Chapter Summaries

Alila became a supervisor on the Third Assembly Line, while Ron oversaw preparations for the restored God-Emperor Statue and the return of Ascension Day. Bayev and Bishop Dony saw Ron’s leadership as a sign of hope and divine favor.

• Alila chose to become a supervisor, and the factory director assigned her to the Third Assembly Line.
• Ron looked toward Sacred Plaza and saw that the God-Emperor Statue had been restored, with gilding and gemstone inlays still to come.
• Bayev directed preparations to decorate Sacred Plaza and prayed that Ron would lead the people out of darkness.
• Bayev reflected on how Ron’s changed behavior had replaced his despair with hope for the Palatine District.
• Bishop Dony saw the restored statue and the return of Ascension Day as proof that Ron had been chosen by the God-Emperor.

As Ascension Day approached, Ron let rumors about his power spread while preparing a golden, gem-set statue as a public miracle. At dawn, the statue shone over Sacred Plaza, and a drunken skeptic believed the God-Emperor had revealed himself.

• Ron rejected Bayev's proposal to arrest people spreading rumors about him, allowing favorable stories to strengthen the people's trust.
• Ron oversaw the final preparations for Ascension Day, including gilding the God-Emperor Statue and setting it with gemstones.
• Mika anticipated attending the ceremony and becoming a mining-team captain, while Alila celebrated her success as a supervisor and her invitation to Sacred Plaza.
• The Rapp family shared a lavish meal and toasted the Governor as Marty hoped the Palatine District would regain its former vitality.
• At dawn, a drunk who had cursed Ron and doubted the God-Emperor saw the golden statue shining in the sunlight and fell in terror, declaring that the God-Emperor had revealed himself.

A staged miracle at Sacred Plaza strengthened the people’s faith during the Holy Scripture ceremony, while Ron gathered the Power of Hope needed to open a portal to the Human Golden Age Farm. As the ceremony began, he prepared to appear before the people and perform a greater miracle.

• A drunk former noble saw the God-Emperor Statue glow and proclaimed that the Governor had been chosen to save the people of Ers.
• Alila and other Lower Hive workers received Holy Wafers and Holy Water, and many were overcome by their first taste of clean food and water.
• Bayev’s personnel calmed the crowd after the glowing statue caused worshippers to pray, faint, and nearly lose control of the ceremony.
• Marty, Devere, and Lilith joined the nobles and officials in Sacred Plaza and performed their formal rites of worship.
• Bishop Dony began the Holy Scripture ceremony as the packed crowd prayed before the God-Emperor Statue.
• Ron sensed that the ceremony had generated one hundred thousand points of Power of Hope, still short of the two hundred thousand needed to open the portal, and prepared to bring down a true miracle.

Ron appeared before Earth Planet’s people in golden Power Armor, presented himself as the God-Emperor’s chosen Savior, and promised to lead the planet out of suffering. He staged a miracle that inspired the crowd, gathering two hundred thousand Power of Hope.

• Ron donned Power Armor and took up a Power Sword before heading to Sacred Plaza with Carter and the Custodian Warriors.
• Bishop Dony proclaimed Ron Earth Planet’s Savior, and Ron appeared before the gathered people in golden armor as a giant holographic image.
• Ron urged the people to trust in the God-Emperor and promised to revive Earth Planet and improve their lives.
• Ron swore to break the darkness with his blade, while his Power Sword, the God-Emperor Statue, and his body shone with golden light.
• Ron used Little Sun to simulate a miracle, stirring the crowd and gathering two hundred thousand Power of Hope.

After Ron’s miracle at the Holy Scripture ceremony spread across the territory, he gathered immense Power of Hope and unlocked long-distance teleportation. He prepared to use his new ability to travel to Green Wave Farm, a relic of humanity’s Golden Age.

• Ron stayed at the ceremony until the worshippers calmed, then left as the Arbites dispersed the crowd and Cherubs spread news of the miracle.
• Bayev, Carter, Dony, officials, and Lower Hive residents came to believe Ron was a Living Saint, and stories of his promise of food spread throughout the territory.
• Yosef dismissed the miracle as a hoax and ordered his followers to spread rumors that Palatine District had run out of food, while his own workers rioted over shortages.
• Yosef ordered the Riot Control Force to kill the rioters, while the Grey Wolf Warband’s territory continued its usual gang violence.
• Ron counted three hundred thousand points of Power of Hope, gained greater control of Warp Essence, and unlocked godlike long-distance teleportation.
• Ron opened a portal and set out for Green Wave Farm.

