Chapter Summaries

After the Three Universal Civilizations announced their victory over the World Tree expedition, Han Xiao considered using the lull to enter a Sanctuary and revive more Beyond Grade As. The Heart Tree King planned to wait for his forces to revive and find a way to eliminate Aurora, whose healing had undermined their tactics.

• The Three Universal Civilizations announced that they had repelled the invaders, killing over a hundred enemy Beyond Grade As at the cost of six of their own and winning public praise.
• Dilron refused to join future battles, but Oathkeeper urged Baigel to fight and hinted that Black Star had another way to bring the dead back; Baigel decided to visit the front.
• Mabrus presented rewards to the Beyond Grade As, including Universal Treasures, while several fighters thanked Aurora for keeping them alive.
• Han Xiao considered entering a Sanctuary to revive more historical Beyond Grade As and planned to wait until he confirmed the World Tree would not attack again soon.
• The Heart Tree King learned that four World Tree combatants had been captured and ordered his forces to find a way to kill Aurora before their next operation.

Han Xiao announced plans to revive fallen Beyond Grade As and learned that Baigel would join the war, while Oathkeeper reported strong progress on the Sanctuary Keys. In Netherland, Han Xiao calmed newly gathered heroic spirits by explaining their situation and promising they could be released after the war, leaving Hila to manage them.

• Han Xiao told the Beyond Grade As he planned to revive six fallen comrades and historical powerhouses through Sanctuary Revival.
• Baigel told Han Xiao that he and several revived Beyond Grade As would join the war, while Dilron refused to fight.
• Han Xiao learned from Oathkeeper that most Sanctuary Keys were at least three-quarters complete, then received Hyperion's offer to fight in future battles.
• Hila brought Han Xiao to Netherland, where Onicelu had silenced and contained newly arrived heroic spirits who were protesting their captivity.
• Han Xiao explained that Netherland had saved the fallen soldiers, promised to release anyone who wished to rest after the war, and left Hila to organize them.

Han Xiao arranged Sanctuary Revival for the Three Universal Civilizations and the Super Star Cluster Alliance in exchange for resources, while requiring the revived Beyond Grade As to join the war. After preparing his forces and handing command to his officers, he entered the First Sanctum, leaving the main universe for about three months.

• Han Xiao offered to revive the Three Universal Civilizations’ direct descendants if they provided his requested resources and sent the revived fighters to the front lines.
• The Three Universal Civilizations agreed, supplied the requested mediums, and learned that Han Xiao would also revive some of the Super Star Cluster Alliance’s direct descendants.
• Han Xiao promised the Super Star Cluster Alliance ten revival slots and offered another ten in a later batch, which its leaders eagerly accepted.
• Han Xiao instructed Hila and the senior officers to command his army and protect Aurora while he was gone.
• Oathkeeper opened the Sanctuary passage, and Han Xiao entered the First Sanctum as the passage vanished.

Han Xiao entered the First Sanctum, activated Sanctuary Revival, and gathered a large trove of advanced mechanical technology before reading newly revealed records about the Information State Stripping Plan. While he remained inside, the Beyond Grade As at the main base discussed the complications and personal anxieties surrounding the historical figures he planned to revive.

• Han Xiao stabilized the Sanctuary passage, activated Sanctuary Revival, and collected revival information and advanced mechanical blueprints until his level-eight access memory was full.
• Han Xiao examined the First Sanctum message board and learned that a past civilization had devised an Information State Stripping Plan to survive the Great Restart.
• At the interception circle's main base, Kasuyi, Sun Hunter, Milizaus, Kant, Hila, Baigel, and Heber discussed the troublesome ties and old grudges among the Beyond Grade As Han Xiao intended to revive.
• Manison worried that his Machine Race ancestor's return could threaten his leadership of the Machine Race.
• Clottey and Oulu discussed the former loyalists' coming revival, while Clottey privately recalled his training under the previous Pillar of the Nation.

