Chapter Summaries

The Skaven overwhelmed the Death Cult’s Homeworld, and their Planetary Engines destroyed the fleets sent to stop them. Zulaman’s remaining forces were left to face the invading rats alone.

• The Death Cult’s troops and aircraft failed to stop the Skaven, whose weapons and Abominations overwhelmed the planet’s defenses.
• Zulaman ordered three hundred warships to fire Fusion Missiles at the Skaven, but blue plasma streams destroyed the Fifth and Seventh Fleets.
• The Skaven’s Planetary Engines were revealed, and Great Seer Aike praised Qilabi and the Engineers Association for building them.
• After three days of fighting, the Death Cult lost nearly all its cities, and the remaining fleets withdrew from the Homeworld.
• Zulaman killed a giant rat with Soul Siphon, but more Skaven and Abominations surged toward his last defenders.

Aike kept the Skaven from turning on it by claiming the Rat God had rewarded them and by presenting Qilabi’s inventions as divine revelations. The Skaven Demon Capital then vanished into the Shroud and emerged in a new star system, where an unsuspecting civilization faced the Apocalypse Rat Swarm.

• After ten days of slaughter, Aike lied to the suspicious Skaven that the Rat God approved of their sacrifice and had revealed new plans through Qilabi.
• Qilabi explained that Planetary Engines could turn the planet into a weapon and that the Skaven could use their connection to the Rat God to jump through the Sea of Stars.
• Aike convinced the Skaven that these revelations meant they should continue their Grand Plan of devouring planets and offering sacrifices.
• A month later, General Three and the Silicate Alliance’s Main Fleet found the Land of the Dead Star System’s planet missing and watched satellite footage of it entering a strange space.
• General Three recommended raising the new species’ danger rating and seeking its extermination across the Stellaris Council’s sphere of influence.
• The Skaven Demon Capital emerged from the Shroud in a system inhabited by a crowded civilization that had only recently launched satellites.

Zhang Han awakened Laplace, a Primal Zerg, to study the Shroud, but Laplace first explained why he had created the Swarm Network. He began telling Zhang Han the Zerg’s history, describing how their species learned to plunder genes while struggling to survive.

• Zhang Han approached the special Hatchery as Laplace emerged from its pool, and welcomed the Demon Bug back to the Swarm.
• Zhang Han shared his memories and information about the Swarm and the Milky Way with Laplace, who agreed to begin researching the Shroud.
• Zhang Han asked whether Laplace objected to an Earth-born consciousness ruling the Swarm, and Laplace affirmed that he considered Zhang Han his Overmind.
• Laplace took the form of a kindly old man, made tea for Zhang Han, and explained that he had invented the Swarm Network to save the Zerg.
• Laplace began recounting the Zerg’s history, explaining that their homeworld’s harsh conditions drove them to consume other species and eventually develop the ability to plunder genes.

Laplace told Zhang Han how the Light Giants exploited the Zerg and other races, and how the suffering of the Swarm led him to create the Swarm Network and unite them. He urged Zhang Han to accept his role as Overmind and seek answers through the network, leaving Zhang Han to consider the Swarm’s origins and purpose.

• Laplace explained that the Light Giants promised to improve the Zerg in exchange for help in their war, then bred and deployed them as tools and cannon fodder.
• Laplace described how the deaths of countless Zerg awakened him to the Observer Perspective, which he used to create the Swarm Network and unite exploited races against the Light Giants.
• After defeating the Light Giants, Laplace said he united the allied races into the Swarm, changed the network’s permissions, and established the Overmind and Nodes.
• Laplace told Zhang Han that the Swarm welcomed outsiders and that his accidental rise as Overmind could still be reasonable.
• Laplace encouraged Zhang Han to communicate with the Swarm Consciousness, saying the network was built for unity rather than to suppress independent thought.

After Laplace urged Zhang Han to become the true Overmind, Zhang Han prepared to challenge Zagara with a large Swarm offensive. He finalized his commanders and routes, then launched the attack while informing Kundera that their alliance still stood.