Ron opened a Warp passage from a warehouse and traveled to Green Wave Farm inside the Space Hulk to find its cultivation STC and Sentient Robot. The robot confronted him with weapons and prepared to test whether he was truly human.

• Ron used Little Sun's Psyker Power to open a Warp passage in an empty warehouse, then entered it while Carter and the Custodes waited outside.
• Ron emerged on a vast ship deck in the Warp, saw Orks, Daemons, and a distant warship, then found the gate to Green Wave Farm.
• Ron entered the farm and saw its rice fields and streams before searching for the cultivation STC and Sentient Robot.
• The Sentient Robot aimed an energy gun at Ron as the farm's turrets trained on him, then said it needed to perform a genetic test.
• Ron asked what would happen if he failed, and the robot indicated several skeletons wearing what appeared to be Imperium military uniforms.

Ron questioned Moss about the bones Moss had identified as aliens, then faced a genetic test that could have triggered the farm’s defenses. After Ron struck the faulty testing machine and it registered him as a purebred human, Moss lowered his weapon, leaving Ron free to pursue the farm’s construction technology.

• Ron asked Moss how the bones could belong to aliens when they looked human, and Moss explained that genetic testing showed they shared less than one percent of their genes with humans.
• Moss ordered a genetic test, but the battered testing machine malfunctioned before collecting Ron’s blood.
• The machine failed Ron’s first test, prompting Moss to prepare to expel him with gunfire and an energy cannon.
• Ron struck the testing machine twice, and it restarted with a green light indicating that he had passed.
• Moss discovered Ron’s genes were 99 percent similar to the human genes in his database and declared him a purebred human, then lowered his weapon.
• Ron considered how to persuade Moss to share the farm’s construction technology or accompany him.

Ron discovered that Moss had recognized him as its new master and inherited command of Green Wave Farm. After inspecting the farm’s valuable Golden Age crops and seed technology, Ron worried that the current harvest would come too late, but Moss revealed it had stored food for thousands of years.

• Moss lowered its weapons, recognized Ron as its new master through a genetic assessment, and explained its long history as an imperial farm robot.
• Ron ordered Moss to call him Governor and declared Green Wave Farm his private property, which Moss accepted as its master’s command.
• Moss led Ron through the farm’s crop sections, where Ron learned it preserved pure Golden Age crops, seeds, and seed-cultivation technology.
• Ron realized the crops were not ready to harvest and worried they could not solve the Palatine District’s imminent food shortage.
• Moss reassured Ron by revealing it had been planting and storing food for ten thousand years.

Ron discovered that most of Green Wave Farm’s ancient food had rotted, but Moss led him to a warehouse holding two centuries of fresh grain. Meanwhile, the starving Palatine District faced worsening unrest as its people waited for Ron to return with food.

• Ron praised Moss for its work at Green Wave Farm, then ordered it to take him to the warehouses.
• Ron found that the food in the first warehouse had turned to black ash, and Moss explained that it had been stored for ten thousand years.
• Bayev struggled to govern the Palatine District during Ron’s five-day absence as food shortages, Homan House attacks, and unrest pushed the territory toward collapse.
• Bayev told the people that Ron had gone to find food and would return, while deciding he might resort to producing protein from people if the crisis continued.
• Moss directed Ron to Warehouse D177, where he found mountains of grain harvested over the past two hundred years.

Ron returned to the Palatine District with Green Wave Farm’s food and equipment, averting the looming food crisis just as a Homan House-backed riot threatened to erupt. He organized preparations to distribute food and suppress the uprising.

• Ron ordered Moss to move Green Wave Farm’s valuable equipment, then used the Little Sun to teleport himself and the supplies back to Earth Planet.
• Pulu tried to bribe Alila into betraying Ron, but she refused and called for the Arbites; Homan House’s spies continued organizing a riot for that night.
• Ron returned to the warehouse after six days away and told Bayev and Carter that he had found food.
• Bayev saw the mountain of crops and broke down in relief, while Ron explained that the supplies could sustain the Palatine District until its new farm produced food.
• Bayev arranged for the warehouse to be inventoried and guarded, and Ron brought Moss back to Spire Mansion.
• Ron assigned the departments to produce New Corpse Starch Bars overnight, protect the Starch Manufacturing Plant, and suppress the riot.

