Chapter Summaries

The Talon Army destroyed three enemy armored regiments on the Southern Continent as Qin Mo and Grey eliminated the artillery supporting them, helping the front begin to collapse. Huron ordered the Red Corsairs to abandon Beisu Prime and withdraw their own forces before the supply route was cut.

• Ogryns charged the six Venomblade Tanks, and the Brainboys destroyed them with their heavy cannons despite being hurled back by the explosions.
• Duncan's Eighty-Seventh Armored Regiment and allied anti-tank infantry fought the corrupted tanks while Mobile Fortresses engaged the Venomblades and the Command Super-heavy shielded the regiment from artillery.
• Qin Mo and Grey destroyed the enemy artillery positions, then Qin Mo returned to the battle as the armored fight ended and the enemy lost three regiments.
• Qin Mo led the Talon Army across the front by teleportation, joining allied forces and attacking as enemy lines collapsed.
• Huron ordered the Red Corsairs to withdraw from Beisu Prime before the Southern Continent's supply route was cut, and assigned former Vraal adjutants to help cover the retreat.

Guilliman hurried to Talon Prime to meet Sanguinius, his brother returned in a living-metal body, and worried about whether their reunion would be strained by the past. Reassured by Sanguinius’s welcome, Guilliman began confiding in him about the Imperium’s grotesque state, while Vanessa warned that Sanguinius could only remain in the Real Universe for a limited time.

• The Red Corsairs began evacuating Beisu Prime while their other warbands stayed behind to cover their retreat, and Qin Mo arranged a meeting between Guilliman and Sanguinius.
• Guilliman arrived at Talon Prime with an Ultramarines honor guard after Caldor informed him that Sanguinius had appeared in the Tyran Sector.
• Guilliman met Qin Mo, Sanguinius, and Vanessa, then embraced Sanguinius and worried that his brother might resent him for founding the Second Empire.
• Vanessa warned Guilliman that Sanguinius’s living-metal body limited how long he could act in the Real Universe, and Guilliman jokingly suggested returning to Terra.
• Sanguinius noticed Guilliman’s white hair, and Guilliman complained about the Imperium’s corruption, including its grotesque winged, half-mechanical babies.

Guilliman vented to Sanguinius about the burdens of governing Terra and his painful encounter with the Emperor, while Qin Mo amused him with a tale of defacing Slaanesh’s palace. Qin Mo then led the Primarchs and the Emperor to discuss a more important matter.

• Sanguinius comforted Guilliman and argued that the Primarchs needed to guide humanity out of darkness before leaving.
• Guilliman described how a will of the Emperor had called him a thief and traitor, and Sanguinius reminded him that the Emperor had given him a sword.
• Guilliman told Qin Mo that Yvraine and Usulan had predicted he would perish in the Warp, and Qin Mo joked that he had written his name on Slaanesh’s bed.
• The Emperor and Sanguinius learned that Qin Mo had left the words “Qin Mo was here” in Slaanesh’s palace, and the Emperor criticized his manners.
• Qin Mo ended the banter and led the Primarchs and the Emperor away to discuss more important business.

Qin Mo revealed that he had taken the fifth Crone Sword from Slaanesh’s palace, and the Emperor, Guilliman, and Sanguinius debated whether it should be given to the Harlequins. Guilliman agreed to investigate the Death God’s intentions before deciding, while Qin Mo proposed seeking insight from another Eldar God.

• Qin Mo showed Guilliman, Sanguinius, and the Emperor’s human will the fifth Crone Sword, which he had stolen from Slaanesh’s palace.
• The Emperor demanded that the sword be destroyed and condemned the Eldar, but Guilliman defended the Eldar who had aided humanity, including Yvraine.
• Sanguinius reminded the Emperor that Guilliman was his son and that his cooperation with the Eldar served practical interests, prompting the Emperor to apologize.
• Guilliman asked Qin Mo for time to contact Yvraine and Usulan and investigate whether the Death God would threaten humanity.
• Qin Mo agreed and asked Guilliman to deliver the sword if they decided to give it to the Harlequins; he warned he would attack the Death God’s champion if it targeted him.
• Qin Mo operated the device connected to the Webway gate, proposing they learn about the Death God from another Eldar God.

Qin Mo brought Aisha, the Eldar Goddess of Life, out of the Webway, and she healed Guilliman while offering a way to ease the Emperor’s suffering. Aisha explained the legend that the Eldar Death God Ynnead might kill Slaanesh, leaving the Emperor to consider the consequences of humanity’s extinction.

