Chapter Summaries

Hu Yu agreed to divert the fleet to warn a planetary civilization that could be endangered by radiation from the Tau Ceti and Alpha Centauri explosions. After reaching the system and assessing the inhabited second planet, Hu Yu prepared to land there with several academicians.

• Yang Fan reminded Hu Yu that a planetary civilization would face a radiation storm in about three hundred years and proposed warning it.
• Hu Yu approved the detour and said the fleet would help the civilization if it deserved saving.
• The fleet left Alpha Centauri and reached the three-planet system after three years of travel.
• Hu Yu and Yang Fan reviewed survey data showing that the second planet could support life but had unsuitable air and unknown microorganisms.
• Hu Yu decided to land on the second planet with a small group despite Yang Fan's safety concerns.

Hu Yu and the scientists landed on Snow Star and encountered its rabbit-like inhabitants, whose chieftain welcomed them and asked why they had come. The chapter ended as Hu Yu prepared to answer the Snow Tribe’s questions.

• Hu Yu and the scientists landed their ship in a lake near a strange building to avoid damaging it.
• Hu Yu and his companions discovered that the planet’s civilized inhabitants were upright-walking rabbit-like creatures.
• A crowd of Snow Tribe members gathered around the visitors, and their chieftain arrived in a wooden cart.
• Academician Zeng’s instrument failed to translate the rabbits’ speech because it lacked enough varied data.
• The chieftain spoke understandable human language, welcomed the visitors to Snow Star, and asked where they came from and why they had arrived.

Hu Yu and Academicians Zeng and Xiao met the Snow Tribe chief, who had learned their language and welcomed them beneath Snow Star’s giant tree. Hu Yu warned the chief about shock waves from two detonated stars, and the chief revealed that the Snow Tribe had analyzed the humans and trusted them.

• The Snow Tribe chief greeted Hu Yu and explained that he had learned the humans’ language by processing data.
• Hu Yu, Academician Zeng, and Academician Xiao followed the chief to a giant tree and discussed their civilizations.
• Hu Yu recounted humanity’s battles with a hostile civilization and warned that shock waves from two exploding stars would reach Snow Star in a little over 300 years.
• Hu Yu told the chief that the human fleet was in orbit around the third planet and urged the Snow Tribe not to fear it.
• The chief said the Snow Tribe had analyzed the humans’ behavior and history, found their goodwill nearly certain, and trusted them.

The Snow Tribe chief explained that his people were a Planetary-Level Civilization on Snow Star, yet had once dominated the Milky Way and knew about humanity’s distant actions. He began recounting the Snow Tribe’s rise, its disastrous defeat in Andromeda, and the survivors’ flight to Sextans.

• Academician Zeng asked how the Snow Tribe knew about humanity’s actions on Tau Ceti and Alpha Centauri, and the chief said his people had once surpassed Great Star Region Civilization despite their current planetary-level technology.
• The chief described how the Snow Tribe emerged on ancient Snow Star and used its rapid thinking to develop quickly amid the early universe’s violent conditions.
• The Snow Tribe’s first chief unified the Milky Way after defeating millions of advanced civilizations, then made the disastrous decision to invade Andromeda.
• The Snow Tribe’s fleet suffered a crushing defeat in Andromeda, and oppressed Milky Way civilizations turned against the weakened Snow Tribe.
• The first chief died after failing to save his people, and the second chief led the remaining millions to escape to Sextans.

The Snow Tribe patriarch told Hu Yu and the others how his people fled to Sextans, shed most of their technology, and returned to the Milky Way five billion years ago. After revealing that he had secretly observed their recent battles, he reflected on the Milky Way’s lost civilizations, and Hu Yu asked whether he knew about the Insect Race.

• The patriarch recounted how the Snow Tribe escaped to Sextans, genetically removed most selfish desires, and lived peacefully until the second patriarch urged them to return to the Milky Way.
• The patriarch said he led the Snow Tribe back five billion years ago, found Snow Star still intact, and hid their ships and technology there.
• Academician Xiao asked about the patriarch’s age, and he explained that he was five billion years old and nearing the end of his life.
• Hu Yu asked how the Snow Tribe knew about Tau Ceti and Alpha Centauri, and the patriarch described their ancient warships and hidden high-dimensional observation channels.
• Hu Yu admitted that he had considered taking the Snow Tribe’s technology, and the patriarch said controlling selfish desires was better than eliminating them.
• The patriarch described the Milky Way’s decline after the Snow Tribe left, and Hu Yu asked whether he knew about the Insect Race.

