Chapter Summaries

The Kalon Knights helped Alvin defeat the Genestealer Cult on Celerus, and Herbert Kalon joined Alvin’s advance into the Hive City. Herbert revealed that he had followed Alvin because he expected more exciting battles.

• A Viper-class Knight charged through the Genestealer guards and killed the Patriarch with its shock lance.
• The Kalon Knights’ fire support helped rout the Genestealer Cult after the Patriarch’s death disrupted its coordination.
• Alvin led the Honor Guard and Punisher Legion into the Hive City while Herbert Kalon followed and cleared targets for them.
• Herbert reminded Alvin that they had met at Alvin’s succession ceremony, and Alvin apologized for forgetting him.
• Herbert admitted he had left his attendants despite risking a reprimand because he expected Alvin to lead him into exciting battles.

Alvin reached the mansion and found Elsa being drained by the Warp in front of a massive rift. Carlos the Fateweaver revealed that Elsa had become a sacrifice to stop Alvin’s planned ascension to Daemonhood, leaving Alvin to face the truth about Khorne’s scheme.

• Alvin and Herbert cleared the way to the mansion, but Alvin could not find Elsa or the others inside.
• Alvin sensed a distortion in a corridor and found Elsa suspended before a multicolored rift, her life force nearly spent.
• Carlos the Fateweaver warned Alvin that approaching Elsa could make him a sacrifice too.
• Carlos revealed that Khorne had prepared a vast blood-soaked feast to help Alvin ascend to Daemonhood and had paid a heavy price to stop him.
• Carlos showed Alvin Winnie Winslet and the Chains Legion fighting Khorne’s forces, then said Elsa had prayed to the Emperor but been answered by Tzeentch.

Alvin fought through the Warp storm to reach Elsa, but Carlos the Fateweaver’s predictions seemed to come true as Elsa lay dying in his arms. Carlos expected grief to turn Alvin into the Fate-Ending Messenger, Daemon Prince Atropos, but Alvin challenged fate once more.

• Carlos told Alvin that Elsa would die in his arms and predicted each step of Alvin’s rescue attempt.
• Alvin entered the psychic storm, relying on the Emperor of Mankind’s badge to protect his soul, and drove the Spear of Song into Elsa’s chest.
• The Spear of Song briefly stopped the ritual, but Elsa was left near death and apologized to Alvin for what had happened.
• Elsa asked Alvin to take longer to forget her as she faded in his arms.
• Carlos declared that Alvin would become Daemon Prince Atropos, but Alvin interrupted him and vowed to change fate.

Alvin saved Elsa by sending her to a world without the Warp, then used Herbert’s shock lance to destroy Carlos’s rift and thwart the future Carlos had foreseen. Carlos was dragged into Khorne’s realm and killed by a Greater Daemon while Winnie and the Chains Legion blocked his escape.

• Alvin sent the gravely wounded Elsa to the Alien World and entrusted her survival to Weyland, leaving Carlos unable to see the process behind her foretold death.
• Alvin borrowed Herbert’s shock lance and hurled it at Carlos, collapsing the Warp Rift after Elsa’s absence disrupted Carlos’s vision of the future.
• Carlos returned to the Warp intending to report what he had learned, but a crimson force dragged him into a blood-soaked desert.
• Winnie and the Chains Legion confronted Carlos alongside a Greater Daemon of Khorne and prevented him from returning.
• A blood-red axe killed Carlos, and Winnie and the Chains Legion departed.

After waking from a three-day coma, Alvin learned that Celerus had been saved but Elsa had gone missing. Helberg then revealed that his family had disowned him and asked to join Alvin as a “Blade of Freedom.”

• Alvin woke after three days unconscious, and Tucker explained that the priests had contained the Warp disturbance around him.
• Tucker told Alvin that Celerus had been secured after the Revered Ancestor Dragon ordered its followers to retreat, but blamed Drakris for ignoring Elsa’s warning and letting the Genestealers overrun the defenses.
• Alvin reassured Tucker that Elsa was all right for now and promised to protect both her and Tucker.
• Alvin agreed to meet Helberg, who had been asking to see him while he recovered.
• Helberg told Alvin that his family had disowned him and asked to join him as a Blade of Freedom.

Helberg revealed that he was the High King of Kalon’s seventeenth son, accepted Alvin’s invitation to join Valshius, and swore loyalty to him. After Helberg left to confront his father, Alvin received an invitation from Marius Calgar and learned that the Ultramarines Chapter Master had arrived at Celerus.

