Chapter Summaries

After the Devourer Imperium surrendered, Alvin ordered its remaining troops and leaders killed, condemning the civilization that had once treated humans as livestock to the same fate. The chapter ended with the ten elders and Stone Tooth crushed beneath a Transformer turned into a tank.

• The High Council surrendered and disabled the Devourer forces’ weapons, but the troops charged the Space Marines and fought to the death.
• Alvin ordered the Space Marines to kill every remaining Devourer, and they wiped out the Imperium’s last hundred thousand or so troops.
• The Chapter Master of the Children of Midnight brought the ten elders before Alvin, who had Stone Tooth dragged in as the commander of the war.
• Alvin reminded Stone Tooth that the Devourers had treated other civilizations as livestock and said their people would now face the same fate.
• Alvin ordered the elders and Stone Tooth killed, and a Transformer turned into a tank crushed them beneath its treads.

After defeating the Devourer Imperium, Alvin took control of its battleship and summoned human representatives to set the terms of the conquest. He made the Devourers humanity’s livestock and officially designated the Wandering Earth a Special-Grade Agricultural World, leaving its representatives to accept his harsh demands and promised support.

• Alvin publicly executed Stone Tooth and the ten elders, suppressing the Devourer Imperium’s remaining resistance.
• Alvin used MOSS to seize control of the Devourer Battleship and learned that Stone Tooth’s weapons and mutual-destruction plans had been thwarted by Alvin’s preparations and the Void Dragon.
• Representatives from human nations arrived aboard the battleship, and Alvin summoned them to help govern the defeated Imperium and establish the Holy Terra Alliance.
• Alvin declared that the Devourer population would be raised as livestock and taxed as food for humanity, prompting objections from Zhou Zhezhi and Mike.
• Alvin incorporated the representatives’ nations into the Holy Terra Alliance as a Special-Grade Agricultural World, imposed a fifty-percent tax, and promised a Dyson Ring, future crops, and help developing Mars as farmland.

Alvin finalized plans to transform the Wandering Earth into an Agricultural World and learned that Sentinel Prime’s people could build an Artificial Sun using methods found in Cybertronian ruins. After returning to the Warhammer universe, Alvin received an authority upgrade and wondered how things had changed during his absence.

• Sentinel Prime proposed harvesting the Sun and replacing it with an Artificial Sun, then revealed that the Transformers had found their ancestors’ construction methods in Cybertron’s ruins.
• Alvin approved cooperation between the Wandering Earth governments, the Transformers, and Weyland Corporation in exchange for technologies and other concessions.
• Alvin left the Wandering Earth after asking MOSS to monitor humanity and returned to the Warhammer universe.
• The system upgraded Alvin’s authority, raised the adjustable time-flow limit to one hundred times, and allowed him to bring ten additional people into each new world.
• Alvin left the sealed chamber and wondered how things had changed during his twenty-five-day absence.

Alvin said goodbye to Lillian before boarding the Sword of Redemption to leave Nomad Port. He arrived to find Aldrich and Torzak had turned their hostility into a bizarre friendship through a brutal sparring match.

• Lillian rushed to Alvin, kissed him, and offered to spend the night with him, but Alvin refused because he feared exposing his feelings and vulnerabilities.
• The Vought escort ship arrived at Nomad Port, and Alvin left Lillian a Space Bridge before boarding the Sword of Redemption.
• Alvin found Aldrich and Torzak fighting a dirty, nonlethal duel while Hilda watched and Penny cheered them on.
• Aldrich lost the duel, and Torzak retreated to repair his torn human skin while grumbling about the Infinite.
• After the fight, Aldrich put an arm around Torzak, leaving Alvin bewildered by their sudden camaraderie.

Alvin's fleet departed Nomad Port for the Black Zone, and he studied the Valshius Family's navigation chart during the Warp voyage. Winnie found the chart's hidden data terminal, and Alvin connected it to the ship's system, revealing a mysterious man.

• Alvin learned that Winnie had prevented Aldrich from attacking the Eldar and Necron aboard the ship, and found the Inquisitor drinking with them.
• Alvin led the Sword of Redemption and the Fireship out of Nomad Port and into the Warp, bound for the Black Zone.
• Alvin studied the Valshius Family's Crimson Yellow Latitude Longitude Navigation Chart but could not uncover its secret.
• Winnie spotted the chart's hidden terminal and shattered the crystal chart to expose it.
• Alvin connected the terminal to the Sword of Redemption's main control system, which projected the image of a seemingly calm but unsettling man.