Simon and the Three Universal Civilizations confronted a new World Tree strategy using Raelbo Space Protection Belts and coordinated over-the-horizon bombardment positions. Kant's expedition discovered the protected bases but came under attacks from multiple directions, leaving Simon and the commanders unsure how to respond without Black Star.

• Simon reported that World Tree attacks on the space stabilization anchor tracks had declined while reconnaissance activity and signs of distant targeting increased.
• The World Tree launched over-the-horizon strikes that destroyed hundreds of branches, and the Three Universal Civilizations' counterfire failed to reach the attackers.
• Simon sent Kant and nine other Beyond Grade As to destroy the bombardment positions and seize a Raelbo Space Protection Belt.
• Kant's fleet found a cluster of bases protected by a Raelbo Space Protection Belt, but its missiles were intercepted and Kant could not breach the bases' firewall.
• The World Tree struck Kant's expedition from multiple directions with coordinated over-the-horizon fire, and Manison warned that the enemy had built a mutually supporting network of hidden positions.

Simon and the Three Universal Civilizations used Spacetime Shearing Technology to destroy World Tree linked bases and captured a Raelbo Space Protection Belt device, but a World Tree virus nearly infiltrated their network before Manison stopped it. The sides remained in a stalemate until Han Xiao returned from the Sanctuary after roughly two months.

• Simon and the commanders agreed to use Space-Time Shearing suicide squads to attack World Tree bases while seeking ways to locate them and capture a Raelbo Space Protection Belt.
• Frenzied Saber and other players joined the suicide missions, and their fleets breached the Raelbo Space Protection Belt and destroyed several World Tree bases.
• The Three Universal Civilizations used normal fleets led by high-level combatants to capture a Raelbo Space Protection Belt device and bring it to the interception circle for analysis.
• A latent World Tree virus hidden in the captured device tried to breach the research institute's firewall, but Manison contained it before it could steal information.
• The Three Universal Civilizations and the World Tree traded attacks for roughly two months, and Han Xiao returned from the Sanctuary.

After returning from the First Sanctum, Han Xiao learned that the World Tree’s distant network of camps had stalled the Three Universal Civilizations’ efforts to locate and intercept it. He shared a powerful detection technology from the Sanctum and prepared to revive another batch of people, ordering the Beyond Grade As to help keep the reluctant recruits under control.

• Han Xiao returned from the First Sanctum with access level eight and called Simon, who briefed him on the World Tree’s connected camps and the stalled interception efforts.
• Han Xiao recognized that the First Sanctum’s technical data included a detection technology suited to finding distant enemy camps, and he reflected that it could strengthen the Three Universal Civilizations’ war effort.
• Han Xiao told Simon and the Oathkeeper that Sanctuary Revival had succeeded and that he needed the other Beyond Grade As present for its final step.
• At the main base, Han Xiao reviewed the battle reports and showed Simon and the others the detection technology, proposing that the Three Universal Civilizations build its framework while he handled its core.
• Han Xiao directed the Beyond Grade As to accompany him to the revival site and keep the newly revived people under control as they were asked to join the war.

Han Xiao revived a mixed group of historical Beyond Grade As and explained that an invading universe-level civilization threatened their home. As he asked them to join the war voluntarily, support from some revived members was challenged by refusals, including Hilbert Muller’s, whose words swayed others.

• Han Xiao activated sanctuary revival on a silver planet, bringing more than a hundred historical Beyond Grade As back to life as the other Beyond Grade As watched.
• Hilbert Muller recognized that the revived group had returned from death, and Han Xiao introduced himself and explained sanctuary revival.
• Rive recognized Clottey and greeted him before Han Xiao interrupted their reunion to explain the external invasion and request their help in the war.
• Han Xiao promised the revived people would not be forced to fight, while Mabro took a communicator to consult the super star cluster upper echelons.
• Rive and several others from the Three Universal Civilizations agreed to fight, but Garoze and other recently revived Association members refused.
• Hilbert Muller also refused, saying he had already fulfilled his duty to the Arcane Church, and his argument caused other revived members to reconsider joining the war.

