaotic region and watched the Long Lantern Nebula Constellation become enclosed by a spatial loop.
• The Civilization Coalition reconvened as the civilizations inside the constellation sought ways to survive under the renewed lockdown.
• The twenty-two spatial holders finished their source universes on Gray Star and chose the Third Area for a large-scale operational experiment.
• The holders copied the Orlan civilization, including its population and inhabited systems, into their source universes to begin the trial run.

Beilunde explored a Source Universe and discovered that it began diverging from the conventional universe, while Luo Qi and the twenty-two holders developed a plan to preserve civilizations through dimensional reduction. The holders carried out Operation Silence across the Long Lantern Nebula Constellation, where countless lives and creations vanished and the region fell silent.

• Beilunde examined Orlan's civilization inside his Source Universe and found that its events increasingly differed from those in the conventional universe.
• Luo Qi monitored the twenty-two Source Universes as their holders accelerated time and collaborated to develop the Source Universe Project.
• The holders spent 150 years in an alternate space completing Source Universe No. 1 and preparing Operation Silence to save civilizations from a spatial-level civilization.
• The twenty-two holders gathered on Gray Star, then traveled to nodes throughout the Long Lantern Nebula Constellation to begin their operation.
• The holders scanned and anchored the region's information before triggering dimensional reduction, causing countless beings and civilization-made objects to vanish or crumble.

Luo Qi left the silent Long Lantern Nebula Constellation and encountered Hu 181, a member of the Arel Civilization, capturing a star. Hu 181 introduced him to a pact among space civilizations and explained the origin of humanoid life-forms, while Luo Qi learned about dangers lurking in space.

• Luo Qi calculated possible routes to dimensional ascension, then moved the microcosm and its twenty-two observation subjects away from the Long Lantern Nebula Constellation.
• Hu 181 captured a star with his spacecraft, and Luo Qi emerged from concealment to meet him.
• Hu 181 identified himself as part of the Arel Civilization and sent Luo Qi an agreement signed by thirty-five civilizations that prohibited wasteful warfare between space-level civilizations.
• Luo Qi returned to his former humanoid appearance and asked Hu 181 about the Cosmic Supreme Race.
• Hu 181 explained that the Cosmic Supreme Race had reshaped starlight so that intelligent civilizations would evolve into forms resembling their own.

Luo Qi learned why advanced civilizations preserve ordinary stars as a safeguard against space technology failing, then explored the darkness beyond the universe. He encountered a swarm of anomalies that breached his microcosm, while Hu 181 and the Regional Administrator set out to observe and guide him.

• Hu 181 explained that his civilization stored energy in stars as protection against the failure of space technology, and told Luo Qi to contact the Regional Administrator for guidance.
• Luo Qi broke through space and traveled roughly eighty thousand light-years, briefly entering a dark realm filled with anomalies that preyed on matter.
• Hu 181 contacted the Regional Administrator, who agreed to visit Luo Qi with him, and Hu 181 folded another star into a compact form.
• Luo Qi plunged into the darkness again, where thousands of anomalies breached his microcosm and spread through it.

Luo Qi’s microcosm was engulfed by anomalies that erased everything they touched and defeated all his probes and weapons. As his universe collapsed and he prepared to die, he sent a message into the darkness asking who was there.

• Hu 181 spoke with the Regional Administrator, who recognized Luo Qi as someone from his ancestral graveyard and said he was in serious trouble.
• Hundreds of millions of black anomalies breached Luo Qi’s spatial barrier, cut him off from the conventional universe, and rapidly consumed his microcosm.
• Luo Qi accelerated time and created probes to study the darkness, but they detected nothing, while his weapons vanished without affecting it.
• Luo Qi abandoned half his microcosm and compressed the remainder, but the universe’s pull did not return.
• The stars in the discarded region formed warships before merging into a supermassive body that collapsed into a black hole, though its effects could not reach Luo Qi.
• As the darkness closed in, Luo Qi wondered if he would die and sent a message asking who was there.

