Chapter Summaries

Cawl’s attempt to resurrect Guilliman sparked a clash in the Sepulchre Hall when Caldor rejected his risky plan and discovered Yvraine’s role. After Yvraine stabbed Guilliman and Cawl activated the reliquary, Guilliman revived and the Ultramarines knelt before him.

• Caldor asked Cawl to explain his plan and wanted time to assess its risks, but grew suspicious when Cawl insisted that his two companions perform an operation on Guilliman.
• Caldor urged Cawl to continue the discussion in Macragge’s council chamber, while Tigurius warned Cawl that the gathering would not let him act freely.
• Cawl signaled his contingency plan, and Yvraine and Thousand Faces shed their disguises and rushed toward the Throne; Tigurius sided with them and held back the Ultramarines.
• Cawl deactivated the Stasis Field and opened the reliquary as Celestine, Thousand Faces, and Tigurius fought off Caldor and the guards.
• Yvraine stabbed Guilliman in the neck, and the reliquary enveloped him before revealing him revived and filled with vitality.
• Guilliman looked over the Sepulchre Hall, and the Ultramarines stopped fighting and knelt before their Primarch.

After his resurrection, Guilliman learned from Cawl and his followers how the Imperium and galaxy had changed over ten thousand years, and grew increasingly troubled by what he heard. Greyfax described the Tyran Sector as both a rare refuge of reason and a dangerous, technologically advanced rival, leaving Guilliman to urge the Inquisition to show more tolerance toward people living in misery.

• Greyfax arrived at the Sepulchre Hall and warned that Cawl and the xenos had planned to kill Guilliman, but found the Primarch already resurrected.
• Guilliman spoke with Cawl, Caldor, Tigurius, the Ultramarines, and the xenos to learn about the Imperium and the state of the galaxy.
• Cawl reassured Caldor that Guilliman respected him and was not unhappy because of him.
• Guilliman lamented to Greyfax that the Imperium had abandoned the Imperial Truth for superstition and that most worlds were places of misery.
• Greyfax explained that the Tyran Sector offered Soulless Ones education and work but relied on Abominable Intelligence, resisted the Inquisition, and could threaten the Imperium.
• Guilliman acknowledged Greyfax's concerns but argued that the Inquisition should be tolerant because people trapped in hell would be vulnerable to daemonic temptation.

Yvraine explained the Eldar’s suspicions that the Tyran Sector might follow the ancient C’tan, though neither she nor Guilliman considered the evidence conclusive. Guilliman decided to visit the sector and seek cooperation, while Yvraine and Thousand Faces left for their quarters.

• Yvraine told Guilliman that Eldar prophets suspected ancient C’tan were awakening and might have chosen humans in the Tyran Sector as followers.
• Guilliman and Yvraine agreed that further investigation was needed before deciding whether the Tyran Sector had any connection to the C’tan.
• Guilliman planned to visit the Tyran Sector, meet its Governor, halt hostile Inquisition actions if cooperation proved possible, and obtain Dimension Engines for his fleet.
• Guilliman thanked Yvraine for helping revive him and sharing Eldar history, then Caldor arranged accommodations for her and Thousand Faces.
• Thousand Faces questioned why Yvraine had not pursued cooperation, and Yvraine said Guilliman needed time to adjust after awakening.

Qin Mo learned from Vanessa that Guilliman had awakened and was coming to the Tyran Sector, prompting him to prepare a formal welcome. Guilliman arrived near the sector aboard the King of Explorers and was greeted by the Tyran Navy, which offered to guide his ship through the dimensional beacon.

• Qin Mo asked Vanessa about the warning from Beisu Prime and learned that the Emperor's divided will had sent it through a friendly fragment.
• Qin Mo considered how the Emperor might influence Guilliman's view of him and learned that Guilliman had awakened and was heading to the Tyran Sector.
• Qin Mo decided to receive Guilliman with the highest honors, while Guilliman traveled toward Tyran aboard the King of Explorers with Greyfax and Cawl.
• Guilliman learned that many Imperial leaders secretly used Dimension Engines and realized that their opposition stemmed from self-interest.
• The Tyran Navy fleet emerged from a vast rift near the King of Explorers, and Adam welcomed Guilliman and Cawl on behalf of Qin Mo.

Guilliman and his delegation arrived in the heavily fortified Tyran Sector, where Qin Mo welcomed them with an unusually grand naval reception. Guilliman and Qin Mo quickly found common ground, and the visit began with Qin Mo offering the Primarch a giant bath.

