Recaps

Abaddon continued his virus research while the Swarm held off an Antill assault at the hyperspace exit. When three Stellaris Council Titan-class Warships arrived with a thirty-thousand-vessel fleet and turned the battle against the Swarm, Abaddon faced a choice between changing tactics, striking back, or escaping through a prepared wormhole.

• Abaddon studied viruses in his Hatchery while his Cerebrates commanded the Swarm fleet against the Antill Military Empire.
• The Antill fleet charged through the Swarm to open a path for reinforcements emerging from hyperspace.
• Three Stellaris Council Titan-class Warships and thirty thousand other vessels joined the battle, overwhelming the Swarm's six hundred thousand ships.
• The Titans destroyed Swarm Leviathans and broke the encirclement as the Council fleet's losses fell far below the Swarm's.
• The Cerebrates presented Abaddon with plans to defend key positions, widen the battlefield for a counterattack, or flee through a prepared wormhole.

Fengyu improvised an opening address at the Stellaris Council meeting after the Devouring Swarm stalled the allied fleets, using battle footage and a Kothari research report to rally the delegates. She revealed that the Swarm encoded its technology and history in its genes, with records reaching back at least a hundred million years.

• Abaddon rejected the riskiest plan and chose to hold his star system temporarily while keeping the wormhole route open for a possible escape.
• Fengyu watched the allied fleets struggle against the Devouring Swarm and set aside her prepared speech to address the uneasy council delegates.
• Fengyu recounted Antilian history and showed footage of the Swarm and allied warships fighting, building the audience's sense of the threat.
• Fengyu presented a Kothari research paper revealing that the Swarm's DNA consisted of precisely arranged strands unlike ordinary double-helix DNA.
• Fengyu explained that a Kothari scientist had decoded the Swarm's genes and discovered they stored its technology and history, dating back at least a hundred million years.

Fengyu persuaded the Stellaris Council to support a Great Crusade against the Devouring Swarm by emphasizing its ancient history and the technological rewards of defeating it. As the vote gained support, Sapphire Civilization ambassador Chen Hui received permission to speak.

• Fengyu offered the Swarm research paper free on the Technology Exchange Network and invited civilizations to verify its findings.
• Fengyu presented evidence that the Swarm had likely mastered Warp Drive and argued that its technology was worth seizing.
• Fengyu proposed a Great Crusade against the weakened Devouring Swarm, and many civilizations voted in favor.
• Sapphire Civilization requested permission to speak, and Fengyu approved despite Antilia's hostility toward its rival's ideals.
• Sapphire ambassador Chen Hui bowed to the assembled representatives and began her address.

Chen Hui challenged the Great Crusade at the Stellaris Council, accusing the Antill Civilization of profiting from the war and rallying support for a motion of no confidence. The story then shifted to Rock Fortress, where George’s forces fought off relentless Terror Beasts with prepared defenses and the Queen’s powerful support weapons.

• Chen Hui argued that the Great Crusade was failing and enriching the Antill Civilization, then proposed a motion of no confidence on behalf of the Sapphire Civilization.
• Small civilizations backed the motion, while allies of the Antilians and Xelorans joined the conference’s arguments and accusations.
• The conference ended without a clear resolution as the political struggle continued.
• At Rock Fortress, Auklai Empire defenders bombarded attacking Terror Beasts with magic crystals and set them alight with incendiary oil.
• George watched the Terror Beasts keep climbing despite heavy losses, then heard the Queen’s support weapons unleash a powerful burst of fire.

Joanna’s Terror Beasts failed to break through Rock Fortress, where George’s layered defenses and explosive traps inflicted heavy losses. As Chloe’s expansion threatened Joanna’s rear, Joanna prepared to abandon the siege and rethink her strategy.

• George ordered the new ridge weapons to stop firing after ten minutes, conserving ammunition as the Terror Beasts advanced through the flames.
• After the Terror Beasts reached an empty first wall, Joanna discovered the fortress’s layered defenses and withdrew her forces, having lost more than twenty thousand beasts.
• George and General Lister celebrated the defense, while George concealed that he had expected heavier losses and intended to use the fortress to weaken both armies.
• Over the next three days, Joanna’s night attacks and combined assaults failed, and George detonated magic crystals to destroy the first wall after the Terror Beasts occupied it.
• On the fourth day, Joanna lost another thirty thousand Terror Beasts when George blew up the second wall, then learned from Skadi that the Krolan Republic had surrendered to Chloe.
• Joanna recognized that Chloe’s advance had disrupted her plans and decided she would have to change her strategy.