After Hilbert asked to retire, Han Xiao agreed that the Three Universal Civilizations would pay for his revival but ordered the revived Supers confined. Igor Vanaz led a breakout attempt and tried to seize Aurora, so Han Xiao killed him and Hila sent his soul to the Netherland, warning the others that Black Star could take back their lives.

• Hilbert asked to leave the Three Universal Civilizations’ service, and Han Xiao said they would still pay the full cost of his revival.
• Han Xiao ordered the revived Supers held under house arrest, while Garoze and his companions were allowed to join the Beyond Grade As.
• Igor Vanaz rejected confinement and led several revived Supers in an attack to break out.
• Manison, Kasuyi, and other Beyond Grade As fought the rebels, and Aurora healed the injured Motes.
• Igor Vanaz charged at Aurora to take her hostage, prompting Han Xiao to restrain and bombard him until he died.
• Hila extracted Igor Vanaz’s soul and sent it to the Netherland, warning the revived Supers not to resist.

Hila and Han Xiao subdued the revived Supers, and Han Xiao persuaded them to join the war by promising unlimited Sanctuary Revival. The revived Supers boarded a ship for the interception zone, while the Three Universal Civilizations remained convinced that Han Xiao’s promise was a lie.

• Hila warned the revived Supers that further trouble would send them to Netherland, and Han Xiao’s killing of Igor Vanaz deterred them from resisting.
• Han Xiao offered the revived Supers permanent Sanctuary Revival if they fought in the war, and Hilbert agreed the deal was worth making.
• The revived Supers boarded Han Xiao’s ship and traveled toward the interception zone, where they began reconnecting with contemporary Beyond Grade As.
• The Three Universal Civilizations’ leaders thanked Han Xiao, asked why Gaud had not been revived, and questioned whether Sanctuary Revival was unlimited.
• Han Xiao advised the leaders to assume his claim was a lie and to keep the revived Supers from learning the truth, and they agreed.

Han Xiao dealt with the revived Beyond Grade As as old leaders began asserting claims over their former legacies, while he and Hila brought Igor Vanaz to the Netherland. Meanwhile, the World Tree traced its intelligence leaks to precognitives and chose to keep the channel open for a possible trap.

• Han Xiao welcomed Nifogadi's challenge to spar and invited neutral revived Beyond Grade As and former subordinates to join the Beyond Grade A Association, drawing objections from Oulu and Clottey.
• Nifogadi asked Manison to announce his return to the Machine Race, while Manison privately resolved to protect his leadership and interests.
• Marsebo Dittmerit promised Milizaus a dragon-language secret technique that could shrink him without reducing his combat power.
• Han Xiao and Hila confined the defiant Igor Vanaz in the Netherland, making him its ninth Heroic Spirit King.
• The Heart Tree King learned that future-state perceivers were connected to the World Tree's leaked deployments and ordered the precognition channel kept available as a potential trap.

News of the revived Beyond Grade As boosted morale, while Bennett completed Planet Aquamarine’s evacuation under Ames’s escort. As the revived trained at the interception perimeter, Han Xiao considered the World Tree’s diminishing intelligence leaks and challenged them to spar.

• News that Black Star had revived historical Beyond Grade As spread through the armies and interstellar society, raising morale and prompting the Mechanic Faith’s bishops to debate his new honored name.
• Bennett supervised Planet Aquamarine’s citizens as they settled on a new world, and Ames ended her escort and left Dragon Calm to protect them before heading toward the front lines.
• Contemporary Beyond Grade As sparred with the revived, helping them recover their strength and exchange knowledge; Milizaus made progress mastering a dragon-language art that compressed his body.
• Han Xiao reviewed the players’ rapid leveling from suicide missions and considered whether the World Tree had detected the Child of Destiny’s intelligence channel and might feed it false information.
• After the sparring ended, Han Xiao opened a wide-area channel and invited the revived to fight him, promising to go easy.