• Zhang Han offered to transfer network authority to Laplace, but Laplace urged him to defeat his competitors and become the true Overmind.
• Zhang Han reviewed the Swarm's expanded forces and the war Cerebrate's plan to attack Zagara along three Hyperspace Routes.
• Zhang Han consulted his core nodes and assigned Kagat to scout the first route, while he and Nalga led the main offensive along the second.
• Zhang Han sent Stars and Chloe along the third route, left Kagar to guard the stargate, and assigned other nodes to develop the Libra Sector and defend home.
• After ten days of deployments, Zhang Han began the offensive against Zagara and told Kundera that their alliance and promises still stood.

After Zhang Han and Kundera joined forces against her, Zagara convened her commanders to discuss how to fight the two-front war. She planned to have Gult contain Zhang Han while she attacked Kundera, and the council ended with Kesaite’s cautious objection dismissed and Zagara promising to keep some reserves.

• After receiving Zhang Han’s message, Kundera agreed to eliminate Zagara first and launched an all-out offensive against her territory.
• Zagara gathered her Swarm nodes, where Moras blamed Gult for losing the home star system and Gult defended his command.
• Zagara proposed that Gult hold off Zhang Han while she fought Kundera directly, arguing that she could exploit openings in Kundera’s aggressive attack.
• When Zagara invited comments, Kesaite warned that the plan was too optimistic and urged her to prepare contingencies.
• Moras accused Kesaite of questioning Zagara and wanting to betray her, while Zagara reassured him that she would keep some reserves.

Zagara divided her forces between Gult and Moras to defend against Zhang Han and the consciousness fragment, while Zhang Han reached Gult’s fortified twin systems. Gult countered Zhang Han’s spore defenses with ground troops, forcing Zhang Han to clear them and expose his fleets to the asteroid fortresses’ fire.

• Zagara assigned five million Swarm fleet units to fight Kundera, two million under Gult to hold the main front, and one million under Moras to seek opportunities on the flank.
• Moras resented her supporting role and viewed Gult as an obstacle, while Gult focused on winning the war for the network core.
• After conquering four star systems, Zhang Han advanced toward Gult’s twin systems, where eight asteroid fortresses guarded the Hyperspace Route exits.
• Zhang Han began attacking the first system with green mist spore fortifications, Mutalisks, and Scourge while pinning down the second system with five hundred thousand fleet units.
• Gult sent Warrior Bugs through the spore defenses using Infestors’ Fungal Growth, then landed millions of troops to attack Zhang Han’s crowded fleets from within the fortifications.
• Zhang Han used Ghost Bugs’ Psionic Storm to clear the occupied spore fortifications, eliminating Gult’s Warrior Bugs but leaving his fleets exposed to the asteroid fortresses.

After countering Gult’s attempted landing, Zhang Han launched a major assault on the Meteorite Fortresses with a specially strengthened Swarm Fleet and powerful psionic units. His forces seized a landing zone and began establishing Hatcheries as ground combat continued.

• Gult’s fire destroyed another three thousand of Zhang Han’s ships, but Zhang Han’s Ghost Bugs enhanced his Psionics Corruptors and drove Gult’s landing fleet away.
• Zhang Han sent a hundred thousand specialized ships into battle, where a thousand Swarm Leviathans used Tachyon Lances to damage Gult’s Meteorite Fortresses and clear Spore Towers.
• Zhang Han’s twenty thousand ships traded fire with Gult’s thirty thousand, and Gult recognized that his fleet’s attacks were less effective against Zhang Han’s reinforced ships.
• Gult sent forces to flank Zhang Han, but Zhang Han’s Nether Bugs unleashed Psionic Storm and Psionics Enchantment, crippling the encircling force and boosting his fleet.
• Zhang Han’s remaining eighty thousand ships advanced on the Meteorite Fortresses, cleared the landing zone, and deployed the first wave of ten million Warrior Bugs.
• Gult sent a hundred and fifty thousand ships to attack Zhang Han’s fleet and committed his remaining Warrior Bugs to ground combat, while Zhang Han’s enhanced Warrior Bugs held the landing zone and began hatching Hatcheries.

