Chapter Summaries

Guilliman arrived on Vitria and led Imperial forces to crush the Tyranids, ending the planet’s defensive battle while Behemoth’s wider invasion continued. The survivors celebrated him as their savior, including a former Governor who had once cursed him and now begged the Emperor for forgiveness.

• Guilliman arrived on the battlefield, reassured Calgar, and summoned Imperial reinforcements to fight the Tyranids.
• Guilliman destroyed the Tyranid assault and wounded the Hive Mind, while Sicarius and Phicris fought beside him.
• Khaine and Kakar led the surviving soldiers in a counterattack, mourning Abel and Old Yorn as the Tyranids fell.
• The Imperial forces destroyed the Tyranids on Vitria, though the fleet continued its campaign against Behemoth.
• Guilliman returned to Vitria’s capital, where survivors cheered him and a former Governor who had insulted him begged for forgiveness.

Guilliman oversaw the relief and reconstruction of Vitria before reviewing the Imperial situation and setting his sights on the Nephilim Sector. He decided to visit The Rock and use the Dark Angels’ hunt for the Fallen to secure their support.

• Guilliman walked through the devastated Hive City, ordered Chaplains to comfort and protect the survivors, and arranged medical care and reconstruction.
• Senior officers reported that Tyranid forces on Vitria had been largely destroyed and that the Imperial fleet was hunting the remaining Bio-ships.
• Guilliman ordered the repaired holographic projector activated and studied the Imperium’s territory and the Great Rift.
• Guilliman identified the Nephilim Sector as the next target and considered using the Dark Angels’ search for the Fallen to draw them to his side.
• Guilliman resolved to visit The Rock, and Sicarius asked him about the next strategic arrangements.

Guilliman prepared the expedition to suppress unrest in the Nephilim Sector, while Kren outlined new communication and teleportation technologies. After the meeting, the Assistant Spirit offered Guilliman a mission to seize Terra and revealed that humanity could resist Chaos by creating a Warp Firewall, provided more than 90% of humanity trusted him.

• Guilliman announced the expedition's victory in the Charadon Sector and ordered its forces to prioritize Imperial citizens while suppressing rebellion in the Nephilim Sector.
• Kren described the new teleportation devices and hyper-spatial communication beacons, which could also channel the Emperor's power but risked empowering Chaos if captured.
• Guilliman assigned the expeditionary fleets to operate independently across troubled sectors and approved a parade on Vitria, assigning its organization to Phicris.
• The Assistant Spirit gave Guilliman a mission to take control of Terra, and Guilliman hesitated until it explained that the second-layer Database could help humanity resist Chaos.
• The Assistant Spirit proposed using Guilliman's Dominion Template to create a Human Warp LAN, which required humanity's overall trust in him to exceed 90%.

Guilliman learned that the Assistant Spirit’s Firewall could shield humanity from Warp entities, and he planned to visit Terra after resolving the Nephilim Sector. Meanwhile, Anna accepted a blood-cultivated flower for Guilliman’s celebration and used threats to force her staff to help conceal its origins.

• The Assistant Spirit explained the Warp and proposed using Guilliman’s Dominion Power to create a Firewall, estimating a 98% chance of success if he remained uncorrupted.
• Guilliman decided to travel to Terra after settling the Nephilim Sector, then watched Vitria’s people rebuild and declared that humanity would prevail.
• Phicris arranged for Anna to place a wreath of honor on Guilliman, and Anna set out to find perfect petals for his crown.
• A robed man brought Anna a flawless flower cultivated with the blood of people filled with desire, while an advisor warned her not to use it.
• Anna accepted the flower and threatened to hold the advisors’ families until the celebration was over, as armed Men in Black stood ready to punish opposition.

Anna agreed to cultivate flowers with her blood in hopes of winning Guilliman’s favor, while Uriel Ventris and Voldus arrived on Vitria to seek the Primarch over urgent matters. Guilliman received them and asked them to report, leaving their concerns yet to be heard.

• Anna accepted a suggestion to water flowers with her blood so their crowns might help Guilliman remember her, and ordered the man to cultivate them at the Governor’s Palace.
• Uriel Ventris and Voldus arrived in Vitria’s capital, where Ventris demanded to see Guilliman because plague was spreading through Ultramar.
• An Administratum official escorted the two warriors through the rebuilding Hive City toward Guilliman’s temporary reception room.
• Sicarius’s Honor Guard searched Ventris and Voldus and took their weapons before allowing them to enter.
• Guilliman arrived, dismissed formalities, and asked Ventris and Voldus to report their urgent matters.