Ron’s food announcement disrupted a riot planned by Homan House, and the Arbites crushed the rioters who attacked the Palatine District. After workers received the new Corpse Starch Bars, Pulu abandoned Homan House and chose to stay, while Ron prepared to begin his next plan with Moss.

• Homan House spies fed rioters meat paste and urged them to revolt, but Ron’s broadcast announced restored food supplies and imposed martial law.
• When a spy shot down a flying communicator, rioters charged outside and the Arbites fought them across the Palatine District.
• Pulu and his workers stayed hidden until dawn, then went to the factory, where they received the new Corpse Starch Bars.
• Pulu tasted the wheat-scented bar, found it delicious, and decided to remain in the Palatine District as a laborer.
• After the streets were cleared and food supplies restored, Ron went to find Moss and began preparing in a secret chamber.

Ron disguised Moss as an Adeptus Mechanicus Tech-priest and appointed him Chief Tech-priest of the Palatine District. He introduced Moss to the disgraced engineer Cawl Sali, intending to use both impostors to rebuild the district’s technical organization.

• Ron dressed Moss in a Tech-priest robe, mask, mechanical arms, and staff, then instructed him to conceal his identity and act the part.
• Ron officially declared Moss the Chief Tech-priest of the Palatine District and gave him an official identity, residence, and Servitors.
• Ron brought Moss to an abandoned mechanical factory to meet its former engineers and help put Moss’s technical knowledge to use.
• Cawl Sali nervously met Moss, fearing that the genuine Magos would expose him as an impostor.
• Ron introduced Cawl as a tech-ascetic, and Moss greeted him while keeping his own identity secret.
• Ron planned to have Moss and Cawl rebuild the Adeptus Mechanicus organization in the Palatine District and provide technical support.

Ron funded the rebuilding of the Adeptus Mechanicus Earth Planet branch and appointed Moss to lead it, with Cawl as his assistant. The branch was officially established at Cawl’s machinery factory after a ceremony attended by Ron and Palatine District officials.

• Cawl welcomed Ron and Moss with an oily drink served by a Servo-skull he claimed was his father, and Ron decided to overlook the skull’s unlicensed status.
• Ron proposed funding a new Adeptus Mechanicus branch, and Moss and Cawl agreed to help establish it without waiting for official approval.
• Ron, Moss, and Cawl agreed that Moss would lead the branch, Cawl would serve as his assistant, and suitable personnel would be selected for membership.
• A few days later, they chose Cawl’s machinery factory as the branch’s site and erected a statue of the Omnissiah at its entrance.
• Ron and Palatine District officials attended the establishment ceremony as Moss started the factory’s machinery and a hymn praised the Machine God.

Ron oversaw the first phase of New Green Wave Farm and expanded preparations for war against Homan House, including a major Defense Force recruitment drive. The chapter ended with Ari confronting a recruitment dispute after a frail man was rejected despite pleading to enlist and support his family.

• Moss and Cawl designed New Green Wave Farm in the Palatine District's former warehouse zone, and its first phase began producing enough food to sustain the population at minimum consumption.
• The farm's workers planted crops in clean soil, while Ron deployed Guard Machinery that killed several spies trying to infiltrate the site.
• Ron authorized Ari and Kais to expand the Defense Force from thirty thousand troops to eighty thousand, while Moss and Cawl studied the Guard Machinery to improve weapons production.
• A frail middle-aged man was rejected from enlistment, then begged the recruitment officer to accept him because his family depended on him; the officer had him beaten and dragged away.
• Ari arrived and asked what had happened, and the middle-aged man pleaded with him for a chance to fight for the Governor.

Ari rejected a frail man from the Defense Force, while Ron decreed daily food aid for the poorest households and sent food and leaflets into Homan House territory to encourage defections. Yosef grew furious but avoided attacking, as refugees who had fled the Palatine District began planning to return.

• Ari refused to recruit a weak middle-aged man and had soldiers remove him from the recruitment office.
• Ron ordered especially impoverished households in the Palatine District to receive half a Type I Corpse Starch Bar each day.
• Ron sent spies to distribute Corpse Starch Bars and leaflets in Homan House territory, prompting citizens to flee to the Palatine District and pledge loyalty to him.
• Yosef shot the Mutated Grey Rat in a rage, then decided Ron was trying to provoke him into a premature attack and reaffirmed his plan to win the final battle.
• Refugees who had fled the Palatine District regretted their choice and planned to escape the Homan House camp and return.

