Recaps

Zhang Yuanshan discovered that several spacecraft could travel at only half their usual warp speed, and the scientists investigated possible causes. After ruling out ship malfunctions, nearby extreme celestial bodies, gravity, and spatial curvature, Academician Zeng and Liu Bo were left without an explanation.

• Zhang Yuanshan tested three small spacecraft and found that each could travel at only 500 times the speed of light.
• Zhang Yuanshan reported the problem to Academician Zeng, who told the researchers to investigate causes beyond the ships themselves.
• Academician Liu Bo suggested that gravity or chaotic space might be reducing warp speed, so Academician Zeng ordered new measurements along the route.
• Academician Zeng sent spacecraft to search for extreme celestial bodies, measure space, find a resource planet, and check whether Fish Horse Star warships still guarded the nebula's perimeter.
• A month later, the researchers found no extreme celestial bodies or spatial conditions that could explain the reduced speed, and Liu Bo wondered if a ghost was responsible.

After a month of failing to explain why the Wind Masters slowed down, Academician Zeng and Academician Liu Bo realized the cause was density while swimming. Meanwhile, the fleet found a metal-rich asteroid and moved it into orbit near Earth Two, easing its resource shortage.

• Hu Yu ordered Academician Zeng and Academician Liu Bo to take three days off after they exhausted themselves working in the laboratory.
• Academician Liu Bo took Academician Zeng to the bathhouse, where they fell asleep in the hot pool and later swam together.
• Academician Zeng and Academician Liu Bo realized that density explained why the Wind Masters slowed down, then decided to rest before tackling the work ahead.
• A small spacecraft traveling at 0.1 times the speed of light discovered a metal-rich asteroid about one light-year away.
• Hu Yu sent a hundred thousand Wind Masters to move the asteroid, and they brought it into orbit around Earth Two in less than a week.
• A scientific expedition found the asteroid's metals were pure enough to use without smelting, and workers began extracting them.

Academician Zeng and Academician Liu explained that unusually high spatial density in the Eagle Nebula had reduced the Wind Master's warp speed. The researchers decided to remain in the nebula and investigate how to increase spatial density, hoping to turn the discovery into a military advantage and advance their civilization's technology.

• Academician Zeng and Academician Liu told the space physicists that increased spatial density in the Eagle Nebula made warp engines less efficient and slowed the Wind Master.
• Academician Liu answered questions from Academician Huang and the other researchers, explaining why changes in spatial density did not alter their measurements or the speed of light.
• The researchers asked how they could verify the density difference, and one suggested comparing the Wind Master's speed inside and outside the nebula.
• Academician Zeng urged the group to study how spatial density could be increased across a large region, since it could immobilize enemy warships.
• Academician Liu Bo said he would discuss the plan with the general, and the group would remain in the nebula to study spatial density and analyze Wind Star Civilization technology after a two-day rest.

As unexplained disappearances of small spaceships and Wind Masters threaten Earth Two, Zhang Yuanshan volunteered to investigate, and Hu Yu sent him into the nebula with a large escort. Hu Yu also warned Wen Zhonghua against provoking the Fish Horse Star Civilization, while the danger behind the disappearances remained unknown.

• Hu Yu prioritized the space science department’s needs, and by the end of the eighth decade the antigravity system around Earth Two was complete.
• After more small spaceships and groups of Wind Masters vanished, Hu Yu ruled out the Fish Horse Star People and natural causes and suspected an unknown advanced civilization.
• Zhang Yuanshan volunteered to investigate the disappearances despite the near certainty that the mission could cost him his life.
• Hu Yu sent Zhang Yuanshan toward the incident sites with ten thousand Wind Masters, placing his carrier near the center rear of the formation.
• Wen Zhonghua urged Hu Yu to broadcast against the Fish Horse Star Civilization, but Hu Yu refused, fearing retaliation could endanger their fleet and nearby human fleets.