Zhang Han’s attack on the Meteorite Fortress failed after Gult deployed a War Hatchery, and Zhang Han withdrew while reviewing the losses and the Swarm’s copied abilities. On the Third Hyperspace Route, Stars and Chloe reconciled and debated how to carry out Zhang Han’s orders safely.

• Zhang Han’s Swarm Fleet occupied part of the Meteorite Fortress, but Gult deployed a War Hatchery to block the Hyperspace Route and halt reinforcements.
• Zhang Han withdrew his fleet under fire; the Warrior Bugs left on the fortress were wiped out, and he discovered that Gult’s Swarm had copied the Defilers’ mist abilities.
• Zhang Han learned that 60,000 of his 100,000 ships had returned after inflicting about 100,000 losses on Gult’s fleet, and he sought a weapon capable of destroying a Meteorite Fortress or War Hatchery in one shot.
• Stars apologized to Chloe for mocking her in the past, and Chloe accepted the apology as they discussed their next moves.
• Stars offered to take the dangerous route into Zagara’s territory while Chloe secured the safer route, but Chloe proposed that Stars take the Stellaris Council’s Fortress Planet while she guarded their rear.
• Stars hesitated because Chloe’s cautious plan did not fully follow Zhang Han’s order to find a route around to Gult’s rear and attack from both sides.

Rita investigated a dangerous new drug while working at Customs, then responded to a terrorist attack there. She discovered the attackers were Judas Eagles and watched them torture an Evans woman as she gathered intelligence.

• Moras’s plan to trap Chloe and Stars failed when Chloe followed the Overmind’s instructions, while Zagara continued holding off Zhang Han and Kundera.
• Rita reviewed seized green drugs whose composition remained mostly unknown, worrying that the trafficking organization had gained new technological capabilities.
• Rita received a distress call reporting a terrorist attack on Customs and armed herself with her Powered Exoskeleton and weapons.
• Rita reached Customs and found four armored terrorists and numerous dead civilians, then identified the attackers as Judas Eagles.
• Rita climbed above the terrorists to observe them and heard one pin an Evans woman with a dagger while reciting a prayer to the Four-Winged Eagle God.

Rita identified the customs airport attackers as cultists, fought them while protecting the captives, and was gravely wounded before the Steel Fairy Regiment intervened. After recovering, she was assigned to interrogate a captured terrorist whose mental defenses had thwarted psionic methods.

• Rita identified four heavily armed cultist terrorists and secretly relayed their location and a request for the Steel Fairy Regiment.
• When a terrorist attacked her position, Rita evaded his fire, wounded two attackers, and used Plasma Grenades and her rifle to kill another.
• The terrorists retaliated by torturing and shooting captives, while Rita hid with a severe abdominal wound.
• The Steel Fairy Regiment arrived with drones and explosives, and Rita saw the lead terrorist reveal his modified body before losing consciousness.
• Five days later, Rita awoke after receiving cloned organs and learned that the Devouring Swarm had resumed attacking across the Libra Sector.
• Rita was assigned to interrogate a captured cultist whose mental defenses resisted psionic extraction, with her superiors authorizing her to use whatever methods might yield information.

Rita interrogated a captured eagle-headed terrorist while two Steel Fairy soldiers beat him, but his talk of a coming Holy War suggested further attacks were planned. The interrogation was interrupted when two Morgor soldiers in Powered Armor seized Rita and shot the Steel Fairies.

• Two Steel Fairy soldiers beat the handcuffed terrorist until Rita stopped them and began questioning him.
• Rita threatened the terrorist and burned his face with a cigarette, but he taunted the Steel Fairies and praised the Eagle God.
• The terrorist claimed his captain had taken him to a divine realm and that their organization would launch a Holy War against Rita's people.
• Rita tried to provoke the terrorist into revealing more when urgent knocking interrupted the interrogation.
• Two Morgor soldiers entered in Powered Armor, held Rita at gunpoint, and shot the two Steel Fairy soldiers with an electromagnetic rifle.