• Alvin questioned Helberg about being expelled from the Kalon Family, and Helberg said he did not know the true reason.
• Helberg revealed that he was the High King of Kalon’s seventeenth son and that he had wanted to leave the family.
• Helberg said he wanted to follow Alvin to establish an independent Knight Family greater than Kalon, and Alvin welcomed him into Valshius.
• Helberg swore to become Valshius’s sharpest blade and entrusted Alvin with his life and trust.
• Tucker gave Alvin an invitation signed by Marius Calgar, then explained that Calgar had likely ordered the Kalon Family to reinforce Celerus.
• Alvin worried that Calgar might hold him accountable and looked toward the Hive City where the Chapter Master was staying.

Alvin met Marius Calgar, who questioned him about his forces but revealed that he had summoned him for another reason: Alvin’s medal. Calgar said it had been awarded only once in Imperial history and urged Alvin to protect it, leaving Alvin wondering whether it had belonged to the Emperor.

• Alvin traveled to meet Marius Calgar at the temple in Celerus Hive City.
• Calgar questioned Alvin about the Imperialis Militia, the Punisher Chapter, and the Honor Guard, and Alvin claimed they were family troops and hired warriors.
• Calgar warned Alvin that his explanation of the Iron Man Legion could attract the Inquisition’s attention, though that was not why he had called Alvin.
• Calgar asked to see the medal Alvin had shown the Iron Father and said it was a unique honor awarded only once in the Imperium’s history.
• Alvin examined the medal and wondered whether the Emperor had worn it.

Alvin learned that Robert Guilliman had sent Calgar to remind him to uphold the ancient Valshius oath and leave Alert Star. When Alvin returned to his mansion, Calgar’s promised gift turned out to be the Silver Templars’ Third Company, placed under Alvin’s command.

• Calgar recognized Alvin’s medal and told him Guilliman wanted them to meet soon and expected him to uphold the ancestors’ oath to the Emperor.
• Alvin withheld that the Valshius oath had been lost, and Calgar advised him to leave Alert Star before the Chaos flagship arrived.
• Calgar offered Alvin a gift, then remained behind in prayer as Alvin returned to the mansion.
• Alvin found 107 Silver Templars, led by Bakar Monroe, waiting in his courtyard with vehicles and mechs.
• Bakar announced that Calgar had placed the Silver Templars’ Third Company under Alvin’s command.

Alvin welcomed the Silver Templars Third Company and learned that Chapter Master Calgar had brought him a message from Robert Guilliman. He then confronted Drakris over the Iron Man affair and told him the Inquisition would need him to take the blame.

• Alvin arranged quarters for the Silver Templars Third Company and planned for its veterans to train the Punisher Legion and Honor Guard.
• Tucker warned Alvin that Drakris had arrived, and Alvin agreed to see him despite blaming him for Elsa's troubles.
• Drakris anxiously asked about Alvin's meeting with Calgar, and Alvin revealed Guilliman's support and the Silver Templars gift.
• Alvin told Drakris that the Inquisition still required an explanation for the Iron Man affair and implied Drakris would be made the scapegoat.
• Drakris protested in shock that Alvin was making the accomplice take the blame while escaping punishment himself.

Alvin intimidated Drakris into abandoning his threats by claiming powerful Imperial backing and offering him a chance to save his life. Drakris agreed to provide Alvin with equipment, factories, and workers, but reluctantly accepted Alvin’s demand for authorization to command the Dominator Overlord.

• Drakris threatened to expose Alvin’s Iron Man Legion, but Alvin urged him to report it and argued that the Inquisition would side with Alvin’s powerful allies.
• Alvin accused Drakris of colluding with the Dark Mechanicum, leaking Imperial secrets, and secretly researching the Iron Men, leaving Drakris terrified and defeated.
• Alvin offered Drakris one chance to save his life, and Drakris pleaded for mercy and promised to do anything Alvin asked.
• Alvin demanded two large Stasis Fields, three Forge Factories, and five hundred forge workers, and Drakris agreed to provide them.
• Alvin demanded authorization to command the Dominator Overlord when necessary, and Drakris finally accepted after Alvin promised it would remain unharmed.

Alvin placed Elsa in a Stasis Field after the Engineers failed to restore her faint soul, vowing to find a way to bring her back. On Holy Terra, he rewarded the council’s wartime contributions, admitted the Decepticons, and appointed Aruman Vella to establish the Adeptus Mechanicus.

