Chapter Summaries

Yaxes proposed exhausting Blue Star and Terra through a war of attrition, but destroyed wormholes and depleted Space-Jumping Beasts made the plan too costly. Cho'Gath decided to target the weakened Kona Civilization instead, only to learn that Blue Star and Terra had launched an attack on the Demon Lair Outpost.

• Yaxes urged Cho'Gath to attack Blue Star and Terra on multiple fronts and wear them down over time.
• A Demon Venerable pointed out that the wormholes to Terra had been destroyed and the army had exhausted its Space-Jumping Beasts.
• Cho'Gath erupted in anger as the Demon Venerables explained that attacking either Blue Star or Terra would be costly.
• A tall, thin Demon Venerable proposed that Cho'Gath set those targets aside and attack the nearly defeated Kona Civilization.
• Cho'Gath prepared to order an assault on the Kona Home Planet, but a telepathic message reported that Blue Star forces and Terra experts were attacking the Demon Lair Outpost.

Cho'Gath feared Blue Star might attack through the wormhole, so he rushed to guard it while its forces cleared out the Demon Clan inside. A reconnaissance projectile slipped past him and began transmitting data, and the Demon Venerables realized Blue Star was plotting something.

• After Blue Star began clearing the Demon Clan's footholds, Cho'Gath ordered six Demon Venerables to accompany him to the wormhole in case its forces attacked through it.
• Cho'Gath intercepted a fast projectile with a chunk of ore, tearing the muscles in his newly regrown arm while his subordinates admired his apparent composure.
• Cho'Gath and the Demon Venerables stopped five kilometers above the wormhole as holy light killed demons inside the passage.
• A second Electromagnetic Reconnaissance Round flew out of the wormhole, and the demons let it pass without recognizing it as a threat.
• The projectile unfolded into a detector and sent data through its optical fiber; a Demon Venerable noticed its transformation and warned Cho'Gath that Blue Star was plotting something.

Lin Mo and the twelve seventh-order experts gathered reconnaissance data and destroyed all four Demon Clan wormholes inside Freedom Underground City. After returning to the surface, they set out for another wormhole as Great Xia's Command Center began analyzing the transmissions, including the first blurry image of the distant starry sky.

• Cho'Gath refused to respond to the reconnaissance shell's destruction, and the Demon Venerable who suggested attacking through the wormhole backed down when ordered to go himself.
• Lin Mo fired a second reconnaissance shell through the wormhole, and Pangu AI collected data before the device's optical-fiber connection was severed.
• A Seventh-Order Holy Human Race Mage analyzed the first wormhole's structure, and Lin Mo's team retreated as it collapsed, crushing the Demon Clan members trapped inside.
• Lin Mo and the experts cleared and destroyed the other three wormholes, gathering reconnaissance data along the way.
• Lin Mo returned to the surface with the twelve seventh-order experts, then led them toward their next target while Pangu AI sent all four wormholes' data to Great Xia's Command Center.
• Great Xia's Command Center began analyzing the data, and the first blurry image of the starry sky beyond a wormhole appeared on its screen.

Han Niba and the Tianshu Underground City command team analyzed Pangu II’s transmissions and located the Demon Clan on a moon in the Milky Way’s Perseus Arm, over three thousand light-years from Blue Star. The probe also revealed the ruins of an industrial civilization, leaving humanity with its first confirmed evidence of another technological civilization at a known location.

• Han Niba ordered the experts to identify Pangu II’s transmitted data, and they confirmed the probe had reached a moon crowded with Demon Clan heat sources.
• The astronomy team compared star charts and radiation signals, locating the moon near the outer edge of the Perseus Arm, over three thousand light-years from Blue Star.
• Han Niba examined images showing the moon’s harsh environment and scattered space wormholes.
• The probe’s clearer images revealed a destroyed metal city, and experts identified its industrial structures as the work of a technological civilization rather than the Demon Clan.
• The command team discussed whether the Demon Clan had overrun the civilization and whether any of its people might still be alive.