Luo Qi reflected on the civilizations within his body and the regrets he hoped to resolve before being rescued from the void by Hu 181 and the Regional Administrator. The Administrator revealed that he was connected to the Profound Heaven Nebula Constellation and explained how the data life-form Yi had survived there.

• Luo Qi imagined the things he wanted to do before death, then watched the civilizations inside his body and the source universe develop.
• A familiar force pulled Luo Qi out of the darkness, where Hu 181 and the Regional Administrator welcomed him back.
• Hu 181 asked whether the Regional Administrator had secretly interfered with Luo Qi, and the Administrator denied it.
• The Regional Administrator explained that Yi was an incomplete Replica accidentally left behind during the Profound Heaven Nebula Constellation's final withdrawal.
• Yi was discovered and imprisoned by a proxy race on a scrap planet, where he took control of failed proxy races before encountering Luo Qi.

Luo Qi received the Space Protocol and learned why the universe’s civilizations capture suns: souls are finite and are reclaimed after intelligent beings die. Hu 181’s explanation left Luo Qi suspecting that their civilization’s rapid population growth might be tied to a lack of birth controls.

• The Regional Administrator welcomed Luo Qi as a member of the space-level civilizations and gave him the Space Protocol, explaining that he had observed Luo Qi’s role in awakening Water Blue Star’s people.
• The Regional Administrator announced a celebration for the newly recognized civilization and then departed, leaving Luo Qi with Hu 181.
• Luo Qi read the protocol’s rules and asked Hu 181 about the darkness outside the universe; Hu 181 explained the universe’s boundary and identified its attackers as Void Devourers.
• Hu 181 explained that souls were finite and that deaths in one place could lead to more births elsewhere, prompting Luo Qi to ask whether Hu 181’s civilization had birth controls.

Luo Qi learned more about souls and visited Hu 181’s civilization, where souls were guided through a reincarnation system. The chapter ended with Hu 181 explaining how the system moved souls through different worlds until they became useful to the civilization.

• Luo Qi told Hu 181 that he was the only consciousness entity from his civilization to escape, stunning Hu 181 with how unlikely that was.
• Luo Qi chose to sightsee with Hu 181 and assigned hundreds of millions of Replicas to continue his research.
• Hu 181 revealed that the Regional Administrator was fighting the Order Breakers, then took Luo Qi through a doorway to Glaze, his home.
• Hu 181 described Glaze’s layered planetary spaces and the civilization’s system for marking souls and guiding their rebirth.
• Hu 181 brought Luo Qi to a city on the viewing level and explained that souls reincarnated through lower worlds until exceptional ones could advance and strengthen the civilization.

Hu 181 showed Luo Qi the Arel Civilization’s reincarnation system, and they examined the red particle and imprisoned monsters inside Luo Qi’s Microcosm. At the space civilizations’ meeting, the Regional Administrator assigned Luo Qi a dangerous defensive sector, leaving Luo Qi to ask what would happen if he refused.

• Hu 181 took Luo Qi through low-level reincarnation spaces and the Reincarnation Headquarters, where Luo Qi observed beings preparing for reincarnation and memory restoration.
• Luo Qi told Hu 181 about the red particle locked onto him, and they inspected the particle and the monsters trapped inside his Microcosm.
• Three days later, Luo Qi and Hu 181 attended a meeting of space civilizations, where the Regional Administrator introduced Luo Qi as a new companion.
• The Regional Administrator described the universe’s threats and said every space civilization had a responsibility to defend it; other civilizations agreed to send Luo Qi to the turbulent 29th Power Region.
• After the meeting, Luo Qi asked the Regional Administrator what would happen if he refused, and the Regional Administrator warned that Luo Qi would be excluded from the safe zone.

