Recaps

Ika and Emil oversaw Highlander warriors learning to shape essence marrow stone, while Isabella's team completed the Empire's first mortal-made frigate and awakened its machine spirit. In a dream, Zhang Han heard prayers to several gods, and strange prayers to the Rat God pulled at his consciousness as he reached out to them.

• Ika told the Highlanders that they had one day to shape essence marrow stone for the enlistment exam, and she scolded a warrior for mishandling it.
• Emil watched the trials with Ika and envied the armor made from essence marrow stone, while the Empire's engineers demonstrated their greater skill.
• Isabella and her team assembled a frigate, performed a ritual around it, and successfully started its engine.
• Zhang Han realized he was dreaming and heard prayers addressed to the Four-Armed Serpent God, the Dragon God, the Machine God, and the Rat God.
• Zhang Han felt the strange Rat God prayers pulling at his consciousness and intertwined his Psionic Threads with them.

Zhang Han encountered a world overrun by rats and empowered the swarm, turning it into an army of Skaven that overwhelmed a mechanized force. After the Rat Prophets sacrificed the dead, Zhang Han discovered the ritual strengthened his psionic power and connected him to the rats.

• Zhang Han watched a rat swarm attack a town until fighter craft drove it back with blue-flame bombs.
• A giant rat called on the Rat God and brought down a fighter craft with green lightning.
• Zhang Han commanded the rats to attack approaching reinforcements and infused them with green energy, causing many to mutate.
• The Skaven overwhelmed the mechanized army, and their Rat Prophets ordered the dead gathered as offerings to the Rat God.
• The Rat Prophets performed a bell-ringing sacrifice that sent energy to Zhang Han and drew energy back from him.

Zhang Han followed the retreating zombified rats underground as the Death Cult struggled to contain their attacks. Zulaman’s attempts to make the Xelorans compensate for the devastation failed, and he left Gestalt’s offer of aid unaccepted, forcing the Cult to face the rats alone.

• The Rat Prophets celebrated capturing eight females, then ordered the rats to retreat underground with their food and whatever weapons they could carry as missiles struck nearby.
• Zhang Han followed the rats underground, curious about their connection to him.
• After another settlement was destroyed, Zulaman blamed the Xelorans’ Shroud weapon and demanded compensation, but they denied responsibility and refused to pay.
• Zulaman’s protest to the Stellaris Council was returned because the Death Cult lacked independent diplomatic powers.
• Diplomat Five offered the Cult reconstruction aid but warned Zulaman against opposing the Xelorans, and Zulaman refused the offer to preserve face.
• The Cult remained unable to stop the rats, whose underground movement and narrow tunnels made the Death Cult’s ground forces ineffective.

Zhang Han discovered that the Rat Swarm had built an underground civilization and worshiped him as their god, since they were his clones. After he left, Rat Prophet Aike rallied the Swarm around a grand plan to destroy the world, while Zulaman remained unaware that the Skaven were preparing a coordinated attack.

• Zulaman considered using Fusion Strikes against the Rat Swarm but feared damaging Ascension Tower and decided to wait before asking the Alliance for help.
• Zhang Han explored the rats’ underground settlements, factories, and geothermal power plants, then found a temple containing a statue that resembled him.
• Zhang Han realized the rats were his clones, and the Swarm gathered around him, praying and seeking to return to his Psionic Entity.
• Zhang Han returned to the virtual space, leaving the rats agitated and fighting until the Rat Prophets restored order.
• Rat Prophet Aike declared that the Swarm must repay the Rat God by destroying the world and rallied them around an undefined “Grand Plan.”
• The Skaven began preparing to deceive their enemies and strike suddenly while Zulaman still hesitated over seeking help.

Zhang Han spoke with Kundera and agreed to cooperate against Zagara while continuing to build up his own strength. Kundera explained that Zagara’s rule threatened the Swarm Network and could drive the Swarm toward extinction.