Zhang Yuanshan’s fleet lost contact after gas clouds near the accident site penetrated its warships, leaving Hu Yu and Wen Zhonghua to seek an explanation. At the chapter’s end, Academician Xiao considered that the nebula itself might be a conscious species responsible for the fleet’s disappearance.

• Zhang Yuanshan slowed his fleet as it approached the gas clouds, while Hu Yu and Wen Zhonghua warned him to proceed cautiously.
• Thin gas clouds clung to the Wind Masters, seeped through their armor, and cut off their connections to Earth Two; Zhang Yuanshan’s last message warned Hu Yu not to come closer.
• Wen Zhonghua wanted to rescue Zhang Yuanshan, but Hu Yu stopped him because other spacecraft and warships had also gone missing.
• Hu Yu and Wen Zhonghua visited Academician Xiao in the biological underground city to ask about his research on consciousness.
• Academician Xiao explained that consciousness could not be manufactured or copied and said a nebula’s complex electrical signals might belong to a conscious species.

Wen Zhonghua and Academician Xiao considered how to study and destroy a suspected nebula consciousness, while Zhang Yuanshan was captured by a Nebula Person that took control of his warship. Hu Yu then ordered antimatter production expanded, declaring his intent to destroy the nebula.

• Wen Zhonghua asked Academician Xiao to form a research team and prioritize an attack plan against the suspected nebula species.
• A Nebula Person entered Zhang Yuanshan's warship, cut off its communications, and identified itself as Zhang Yuanshan and a Nebula Person ordered to seize the ship.
• Zhang Yuanshan fired at the gas cloud, but it enveloped him and took control of his body and the Wind Master.
• Hu Yu asked Supervisor Chen Wenhui about antimatter stocks and ordered production raised to two tons per day within a year.
• Hu Yu told Wen Zhonghua he intended to blow up the nebula.

Hu Yu prepared a large-scale antimatter sweep to clear matter from the region around Earth Two while a patchwork fleet approached undetected. After the sweep, Academician Xiao devised a way to destroy consciousness, and Hu Yu sent reconnaissance satellites toward the incident sites.

• Hu Yu ordered Supervisor Chen to package antimatter and learned that a machine made entirely of antimatter could speed up the process.
• A patchwork fleet of more than twenty million warships headed toward Earth Two at five times the speed of light, while Earth Two remained unaware of its approach.
• After Academician Zeng confirmed antimatter would not disrupt space research, Hu Yu used half the antimatter to create a sweeping explosion that cleared matter from the region around Earth Two.
• Academician Xiao reported that a plan to destroy consciousness was ready, and Academician Zeng recommended deploying antimatter particle-beam weapons against the nebula.
• Hu Yu sent a million sturdy reconnaissance satellites toward the incident sites, releasing them half a light-year away to search for the enemy.

Hu Yu deployed plans for an antimatter defense system as Zhang Yuanshan returned with ten thousand Wind Masters after escaping a spatial vortex. Zhang Yuanshan reached Earth Two’s vicinity and explained the fleet’s disappearance, while Academician Zeng prepared to investigate the vortex’s location.

• Hu Yu chose to build an antiparticle beam defense system and gathered one hundred million small spacecraft from volunteers for conversion.
• A reconnaissance satellite detected ten thousand Wind Masters approaching Earth Two, led by Zhang Yuanshan, and Hu Yu sent a node satellite to restore contact.
• Zhang Yuanshan told Hu Yu that a spatial vortex had trapped the fleet for months, then vanished and let them escape, though their four-dimensional channels were damaged.
• Hu Yu announced Zhang Yuanshan’s return, and Academician Zeng and Academician Liu wanted to investigate the vanished vortex.
• Academician Xiao emerged from the biological ship and, upon hearing Zhang Yuanshan had returned, asked how Hu Yu had confirmed his identity.
• Hu Yu said Zhang Yuanshan’s fleet was less than two days from Earth Two and that Academician Zeng planned to investigate after its return.

