Recaps

The Pale Church and the Human Federation fought over public opinion as the approaching apocalypse drove people in both territories to turn against their rulers and embrace religion. Norton watched the upheaval and smiled, satisfied that he had finally become a true god.

• People under the Pale Church praised Norton and blamed the Human Federation for humanity’s crisis, while the Federation cut communications and spread its own version of events.
• The Federation’s citizens learned that reckless space jumping had helped bring about an apocalypse and blamed the government for exploiting them and mocking Norton.
• Crowds in Federation territory rioted, destroyed factories and public buildings, looted stores, and attacked government offices and officials.
• People repaired monasteries, freed Pale Church believers and priests, and raised statues of Norton.
• Norton listened to the praise and mourning across the planets and smiled as he declared himself a true god.

After three years of growing complacency, the battered communications fleet returned to the Garden of Eden Galaxy and confirmed that Abraham’s warnings had come true. Abraham declared total war, appointed Duoxia Regent, and left the population facing the realization that the apocalypse had begun and the main fleet was still fighting.

• The Pale Church planned to restore its support system as people grew accustomed to life and doubted the doomsday reports.
• A battered fleet of millions of ships spatially jumped into orbit around Garden of Eden Planet, still clearing malformed life-forms from its vessels.
• Abraham used his highest authority to broadcast that souls had invaded reality and anomalies had emerged, declaring humanity’s apocalypse underway.
• Abraham ordered the Pale Holy See into total war and named Duoxia Regent to assume the Pope’s duties.
• The returning fleet was revealed to be only a communications unit, while Abraham and the main force remained at the battlefield.

After Abraham’s declaration and the fleet’s return, Regent Duoxia revealed footage showing humanity losing a desperate war against alien lifeforms and issued sweeping measures to mobilize the Human Federation. As society descended into panic, the Church imposed wartime policies and began turning criminals into sources of materials, but many high-ranking officials still tried to flee.

• Regent Duoxia took the throne as regent, while battlefield footage spread showing alien lifeforms overrunning a planet and attacking the fleet.
• Footage showed Pope Abraham fighting a gigantic monster near a mutated star, but the recording ended without any sign of victory.
• Panicked citizens attempted to strike, hide, or commit crimes, and Church knights arrested lawbreakers while enforcing order and promoting resistance.
• Duoxia abolished birth restrictions, lifted limits on spatial jumps, introduced war communism, ended privilege, and ordered mass recruitment and fleet construction.
• The Church imprisoned criminals, altered their bodies, and harvested special materials from them, while high-ranking personnel continued trying to escape.

A researcher explained in a live broadcast that immortality, the Pale God's sealed gateway, the Human Federation Government's rebellion, and its use of spatial jumps had caused Soul Infestation, making humanity's resistance worsen the crisis. The broadcast left humanity facing extinction and the possible birth of new life, while unexplained soul fluctuations suggested Heaven and reality might not be fully isolated.

• Three months of Church knights suppressed unrest under the Pale Church, while wealthy people fled the Human Federation to build refuges in space.
• In 3276, Pale God Says and Human Federation News aired a science program about the causes and dangers of Soul Infestation.
• A researcher said Norton had sealed the gateway between Heaven and reality, but wars and large-scale spatial jumps had left souls trapped in reality and triggered infestations.
• The researcher claimed that killing bizarre lifeforms and losing soldiers only added more soul particles, making humanity's resistance strengthen the crisis.
• The researcher rejected the reporter's suggestion that Norton's actions had caused the disaster and blamed the Human Federation's powerful leaders for war and flight.
• The broadcast concluded that humanity's extinction might give rise to new life, while measurements showed unexplained soul fluctuations across reality.

The Human Federation Government’s leaders fled, sparking public fury and a mass exodus toward Pale Church territory, while research and infestations showed that escape only brought people closer to danger. With humanity left no choice but to fight, Duoxia and Malahān united the Pale Church and the Human Federation Government, and in 3283 announced the beginning of the Endless War.

• More than three hundred Human Federation Government officials revealed that the senior leadership had fled a year earlier and led reporters through the deserted government building.
• Angry citizens abandoned the Human Federation, and a people-smuggling industry grew around “escaping the North” into Pale Church territory.
• Feilali and Mohammed proposed competing theories about soul particles, both warning that fleeing into remote space could increase the danger of Soul Infestation.
• Exploration teams confirmed that distant planets chosen as escape destinations by senior elites had been infested, leaving humanity with no route to flee.
• In 3280, Duoxia and Malahān agreed to unite the Pale Church and the Human Federation Government for a joint war effort and established the Holy Judgment Tribunal.
• In 3283, Duoxia and Malahān announced the beginning of the Endless War after Abraham requested reinforcements from the front lines.