• Kundera’s envoy told Zhang Han that Zagara had betrayed the Swarm, citing her destruction of a star and her treatment of Swarm forces as tools.
• Zhang Han contacted Kundera directly and offered to help defeat Zagara, insisting that they would later compete fairly for the position of Overmind.
• Kundera welcomed Zhang Han’s proposal and promised to fight him seriously in their eventual duel.
• Kundera said Zagara’s experience and resolve made her difficult to defeat, and proposed that Zhang Han absorb Hatcheries while he kept Zagara occupied.
• Kundera explained that Zagara’s selfish rule could destroy trust among the Nodes, fracture the Swarm Network, and lead the Swarm toward extinction.

Zhang Han planned how to expand the Swarm while preparing to fight Zagara, addressing the limits of his network and assigning commanders to three fleets. He left with an eight-hundred-thousand-strong force to attack the Stellaris Council's Fortress Planet.

• Zhang Han agreed to cooperate with Kundera against Zagara and established a connection between their Swarm Networks.
• Zhang Han considered the Swarm's limits, including his insufficient psionic power and the shortage of capable commanders, and adopted Abaddon's proposal to hatch simplified Nodes for low-level command.
• Zhang Han decided to split his forces among three Hyperspace Routes and selected Kagar, Kagat, and himself to lead the fleets.
• Kagar took command of a one-and-a-half-million-strong fleet with Kamu and the other Siege Beasts, while Kagat led seven hundred thousand with Chloe.
• Zhang Han took the final eight-hundred-thousand-strong fleet with Skadi and set out to attack the Stellaris Council's Fortress Planet.

Zhang Han led the Swarm Fleet toward Cadian to rescue Nalga, while Queen Typhon joined Johnny on Slak Star and demonstrated her abilities. Typhon connected Johnny to one of his brothers, revealing that the Mimic was performing a bloody ritual among birdfolk.

• Zhang Han set out to destroy Cadian and rescue the consciousness fragment Nalga, which the Stellaris Council had captured.
• Queen Typhon arrived at the Coiled Serpent System, where Johnny introduced himself and connected her to his Swarm Network.
• Johnny discovered that Typhon was a powerful Queen who could strengthen the network and connect him with Swarm units across great distances.
• Typhon connected Johnny to one of his Mimic brothers, who was conducting a bloody ritual he had learned from Johnny's experience.

Johnny questioned the Mimic about its conspicuous effort to establish the Doomsday Church and discovered that Masuk had helped it recruit powerful figures in exchange for renewed health. Johnny warned Masuk that the Swarm could revoke its gifts, then arranged to send a team to strengthen the operation and bring Masuk under tighter control.

• The Mimic explained that it had recruited wealthy and influential people by promising them power and longer lives, and claimed it had infiltrated government and military leadership.
• Johnny learned that Masuk had devised the church’s initiation ceremony and summoned him for questioning.
• Masuk said he served the Swarm because its blessing had restored his failing health, and declared his devotion to its rule over the universe.
• Johnny decided Masuk was too self-serving to trust but could still be useful, so he promised Swarm support and warned that its gifts could be taken away.
• Masuk eagerly pledged to serve the Swarm, while Johnny arranged to tighten control over him and eliminate the risk he posed.

Johnny checked on the second and third Mimics and found that both were advancing the Swarm’s infiltration of the Libra Sector through their own methods. The Mimics had made unexpectedly strong progress, and Johnny warned them that failure would have consequences before ending the call.

• Johnny contacted Mimic Number Two and learned that he had built a powerful business empire by persuading locals to work for him and infecting only exceptional employees.
• Johnny contacted Mimic Number Three, who was disguised as a Mermaid aboard Joey and Terrell’s space yacht.
• Mimic Number Three explained that he followed Joey and Terrell to spread Mimics across civilizations and used attractive hosts to infiltrate influential circles.
• Mimic Number Three shared intelligence showing that a Dark Cult was taking shape and that the Libra Sector’s civilizations were being infiltrated with little resistance.
• Johnny acknowledged the Mimics’ exceptional abilities, reminded them that the Overmind took the mission seriously, and threatened to send any who failed into the Digestive Cavity.

