Chapter Summaries

Arkan Land studied Angron’s Butcher’s Nails and reported that they could not be removed, while Nimrod ordered research into ways to control their effects and exploit them. Nimrod then bestowed the findings on Galan and convened a meeting to review the Legion’s development.

• Nimrod told Arkan Land that The Emperor would ask him to remove Angron’s Butcher’s Nails, and Arkan accepted the prediction as an oracle from the Omnissiah.
• The Emperor asked Arkan to remove the Nails, but Arkan agreed only to study the implant while continuing to regard Angron as a monster.
• Nimrod ordered Santiago Bergkamp to assemble the fleet and return to Carium Gate.
• Arkan reported that the Nails were based on the ancient Pain-Bringer and could not be removed because Angron had fused with them; he gave Nimrod his recorded research.
• Nimrod ordered Arkan to research ways to control the Nails’ rage and mental noise, and to devise a back door that could affect implanted subjects.
• Nimrod sent Arkan back to the real world, passed the research to Galan, and began a meeting with the Primarch’s Attendants.

Arsena Dunn presented Nimrod with a star map showing the Legion’s holdings across the galaxy, and reported that it controlled 513 worlds. Nimrod concluded that his realm already surpassed Guilliman’s Five Hundred Worlds, then Arsena began reporting the Legion’s personnel totals.

• Arsena Dunn showed Nimrod the Legion’s territories and described its sectors, recruiting worlds, shipyards, and defensive hubs.
• Nimrod considered the risk of traitor attacks on the Colonid Sector and Carium Gate during the great birthday celebration, and resolved to strengthen their defenses.
• Arsena outlined the Legion’s holdings across the segmentums, including worlds and systems Nimrod had taken from Guilliman’s sons and other Primarchs.
• Arsena reported that the Legion controlled 513 worlds, and Nimrod judged his holdings superior to Guilliman’s in both quantity and quality.
• Arsena checked his data slate and began reporting the personnel totals for each branch of the Legion.

Nimrod reviewed the Shadows of Order’s strength and ordered its Chapters to conceal their numbers in preparation for the coming rebellion. He also considered his hidden forces and gathered at the Carium Gate, where Thierry Vieira awaited him as the Dice of Prophecy recharged.

• Arsena Dunn reported that the Legion had 279,630 members, along with its Librarians, Beyonders, and chapter-by-chapter strength.
• Nimrod ordered every Chapter to hide its strength and instructed the Legion to exaggerate its battle losses while understating new recruits in reports to the War Council.
• Nimrod assessed the hidden Astartes and allies he could mobilize, estimating his potential forces at around 370,000 to 380,000.
• Arsena reported that seven Chapters had assembled at the Carium Gate, and Nimrod ended the meeting.
• Nimrod went to the Kingdom of Disorder to retrieve the fully charged Dice of Prophecy, while Thierry Vieira waited outside.

Nimrod sent Thierry Vieira to Novalis to claim the feudal world for the 8th Legion after transforming him into a Guardian. Thierry’s forces arrived and began descending upon a battlefield, where the locals mistook them for valuable meteorites until they saw the falling giants.

• Nimrod used the Dice of Prophecy to obtain a star chart to Novalis, which he planned to claim before the planet fell to the Children of Excess.
• Nimrod gave Thierry Vieira a pale blood-colored potion, awakening his Guardian abilities through his oath to protect his battle-brothers.
• Nimrod ordered Thierry to reclaim Novalis’s feudal kingdoms and make the world a recruiting ground for the 8th Legion.
• Thierry’s fleet arrived at Novalis, where he saw the locals fighting in one-on-one duels and ordered the Stormbird hatch opened.
• Thierry, Joe Vattara, and the other Space Marines descended toward the battlefield, and the locals first mistook them for meteorites before recognizing one as a giant.

Thierry Vieira and the 8th Legion sought the Novalis people's loyalty through their traditional duels. Joe Vattara defeated their kings, and the Legion secured the allegiance of the Novalis realms.