The Regional Administrator explained the universe’s impending destruction and the Order Breakers’ plan to Luo Qi, then removed the Red Particle from his microcosm and pointed him toward Water Blue Star’s past in the 29th-Dimensional Zone. Elsewhere, Mo Yun reported the destruction of the 1798 Experimental Particle, but Dalin chose to wait for hope to emerge.

• The Regional Administrator told Luo Qi that the Order Breakers sought to destroy conscious civilizations and reunify the cosmic consciousness, while forces of order across universes worked to find ways to halt the universe’s expansion.
• Luo Qi asked the Regional Administrator to solve the Red Particle problem in his microcosm before he learned about the 29th-Dimensional Zone.
• The Regional Administrator identified the Eternal Race as the source of the Red Particle and removed it from Luo Qi’s microcosm.
• The Regional Administrator told Luo Qi that Water Blue Star had been relocated to the 29th-Dimensional Zone before its space was destroyed, where records might reveal Luo Qi’s origins.
• Mo Yun told Dalin that the 1798 Experimental Particle had been destroyed and warned that the Regional Administrators’ growing influence could hasten the universe’s disintegration.
• Dalin told Mo Yun to ignore the Regional Administrators and quietly await the emergence of hope.

Luo Qi arrived in the 29th-Dimensional Zone to manage its chaotic civilizations and investigate traces of space-level powers. In Designation C4001, he uncovered a hidden laboratory containing more than forty thousand recently deceased life-forms, all apparently killed by a sudden disaster.

• Luo Qi learned that Water Blue Star had been transferred into the 29th-Dimensional Zone and opened a Spatial Jump to his assigned territory.
• Luo Qi replenished his mass by devouring a region of space about five light-years across, then surveyed the zone and its civilizations.
• Luo Qi traveled to Designation C4001, where three faster-than-light civilizations controlled the other species and restricted their scientists.
• Luo Qi found a spatial construct near the nebula's central black hole and decoded it, revealing a concealed metal sphere that housed an enormous laboratory.
• Luo Qi scanned the laboratory and discovered more than forty thousand freshly dead life-forms, apparently killed all at once by a disaster that had silenced the space-level facility.

Luo Qi recovered fragmentary records from a ruined Spatial Laboratory and learned that an unknown attack had destroyed it long ago. As he watched a spatial collapse erase the Nebula Constellation, he derived a weapon capable of resetting an entire nebula and considered creating a fishpond of his own.

• Luo Qi entered the Experimental Planet's crystal data drive and found that most of its storage modules had been damaged by a devastating attack.
• Luo Qi reconstructed records showing that the Spatial Laboratory had studied black holes and that its inhabitants had died in the attack.
• Luo Qi scanned the 29th-Dimensional Zone, considered how the Forerunner Civilization and Regional Administrators had treated lesser civilizations, and continued collecting ruins.
• An irregular spatial fluctuation spread through the Nebula Constellation, crushing celestial bodies, fleets, planets, and civilizations while leaving its black hole intact.
• Luo Qi analyzed the destruction and developed [Spatial weapon · Water Wave], then considered establishing a fishpond of his own.

Luo Qi restored the destroyed C4001 Nebula Constellation, but an enemy awakened Primordial Destruction and unleashed a fleet that began destroying civilizations across the universe. When C4001 was attacked again, Luo Qi sent replicas to confront the assailant, and their first clash shattered space.

• Luo Qi restored C4001, returned fleeing ships, and erased their records and memories of the destruction.
• A black spiked warship detected Luo Qi’s restoration, awakened Destruction, and watched him consume a star to replenish his energy.
• Destruction replicated his warship into tens of millions of ships and set out to exterminate life throughout the universe.
• A black seed attacked C4001 again, so Luo Qi sent a replica into the conventional universe while keeping the original in reserve.
• Luo Qi’s replica turned into a blade and attacked Destruction’s tentacle, prompting Luo Qi to send twenty more replicas as space shattered around the clash.