Chapter Summaries

Diana confronted Koren and its Necron forces, but the battle ended when she unleashed a mysterious power that sent the Titans back ten minutes in time. She ordered the Titans to stop and call for reinforcements, only for Koren to reappear and threaten them again.

• Diana questioned whether Koren's guards used Warp technology, and the system identified their ability as physical science that could redirect attacks.
• Koren's guard killed a Titan operator with a Phase Spear, then used a Canoptek serpent to reduce the kneeling Orks to ash.
• Diana fired the Mars Witch's Wave Cannon at Koren, whose spatial defense failed when Diana's Black Sphere flared with blue light.
• Diana found herself back ten minutes earlier, with the supposedly dead operator alive, and the system confirmed that the Titans had been sent back in time.
• Diana ordered the Titans to stop and report their situation while they waited for reinforcements.
• Koren and its giant serpents reappeared, and Koren warned Diana to answer its question or it would kill them all.

Qin Mo’s forces arrived at Dead Zone Three, where Diana was trapped in a repeating battle against the Necrons. Trazyn and Aurekan appeared aboard a tomb ship and requested permission to board the Celestial Engine to resolve the situation without bloodshed.

• Qin Mo watched Diana fight the Necron Overlord through repeated time resets while the Tyran Sector remained frozen within ten minutes.
• Qin Mo brought the full force of the Talon Navy and Celestial Engine to Dead Zone Three despite Burner insisting that the three of them could handle the enemy.
• Yao En and the Custodians prepared for battle after the fleet emerged from dimensional space near Dead Zone Three.
• Trazyn and Aurekan arrived aboard a triangular tomb ship and argued over their reasons for coming to the system.
• Trazyn and Aurekan asked to board the Celestial Engine without their guards, and Qin Mo agreed to hear them out.

Qin Mo let Trazyn and Aurekan go to Dead Zone Three to negotiate with Overlord Koren, hoping to avoid dangerous time manipulation. When the ship returned with both Necrons’ heads, Qin Mo ordered war.

• Aurekan showed Qin Mo a scroll suggesting that Koren’s place in history had been altered, while Trazyn warned that the Kallon Dynasty’s artifacts could control time.
• Qin Mo weighed the danger that repeated time reversal would weaken the Reality Membrane and the Veil, and chose to let Trazyn and Aurekan seek out Koren.
• Mimic agreed with Qin Mo’s plan to prepare for battle and destroy the Necron Dynasty if Koren refused to cooperate.
• Half an hour later, the Beetle-Shaped Ship returned with Trazyn and Aurekan’s severed heads.
• Qin Mo ordered the ground forces deployed and declared war.

Koren recalled how the Silent King forced his family into Biotransference, leaving them as emotionless machines and filling him with regret. Back in the present, he ordered Trazyn’s headless clone destroyed and used as ammunition.

• Koren remembered refusing Biotransference and asking to die with his wife on Iya Star, but Trazyn enforced the Silent King's order and guards seized the family.
• Koren, his wife, and daughter were transformed in the furnace along with their guard.
• Koren embraced his family, then realized they could only repeat preset declarations of love and no longer felt emotions.
• A guard asked what to do with Trazyn's headless clone body, and Koren ordered it crushed into slag and fired as ammunition.

Koren fought the Serpent constructs while the Mars Witch battled them, insisting on giving her a fair fight. A Ratling Sniper Team ambushed Koren and his guard, shooting Koren down and sending him back to his tomb to be reborn.

• Koren ordered his guard to crush the remains of The Infinite and Orikan, then refused to use overwhelming force against the Mars Witch.
• The Mars Witch destroyed Serpent constructs and protected a Warhound Titan while Koren watched.
• Six Ratlings teleported into the forest and their captain aimed at Koren with a heavy anti-armor sniper rifle.
• Koren's guard detected the captain and repeatedly hurled his spear at him, but the captain escaped through Warp Rifts.
• The Ratlings shot Koren and his guard, and the captain fired another shot that sent Koren back to his tomb to be reborn.

After Koren repeatedly rewound time to counter Qin Mo’s attacks, Qin Mo destroyed six planets to isolate Dead Zone Three and force the Necrons to fight without reinforcements. Koren unleashed his army and powerful war machines, and Qin Mo prepared to join the battle as a warrior.

