Chapter Summaries

Lin Cuo rejected a Source World overwhelmed by Tyranids and pursued by an unknown predator, then found a far more practical asylum application from Shino-no-no-no-no-no? and the IS Academy-Project IS group. The group needed ninety-six civilization credits and a suitable island, and Lin Cuo identified abandoned Penglai Island as a potential home.

• Lin Cuo examined the New U.N. Forces' defeat and learned that Tyranids were pursuing the fleet alongside an unknown hunter that could not be safely observed.
• Lin Cuo rejected entering the Source World after the system warned that he would face both threats and permanent settlement upon death.
• Shino-no-no-no-no-no? appeared on the mercenary interface and introduced herself to Lin Cuo during a communications call.
• Lin Cuo reviewed the IS Academy-Project IS Joint Technical Asylum Group's personnel, combat units, technology, and transfer terms.
• Lin Cuo learned the group's reduced cost was ninety-six civilization credits and that it needed an artificial island with facilities for research and testing.
• Lin Cuo considered Penglai Island, an empty complex with the port, runway, power, and underground space the group required.

Lin Cuo negotiated and signed a resettlement contract with Tabane’s IS Academy group, securing Penglai Island as their new home in exchange for legal protections, funding, and a search for missing people from their world. The contract immediately sent forty-eight combat-ready IS units and their support teams to join the common defense.

• Tabane agreed to move the IS Academy and Joint Enterprise to Penglai Island under terms granting them academic and technical autonomy while requiring compliance with Commonwealth law.
• Chifuyu Orimura added protections against forced irreversible experiments on students, and Lin Cuo reviewed the transfer roster and Dunois Company’s equipment.
• Tabane explained that she had evacuated those who agreed to leave her world, which had no stable causal anchor, while Chifuyu said the transfer was needed to protect the academy’s students and technicians.
• Lin Cuo negotiated limits on Tabane’s airspace access and research budget, then granted her priority participation in research on several technologies and anomalies.
• Lin Cuo accepted the contract, establishing the Penglai IS Special Research and Education Zone and beginning the emergency transfer of forty-eight IS units and their personnel to the front.

Lin Cuo’s transfer to Penglai was completed without administrative delays, while Chifuyu Orimura defended the arriving students and staff from insulting speculation. Shino-no-no-no-no-no? discovered that sakuradite could dramatically improve IS performance and began modifying the units.

• The Penglai transfer paperwork granted the arriving companies, staff, and students protected status and exemptions, frustrating an official who had hoped to collect extra fees.
• Chifuyu Orimura reprimanded transfer-office staff for suggesting the women on the roster were the Regent’s personal companions, then tore up a clerk’s insulting note about Shino-no-no-no-no-no?.
• Lin Cuo saw the system report that Penglai’s reception procedures were complete and questioned its suspiciously favorable tariff matching.
• The system revealed that Shino-no-no-no-no-no? regarded Lin Cuo favorably as an interesting and capable patron, while an encrypted endgame-crisis record remained hidden from him.
• Shino-no-no-no-no-no? found that sakuradite was used as ordinary wiring and explained how it could reduce energy losses in IS units.
• Shino-no-no-no-no-no? replaced the power distribution frames in three training units with sakuradite conductors and predicted that the first 24 modified units could reach Mach 5.4 to 5.8 after testing.

Chifuyu sent twenty-four IS units toward the Battle of Kashgar as human forces struggled with massive losses, overwhelmed supply routes, and a shortage of aircraft. The battle line stabilized through emergency measures and renewed artillery support, but the Nine Treasures lost three pilots while killing thirteen Fortress-Class.

• Chifuyu assigned Houki Shinonono, Cecilia, Lingyin Huang, Charlotte, Laura, Tatenashi Sarashiki, Kanzashi Sarashiki, Maya Yamada, and Tabane to the deployment, and twenty-four IS units took off from Penglai seventy-six minutes later.
• By the fifth hour of the Battle of Kashgar, human forces had suffered nearly two hundred thousand casualties, while makeshift missile carriers and Hans Krüger's Field Gendarmerie helped keep aircraft and supplies moving.
• After Lin Cuo signed the Theater Emergency Martial Law Supplementary Order, more than ten thousand soldiers were summarily executed for armed breaches of military transport controls, restoring traffic on the Western Front's main roads.
• The India Battlefield Inspection Unit lost more than four hundred men when Tank-class emerged from a fallen Fortress-Class, prompting new checks before Fortress-Class could be declared safe.
• The remaining Nine Treasures destroyed thirteen Fortress-Class with heavy artillery support, but Ketu's and Vijay's units had already gone down and Mars General Mangala, Venus General Shukra, and Saturn General Shani died in the fighting.

