Chapter Summaries

Wen Zhonghua’s Reaper fleet destroyed the four giant insects and fought its way through the swarm, but the battle cost nearly half its strength. After passing the Matter River without finding a pretext to enter, the fleet received a signal that revealed Li Shun’s fleet was being followed by Bee spacecraft.

• Wen Zhonghua used fourth-dimensional Reapers to destroy the giant insect attacking the command ship, ending the commanders’ consciousness assaults.
• Gao Jianchuan, Li Zhixiong, and Wen Zhonghua recovered from their ordeal as medical personnel treated the wounded.
• Wen Zhonghua sent Reapers against the other two giant insects and sacrificed nearly a billion warships to destroy the insects and clear the surrounding swarms.
• The Reaper fleet drove back the remaining insects and entered normal space with just over 70 billion ships remaining.
• Wen Zhonghua and the other commanders struggled to find a reason to enter the nearby Matter River after the swarm avoided them.
• The fleet decoded a signal reporting that Bee spacecraft near the Matter River had found traces of Li Shun’s fleet and were following it, prompting Li Zhixiong to suggest going after Little Li.

Wen Zhonghua’s fleet tracked Li Shun while planning to retrieve Chen Peng and the others, but an unnaturally quiet stretch of the insect region led them to discover a massive battle between the swarm and the long-absent Mechanical Civilization. The Reapers watched from a safe distance, unable to risk joining either side.

• Wen Zhonghua ordered the fleet to follow Li Shun at a distance, conserve its strength, and look for his lair while preparing to receive Chen Peng’s group outside the Matter River.
• The Bees relayed that Li Shun had deployed a fleet of 300 billion, and Wen Zhonghua’s fleet cautiously pursued it through the insect region.
• Gao Jianchuan noticed that the area was unusually quiet, so Wen Zhonghua ordered the fleet to inspect nearby celestial bodies as it searched for Li Shun’s signal.
• Li Zhixiong spotted a vast battle more than a hundred light-years away between millions of high-tier insects and a Mechanical Civilization fleet of over five trillion warships.
• Wen Zhonghua ordered the Reapers to watch from a distance because they could not survive a confrontation with either force.

The Mechanical Civilization lord fought the bug swarm while secretly using the battle to draw high-rank bugs away from resource-rich celestial bodies. The lord slowed the fleet’s attacks to limit the bugs’ descent from the fourth dimension, preserving a fragile balance while its units infiltrated the galaxy.

• The Mechanical Civilization’s warships initially gained an advantage with attacks that bypassed the bugs’ energy-based defenses, but the swarm overwhelmed them by dragging four-dimensional space into the three-dimensional battlefield.
• The bugs’ attack crippled the warships’ maneuverability, forcing them to retreat from the fourth dimension, where countless bugs and terrifying high-rank creatures waited.
• The lord recalled how the Mechanical Civilization had secretly infiltrated the bug territory, hollowing out planets and stars to rebuild its fleet before openly engaging the swarm.
• The lord revealed that the battle’s deeper purpose was to draw high-rank bugs away so mechanical units could spread to resource-rich celestial bodies and build a vast fleet.
• Fearing that too many bugs descending would let the Great Star Region Civilizations attack them, the lord slowed the assault and deliberately exposed openings, causing the high-rank bugs to descend more slowly and eventually stop.

Wen Zhonghua realized the Reaper fleet had been exposed to the Mechanical Civilization and ordered a desperate retreat toward the Matter River. As the Mechanical fleet closed in, Gao Jianchuan proposed exploiting its limited knowledge of the surrounding space.

• The Mechanical Civilization's lord learned that a Human fleet was in Zerg territory and sent a hundred billion warships to attack it.
• Wen Zhonghua deduced that the Mechanical Civilization had discovered the Reaper fleet and ordered it to flee toward the Matter River, leaving ten billion Reapers behind and sealing away the Superintelligent Robots.
• The fleet lost contact with the ten billion Reapers, which the Mechanical Civilization had destroyed in less than twenty-four hours.
• Wen Zhonghua ordered the fleet to continue toward the Matter River despite the Mechanical fleet's superior speed and growing pursuit.
• Gao Jianchuan pointed out that the Mechanical Civilization had only recently discovered them, suggesting it did not have eyes everywhere in the territory.