Johnny set out with Typhon to establish a Hatchery while the Sapphire fleet searched for an antimatter deposit near a hyperspace exit. Chen Hui learned the Sapphire Civilization planned to seize Nalga's child, then discovered the deposit using Nalga's theoretical equation as the fleet changed course toward it.

• Johnny praised Typhon, refused her request to eat his snakes, and promised to provide livestock after they established a Hatchery.
• Johnny and Typhon left the Starport to find a suitable location for the Hatchery.
• Chen Hui apologized to Nalga and admitted she could not prevent the Sapphire expedition, while Nalga criticized her civilization for breaking its promise.
• Chen Hui went to the bridge after Zhang Zihao reported a gravitational anomaly and identified a possible antimatter deposit near a hyperspace exit.
• Chen Hui told Zhang Zihao about the possible deposit, and he ordered the Sapphire fleet to investigate it.

Chen Hui’s fleet left the main shipping lane as the Xelorans revealed the Shroud-linked nature and terrible cost of the Heaven-Burning Divine Weapon. Meanwhile, the Gestalt Machine Civilization and Stone People began preparing a hidden Tomb World to survive the apocalyptic crisis.

• Chen Hui decided not to voice her suspicions about Nalga and followed Zhang Zihao’s plan to occupy an antimatter resource site before canceling the expedition; the Sapphire Civilization’s fleet left the main shipping lane.
• High Archon Wendak brought senior Xeloran officials inside the Heaven-Burning Divine Weapon and revealed that its vast interior was a place where the Shroud and reality intertwined.
• Wendak’s soldiers sent a Shroud weapon into the darkness, where a purple strand seized it and illuminated strange forms within the Shroud.
• Wendak warned the officials that activating the Heaven-Burning Divine Weapon required a terrible price and urged anyone authorized to use it to consider the cost before signing a contract.
• The Gestalt Machine Civilization calculated that it had a strong chance of surviving with adequate preparation, and robots and Stone People began hollowing out a planet for a Tomb World.

The chapter explained how the Snoern, a stone-based civilization, formed a symbiotic alliance with the Gestalts and helped them build and protect Tomb Worlds. Their cooperation produced the Immortals, who reinforced the tombs and could remain hidden as lifeless sculptures while dormant.

• Gestalt civilizations built vast Tomb Worlds to protect their sleeping populations through prolonged disasters, but the structures were difficult to conceal and construct.
• The Snoern viewed themselves as part of the universe’s ecological chain and had little interest in the fate of other civilizations.
• The Gestalts won the Snoern’s cooperation by describing their relationship as a mutually beneficial symbiosis between two small parts of the universe.
• The Snoern animated stone into useful minerals and powerful warships, strengthening the Silicate Alliance’s military and industrial capabilities.
• The Gestalts and Snoern created the Immortals, steel machines animated by Snoern life energy that could be revived unless completely destroyed.
• Immortals reinforced the Tomb Worlds and, when dormant, appeared to other civilizations as sculptures or corpses rather than living beings.

Zhang Han prepared a four-pronged Swarm assault on the Stellaris Council, while Cadian received reinforcements without knowing a much larger attack was approaching. The chapter left Zhang Han leading four hundred thousand Swarm units toward Cadian as he strengthened preparations on Tabi Star for a prolonged war.

• Zhang Han led an eight-hundred-thousand-strong Swarm Fleet through a small star system and accepted Kereit’s intelligence and proposal to divide the forces.
• Zhang Han assigned two-hundred-thousand-strong strike fleets to Skadi and Kereit, sent a hundred-thousand-strong raiding fleet into the Council’s rear, and kept four hundred thousand units to attack Cadian.
• Zhang Han ordered the Tabi Star Cerebrate to produce heavy-weapons Swarm Leviathans and stockpile partially hatched Swarm units.
• Fortress Marshal Fenghuo welcomed a fifty-thousand-ship Council fleet and Antilian supplies to the battered planet of Cadian.

Shuiyi returned to Cadian hoping to see Kunmao, while Fortress Marshal Fenghuo concealed the approach of Zhang Han’s Swarm Fleet from the combined fleet. Zhang Han’s four-hundred-thousand-strong force overwhelmed Cadian’s defenders in less than five hours, and the tactical computer revealed that every Swarm vessel could use psionics.