• The Novalis people learned the black-armored giants had come to demand loyalty to The Monarch, and their leaders required a duel before joining them.
• Thierry Vieira chose Joe Vattara to represent the Legion against King Pedro Odobel.
• Joe used Sabathius swordsmanship to disarm King Odobel, who acknowledged his defeat.
• Joe defeated King Arfi Incapie, returned his sword, and promised to train Incapie's descendant.
• Arfi Incapie swore loyalty to Lord Nimrod and Thierry Vieira, and King Odobel and their people followed.
• Over the next month, Joe defeated the other Novalis kings in duels, winning the realms' loyalty to the 8th Legion.

Nimrod planned a safe route for Santiago Bergkamp to complete the dangerous Traveler advancement ritual, while the 5th Legion fought the Hrud in the Viziole System. The battle turned against a Hrud Migration Ship, and Santiago ordered a teleportation strike as it fled.

• Santiago Bergkamp sent spiritually inked star charts to Nimrod, who judged the Traveler advancement ritual dangerous and planned to use Warp pocket dimensions and the Webway entrance on Argos.
• Nimrod considered entering the Webway with Magnus so Tzeentch would focus on the primarch, and he added Argos’s Death Stone and psychic-sealing drumbeats to his plans.
• The 5th Legion used improved Auto-recharging Void Shields and coordinated weapons to break the Hrud fleet’s formation and destroy several ships.
• Santiago spotted a Hrud Migration Ship rising from Vizziole’s primary planet and calculated its trajectory.
• The Migration Ship’s defenses disrupted the Starry Sky’s aether cannon strike, and Santiago ordered his forces to prepare teleportation so the vessel could not escape.

Santiago Bergkamp used his teleportation platform to infiltrate the Hrud Migration Ship and unleash devastating Daemonology powers against the gathered Hrud. After withdrawing from the Warp before its corruption overwhelmed him, he continued fighting with his Mind Servitors and the Ring of Fire.

• Santiago teleported into the Hrud Migration Ship and opened a Warp rift that sucked tens of thousands of Hrud into the Sea of Souls.
• Santiago tore an entire deck level out of reality, causing the Migration Ship’s upper and lower halves to collide and explode.
• Santiago felt Daemonology’s effects overtaking him, withdrew from Magnus’s eighth-layer Mindset, and used his Mind Servitors’ circuit-breaking mechanism to curb the psychic shrieks.
• Two Mind Servitors attacked with Eka-Kharn Plasma Guns, but the Hrud’s time distortion rapidly aged and destroyed them.
• Santiago praised the Black Emperor for his immortality as Hrud fired at him, and he transformed into three streams of flame using the Ring of Fire.
• Santiago dodged through the Hrud’s attacks, passed through a ghostly blue door, and roamed between decks to attack the Hrud.

Nimrod used his Soul-Eater Bees to seize the Hrud’s Mycelium Scrolls and grew a swarm of more than ten thousand bees. When the Hrud attacked the cavern, Yaxin and the Inquisitors countered them with a forbidden Entropy Field and a tunnel full of explosives and fire.

• Nimrod sent his consciousness through the Hrud tunnels, located the Mycelium Scrolls, and used the Invisible Egg to teleport underground and test his control over Soul-Eater Bees.
• Nimrod discovered he could command the bees’ descendants, gathered the Scrolls, and expanded the swarm to more than ten thousand bees before storing them in the Kingdom of Disorder.
• Yaxin sensed the Hrud invasion and ordered the defenders to prepare for battle.
• Yaxin used Entropy Field Distortion forbiddance to disrupt the Hrud’s fields, while his Archaeotech Pistol ignited the explosives in the tunnel.
• The Hrud’s distortion fields failed near the cave entrance, and the flames burned many attackers before the survivors tried to dig around the defenses.
• The Inquisitors’ explosives collapsed several kilometers of tunnel, trapping more Hrud in the flames.