Lin Cuo planned a southwest penetration into the BETA structure and prepared to lead it himself despite Li Xingke's objections. After twenty-four IS units arrived, Shino-no-no-no-no-no modified Lin Cuo's Shen Hu Machine with an IS Core to improve its survivability before the sortie.

• Lin Cuo ordered two armored divisions to pin BETA forces on the salient's flanks and directed artillery to open a corridor for a southwest penetration force.
• Lin Cuo refused Li Xingke's demand that he stay back, arguing that he needed to enter the BETA structure to confront whatever was inside.
• Twenty-four IS units arrived from Hexi, and Lin Cuo recognized Houki Shinonono, Cecilia, Lingyin Huang, Charlotte, Laura, and the Shiki Sisters among them.
• Shino-no-no-no-no-no decided to upgrade Lin Cuo's Shen Hu Machine and installed an IS Core despite Chifuyu's objection that it belonged to the reserve rescue unit.
• The modification gave the Shen Hu Machine an IS Core-assisted control system, a restricted Absolute Defense Barrier, and hybrid energy management, though its long-term stability remained unverified.

Lin Cuo joined the assault on the BETA Landing Unit as its dormant population began activating faster than the surface forces could kill them. After the barrage opened a path to the core, he used Shen Hu to stop an Assault-class BETA from reaching the engineering vehicles.

• Chifuyu organized the breach force, while Tabane joined the Second Echelon to study the Landing Unit.
• Lin Cuo drank a small cup of liquor, admitted his fear, and gained the brave trait before taking his place in the rear of the Second Sequence.
• Krüger synchronized the Indian artillery and enforced the barrage schedule as rocket artillery and heavy guns struck the BETA forces.
• The system counted more than two hundred thousand BETA inside the Landing Unit as dormant compartments began activating.
• Chifuyu led the First Echelon through the barrage corridor, followed by Todo, the Four Holy Swords, and Lin Cuo's forces.
• Lin Cuo used Shen Hu's Particle Cannon to kill an Assault-class BETA that threatened the engineering demolition vehicles.

Lin Cuo fought with the Shen Hu against advancing BETA while Todo took command of the battlefield and ordered him into formation. As the IS Core adapted to Lin Cuo’s controls, he used the Shen Hu’s experimental radiation module to strike another Assault-class at close range.

• Lin Cuo used the Shen Hu’s Rope Dart and thrusters to drag an Assault-class away from an Engineering Demolition Vehicle, then warned the vehicle to keep moving.
• Todo analyzed the BETA’s attacks as obstacle clearing and reorganized the forces’ firing patterns to avoid provoking a stronger response.
• Todo ordered Lin Cuo to serve as machine seven in the second line, stay near the demolition vehicle, and follow his commands.
• The IS Core rewrote the Shen Hu’s control curve, smoothing its movements but leaving Lin Cuo to endure the machine’s physical inertia.
• When an Assault-class attacked while Todo and the first echelon were out of immediate reach, Lin Cuo used the experimental Radiation Fluctuation Generator to damage its internal tissues.

Lin Cuo and the penetration team fought toward the Landing Unit’s breach as the enormous buried structure increased the BETA forces sent to stop them. The livestream broadcast their fear and losses to the world while Dietrich argued that the audience needed to see the cost of the battle.

• Lin Cuo destroyed an Assault-class BETA, but the Shen Hu’s Radiation Fluctuation generator overheated as the surrounding BETA kept multiplying.
• Chifuyu urged Lin Cuo to keep moving, and seismic scans revealed that the Landing Unit’s buried main body stretched over eight kilometers.
• Todo concluded that the Landing Unit was sending more BETA toward the team and ordered them to keep drawing its attention away from other directions.
• Lin Cuo accepted Todo’s advice to focus on the enemies within three hundred meters and continued advancing.
• Dietrich refused to edit out Lin Cuo’s fear or the casualty footage, telling viewers to remember the people fighting and dying in the breach.