• Anreda reported that the Mars Witch had killed Koren, and Qin Mo speculated that Koren had withdrawn from the forest because the war had escalated.
• A massive Obelisk rose at Dead Zone Three’s South Pole, while Necron forces began assembling across the system.
• Qin Mo ordered the Celestial Engine to destroy six planets, but Koren rewound time; Qin Mo then fired on Dead Zone Three, prompting Koren to rewind time again.
• Qin Mo and Koren both sought to preserve Dead Zone Three, and the timeline settled on the six other planets being destroyed while Dead Zone Three remained intact.
• Koren awakened his forces through the Obelisk’s miniature Wormhole and deployed the Slaughterhouse and other Necron war machines.
• Qin Mo donned his Power Armor and weapons, leaving the Celestial Engine’s intelligence to command the war with most of the sector’s processing power.

Talon forces and the Necron Army fought a devastating battle on Dead Zone Three as both sides adapted through time rewinds. After Qin Mo and three C’tan rescued the besieged Titan Legion and 87th Armored Regiment, Koren prepared to enter the battle himself.

• Talon Navy bombarded Dead Zone Three while Iron Men teleported down to attack the Necron Army, and the Necrons countered with anti-orbital weapons and defensive energy fields.
• The Necrons rewound time and changed their bombardment strategy, but their lances only delayed the advancing War Machines as Iron Men and Necrons devastated the planet’s surface.
• Diana, Kalon, the Titan Legion, and Duncan’s 87th Armored Regiment teleported to the Necron flank and began tearing through its battle line.
• Koren rewound time and sent Necron reserves to ambush the arriving human forces, repeating his tactic as the humans reappeared.
• A Fire Meteor, a transforming Heavy Gunship, and a lightning strike brought three C’tan into the battle; Qin Mo emerged from the crater as the besieging Necrons were displaced.
• Koren recognized the three C’tan, armed himself with a spear and shield, and stepped onto a teleportation platform with his Lychguard.

Diana and Qin Mo watched the Titan Legion and its allies battle the Necrons as Blackstone empowered the Slaughterhouse against the C'tan. Qin Mo unleashed his strongest strike, destroying the Slaughterhouse, but the effort left him weakened.

• Diana used the Mars Witch to see across the battlefield and prayed for the Imperial soldiers who had once fought the Necrons.
• The Slaughterhouse advanced toward Diana's forces, and Burner and Mimic attacked it but could not stop its rapid regeneration.
• Qin Mo sensed Blackstone inside the Slaughterhouse and realized it amplified Warp energy, preventing the C'tan from directly altering physical laws.
• Qin Mo teleported above the Slaughterhouse, removed his scepter and Power Armor, and summoned a giant blue form wielding a Forge Hammer.
• Qin Mo struck the Slaughterhouse with the Forge Hammer, shattering it and transforming its Living Metal into brittle stone-like material.
• Qin Mo collapsed to one knee among the wreckage, weakened by the attack.

Qin Mo and Koren settled their conflict with a ritual duel after Koren acknowledged the damage his use of Time Rewind had caused. Qin Mo defeated him and ordered the Necron Army out of the Tyran Sector, and Koren honored the agreement by withdrawing.

• Koren offered Qin Mo a hand and explained the Necrophage ritual of allowing an opponent to stand before a duel.
• Qin Mo blamed Koren for weakening the Reality Membrane, while Koren defended the Necrophages’ submission to the C'tan and challenged Qin Mo to a fair duel.
• Qin Mo struck Koren with a scepter, and Koren’s Phase Gauntlet failed to pierce Qin Mo’s Power Armor.
• Koren disabled the Blackstone and Time Tapestry, and he and Qin Mo resumed the duel without armor.
• Qin Mo pierced Koren and defeated him; Koren accepted the ritual terms and ordered his army to withdraw from the Tyran Sector.

Qin Mo and Trazyn assessed the damage to the Reality Membrane and Veil after Koren’s retreat, while Trazyn questioned why Koren had hibernated in Dead Zone Three. Koren recalled that an Old One’s prophecy had warned him that a calamity would destroy his dynasty, but the chapter left the prophecy’s meaning unresolved.

• Koren’s forces withdrew aboard the Crescent Warship, and Trazyn teleported onto the Celestial Engine to meet Qin Mo.
• Trazyn secretly took Aurekan’s severed head into his Pocket Dimension while Qin Mo studied the failing Reality Membrane and Veil around Dead Zone Three and nearby systems.
• Trazyn questioned why Koren had hibernated so far from the Kallon Dynasty, and Qin Mo suggested asking Koren directly.
• Koren remembered questioning a captured Old One after the War in Heaven, who prophesied that a calamity from Dead Zone Three would destroy the Kallon Dynasty and erase Koren.
• Koren spared the Old One, ordering his guards to send him away after concluding that the prophecy had won him a chance to live.