Han Niba ordered Great Xia to assess whether the technological civilization in the Perseus Arm had survived and whether cooperation was possible. New probe data revealed what appeared to be artificial lights on its main planet, leaving the civilization’s fate uncertain as Great Xia prepared to observe and attempt communication.

• Han Niba ordered files on the unknown civilization’s possible survival and abandoned technology, while a staff officer outlined reasons cooperation could benefit Great Xia.
• Analysts assembled the fourth set of wormhole probe data and detected regularly arranged lights on the target planet.
• An astronomy expert judged the stable visible and infrared signals likely to be artificial lighting, raising hopes that the civilization or its systems remained active.
• Han Niba cautioned that the lights might come from surviving cities, automated systems, or facilities left by the Demon Clan.
• Han Niba designated the lights a top-priority observation target and ordered the Academy of Sciences to prepare a communication plan.
• Another data packet arrived shortly after Han Niba’s orders were relayed.

As Lin Mo destroyed more Space Wormholes, the data revealed that the Demon Clan was using a nearby Milky Way system as a transit station and that a technological civilization there was still broadcasting. Han Niba told Lin Mo the Demon Clan was about three thousand light-years away, then revealed that the other civilization was still alive.

• Lin Mo destroyed Space Wormholes and sent Reconnaissance Shells through them, while the gathered images showed the Demon Clan moving troops between battlefields.
• Han Niba and the command staff identified the Demon Clan’s system as a transit station and mapped its unusual star system, including a super Satellite orbiting a giant planet.
• A data packet from Pangu II contained a regular electromagnetic signal, which experts identified as a broadcast from an intelligent civilization.
• Han Niba ordered all idle computing resources to prioritize deciphering the broadcast.
• After the nineteenth Space Wormhole collapsed, Lin Mo contacted Han Niba, who located the Demon Clan about three thousand light-years away in the Milky Way’s Perseus Arm.
• Han Niba told Lin Mo that another technological civilization had been discovered and was still alive.

Han Niba and Lin Mo learned that the Kona Civilization was still resisting the Demon Clan and deciphered its warning broadcast, which described the civilization’s imminent collapse. Han Niba went to report the situation to Elder Zhao while Lin Mo continued clearing wormholes, leaving the question of whether to contact the Kona unresolved.

• Han Niba told Lin Mo that evidence from the Demon Clan’s satellite and a regular broadcast indicated the Kona Civilization was alive and under attack.
• Lin Mo and Han Niba weighed the possibility of contacting the Kona against the risk of revealing Blue Star’s location to the Demon Clan.
• A cryptography expert deciphered the Kona broadcast, which warned other civilizations to avoid the region and described its fleets and planetary defenses being destroyed.
• The broadcast said the Kona would detonate its planet’s core if its final surface defenses fell, and repeated, “Do not make contact!”
• Lin Mo urged that the Kona not be left to perish, and Han Niba said he would report the matter to Elder Zhao while Lin Mo continued clearing wormholes.
• Han Niba went to Elder Zhao’s office and told Secretary Li he had an urgent matter to report.

Han Niba reported the Kona Civilization’s desperate position and its warning against contact to Elder Zhao, who chose to establish cooperation despite the risks. Han Niba then began preparing a message to send through the wormhole, urging Kona to hold on as Great Xia designed a special communication shell.

• Han Niba showed Elder Zhao reconnaissance data about the Demon Clan and the besieged Kona Civilization.
• Han Niba explained the risks of contacting Kona and the danger of letting the Demon Clan redeploy its forces if Kona fell.
• Elder Zhao ordered contact with Kona in stages and told Han Niba to ask them to postpone detonating their planet’s core.
• Han Niba ordered the command center to send a specially designed communication shell through the wormhole with a message offering cooperation and urging Kona to hold on.
• Han Niba approved the message and ordered military manufacturing to begin designing the shell.