Humanity’s forces struggled to contain the aberration of the Adam Three Star System as Soul Infestation spread from planets to the dark matter filling space. After Susan died and the fleet withdrew, Norma warned that the system had become one enormous aberrant entity and that the infestation was spreading toward Adam Two.

• In January 3284, Church knight Susan reported that every planet in the Adam Three Star System had become aberrant and requested urgent reinforcements as human forces suffered heavy losses.
• By February, Susan warned that dark matter could be affected by Soul Infestation, causing aberrant life-forms to appear throughout space and forcing the fleet into defensive formations.
• Aberrant creatures overwhelmed the fleet from outside and within, while dying personnel joined the infestation as new aberrant life-forms.
• In September, Norma reported that Susan’s soul had returned to the Pale Throne and that the entire Adam Three Star System, including its star and dark matter, had fused into a stellar-system-sized aberrant entity.
• Norma said the fleet had withdrawn under Pope Abraham’s orders while Abraham restrained the entity, and she urgently requested reinforcements to stop the infestation from reaching Adam Two.

The Human Federation mobilized its reserves and sent the first massive expeditionary force to reinforce the front lines. As the first wave departed, families said farewell, and the second force prepared to follow.

• Regent Duoxia ordered the Human Federation’s reserves to deploy, and hundreds of billions of troops began heading to the battlefields.
• Soldiers received three days to visit their families, and parents and descendants filled the planets with painful farewells.
• The soldiers’ leave ended, and transport spacecraft carried them back to their bases.
• On October 28, Norton Year 3284, the first expeditionary force departed with one hundred billion personnel and nearly a trillion AI androids aboard billions of spacecraft.
• The first force used spatial jump devices to reach the frontline positions, while the second expeditionary force prepared to depart three months later.

The Pale Church deployed ten Gore weapons against the Aberrant Star System despite the danger to Pope Abraham, while thousands of ships sacrificed themselves to protect the weapons. As the attack wounded the monster and exposed Abraham, Churchill arrived with the Human Federation’s first wave of reinforcements.

• Archbishop Blair ordered Gore deployed against the Aberrant Star System despite an attendant’s warning that it could injure Abraham.
• Thousands of spacecraft guarded the Gore weapons, sacrificing their crews as the fleet fought off swarms of aberrations.
• Ten Gore weapons detonated, burning and splitting the Aberrant Star System’s flesh and sharply reducing the number of incoming aberrations.
• The blast exposed Abraham, who was still holding back the monster, inspiring the Pale Church’s forces to attack with renewed fervor.
• Mid-Ranking Bishop Churchill arrived with hundreds of millions of ships and requested permission to join the battlefield.

Norton and Abraham watched a staged battle in which humanity fought the aberrants, while Abraham struggled with guilt over the deception. Norton defended his prison of hardship as a means of curbing humanity’s evil, leaving Abraham shaken and convinced Norton had gone mad.

• Norton created a false version of Abraham to make the staged battle against the aberrants appear real, while the true Abraham watched with him.
• Abraham felt ashamed as humans died believing they were defending humanity, the Pale Church, and their emperor.
• Norton rebuked Abraham’s compassion and reminded him of humanity’s past betrayals and atrocities.
• Norton argued that his prison of mind and body had made humanity devout and noble, and declared that he had shaped gods of Heaven rather than fiends of Hell.
• Abraham accepted that Norton had gone insane and silently resolved to let him run wild for two more chapters.

Abraham watched the Human Federation’s reinforcements enter the battle and reflected on how faith and human virtue had been forged through suffering, while still longing for freedom. The Federation then began a nationwide livestream of the war, and the grisly footage stirred the public into a frenzy for battle rather than fear.

• Abraham watched Church knights and fleets rush into the aberration swarms, then lamented humanity’s history of suffering and his own desire for freedom.
• The Human Federation deployed construction ships to build Subspace receivers and establish communications between the front and the rear.
• In Norton Year 3285, the Federation began broadcasting live footage from frontline soldiers’ brain-computer interfaces across the nation.
• Viewers saw warships and Church knights fight the aberrations, with many feeds ending in the destruction of ships and the deaths of their crews.
• As casualties filled the livestream, the united public became increasingly eager to continue the war.