Joanna prepared to reinforce the Swarm in Gale Valley, while Chloe consolidated her rule in the Krolan Republic through a fabricated savior story. With the Republic’s army and Isha’s Swarm reinforcements under her command, Chloe decided to launch an offensive.

• Joanna left Skadi in command at Rock Fortress and headed north toward Gale Valley to join the newly hatched Swarm units, including Venom Beasts.
• Krolan legislators spread a fabricated tale portraying Chloe as humanity’s divinely chosen savior and declaring that an Empire should replace the Republic.
• A municipal official used psionic images and planted supporters to persuade frightened citizens to hail Chloe as their protector and the Empire as their future.
• Chloe gained control of the Krolan Republic’s three-hundred-thousand-strong army, while Isha’s reinforcements strengthened her forces.
• Mistaking Isha’s decision to send reinforcements for approval from the Overmind, Chloe chose to attack rather than remain on the defensive.

Chloe used intelligence from the Guardians to prepare a trap for the Astrologers' Association's forces in Krolan territory. Elena believed she had trapped and doomed a Krolan army in a ruined town, while Chloe watched the plan unfold and prepared her own tactics.

• Elena learned that fifty thousand Krolan soldiers were marching to relieve a town and decided to destroy them with minimal losses.
• John led the Krolan force toward the town while Highlander scouts tracked them, and Elena's Terror Beasts had already destroyed the town and its inhabitants.
• John found the town in ruins, then saw Highlanders and Monsters block the exits and realized his army was surrounded.
• Elena planned to starve the Krolans into surrender by keeping them trapped in the valley, where food and water were scarce.
• Chloe received the Guardians' reports and arranged her forces in the virtual network, smiling at what she saw as the Astrologers' Association's mistake.

After five days trapped in Valley Town, John rallied the Krolan defenders when the Highlanders began attacking, believing reinforcements had arrived. Elena’s forces struggled against the Krolans’ superior weapons, so she committed the Terror Beasts to an all-out assault before Chloe’s approaching army could intervene.

• John heard that the enemy was about to attack and told the defenders that the Council had sent reinforcements.
• Elena learned that Chloe had brought a hundred thousand Altia Empire soldiers into Kroland’s Eastern Territory and decided to destroy the Krolan Army before withdrawing.
• The Highlanders’ first attack failed, and Elena burned fleeing deserters and their officers with psionics.
• The Highlanders suffered heavy casualties in their next two attacks against the well-equipped Krolan defenders.
• Elena judged that the Highlanders could not break the Krolan lines and ordered thirty thousand Terror Beasts to open a breach, with the Highlanders ready to exploit it.

John’s Kroland defenders fought Elena’s Highlanders and Terror Beasts until the attackers broke through and pushed the battle into the town. The arrival of a snow-white Behemoth turned the tide, and Chloe ordered her forces to encircle the enemy.

• John directed the Kroland defenses as Magic Crystal Guns, grenades, and cannons inflicted heavy losses on the Terror Beasts and Highlanders.
• Elena joined the battle, destroying two Arrow Towers with a psionic spell and leading Highlander Horse Archers against the defenders.
• After two hours, the Terror Beasts broke through the Heavy Infantry line, and Elena sent elite Highlanders charging into town.
• John ordered the Krolans to retreat among the ruins, while Elena prepared to withdraw her battered Terror Beasts and continue the street battle.
• A snow-white Behemoth leaped into the battlefield, crushing hundreds of Terror Beasts and stunning more than a thousand.
• Chloe issued an order through the Virtual Network to encircle the enemy.

Chloe’s ambush crushed Elena’s forces and captured the device used to control the Swarm. Kamu sent the device to the Hatchery for research, while John was promoted to general and ordered to escort prisoners back to the fortress.

• Chloe used the Guardians and twenty-four thousand Warrior Bugs to ambush Elena’s forces as they fought the Krolan Army.
• Three Siege Beasts devastated Elena’s Terror Beasts and Psionics Mages, while the Warrior Bugs routed the Highlander cavalry and surrounded Elena.
• Kamu searched Elena’s memories and learned that Joanna had given her a silver sphere used to control the Swarm.
• Kamu studied the sphere and sent it to the Hatchery, after which the Terror Beasts lost coordination and were defeated by the Needle Crawlers.
• Kamu told John that Chloe had made him a general and ordered him to take his troops and the Highlander prisoners back to the fortress.

Abaddon struggled to hold the planet against the Stellaris Council's expanding fleet, while Antilian forces began a ground operation to place guidance beacons at the Swarm's spore towers. Kunmao and Yanren's unit fought through waves of Swarm creatures, and the chapter ended as a four-tusked Ultralisk charged their convoy.