Academician Xiao and Academician Zeng realized Zhang Yuanshan's returning fleet might be compromised, but their suspicions came too late to prevent a battle near Earth Two. Zhang Yuanshan's fleet kept advancing and replaced every destroyed ship with a Wind Master from Hu Yu's forces.

• Academician Xiao questioned why Zhang Yuanshan's fleet was moving slowly and asked to speak with him, prompting Hu Yu and Academician Zeng to investigate.
• A massive intelligent gas cloud followed Zhang Yuanshan's fleet, evading reconnaissance satellites by expanding and slowing down.
• Hu Yu ordered Zhang Yuanshan to stop and submit to another examination, then positioned five hundred thousand Wind Masters to block his ten thousand ships.
• Zhang Yuanshan ignored repeated warnings, and Hu Yu ordered an attack as the fleet approached within six light-days of Earth Two.
• Hu Yu's forces destroyed thousands of Zhang Yuanshan's ships, but each lost ship was replaced by one of Hu Yu's Wind Masters, while more than eight thousand Wind Masters disappeared.

Hu Yu’s forces trapped Zhang Yuanshan and the controlled fleet by warping space around their ships, then began securing Zhang Yuanshan for study. Zhang Yuanshan remained unresponsive as robots dismantled his Wind Master and sealed his control room inside a research ship.

• Academician Zeng proposed trapping Zhang Yuanshan in a sphere of highly warped space, while Academician Xiao suggested the controlled fleet’s operators might be vulnerable to increased antimatter attacks.
• Hu Yu sent more than a hundred Wind Masters to surround Zhang Yuanshan’s warship and warp space around it, trapping him.
• Hu Yu expanded the tactic, and more than fifteen million Wind Masters enclosed the entire enemy fleet less than two hours from Earth.
• The controlled ships stopped moving under their apparent operators’ control, then began drifting slowly as if their occupants had lost control.
• Robots seized Zhang Yuanshan’s Wind Master, took control of its systems, and dismantled it until only his sealed control room remained.
• Robots wrapped Zhang Yuanshan’s control room in insulating, superconducting, magnetic, and Chong Element panels, then towed it into a scientific research ship.

Hu Yu and his forces captured the nebula life-forms controlling the Wind Masters and discovered that antimatter particles could destroy their consciousness. As the fleet prepared to confront the approaching enemy, Zhang Yuanshan remained in a stable but deeply comatose state, with no known treatment.

• Hu Yu forced the nebula life-form out of Zhang Yuanshan, leaving the real Zhang Yuanshan collapsed and the alien imitating human behavior.
• Nebula life-forms emerged from the warships, and Hu Yu’s robots captured them and restored control of the Wind Masters.
• Hu Yu tested the gas clouds and found that sufficient antimatter particles could dissipate their consciousness, while other energy attacks were less effective.
• Hu Yu sent ten million Wind Masters and two million small spacecraft to meet the approaching fleet, keeping the rest near Earth Two for defense.
• Medical specialists and Academician Xiao could not find a treatment for Zhang Yuanshan’s faint brain waves, so they kept him in intensive care.
• Hu Yu lamented that their technology had not advanced enough to save Zhang Yuanshan.

Hu Yu prepared Earth Two’s defenses while Zhang Yuanshan’s gaseous form awakened as a self-aware Nebula Person and explained the main consciousnesses’ origins and motives. The Nebula Person warned that several more main consciousnesses were approaching, but Hu Yu still needed to learn how to find and defeat them.

• Hu Yu ordered the antimatter particle beam production bases to operate around the clock so more equipment could be installed on small spacecraft.
• A week after its capture, the gaseous Zhang Yuanshan stood up and spoke to Hu Yu as a newly awakened Nebula Person.
• The Nebula Person explained that severing its link to the main consciousness had allowed it to develop an independent self.
• The Nebula Person told Hu Yu that seven main consciousnesses existed, that the nearby one attacked civilizations to gain freedom of movement, and that several others were approaching.
• The Nebula Person explained that main consciousnesses could control about twenty million branch consciousness entities and that killing one was simple, though locating it was difficult.
• Hu Yu asked why the main consciousness used fleets to attack and how powerful the approaching fleet was.