Humanity’s initially successful war against the Aberrations stretched into fifty years of mounting casualties as the enemy multiplied and the rear lost its fervor. After the Adam Two Star System was invaded again, Regent Duoxia ordered a vast new deployment, even as the spread of soul particles made humanity’s future increasingly precarious.

• As battlefield livestreams revealed the war’s brutality, people in the rear rallied to support the front, and Regent Duoxia sent another hundred billion reinforcements.
• His Eminence Abraham held back the Aberrations in one star system, allowing humanity to maintain an early advantage and briefly push the front back.
• Over fifty years, Aberrations multiplied as human deaths spread more soul particles, while humanity’s battlefield advantage faded and rear morale dwindled.
• In Norton year 3340, Aberrations entered the Oort Cloud of the Adam Two Star System, which had been defended for fifty years.
• In Norton year 3341, Regent Duoxia ordered a hundred trillion troops to the front, though their deaths would release still more soul particles.

From Norton year 3342 onward, the Human Federation’s massive reinforcement of the front briefly reclaimed territory before the Aberrations overwhelmed it again. As the population panicked and called for escape, the Pale Church crushed dissent by arresting millions and turning them into sources of war materials.

• In Norton year 3343, a hundred trillion troops helped retake the Adam Two Star System’s orbital region, but after ten years the front collapsed and Aberrations invaded the Oort Cloud and transformed an outer planet.
• As the Human Federation panicked, people spread rumors that the government and Pale Church had lied about the dangers of escape and demanded that shipping lanes be opened.
• The Pale Holy See ordered the arrest of people spreading or supporting those claims, and the Church’s knights sent them to human extraction laboratories to produce soul matter materials.
• Within three months, Church knights arrested as many as a million people from one city, frightening others into deleting posts and avoiding related videos.
• Within half a year, public discussion on Human Federation networks had become outwardly calm, and people no longer spoke openly of doom.

Duoxia’s military reform decentralized command and logistics, prompting local authorities to build fortified fronts that pushed the battle line to the Adam Two Star System. The escalating deaths and replacement demands left humanity facing an increasingly hopeless war, especially if the system became fully corrupted or another Sixth Stage Aberration emerged.

• Duoxia ordered three-year troop rotations and established a standing frontline force of five hundred trillion troops, with local authorities responsible for their own corps and supplies.
• Cities across the star systems formed reserve forces and sent troops and noncombatants to build bunkers and automated defenses on the front.
• The fortified planetary defenses helped the Human Federation push the battle line to the Adam Two Star System and withstand the Aberrations.
• Fewer than ten percent of soldiers survived a three-year rotation, and Duoxia expanded the garrison as the Aberrations multiplied.
• The garrison and annual replacement demands rose at accelerating rates, while the chapter warned that humanity could face extinction if the war worsened.

The Human Federation tried to sustain its war against the Aberrations through mass childbirth, colonization, and ever harsher conscription, but the front expanded beyond its capacity and Adam Two became a Sixth Stage Aberration. After a millennium of mounting losses and forced labor, a strange figure looked out over the Federation and murmured, “Another thousand years...”

• The Human Federation and Pale Church encouraged childbirth, lifted restrictions on marriage and Subspace Jumps, and expanded into neighboring star systems to support the growing population.
• The frontline garrison swelled as Aberrations spread, and the Human Federation's losses intensified until Adam Two could no longer contain the forces gathered there.
• In Norton Year 3460, Adam Two underwent aberration and became a Sixth Stage Aberration that advanced toward human star systems while releasing tides of Aberrations.
• The war spread across a five-system battle line, and the Human Federation's garrison reached 5.3 quintillion as yearly casualties approached the number of newborns.
• The Pale Church replaced childbirth incentives with compulsory annual births, forced pregnant women into factory labor, and assigned men, elders, and children to military service, expansion, and production.
• After the Human Federation endured a millennium without Norton, a strange, sanctified-looking figure stood at a window and murmured, “Another thousand years...”

Norton surveyed the decaying Human Federation, where the Pale Church’s worship of the Pale God sustained people through a thousand years of war. The chapter ended by revealing that a canning factory turned human remains from an arms factory into food for soldiers and civilians.

• Norton stood atop the Garden of Eden’s highest tower and looked over the ruined city below.
• Church knights and civilians sang hymns to Hallelu-Nuo, praising Norton as their faith centered on the Pale God.
• The chapter explained how humanity’s war against the Aberrations and the Pale Church’s influence had made the Federation increasingly devout and unified.
• At a canning factory, workers and machines crushed human remains, maggots, and blood into meat paste and canned it as food for the front lines and the rear.