The Judas Eagle completed his Ascension Ritual and learned that the Holy War had begun, then showed Rita the Church’s vision of God before killing her. On Giant Serpent Star, Johnny finished planning attacks across the Libra Sector as the Swarm and Church fleets prepared to strike Fairy Great Wall.

• The Mogol soldiers freed the Judas Eagle, who entered the network and saw the Eagle God at the center of a vast mental galaxy.
• The Judas Eagle showed Rita images of the Church’s green liquid helping civilizations and of civilizations joining fleets with the Devouring Swarm.
• The Judas Eagle told Rita that her race bore original sin and shot her, while the Church zealots prepared to destroy facilities on Fairy Great Wall One Planet.
• On Giant Serpent Star, Johnny used a terminal and intelligence from Typhon to mark civilizations and planets for attack.
• Johnny reflected that the Swarm and Church fleets had rendezvoused and that conquering the Libra Sector would fulfill his promise to the Overmind.

Christina struggled to keep the Civilization Alliance united as the Devouring Swarm advanced toward the Fairy Great Wall. At Star System One, Gu Teng’s scattered combined fleet faced the Swarm’s arrival, but its opening attack proved far less effective than expected.

• Christina faced political division, cult attacks, economic collapse, and rising military spending as the Swarm devastated the Libra Sector.
• Christina learned that a Swarm Fleet of about 120,000 ships was heading for the Fairy Great Wall’s Star System One, and she began assembling a second fleet to reinforce the defenders if needed.
• Gu Teng took command of the combined fleet, but several civilizations refused to gather their ships despite his repeated orders, leaving the fleet stretched across the star system.
• Gu Teng led 60,000 Anfenli ships in an opening attack on the first 50,000 Swarm ships to emerge from hyperspace, but the Swarm’s adapted defenses limited its losses to fewer than 3,000 ships.
• The Swarm’s Fang Warships prepared to counterattack as Gu Teng’s fleet faced the coming slaughter.

Gu Teng’s combined fleet struggled against the Swarm Fleet, and the Anfenli used their own lives to power Tachyon Lances before withdrawing to the planet’s defenses. The Swarm then joined forces with twenty thousand unidentified steel ships and launched a renewed attack, leaving Gu Teng to defend with eighty thousand vessels.

• Gu Teng watched the Swarm Fleet overwhelm the combined fleet’s shields and weapons, then ordered three thousand Anfenli battleships to fire Tachyon Lances at the Swarm’s large units.
• The Tachyon Lances killed Swarm ships, but each firing agonizingly burned an Anfenli to death, and the first exchange cost the combined fleet around thirteen thousand ships.
• Gu Teng ordered the fleet to retreat within range of the planetary defense platforms while the Swarm held the Hyperspace Route and awaited reinforcements.
• After two hours, Gu Teng assembled eighty thousand ships and discovered twenty thousand unidentified steel ships emerging from hyperspace alongside the Swarm.
• Gu Teng sent news of the apparent alliance to the rear and ordered his ships into a defensive formation as the Swarm fleet launched its attack.

Gu Teng initially held the Swarm at the Fairy Great Wall One Star System, but a Morgor attack on his flagship triggered distrust and betrayal throughout the combined fleet. The battle ended with the Anfenli and Evans forces destroyed and only fifty thousand of the combined fleet’s ships escaping.

• Gu Teng led the combined fleet through a favorable exchange with the Swarm, losing a defensive platform but inflicting heavier ship losses.
• As Gu Teng addressed the fleet, a Morgor warship crippled his flagship before an escort destroyed it.
• False reports and attacks by five civilizations embedded as agents shattered trust, while Swarm-aligned forces launched a coordinated assault from fleets, platforms, and planets.
• The Anfenli and Evans fleets gathered and retreated, but the Swarm Fleet and Doomsday Church forces surrounded them; other civilizations refused Gu Teng’s calls for help and fled.
• After a day of fighting, fifty thousand of the combined fleet’s ships escaped, while one hundred thousand were lost and the Anfenli and Evans main forces were annihilated.