Qin Mo learned that Tzeentch had manipulated events millions of years ago to weaken the Reality Membrane around Dead Zone Three, and he began preparing the Tyran Sector for a possible daemon invasion. The Necron fleet departed, while Qin Mo planned an evacuation and a defensive line supported by a Webway center.

• Koren told Qin Mo how he had met and released an Old Ones prisoner that spoke of the God of Wisdom and thanked him for bringing unpredictable possibilities.
• Qin Mo concluded that Tzeentch had influenced the past and used Koren and his Time Rewind artifact to weaken the Reality Membrane, then ordered Koren never to return.
• Koren questioned Qin Mo's accusation, but Qin Mo ended the communication.
• The Necron Army and Dead Zone Three's colonists departed, and Trazyn left after stealing a guard's Power Armor.
• Qin Mo discussed the threat with Mimic and Burner, then decided to evacuate the region within four hundred light-years and establish a defensive line.
• Burner proposed a defensive center in the Webway so the army could respond quickly to daemon attacks, and Qin Mo agreed.

After hearing about the weakening Reality Membrane in the Tyran Sector, Guilliman considered how to support Talon and arranged military and specialist aid. Before visiting the Imperial Palace, Cawl asked Guilliman to help him compete for the position of Fabricator General, leaving Guilliman wary of his increasingly strange behavior.

• Qin Mo told Guilliman about the Necrons and the weakening Reality Membrane, and Guilliman promised to help the Tyran Sector.
• Cawl told Guilliman that the Imperial Palace visit could begin before the welcome ceremony was ready, and Guilliman decided to seek aid for Talon.
• Guilliman planned to ask the Ecclesiarchy and Adeptus Mechanicus to send specialists, and he ordered an astropathic message to Caldor requesting military support.
• Cawl revealed that Tyran Sector researchers were studying the Warp, and Guilliman insisted that specialists and military forces should both be sent.
• Cawl asked to become Fabricator General, then requested Guilliman's help devising strategies if he competed for the position.
• Guilliman declined to discuss the request and headed for the Imperial Palace with Cawl, noticing that Cawl had become unusually strange.

Guilliman returned to Terra and saw the misery and violence caused by the planet’s shortages and failing authority. After ordering food and water distributed, he entered the Golden Throne chamber and sensed the Emperor’s gaze, leaving his mind burning.

• Guilliman saw Terra’s soldiers kill impoverished people and Astropaths slaughter a slum’s residents as the planet descended into chaos.
• Guilliman ordered Cawl to have the Ultramarines distribute food and fresh water to Terra’s poor.
• Guilliman arrived at the Imperial Palace, left Cawl behind, and went to the Golden Throne while reflecting on his father and the fate of the Psykers offered to the Emperor.
• Guilliman entered the Golden Throne chamber and found the Emperor gaunt and unresponsive beneath the weight of ceremonial surroundings.
• Guilliman felt the Emperor turn his gaze toward him, and his skull grew intensely hot.

Guilliman endured a psychic confrontation with the Emperor, whose fractured voices alternately condemned and praised him while revealing motives behind past events. The conversation left Guilliman with a vast, shifting store of memories about the Emperor’s words and the universe’s secrets.

• Guilliman sensed the Emperor’s contradictory wills and grieved that none regarded him as a son.
• The Emperor accused Guilliman of distrusting him, expanding the Ultramarines Legion, and usurping authority over the Imperium and Adeptus Custodes.
• The Emperor praised Guilliman’s Five Hundred Worlds and reassured him that sorcery and the Warp Storm had prevented him from reaching Terra in time.
• The Emperor condemned Guilliman over the Perfect City and Lorgar, then admitted that sending the Thirteenth Legion and mishandling Angron had been mistakes.
• Guilliman experienced the Emperor’s voices as a prolonged, contradictory conversation whose contents he could retrieve in different fragments.

After meeting the Emperor, Guilliman recalled the contradictory warnings and advice he had received about Cawl, the Tyran Sector, and the High Lords. He told Cawl that the Emperor supported cooperation with the Tyran Sector, then recognized the Cawl traveling with him as a clone and named him Bureaucratic Kaol.