Yaxin and the Honor Guard struggled against the Hrud’s time-distorting assault until Nimrod activated Perturabo’s Stasis Device, reversing the battle on Viziaole. Nimrod then extended the stasis field across the Abyss of Zaku-Trada, drawing the Hrud from worlds throughout the region toward the Migration Ships.

• Yaxin fought through the Hrud assault, using his Jurisdiction and the Honor Guard to hold the defensive line as time wore down their armor and bodies.
• At the altar in Ruined Hive City, Nimrod completed the final rune and activated Perturabo’s Stasis Device, which spread across the planet and overwhelmed the Hrud’s Entropy Fields.
• With the Hrud’s time distortions gone, Shadow of Order forces switched to Bolters and slaughtered the exposed xenos.
• Nimrod used the Double-Number Black Golds and Source Essence power to amplify the Stasis Device’s signal across the Abyss of Zaku-Trada.
• The Hrud on the region’s remaining eleven major worlds and eighty-four minor worlds stirred and charged toward the city-ships and Migration Ships.

As the Hrud’s Distortion Field began overwhelming Viziaole’s Stasis Field, Isidor sacrificed the Ramillies-class Star Fortress while desperately maintaining its reactor. Nimrod empowered the Stasis Device and restored the field, leaving the Shadows of Order and a hidden fleet to counterattack the exposed Hrud.

• Kion summoned Evil Spirits to attack the Hrud, then sensed their Distortion Field taking effect after more than a dozen Hrud suddenly appeared.
• Isidor, stripped of rank after his corruption on Sonem VIII, failed to repair the decaying Punishment-class Reactor, and the Ramillies-class Star Fortress began breaking apart.
• The Stasis Field weakened as the planet fractured, weapons and armor decayed, and Hrud ships and Spherical Cannons struck Viziaole’s defenses.
• Nimrod invoked the Kingdom of Disorder and sacrificed thirty-three Double-Number Black Gold Pillars to amplify the Stasis Field, restoring stability across the planet and surrounding space.
• The Shadows of Order launched an annihilation attack on the Hrud, while a concealed black fleet emerged and destroyed the exposed Hrud warships.

After the Hrud war, Nimrod reviewed the Legion’s casualties and chose the Mandragora Stars as a recruitment region for the Tech Sergeants. He sent Rosicky Cech to explore its ancient human ruins and establish arsenals, leaving the fleet’s search for technological relics about to begin.

• Arsena Dunn reported that six Chapters had lost 24,050 men and that 28,600 had suffered physical aging; Nimrod reassigned the severely aged to become recruit instructors.
• Arsena reported that 258 Tech Sergeants had died, and Nimrod decided to find them a suitable recruitment world.
• Nimrod ordered the six Chapters to explore Viziaole’s ruins, collect Mycelium Scrolls, and search for traces of Be'lakor.
• Nimrod used the Dice of Prophecy to identify the Mandragora Stars as a region rich in technological relics and a fitting home for Tech Sergeants.
• Nimrod summoned Rosicky Cech and ordered him to lead a fleet to the Mandragora Stars, seek Dark Mechanicum Era relics and special keys, and establish arsenals to train Tech Sergeants.

Rosicky Cech and the Forge-Ship crossed the Mandragora Stars, weathering stellar disasters and fighting unusual xenos near a black hole. After the xenos attacked human forces on a planet, Rosicky subdued them with Nucerian tranquilizers and approached the humans.

• Rosicky Cech steered the Forge-Ship through frequent stellar disasters and encountered xenos ships inside a black hole.
• Rosicky ordered the Forge-Ship to use an inertial field and fire torpedoes, destroying the xenos flyers and escaping the black hole.
• Rosicky pursued the xenos to a planet, where jellyfish-like creatures attacked human tanks and their crews with blue vortices.
• The human tanks adapted their weapons and burned several xenos with molten flame.
• Rosicky ordered the Tech Sergeants to fire Nucerian tranquilizer syringes, and they captured the jellyfish-like xenos.
• Rosicky activated his translator and walked toward the human line after the fighting stopped.