Alvin confronted Edras Valshius, his missing father and the former patriarch, through a strange projection and demanded answers about the Valshius Family’s mission. Edras revealed that Alvin must follow a designated route to learn the mission’s meaning, but left its details unexplained.

• Alvin recognized Edras Valshius and traded insults with him over the Valshius Family’s decline and recovery.
• Alvin asked Edras about the oath made ten thousand years ago before the Golden Throne, but Edras first asked his age.
• When Alvin said he was twenty, Edras’s projection showed killing intent, and Winnie identified him as a Warp entity with part of a soul.
• Edras admitted he had been created to judge the Crimson Gold Navigational Chart’s inheritor and seize the body of anyone he deemed unqualified.
• Edras abandoned that plan because Winnie could stop him and carried the Emperor’s aura, then told Alvin to follow a designated route to understand the mission.

Alvin learned that Edras’s heir should be nineteen, while Alvin was twenty, raising doubts about his identity and the original body’s past. Edras proposed that Alvin had spent time in the Warp as a child, and Alvin was left alone to contemplate the mystery.

• Alvin asked Edras why he had tried to seize his body, and Edras checked with Winnie before answering.
• Winnie allowed Edras to tell Alvin the truth, despite warning that it might shatter his beliefs.
• Edras said his heir should be nineteen, making Alvin one year older than the person he was expected to be.
• Edras proposed that Alvin might be a Warp Daemon or that his body had entered the Warp after birth and experienced time differently.
• Winnie said Alvin had mysteriously disappeared when he was young, but neither she nor Penny knew what had happened or whether the Emperor was involved.
• Alvin dismissed everyone and sat alone on the iron throne to think.

After Hilda helped Alvin regain his resolve, a Warp Storm struck the fleet and the Eternal Forge forced the Sword of Redemption and the Flame out of the Warp into unknown space. The fleet found an uncharted Living Planet, and Alvin had to decide whether to send an exploration team.

• Alvin brooded over why the Chaos Gods and the Emperor seemed to have been watching him since childhood until Hilda confronted him.
• Hilda told Alvin she believed he could change the future and overcome any obstacle, and Alvin thanked her for restoring his resolve.
• A massive Warp Storm seized the fleet, and Alvin ordered the Eternal Forge to force the ships out of the Warp.
• Alvin learned the fleet had been thrown into an unknown region absent from the Imperium's records and the family's star charts.
• The navigator reported a Living Planet ahead, and the fleet saw a pink planet through the hangar doors.

After a Warp Storm threw Alvin’s fleet off course in the Black Zone, he chose to explore an unknown pink planet rather than follow Edras’s star chart route. A Tech-Priest report revealed that the planet orbited two suns with impossible stability, apparently because its planet-spanning ocean of organic matter was alive.

• A Warp Storm knocked Alvin’s fleet off its planned route, but Alvin calmed the crew and Edras urged him to embrace the unknown as a Rogue Trader.
• Alvin questioned the use of Edras’s star chart, then decided to explore the pink planet he had encountered.
• Alvin ordered Carroll to prepare an exploration ship and send a Tech-Priest expedition to the planet.
• Carroll reported that the pink planet maintained a remarkably stable orbit around two suns, possibly through a connection to the Warp.
• Carroll revealed that the planet’s vast pink ocean contained abundant organic matter and was alive.

Alvin’s fleet investigated a living pink ocean after detecting a Mechanicus distress signal, then discovered a crashed Mechanicus Ark and learned that the missing Grand Sage Julius Davenport had been aboard. The chapter left Alvin and Carroll facing the revelation that the planet held a secret powerful enough to trigger an “Omega” warning.

• Alvin ordered an exploration team to enter the planet’s atmosphere and investigate its resources while avoiding the distress signal at first.
• The team detected a Mechanicus pulse and then saw a damaged Mechanicus emblem marked with Omega, which Carroll explained signaled an urgent threat and an enormous secret.
• Alvin ordered the Valkyrie to approach the signal source, where the team found a crashed Mechanicus Ark beneath the living ocean.
• The Ark’s recording identified it as the Furnace Covenant and named Julius Davenport, who mentioned a living data repository and the Cocoon of Myriad Machines.
• Carroll recognized Julius Davenport as a Grand Sage of Mars who had been missing for a century and reacted with horror.

Alvin and Carroll decided to investigate the wreck of Julius Davenport’s Mechanicus Ark despite the dangers of the Black Zone. The exploration team lost contact with its first squad, and the remaining members were suddenly surrounded by enormous tsunamis.