• Guilliman and his fleet traveled through the dimensional realm to the Tyran System after Adam established communications and coordinated their arrival.
• Guilliman, Cawl, and Greyfax surveyed the Tyran System’s vast shipyards, defenses, metal planet, and statue of Qin Mo.
• Qin Mo and the Custodians welcomed Guilliman’s transport at Talon Prime while the Tyran Navy waited outside the spaceport.
• Guilliman thanked Qin Mo for supporting the Imperium, and Qin Mo replied that he had acted for humanity.
• Guilliman asked about the tour’s itinerary, and Qin Mo offered to start with a giant bath built for someone nearly four meters tall.

Qin Mo showed Guilliman the highly developed Talon Prime and explained how its people managed recreation and rest. As a military parade revealed the sector’s immense productive capacity, Yvraine concluded that a C’tan of manufacturing and productivity was present, and Guilliman looked toward Qin Mo.

• Qin Mo brought Guilliman to Talon Prime, where Guilliman saw the planet’s orderly residential and industrial zones.
• Qin Mo explained that civilians received rotating holidays on resort worlds, while Anreda clarified that entertainment devices were now common household items.
• Guilliman asked how the sector prevented corruption in holiday scheduling, and Qin Mo’s evasive response led Guilliman to suspect widespread artificial intelligence use.
• Grey confirmed the ceremony was ready, and Qin Mo watched as the Army paraded in Power Armor beneath a formation of Tyran Navy warships.
• Yvraine told Guilliman that the sector’s productivity indicated a C’tan whose domain was manufacturing, and Guilliman turned his attention to Qin Mo.

Guilliman joined Qin Mo and the others for a bath, where Greyfax confronted Qin Mo over the Tyran Sector’s heresy and motives. After hearing Qin Mo’s goal of freeing humanity from the Warp’s influence, Guilliman ordered the Inquisition to end its investigations, leaving him to wonder whether Qin Mo had created humanity.

• Guilliman entered the bath while still wearing the Armor of Fate and discovered that he could feel the water as if the armor were absent.
• Greyfax accused Qin Mo of heresy, and Qin Mo admitted that the Tyran Sector rejected both the Ecclesiarchy and the Imperial Truth.
• Greyfax urged Guilliman to launch a war against the Tyran Sector, but Guilliman pointed out its aid at Cadia, Baal, and to a noble Chapter.
• Qin Mo told Guilliman and Greyfax that he wanted to end the suffering and ignorance caused by the Warp’s influence on the Real Universe.
• Guilliman ordered Greyfax to tell the Inquisition to terminate all investigations into the Tyran Sector, and she eventually agreed.
• Guilliman considered Qin Mo’s affection for humanity and wondered whether Qin Mo had created it.

Qin Mo gave Guilliman an industrial ship capable of manufacturing Dimension Engines, and Guilliman named it Friendship. Settled into his residence, Guilliman read accounts of Qin Mo’s origins and discussed with Yvraine whether Qin Mo was a C’tan and how genuine his attachment to the people of Talon seemed.

• Qin Mo presented Guilliman with an industrial ship that could build cruisers, frigates, and Dimension Engines, and Guilliman named it Friendship.
• Qin Mo arranged accommodations for Guilliman and assigned the Custodian Anreda to care for and protect him.
• Guilliman used the residence’s projected library to read conflicting accounts of the Lord of Tyran’s origins, including a tale linking him to a doctor who had treated him.
• Yvraine told Guilliman that Qin Mo was likely a C’tan and that his love for Talon’s humans seemed sincere.
• Guilliman removed his Spirit Bone Device and continued reading.

Guilliman visited Evin VII to inspect its agricultural systems and decided to introduce its synthetic starch and biotechnology-based meat production to the Five Hundred Worlds. He then asked to visit Tyran Sector schools, but Anreda claimed they were on holiday and suggested going the next day.

• Anreda took Guilliman to Evin VII, where he showed him vast crop fields and orbital devices that provided constant sunlight.
• Anreda showed Guilliman a tower that grew engineered food organisms through an accelerated production line and processed them into meat.
• Guilliman approved of the food-production methods and asked Anreda to tell Lord of Tyran that he wanted to introduce synthetic starch and meat production.
• Guilliman asked to observe Tyran Sector schools, but Anreda said the schools were on holiday and proposed visiting the next day.
• Guilliman suspected Anreda was deceiving him and insisted that he take him to the schools.

Guilliman listened to a Talon Prime Sector University lesson evaluating the Emperor and the Great Crusade, then encountered a faint human fragment of the Emperor’s will. He challenged the Emperor’s account of Angron, exposing how little this fragment remembered about Angron’s past.

• Guilliman listened as a teacher explained the Great Crusade, the Great Rebellion, and why the Codex Astartes no longer suited the intensity of modern war.
• The teacher described the Emperor as a tyrant who had sacrificed himself on the Golden Throne to keep humanity alive, and Guilliman called the assessment the kindest he had heard.
• Guilliman told Anreda that the Emperor had not been a good father, prompting a faint fragment of the Emperor’s will to possess a blonde woman and confront him about Angron’s accusation.
• Guilliman rejected Angron’s charge that the Emperor was a slave master, but said Angron’s resentment had a reason.
• The Emperor claimed he had cared for Angron and had hunted Salamanders with him, while Guilliman explained that Angron had been taken from his gladiator companions, who were left to die under their slave masters.

