Chapter Summaries

Alien delegations arrived on Earth to observe humanity’s plan to light a star, while the Warden prepared places for them and humanity bought goods from across the universe. Nelly, the Star God leader of the Zhou, met the Warden to seek cooperation that could change her species’ future.

• Delegations from many species arrived in Chang'an City, and the Warden designated southwestern Huaxia and parts of Northern Europe to house the visitors.
• Humanity resumed buying rare goods as Universe Logistics Company returned to normal operations, while the Zhou sold their people as long-distance transportation.
• The Zhou leader recognized that the species’ dependence on selling Zhou was unsustainable and saw a chance to change its fortunes by cooperating with humanity.
• Nelly traveled to Earth, assumed the form of a human woman, and greeted the Warden with a handshake.
• Nelly modestly asked the Warden to call her by name, and he asked how he could help her.

Nellie met with the Warden to propose cooperation between the Zhou and humanity, hoping to use her species’ teleportation talent to create an alternative to the Universe Logistics Company’s transport network. She outlined why other species would trust the Zhou with a new channel, then began explaining her plan for remote galaxies.

• Nellie explained that the Zhou’s teleportation ability could be used for transportation, though its long activation time made it poor for combat.
• The Warden suggested that Nellie seek help from Silicon-based Life, but she said he would not cooperate with the Zhou.
• Nellie insisted that humanity was the only species her people could work with, and the Warden noted that human spatial-channel technology was still immature.
• Nellie argued that other species would welcome a new transport channel because they relied too heavily on the Universe Logistics Company and would trust the Zhou not to suspend service.
• Nellie began describing her plan, pointing out that remote galaxies usually had only one Logistics Point.

Nellie proposed partnering with the Warden to provide short- and medium-distance transportation, but he avoided committing because building the necessary spatial routes would be costly. As Nellie waited to hear his answer, several important visitors arrived, including Lu Xiao.

• Nellie explained that she wanted to bridge the last mile in interstellar transport and asked the Warden to partner with her.
• The Warden recognized the cost of building fixed spatial passages and tactfully declined to make a decision.
• Nellie booked a nearby hotel and returned later to wait outside the Warden's office.
• Lorn stopped Nellie and told her the Warden was still in a meeting.
• A Director arrived to see the Warden, followed by a Mother God Elf responsible for Bai Ning's safety.
• Lu Xiao arrived at the office floor, radiating an aura of a god.

Lu Xiao joined the Warden and the Director to figure out how to handle Nellie’s demand for cooperation. They settled on raising money through stocks and drawing the Mother God Elves into the project, leaving the Director to introduce them to the idea.

• Lu Xiao greeted Nellie and learned she was the leader of the Zhou clan before entering the Warden’s office.
• The Warden explained that Nellie was waiting outside and that he feared provoking her by refusing her proposal.
• Lu Xiao said they might have to cooperate, but the Warden objected that he lacked the money to fund the project.
• The Director suggested raising funds through the stock market and said the project could support a civilization.
• The Warden realized the Director planned to involve the Mother God Elves and use the project as a pledge of allegiance to reach the Deliberative Council’s core.
• Lu Xiao and the Director agreed to stay behind the scenes, contribute technology for equity, and let the Mother God Elves raise the money.

After Nellie’s visit exposed the Warden’s vulnerability, the Warden arranged for the Director’s Great Old One bodyguard to protect him and sent Lu Xiao to entertain Nellie. Lu Xiao took her to Chang'an City’s specialty food street, where she tried strange dishes sourced from the Dark Prison front lines.

• The Warden, Lu Xiao, and the Director agreed that the Warden needed stronger protection, and the Warden asked to share the Director’s bodyguard while he was in town.
• The Warden told Lu Xiao to lead Nellie away for the day and bring her back the next morning; Lu Xiao also told the Mother God Elf to wait for the Director.
• Lu Xiao took Nellie to a barbecue restaurant on Chang'an City’s specialty food street and learned that its unusual ingredients were registered items rejected by the authorities.
• Lu Xiao ordered charcoal-grilled long-legged sardines, charcoal-grilled mermaid, flame-roasted Lizardman thigh, and raw-marinated tentacles.
• When the long-legged sardines arrived, Nellie asked whether human food was always so strange, then stuffed one into her mouth while Lu Xiao waited to hear her reaction.

Lu Xiao and Nellie discussed humanity’s prospects after sharing an unusual meal, and Nellie explained why she believed humanity was poised to join the major races. After hearing about the Zhou race’s limitations, Lu Xiao proposed deeper cooperation between their peoples.

