Chapter Summaries

After the Fish Horse Star Civilization’s leader died before he could be interrogated, Hu Yu discussed the alliance’s future with Wen Zhonghua and explained his plan to rebuild the Solar System. The alliance began returning to its new base, and Hu Yu sent a huge fleet to search for surviving Solar System planets.

• The Exterminators and Purgers finished cleaning the battlefield and began returning with the Fish Horse Star Civilization’s planet to the alliance’s new base.
• The captured leader of Fish Horse Star bit himself to death before Xuan Star soldiers could take him to Academician Xiao for interrogation.
• A distant Fish Horse Star creature celebrated that its civilization had finally been freed after more than two million years and vowed to claim the Milky Way.
• Hu Yu told Wen Zhonghua he had come to the Perseus Arm to rebuild the Solar System and planned to have Academician Zeng lead the work once Ninety-Seven arrived with the humans.
• Hu Yu outlined plans to spread the alliance across three spiral arms and sent a hundred billion Aquila Civilization warships to search for surviving Solar System celestial bodies.

Hu Yu and the Aquila Fleet found battered remnants of the Solar System and began rebuilding it with help from the alliance. After honoring fallen soldiers at the system’s former location, they cleared the surrounding space and collected its scattered matter for reconstruction.

• The Aquila Fleet discovered Triton and Neptune, then found Pluto’s moons, Sedna, Eris, comets, and Kuiper Belt asteroids over the following century.
• Academician Zeng and other scientists began planning the Solar System’s restoration and sought help studying gas planets, while allied civilizations offered technology.
• Hu Yu led humanity to the Solar System’s former coordinates, where they found the region filled with motionless debris from the Sun’s explosion.
• Hu Yu found the decaying Immortal and commemorated the more than 1.5 million soldiers who had died fighting the Sand Python Civilization with a monument bearing every name.
• Hu Yu borrowed the alliance’s spaceships to gather matter across the former Solar System, then enlisted trillions of robots to collect it over more than ten years.

The fleet completed the new Sun and began rebuilding Earth from carefully sorted materials, guided by detailed simulations. The new Earth regained roughly its former appearance, but its climate remained harsh and would take decades to stabilize.

• Academician Zeng modified a gravity bomb that drew scattered matter together, and the fleet formed it into a star over ten years before adjusting its rotation to 20.5 days.
• The newborn Sun restored light and heat to the ruined Solar System, while scientists turned their attention to rebuilding Earth.
• The fleet and allied civilizations gathered elements and manufactured compounds, and scientists used supercomputer simulations to reproduce Earth's geography, climate, and internal conditions, including underground shelters.
• Robots assembled the new Earth over twenty years, and transport ships poured water onto its irregular surface.
• The fleet transferred plants and animals to Earth, and within two years rain, rivers, and mountain ice returned, though the climate remained harsh.

Hu Yu completed the restoration of Earth and Tau Ceti, then met with Lord Yun San to discuss the growing insect threat and a joint fleet for the defensive line. He remained wary of the other Great Star Region Civilizations and planned to trust only the Heavenly Peak Civilization for deployment.

• Hu Yu restored Tau Ceti, preserved the old machines on Planet Three, and arranged a replacement for the missing Number One Planet.
• Hu Yu found Snow Star gone and wondered whether Yan Xue had taken the Snow Tribe somewhere beyond the fleet's searches.
• Hu Yu returned to the Solar System, where Earth had been restored and 350 million people from the Earth era had settled.
• Lord Yun San told Hu Yu that civilizations had disappeared from the defensive line and insects were increasing, and Hu Yu proposed sending a joint fleet of three hundred billion warships.
• Hu Yu withheld the discovery about Wind Star Civilization and decided to be cautious of the other Great Star Region Civilizations, relying on the Heavenly Peak Civilization.

Hu Yu expanded the alliance’s territory and planned for its population and member civilizations to grow while humanity developed stronger defenses. After analyzing the Fish Horse Star Civilization’s warships, the fleet gained new space-compression and dimensional technologies but postponed deciding how to deploy them.

• Hu Yu ordered the construction of stable four-dimensional passages between alliance civilizations and established coordinate base stations to help the Exterminator fleet respond to interference.
• Hu Yu selected twenty early Star-Level civilizations for development and gave them technology from the Gemini Civilization and Flying Bear Civilization while withholding the Fish Horse Star Civilization’s technology.
• Academician Zeng and others found little useful technology on the Fish Horse Star Civilization’s planet or battered command ship, but analyzed its warships in less than fifty years and learned how they compressed and cut space.
• Hu Yu and the others debated whether to build enormous new ships or copy the Fish Horse Star Civilization’s warships, then postponed the decision.
• Academician Zhou Xiaohua gained new dimensional technology from the warship analysis after studying four-dimensional problems for tens of thousands of years.