Guilliman confronted the Emperor’s human aspect about the Imperium’s failures and learned his view of the Tyran Sector before preparing to return to his duties. After three days exploring the sector and saying goodbye to Qin Mo, Guilliman departed with a beacon to shorten his journey.

• Guilliman expressed his despair over the Imperium’s state, and the Emperor urged him to face his responsibilities without overburdening himself.
• Guilliman asked the Emperor to accompany him to Terra, but the Emperor declined, then praised the Lord of Tyran and the sector’s human faction.
• Time resumed, and Vanessa saw Guilliman; he thanked Anreda and left the school.
• Guilliman spent three days in the Tyran Sector helping colonists, scientists, an old woman, and bounty hunters before preparing to leave.
• Guilliman and Qin Mo said farewell aboard the King of Explorers, and Qin Mo directed him to a Celestial Engine beacon five hundred light-years away.
• The Dimension Engine activated, and Guilliman departed with Cawl’s crew while continuing to look toward Qin Mo.

Qin Mo and Burner explored a more stable Webway gate and encountered Eldrad Ulthuan fleeing with a stolen Crystal Seer. After Burner destroyed Eldrad’s pursuers, Qin Mo stopped Eldrad’s group from leaving and asked why they had come to the Tyran Sector.

• Qin Mo returned to his research facility and told Burner that he did not hate Guilliman, while they discussed their improved Webway gate.
• Qin Mo and Burner entered the gate to gather data and search for a route to Commorragh.
• Qin Mo and Burner encountered Eldrad Ulthuan and Sal in the Webway, with Ulthuan carrying the crystallized Seer Aethan.
• A group of Eldar from another Ark world pursued Ulthuan and demanded the return of Aethan.
• Burner incinerated the pursuers after one of them struck him, and Ulthuan thanked Qin Mo before trying to flee with his group.
• Qin Mo prevented Ulthuan’s group from advancing and asked why they had come to the Tyran Sector.

Usulan told Qin Mo that an ancient Aeldari warrior was imprisoned in a temple and agreed to help recover the Glory Road in exchange for permission to retrieve him. Usulan located the ship in the Maelstrom, where its surviving bridge held Captain Sain, and a vessel bearing the Black Hand insignia approached the wreckage.

• Usulan confessed that he had come to Talon to free an ancient Aeldari warrior who needed the Crystal Seer to open his temple.
• Qin Mo agreed to let Usulan retrieve the warrior if he helped locate the Glory Road, and Usulan found the ship in the Maelstrom with a living person aboard its bridge.
• The Glory Road destroyed the Soul of Vengeance upon entering the Warp, but a cube-like creature began devouring its crew while Captain Sain remained trapped in his pod.
• A black sphere rescued Sain from the creature, and he recognized Regimental Commander Albert among the soldiers aboard it, though Albert did not respond.
• The Glory Road's bridge and the Soul of Vengeance's wreckage emerged from the Warp, and a ship marked with the Black Hand insignia sailed toward the bridge.

Guilliman prepared to travel from Macragge to Terra with a fleet fitted with Dimension Engines, while managing the Navigator Houses and the Five Hundred Worlds. After ordering the Great Library closed for restoration, he left Caldor with the implication that its protected records about the Second Empire mattered to him.

• Guilliman assembled a thousand ships beyond Macragge and addressed his sons and the Five Hundred Worlds’ mortal officials at Hera Fortress.
• An elderly Navigator of the Allen Family requested the honor of guiding Guilliman’s fleet, and Guilliman praised the family’s long service.
• Guilliman announced that he would travel to Terra aboard ships equipped with Dimension Engines, and Caldor publicly supported his decision.
• Guilliman instructed the assembled officials to keep the Five Hundred Worlds operating normally until he returned from Terra, then dismissed everyone except Caldor.
• Guilliman asked Caldor whether the fleet would have to pass through the Maelstrom and ordered him to close the Great Library until Guilliman could oversee its restoration.

Blackheart King Huron heard Carlos’s request for the Red Corsairs to help stop Guilliman as he passed through the Maelstrom. At the arena, Huron halted his warriors after a powerful unarmored psyker killed a Red Corsair and challenged the crowd.

• Huron questioned Carlos about Abaddon, whose fate remained unknown after the destruction of the Soul of Vengeance.
• Carlos asked Huron to help stop Guilliman, explaining that the changing state of the material universe made the Dark Gods’ usual methods less effective.
• Huron and Carlos watched an unarmored Space Marine fight a Red Corsairs warrior in the arena.
• The psyker killed his opponent with Psychic lightning and taunted the Red Corsairs to send more fighters against him.
• Huron ordered the enraged onlookers to stand down before they could attack the psyker.