• Lu Xiao and Nellie ate Long-legged Sardines and a charcoal-grilled mermaid, which Nellie praised.
• Nellie asked Lu Xiao about humanity’s plan to light a star, and he asked how other races might respond if it succeeded.
• Nellie said small races would seek good relations with humanity and believed humanity could become a major race even without lighting a star.
• Lu Xiao considered how humanity’s valuable technology could attract danger and explained that sharing it through schools could reduce other races’ covetousness.
• Nellie described the Zhou race’s limited combat strength and innate Life Trait, and Lu Xiao proposed deeper cooperation between their races.

Lu Xiao brought Nellie to see the Transforming Vehicle’s Mobius Strip form, hoping to persuade her to cooperate with humanity. Impressed by its potential, Nellie agreed to discuss cooperation with the Warden, though its terms remained unsettled.

• Lu Xiao told Nellie that cooperation could give her clan the strength to protect itself, then took her to Mocking Heaven Palace to meet Driver.
• Driver summoned the Transforming Vehicle, and Nellie saw its Mobius Strip combat form and recognized how its power could grow with stronger fuel.
• Nellie wanted her clan to gain the ability to transform like the Mobius Strip, while Lu Xiao avoided discussing specific cooperation terms because they had not yet been decided.
• The next day, Lu Xiao told Nellie the Warden’s meeting should be over, and she agreed to meet him and discuss the matter.

Lu Xiao learned that Moli'an would arrive with Weidiya and the Imperial Princess, while Warden and Director discussed cooperation with Nellie. Nellie accepted the proposed arrangement and asked about the Mobius Strip, but Director said its design was a failure until he mastered the rules of time and space.

• Lu Xiao asked a Mother God Elf about Moli'an and learned that she should arrive with Weidiya and the Imperial Princess.
• Warden and Director proposed that the Mother God Elves lead the cooperation with Nellie while humanity contributed technology discreetly.
• Director told Nellie that he was a member of the Deliberative Council and that a Mother God Elf served as his bodyguard, but he did not explain why humans had joined the council.
• Nellie accepted the cooperation terms and asked Director for the Mobius Strip design plans.
• Director said the Mobius Strip was a failed design until he mastered the rules of time and space, and he was reluctant to sell its plans.

With the mission less than two days away, Lu Xiao and the senior leaders gathered at a military base to send off more than ten thousand soldiers who had been transformed into deities for a mission with only a seven percent chance of success. The farewell banquet ended with Zhang Weidong and the generals struggling to hide their grief as the old sent the young to their likely deaths.

• The Director promised Nellie a weapon design once humanity’s technology improved, and the Warden agreed before they left for the military base.
• The leaders prepared for the mission, knowing the soldiers would die from their transformations even if they survived deploying the nuclear warheads.
• Antie asked Lu Xiao to personally send the soldiers off, and Lu Xiao agreed.
• Military trucks brought liquor and cigarettes to the base, where the soldiers and leaders gathered for a farewell banquet.
• Lu Xiao toasted every soldier and promised the plan would succeed, drinking until he vomited while giving each one a pack of cigarettes.
• Zhang Weidong smoked silently as an old commander broke down in tears, and the other generals struggled to contain their grief.

After the farewell banquet, Lu Xiao woke believing Shadow had returned, only to discover the Director was impersonating him. The Director then revealed Liu Guang at the doorway, leaving Lu Xiao convinced he was hallucinating.

• The soldiers carried the drunken banquet guests back to camp, and Lu Xiao murmured that they had to succeed before passing out.
• Lu Xiao dreamed of humanity’s success and Shadow thanking him, then woke to a man who appeared to be Shadow sitting beside his bed.
• Lu Xiao struck the man, and the Director revealed himself, teasing Lu Xiao for getting worked up.
• Lu Xiao asked the Director to turn back into Shadow, but the Director said there was no need to imitate him anymore.
• The Director opened the door to reveal Liu Guang, who held a locksmith business card, and Lu Xiao gouged out his eyes before putting them back and calling the scene a hallucination.

Liu Guang returned and decided to travel to Mother Goddess Star, while Lu Xiao chose to go with him after humanity completed Species Registration. The chapter ended with more than ten thousand humans preparing to attempt the first step of their Species Registration by setting foot on the Sun.