Hu Yu and the alliance advanced fourth-dimensional warfare and expanded their fleet as civilizations shared newly acquired technology. The alliance prepared for future threats while commanders trained for combat in the fourth dimension.

• Academician Zhou, assisted by Academician Liu, integrated the Fish Horse Star Civilization's dimensional technology to enable the fleet to navigate and fight in the fourth dimension, though computers and Superintelligent Robots still had to control attacks.
• Wen Zhonghua led generals through simulated fourth-dimensional combat exercises as Hu Yu anticipated the strain of learning its rules.
• Five years after the Yun San Civilization arrived, the alliance sent a joint fleet of 300 billion warships, including 20 billion Reapers, to the defense line, while the Aquila Civilization declined to contribute ships.
• Hu Yu moved Exterminator production into the fourth dimension and secretly used energy collisions to extract two-dimensionalized Basic Space, hoping to prepare the fleet for a Great Star Region Civilization.
• The Xuan Star Civilization designed the new Endeavor warship, and the Carina Civilization united its base near the Solar System under Argo Navis.
• Hu Yu shared the Gemini Civilization's technology tree and the Fish Horse Star Civilization's warships with the alliance's Small Star Sector Civilizations, which began analyzing them.

The Great Star Region Civilizations decided to rapidly cultivate many Small Star Sector Advanced Civilizations to help fight the growing insect threat. Yun San told Hu Yu that the plan would push the defensive line forward and revealed how a mysterious visitor had once united the galaxy against the swarm; the alliance’s civilizations accepted their role after hearing the reasons.

• The Great Star Region Civilizations agreed to expand the number of Small Star Sector Civilizations, despite concerns about provoking the Insect Emperor.
• Yun San told Hu Yu to distribute technology and support civilizations across the galaxy so they could build fleets within twenty thousand years.
• Yun San explained that the plan aimed to reduce the insect swarm and described how a mysterious visitor had once united the Great Star Region Civilizations and helped establish the defensive line.
• Yun San told Hu Yu that the visitor had left the Milky Way more than two million years earlier, while the Insect Emperor continued evolving and the insects’ origin, the Abyss, remained unreachable.
• The alliance’s Small Star Sector Civilizations objected to helping new civilizations advance, but Hu Yu’s explanation that they would supply critical components and build fleets quieted them.

Hu Yu organized the Star Ring Alliance to develop more than 250,000 low-level civilizations, while withholding restrictive technology from those already at Star System-Level. He continued building his fleet and preparing to return to the insect zone to find and capture Li Shun.

• Hu Yu decided not to give the 150 Star System-Level Civilizations the Yun San Civilization’s incomplete technology, preserving their own research paths.
• Hu Yu convened the Alliance’s leaders and formed more than 250,000 working groups to develop low-level civilizations across Alliance territory.
• The working groups helped civilizations unite, acquire knowledge, and advance, setting population-based thresholds for when they would receive new technology.
• Civilizations across the galaxy began similar development efforts, sending advanced ships to help low-level societies progress.
• Hu Yu continued expanding his fleet and improving reconnaissance in the insect zone, where ships and miniature craft were often destroyed.
• Hu Yu assigned the Alliance to find a way to locate Li Shun’s hideouts and capture him alive on a future expedition.

Hu Yu visited the fourth-dimensional defense line and learned how the great star region civilizations used enormous space-based weapons to compensate for weakened attacks. After leaving a hundred million Exterminators there, the rest returned to the restored Solar System while Academician Zeng continued researching four-dimensional attacks.

• Hu Yu learned that insect swarms had repeatedly attacked the defense line for more than two million years, wearing down both sides.
• In 61000 AD, ten billion Exterminators arrived near the defense line, where neutron-star pulsars created fourth-dimensional vortexes that even Exterminators avoided.
• The Yun San Civilization explained to Hu Yu that the great star region civilizations fought around huge space-based weapons because attacks and attack ranges were weakened in the fourth dimension.
• The Exterminators left a hundred million ships at the defense line and returned the rest to the Solar System, which had been fully restored.
• Academician Zeng continued researching fourth-dimensional attacks as Hu Yu’s scientists studied how energy, space, and light behaved in the fourth dimension.

Academicians Liu and Li investigated dimensional matter and the destructive potential of two-dimensional weapons while the fleet studied the defenses of the five advanced Great Star Region Civilizations. After a defensive weapon destroyed an invading insect by reducing space inside its body, the chapter ended with the insect region learning that the Great Star Region Civilizations were cultivating lower-level civilizations to reclaim the galaxy.