Cornelia authorized Britannian support for the Great Han’s battle at Kashgar, while the Western Front committed its remaining armored reserves against the advancing BETA. The battlefield’s worsening weather and the BETA’s endless reinforcements left Lin Cuo’s force struggling less than fifteen hundred meters from the Landing Unit breach.

• Cornelia offered two KMF brigades, artillery, engineers, and medical support, and Lin Cuo accepted with restrictions on Britannian operations and access to data.
• India’s 11th and 23rd Armored Divisions lost their ability to fight as formations, so Vikram Singh committed every Western Front armored reserve after Jiang Lihua’s decree urged the armies onward.
• Dust-laden rain and mud crippled many conventional vehicles and weapons, while KMFs and IS units continued advancing across the extreme terrain.
• Lin Cuo killed another large BETA with the Shen Hu’s Radiation Fluctuation Generator, but the weapon overheated and the IS core had to stabilize his machine.
• Tabane reported that the Brain-class was activating more BETA than the human forces could handle, as newly awakened Tank-class BETA filled the ground near the breach.

Lin Cuo joked with his assault team about prophetic dreams and assessed the Britannian royal family as they advanced toward the BETA production node. Their banter reached a global livestream, where Jiang Lihua heard Lin Cuo claim he wanted to marry her, and Cornelia heard his appraisal of her.

• As the team neared the fissure, Lin Cuo invented a tradition of imperial prophecies to explain his advance preparations and joked that he would marry Jiang Lihua.
• Detehard Reid restored the battlefield broadcast with a wired camera relay, unknowingly sending Lin Cuo's private tactical-channel conversation to viewers worldwide.
• Jiang Lihua heard Lin Cuo's marriage remark on the livestream and blushed as she tried to dismiss it as nonsense.
• At Tabane's prompting, Lin Cuo criticized several Britannian princes and praised Cornelia's leadership, then commented on her appearance and physique.
• Cornelia heard Lin Cuo's remarks at her headquarters and demanded to know how old he was.

Lin Cuo’s battlefield commentary exposed his personal taste to a worldwide audience before the assault reached the Landing Unit’s breach. After scans revealed the Hive’s structure and defenses, the humans prepared to collapse its shaft and destroy its core, while Chifuyu engaged the first Fortress-Class to emerge.

• Lin Cuo praised Euphemia’s political appeal, then accidentally revealed his fondness for Jiang Lihua’s feet, prompting Jiang Lihua to preserve the broadcast and plan to question him when he returned.
• Britannian forces rapidly redeployed two airborne KMF brigades to the Kashgar theater as the assault advanced toward the Landing Unit’s breach.
• The Shen Hu’s scans showed that the Hive’s core was descending more slowly because the reactor was diverting energy to produce Laser-Class BETA, and mapped the BETA’s mining operations and defenses.
• Tabane identified the shaft’s support bands and activation-fluid lines as targets, and Todo divided the force’s tasks to place demolition charges and locate the core.
• Chifuyu used the White Knight to topple the first Fortress-Class emerging from the shaft, then cut through the tissues beneath its body.

Lin Cuo and the others fought Laser-Class BETA in the shaft leading into the Hive while descending toward its core. The mercenary system revealed that the BETA were an automated legion fulfilling a restoration contract for their defeated Creator Civilization, another member of the losers' bracket.

• Dietrich stayed on the first platform to direct engineers laying cable and installing cameras as the team descended into the Hive.
• At sixteen hundred meters, Laser-Class BETA appeared and opened fire, forcing the IS pilots to scatter and evade their powerful beams.
• Tabane estimated the lasers' strength and cooldown, and Cecilia, Charlotte, Laura, and Chifuyu attacked the Laser-Class and their production chambers.
• Lin Cuo's Shen Hu survived a laser strike as he cursed the BETA's rapid growth and the Hive's deep shaft.
• The mercenary system identified the BETA as an autonomous resource-extraction and warfare legion serving a defeated Creator Civilization's restoration contract.
• Lin Cuo told the others that the BETA belonged to the losers' bracket, clarifying that their creators—not the BETA themselves—were registered there.