• Lu Xiao confirmed that Liu Guang had returned, and the Director and Warden met with him to discuss the Present World and the Star-Lighting Plan.
• Liu Guang decided to go to Mother Goddess Star and asked the Director to take him there, hoping to find a way to stay near Liu Ni.
• The Director said he could take Liu Guang to Mother Goddess Star but could not arrange for him to be placed by Liu Ni's side.
• Lu Xiao asked to accompany Liu Guang after Species Registration, saying he wanted to see the Universe.
• Humanity gathered in Chang'an City's Planned District with delegations from other races to begin an attempt to set foot on the Sun.

Antie and Lu Xiao oversaw humanity’s mission to plant nuclear warheads on the Sun while the Doctor prepared to draw away the being entrenched there. The spacecraft reached the photosphere, where one soldier and their warheads were lost, as the remaining pilots used the Cage’s trait to push toward their targets.

• The Doctor told Antie he was in position, and Antie began the operation as humanity and the delegations prepared to enter space.
• More than ten thousand soldiers deployed disposable Small Spacecraft carrying nuclear warheads toward the Sun while Antie and Lu Xiao watched.
• The spacecraft crossed the corona and chromosphere, where pilots manually dodged prominences and solar flares disrupted their autopilot systems.
• In the photosphere, sunspots and erupting prominences threatened the spacecraft as the soldiers steered toward their assigned detonation points.
• A tongue of flame consumed one spacecraft, killing its pilot and destroying its nuclear warheads, while the other soldiers injected syringes to draw on the Cage’s trait and gain greater brainpower.

Humanity’s pilots raced to position nuclear warheads beneath the Sun’s atmosphere while the Cage’s side effects killed them in growing numbers. With fewer than a hundred survivors left, one exceptionally powerful pilot continued toward his target while towing seventeen other spacecraft.

• Alien observers debated whether humanity’s plan could prove it had reached Level 2 by lighting and controlling a star.
• More than a thousand pilots gathered in the chromosphere and flew toward their assigned detonation coordinates despite losing contact and suffering the Cage’s side effects.
• Pilots towed spacecraft whose occupants had died or melted, but fewer than a hundred survivors remained and more than two hundred spacecraft had stopped.
• The surviving pilots continued moving their companions’ spacecraft toward their assigned coordinates, unaware that the Doctor’s plan included redundancy.
• A pilot ranked on the [Dawn of the Gods] ranking, whose power made the Cage’s effects less immediately fatal, flew toward his target while towing seventeen spacecraft.

A crippled astronaut was towed to his mission coordinates as the phased nuclear detonations reignited the Sun’s fusion reaction. The returning sunlight reached Earth, bringing dawn to the Dark Prison and a Huaxia army base.

• After delivering his companions toward their burial coordinates, the exhausted astronaut could not steer his craft, but another spacecraft towed him toward his own mission location.
• The programmed nuclear bombs detonated in successive rings, and the accumulated energy appeared to reactivate the Sun’s fusion reaction.
• Moli'an and the Warden watched the Sun’s light shift toward orange-yellow, though they could only judge the result from a distance.
• A ray of sunlight reached the Dark Prison, where twisted creatures and native gods looked toward the Sun and briefly regained their senses.
• At a Huaxia army base, soldiers raised a red flag beneath the returning sunlight as the long night ended.

Humanity welcomed dawn after lighting the star, ending the Dark Prison’s eternal night and securing a thousand years of protection. The Warden considered leaving Earth with Moli'an, but asked for time to think and arrange a handover.

• The Dark Prison emerged from eternal night, and its soldiers saluted the Sun in silence, remembering their fallen comrades.
• Fate urged Lightline to join them, and Lightline asked whether they had interfered with humanity’s fate; Fate denied giving humanity meaningful help.
• The Doctor confronted Alfred beyond the Solar System, heard him say “Key,” and then lost contact with his consciousness entity when the Cage’s side effects struck.
• Humanity completed species registration after lighting the star, securing protection from Order Faction species for 1,024 Earth years.
• Moli'an urged the Warden to return with her to Mother Goddess Star, and the Warden asked for time to consider leaving and hand over his work.

The Warden learned that the Recorders would build a Tower of Truth on Earth and began arranging humanity’s next steps, including reclaiming the Dark Prison. After reviewing cooperation meetings with Lorn, he tried to ask whether his student wanted to leave, but Lorn asked if he was trying to send him away.