Homan House's Riot Control Force massacred the rebels in refugee camps as civilians were sacrificed to the growing Divine Fetus. After Bishop Dony sensed a powerful Chaos presence, Ron ordered the Palatine District to begin its decisive battle the next morning.

• Homan House's Riot Control Force surrounded a refugee camp and killed the rebels who had planned to escape into the Palatine District.
• Homan House's forces massacred civilians across its territory and fed their flesh to the Divine Fetus, which grew larger in its glass vessel.
• Bishop Dony sensed a terrifying Chaos presence in the Upper Hive and remembered the previous heretic uprising.
• Bishop Dony went to Spire Mansion and urged Ron to act against the returning heretics.
• Ron ordered Bayev to notify every department and launch the decisive battle tomorrow morning.

Ron led the Palatine District’s forces into a decisive battle against Homan House, hoping to destroy the Chaos threat before it could fully descend. As the fighting began, the Power of Hope gathered from the people’s send-off but remained below the amount needed for Ron to use his blessing ability.

• Ron realized he had gathered only a little over eight hundred thousand points of Power of Hope, short of the one million needed to bless a warrior.
• Ron ordered Bayev to tell the Palatine District about the battle and invite everyone to see the warriors off.
• Ron rallied the assembled Custodes, Defense Force, and Arbites, then led them toward Homan House as the people lined the streets to pray and cheer.
• Ron felt Power of Hope rise to nine hundred and fifty thousand points as the forces departed, and planned for his group to target the source of the Chaos power.
• Half a day later, the Palatine District’s artillery opened fire on Homan House, beginning the decisive battle across the Upper Hive District.

Yosef sacrificed Homan House, including Old Homan, to complete a Chaos ritual and summon the offspring of the Lord of Ten Thousand Eyes. As the Palatine District’s forces fought through Homan House’s defenses, Ron’s Assault Gunship broke through the anti-air fire and reached the family’s core territory.

• Old Homan realized Yosef planned to sacrifice every Homan House blood relative for the Chaos Embryo and accepted his own death after asking Yosef not to make their sacrifice meaningless.
• Yosef stabbed Old Homan, then ordered Homan House’s combat forces to hold off the Palatine District while he completed the ritual.
• Ari led the Defense Force’s charge against Homan House’s second line, where Chaos Injectors transformed enemy warriors into monsters.
• Kais’s sniper squad supported Ari with newly developed Small Energy Cannons as the Defense Force held the monsters back at great cost.
• The Palatine District’s warriors broke through Homan House’s third defensive line, while Decoy Drones helped Ron’s Assault Gunship evade anti-air fire and reach Homan House’s core territory.

Ron sensed a Chaos-tainted laboratory beneath Homan House and glimpsed a terrifying entity he suspected was Tzeentch before withdrawing his Psyker Power. He led the Custodes in an assault on the laboratory, while Yosef continued the ritual to bring forth the Lord of Ten Thousand Eyes’ offspring.

• Ron used his Psyker Power to locate a hidden laboratory containing Chaos Monsters and a massive cultivation tank holding a deformed woman and a living shadow.
• Ron followed a faint connection from the tank and sensed an enormous, shifting entity, then pulled back his Psyker Power before it could notice him.
• Ron sent the laboratory’s location to the special combat force and headed there with the Assault Gunship.
• Ron and Carter led the Custodes into battle, and Ron shot the Homan House guard officer before the Custodes killed the defending guards.
• Ron and the Custodes pushed through the building toward the laboratory as Yosef continued the sacrificial ritual and awaited the offspring’s arrival.

Yosef completed the ritual that was preparing the Chaos Embryo to hatch, then fused himself and the Cyborg Guards with smaller fleshy byproducts to gain power. Ron and the Custodes fought through the Cultivation Zone and attacked the culture dish, but their weapons failed to break its specially made glass.

• The Chaos Embryo consumed the Homan House members’ flesh and blood as Yosef watched it near hatching.
• After Palatine District forces entered the laboratory, Yosef killed a researcher and ordered the Cyborg Guards to slaughter the remaining staff.
• Yosef and the Cyborg Guards entered smaller fleshy balls and endured their blood vessels burrowing into their bodies.
• Ron led the Custodes through the Cultivation Zone, where they cut down the deformed monsters and reached the Chaos Embryo.
• Ron ordered the Custodes to destroy the target, but their Bolters and Armor-piercing Grenades could not damage the culture dish.