• The Stellaris Council's fleet grew to nearly sixty thousand ships, destroyed the Hatchery's space structures, and bombarded the planet, leaving Abaddon searching for a way to break out.
• A thousand Antilian ships descended through the Swarm's aerial defenses, suffering heavy losses as fighters and Swarm units battled in the sky.
• Kunmao and Captain Yanren prepared their fifty super soldiers and support vehicles to plant guidance beacons at the heart of the Swarm's antiair spore towers.
• After their warship bombarded a landing zone, the soldiers unloaded and drove toward their objective, fighting off successive waves of Swarm creatures.
• An Ultralisk with four tusks appeared ahead and charged the convoy, shrugging off the Spider Tanks' electromagnetic fire.

Kunmao and Yanren led a battered convoy through the Swarm to target its Spore Towers, surviving heavy losses and repeated attacks. Kunmao fired guidance beacons into two towers, allowing orbital bombardment to destroy them as the convoy escaped.

• Kunmao wounded an Ultralisk and helped the convoy evade it, then the soldiers fought through dense Swarm forces as their covering warships faltered.
• A troop carrier was disabled, and its crew made a stand against the Warrior Bugs before a small fusion bomb exploded behind the advancing convoy.
• Three damaged fighters opened a path for the convoy, which reached the designated hilltop five minutes ahead of the Swarm.
• Kunmao used his electromagnetic rifle to fire guidance beacons into two Spore Towers after a drone proved unable to reach them.
• Yanren led the convoy away, and blue beams from orbit destroyed the two targeted Spore Towers and devastated nearby Swarm units.

Abaddon abandoned the star system after the Stellaris Council’s weapons made the Swarm’s defenses untenable, escaping through a wormhole with research materials and a large fleet. Kunmao survived the campaign and left with Yanren for another battlefield as allied forces began fortifying the captured planet.

• Kunmao reflected on the losses among his convoy and resolved to survive for his wife and child.
• After a week of resistance, Abaddon launched a counteroffensive that damaged two Titan-class Warships, then withdrew through a prepared wormhole with his research materials and a hundred-thousand-strong Swarm fleet.
• Abaddon collapsed the wormhole with an Antimatter Bomb, while the Stellaris Council kept the captured star system despite suffering heavy losses.
• Kunmao stood among the ruins and learned that the Swarm’s main force had withdrawn; he also touched the mechanical eye that replaced the one a Hydralisk had destroyed.
• Silicate Alliance engineering ships and Stone People arrived to begin transforming the planet into a fortress.
• Kunmao boarded the troop transport driven by Yanren and headed to the next battlefield.

Zhang Han divided his consciousness, leaving his human self to erode the Ether Drake while Overmind Zhang Han returned to the Hatchery. Joanna failed to divine the future and sent the Astrologers' Association toward a decisive attack, while Zhang Han resumed command of the Swarm.

• Zhang Han split into Overmind Zhang Han and a human Zhang Han, agreeing that the human half would stabilize itself in the Ether Drake while the Overmind led the Swarm and might awaken him if it reached Earth.
• Joanna failed to gather useful information from the Psionics Sea, which had severed Tabi Star from the Shroud, and returned to her followers with a false assurance that events favored them.
• Joanna ordered the Astrologers' Association to attack Monster Queen Chloe and told Skadi to take the Auklai Empire with Terror Beasts and Venom Beasts.
• Zhang Han returned to the Hatchery, learned what had happened in his absence, and praised Isha for her work on construction in space.

Zhang Han reviewed the Swarm’s growing industry and discovered that Symbiotic Colony 509, known as Star Eaters, repaired the Dyson Membrane. Learning that they could also carry Light Particle Strikes, he realized his Overmind’s miniature Warp Drive might let the Hatchery exploit targets beyond hyperspace routes before the Swarm evolved that technology itself.

• Zhang Han acknowledged that Isha had been too strict with Stars and decided to leave Chloe to handle the Astrologers' Association unless she needed the Hatchery’s support.
• Zhang Han inspected the Swarm’s progress, including geothermal extraction, warship incubation, supply lines, and the expanding Dyson Membrane.
• A meteorite pierced the Dyson Membrane, but Symbiotic Colony 509 bugs quickly stitched the damage closed.
• Isha explained that the Star Eaters fed on stellar energy and could serve as carriers for Light Particle Strikes, though those weapons were slow to use across interstellar distances.
• Isha suggested destroying nearby stars to create a buffer zone, prompting Zhang Han to consider using the miniature Warp Drive in his Overmind body to reach otherwise inaccessible targets.