Lin Cuo and the assault team developed a way to blunt the BETA Laser-Class beams and kept descending through the shaft. Meanwhile, Great Han’s leaders secured regional military support, and elite reinforcements joined the Kashgar battle as humanity began pushing back against the BETA.

• Lin Cuo learned that the Creators’ legion contract could not be transferred or extended to humanity, while the team faced growing numbers of Laser-Class units.
• Tabane explained how radiation pulses could ionize the shaft’s humid air and create a Thermal Bloom Barrier, and Budha Mukherjee used his generator to reduce the lasers’ power density.
• Chifuyu reorganized the assault team to bait the Laser-Class units, exploit their cooldowns, and protect the descent.
• Jiang Lihua, Li Xingke, and Cao Yuanming issued guarantees and resources to bring hesitant Great Han military districts into coordinated defense, prompting regional units to join the Kashgar theater.
• Elite Anxi and Northern Army divisions arrived, and the Martial Guard’s engineers sent Breach Formation Vehicles into the BETA, with one driver killed as the blast opened a path for the Xiliu tanks.

Lin Cuo delegated command responsibilities across the fronts while Lelouch began coordinating Indian forces and the battle inside the Hive intensified. Guru Sharma and Rahul Khan died destroying Laser-Class threats, as the surviving Kuyou continued their advance.

• Lin Cuo appointed Li Xingke to coordinate the outer Western Front and Todo to command military affairs inside the Hive, while Chifuyu Orimura received temporary military posts.
• Lin Cuo told Lelouch that N.L. could receive treatment and assigned him staff coordination of eighteen divisions on India's Western Front, with Li Xingke holding final veto authority.
• Lelouch reorganized Indian divisions, casualty evacuation routes, artillery, and retreat plans, and Li Xingke approved his first set of orders.
• Guru Sharma transmitted the final targeting coordinates before a laser destroyed his Shen Hu and killed him.
• Rahul Khan shielded Arjuna from a Laser-Class attack, then crashed into a production chamber, where his machine's explosion destroyed the chamber and its unfinished Laser-Class.
• After Guru and Rahul were recorded as killed in action, Chandra ordered the surviving Kuyou to keep moving, and Budha and Arjuna prepared to attack deeper into the Hive.

Britannian reinforcements deployed along the Third Defense Line near Kashgar as Gilford coordinated their takeover and Cornelia prepared to join the battle. Britannia’s forces received detailed BETA intelligence from Lin Cuo, while their advanced tactical network contrasted with Great Han’s uneven communications.

• Britannian Sutherlands, Gloucesters, support units, and a Sample Capture Team deployed to the Third Defense Line in operational order.
• Gilford directed the two brigades to take their assigned positions, follow alert boundaries, and report any Laser-Class sightings without approaching unauthorized.
• Cornelia reviewed Lin Cuo’s battlefield intelligence while preparing to fly to Kashgar, then criticized his remarks about her and Euphemia.
• Cornelia ordered her Purple Gloucester and the Princess’s Guard aboard a transport aircraft and prepared to confront Lin Cuo after the battle.
• The Britannian brigades began using their integrated tactical network, which contrasted with the wired communications and manual coordination still common in Great Han units.

Lin Cuo’s warning that active electronics attracted BETA helped Britannia draw Laser-Class into a deadly firing trap, giving the assault team inside the Hive time to advance. Cornelia arrived over Kashgar to command the battered imperial line, which held off the BETA while recovering specimens.

• Lin Cuo detected BETA redirecting toward Britannia’s electronics and sent his assessment to Cornelia, who ordered nonessential radar and communications reduced while relays were moved west as decoys.
• Britannian Sutherlands baited Laser-Class beams, evaded behind cover, and destroyed three Laser-Class during a costly twelve-minute hunt.
• The reduced Laser-Class pressure let Chandra and Chifuyu advance through the Hive, but the Brain-class answered by sending a wave of Assault-class BETA toward Britannia’s line.
• Gloucesters and Sutherlands fought the BETA at close range, suffering heavy losses until Cornelia ordered the Third Squadron to withdraw and the Fourth to relieve it.
• Cornelia learned that one of her knights had died and ordered the captured Tank-class specimens, Assault-class shells, and Fortress-Class tissue airlifted.