Hu Yu urged the Snow Tribe's patriarch to abandon the past and pursue technological development, then prepared to leave Snow Star with a gift of advanced technology and a warning about outside interference in the war with the Sand Python Civilization. The patriarch introduced Yan Xue as a candidate to lead the Snow Tribe, leaving Hu Yu awkwardly answering the young rabbit's question about how to address him.

• Hu Yu urged the Snow Tribe's patriarch to look toward the future and lead his people back to technological development.
• The patriarch agreed to gather the Snow Tribe to discuss development and offered humanity the grand unified model of the four fundamental forces.
• The patriarch warned Hu Yu that an unknown Small Star Sector Civilization was secretly involved in humanity's war with the Sand Python Civilization.
• Hu Yu offered the Snow Tribe human music and genetic technology, but the patriarch declined the life-extension offer and spoke of his approaching death.
• The patriarch introduced Yan Xue as a candidate for the next patriarch, and Yan Xue asked Hu Yu what he should call him.

Hu Yu said farewell to the Snow Tribe after giving Yan Xue a surviving J-90 fighter as a gift, then led the fleet back into its search for a planet to terraform. After twenty years and more than a thousand surveyed planets, the fleet received another possible lead that still needed investigation.

• Hu Yu accepted Yan Xue as his little brother but declined to keep the fleet on Snow Star.
• Hu Yu gave Yan Xue a J-90 fighter and departed with the fleet for the third planet.
• Hu Yu and the fleet continued searching for a planet with an atmosphere, a magnetic field, and Earth-like gravity.
• After surveying more than a thousand rocky planets over twenty years, the fleet detected a possible target twenty light-years ahead and prepared to investigate.

The Deep Blue Fleet discovered a planet overrun by high-tier insects and stayed behind to study and attack the swarm. Hu Yu left most of the fleet moving onward while preparing a battle, and the biologists continued investigating how the insects had reached the system without a First-Tier Mother Insect in sight.

• A survey ship found a planet and its surrounding space completely covered by giant insects, including creatures as high as the sixteenth tier.
• Hu Yu ordered the Deep Blue Fleet and eight million Stealth Killers to bypass the system, leaving two million Stealth Hunter-Killers and the biology ship behind.
• Ten Stealth Killers deployed disguised satellites to gather insect data and check nearby star systems for signs of the swarm.
• Biologists aboard the biology ship identified high-tier insects and asked Hu Yu for live specimens; Hu Yu promised to leave some after the attack.
• Hu Yu decided to attack the swarm for combat experience and warned that the fleet would destroy the star if the insects proved too powerful.
• Academician Xiao noted that the satellites had found no First-Tier Mother Insect and asked whether the swarm had arrived in four-dimensional space bubbles.

Hu Yu and the others discussed how the Insect Race evolved and deployed insects through higher-dimensional channels, and how humanity’s high-energy experiments may have attracted the swarm. An academician proposed testing the fleet’s biological warriors, and the general agreed to go see them, though they were still small and needed food to grow.

• Hu Yu said the team could not determine whether the Insect Race had evolved mother insects or transported higher-tier insects directly.
• Hu Yu and the general considered whether the alien civilization had drawn mother insects by piercing space and whether the insects had consumed the remaining swarm.
• The chapter explained how high-energy experiments opened channels to the fourth dimension, allowing the Insect Race to locate and invade civilizations.
• The account described how mother insects and higher-tier insects were deployed differently and recalled humanity’s battles with sixth-tier insects.
• An academician proposed sending the biological warriors into combat, and the general agreed to inspect them despite their small size and need for food.

Hu Yu inspected Academician Xiao’s miniature biological warriors and approved their deployment against the insect swarm. The warriors infiltrated the swarm, triggering widespread fighting among the insects and killing more than a billion within an hour.

• Hu Yu toured the Deep Blue and saw the fist-sized biological warriors, which Academician Xiao demonstrated were docile around their handlers.
• Academician Xiao released the warriors from their chambers, and they swarmed over the biologists before forming orderly ranks.
• Hu Yu agreed to test the warriors, and a thousand Stealth Killers transported them toward the insect swarm.
• The Stealth Killers launched the hundred million warriors into the swarm, where they entered giant insects and attacked them from within.
• The insects fell into chaos and killed one another as the biological warriors slew more than a billion with almost no losses.

Academician Xiao and the fleet studied captured Insect Race worms while testing biological warriors, whose early success against weak worms gave way to heavy losses against a powerful worm king. The fleet decided to end the experiment, collect more specimens, and catch up with the Deep Blue as another fleet approached Hu Yu.