Norton watched the Human Federation’s brutal factories and recognized that their thousand years of war and suffering had cultivated dense souls and fervent faith. He revealed that the supposed cleansing of humanity was actually a sacrifice meant to summon a god, leaving him uncertain whether his plan was right.

• The military factory harvested Soul Matter from cloned humans, whose bodies healed after each automated cutting.
• Deeper inside the factory, AI androids transplanted cloned organs between near-identical bodies to create powerful super soldiers.
• The chapter explained that the Federation relied on cloning and organ transplants to strengthen its forces amid worsening battlefield crises.
• Norton observed humanity’s warped faith from afar and considered whether it could form a divine Anchor and God’s divine body.
• Norton recognized that the cleansing and genocide were a grand sacrifice intended to summon a god, and wondered whether his choice was right.

Norton reflected on how his omniscience and omnipotence had left him lonely and bored, and he continued to plan to summon God through humanity’s faith. As he questioned whether human desires or thought defined his self, he found himself sliding toward nihilism.

• Norton decided that he would wait until humanity’s population and faith had grown enough to safely summon God.
• Norton said his omniscience, omnipotence, and immortality had become a curse, leaving him unable to find excitement in the world.
• Norton recalled that his war had shifted from preserving his rule to awakening God so he could devour him, transcend, or be sealed away.
• Norton questioned whether he was a puppet of human desires or a living being with his own thoughts.
• Norton began to feel lost as he approached the truth humans called nihilism.

Norton sat in his empty hall, withdrawn from his former diversions and seemingly lost in constant thought, while Abraham worried that his omniscience had left him indifferent and lonely. Remembering how Norton had deceived him before, Abraham grew suspicious and concluded that Elizabeth had gone invisible again, leaving him the only one still keeping Norton company.

• Norton sat silently in his hall as Abraham reflected on how his interests and humanity had faded over the centuries.
• Abraham recalled Norton's growing withdrawal from war, games, and other diversions, and suspected that his apparent nihilism might be another trap.
• Abraham noticed a familiar feeling that another expert was present, but he could not find anyone in the hall.
• Abraham remembered that Elizabeth had helped Norton deceive him during the incident with Jonah while remaining unseen.
• Abraham searched the hall for Elizabeth and lamented that she had slipped out of sight again while he stayed beside Norton.

As the Aberrations overran humanity’s defensive lines and transformed four star systems, Regent Duoxia announced the Human Federation’s Expedition Plan to withdraw half its frontline personnel and colonize distant systems. The plan began in Norton Year 4360 as a desperate attempt to move people beyond the advancing war.

• Abraham relaxed after accepting Elizabeth’s way of doing things, while the Human Federation continued to suffer catastrophic casualties at the front.
• A century later, news arrived that the Adam One, Gracchus, Heavy Hammer Two, and Heavy Hammer Three Star Systems had fully aberrated and threatened humanity’s remaining routes.
• Recordings showed the Adam One Star System becoming an immense Aberrant Star System Entity, spreading panic and despair throughout the Human Federation.
• Regent Duoxia announced that humanity would stop increasing frontline forces, withdraw half the troops, and focus on developing distant planets beginning in Norton Year 4360.
• The Human Federation began pulling troops from the front and using spatial jump technology to establish settlements where people could flee the expanding war.

The Human Federation diverted most of its resources to the Great Crusade as its frontline defenses collapsed under the Aberrations. After the garrisons were annihilated in Norton 4400, humanity could only flee, and a century passed under the shadow of advancing invasions.

• The Human Federation converted much of its productive capacity from military production to building space cities and passenger ships for the Great Crusade.
• The Great Crusade began evacuating populations as the front lines lost half their personnel and four Star System Aberrations emerged.
• The frontline military used Gore to destroy planets and slow the Aberrations while Church knights fought to buy time for evacuations.
• Over the following decades, the defensive lines retreated as Erbes and other star systems became aberrated, and Aberration swarms overwhelmed the garrisons.
• In Norton 4400, Aberrations annihilated an entire frontline garrison, leaving the Human Federation unable to organize effective resistance.
• The Great Crusade raced to escape the expanding invasion, and another hundred years passed amid widespread despair.