• Shuiyi volunteered for the Cadian transport mission after fleeing a family-arranged blind date because she could not forget Kunmao.
• Fenghuo hid the warning that a massive Swarm Fleet was approaching, fearing the combined fleet would disband if it learned the truth.
• Zhang Han entered the Cadian system seeking Nalga and became furious when a Scout Overlord detected an explosion at the northern Hatchery.
• Zhang Han ordered his Swarm Fleet to attack Cadian, while Skadi and Kereit moved to intercept reinforcements.
• The Swarm Fleet destroyed the fifty-thousand-strong combined fleet in under five hours, and the tactical computer identified the Swarm’s universal psionic abilities as the reason for its overwhelming strength.

Fenghuo watched the Devouring Swarm overwhelm Antillian defenses with universal psionic abilities and lost hope of victory. As the Swarm’s forces poured onto Cadian, the Fortress Complex began to fall, and fighting shifted toward its underground sections.

• Fenghuo saw Scourges, Corruptors, and a Nether Bug use psionics to defeat Antillian weapons, then ordered his adjutant to hold the line while he claimed he would contact headquarters.
• Fenghuo left the command post knowing long-range communications were cut off and reinforcements were unavailable.
• Zhang Han committed the Swarm to wiping out Cadian’s defenders as billions of Warrior Bugs landed and the Swarm’s aerial assault overwhelmed the planet’s defenses.
• The Swarm bombarded the Fortress Complex, and a Scourge destroyed an Antillian Fusion Strike missile near the fortifications.
• Ghost Bugs shielded advancing Warrior Bugs with Psionics Enchantment, allowing them to break into the fortresses as the aboveground defenses neared collapse.

As the Swarm captured Cadian, Shuiyi joined the Antilians’ desperate defense while Zhang Han discovered their plan to destroy the planet’s fortresses. Fenghuo activated the Final Protocol, costing Zhang Han billions of Warrior Bugs, and the story left him turning his attention to Skadi’s campaign against the Fishmen.

• Shuiyi treated a wounded Super Soldier, then took up a weapon and went out to fight when Zerglings breached the underground fortress.
• Zhang Han admired the Antilians’ resolve but ordered the Swarm to kill everyone resisting or surrendering.
• Zhang Han realized Cadian’s underground fortresses held explosives and ordered the Warrior Bugs to retreat.
• Fenghuo activated the Final Protocol, detonating fusion weapons and Antimatter Bombs across Cadian and destroying nearly all the fortresses.
• Zhang Han counted massive Swarm losses, resolved to leave enemies an escape route in future battles, and noted that he had taken Cadian.
• Skadi destroyed the Fishmen’s fleet and slaughtered the Fishmen across their planet.

Skadi’s Swarm defeated the Fishmen and adapted its forces to conquer their ocean planet, eventually forcing the surviving Fishmen to surrender. Skadi arrived at the surrender ceremony on a gigantic underwater beast, with the Fishmen facing the Swarm’s overwhelming presence.

• Skadi’s two-hundred-thousand-strong Swarm Fleet destroyed the Fishmen’s eight-thousand-warship fleet and began occupying the system.
• Skadi’s Swarm evolved Zerglings, Hydralisks, and Roaches for underwater combat, overcoming the Fishmen’s resistance and spreading creep across the seabed.
• The Fishmen attacked the Swarm’s Hatcheries, but Skadi fortified them with Spore Crawlers and Spine Crawlers.
• On the sixth day, the Fishmen failed in a counterattack and sent an envoy to surrender; Skadi agreed after an Infestor examined the envoy’s mind.
• Skadi demanded that the Fishmen disarm, and the surrender faction prevailed as the Swarm’s forces grew.
• Skadi arrived at the surrender ceremony riding a two-thousand-meter underwater beast, accompanied by enough Warrior Bugs to blot out the water’s surface.