Huron spared Sephro, a Black Templars warrior with newly awakened psychic powers, and sent him back to defend the mortals who had sheltered him. Huron then agreed to help Carlos pursue Guilliman in exchange for knowledge and the chance to seize Macragge's Honour.

• Sephro confronted Huron over the Red Corsairs' slaughter of the people who had sheltered him, and Huron ordered his weapons and armor returned.
• Huron sent Sephro back to drive off another warband, promising to make him lord of the world if he survived and warning his warriors against killing people who could pay taxes.
• Carlos resumed his proposal, claiming Magnus would also aid the plan to capture Guilliman, while Huron demanded to know what he would gain.
• Carlos offered knowledge of Tyranid warships and transplanted shields, along with Macragge's Honour, and Huron agreed to assist.
• Carlos said he would prepare a ritual requiring Huron's help, which would turn worlds near the Maelstrom into daemon worlds and strengthen the Dark Gods' reach in the material universe.

Guilliman’s fleet found a fortress under attack on a demon world at the edge of the Maelstrom, and he struggled with whether to delay his journey to Terra to rescue its survivors. He sent a combat squad to save them, brought them aboard Macragge’s Honour, and ordered the fleet to leave the Maelstrom.

• Guilliman ordered scans of the demon world, revealing a few uncorrupted survivors defending a fortress against a vast mutant army.
• As the fleet prepared to depart, Guilliman agonized over whether abandoning the survivors would betray his responsibilities.
• Guilliman ordered a combat squad to teleport into the fortress and rescue the survivors.
• The squad repelled the mutants, gathered the survivors, and brought them safely aboard Macragge’s Honour.
• After confirming everyone was alive, Guilliman ordered the fleet’s Dimension Engines activated to leave the Maelstrom.

Guilliman rescued survivors from a daemon world, but Carlos revealed that they had been used to complete a ritual that trapped the fleet in the heart of the Maelstrom. Carlos killed every survivor before taunting Guilliman about his tendency to overthink, and Guilliman vowed to tear him apart.

• Guilliman comforted the rescued survivors as they boarded his ship, but their fear and sorrow worsened when they learned who he was.
• A survivor confessed that they had been promised they would live if they boarded the ship, and a boy convulsed as violet light poured from his eyes.
• The captain ordered the Gellar Field activated, but the fleet entered the Warp and emerged in an unfamiliar system at the heart of the Maelstrom.
• Guilliman recognized the approaching Red Corsairs fleet and Blackstone Fortress, while Carlos appeared on-screen and explained that the survivors had been bait for his ritual.
• Guilliman asked Carlos to spare the survivors, but Carlos killed them one by one and condemned their souls to burn as he taunted Guilliman.
• Guilliman threatened to tear Carlos apart when he came to capture him.

Vraal led a Red Corsair boarding assault against Macragge's Honour, using a modified heavy Breacher Torpedo and his MK1 Terminator armor to force a path toward Guilliman. He reached the bridge hatch and saw Guilliman, but had not yet entered the bridge.

• Vraal rallied his trusted Red Corsairs inside the heavy Breacher Torpedo and ordered the Dark Mechanicum crew to activate its defenses.
• The torpedo's shield and point-defense weapons carried Vraal and his men through Macragge's Honour's defenses, while most of the accompanying boarding torpedoes were destroyed.
• Vraal charged from the torpedo and killed the Ultramarines guarding the boarding point before leading his men toward the bridge.
• Vraal ignored the nearest boarding party and advanced down the corridor, using his MK1 armor as cover while his men dealt with Melta-armed defenders.
• Vraal blasted apart the bridge hatch and saw Guilliman, who spoke to Cawl as Vraal prepared to push inside.

Guilliman used a Necron Phase Spear to kill Vraal and continued directing the defense of Macragge's Honour as Warp-teleported boarding parties overwhelmed the ship. The central passage fell to Carlos, whose sorcery enthralled the crew, and Guilliman resolved to kill him.

• Guilliman took Cawl's Necron Phase Spear and hurled it through a Red Corsair into Vraal's eye, killing him.
• Cawl's assistant recovered the spear and reported that a boarding torpedo bore a partly erased Tyran Navy insignia; Guilliman suspected it came from the captured ship Glory Road.
• Cawl told Guilliman that the torpedo had damaged the Dimension Engine, which would take ten minutes to repair, while Guilliman struggled with accusing voices in his mind.
• Red Corsairs used Warp teleportation to send a second wave of boarding parties aboard Macragge's Honour, and Guilliman learned that the central passage had fallen.
• Guilliman saw Carlos enthralling and tormenting the crew with his scepter, then resolved that Carlos must die to stop the ritual.