• Alvin had Viggo remove Elsa from her medical pod and placed her in a Stasis Field aboard the World Master to preserve her until he could restore her soul.
• Alvin announced that Megatron, Soundwave, and Shockwave would join the Holy Terra Council as its Decepticon representatives.
• Alvin ordered Char to carry out the Holy Terra Auxiliary Army’s postwar rewards and punishments, including granting a distinguished soldier a planet.
• Alvin rewarded the Transformers with the energy of three stars and resources from three mineral-rich planets.
• Alvin introduced Aruman Vella as Forge Grand Sage and appointed him to establish the Adeptus Mechanicus, second in authority only to Alvin.

Alvin prepared to search the Volian Sandstorm for the Dark Age relic called the Void Claw, where a company of Fallen Angels was hiding. Before leaving Alert Star, he gave Calgar Space Bridge devices in exchange for secrecy, and then set out with his crew toward the sandstorm and Alert Fortress.

• Alvin decided to pursue the Void Claw in the Volian Sandstorm and kept his plans from Calgar because the Fallen Angels’ presence was a First Legion secret.
• Alvin told Calgar he was leaving Alert Star and admitted he had used Calgar’s name to pressure the Grand Sage of Styx Eight.
• Alvin gave Calgar a letter describing Space Bridges and a batch of transfer devices, asking him to keep the technology secret from everyone except the Primarch.
• Calgar agreed, then wrote to the Forge Grand Sage at Nomad Port in the Kronos Expansion Sector, hoping to help Alvin on his journey.
• Alvin and his crew departed from outside Celerus Hive City for the Volian Sandstorm, Alert Fortress, and the Void Claw.

Alvin secretly left the ship with Hilda to act against Abaddon's plans for Alert Star, while keeping his mission hidden from Tucker. He revealed that Elsa was alive, freeing Hilda from her certainty that fate could not be changed, and the pair set off together.

• Alvin decided to leave the ship near Volian Sandstorm and asked Tucker to keep his departure secret while returning Old Man Horn safely to the family flagship.
• Tucker objected to Alvin going alone, but Alvin insisted that he would travel only with Hilda and explained that a larger group would complicate the secret mission.
• Alvin teleported off the ship in his Sky-Shaking Unicron Armor and met Hilda outside.
• Hilda apologized for failing to protect Elsa, and Alvin told her that Elsa was alive and that he had won their bet against fate.
• Hilda realized the prophecy she had believed unbreakable had changed, expressed regret that she had not met Alvin sooner, and went ahead with him.

Alvin and Hilda found the buried Alert Fortress and the Void Claw, but discovered that the Fallen Angels were guarding the ruins. The chapter ended with one of them demanding to know how Alvin had found them.

• Alvin and Hilda crossed the deadly Volian Sandstorm, and Alvin's Cassette Warriors located the buried Alert Fortress.
• Alvin sent the Cassette Warriors into the fortress, where they found an abandoned laboratory and the Void Claw, though its records and instruments had decayed.
• Alvin warned Hilda that enemies might be waiting, and they entered the fortress together.
• Hilda sensed an ambush and attacked a hulking figure in black armor as dozens of others surrounded them.
• Alvin identified the hidden warriors as the First Legion, calling them the Fallen Angels, and Hilda realized they were the people he had come to find.
• A voice from the shadows asked Alvin who he was and how he knew the Fallen Angels were hiding there.

Alvin and Hilda confronted Ollsen and his Fallen Angels at Alert Fortress, where Alvin revealed he knew of their plans to join Chaos Marshal Abaddon. He offered them a choice between serving under him on a Penitent Crusade or dying by his hand.

• Hilda felt alarmed when she realized the people in Alert Fortress were Fallen Angels, while Alvin calmly tried to negotiate with them.
• A Fallen Angel fired a bolt round past Alvin and threatened to kill him, prompting Hilda to ready herself to fight.
• Alvin claimed a Dark Angels Chapter had arrived on Alert Star, but a Fallen Angel doubted that he had led them there.
• Alvin introduced himself to Ollsen, the Fallen Angels' Chapter Master, and asked whether they had informed Chaos Marshal Abaddon about Alert Fortress and the Void Claw.
• Ollsen's shock confirmed that the Fallen Angels planned to seek Chaos's protection, and Alvin gave them the choice of joining his Penitent Crusade or being killed.