Han Xiao sought a sparring partner among the newly awakened Revivors to trigger a challenge mission, and Kurr stepped forward. After Han Xiao and his Apostle Weapon fought Kurr for twenty minutes, Han Xiao returned to base and received a choice of five abilities to draw from him.

• Han Xiao invited the Revivors to spar, but they hesitated until Kurr volunteered and asked for his freedom if he gained the upper hand.
• Han Xiao triggered a challenge mission and fought Kurr, using Heaven Suppressing Flag to keep the match going for twenty minutes.
• Han Xiao defeated Kurr and asked for another opponent, but none of the Revivors accepted.
• Han Xiao returned to the army base, claimed his mission reward, and received five of Kurr's abilities to choose from.

Han Xiao chose and maxed out Azure Dragon Bind, while Pangon refused to exploit the World Tree invasion immediately and instead proposed gathering space pirates. The Three Universal Civilizations regained the initiative with new detection technology, but after months of fighting the World Tree began mobilizing an offensive exceeding two hundred billion troops, prompting Han Xiao to call an emergency meeting.

• Han Xiao chose Azure Dragon Bind, raised it to lv10, and accepted Ames’s request to bring her to the front line.
• Pangon rejected his companions’ plan to attack the Three Universal Civilizations during the invasion and proposed uniting space pirates before making a move.
• The Three Universal Civilizations used new observation devices to reveal the World Tree’s hidden camps, and players destroyed the strongholds, letting the space stabilization track resume expanding.
• The World Tree launched two major fleet assaults, but the Three Universal Civilizations repelled them with help from Han Xiao’s war technology and advance warnings from the Child of Destiny monitoring channel.
• After more than half a year of fighting, the World Tree mobilized an offensive larger than the previous three combined, exceeding two hundred billion troops, and Han Xiao convened an emergency meeting.

The Three Universal Civilizations prepared for a World Tree assault reportedly involving two hundred billion troops, while Han Xiao suspected the enemy would also deploy powerful combatants. The Heart Tree King confirmed he would lead the attack in person, intending to counter Aurora and relying on the Anchor Tree King's forces for support.

• Simon briefed the commanders on the reported two-hundred-billion-strong World Tree army and the vulnerabilities in the defense lines, and Han Xiao warned that the intelligence could be a deception.
• Kasuyi wondered whether the World Tree had found a way to restrict Aurora, while Han Xiao cautioned Ames about enemy powerhouses and joked that she should use Milizaus as a shield.
• Rotel trained Carrot and marveled at his rapidly accelerating progress toward Beyond Grade A.
• Tedrian reported that the World Tree had sent intelligence through its seer unit, and the Heart Tree King hoped it would draw the enemy's attention.
• The Heart Tree King said he would lead the assault to counter Aurora and asked the Anchor Tree King to take charge if he died; the Anchor Tree King offered his Dominion doppelganger, Apostle Weapons, and mechanical army.

The World Tree used a prolonged war of attrition to destroy the Three Universal Civilizations' space anchoring tracks, then overwhelmed the interception ring with waves of reinforcements. As the ring began to buckle and Han Xiao considered the worsening invasion, a Tree King finally entered the battle.

• The World Tree fleet deployed protective belts and swept through the Three Universal Civilizations' space anchoring tracks, forcing them into costly local battles and a strategic retreat.
• After three months, the World Tree destroyed the tracks at the cost of nearly a hundred billion troops and advanced toward the interception ring on April 6, Galaxy Calendar Year 784.
• The Three Universal Civilizations initially gained the upper hand at the interception ring, but successive World Tree reinforcements turned the fighting into an exhausting war of attrition.
• After nearly a month of continuous fighting, the first two defense belts were breached, and Kasuyi warned Han Xiao that the interception ring might not hold.
• A new World Tree fleet arrived with a Tree King's aura, drawing Han Xiao's and the other Beyond Grade As' attention as the battle worsened.