Rosicky Cech discovered that an underground ruin beneath the Orpheus Archons’ world was linked to the Necron Sautekh Dynasty and contained a sealed Shard of the Void Dragon. Nimrod ordered the area around its vault explored but barred entry to the central zone, then returned to attend The Old Man in Yellow’s War Council.

• Rosicky Cech earned the Archons’ trust and learned that their secret key came from an ancient underground ruin.
• Rosicky followed an Archon into the ruin, identified Sautekh Mandala runes, and found a stone stele whose records revealed a Shard of the Void Dragon sealed inside a Tesseract Vault.
• Nimrod recognized the arriving jellyfish-like xenos as Jalik and noted that its potion ingredient completed the requirements for the Ocean Singer advancement.
• Nimrod ordered the Lord of the Forge to establish a fortress-monastery and train Tech Sergeants, while instructing Rosicky to explore around the Tesseract Vault without entering its central zone.
• Nimrod sent Rosicky back to the real world and returned to the Shadow of the Throne for The Old Man in Yellow’s War Council.

At the War Council, Nimrod falsely reported that the Shadow of Order had lost 106,000 warriors fighting the Hrud, concealing the Legion’s remaining strength. The Emperor assigned the Kadolak-Aleph rebellion to the Dark Angels and rebuked Lorgar for prioritizing worship over bringing worlds into compliance.

• Horus explained that Angron rejected psychic power and would likely remain absent from the War Council.
• Russ and Magnus argued over psychic power, while Jaghatai Khan and Rogal Dorn challenged Russ’s rejection of it.
• The Emperor announced the rebellion on Kadolak-Aleph and asked Nimrod about his Legion’s recent campaigns.
• Nimrod falsely claimed the Shadow of Order had lost 106,000 warriors fighting the Hrud, and Perturabo explained how the Stasis Device countered their distortion.
• The Emperor assigned the Kadolak-Aleph campaign to Lion El'Jonson and the Dark Angels because Nimrod’s Legion had suffered heavy losses.
• The Emperor reprimanded Lorgar for his Legion’s meager achievements and insistence on building cities to worship him, prompting Lorgar to resolve to write a book defending faith.

The Emperor condemned Hannibal for keeping xenos as food and ordered him and the Faceless Ones back to Lecter under Adeptus Custodes supervision. Nimrod then used the Dice of Prophecy to chart a route to Naktis and sent Szczesny to investigate its ocean life.

• The Emperor confronted Hannibal over his crimes, and Hannibal admitted he was wrong.
• The Emperor ordered Hannibal and the Faceless Ones to return to Lecter with the Adeptus Custodes, leaving Nimrod to expect Hannibal's fate to be debated at the next War Council.
• Nimrod considered searching for Be'lakor's Relic Fragment but postponed divining its location.
• Nimrod chose Naktis as a possible source of Obnis, which he needed for the Ocean Singer ascension ritual.
• Nimrod used the Dice of Prophecy to chart a route to Naktis and instructed Szczesny to seize the world and record its ocean life.

Vulkan found that Curze had massacred Haratan and confronted him over his brutal methods before ordering his forces to liberate the world and provide shelter. Meanwhile, Nimrod advanced Szczesny, Jorginho, and Nicholas into Ocean Singers inside Obnis, and their song let them escape the creature's belly.

• Vulkan and Gann entered Haratan and discovered its defenders and civilians slaughtered, with Nostraman markings left on the walls.
• Vulkan confronted Curze, who defended the massacre as a way to frighten rebels into submission, but Vulkan rejected fear as a gift and ordered his forces to move ahead and protect the people.
• Nimrod observed a mermaid on Naktis and prepared an Ocean Singer potion while Szczesny, Jorginho, and Nicholas swam into Obnis.
• The three Astartes drank Nimrod's potions, endured the transformation, and sang under the Black Emperor's command until they controlled their spiritual power.
• Jorginho sang a hymn inside Obnis, causing the creature to open its mouth and spit out the three Ocean Singers.