• Carroll told Alvin that Grand Sage Julius Davenport and his fleet had vanished a century earlier during an expedition to the far north of Segmentum Obscurus.
• Carroll urged Alvin to investigate the Ark wreck, citing its value, Davenport’s STC Templates, and the alarming Omega-class Signal; Alvin agreed and summoned Winnie.
• The exploration team boarded the wreck in protective biomechanical armor, but the first squad’s live feed disappeared after an unknown signal blocked communications.
• After the first squad failed to return, the team leader sent the second squad to search for them and report back within an hour.
• The team leader saw tsunamis surrounding the Valkyrie and Ark wreck without warning, and Tech-Priest Robel confirmed that the waves had appeared out of nowhere.

Topa’s exploration team survived the sudden tsunami by taking shelter inside the Mechanicus Ark wreckage, but pink living seawater infected one of them and revealed a new danger. The team chose to continue the mission and discovered that a signal jammer prevented them from warning the mothership.

• Topa ordered the Valkyrie to land on the Ark wreckage, and the team took shelter inside as the tsunami swept two members away.
• The Tech-Priest sealed their entrance, but pink seawater infected a man through a crack in his Bio-armor, and Topa killed him when he attacked a companion.
• The Tech-Priest burned the infected body, and the rest of the team checked their armor for breaches.
• Topa persuaded the frightened survivors to continue their mission and asked the Tech-Priest to contact the mothership.
• The Tech-Priest said a signal-jamming device blocked communication and had to be dealt with first.

Topa led the exploration team deeper into the Mechanicus Ark while trusting his intuition that they were doomed. When pink seawater flooded their route and overtook a teammate, the dying man warned that none of them would escape.

• Topa ordered the team to stay together, keep their psychic shields at full power, and try to contact the mothership, though the Tech-Priest warned that their energy would last only twenty minutes.
• Topa told the Tech-Priest to analyze the seawater and led the team farther into the Ark, relying on him to identify a route toward the energy chamber.
• Cracks burst in the pipes and pink seawater flooded their path, forcing Topa to lead the team down another passage as the fluid pursued them.
• A teammate fell behind, and the seawater smashed his armor and invaded his body.
• The stricken teammate mutilated himself and warned Topa and the others that none of them would leave.

Topa led the expedition team through the living, psychic seawater by breaking its control and using fire to hold it back. They reached a cavern beneath the Mechanicus Ark, where they discovered the missing companions and realized the ocean and wreck were a trap meant to absorb them into the Cocoon of Myriad Machines.

• Topa bit through his tongue to break free of the seawater's psychic influence, shot an infected companion, and ordered the others to run.
• Topa threw a Magi-fuel incendiary into the gelatinous seawater and discovered that it caught fire, buying the team time to escape.
• Topa led the exhausted survivors through the pipe and into a cavern at the bottom of the Mechanicus Ark wreckage.
• Topa saw an enormous pink mass suspended over a mining pit, connected to the surrounding steel by web-like strands.
• Topa recognized the stumbling figures as missing expedition members and realized the ocean, the planet, and the Ark were an enormous trap.
• The controlled companions urged Topa and the others to abandon their flesh and become the Cocoon of Myriad Machines.

Alfonso Frazer’s survey of CV-7721 lost contact with its first three exploration teams amid an ionization storm, but the Delta Team later reported a safe landing and extraordinary resources. The chapter left Tech-Priest Iggs urging Alfonso to land and verify the discovery of a vast natural Adamantium vein.

• Alfonso Frazer learned that all three initial exploration teams had gone silent, and Tech-Priest Iggs said atmospheric ionization was blocking communications.
• After the ionization storm passed, the Delta Team reestablished contact and reported a landing zone with no casualties.
• The Delta Team described CV-7721 as a habitable ocean world rich in Promethium and ore, with resources that could support a Forge World.
• Iggs examined the mineral data and identified a huge vein of ore whose structure closely resembled natural Adamantium.
• Iggs urged Alfonso to land on CV-7721, confirm the Delta Team’s findings, and locate the Adamantium vein.

Alfonso investigated Delta Squad’s report from CV-7721 while Tech-Priest Iggs eagerly anticipated claiming the planet’s natural Adamantium. Delta Squad had actually become the speaking organs of the Cocoon of Myriad Machines, a planet-spanning consciousness that had waited a century for a human fleet.