Wen Zhonghua’s Reaper fleet used decoys and altered propulsion to evade Mechanical Civilization’s pursuit, then escaped into the Matter River. After years of traveling through it, the fleet approached a meteorite that secretly served as an entrance for Academician Liu Bo, Chen Peng, and others to board Wen Zhonghua’s Reaper.

• Old Gao guessed that Mechanical Civilization tracked the fleet by following the spatial fluctuations from its curvature engines, so Wen Zhonghua split off ten billion Reapers as a decoy and sent the main fleet onward using conventional engines.
• A satellite reported that Mechanical Civilization’s hundred-billion-ship fleet was pursuing the decoy, while the main fleet’s monitoring satellites remained intact.
• Mechanical Civilization destroyed the ten-billion-ship decoy fleet in less than a day, then resumed pursuit of the main fleet, which had reached the Matter River.
• The Reaper fleet broke through the bug swarms and entered the Matter River, while Mechanical Civilization stayed outside and watched its entrances.
• After traveling through the Matter River for two years, Wen Zhonghua’s Reaper rammed a large meteorite, which opened to let Academician Liu Bo, Chen Peng, and the others enter.

Wen Zhonghua brought Chen Peng and Academician Liu Bo back from the Matter River, where a Mechanical Civilization fleet was trapping them. Liu Bo’s research offered hope of defeating their enemies, while Zhuge Xiong proposed luring a giant fourth-dimensional bug into attacking the Mechanical Civilization.

• Wen Zhonghua met Chen Peng and Academician Liu Bo, whose altered appearance helped him avoid attention, and explained that the fleet could not leave the Matter River because the Mechanical Civilization was guarding its exits.
• Academician Liu Bo said he had made progress on research that could help defeat the Mechanical Civilization, and Wen Zhonghua arranged for Liu and his family to hide on the Tree Race’s planet.
• Wen Zhonghua revealed that more than a million people had joined the fleet to conceal Liu Bo and his companions among them, and Chen Peng and Liu left to take ordinary posts.
• Zhuge Xiong suggested exploiting a giant bug in the Matter River that had previously destroyed invading swarms and controlled the surrounding region.
• Zhuge Xiong proposed using Academician Xiao’s bug consciousness field simulators to make the giant bug attack the Mechanical Civilization’s fleet.

Gao Jianchuan and the fleet spent more than ten years manufacturing one hundred million consciousness field simulators and searching for a way to draw the scattered Mechanical Civilization fleets together. With no other plan to secure a route home for Academician Liu, Wen Zhonghua approved a risky scheme to lure the four-dimensional giant insect toward the enemy fleets and create an opening to escape.

• Gao Jianchuan and several commanders used the Reapers to copy consciousness field simulators, eventually producing one hundred million after more than ten years.
• Wen Zhonghua and the fleet considered and rejected plans to gather the Mechanical Civilization's scattered fleets, while worrying about returning Academician Liu and warning the Great Star Region Civilization.
• Li Zhixiong proposed sending the simulators among the Mechanical Civilization fleets to attract the giant insect and create a chance to break through.
• Wen Zhonghua agreed to the dangerous plan after insisting that Academician Liu's safety be guaranteed.
• The fleet scattered the simulators along the Matter River's edge, activated their consciousness field simulations, and sent them toward the Mechanical Civilization fleets.

The giant worm attacked the Reaper fleet, tearing through its defenses and pursuing the command ships across the Matter River. With the fleet nearing collapse, Academician Liu Bo summoned Wen Zhonghua, leaving the outcome of the pursuit unresolved.

• The giant worm descended near the Reaper fleet after sensing the simulated worm Consciousness Fields and charged at the ships.
• Wen Zhonghua ordered the Reapers to flee, but the worm caught them and destroyed millions with a dimensional strike.
• Wen Zhonghua sent twenty billion Reapers to attack the worm, but its defenses blocked pure antimatter and it soon resumed its assault.
• The worm repeatedly jumped through the fourth dimension, striking the fleet and killing billions while targeting the command ships.
• Wen Zhonghua regrouped the fleet and considered asking Hu Yu to open a four-dimensional passage as losses exceeded twenty billion Reapers.
• Gao Jianchuan told Wen Zhonghua that Academician Liu Bo wanted to see him, and Wen went to the logistics department with Li Zhixiong and Gao Jianchuan.