Charles praised Cornelia’s actions while criticizing Clovis for letting his subordinates misuse his authority, then ordered Kashgar’s research samples and battlefield records preserved and shared. Meanwhile, fighting in Kashgar intensified, and as Lin Cuo’s forces suffered losses, the broadcast of the Field One Relay Gao Hai’s descent reached an unprecedented global audience.

• Charles praised Cornelia and mocked Clovis as an Authorization Seal, while Clovis defended his authority and his family traded barbs.
• Cornelia told Clovis to revise Area 18’s military order procedures, and Charles ordered the samples distributed among three institutions while preserving Kashgar’s raw data and casualty footage.
• Gloucesters hunted Laser-Class units west of the Third Defense Line as Great Han’s Gao Hai troops suffered mounting casualties in the Southwest Breach Corridor.
• A Tank-class swarm overwhelmed the lead TQ-21 of the Hexi Gao Hai Battalion, and its pilot’s ejection capsule was struck before its signal vanished.
• Lin Cuo’s tactical display showed the Hexi Shence First Gao Hai Battalion’s status turn red as the Field One Relay Gao Hai descended into the Vertical Shaft with Dietrich aboard.
• Dietrich’s technician reported that the global broadcast had spread so widely that its audience could no longer be counted.

Dietrich chose to keep Field One descending into the shaft as the Kashgar Livestream influenced military decisions around the world. Below, Lin Cuo and the assault team planned how to destroy the Brain-class and its production systems, but rejected a demolition plan that risked devastating the entire Kashgar-Pamir Theater.

• Dietrich told the camera crew they could remain behind, but they insisted on continuing downward with him.
• The Kashgar Livestream prompted Charles, Cornelia, and the Great Han Military Region to take action, and Dietrich realized the camera was changing the battlefield.
• Tabane showed Lin Cuo and the assault team the Brain-class, reactor, activation fluid lines, and support bands they needed to destroy together.
• Lin Cuo suggested using high-purity fluid sakuradite for the demolition devices, and Tabane agreed only if the entire Kashgar-Pamir Theater was included in the blast area.
• Lin Cuo abandoned the plan after Tabane warned that the explosion could devastate the theater.

Tabane devised a plan to destroy the BETA reactor by severing its regulatory structures and discharge channels, while Chifuyu led a team to plant sakuradite pulse demolition devices. As the teams began their mission, Dietrich descended to document the operation, and Chifuyu warned Lin Cuo to avoid the Brain-class until she had cut all four main lines.

• Tabane proposed using sakuradite pulse demolition devices to disrupt the reactor and make it destroy the BETA facility.
• Tabane recalled the Greenskins who had arrived through a Phase Rift and decided that the Greenskins and BETA must never meet.
• Chifuyu led Houki Shinonono, Charlotte, Laura, Tatenashi Sarashiki, and four engineering IS units toward the left Support Band while Lin Cuo and Tabane continued toward the core.
• Dietrich stopped his vehicle at the second-level platform, then descended by rope with a camera relay to record the operation.
• Chifuyu's team attached the first demolition modules to a Main Activation Fluid Line, and she said she would sever all four main lines within ninety seconds.

Lin Cuo and Tabane charged toward the Hive core as a high-energy decoy while Todo took command of the breach and Chifuyu led the attack on the main activation fluid lines. Houki confronted Tabane about abandoning their old world, then returned to the fight as Chifuyu’s team secured the first line.

• Lin Cuo and Tabane overloaded the Shen Hu and Technical IS to lure thousands of BETA away from the core, and Cecilia, Lingyin Huang, and Kanzashi followed them into the shaft.
• Houki challenged Tabane over treating their old world as something she could simply leave behind, and Tabane admitted she did not regret saving their group but had considered returning.
• Todo took charge of the Hive operation, divided the teams, and ordered Lin Cuo to stay outside the core boundary.
• Chifuyu began the timed assault on the first main activation fluid line, cutting through BETA while the Engineering IS units installed demolition modules.
• Houki held the right flank as Chifuyu reported the first line secured in twenty-two seconds.