The Three Universal Civilizations sent their Beyond Grade As to attack Heart Tree King Minajol, hoping to disrupt the World Tree assault, while Aurora healed a wounded ally from the fleet. Anchor Tree King then emerged as an unexpected opponent for Han Xiao, and Minajol launched a mental attack toward Aurora.

• Heart Tree King Minajol led World Tree experts into the battle to bait the Three Universal Civilizations' high-level combatants into a costly fight.
• Han Xiao agreed to engage Minajol and warned Aurora to stay behind the fleet's defenses and keep Sorokin beside her.
• The Beyond Grade As of both sides clashed, and Han Xiao fought Minajol while Aurora's improved life-energy control let her heal an ally despite enemy attempts to intercept the healing.
• Minajol noticed Aurora's position, but Anchor Tree King emerged from a World Tree battleship in a Mechanical Deity and engaged Han Xiao.
• Han Xiao realized Anchor Tree King was an unknown Tree King, while Minajol targeted Aurora with the mental ability Illusion, Heart's Lock.

The Heart Tree King used a damaged Universal Treasure to seal Aurora’s consciousness, leaving the alliance without its healer during the battle. As Han Xiao struggled against both Tree Kings, Hyperion arrived to reinforce him, and the Heart Tree King realized Hyperion had revealed the World Tree to the civilization.

• The Heart Tree King’s purple beam bypassed the fleet’s defenses, and his crystalline leaf sealed Aurora’s mind despite her Space-Time Amber protection.
• Han Xiao identified Aurora’s Illusionscape seal, ordered psychic experts to break it, and returned to fight the Anchor Tree King while the others tried to hold the battlefield without her healing.
• Kasuyi confirmed that the seal could not be broken quickly, and the alliance’s Beyond Grade As suffered heavier losses as the World Tree fighters pressed their advantage.
• Han Xiao decided to target the Heart Tree King but remained pinned down by both Tree Kings, so he called an outside ally to join the fight.
• Hyperion arrived through the High-Dimensional Apocalypse Teleporter and struck the Anchor Tree King, prompting the Heart Tree King to realize that Hyperion had supplied the civilization with its initial information about the World Tree.

Hyperion battled the Anchor Tree King while Han Xiao fought the Heart Tree King and prepared a plan to seal him. Han Xiao sent Hila the Space-Time Amber and instructed her to wait for an opening to use it.

• Hyperion ambushed the Anchor Tree King, badly damaging him, but the two became locked in combat.
• Han Xiao turned his mechanical army against the Heart Tree King, who tried to persuade him to flee or join the World Tree.
• Han Xiao judged that killing the guarded Heart Tree King would be difficult and contacted Hila with a plan.
• Hila withdrew from battle after killing World Tree fighters and returned to the ship where Aurora lay unconscious.
• A mechanical soldier delivered the Space-Time Amber to Hila, and Han Xiao told her to use it with her teleportation abilities if he created an opening.

Ames saw the association’s cautious fighters miss chances to kill World Tree experts, while a civilization expert sacrificed himself to take one down. Elsewhere, Han Xiao sprang a trap on the Heart Tree King and froze him inside the Space-Time Amber.

• Ames and her allies struggled to press their advantage as the association members avoided injuries and the World Tree experts fought recklessly.
• When their attack exposed a gravely wounded Sacred Tree Envoy, a civilization expert charged through enemy fire and died in the Envoy’s self-detonation, trading his life for the kill.
• Han Xiao kept battling the Heart Tree King, whose attacks were poorly suited to fighting Han Xiao’s mechanical forces and whose condition steadily worsened.
• As the Heart Tree King tried to retreat, Han Xiao used a Dominion avatar empowered by Silver Shadow’s [Comet Glide] and Oulu’s [Golden Treasure Ship: Ram] to seize him with [Azure Dragon Bind].
• Hila emerged beside the trapped Heart Tree King and used the Space-Time Amber to freeze him, while the Anchor Tree King’s attempt to intervene was stopped by Hyperion.