• Tech-Priest Iggs celebrated CV-7721’s abundant resources and natural Adamantium vein, but Alfonso cautioned him and questioned Delta Squad about the crashed Ark.
• Delta Squad reported that the Ark’s crash cause was unknown and insisted there was no danger, prompting Alfonso to suspect something was wrong with their strangely calm transmission.
• Alfonso stopped Iggs from landing and asked Delta Squad to recount their experiences; they claimed a storm damaged their Valkyrie and drove them to shelter in the Covenant Forge.
• Topa, now a speaking organ of the Cocoon of Myriad Machines, concealed its true nature while communicating with the Q-1 relay station.
• The Cocoon’s history revealed that Julius Davenport’s experiments awakened its collective consciousness, after which it consumed the Mechanicus crew and spread across the planet.
• Julius Davenport crashed the Ark to trap the Cocoon on CV-7721, but the creature had grown more cunning over a century and now intended to seize the arriving human fleet.

Alfonso questioned Delta Squad’s suspiciously eager landing guidance and ordered the fleet to bombard their coordinates despite the risk of destroying the adamantium deposit. Alvin revealed that he had authorized the strike, leaving the fleet ready to fire on the planet.

• The Cocoon of Myriad Machines, controlling Topa, convinced the fleet that the wreckage was safe and sent landing coordinates, hoping to escape the planet by infiltrating the fleet.
• Alfonso ordered the Sword of Redemption to lock onto Delta Squad’s coordinates and prepare a macrocannon bombardment.
• Iggs protested that the barrage could destroy the adamantium deposit, but Alfonso cited the communication gap, damaged imaging equipment, and Delta Squad’s eagerness to guide the fleet as reasons for suspicion.
• Alfonso explained that Rogue Traders had to act selfishly and pragmatically in dangerous, unknown regions, then showed Iggs Alvin’s authorization for a destructive strike.
• Alvin told Carroll that he could not prove Delta Squad was hostile or trustworthy, and that he had offered them generous treatment to prepare for this moment.

The Cocoon of Myriad Machines prepared to absorb the human fleet, but Alvin’s warship attacked the planet after suspecting the ocean was hostile. As the creature struck back, Alvin ordered the use of an Atmosphere Incineration Torpedo to destroy it.

• The Cocoon of Myriad Machines anticipated that the arriving human fleet would land and become part of its oceanic body.
• Alvin’s warship entered the atmosphere and bombarded the wrecked Mechanicus Ark with Macrocannon fire, badly injuring the creature.
• The Cocoon of Myriad Machines raised a colossal tsunami hand to seize the warship.
• Alvin recognized the threat as a conscious ocean and dismissed concerns about destroying the resource-rich planet.
• Alvin ordered the use of the remaining Atmosphere Incineration Torpedo, arguing that the planet’s adamantium would survive.

Alvin and Inquisitor Aldrich authorized an Extermination Order against planet CV-7721, where the Cocoon of Myriad Machines faced the full force of an Atmosphere Incineration Torpedo. As the planet burned, Alvin called the destruction a “filthy firework display,” leaving Winnie confused by his joke.

• Alvin asked Inquisitor Aldrich to approve an Extermination Order for planet CV-7721, and Aldrich confirmed Alvin’s intent to use an Atmosphere Incineration Torpedo.
• Aldrich recorded the order and launched eight torpedoes from the Firestorm after the Tech-Priests confirmed the planet’s atmosphere was suitable.
• The Cocoon of Myriad Machines recognized the weapon but could not understand why the humans would destroy a resource-rich world.
• A torpedo scattered Nanite Spores through the atmosphere, igniting it and turning CV-7721’s sky, oceans, and surface into a planetary inferno.
• Alvin called the destruction a “filthy firework display,” and Winnie questioned whether an Extermination Order could be clean.

After CV-7721 was burned by the Extermination Order, Alvin’s team confirmed the Cocoon of Myriad Machines had survived in the Mechanicus Ark’s wreckage and found a rich Adamantium deposit. The fleet stayed behind to mine it while Carroll prepared to study the damaged organism, and Alvin left with the Furnace Covenant engine and Julius Davenport’s research logs but no STC template.

• Alvin ordered Alfonso and the Dark Angels to confirm the creature’s destruction and search CV-7721 for Adamantium.
• Alfonso’s team found the Mechanicus Ark’s wreckage beneath the planet’s fractured crust, and the survey team discovered an intact vein containing about thirty thousand tons of Adamantium.
• Alfonso found the damaged Cocoon of Myriad Machines clinging to the Ark’s engine core, and Carroll persuaded Alvin to preserve it for secure study.
• The fleet remained at CV-7721 to mine the Adamantium, while Alvin accepted that no STC template had been recovered.
• Alvin took the Furnace Covenant engine for a future trade, and Carroll found Julius Davenport’s detailed research logs about the Cocoon of Myriad Machines.