Regent Duoxia prioritized humanity’s survival over morality as the Great Crusade struggled against advancing Aberrations. He learned that the large Aberrations seemed intelligent and were herding humans, leaving him to face the possibility that someone was controlling them.

• Duoxia ordered the evacuation of Fifth Stage survivors from the Flower Dwarf Star System, abandoning the mothers and newborns in its birthing workshops.
• Church personnel told Duoxia that scholars believed the large Aberrations could think and might have been intelligent since their birth.
• A bishop reported that the Aberrations adjusted their routes and numbers to pen humans in and drive them to flee and reproduce.
• Duoxia rejected the idea that Aberrations could possess intelligence, but the reports convinced him that their behavior was real.
• The bishop insisted that no one could be controlling the Aberrations from behind the scenes, and Duoxia remained silent.

Duoxia abandoned his duties as regent, fueling rumors about why he had withdrawn as humanity’s Great Expedition continued. In the Pale Holy See, Norton tried to provoke Abraham into following a supposed script, but Abraham dodged the trap and was ordered to roll out of the hall.

• Duoxia handed the Pale Church’s decision-making authority to its think tank and withdrew from governing the Human Federation.
• People circulated conflicting rumors about Duoxia’s motives, while the internet industry began to revive as the Great Expedition moved migrants to safer zones.
• Norton sighed pointedly at Abraham and accused clever people of trapping themselves, inviting Abraham to agree.
• Abraham recognized Norton was baiting him and condemned humanity instead of addressing Norton’s insinuation.
• Norton told Abraham to roll out, and Abraham curled into a ball and rolled from the hall.

Regent Duoxia forced a secret institute to investigate whether Aberrations possessed intelligence and pursue contact, despite researchers’ protests and deadly risks. After more than a century of probes revealed that Aberrations were living masses of flesh without ordinary biological structures, the researchers concluded that something impossible was controlling them, and their discoveries left the institute in despair over what they saw as the Lord’s betrayal.

• In Norton Year 4513, Duoxia relinquished his power and disappeared as the Pale Holy See secretly created a department to study Aberration intelligence.
• After researchers found signs of coordinated behavior, Duoxia ordered them to make close contact with galactic Aberrations and seek peace if communication proved possible.
• In Norton Year 4517, Duoxia compelled his opponents to join a close-range observer corps, and the institute began sending teams and probes to investigate the galactic Aberrations.
• Over more than a century, probes found that both large and small Aberrations lacked ordinary organs and tissues, while dead specimens remained biologically alive yet motionless.
• Researchers despaired over the contradiction and suspected an unseen force was controlling the Aberrations; one researcher shot himself, and secret personnel carried the findings to Duoxia.

As the Human Federation retreated from the Garden of Eden, Duoxia stormed the abandoned Pale Holy See and tried to draw Norton out. Seeing Abraham unknowingly sweep away his fallen crown across an invisible divide, Duoxia concluded that Norton’s plans had manipulated humanity, while Abraham suspected even this revelation was part of Norton’s scheme.

• Abraham remained behind in the deserted old Holy See, sweeping its steps and mourning the Garden of Eden’s decline.
• Duoxia arrived in a rage, smashed the mountain gate, and shouted accusations at Norton to provoke a response.
• When Abraham swept Duoxia’s fallen crown into a dustpan without either man seeming to see or hear the other, Duoxia realized they occupied different times or spaces and decided Norton’s actions explained humanity’s irrational war choices.
• Duoxia knelt, laughed, and wept as he accused Norton of using the apocalypse to gather faith and preserve his rule and godhood.
• Abraham continued sweeping and doubted that Duoxia’s discovery was genuine, suspecting Norton had intended the exposure as another scheme.

After Duoxia returned, the Pale Holy See and the Human Federation accused Norton of fabricating the Aberration war and manipulating humanity to gather faith and become a god. Their declaration shattered the Federation’s faith, and its cities descended into mass suicide, rioting, and chaos.

• Duoxia returned to the Pale Holy See and resumed supreme authority, stirring excitement across the Human Federation.
• Three days later, the Pale Holy See and the Human Federation published a joint declaration accusing Norton of creating the Aberration threat and using humanity’s suffering to pursue divinity.
• People across the Federation reacted with disbelief, rage, despair, and renewed accusations against Norton and the Church.
• A person leaped from a residential tower, and a Church knight at a guard post shot himself as the city’s order collapsed.
• Across the cities, people committed suicide, attacked one another, looted and burned buildings, and protested against Norton and the Pale Church.