The fleet entered the Mirror Sub-Universe to escape the giant insect, which devastated the Mechanical Civilization as it pursued them. With the entrance guarded, Academician Liu proposed searching for another way out, and the fleet encountered Lord Zu again.

• Academician Liu urged the fleet to enter the danger zone, and the Reapers fled into the Mirror Sub-Universe while the giant insect pursued them.
• The giant insect entered the fourth dimension and destroyed nearly all of the Mechanical Civilization's 100 billion warships.
• Wen Zhonghua learned that the insect was guarding the entrance, and Academician Liu proposed finding an exit by traveling toward the Mirror Universe's distant boundary.
• Wen Zhonghua, Gao Jianchuan, and the fleet traveled deeper into the empty Mirror Sub-Universe until a huge orb of light approached.
• Academician Liu greeted Lord Zu, and Li Zhixiong told Wen Zhonghua that Lord Zu had helped them escape before.
• Academician Liu Bo asked Lord Zu what lay at the other end of the Mirror Sub-Universe.

Academician Liu and the fleet set out through shattered space in the Mirror Sub-Universe, relying on Lord Zu’s energy gift to search for a route back to the greater universe. After thousands of years without finding an exit, the fleet dwindled from billions of Reapers to just 1,500.

• Lord Zu warned Academician Liu that the spatial turbulence was dangerous, then gave the fleet a sphere of light containing enough energy for ten thousand years and sent it to the Mirror Sub-Universe’s edge.
• The Reapers advanced through shattered space with curvature travel impossible, and Academician Liu’s attempt to convert a Reaper’s Fourth Reversed State into energy destroyed the ship.
• Over ten thousand years, Wen Zhonghua arranged for the fleet’s population to grow from one million to over two million, while Hu Yu kept everyone studying.
• After the sphere of light vanished without the fleet finding an exit, Wen Zhonghua ordered Reapers dismantled for energy, and the fleet shrank to 1,500 ships after four thousand years.

Academician Liu guided the Reaper fleet through the shattered Mirror Sub-Universe and concluded that the growing space fragments meant they were nearing the greater universe. After nearly fifteen thousand years, sixty battered warships finally emerged into three-dimensional space, though their location remained unknown.

• Yang Fan asked General about the loss of contact with fifty billion warships, and General said the fleet was likely hidden in a dangerous area of the Matter River.
• Academician Liu observed that the space fragments were growing larger and more numerous, and told Wen Zhonghua they were nearing the greater universe.
• Academician Liu said he had worked out how to leave the Mirror Sub-Universe, but warned that the fleet might run out of energy before reaching the exit.
• As the Reaper fleet dwindled to a hundred ships, Academician Liu ordered the interstellar searchlights turned off, and the crew spotted faint starlight ahead.
• Eighty years later, sixty Reaper warships emerged into the three-dimensional greater universe, nearly out of energy.

Wen Zhonghua's fleet returned from the Mirror Sub-Universe to the Milky Way, reconnected with the Alliance, and revealed the Mechanical Civilization's presence in the insect zone. Years later, the Tree Race invited the Alliance to celebrate its elder count surpassing 13 billion.

• Wen Zhonghua's fleet reached the Milky Way and traveled to Tree Race territory, where he left Liu Bo, Chen Peng, and other personnel before returning to the Alliance base.
• Hu Yu welcomed Wen Zhonghua back and learned that the fleet had been gone for nearly fifteen thousand years in its own experience, though only decades had passed in the greater universe.
• Hu Yu warned the Yun San Civilization that the Mechanical Civilization had secretly developed in the insect zone, and the Yun San Civilization began searching for it.
• The humans reunited the families of Liu Bo, Chen Peng, and the other personnel with them on the Tree Race planet, while Hu Yu waited for a safe opportunity to bring back Liu Bo's technology.
• The Tree Race invited civilizations across the Alliance to celebrate its elder count exceeding 13 billion, granting humans one million invitations.