Nimrod uncovered a hidden world in the Abyss of Zaku-Trada and sent several diviners to investigate the Relic Fragment there. William advanced to Marionettist on Naktis, and his divination revealed that a Tzeentch-powered figure had taken Be'lakor's Shadow Blade.

• Arsena Dunn reported that the fleets had found all ninety-nine Hrud worlds, and Nimrod ordered the unclaimed worlds settled and administered by the 5th Legion.
• Arsena found Mycelium Scrolls describing a shadowy being that destroyed worlds, and Nimrod used the Dice of Prophecy to locate the world hidden by Be'lakor's shadow.
• Nimrod sent divination information to Santiago Bergkamp, Flamini, John, and William; their visions showed four armed figures in a shadowed underground space and a Force Staff wielder burning a pus-covered person.
• Nimrod ordered William to land on Naktis near the Mermaid colony and prepared the Marionettist potion; William drank it and advanced despite the Mermaids' song.
• William's divination revealed that the Force Staff wielder picked up an insubstantial greatsword, and Nimrod identified it as the Shadow Blade, the Relic Fragment he wanted for his advancement.

Nimrod investigated strange Warp interference on a hidden planet and found a Psyker conducting a sacrifice to claim the Shadow Blade. He confronted the ritual as it began, determined to keep the blade and the other Relic Fragments from Be'lakor.

• Visher searched the Warp for Nimrod's specified route, encountered a sinister presence, and reported unusually dense fog.
• Nimrod ordered scans of the planet, and the crew detected intermittent Auspex failures and disturbances in fate.
• Nimrod located an energy signal over a Chaos battlefield and saw the dead souls being drawn into shadows.
• Nimrod subdued the cultists, opened a fissure into the ground, and found a Psyker sacrificing souls at an altar to summon the Shadow Blade.
• Nimrod recognized Be'lakor's influence and prepared to seize the relic as the Psyker attacked him with a greatsword.

Nimrod battled Be'lakor's puppet for the Shadow Blade, resisting the Warp entity's mind attacks and thwarting its shadow magic with John's luck. After crushing the puppet and taking the sword, Nimrod rejected Be'lakor's offer and ordered the corrupted planet destroyed.

• Nimrod fought Be'lakor's puppet, countering its attacks with psychic power and learning that the Shadow Blade's wielder matched Ferrus Manus in strength.
• Be'lakor taunted Nimrod and attacked his mind, while Nimrod resisted the Wither Spell and used his spirituality to keep the Shadow Blade from escaping into shadow.
• John's Winner spirituality caused the puppet's shadow spells to fail, and a dark light from the Warp veered toward John before a falling boulder diverted it and cost him fur on half his body.
• Nimrod smashed Be'lakor's puppet, crushed its mutated claw, and grasped the Shadow Blade, digesting the Mentor of Chaos potion as a new layer of the Kingdom of Disorder opened.
• Nimrod refused Be'lakor's offer, silenced his murmurs, stored the Shadow Blade in black mist, and crushed the puppet's body beneath his boot.
• Nimrod flew away with John and ordered orbital bombardment to destroy the corrupted planet.

Nimrod discovered that Be'lakor’s Shadow Blade had opened a new shadow layer of space, granting him the power to make and secretly alter soul-binding Shadow Contracts. Fourteen stellar days later, he arrived at Terra for a War Council after Angron and Hannibal had both gone missing.

• Nimrod examined the Shadow Blade and recognized that it contained shadow power alongside fragments of the Four Ruinous Powers.
• Nimrod entered a newly opened shadow layer, learned that it belonged to the Fallen Count, and discovered its Shadow Contract abilities.
• Nimrod considered how Shadow Contracts compared with other forms of binding and hoped he might one day subdue Perturabo.
• Nimrod declared that he would take Be'lakor’s Lord of Shadows title as well as his Relic Fragment.
• Fourteen stellar days later, the planet shattered, and Nimrod’s psychic projection reached Terra, where he found Angron and Hannibal absent from the War Council.