Hu Yu questioned a branch consciousness about nebula life and its main consciousnesses, then ordered Earth Two defended as seven main consciousnesses approached. Academician Liu Bo introduced a scanner to detect abnormal movement in nebula matter, and Hu Yu ordered tens of thousands built to search for the threat.

• The branch consciousness explained that nebula life used warships to transport weak branch consciousnesses and described how the main consciousness had attacked other civilizations.
• Hu Yu agreed to verify the branch consciousness's account and asked how to revive his unconscious companion, but the branch consciousness said it could not help.
• After the conversation, Hu Yu ordered spacecraft to patrol Earth Two and spray antimatter particle beams, then sealed away the other nebula life-forms.
• Academician Liu Bo showed Hu Yu a scanner that tracked nebula matter and could identify the main consciousnesses by their abnormal movement.
• Hu Yu ordered tens of thousands of scanners made and sent out to guard Earth and search space for the main consciousnesses.

The Wind Masters destroyed the motley fleet and wiped out most of its branch consciousness entities, while suffering relatively few losses. Main Consciousness No. 1 then approached Earth Two and secretly enveloped the planet, waiting for a chance to invade.

• The Wind Masters routed the motley fleet with nuclear and antimatter attacks, then used their warships and small spacecraft to eliminate its branch consciousness entities and capture over a million ships.
• Main Consciousness No. 1, enraged by the loss of its branch consciousness entities, expanded and traveled toward Earth Two.
• Main Consciousness No. 1 reached Earth Two but avoided the Wind Masters' aerial base and formed a huge sphere around the planet.
• Academician Liu's scanners detected abnormal movement of matter, and humanity equipped small spacecraft with scanners and antimatter weapons to protect Earth Two.
• Main Consciousness No. 1 concealed itself as ordinary nebula matter around Earth Two and waited for a chance to split off more branch consciousness entities.

Hu Yu expanded the search for the nebula’s main consciousnesses while preparing to move Earth Two if the Fish Horse Star fleet had left. The seven nebula consciousnesses agreed to negotiate with humanity, but Number One planned to demonstrate its power first.

• Hu Yu deployed scanners, armed Wind Masters, and ordered earlier exploration craft to self-destruct if they lost contact.
• Number Two proposed that the other consciousnesses join forces and ask humanity to help them find a way to be free.
• Number Two led five other gas clouds to meet Number One one light-year from Earth Two.
• Number One refused to share humanity, but agreed to negotiate after the others persuaded it that cooperation offered a better chance of freedom.
• Number One said it would first demonstrate the nebula lifeforms’ strength so humanity would submit.

The Main Consciousness Nebula magnified people's emotions across Earth Two, turning minor disputes into violent fights and causing millions of casualties. Hu Yu and the scientists struggled to contain the chaos, which left Earth Two out of control.

• A production worker and a quality-control worker fought after an argument over a defective product, while people nearby watched without intervening.
• People across Earth Two attacked one another over minor encounters, and fights escalated to deadly violence.
• Guards opened fire on a fighting crowd, then turned their guns on their squad leader after he reprimanded them.
• Hu Yu and the scientists recognized that the Main Consciousness Nebula was behind the chaos, but they could not stop it.
• After casualties reached three million, Hu Yu tried broadcasts, sedatives, and underground shelters, but none of the measures contained the violence.

The academicians learned that the main consciousness was driving humans mad through its consciousness field and might be hiding near Earth Two. Hu Yu ordered antimatter bombs deployed and detonated to force it to reveal itself.