Hu Yu and the other guests attended the Tree Race's celebration, then secretly met Academician Liu Bo, who gave them a key and a storage device containing a heavily encrypted secret. Liu warned that the information must remain hidden until the fleet was stronger, leaving Hu Yu and Academician Zeng with a dangerous mystery to decode.

• Hu Yu led a vast fleet of visitors to the Tree Race's planets, where Ninety-Seven welcomed them and opened the planets for exploration.
• The Tree Race began its celebration with a grand aerial performance, and visitors set off to explore the planets with help from Tree Race members.
• A Tree Race member secretly led Hu Yu and Academician Zeng through a hidden passage to meet Academician Liu Bo.
• Liu warned Hu Yu and Zeng not to reveal his discovery until the fleet had more warships, and said the information itself had to be kept even more secret.
• Liu gave Zeng and Hu Yu a key to memorize and then handed Liu Bo's multidimensional spatial geometry notes to them, explaining that the key would reveal a different meaning in the data.

Hu Yu and Academician Zeng read Academician Liu Bo’s hidden book and learned how the Universe Membrane’s two-dimensional space had mirrored the fleet’s directions. The chapter ended with Liu’s discovery of Two-Dimensional Basic Space offering a way for the warships to return to base undetected.

• Academician Liu Bo gave Hu Yu and Academician Zeng his coded book and agreed to remain hidden on the Tree Race’s planet.
• Hu Yu and Academician Zeng returned to their respective planets after the Tree Race’s month-long celebration and began reading the book.
• Hu Yu learned that an unknown civilization had drawn the Small Star Sector Civilizations into searching for Zu, while Academician Zeng considered Liu’s Universe Membrane research important.
• Academician Liu’s findings explained that a two-dimensional layer in the Universe Membrane had formed an incomplete Möbius strip, swapping the fleet’s left and right while enveloping the warships in two dimensions.
• Academician Liu discovered Two-Dimensional Basic Space and realized that enough of it could cover the warships, allowing them to return to base without being detected or guided by Wen Zhonghua.

Academician Zeng studied Academician Liu’s ideas for two-dimensional warships and urged Academician Zhou Xiaohua to develop coordinate base stations for navigation in the fourth dimension. The fleet began designing a new generation of warships around Zeng’s plans, though they could not yet use the designs until they entered the fourth dimension.

• Academician Liu’s analysis showed that two-dimensionalized warships could conceal their internal structure and attack enemies from within, but extracting two-dimensional Basic Space would require the fleet to operate in the fourth dimension.
• After reading the book on multidimensional geometry, Academician Zeng visited Academician Zhou Xiaohua to discuss the unresolved problem of finding the three-dimensional universe from four-dimensional space.
• Academician Zhou proposed building coordinate base stations in the fourth dimension to help the fleet return, and said he could complete a plan within a hundred years.
• The fleet continued with only 30 billion Reapers after Wen Zhonghua used nearly all of its 120 billion warships, while Academician Zeng led the design of the next generation.
• Hu Yu overruled opposition and ordered the fleet to follow Academician Zeng’s unusual designs, which would only make sense after the warships were two-dimensionalized.
• The fleet began using energy extracted from the fourth dimension to produce purer materials faster, improving construction and sparing planets from dismantling.

After the Mechanical Civilization, the Great Star Region Civilizations, and the Insect Race fought a devastating battle, Daozi summoned Hu Yu to meet with the Heavenly Peak Civilization. Hu Yu learned that he was to attack the Fish Horse Star Civilization to draw out the force controlling it.

• Dongdong told Hu Yu that the Mechanical Civilization had been suppressed after a fierce three-way battle, though its ultimate fate was unknown.
• Daozi instructed Hu Yu to travel alone to coordinates thirty thousand light-years away, where someone was waiting for him.
• Hu Yu found a concealed spaceship inside a red supergiant and met Erguan, a special liaison officer of the Heavenly Peak Civilization.
• Erguan explained that the Fish Horse Star Civilization had been raising the Insect Race and hiding its base through space compression technology, while Daozi sought to uncover who controlled it.
• Erguan asked Hu Yu to attack the Fish Horse Star Civilization, which had two hundred to three hundred billion warships in its base, and promised its defensive-line fleets would not return to attack him.
• Hu Yu agreed to lead the attack on the Fish Horse Star Civilization.