Voldus warned Guilliman about Tzeentch’s plots and pleaded for troops to defend worlds near the Great Rift, but Guilliman rebuked him and ordered him to follow the Crusade’s strategy. Uriel Ventris then reported corruption, arms trafficking, rebellion, and a supernatural plague in Ultramar, asking Guilliman to authorize executions so reforms could continue.

• Voldus warned Guilliman that Tzeentch’s Daemons were plotting against him, urged him to halt dangerous Warp experiments, and requested a fleet to defend worlds near the Great Rift.
• Guilliman refused to divert forces from the Indomitus Crusade’s strategy, rebuked Voldus for challenging his plans, and threatened the Grey Knights if they interfered.
• Voldus apologized and agreed to convey Guilliman’s orders to his fellow Grey Knights, while Guilliman promised to consider sending troops after reinforcements arrived.
• Uriel Ventris told Guilliman that alliances resisting Macragge’s rule had diverted defense funds and sold Astra Militarum weapons to rebels in the Domela Subsector.
• Uriel Ventris reported that a supernatural plague had spread through Ultramar and asked Guilliman to authorize executions of the corrupt nobles; Guilliman considered his request and reached a decision.

Guilliman authorized Uriel Ventris to guide reclaimed worlds and learned that the Tear Plague was spreading through Ultramar, likely as part of Nurgle’s scheme. He brought Uriel and Voldus to see Cherubael, a bound Daemon Prince whose obedient behavior shocked them.

• Guilliman granted Uriel Ventris authority to oversee the reclaimed planets and heard his report about the Tear Plague in Dhol, Talassar, and Parmenio.
• Guilliman ordered Ecclesiarchy Priests, the Ordo Malleus, and the Grey Knights to investigate the plague and use supervised unconventional methods if necessary.
• Guilliman asked Sicarius to conceal damage to the reception room, then led Uriel Ventris and Voldus to the depths of Macragge's Honour.
• Voldus accused Inquisitor Eisenhorn of leading Guilliman into dangerous dealings with Daemons, but Guilliman defended the need to gather intelligence from the Warp.
• Guilliman introduced Voldus and Uriel to Cherubael, who greeted the Primarch respectfully and left both visitors astonished by his obedience.

Guilliman questioned a summoned daemon about the Warp’s schemes and learned that the Plague God planned to trap him in Ultramar, while Tzeentch might be targeting the Dark Angels and Fulgrim had devised a plot against him. The daemon’s warning left Voldus and Uriel Ventris concerned, while Guilliman remained wary of Cherubael and expected Fulgrim’s plan to emerge soon.

• Guilliman ordered Eisenhorn to summon a daemon and questioned it about the Plague God’s plans.
• The daemon said the Plague God intended to use a plague to enter the material universe and might try to keep Guilliman in Ultramar.
• The daemon said it knew little of Tzeentch’s scheme but suggested that the Dark Angels’ fortress-monastery, The Rock, might be involved.
• The daemon revealed that Fulgrim had devised a plan to drag Guilliman into the abyss of vanity, though it knew no details.
• After dismissing the daemon, Guilliman warned Voldus and Uriel Ventris about the dangers of dealing with daemons and said they must still fight the Warp.
• Guilliman turned his attention to Cherubael, who gave him a fawning smile.

Vitria held a grand parade celebrating Guilliman’s victory, and the Primarch addressed the cheering crowds. When Governor Anna placed the Wreath of Glory on him, Guilliman’s eyes went unfocused, and Voldus sensed a Daemon nearby.

• Guilliman warned Ventris and the other man not to spread what they had learned about Daemons, and they decided to join and record the parade before returning to Ultramar.
• Anna tended a flowerbed with disturbing devotion, having used living people as fertilizer to prepare it for the celebration.
• Vitria’s forces marched through Triumphal Plaza as millions watched, and Guilliman appeared on the platform to promise humanity victory and a new age of hope.
• Anna presented Guilliman with the Wreath of Glory while Voldus sensed a Daemon’s presence.
• As Anna placed the wreath on Guilliman, his eyes immediately grew unfocused.

Guilliman resisted Fulgrim’s attempt to corrupt him through the Crown of Vanity and exposed Anna as a Daemon-possessed traitor. He mocked Fulgrim and threatened to kill him, leaving their confrontation poised to escalate.

• Guilliman removed the Crown of Vanity and burned it to ash, rejecting its visions of glory.
• Grand Master Voldus seized Anna, whose disguise fell away to reveal a monstrous Daemonic form.
• Guilliman recognized Fulgrim’s voice and learned that he had possessed Anna’s body.
• Fulgrim claimed Guilliman would eventually succumb to corruption, but Guilliman taunted him and threatened to hunt him down.
• Guilliman mocked Fulgrim by describing a rewritten account of the Battle of Thessala and calling him a slave unworthy of fighting.
• Guilliman drew the Emperor’s Sword and vowed to kill Fulgrim and publicly disgrace him.