• Academician Liu Bo searched around Earth Two with a spatial matter anomalous movement scanner but found no consciousness entities.
• The branch consciousness entity nebula told Academician Zeng that the main consciousness was using its consciousness field to drive humans mad and was likely nearby.
• The academicians warned Hu Yu that the main consciousness might have reached Earth Two before the scanners were deployed and suggested using antimatter bombs to flush it out.
• Hu Yu rejected the idea of sealing Earth Two with Wind Masters because it would require at least a hundred million of them, and he ordered antimatter bombs deployed.
• Hu Yu detonated successive groups of antimatter bombs in orbit around Earth Two, and the main consciousness told the humans to stop.

Hu Yu and Academician Xiao negotiated with the seven Nebula Lifeforms, who demanded help transforming into biological organisms so they could leave the nebula. The humans agreed to try within two hundred years, and the Nebula Lifeforms promised not to interfere with human activities or threaten their safety.

• Hu Yu confronted the Main Consciousness with antimatter and forced it to withdraw its consciousness field from the humans it controlled.
• Academician Xiao spoke with Number One, who explained that the seven Nebula Lifeforms wanted to leave the nebula and become biological beings.
• Number One said an organism would need to be at least ten thousand times stronger than a human and possess life without consciousness to contain a Nebula Lifeform.
• Hu Yu agreed that humanity would help, provided a Nebula Lifeform stayed nearby and cooperated; Number One granted two hundred years and warned of the consequences of failure.
• Hu Yu demanded that the Nebula Lifeforms leave human activities undisturbed and guarantee human safety, and Number One confirmed that the fleet hunting humanity had long since departed.

After the Fish Horse Star fleet departed, Hu Yu negotiated a 200-year truce with the nebula’s Main Consciousnesses, who agreed to let humanity study their warships under strict limits. He then focused on restoring Earth Two and helping people recover from the psychological damage caused by the entities’ control, while humanity began planning how to escape their influence.

• The Main Consciousnesses agreed to remain near Earth Two for study, limit humanity’s antimatter production, and give humanity 200 years to find a way to defeat them.
• Hu Yu deployed scanners across Earth Two and had millions of surrendered warships moved to a designated area for human study.
• People on Earth Two woke from the entities’ influence and struggled with guilt and shock over hurting or killing others.
• Hu Yu organized relief efforts and broadcast an explanation to reduce the public’s self-blame, while the fleet held meetings to help people process their memories.
• Hu Yu rejected Zhonghua’s suggestion to remove humanity’s aggressive genes and identified five research priorities for escaping the Main Consciousnesses’ control.

Academician Xiao concealed his research into consciousness while studying the nebula's Main Consciousnesses and waiting for Academician Zeng to make progress in spatial physics. As scientists investigated the nebula and Hu Yu struggled with a shortage of researchers, Academician Zeng organized the study of captured alien warships and returned to Science City to focus the fleet's research priorities.

• Academician Xiao destroyed his consciousness research data, then pretended to collect brainwave data from the Main Consciousnesses while secretly assessing them.
• Academician Xiao found the Nebula Lifeforms' brainwaves revealed little and could not detect their consciousness fields with ordinary instruments, so he postponed further experiments.
• After a month or two without attacks, scientists began surveying the nebula and collecting spatial data, while Academician Liu Bo led a research ship toward its edge.
• Hu Yu faced a shortage of scientists as the fleet prepared to study warships from 94 civilizations, so Academician Zeng assigned teams of scientists and doctoral students to analyze them.
• Academician Zeng returned to Science City and decided the five fields of spatial research needed to be prioritized and pursued together.

Academician Zeng prioritized research into travel speed and spatial compression while the expedition confirmed the nebula region doubled spatial density. A century later, Academician Xiao’s attempt to prepare a body for the nebula main consciousnesses exposed their demand to test all seven together, and he warned Hu Yu and the others that they feared what liberation might mean for them.