Zhang Han recruited Rosesta and Stars as logical consciousnesses for new Swarm Hatcheries and prepared to take them across the stars. After Rosesta underwent modification, he carried both inside an incubation chamber and launched from Tabi Star on a journey expected to last at least three months.

• Zhang Han asked Isha how to recover from falling behind in StarCraft and declared that the answer was to sneak expansions.
• Zhang Han brought Stars and Rosesta into the consciousness space, secured their pledges to the Swarm, and appointed them as core nodes for new Hatcheries.
• Zhang Han gave Stars and Rosesta three hours to prepare before taking them across the stars, while he practiced navigating from Tabi Star toward the moon and sun.
• Rosesta underwent a two-hour full-body modification, while Stars copied Hatchery development knowledge into her brain.
• Zhang Han arrived in a sixty-meter body, placed Rosesta and Stars in an incubation chamber in his belly, and launched into the sky with them.

Zhang Han traveled from Tabi Star toward a mining base four light-years away after installing a new energy organ in the Giant Hatchery. Meanwhile, Chloe gathered her Altia followers and Krolan defectors at Watcher Fortress.

• Zhang Han checked that Stars and the others inside his body were safe, then calculated a precise route through space.
• Zhang Han visited the moon and Giant Hatchery, watched two psionic Corruptors hatch, and installed a Composite Fusion Energy Organ.
• Zhang Han traveled to the edge of the star system and activated his Warp Drive toward the second mining base.
• Zhang Han decoded and shared views of the journey with Stars and Rosesta while his auxiliary Cerebrate charted the stars.
• Chloe met with her followers and Krolan defectors at Watcher Fortress, where Arthur and Elizabeth stood with the Altia group and the legislators eagerly praised her.

Chloe weighed plans for the war against the Astrologers' Association and chose to invade Highlander territory, confident her forces could defeat the enemy despite its potential million-strong army. She left the military conference resolved to lead a decisive battle on the open grasslands.

• Chloe listened as her generals proposed one defensive plan and two offensive plans, including Jonathan's proposal to launch a sudden counterattack into Highlander territory.
• When Chloe revealed the Association could potentially field a million troops, Jonathan declared he would lead the Knight Order in a charge, and Krolan councilors also proclaimed their loyalty.
• Chloe considered Jonathan's sense of honor and decided to give him a chance to win renown, while ignoring a councilor who knelt at her feet.
• Chloe estimated that the Association could initially command about six hundred thousand troops, while her own forces numbered roughly five hundred thousand.
• Chloe chose Jonathan's plan and announced that her army would enter Highlander territory for a decisive battle on the grasslands.

Chloe chose a risky campaign to prove herself to the Overmind and asked Kamu to help her organize the human army. With Kamu’s reforms, John’s Krolan troops gained supplies, protections, and loyalty to Chloe as they marched onto the Highlanders’ grasslands.

• Chloe rejected Kamu’s safer defensive strategy because she wanted to stand out as an outstanding node.
• Kamu agreed to help Chloe by drawing on historical records about organizing large armies.
• John led a hundred thousand Krolan troops onto the Highlanders’ grasslands, with Kamu’s soldiers’ committee system addressing their needs and grievances.
• The Guardians distributed overdue pay, fresh food, and clothing, then ate officers who had abused soldiers and promoted those who reported them.
• The soldiers came to see Chloe as their savior, pledged loyalty to her, and began solving problems during the march on their own initiative.

Zhang Han traveled through a hyperspace fragment to a new star system and began establishing a Swarm outpost on its most suitable planet. He left Stars beside a newly hatched Hatchery as underground water flowed around it.

• Zhang Han safely dropped out of warp travel and spotted a spatial distortion that marked the hyperspace fragment.
• Zhang Han opened the hyperspace entrance, confirmed it led toward his destination, and flew through it for two days.
• Zhang Han arrived at a five-planet system rich in resources and chose a barren red planet for the Swarm’s expansion.
• Zhang Han landed on the planet, took Stars from his belly, and set her on the ground.
• Zhang Han used cellular nanorobots to hatch a Hatchery and several dozen Drones, then blasted into the ground and released underground water to form a river around the Hatchery.

Zhang Han left Stars with supplies and orders to build a powerful Swarm fleet, then the story shifted to Tabi Star, where Kamu’s forces fought the Astrologers’ Association across the Endless Grassland. The battle ended with the Association’s Swarm in disarray and Ymir’s cavalry slaughtering the remaining creatures.