• Academician Liu and Academician Li failed to find four-dimensional basic space or matter and continued exploring how to synthesize matter with different dimensions.
• The academicians concluded that two-dimensional matter could enable powerful dimensional-reduction weapons, though two-dimensional warships would be vulnerable.
• Hu Yu watched a defensive weapon create three-dimensional space within four-dimensional space, causing a giant insect to explode.
• Academician Zeng and the other academicians concluded that the weapon had reduced space inside the insect, killing it from within.
• An official in the insect region told its head of state that the Great Star Region Civilizations were cultivating lower-level civilizations to reclaim the galaxy.

Li Shun and Wei Kaiyuan launched the Doomsday Plan, combining the brains of Number Three Base’s population with bugs to create a vast force of bug-people. They fled the galaxy with their fleet while scientists at Number Two Base worked to replicate a captured mechanical life-form, as new civilizations emerged in the Star Ring Alliance.

• Li Shun ordered the Doomsday Plan to begin, and Wei Kaiyuan confirmed that Number Three Base’s population qualified for it.
• Micro-robots carried the inhabitants’ brains into enormous bugs, creating bug-people whose own consciousnesses had dissipated and who could rapidly evolve by devouring other swarms.
• Li Shun sent the bugs across space, then led more than 300 billion warships away from the galaxy after the celestial bodies in the base exploded.
• At Number Two Base, scientists analyzed a captured mechanical life-form and were ordered to replicate it within 500 years while preventing it from developing an uncontrolled consciousness.
• More than a thousand small star sector junior civilizations had appeared in the Star Ring Alliance, all descended from stellar-level civilizations rather than star system-level ones.

Hu Yu strengthened the Star Ring Alliance while investigating abuses committed by its members and developing civilizations. The inquiry uncovered widespread misconduct, and Hu Yu focused on a group of more than thirty offenders that included five humans.

• Hu Yu limited developing civilizations’ access to warship technology and considered admitting those that could independently build capable warships into the Star Ring Alliance.
• Hu Yu learned that alliance members were abusing visitors and that some developing civilizations were attacking weaker neighbors, so he called an alliance meeting.
• The alliance leaders approved Hu Yu’s proposal to punish behavior that harmed the alliance’s interests or image and established more than 250,000 investigation teams.
• Investigators arrested more than three million alliance beings, including over 400,000 humans, and assigned punishments ranging from education to imprisonment.
• Hu Yu ordered seventeen developing civilizations to compensate those they had harmed and warned them against repeating their offenses.
• Hu Yu identified more than thirty serious offenders, including five humans, and decided that severe punishment was necessary.

Hu Yu punished criminals from advanced civilizations and later discovered a vast Mechanical Civilization fleet hiding beyond the galaxy. He sought to build enough ships to confront it, while the Alliance’s academicians developed four-dimensional molds for faster ship production.

• Hu Yu sentenced the beings who had committed crimes in other civilizations to death, and the executions were broadcast across the Alliance.
• In 63735 AD, a miniature spaceship detected a Mechanical Civilization fleet traveling beyond the galaxy, but the fleet soon slipped out of sight.
• Several hundred years later, Hu Yu’s miniature spaceship found the fleet again and revealed how it evaded detection by drawing energy from the fourth dimension while moving.
• Hu Yu decided he wanted to find the Mechanical Civilization and capture its lord, but its trillion ships outnumbered the Alliance’s fleet.
• Hu Yu and the academicians pursued injection-molding shipbuilding, researching four-dimensional molds and adapting equipment to use more Reversed State material.

The Alliance developed injection-molded warship production and completed testing of the new Conqueror, whose speed and weapons surpassed those of earlier ships. Hu Yu ordered the shipbuilding machines produced in secret, and the first Conqueror emerged from a mold in the fourth dimension.

• Academician Li Youwei improved Fifth Reversed State so it could be produced in quantities suited to injection molding, promising a major increase in warship output.
• The academicians developed the Conqueror, a triangular warship with powerful spatial weapons, continuous four-dimensional attacks, and a speed of 7,200 times the speed of light.
• Zhang Yuanshan tested the Conqueror and gathered feedback from one hundred thousand commanders, leading the academicians to make minor design changes.
• Hu Yu authorized production of the finalized mold-based shipbuilding machines and ordered the process kept secret.
• Robots fed energy into a concealed shipbuilding machine in the fourth dimension, and minutes later a completed Conqueror was sent to the three-dimensional universe.

Humanity rapidly produced Conquerors and strengthened its alliance while Hu Yu prepared to capture the Mechanical Civilization’s lord. In 67185 AD, five hundred billion Conquerors waited in fourth-dimensional space for the Mechanical Civilization’s fleet, but it failed to appear, leaving Hu Yu to wonder whether it had detected his plan.