Fulgrim vowed to kill Guilliman after Guilliman destroyed Anna, but Guilliman turned the governor’s corruption into a public appeal for humanity to unite and reclaim the Emperor’s dream. The Imperium’s people and leaders pledged themselves to Guilliman, alarming the Chaos Gods and transforming their Great Game into the prospect of open war.

• Fulgrim raged at Guilliman, left his Palace of Excess to gather his lost sons, and vowed to kill him.
• Guilliman burned Anna to ashes, then addressed Vitria and admitted that Chaos had corrupted officials within the Imperium.
• Guilliman called on humanity to help restore the Emperor’s dream and asked the people to unite against Chaos.
• Calgar, Sicarius, Uriel Ventris, Voldus, Imperial officers, soldiers, Tech-priests, Knights, and citizens knelt and pledged loyalty to Guilliman.
• The gathered human will rippled through the Warp, and the Chaos Gods recognized that Guilliman’s growing influence could lead to all-out war between the material universe and the Warp.

Guilliman’s speech inspired the Imperium to wage total war, while the fleet left Vitria and traveled toward the Connie System. There, Chaos corrupted a prisoner and killed Enforcers, as Cadia survivor Minka’s regiment approached the system for a battle.

• Guilliman’s speech rallied the Imperium, and two weeks later his fleet departed Vitria, whose people vowed to fight for him.
• The Great Rift’s influence plunged the Connie System into unrest, as Riley and Molly arrested a man accused of murdering a family.
• On a skybridge, the prisoner looked up at the rift, mutated into a monster, and killed Molly and the Enforcers before disappearing.
• Minka woke from nightmares about Cadia’s fall and remembered how the 101st Regiment had sent her away to survive.
• Sergeant Valdi told Minka that their transport would reach the Connie System in twenty minutes and warned her that a hard battle awaited.

Minka and the Cadian Soldiers learned that the Great Rift had driven Connie Prime’s population into rebellion, then watched footage of the Primarch’s forces destroying an Ork Attack Moon and rallied behind Guilliman. As the regiments deployed to retake Connie Prime, their march across the peaceful agricultural world was abruptly interrupted by an attack.

• Valdi told Minka that rebels had seized most of Connie Prime, and the commanders chose a ground assault to reclaim the world’s factories and cities intact.
• Valdi showed Minka and nearby Cadian Soldiers footage of the Primarch’s forces destroying an Ork Attack Moon, inspiring them to fight for Guilliman and recover what Cadia had lost.
• Minka and the Cadian regiments boarded transports, landed on Connie Prime, and assembled their troops and vehicles for the advance.
• The column crossed Connie Prime’s green agricultural fields, and Minka admired the world’s beauty despite the Great Rift in the sky.
• An alarm sounded, Minka ran for cover, and shells struck the ground where she had been standing.

Minka and the Cadian 101st Regiment fought traitors in the Connie System, suffering heavy losses before the Dark Angels turned the tide and helped them retake a Hive City. Boreas and the Deathwing Company then followed a lead into the city’s depths to hunt the demon behind the attacks.

• Minka and Valdi helped repel a traitor ambush, but Valdi died from wounds caused by the blast that destroyed their shelter.
• Minka and the 101st Regiment advanced on a traitor-held Hive City, where the rebels used civilians as shields and sacrifices to unleash warp-born monsters.
• The Cadians were forced to retreat from the supernatural assault, then struggled to hold the blockade as traitors repeatedly summoned monsters against them.
• Boreas and the Dark Angels arrived in Drop Pods, defeated the traitors’ forces and sorcery, and led the Cadians in retaking the Hive City.
• Boreas told Minka that his Deathwing squad was hunting a demon, then followed a Librarian’s report and coordinates to find it in the depths of the Hive City.

Boreas and the Deathwing confronted a Tzeentchian Daemon that prophesied the Dark Angels' destruction and the exposure of Caliban's secrets. Meanwhile, Guilliman met the Aeldari on a frozen planet and entered their hidden tower, where a Farseer welcomed him.

• Boreas led the Deathwing into the depths of Connie Prime, where they fought through a Chaos cult and found a hall filled with tortured bodies.
• A Daemon appeared and warned Boreas that the Thirteenth Son would destroy the First Legion, disgrace their Gene-Father, and expose Caliban's secrets before escaping the Librarian's attack.
• Boreas decided to report the encounter to Grand Master Azrael and prepare for Guilliman's arrival in the Nephilim Sector.
• Guilliman followed psychic guidance to a frozen planet, where Sicarius and the others melted a passage through an Ice Wall and uncovered an Aeldari structure.
• Guilliman entered the tower alone and met an Aeldari Farseer, who welcomed him as the Emperor's son.