• Zhang Han gave Stars supplies and ordered her to develop a powerful Swarm fleet within a year before leaving for another star system.
• Twenty members of the Astrologers’ Association tried to calm their network while Highlander scouts reported that a huge Altia Empire cavalry force was approaching.
• Ymir and Raul led Altia Knights and thirty thousand Highlanders into battle alongside the Behemoth, overwhelming the disorganized Terror Beasts and Venom Beasts.
• The Astrologers joined their psionics to form a gigantic spear that struck and lodged in the Behemoth’s shoulder.
• Kamu identified the Astrologers’ command position and sent three Guardians to crush them with boulders.
• The Association’s Swarm lost control and attacked itself, while Ymir led the Knights and Highlanders in killing the remaining creatures.

Chloe’s forces destroyed sixty thousand Swarm creatures and gained the support of the Highlanders before Joanna assembled her remaining army for a decisive battle on the Endless Grassland. Jonathan commanded Chloe’s human coalition as Joanna sent her Swarm forward, and the chapter ended with Jonathan facing the battle without further orders from Chloe.

• Chloe’s army won three battles, destroying sixty thousand Swarm creatures and persuading most captured Highlanders to join her forces.
• Joanna assessed her available forces and sent them to confront Chloe, believing her Swarm numbers would ensure victory.
• Jonathan commanded Chloe’s human army against Joanna’s forces, which included three hundred and forty thousand Swarm creatures and three hundred thousand Highlander auxiliaries.
• Joanna divided her Swarm and ordered a hundred thousand creatures to attack first, while Chloe recognized the crude tactic as resembling the Beast Tide in Death Forest.
• Jonathan asked Kamu whether Chloe had issued orders, and Kamu told him to command the defense himself because his orders represented her will.

Jonathan ordered the army to hold its positions as the Association's Swarm attacked, and John’s Krolan troops used artillery, guns, and Kamu’s trenches to stop the first wave. As the defensive lines began to falter, John rallied his soldiers and led a charge to retake the trenches and save their comrades.

• Jonathan asked Kamu to check his deployment, then ordered the army to fight for humanity and the Queen, promising promotions and doubled death benefits.
• John ordered the Magic Crystal Cannon Troops to bombard the approaching Swarm, while his soldiers opened fire with Rapid-fire Magic Crystal Guns.
• The Association’s Swarm charged through the artillery and into the trenches, where Krolan soldiers split up and attacked the beasts from both sides.
• After three hours of fighting, the first wave had been stopped, but gunfire dwindled on the first two lines as the Swarm began breaking through.
• John called for Isabella to send troops to take over the third trench, forgave the deserters who would join him, and led the soldiers in a charge to retake the lines.

John’s troops repelled the first Swarm assault at terrible cost, and he prepared to spend their remaining cannon shells to protect his surviving soldiers. On the flank, Jonathan’s cavalry and Kamu’s Guardians struck the next Swarm force, leaving the battle underway.

• John’s Counterattack Force and the Krolan soldiers destroyed the first Swarm attack, while Joanna and Jonathan were stunned by the humans’ victory.
• Jonathan ordered John’s highest honors and increased rewards for the survivors and death benefits for the fallen.
• After learning that fewer than forty thousand of his original hundred and fifty thousand soldiers remained, John ordered the cannons to fire all remaining shells when the next Monsters massed for an attack.
• Joanna’s two flanking Swarm forces advanced out of sync, and the right flank was caught by a downhill cavalry charge led by the Behemoth.
• Jonathan asked Kamu to send Guardians to support the cavalry, and the Guardians dropped round boulders onto the Swarm as the human forces attacked.

John’s defenders repelled an Association Swarm assault while Joanna committed the Highlanders to the battle, and Chloe’s forces attacked the Hatchery at Gale Valley. The chapter ended as the Altia Empire sounded its charge horn on the Endless Grassland.

• John’s soldiers used new tactics to defeat the Terror Beasts and Venom Beasts, and Isabella sent fifty thousand Kroland reinforcements.
• Joanna, short of Swarm troops, sent three hundred thousand Highlanders to reinforce the fighting and ordered her Swarm to retreat until Hatchery reinforcements arrived.
• Chloe led her forces against the Hatchery at Gale Valley, ordered Siege Beasts to help push forward, and sent the Guardians to support Jonathan.
• Ymir’s forces began to struggle against the Association’s Swarm as casualties mounted on the Endless Grassland.
• The Altia Empire’s charge horn sounded, signaling an all-out Knight assault.