• Academician Zeng focused research on travel speed and spatial compression, while Academician Liu Bo confirmed ships reached a thousand times light speed outside the nebula region.
• Academician Xiao created a giant creature intended to house a nebula main consciousness, but the main consciousnesses refused to test it alone and demanded seven bodies.
• Academician Xiao met Hu Yu, Academician Zeng, and others in a shielded room and said the main consciousnesses would destroy humanity whether or not they were liberated.
• Academician Xiao argued that the main consciousnesses feared the consequences of successful liberation, and Wen Zhonghua suggested they feared being killed by one another.
• Academician Xiao told Wen Zhonghua he was only half right.

Academician Xiao and the others planned a hidden way to control organisms built for the nebula main consciousnesses, hoping to protect humanity if the entities turned against them. The chapter ended as a new humanoid creature opened his eyes and wondered who he was.

• Hu Yu explained that the nebula main consciousnesses would destroy humanity as soon as they could successfully free themselves.
• Academician Xiao urged the group to keep creating organisms while finding a way to secretly control them through atoms activated by a specific field frequency.
• Academician Zeng and Science City agreed to spend the next hundred years researching how to program atoms without detection.
• Academician Xiao proposed persuading the consciousnesses to let humanity leave the nebula before they freed themselves, while using a galactic broadcast as leverage if needed.
• A large-headed, short-limbed humanoid creature opened his eyes in Academician Xiao's laboratory and asked, "Me? Is this me?"

Academician Xiao gave the branch consciousness entity a body, and it chose the name Xiao Ling while keeping Zero as a codename. As Zero began adapting to its new identity, researchers prepared sturdier bodies intended to contain the main consciousness.

• Academician Xiao introduced Zero to its new body and explained the Little Crab implant that would keep it loyal and could destroy its brain if it rebelled.
• Zero said it felt fully joined to its body, chose the name Xiao Ling, and agreed to cooperate with examinations.
• Zero asked about the other branch consciousness entities and said its hatred for them had disappeared; Academician Xiao told it they remained confined and would not yet be freed.
• Researchers elsewhere began making six organisms as a pretense of progress toward dealing with the main consciousness.
• At the bottom of the biological ship, physicists and biologists examined seven insect-structure bodies made with Chong Element and discussed how to use controlled brain atoms to damage an organism.

Scientists pursued two approaches to attacking an individual inside the nebula, while Academician Liu Bo spent decades investigating why the nebula’s spatial density had doubled. He suddenly connected the mystery to the singularity at the Milky Way’s central black hole.

• Academician Zhang Xinheng’s camp mapped celestial bodies in the nebula to find a way to generate or transmit high energy, while Academician Li Youwei’s camp studied atomic resonance.
• The microscopic researchers improved the magnetic field line microscope, isolated a proton, and magnified its quarks until they reached 10^60 times magnification.
• Scientists noticed that quarks of the same type had different surfaces, suggesting that quarks were not the most fundamental structures and that identical atoms might have minute differences.
• Academician Liu Bo, who had spent 130 years outside the nebula investigating its doubled spatial density, looked toward the Milky Way’s central black hole and realized the answer might involve its singularity.

After returning to Earth Two, Academician Liu Bo reunited with Academician Zeng and revealed that he had solved the mystery of space’s increased density. At a Science City conference, scientists presented a plan to threaten the nebula’s Main Consciousness and described their discovery that energy consisted of tiny soap-bubble-like units.

• Academician Liu Bo returned to Earth Two after finally understanding why space’s overall density had increased.
• Academician Liu Bo went to Science City, reunited with Academician Zeng, and was invited to explain his discovery at a conference.
• Academician Zhang Xinheng presented thirteen celestial trigger points that could start chain reactions capable of destroying the nebula region if its Main Consciousness attacked.
• Academician Li Youwei explained that experiments had revealed soap-bubble-like units as the physical manifestation of energy, present even in a vacuum.
• Academician Liu Bo interrupted Academician Li Youwei to ask about the bubbles, then listened as Li Youwei explained that their differences shaped particle properties and responded to surrounding energy fields.