Skadi and Kereit secured their assigned star systems and prepared defenses while a Swarm raiding fleet pushed deeper into the Libra Sector. As news of the counterattack spread, rumors and refugee accounts fueled panic in the Morgor civilization, which feared the Stellaris Council had abandoned the sector.

• Skadi’s Swarm forces slaughtered the Fishmen after pretending to accept their surrender, then colonized the system’s planets and fortified them against the Stellaris Council.
• Kereit’s fleet destroyed a space station and devoured its inhabitants before he began establishing Swarm defenses in the system.
• Kereit sent a hundred-thousand-strong raiding fleet into Hyperspace on a mission to penetrate the Libra Sector until it was annihilated.
• News of the Swarm counterattack spread across the Milky Way, driving people in threatened regions to flee and pushing ticket prices beyond ordinary workers’ reach.
• Rumors in Morgor claimed that Cadian had fallen, the Fortress Plan had failed, and the Stellaris Council could not stop the Swarm.
• Refugees and deserters exaggerated the Swarm’s size and cruelty, worsening panic across Morgor society.

As panic over the Swarm Fleets spread, the Morgor government’s reassurances failed when an influential passenger exposed the wealthy fleeing Mogol. Riots engulfed the Starports and the Homeworld, while the Doomsday Church began establishing order amid the chaos.

• The Morgor government tried to calm the public, but an influential passenger posted a photograph of elites boarding a packed ship and boasted about their connections.
• People identified the passengers and spread rumors that the front line had fallen, prompting angry crowds to swarm all ten Starports on the Morgor Homeworld.
• A vicious passenger threatened a pilot with a Gauss Pistol, and an accomplice blew apart the ship’s connecting passageway so the pilot could take off.
• The ship’s engines burned people near the launch platform, and footage of the deaths drove public trust in the government to rock bottom as riots and destruction spread across Mogol.
• A Morgor priest and his psionic followers stopped two armed assailants from attacking a young girl, then the priest preached about the Savior of the Apocalypse and welcomed people to the Doomsday Church.

Johnny planned to use the Doomsday Church to support the Swarm Fleet’s invasion and expand the Swarm’s influence across the Libra Sector. Typhon warned him to seek the Overmind’s approval before contacting the fleet’s War Cerebrate, and Johnny agreed to wait until she finished helping the Hatchery evolve.

• Johnny learned that the Overmind planned to send a Swarm Fleet into the Libra Sector and ordered him to identify it carefully and avoid friendly fire.
• Johnny assessed how the Doomsday Church had grown across the sector, with Infestor-enhanced believers and loyal members helping it undermine civilizations.
• Johnny planned to provide the invading fleet with intelligence and supplies and steer it toward powerful, uninfiltrated civilizations to weaken the Stellaris Council’s influence.
• Johnny asked Typhon when she would finish helping the Hatchery evolve so he could contact the War Cerebrate commanding the raiding fleet.
• Typhon cautioned Johnny that coordinating with the fleet without the Overmind’s permission would overstep his authority, and Johnny thanked her and promised her grilled meat.

Zhang Han gave Johnny command of a hundred thousand Swarm ships while preparing Cadian for defense, unaware that the Sapphire Civilization had discovered a rich antimatter deposit. Chen Hui learned the Devouring Swarm had occupied Cadian just as she expected the expedition to return home.

• Zhang Han entrusted Johnny with a hundred thousand Swarm ships and expected him to distract the Stellaris Council while Cadian was fortified.
• Zhang Zihao and Chen Hui discovered an antimatter deposit in a distant star system that could support another two hundred thousand warships.
• Chen Hui calculated that the deposit would eject at least fifty kilograms of antimatter in three days, and Zhang Zihao promised to recommend her for the Medal of Civilization Hero.
• Three days later, the Peacemaker collected fifty kilograms of antimatter, and Chen Hui told Nalga that the fleet planned to stay and extract more before returning home.
• Chen Hui asked Nalga to help her study the Devouring Swarm and promote peaceful relations between their species.
• The capital sent an urgent transmission announcing that the Devouring Swarm had occupied Cadian and cut off the Sapphire fleet's retreat.

