War Is Hell, and this story doesn't shy away from it.
- The Battle of Rago. Until then, the protagonists were used to victories against relatively easy foes and having fun, but the battle was a disaster for the Taskforce. It was the first step SunTzu took to temporarily become cruel, as he saw nuking as the only option to stop the enemy. He doesn't nuke anyone, but the Yuuzhan Vong triumph and slaughter a lot of the population.
- Chapter 127 is named Torture for a good reason. Anniten, SunTzu's love interest until then, turns out to be rotten to the core, has betrayed her own family, and not only tortures the protagonist brutally but sexually assaults him as well. She also gloats about how she is going to blow up the solar system of Earth. She succeeds at making SunTzu fully sink in the Dark Side for the first time, which makes him terrifying. First he kills Anniten's bodyguard brutally, then makes Anniten watch as her superweapon destroys her own solar system and finally leaves her to die in the hands of the true villain, the Herald of Chaos.
- The opening of Chapter 151 shows a soldier running from a monster while scared out of his mind. The monster is Abeloth, who kills him cruelly.
- Abeloth's preferred method of execution is to drive people to suicide.
- In Chapter 154, SunTzu is broken by losing his entire platoon of infantrymen.