• Stealth Killers captured a giant centipede-like worm, and Academician Xiao and the biologists dissected it to study its organs and anatomy.
• Hu Yu left the dissection after watching the worm's involuntary struggles.
• After more than three months, the grown biological warriors fought the Insect Race, killing billions of weak worms but losing over fifty million warriors to the worm king and its swarm.
• Academician Xiao told the general that the test had provided the data needed to redesign the next generation of biological warriors.
• The general ordered the Stealth Killers to wipe out the swarms and capture worms, while a fleet of five thousand warships advanced toward Hu Yu from one light-year away.

Hu Yu’s forces launched a fleet assault on the insect swarm, beginning the first major battle between human warships and the Insect Race. Lieutenant General Li Zhixiong directed the Stealth Killers from the Deep Blue as both sides suffered heavy losses, and the fight remained underway.

• Two hundred thousand Stealth Killers attacked the planet with antimatter bombs, killing millions of insects but barely reducing the swarm’s combat strength.
• The insect king organized the swarm’s counterattack, and the insects engulfed the Stealth Killers with overwhelming numbers.
• Lieutenant General Li Zhixiong commanded the battle remotely from the Deep Blue, dividing the battlefield into 360 sectors and issuing orders to the fleet.
• The insects attacked ships with claws, fangs, explosive energy spheres, and disabling paste spheres, inflicting substantial losses on the Stealth Killers.
• A Stealth Killer operator restarted the ship’s engine as an insect struck it, burning away the insect’s claw and part of its head.

Li Zhixiong’s fleet turned the battle against the insect swarm, then captured the insect king alive—though the king was left barely breathing. Academician Xiao welcomed the prize for study as Hu Yu teased Li Zhixiong about his botched capture.

• Li Zhixiong told Hu Yu the Stealth Killers were winning and proposed grouping them to attack the remaining high-tier insects.
• Hu Yu asked Li Zhixiong to capture the insect king alive, and Li Zhixiong promised to bring one back.
• The Stealth Killers surrounded and killed high-tier insects while two nuclear-bomb-loaded ships exploded beside the insect king, badly wounding it.
• The insect king’s defeat sent the swarm fleeing, and a Stealth Killer bound it with an alloy cable and dragged it toward a biological ship.
• Academician Xiao and the biologists celebrated the capture, while Hu Yu criticized Li Zhixiong for delivering the king near death.

Hu Yu confronted a five-thousand-ship fleet from the Wind Star Civilization, which revealed that it knew of humanity and might resume a plan to exterminate it. He defeated the fleet with the Stealth Killers, then discovered its crew had been killed with shocking ease by gravity bombs.

• Hu Yu ordered Li Zhixiong to escort the biology ship away while he stayed behind with 1.9 million Stealth Killers to face the arriving fleet.
• Hu Yu learned that the newcomers were the Wind Star Civilization, an advanced civilization that had once been ordered to hunt humanity and might now restart its extermination plan.
• Hu Yu encircled the Wind Star fleet before it could escape and attacked with gravity bombs, while the enemy ships barely responded.
• Hu Yu halted the attack after the five thousand ships fell silent and sent reconnaissance satellites to inspect them.
• Hu Yu discovered that the beings inside the Wind Star ships had been reduced to mangled flesh, and realized gravity bombs had destroyed the fleet far more easily than expected.

Hu Yu discovered that the Wind Star Civilization’s ships were transports carrying frozen intelligent beings as food for the Insect Race, and concluded the Wind Star People could not control the swarm. He planned to investigate Wind Star using remotely controlled clones and prepare to conquer the civilization.

• A landing robot entered a Wind Star ship and revealed that its interior was packed with frozen creatures, most of them members of civilizations, explaining the ships’ weak weapons and poor maneuverability.
• The science ship connected to a ship’s control system, opened its control room, and identified the dead Wind Star People as small, slender beings with long hair and six limbs.
• Hu Yu learned from the navigation charts that the Wind Star fleet had traveled four thousand light-years to feed the Insect Race, and suspected the Wind Star People could not control it.
• Hu Yu ordered Academician Zeng to decipher the Wind Star People’s language and records, and Academician Xiao to recreate their bodies for remote control.
• Hu Yu told the others he would investigate Wind Star through controlled clones and ordered Zhonghua to find planetary systems for preparations to seize the Wind Star Civilization.

Hu Yu and his fleet cleared the Wind Star warships, collected samples, and prepared cloned Wind Star People to infiltrate the repaired fleet. After confirming that the fleet had sent no message home, Hu Yu set out to follow its route and investigate the Wind Star civilization while Wen Zhonghua prepared a new base.