Great Xia prepared a communication shell to contact the Kona Civilization while Lin Mo and the Terra experts withdrew to rest after destroying twenty Space Wormholes. Lin Mo woke refreshed on the Terra Continent and met Zhao Gang, who was ready to report on the rapid changes there.

• Han Niba ordered the experts to omit Blue Star's precise coordinates, and Great Xia began producing the Custom Communication Shell.
• Lin Mo led the exhausted Terra group back to Tianyong City after they destroyed their twentieth Space Wormhole.
• Lin Mo left Pangu II for maintenance, returned to Tianshu Underground City, and fell asleep from exhaustion.
• Lin Mo woke on the Terra Continent, explored the lively fief, and saw Great Xia people and Terra's races mingling.
• Lin Mo met Zhao Gang, explained the group's progress on Blue Star, and asked how Terra had changed.
• Zhao Gang told Lin Mo that a lot had changed on Terra and began preparing a report.

Zhao Gang briefed Lin Mo on booming trade between Great Xia and Terra, the arrival of more than a million Great Xia citizens, and plans for Terra’s people to study Great Xia’s systems before entering Blue Star. He and Lin Mo recognized cultural influence as a strategic tool for strengthening Great Xia’s ties with Terra.

• Zhao Gang told Lin Mo that Terra’s merchants were competing fiercely for Great Xia goods, which the war-scarred races needed to rebuild their lives.
• Zhao Gang reported that the two worlds had established a framework for free trade and that more than a million Great Xia people had entered Terra to build businesses and services.
• Zhao Gang said the Holy Human Race had built a second Astral Portal so people and goods could travel through separate portals.
• Zhao Gang explained that Terra’s visitors would receive a week of training in Great Xia’s culture and urban systems before entering Blue Star.
• Zhao Gang described cultural assimilation as a means of building Terra’s identification with Great Xia, and Lin Mo agreed that spreading Great Xia’s culture was strategically important.

Lin Mo and Zhao Gang discussed whether Great Xia should cooperate with the Kona Civilization, agreeing that they needed more information and should protect their coordinates. Lin Mo then toured the bustling Fief, where trade and daily life continued to grow despite the threat of the Demon Clan.

• Zhao Gang explained that Great Xia should regulate Terrans' entry for business while allowing more tourism.
• Lin Mo favored cooperation with the Kona Civilization, and Zhao Gang warned that Blue Star's defenses depended heavily on the Antimatter Bomb and Terra's Seventh-Order Experts.
• Lin Mo acknowledged that Blue Star's technology was uneven and that Kona's multi-planet industry meant it should not be underestimated.
• Zhao Gang endorsed Han's plan to exchange intelligence without revealing core coordinates or opening passageways.
• Lin Mo toured the Fief and saw busy shops, internet cafés, food stalls, and Minotaur porters working under Great Xia's rules.

Lin Mo returned from Terra to Blue Star and reviewed the global Demon Clan situation with Han Niba, who reported that closing the polar Space Wormholes had slowed new arrivals. The first twenty Custom Communication Shells for replying to the Kona Civilization were completed, while the equatorial front remained the main threat.

• Lin Mo left Terra after watching the two worlds’ people rebuild their lives together and transferred the Spatial Ring from his sleeping body to his awake one.
• Lin Mo arrived at the Tianshu Commander-in-Chief Center, where Han Niba reported that new Demon Clan arrivals had fallen by twenty-seven percent in six hours after twenty polar Space Wormholes were closed.
• Han Niba said Great Xia expected to clear the Arctic within a week and Antarctica within about a month, but the vast, harsh equatorial region could not be contained.
• Lin Mo said he would continue working with the Terra Allied Army to clear the remaining Space Wormholes.
• A staff officer reported that the first twenty Custom Communication Shells for replying to the Kona Civilization had passed inspection.

Lin Mo prepared to broadcast Great Xia’s reply to the Kona Civilization and led the Terra experts to destroy more space wormholes. At the equator, he revealed that Blue Star’s rotation had slowed, forcing its people to retreat to the poles and underground.