• Robots completed the final work on the Conquerors, while production and management of the Exterminators shifted to robots.
• Humanity’s shipbuilding rate climbed to one hundred million ships a year as its alliance members advanced with help from the Alliance Science and Technology Conference.
• Hu Yu decided to target the Mechanical Civilization before pursuing Li Shun and aimed to capture its mechanical lord.
• In 67185 AD, five hundred billion Conquerors entered the fourth dimension and waited near the galaxy’s outskirts, where Hu Yu had placed coordinate base stations.
• After the Mechanical Civilization’s fleet failed to appear for a hundred years, Hu Yu wondered whether it had discovered his intentions.

Hu Yu searched for the Mechanical Civilization’s fleet and concluded that an unknown civilization was controlling it and had learned of the Conquerors’ movements. He halted the search to focus on fighting the bugs and ordered preparations to expand their robot forces.

• Hu Yu sent miniature spacecraft across the galaxy’s surroundings to search for the missing Mechanical Civilization fleet.
• A miniature spacecraft found spatial traces of the fleet, but the trail ended after several thousand light-years.
• Gao Jianchuan determined that the fleet had entered the fourth dimension less than 500 days earlier.
• Hu Yu told his companions that the fleet was likely controlled by a third party that had received information about their movements.
• Hu Yu decided not to pursue the fleet and ordered more hollow spheres and Superintelligent Robots to be prepared for the fight against the bugs.

Hu Yu concealed humanity’s growing fleet while the Star Ring Alliance and the galaxy’s civilizations built up immense forces. When all fleets were ordered to assemble at the defensive line, Hu Yu summoned the alliance’s leaders to Earth, where they eagerly anticipated retaking the galaxy.

• Hu Yu ordered the alliance to limit its public shipbuilding rate, hide secret fleets, and prepare for a coming war.
• Over the next several tens of thousands of years, millions of civilizations built fleets, and the galaxy’s total warships rose to nearly ten quintillion.
• The Star Ring Alliance expanded its forces, while humanity secretly stored its Conquerors in fourth-dimensional Reversed State spheres.
• Xuan Star Civilization and Aquila Civilization became great star region civilizations and strengthened the alliance’s military power.
• The alliance received orders to assemble its fleets at the defensive line, and Hu Yu called its leaders to Earth for an important announcement.
• The alliance’s leaders welcomed the order, with the six civilizations from the Insect Zone especially eager to retake the galaxy and rebuild their home.

Hu Yu sent the Alliance fleet to the defensive line to support the cultivated civilizations while preserving its strength and guarding the Solar System. The civilizations launched a massive counterattack against the bugs, but giant bugs broke through their formations and the battle settled into a stalemate.

• Hu Yu ordered civilians relocated to the Solar System, assigned Number One to guard the base, and told the Alliance fleet to muster.
• Hu Yu led the Alliance fleet toward the defensive line, where ten quintillion warships had gathered against an even larger bug swarm.
• The Conqueror broadcast a call for civilizations to push the defensive line forward and retake their homes, then fired the first antimatter bomb.
• Civilization fleets charged the swarm with spatial attacks, while giant bugs smashed through their formations and opened gaps in the line.
• The Conqueror and the Endeavor raced along the front to contain crises as both sides fought to a stalemate.

The Star Ring Alliance struggled to coordinate its inexperienced fleets as the defensive line advanced slowly against the swarm. After twenty years, Hu Yu saw that high-level bugs were increasing in three-dimensional space while the five advanced Great Star Region Civilizations fought a brutal fourth-dimensional war.

• Alliance commanders directed inexperienced civilizations in battle and stabilized the Star Ring Alliance's defensive line.
• The Conquerors and Endeavors helped the fleets advance, but after twenty years they had covered only a little over a hundred light-years and had not noticeably reduced the swarm.
• Hu Yu entered the fourth dimension and observed the five advanced Great Star Region Civilizations fighting increasingly powerful bugs.
• Hu Yu saw three civilizations use similar tactics and noted that bugs could create spatial passages to attack warships from within.

Hu Yu learned that the bugs could decompose four-dimensional space and faced a newly assembled swarm of a quintillion high-tier bugs threatening the defensive line. He turned to Academician Xiao for biological warriors capable of controlling bugs, preparing to use them while keeping their ability secret.

• The bugs decomposed four-dimensional space and destroyed a giant warship by breaking it into fragments.
• A quintillion bugs of at least tier 25 gathered near the Matter River, prompting Bi Cha to warn Hu Yu that they could reach the defensive line in six or seven years.
• Hu Yu refused to risk the two-dimensionalized Conquerors or antimatter planets, then went with Wen Zhonghua to Earth Two to seek another solution.
• Hu Yu told Academicians Xiao and Zeng about the swarm, and Xiao agreed to deploy his biological warriors despite his reservations.
• Academician Xiao explained that the biological warriors could invade bugs' brains and control bugs around tiers 25 to 27.