After the alliance’s defeat, Christina rejected surrender and called the civilizations of the Libra Sector to fight alongside the Evans at Blonda. The Swarm attacked before the planet’s defenses were ready, and Christina led the outnumbered defenders into battle, where the Evans’ fleet began to overpower the Doomsday Church’s vanguard.

• Johnny watched the alliance’s fleets fall, while Christina learned that betrayal and desertion had shattered the coalition and left the Swarm’s opponents defeated.
• Christina told Alice to reject surrender talks and send a message urging the Libra Sector’s civilizations to fight beside the Evans at Blonda.
• Christina ordered Blonda evacuated and transformed into a fortress, but ten days later the Swarm fleet reached the planet before its planned defenses were complete.
• Christina took command aboard the Queen’s Blade, positioning the eighty thousand defending ships between two defense platforms against eighty thousand Swarm ships and fifty thousand Doomsday Church ships.
• Christina ordered the Evans fleet to fire, and its ships used their formation-changing Fairy Dance to keep up their attacks while the Doomsday Church fleet began to falter.

Masuk rallied the Doomsday Church fleets into a suicidal charge, and Zhang Han unknowingly answered their prayers by empowering them with psionics. Their sudden strength broke Christina’s defenses, leaving her fleet surrounded and Blonda under threat.

• The War Cerebrate agreed to give Masuk’s fleets more time before the Swarm Fleet took the lead.
• Masuk called on the Doomsday Church fleets to charge, and the worshippers united in a fervor that alarmed Christina.
• Zhang Han sensed hundreds of billions of prayers and poured psionic power into the praying fleets.
• An immense Psionics Field strengthened the Church’s warships, which broke through the Anfenli and Evans formations and routed their allies.
• The War Cerebrate launched an all-out assault, surrounding Christina’s fleet and destroying the defensive platforms.
• Christina rejected her adjutant’s suggestion to retreat to Blonda, questioning whether holding out could change the outcome.

Christina ordered the Queen's Blade to attack the Swarm, but psionic constructs overwhelmed the Evans coalition and killed her. Zhang Han watched the defeat, worried that the Shroud was changing their existence, and raised his concerns with the Overmind consciousness, who began examining the images he sent.

• Christina sent the Queen's Blade against the Swarm and remembered her daughter Liliya as the battle turned against her.
• Doomsday Church psionic constructs attacked the Queen's Blade and the Evans coalition, overwhelming their defenses and leaving defeat certain.
• The Queen's Blade exploded above Blonda, and the Evans Fairies realized their queen had fallen.
• Zhang Han watched the battle, worried that the Shroud's growing influence and its worshippers were changing his consciousness.
• The Overmind consciousness dismissed Zhang Han's warning at first, then reconsidered when Zhang Han compared the influence to currents of thought in the Swarm Network.
• The Overmind consciousness began watching the images of the psionic avatars that Zhang Han had sent.

Zhang Han and his advisers found a way to prevent the Shroud-born gods and their Subsidiary Networks from contaminating the Swarm Network by regulating their faith and using the gods as replaceable fuses. The plan left the Humanity Consciousness with the work of establishing their tenets while the Overmind could continue the war and benefit from their growing power.

• The Humanity Consciousness stopped the Overmind Consciousness from proposing to destroy the civilizations affected by the avatars and asked to consult Laplace and Abaddon.
• Zhang Han, Laplace, and Abaddon concluded that they could not stop the Shroud’s expansion and would have to adapt to it.
• Laplace determined that the consciousness avatars could act as fuses, separating the Subsidiary Networks’ effects from the Swarm Network.
• Zhang Han decided to standardize the gods’ tenets so their faith would be regulated and their networks would not contaminate him.
• The plan let the Overmind use the avatars in battle and helped Zhang Han’s Psionic Power grow, but it would consume the Humanity Consciousness’s free time.
• The Humanity Consciousness wondered whether Laplace had chosen the plan because it spared his research time at its expense.