Chapter Summaries

Watcher warned Zheng Jinren that the Planet Devourer was accelerating and proposed slowing it with kinetic bombardment from solid ammunition and captured meteoroids. Zheng Jinren committed Great Xia’s available ships and expanded warship production, then contacted the forward cruisers to begin the interception plan.

• Watcher told Zheng Jinren the Planet Devourer could accelerate to a significant fraction of light speed and urged immediate action.
• Watcher proposed using antiship ammunition and accelerated meteoroids to reduce the Planet Devourer’s momentum.
• Zheng Jinren agreed that the tactic could work but explained that Great Xia had few ships in the Kona Star System.
• Watcher ordered its five hundred warships to search for metal-rich asteroids and comet nuclei to use as kinetic projectiles.
• Zheng Jinren committed Great Xia’s cruisers and transports to interception operations and ordered military production lines to build reinforcements.
• Zheng Jinren contacted the three forward cruisers, and Senior Colonel Wang Chong reported that they had the Planet Devourer in view and were awaiting orders.

Zheng Jinren ordered Great Xia’s cruisers and transport ships to join the Kona Civilization’s effort to slow the Planet Devourer with accelerated meteorites. Their first bombardment barely scratched the creature, but it delayed its acceleration by one second.

• Zheng Jinren ordered Wang Chong’s three Cruisers to capture meteorites and launch them at the Planet Devourer, then mobilized heavy transport ships to support the operation.
• The Kona fleet’s five hundred warships gathered huge meteorites from the debris around the destroyed Tenth Planet and accelerated them toward the creature alongside Great Xia’s Cruisers.
• The meteorites struck the Planet Devourer, producing intense collisions that stripped away only a few layers of its outer shell.
• Wang Chong received the impact data and learned that the bombardment had forced the Planet Devourer’s acceleration process back by one second.

Great Xia and the Kona Civilization repeatedly hurled iron-rich meteorites at the Planet Devourer, slowing its acceleration and provoking it into reshaping its crust into a furious giant face. Wang Chong ordered the bombardment to continue, while Cho'Gath watched the battle from afar and hoped both sides would destroy each other.

• Wang Chong confirmed that the first meteorite impacts had erased one second of the Planet Devourer's accumulated acceleration, and Zheng Jinren ordered the fleets to keep firing rocks at it.
• Wang Chong led the cruisers in gathering and launching more meteorites, and ten Kona heavy transports joined the bombardment with additional rocks.
• The Planet Devourer's surface twisted into a gigantic roaring face, frightening the crews aboard the warships.
• Wang Chong rallied the shaken officers by arguing that the creature's anger proved the attacks were hurting it, then ordered a fifth round of towing operations.
• Cho'Gath and Yaxes watched the bombardment from orbit around the Ninth Planet, and Cho'Gath wished for the Planet Devourer and the technological civilizations to destroy each other.

Half a year into preparations for the Planet Devourer’s arrival, Great Xia and the Kona Civilization raced to build defenses as the monster accelerated toward Kona Satellite. Zheng Jinren ordered Great Xia’s construction effort prioritized after the meteorites used to slow the threat nearly ran out.

• Great Xia engineers and Dwarf smiths worked together on Kona Satellite to build the Planet-Buster Cannon and planetary engines.
• Zheng Jinren learned that the Planet Devourer had accelerated to more than one hundred kilometers per second and still had roughly nine billion kilometers to travel.
• The technical supervisor reported that the Planet Devourer’s acceleration was increasing and it could reach them in a year and a half or less.
• The technical supervisor said that most usable meteorites had been exhausted, forcing Kona’s fleet to reduce its interdiction launches.
• Zheng Jinren ordered all available resources directed toward phase one of the Planet-Buster Cannon and demanded that Great Xia’s six thousand engine foundations stay on schedule.

Great Xia struggled to maintain its home defenses and megaprojects as prolonged wartime labor pushed its limited workforce toward exhaustion and unrest. After six days of grueling lunar construction work, Wu Fa cursed the endless shifts while Wu Tian warned him that cameras were watching.

• Great Xia kept construction of the Moon’s Planet-Buster Cannon, planetary engines, and a system-wide spatial fluctuation detection network moving despite its manpower shortage.
• Great Xia’s twelve-hour shifts and six-day workweeks led to widespread exhaustion, complaints, and early signs of social unrest.
• Wu Fa and Wu Tian returned to Blue Star after six days working on the Moon and joined their exhausted coworkers in the changing room.
• Wu Fa hurled his spacesuit into a locker and cursed the relentless work schedule.
• Wu Tian warned Wu Fa to keep his voice down because the cameras were watching.

Exhausted moon workers complained about Great Xia’s relentless wartime labor, and Wu Tian argued that the Solar System could defend itself without helping the Kona Civilization. His reasoning stirred resentment among the workers, leaving them increasingly unwilling to keep sacrificing their lives for the war effort.

• Wu Fa denounced the workers’ twelve-hour shifts and the endless construction projects consuming their lives.
• A technician pointed out that Great Xia was sending resources through the Portal to aid the Kona Civilization, while a squad leader warned that the Planet Devourer would threaten the Solar System if Kona fell.
• Wu Tian argued that Great Xia’s defenses could stop the Planet Devourer and that future Dyson Cloud technology would make the Solar System safe without risking lives for Kona.
• Several workers agreed with Wu Tian and began questioning why they should continue enduring wartime conditions to help the Kona Civilization.
• Wu Fa felt excited as resentment spread among his colleagues and imagined returning to an easier life of short shifts and full-dive games.

Wu Fa and Wu Tian organized exhausted workers into a secret movement demanding shorter hours, better rations, and an end to resource diversion toward the Kona Star System. A month later, their hidden chat had grown to more than 210,000 members, and workers began asking when they would strike.

• Wu Fa urged his coworkers to unite and strike, arguing that Great Xia could not afford to imprison its scarce engineers and managers.
• Wu Tian called for restoring the four-hour workday, improving food rations, and stopping the diversion of resources and manpower to the Kona Star System.
• Wu Fa and Wu Tian secretly recruited dissatisfied workers, and their movement spread through industrial communication blind spots over the following month.
• Wu Fa opened the concealed chat room [Rest and Recuperation] in Tianshu Underground City and saw that it had 214,809 online nodes.
• Workers in the chat complained about exhausting shifts, increased quotas, poor food, and the effort devoted to the Kona Star System, then asked when they would go on strike.