Alvin confronted Chapter Master Ollsen and the Fallen Angels, offering them a chance to abandon Chaos and seek redemption. Ollsen refused, but two girls appeared beside Alvin and crushed the Fallen Angels’ Chief Librarian with overwhelming psychic pressure.

• Hilda shielded Alvin as Ollsen dismissed their threat and revealed an Epsilon-class Librarian in Terminator Armour.
• Alvin challenged Ollsen over the Fallen Angels’ decision to join Chaos, and Ollsen insisted they had been betrayed and hunted by the Dark Angels after serving the Imperium.
• Ollsen declared that his Chapter wanted revenge and was willing to fall to Chaos to get it.
• Alvin offered Ollsen a chance to stop being hunted, undertake a penitent crusade, and possibly receive a pardon.
• Ollsen rejected the offer, but two girls appeared beside Alvin and forced the Fallen Angels’ Librarian to his knees; the Librarian identified their power as Delta Alpha.

Alvin stopped Gabriel from killing the Fallen Angels and offered Chapter Master Ollsen a chance to atone through a Penitent Crusade. Ollsen accepted, hoping that Lion El'Jonson would one day forgive them.

• Gabriel used her psychic power to force Ollsen and the Fallen Angels to their knees and nearly crush them.
• Alvin stopped Gabriel and told Ollsen that he believed the Fallen Angels had been framed and were still worth saving.
• Alvin told Ollsen that Lion El'Jonson would awaken and offered the Fallen Angels a Penitent Crusade to reclaim their honor.
• Ollsen accepted Alvin's offer on behalf of the Fallen Angels.

Alvin persuaded Ollsen’s Fallen Angels to join a Penitent Crusade under the new name Dawn Watch, then planned to use their Void Claw relic to ambush Abaddon’s fleet. He proposed luring Abaddon to prepared coordinates by revealing Marius Calgar’s location, leaving Ollsen horrified by the danger of the scheme.

• Alvin offered Ollsen and his Chapter refuge and a chance at redemption by joining the Penitent Crusade.
• Ollsen pledged all one hundred and eighty Fallen Angels to Alvin’s command, and Alvin renamed them the Dawn Watch Chapter.
• Ollsen explained that the Void Claw could create a destructive singularity at a preset coordinate.
• Alvin proposed using the Void Claw to attack Abaddon’s fleet, but Ollsen warned that Abaddon would not reveal his Warp exit coordinates.
• Alvin suggested baiting Abaddon to prepared coordinates by revealing Marius Calgar’s location, and Ollsen feared the consequences of targeting the Ultramarines Chapter Master.

Alvin proposed using the Valshius Family’s Void Claw to cripple Abaddon’s Chaos Fleet, with Calgar serving as bait to draw the fleet into range. Calgar agreed to the dangerous plan and entrusted Alert Star’s fate to Alvin.

• Calgar received an astropathic call from Alvin, who asked him to promise not to reveal who devised a plan to protect Alert Star.
• Alvin explained that the Valshius Family’s cannon could strike Abaddon’s fleet if the fleet could be drawn to chosen coordinates.
• Alvin asked Calgar to take his flagship into orbit as bait, then use the Space Bridge to return to Alert Star before the attack landed.
• Calgar weighed the danger of exposing himself and his flagship, while Alvin urged him to act to save Alert Star and cripple the Chaos Fleet.
• Calgar agreed to the plan and placed Alert Star’s and the Imperium’s fate in Alvin’s hands.

Marius Calgar unified Alert Star and used the planet and more than half the Imperial Fleet as bait to draw Abaddon’s Pale Fleet into a trap. Abaddon arrived and surrounded the Imperial forces, but Calgar rallied them into an orderly counterattack as the battle began.

• Marius Calgar reorganized Alert Star’s council, executed a gene-infected spy, and forcibly united the planet’s three major factions.
• Calgar announced that the Imperium would retake Alert Star’s satellite and personally led a large fleet to the front line aboard the Victory Laurel.
• Calgar told Alvin that he had committed Alert Star and more than half the Imperial Fleet as bait, and Alvin accepted responsibility for the tens of billions of soldiers at stake.
• The Warp opened, and Abaddon’s Pale Fleet emerged around the Imperial ships, cutting off their retreat.
• Calgar ordered the Imperial fleets to gather around the Victory Laurel and counterattack, while Abaddon declared his victory certain.