• Guilliman left the Imperial Palace holding the Emperor's Sword, dazed by a conversation that had felt like a century but lasted less than half a day.
• Guilliman recalled the Emperor warning him about Cawl's forbidden research while also praising Cawl's devotion and achievements.
• Guilliman remembered the Emperor's conflicting statements about the Tyran Sector and decided it was worth cooperating with.
• Guilliman told Cawl that the Emperor thought the Tyran Sector was worth cooperating with, reassuring the clone Qin Mo had given him.
• When Cawl asked about becoming Fabricator General, Guilliman said he knew Cawl was a defective clone and named him Bureaucratic Kaol.

Guilliman took part in a grand procession on Terra and met the High Lords, assessing their factions and the Ecclesiarchy officials carrying him. He ended the ceremony by ordering the Ecclesiarch to remove a winged, heavily modified baby he called a mutant.

• Guilliman rode through Terra on a platform carried by senior Ecclesiarchy officials, then moved around to make the exhausted carriers seek help.
• Guilliman examined the High Lords and recognized the faction of Uldar Udia Lasky, Lashiro, and Danda, recalling their failed attempt to use a Dark Eldar Blood Reaver to repair the Golden Throne.
• The High Lords knelt before Guilliman, then rose and walked alongside him as Servitor Skulls and painters recorded the procession for propaganda.
• Guilliman spotted a winged baby carrying a camera behind the Ecclesiarch and ordered it removed as a mutant.

Guilliman confirmed to Crapius that he would promote Dimension Engines despite the opposition of the Astropaths and Navigators. The chapter ended with Crapius sending his assistant to spread Guilliman’s position using his prized ship, the Voyager.

• Guilliman attended a gathering of the High Lords and their representatives, where the Masters of the Astronomican and the Astropaths questioned him about his journey to Terra.
• Guilliman accepted Crapius’s invitation to stay in the Terra Library, while other High Lords argued over where he should reside.
• Crapius asked Guilliman what he intended to do about Dimension Engines, and Guilliman said they must be installed and promoted while Astropaths and Navigators would retain their status and rights.
• Guilliman pressed Crapius for a definite answer, and Crapius admitted that the Navigators and Astropaths would never accept Dimension Engines.
• Crapius told his assistant to spread Guilliman’s position to the Houses that had been unable to attend and lent him the Voyager, warning him to handle its custom Dimension Engine carefully.

The narrator's colleague drank while on duty and fell down the stairs after work. The team leader asked the narrator to take him to the hospital and wait for his family, and arranged paid leave and five hundred yuan.

• The narrator's colleague drank while on duty.
• The colleague fell down the stairs after work.
• The team leader asked the narrator to take the colleague to the hospital and stay until his family arrived at seven that evening.
• The team leader applied for a day of paid leave and five hundred yuan for the narrator.

Cypher abandoned his plan to earn Guilliman’s help reaching the Emperor, but the Emperor’s psychic call led him through the Imperial Palace to the Golden Throne. He stood before the Emperor as the chapter ended, still driven by an unknown mission.

• Cypher told Sylandri that Guilliman could no longer be persuaded to take him to the Emperor, then asked her to help him enter the Imperial Palace; she refused.
• While resting, Cypher heard the Emperor calling through Opfrank, whose shattered body served as a vessel for the psychic message.
• Cypher followed Opfrank through the Imperial Palace, passing undetected by the Adeptus Custodes and its defenses.
• Opfrank burned to ashes before the Golden Throne, while Cypher endured the Emperor’s call and climbed toward him.
• Cypher reached the Golden Throne and saw the Emperor suffering in agony.

Cypher reached the Golden Throne and learned that the Emperor’s divided will did not want him freed because humanity would be destroyed if He rose. After Cypher shot himself, he survived and woke imprisoned in the Imperial Palace Dungeon beside Kayan.

• Cypher knelt before the Emperor and heard conflicting voices about whether He wanted to be freed.
• The Emperor showed Cypher the destruction of the Ancient Eldar Empire and warned that humanity would suffer the same fate if He rose from the Golden Throne.
• Cypher demanded a clear answer, heard the Emperor say He did not wish to rise, and shot himself with his twin pistols.
• Trajann found Cypher, furiously struck him, and Cypher later woke bound in the Imperial Palace Dungeon.
• Kayan asked whether the Dark Legion and Warmaster were coming to Terra, and Cypher told him that the Warmaster’s fate was unknown and his companions were dead.