Chen Hui learned that the Devouring Swarm had invaded Cadian and three other systems with overwhelming forces, leaving the Expeditionary Fleet stranded far from home. Zhang Zihao urged her to ask Nalga to negotiate safe passage, and Chen Hui reached her room still torn between saving twenty million people and asking Nalga to betray her kind.

• Chen Hui arrived on the bridge and saw recordings of enormous Swarm Fleets pouring into Cadian and three other star systems.
• Zhang Zihao reported that a vast Swarm Fleet had also penetrated the Libra Sector and warned that the counterattack threatened many civilizations.
• A staff officer argued that the Stellaris Council could defeat a million Swarm vessels, but Chen Hui warned that the Swarm had evolved and could overwhelm them.
• Zhang Zihao told Chen Hui that the Expeditionary Fleet was stranded ten thousand light-years from home and asked her to have Nalga negotiate safe passage.
• Chen Hui returned to her room, conflicted about asking Nalga to betray her species to save the fleet's twenty million people.

Chen Hui learned that the Sapphire Expeditionary Fleet was trapped by a million Swarm vessels and, after Nalga refused to help, decided to risk exploiting Nalga’s child’s influence within the Swarm to save the fleet. She left to present her plan to Zhang Zihao and the others, uncertain whether Nalga’s child would help.

• Chen Hui told Nalga the fleet’s situation, but Nalga refused to help because Chen Hui had harmed the Overmind and Nalga did not know which Hatchery was attacking.
• Chen Hui broke down over the twenty million lives at stake, then dreamed of raising a daughter who looked like her before waking with a renewed sense of responsibility.
• Chen Hui proposed continuing toward the target star system and asking Nalga’s child to help save Nalga, prompting Nalga to attack the Energy Barrier in fury.
• Chen Hui apologized to Nalga, explained that she had to try to save the fleet, and recorded Nalga’s curses as research material.
• Chen Hui went to the bridge to explain her plan to Zhang Zihao and the others and urge the fleet to carry it out.

The Stellaris Council debated how to respond to a million-strong Devouring Swarm Fleet and agreed to abandon most of the Libra Sector, while supplying the Anfenli Civilization to aid those who stayed. The Anfenli representative ended the meeting by vowing to defend their homeland.

• The Antilian representative blamed the Xeloran for the Swarm's counterattack, but the Xeloran insisted their Shroud weapon had shattered the Overmind Consciousness.
• The Gestalt robot warned that the Council's scattered forces could not stop the million-strong Swarm Fleet, and the Antilian representative proposed abandoning seventy percent of the Libra Sector to establish a new defensive line.
• The Sapphire representative objected to abandoning the sector's inhabitants, and the Antilian representative mocked the Sapphire Civilization over its losses.
• The Anfenli representative urged the Council to support the weak, and the Xeloran representative endorsed the Antilian proposal while offering Anfenli assistance.
• The Council agreed to leave weapons, resources, credits, and abandoned fortresses to the Anfenli, who thanked the member civilizations and vowed to defend their homeland.

Gupi told Rosalia he would return to the Libra Sector to fight alongside the Anfenli, and she wept as he refused to remain safe in Paradise Garden. Meanwhile, the Swarm Fleet destroyed an Evans fleet and its space station, though the Evans resistance cost it more than five hundred ships.

• Rosalia told Gupi that the resources offered by the Four Permanent Members were meant to help the Libra Sector hold off the Devouring Swarm, not to save it.
• Gupi asked Rosalia to arrange a ride with her Queen back to the Libra Sector so he could fight with the Anfenli.
• Rosalia urged Gupi to stay in Paradise Garden and suggested the Anfenli could form a government in exile, but he said he wanted to die closer to the Eternal Tree if his civilization perished.
• Johnny divided the Swarm Fleet into smaller forces to attack the Libra Sector across multiple fronts.
• An Evans fleet fought the Swarm Fleet at an Agricultural World, but the Swarm destroyed its flower-shaped space station and overwhelmed the defenders.
• The Evans fleet and station were destroyed, while their resistance cost the Swarm Fleet more than five hundred warships.