• Hu Yu sent robots to guide five thousand Wind Star warships into a star, where their frozen occupants were burned, while biologists collected samples from the remaining Wind Star People.
• Academician Zeng arrived and led scientists in searching the warships for emergency communication systems; they found no evidence that the fleet had contacted its homeworld.
• Hu Yu practiced controlling a cloned Wind Star person and learned that the clones needed monthly medication and that their controllers should speak sparingly to avoid suspicion.
• Hu Yu and Academician Xiao discussed the fleet's low rank and suspected that the Wind Star People had hunted Mr. Daozi and humanity because he had stolen information about their feeding the Insect Race.
• Wen Zhonghua reported finding a suitable star system and began surveying it as Hu Yu ordered preparations for a base and new warships.
• Hu Yu and more than fifty thousand selected people took control of the repaired Wind Star warships near Insect Star, imitating their former crews and routines.

Hu Yu’s fleet reached JD3 and discussed giving its people a planetary home before attacking the Wind Star Civilization. As the infiltration fleet neared Wind Star territory, it discovered extensive surveillance and defenses, making a sneak attack appear nearly impossible.

• Hu Yu and the fleet returned to JD3, where he asked Academician Zeng to assess whether one of its six planets could be terraformed for the people.
• Academician Zeng identified planet six as a possible candidate but warned that its high gravity and the risk of discovery could force the fleet to evacuate.
• Hu Yu said the fleet would attack the Wind Star Civilization, acquire its technology, settle its people, and eventually seek out the leader and Minister Luo Zhigao.
• Hu Yu watched Wind Star satellites relay messages by pulling distant space close, and considered the possible military uses of the technology.
• As the fleet approached Wind Star territory, Hu Yu found surveillance satellites and hidden fleets along the route, then saw the warships switch to conventional engines one light-year from the territory.
• Hu Yu observed dense patrol fleets, gun platforms, and mines guarding Wind Star territory, and concluded that a quiet large-scale infiltration was nearly impossible.

Hu Yu’s fleet reached the Wind Star Civilization’s densely populated core territory, where he used cloned Wind Star People to gather intelligence while posing as the transport captain Si Luo. He left the dock after secretly agreeing to help Feng Jun obtain specialties from planet 97 in exchange for half the profits.

• Hu Yu saw the Wind Star Civilization’s vast defenses and more than a thousand engineered life-bearing planets as his fleet approached its home star.
• The Wind Star fleet docked at a space-based facility, and Hu Yu sent his cloned crew leaders inside while the ordinary crew remained aboard.
• Hu Yu, posing as Si Luo, talked with Feng Jun and used gathered information to convincingly imitate Si Luo’s habits.
• Si Luo told Feng Jun that his fleet had been assigned three hundred mission planets and had visited ten planets on each of two trips.
• Feng Jun asked Si Luo to bring back specialties from planet 97, and they agreed to split the profits equally.

Hu Yu learned that the Wind Star Civilization had enslaved more than a thousand lower-level civilizations to breed creatures for insect swarms. He continued the transport mission with Feng Jun’s hair, planning to use the clone and his connections to gather more information later.

• Hu Yu and the science ship pieced together the Wind Star People’s history and learned that their leader had ordered the capture of more than a thousand life-bearing planets.
• The Wind Star People stripped the captured civilizations of technology and forced their inhabitants to breed creatures, including sapient beings, for the insect swarms.
• Hu Yu learned that the Wind Star People had suppressed opposition to the breeding program and lived apart from the breeding bases on planets in the fourth orbit.
• Hu Yu abandoned plans to investigate the Wind Star People’s home planets to avoid raising suspicion and decided to complete his fleet’s mission.
• Hu Yu kept one of Feng Jun’s long hairs to serve as a way to observe the dock and planned to pass it to a biologist on the way to Insect Star.
• Hu Yu planned to return with the cloned Feng Jun and replace him on a later visit to gain more information through Feng Jun’s connections.

Hu Yu’s first infiltration operation succeeded as human-controlled Wind Star warships transported enslaved civilizations toward the bug planet. Back in the JD3 Planetary System, the fleet began a massive arms buildup, and Hu Yu chose to swap the sixth and third planets to create a more livable home.

• Hu Yu watched enslaved civilizations board the Wind Star warships and broadcast the scene to the fleet as a warning about the costs of weakness.
• Hu Yu dismissed plans to infiltrate the Wind Star People by replacing them individually and accepted that he could not save the captives aboard the ships.
• The 5,000 human-controlled warships departed for the bug planet, beginning a long-term infiltration route into Wind Star territory.
• Hu Yu ordered the JD3 Planetary System to operate at full capacity and told Academician Zeng to pause warship designs while the fleet stockpiled materials and equipment.
• Academician Zeng Zhaoyuan and other physicists studied ways to reduce the sixth planet’s gravity, and Hu Yu chose to swap it with the third planet.