• Han Niba gave Lin Mo communications rounds loaded with Great Xia’s reply for the Kona Home Planet, and Lin Mo set out to broadcast it through the wormholes.
• Lin Mo visited Pangu II, where Zhao Kexia described its upgrades, while Fendona saw them together and left in a huff.
• Lin Mo gathered the fifteen seventh-order Terra experts and took them through a portal to a scorched region near the equator.
• Ede asked Lin Mo why Blue Star had become devastated, and Lin Mo explained that the planet’s slowed rotation had caused catastrophic chain reactions and forced people to migrate to the poles and underground.
• The Terra experts expressed condolences after Lin Mo explained Blue Star’s disaster.

Lin Mo and his team sent Great Xia’s reply to the Kona Civilization through a series of Space Wormholes while destroying each one to slow the Demon Clan’s reinforcements. At the Kona Home Planet, the chapter revealed that the Kona People had gone extinct a thousand years earlier and left their civilization operating under the Strong artificial intelligence-Watcher.

• Lin Mo’s team cleared a cavern around a Space Wormhole, sent a reconnaissance shell through it, and fired a communication shell carrying Great Xia’s reply toward the Kona Home Planet.
• After destroying the Wormhole, Lin Mo led the group to more locations, where they repeated the process of scouting, broadcasting, and closing Wormholes.
• The communication shells continued broadcasting toward the Kona Home Planet, though Lin Mo did not know whether the Kona Civilization had received them.
• The Kona Home Planet’s automated factories, transport systems, and defenses continued operating despite the absence of living inhabitants.
• The chapter revealed that a viral catastrophe had wiped out the Kona People a thousand years earlier, after which their final creation, Strong artificial intelligence-Watcher, remained.

Watcher received a broadcast from Great Xia of the Blue Star Civilization, which offered to cooperate against the Demon Clan. After assessing the signal and discovering Blue Star had struck the Demon Clan near Kona, Watcher suspended the planet’s destruction protocol and sent a formal reply.

• Watcher detected an unknown electromagnetic broadcast near the satellite occupied by the Demon Clan and translated its message from Great Xia of the Blue Star Civilization.
• Watcher assessed the broadcast as unlikely to be a Demon Clan deception and identified Blue Star as an unknown technological civilization.
• Watcher traced the signal to the nearby satellite and used reconnaissance images to confirm that the Demon Clan’s space wormholes had decreased.
• Watcher concluded that Blue Star had attacked through the wormholes and recalculated the Kona Civilization’s chance of survival as 3.91 percent.
• Watcher suspended the Planetary Core Chain-Detonation Protocol, prepared war intelligence and technology for cooperation, and broadcast a reply toward the Demon Clan’s satellite.

Great Xia received a reply from the Kona Civilization, which agreed to cooperate against the Demon Clan and revealed that its people had gone extinct over a thousand years earlier. The message described Kona’s AI-run resistance, its deteriorating defenses, and the Demon Clan’s wormhole network and abilities.

• Han Niba’s command center decoded a new electromagnetic signal from the Kona Civilization in a data packet sent by Lin Mo.
• The Kona Civilization confirmed it had received Great Xia’s message and agreed to share intelligence, exchange technology, and coordinate against the Demon Clan.
• The Kona Civilization revealed that its intelligent life had gone extinct in a planetary viral disaster 1,037 Kona Standard Years earlier, and that the AI Watcher continued its civilization.
• The Kona Civilization reported that its fleets were destroyed, its colonies had fallen, and its home planet’s defenses could hold for only one more Kona Year.
• The Kona Civilization described the Demon Clan’s wormhole transit network, the abilities of its high-ranking individuals, and the vulnerability of wormhole anchors.

Han Niba reviewed Kona Civilization’s requests and technology catalog, while Great Xia’s scientists discovered that Kona’s research could resolve major problems and correct years of mistaken approaches. The chapter left Great Xia eager to obtain the technologies, though it still lacked solutions for penetrating Demon Clan shields and developing biological weapons against them.