Guilliman met Eldrad Ulthran, who warned him that Chaos and other ancient powers threatened the Imperium, and pointed him toward lost Webway records in the Eye of Terror. Guilliman resolved to travel to The Rock and press ahead with reforms as rebellions spread, with the Alpha Legion joining the unrest.

• Guilliman met Eldrad Ulthran, who warned that the Chaos Gods had turned their attention toward him and would try to provoke another civil war.
• Guilliman asked Eldrad Ulthran for Webway-construction knowledge, and Eldrad directed him to search the former Aeldari Empire’s Star of Knowledge in the Eye of Terror.
• Eldrad warned Guilliman about the First Legion’s secrets, the entity Ouroboros, and ancient beings returning after the Great Rift opened.
• Guilliman ordered Sicarius to take the fleet to The Rock so he could address the Dark Angels’ Caliban Protocol and investigate the ancient race.
• Guilliman’s reforms redistributed wealth, expanded education and administration, and weakened cults, while nobles rebelled against his policies.
• Calgar suppressed successive rebellions as reports arrived that the Alpha Legion had joined them.

Calgar led the Imperial fleet to crush the Evans rebellion and launched a teleportation assault on Pular, the capital. He reached the palace and confronted an Alpha Legion warrior who claimed to be Alpharius.

• Calgar learned that the rebels had seized Evans with Alpha Legion support and ordered his fleet to the system.
• The Imperial fleet defeated the rebel ships and planned a ground assault on Pular, where Calgar aimed to capture the command center and Astropathic Court.
• Calgar rejected orbital bombardment to spare civilians and organized a teleportation strike against Pular’s defenses.
• Imperial troops teleported into the city and overwhelmed its defenders as Calgar led a spearhead toward the palace.
• Calgar entered the palace and found an Alpha Legion warrior sitting on the ruler’s throne, who identified himself as Alpharius.

Calgar defeated the Alpha Legion impostor on Evans Planet, but the traitor's warnings about The Rock and Guilliman's danger drove him to take the Victory Laurel there. An Alpha Legion infiltrator disguised as Cybus joined the expedition, carrying a mysterious box.

• Calgar's forces attacked the traitor calling himself Alpharius, and Calgar killed him after hearing warnings about the Caliban Protocol and threats to Guilliman at The Rock.
• Calgar found no clues at the battlefield, then ordered the Victory Laurel to The Rock while his other forces continued their missions.
• An Alpha Legion warrior disguised as Mosuo murdered Cybus, revealed his identity, and later impersonated Cybus as well.
• The impostor Cybus rejoined the squad with Mosuo's identity and a strange patterned box, then boarded the Victory Laurel with Calgar.
• Calgar vowed to protect Guilliman as the Victory Laurel departed for The Rock.

Calgar worried that Guilliman might be in danger and sought a way to warn him without provoking his anger. On the Rock, Azrael learned of Boreas’s warning about a Daemon’s plot, then secretly revealed that the Dark Angels planned to use the Daemon’s influence to expose a traitor within their ranks.

• Calgar decided to seek Guilliman’s guidance under the pretext of discussing strategy while preparing for trouble from the Dark Angels.
• Cybus tested the God-Slaying Sword on two crewmen and declared that Guilliman had to die because he threatened the final plan.
• Boreas returned to the Rock and warned Azrael, Ezekiel, and Dagonet that a Daemon of the Changer was plotting against Guilliman and the First Legion.
• Azrael rejected Boreas’s suspicions, confined him, and continued discussing the Dark Angels’ arrangements with Ezekiel and Dagonet.
• Azrael secretly met three unnamed Knights and revealed that the Dark Angels would exploit a Deathwing member’s Seed of Confusion to expose a hidden traitor.

Azrael revealed his secret counterintelligence plan to exploit the conspiracy targeting the Dark Angels and Guilliman, then dispatched the Knights under strict secrecy. Meanwhile, Inquisitor Grey pursued the Cult of the Ouroboros to Hell Five, where a discovery involving the Dark Angels interrupted her judgment of the captured cultists.

• Azrael explained that infiltrators had attacked The Rock and that he had formed six secret Inner Circles to uncover them.
• Azrael told four Knights that he would use Guilliman's arrival to draw the conspiracy into exposing itself, and they swore to keep their assignments secret.
• Azrael gave members of the other Inner Circles different accounts so that only he knew the full plan.
• Inquisitor Grey led an Expeditionary Fleet to Hell Five after capturing Cultists who implicated the Cult of the Ouroboros.
• As Grey prepared to pass judgment on the captured cultists and nobles, a subordinate reported that their discovery involved the Dark Angels.