Hu Yu learned from Erguan that the Fish Horse Star Civilization was linked to the hunt for a mastermind and that the Heavenly Peak Civilization wanted it destroyed. He began preparing humanity for an attack planned for 59000 AD, while a new Exterminator warship entered production.

• Erguan gave Hu Yu the Fish Horse Star Civilization's coordinates and warned him to keep their meeting secret.
• Hu Yu told Zhonghua that humanity would attack the Fish Horse Star Civilization, and the Human Civilization began planning and expanding production without involving the alliance.
• After a month of meetings, Hu Yu set the attack for 59000 AD and ordered preparations including a concealed entangled-photon deployment near the enemy's base.
• Hu Yu reflected on Erguan's explanation that the Heavenly Peak Civilization had tolerated the attack on the Star Ring Alliance because of the larger conflict with the Insect Race.
• The Human Civilization designed the forty-kilometer Exterminator warship, equipped with a more powerful space cannon, as production lines were refitted.

Hu Yu expanded humanity’s warship production and prepared the Star Ring Alliance for an eventual attack on the Fish Horse Star Civilization. The fleet still needed to solve key problems with four-dimensional travel and long-range hypersphere delivery, while the alliance’s civilizations began accelerating their preparations.

• Hu Yu’s production network used energy from the fourth dimension to supply more than a thousand planetary shipbuilding machines, which built Exterminators at a rate of over eight million per year.
• Academician Zhou Xiaohua’s coordinate base station technology enabled further research into four-dimensional travel, communication, and returning to the three-dimensional universe.
• Hu Yu reopened industrial planets so people could handle everyday production and farming while robots built more shipbuilding machines and warships.
• Alliance leaders asked Hu Yu to join the attack on the Fish Horse Star Civilization, and he urged them to advance their technology, expand their fleets, and produce antimatter.
• Hu Yu shared fourth-dimensional energy-extraction technology with the alliance’s other civilizations and hoped the nine technological civilizations could create an antimatter star for use against the Fish Horse Star Civilization.

Hu Yu helped the Xuan Star Civilization prepare to fight the Fish Horse Star Civilization, while the alliance investigated the mysterious disappearance of seven civilizations and their dependent populations. Dongdong warned Hu Yu and Wen Zhonghua that a hidden Great Star Region Civilization might be responsible and that humanity could be blamed.

• Hu Yu told Leader Xuan that the Xuan Star Civilization could prepare for battle, and Leader Xuan pledged to fight the Fish Horse Star Civilization even at the cost of his civilization.
• Over three hundred years, the Xuan Star Civilization raised its annual fleet production from eight million ships to twenty million as its citizens worked to build up its forces.
• Dongdong informed Hu Yu that the Hydra Civilization, the Flying Bear Civilization, the Falling Star Civilization, and four other Small Star Sector Intermediate Civilizations had disappeared.
• The Dark Moon Civilization found signs of battle where the seven civilizations and more than one hundred thousand lower civilizations had vanished.
• Dongdong told Hu Yu and Wen Zhonghua that an advanced Great Star Region Civilization was likely responsible and warned that humanity could be suspected because the missing civilizations had attacked the Star Ring Alliance.

Hu Yu prepared the Star Ring Alliance for possible attacks as Great Star Region Civilization warships watched the smaller civilizations, while humanity planned to destroy the Fish Horse Star Civilization. In 51035 CE, Feng Ye reported that he had developed a way to stabilize space, and Xuan Star leaders prepared to fight alongside humanity.

• Hu Yu discussed the danger of rumors and told Mr. Dongdong that the Star Ring Alliance needed to strengthen its defenses.
• Great Star Region Civilization warships appeared near Small Star Sector joint bases, and the Yun San Civilization left humanity free to attack the Fish Horse Star Civilization.
• The Star Ring Alliance's ten technological civilizations completed a small antimatter star after more than three thousand years of work.
• Feng Ye told Bi Cha and the Xuan Star leader that he had solved space stabilization by directing a force field to solidify selected areas of space.
• The Xuan Star leader and Bi Cha praised humanity's resolve and agreed to develop within the Star Ring Alliance and help destroy the Fish Horse Star Civilization and the Wind Star Civilization.