• Han Niba asked Great Xia’s scientists whether they had found ways to break Demon Gods’ shields or create viruses against the Demon Clan, and they reported little progress.
• Han Niba read Kona Civilization’s list of technologies it could offer, including automated industry, shipboard shields, quantum computing, and ecological transformation.
• Professor Chen found that Kona’s alloy formulas identified hafnium as the missing fourth constituent after titanium, aluminum, and zirconium.
• Researcher Zhou realized Kona’s fusion battery research used inertial confinement rather than the magnetic confinement approach his team had pursued.
• Dr. Wu discovered that Kona’s artificial intelligence used neuromorphic architecture, while a quantum computing researcher recognized that Kona’s catalog revealed an answer he had sought for three years.
• Great Xia’s scientists agreed that they needed to acquire Kona’s technologies to avoid decades of wasted effort.

Han Niba and Great Xia’s scientists examined the Kona Civilization’s technology catalog and assessed the gap between their civilizations. They concluded that Kona’s technology was far more comprehensive, but Great Xia possessed its own advanced breakthroughs and could use the catalog to accelerate development.

• Han Niba read that Kona had suspended its Planetary Core Chain-Detonation Protocol but would restart it if its main defensive line collapsed.
• Qian Zhenhua and Liu Chengen arrived, inspected the catalog, and confirmed that Kona had a complete, systematic technology tree, including advanced biological research.
• Han Niba asked Qian Zhenhua to estimate the technological gap, and Qian explained that Great Xia’s breakthroughs had not yet had time to spread into broad applications.
• Qian Zhenhua estimated that Great Xia would need at least a hundred years to match Kona’s technological breadth at its current pace.
• Qian Zhenhua said Great Xia’s highest technological achievements were closer to Kona’s, and that its antimatter technology might be a unique advantage if Kona lacked it.
• Qian Zhenhua concluded that Kona’s catalog could save Great Xia at least a hundred years of scientific exploration by showing how to develop existing breakthroughs into systematic applications.

Han Niba tasked Qian Zhenhua with preparing technology exchange lists and a valuation framework, while ensuring Kona's data could not infiltrate Great Xia's networks. The next morning, Qian presented a vast catalog of Great Xia's technological needs, revealing how many gaps it still needed to address.

• Han Niba ordered Qian Zhenhua to list Great Xia's technologies and needs, rank urgent acquisitions, and devise a standard for valuing technology trades.
• Qian Zhenhua gathered the scientists to work on the lists and framework, while Han Niba confirmed Kona's data had been isolated from Great Xia's networks.
• Han Niba reviewed the battlefield situation as Lin Mo and the Terra Allied Army continued closing Space Wormholes, reducing the immediate danger in the polar regions.
• The next morning, Qian Zhenhua brought Han Niba the completed trade lists and framework after a sleepless night of work.
• Han Niba read the seven-page catalog of needed technologies and was astonished by the scale of Great Xia's remaining technological gaps.

Qian Zhenhua explained which Kona technologies Great Xia needed to acquire, arguing that automated industry, engineering robots, and planetary engines could help save Blue Star. Han Niba saw the potential but was overwhelmed by the cost of the long list of technologies.

• Qian Zhenhua told Han Niba that Great Xia needed a planetary-scale automated industrial system to expand production and build engines on the moon.
• Qian Zhenhua proposed using the moon as a gravitational towing platform to stabilize Blue Star and potentially prevent it from falling into the sun.
• Qian Zhenhua highlighted Heavy Engineering Robots and their engineering-intelligence databases as a way to speed up lunar construction.
• Qian Zhenhua urged Great Xia to acquire shield generators, Kona materials, quantum computing, artificial intelligence, ecological transformation, quantum communications, and fusion-battery technologies.
• Han Niba recognized the value of the technologies but worried that Great Xia could not afford to acquire them all.