• Moli'an told the Warden that the Recorders would soon build a Tower of Truth on Earth, and explained its benefits and the land it might require.
• The Warden decided to expand Earth through the Universe Construction Company and planned to reclaim the Dark Prison while minimizing human casualties.
• The Warden bought large quantities of technological weapons through the Universe Logistics Company, intending to use them in the Dark Prison operation and confront Cthulhu.
• After seeing Moli'an off, the Warden reviewed cooperation proposals from visiting species with Lorn, who introduced the scheduled meetings.
• The Warden began asking Lorn whether he wanted to leave now that technology was no longer monopolized, and Lorn asked if his teacher was trying to send him away.

The Warden accepted Lorn’s plans to remain with his senior fellow student and help teach at Galaxy Academy, then returned to work. Elsewhere, Lu Xiao learned why he had not become a Great Old One and heard of a theoretical path to becoming a Rule Controller through the Universe Will.

• The Warden considered joining the Deliberative Council or the Andreiro Family after following Moli'an to Mother Goddess Star, hoping to gain resources for humanity and himself.
• Lorn told the Warden he would stay with his senior fellow student, study under him, and become one of Galaxy Academy’s first students and instructors.
• Yiqie'er explained that Lu Xiao had completed his ascension ceremony but lacked enough divinity, and that his planet had no World Will to help him ascend.
• Yiqie'er told Lu Xiao he would need to accumulate divinity himself or join another species, since only a life planet’s native inhabitants could gain recognition from an ordinary World Will.
• Yiqie'er revealed that gaining recognition from the Universe Will was another theoretical option, one that could ultimately let Lu Xiao become a Rule Controller.

Yiqie'er explained that Earth could regain a World Will by having a human become it or by purchasing one from the Universe Black Market. Lu Xiao and Liu Guang wanted humanity to buy the best World Will it could afford.

• Yiqie'er said that becoming the highest authority over one's Rule was the minimum condition for gaining the Universe's recognition, but she did not know the other requirements.
• The Director asked Yiqie'er whether Earth could regain a World Will, and she described voluntary transformation and buying a newly born World Will as possible methods.
• Yiqie'er explained that Wanderers stole World Wills from newly emerging civilizations and sold them on the Universe Black Market for star source or rare resources.
• The Director asked whether humanity could buy a World Will for Earth, and Yiqie'er confirmed it was possible but said humans could not yet afford the best ones.
• Lu Xiao insisted that humanity should buy the very best World Will, and Liu Guang agreed that they should get a good one.

During the month before Lu Xiao and Liu Guang planned to accompany the Director to Mother Goddess Star, humanity developed new weapons and armor, unified its technology, and prepared to establish the Pivot Council. The chapter ends with Zhang Weidong discovering terrified star gods and Great Old Ones in an abandoned fleet, prompting the Doctor to recall his encounter with transdimensional life forms.

• On the fourth day, the Doctor collected the new Technological Weapons, and the military began training with them using a model he created.
• On the seventh day, Shuns's laboratory resolved the Biomechanical Armor's compatibility issues so ordinary people could operate it for production.
• At a meeting on the eighth day, the Warden supported sharing technology across humanity and proposed relinquishing his power; the leaders agreed to establish the Pivot Council.
• On the ninth day, the Warden signed Antie's draft plan for the Pivot Council, while the Gambler obtained permission to rebuild Las Vegas.
• On the thirteenth day, Zhang Weidong led a negotiating team to a fleet outside the Solar System, but they found its warships deserted and began exploring.
• On the eighteenth day, Zhang Weidong's team found three star gods and more than a dozen Great Old Ones begging humanity to take them in, and the Doctor recalled meeting transdimensional life forms.

Lu Xiao and Liu Guang prepared to eliminate Cthulhu and the contaminated alien life, while Yiqie'er restored Bai Suoyi and Lucilla to new bodies. On day twenty-five, humanity launched Gamma Type 7 weapons at the vast gathering of the Demi-Human Race, and the missiles arrived above the landmass.

• Lu Xiao and Liu Guang agreed with Claudius to attack Cthulhu in a week, and Liu Guang enlarged Lu Xiao’s trap while warning him to watch Claudius closely.
• Yiqie'er gave Bai Suoyi and Lucilla new bodies, removed their contamination, and helped them regain Star-level Life; Bai Suoyi and Lucilla left Earth the next day with an Old One-level Mother God Elf as their bodyguard.
• Claudius summoned millions of Demi-Human Race members to his Beast Arena, where Lu Xiao joined a gladiatorial tournament and fought using only his physical strength.
• On day twenty-five, humanity fired over a thousand missiles carrying Gamma Type 7 neutron warheads at the gathering, and the missiles reached the skies above the landmass.