• Qin Mo opened the Webway and brought Aisha out after assuring her that Slaanesh could not reach her.
• Aisha healed Guilliman’s soul-deep wound, and Qin Mo said she could also ease the Emperor’s pain on the Golden Throne if Guilliman persuaded the Adeptus Custodes to let her approach.
• Aisha told Qin Mo that the legend of Ynnead killing Slaanesh might be true, since the Eldar’s extinction could empower a Death God with their collective hatred.
• Aisha compared Ynnead’s possible birth to humanity’s last survivor ascending and waging war on the Four Gods, prompting the Emperor to think.
• Aisha explained that the Necrophage’s extinction created no such upheaval because they lacked Psychic Power talent.

Sanguinius, Guilliman, the Emperor, and Qin Mo debated whether to resurrect Ynnead and how to handle the Crone Sword. They agreed to gather more information, while Qin Mo decided that Aisha should remain under their protection in the Tyran Sector.

• Sanguinius asked Aisha whether Ynnead would oppose the C'tan or other races, and she said she could not speak for the Death God.
• Guilliman, the Emperor, and Sanguinius questioned the Eldar prophecy, while Qin Mo said killing the Chaos Gods remained the priority even if Ynnead might later become an enemy.
• The Emperor agreed to seek information about Ynnead, Guilliman planned to investigate the Crone Swords, and Sanguinius planned to return to Baal after the Defense of Tyran.
• Qin Mo said he would hand the Crone Sword to the Eldar if the prophecy was confirmed, then stored it in his dimensional space.
• When Sanguinius asked what to do with Aisha, Qin Mo said she should return to her people but remain protected because the Eldar could not keep her safe and she could heal Nurgle's victims.

Aisha struggled with remaining in the Talon Sector despite wanting to reunite with her Aeldari children, and Guilliman briefly took her outside before returning her when she sensed danger. Afterward, Guilliman offered to help defend Talon, but Qin Mo and the Emperor urged him to return to Terra, while Sanguinius stayed to fight beside his descendants.

• Qin Mo explained why Talon would protect Aisha and offered her the choice to leave with Guilliman, but Aisha refused and cried spirit stones.
• Qin Mo sent Guilliman to take Aisha away from Talon briefly, hoping she would understand her situation and become more willing to research cures.
• Sanguinius thanked Qin Mo for the Blood Angels' replacement warships and agreed to work with Aisha on finding a cure for the Red Thirst.
• Guilliman returned with Aisha after she sensed something watching her outside the sector and begged to come back.
• Guilliman offered to join Qin Mo's command staff, but Qin Mo and the Emperor urged him to return to Terra because Talon's victory was assured.
• Guilliman embraced Sanguinius, the Emperor, and Qin Mo before leaving, while Sanguinius remained in Talon to fight alongside his descendants.

Qin Mo joined the assembled forces aboard the Glorious Humanity and led the fleet into the Aerona System to begin its campaign against the Red Corsairs. The fleet destroyed the enemy ships and launched ground assaults, starting its advance through the Tyran Gate Defense Zone.

• The Tyran Sector assembled its warships, armies, Space Marines, three C'tan, and Sanguinius for a massive campaign.
• Qin Mo arrived aboard the Glorious Humanity and thanked the gathered commanders and allies for their support.
• After the Celestial Engine set the jump coordinates, Qin Mo ordered the fleet to set out through a Warp Rift.
• The fleet emerged in the Aerona System, where the Celestial Engine annihilated six hundred Red Corsair and Daemon Warships.
• The Adepta Sororitas, Space Marines, and Tyran Army troops began assaulting the system's planets as the fleet continued toward the next system.

Magnus persuaded Huron to perform a Great Omen of Misfortune against the Lord of Tyran, using captured Black Legion warriors and mortal slaves as sacrifices. When Qin Mo’s fleet entered the rigged star system, he ignored Sal’s warning and went to the planet with Sanguinius, Burner, and Mimic, where he began undoing the omen with material power and Scholar’s psychic strength.

• Magnus explained the Great Omen of Misfortune to Huron and asked him for ninety-nine warriors and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine young mortals for the ritual.
• Huron supplied captured Black Legion Space Marines and mortal slaves, and Magnus began the ritual.
• The Tyran Fleet pursued the Red Corsairs into a star system whose nine planets had been arranged in a strange formation, and Sal warned Qin Mo that the system’s omen targeted him.
• Qin Mo refused Sal’s warning, sent Mephiston and the Sons of Angels to nearby systems, and teleported down to the psychic planet with Sanguinius, Burner, and Mimic.
• Qin Mo used material power to restore the planets’ orbits, while Scholar emerged and disrupted the system’s psychic power.
• Qin Mo shifted the largest planets around their current world, and misfortune began afflicting the daemons as two Nurgle daemons exploded and a Tzeentch Greater Demon fell.

Sanguinius fought Magnus while Qin Mo and the C'tan battled the Khorne Daemon Prince and his Greater Demons. The fighting showed Magnus how badly outmatched the daemons were in the Real Universe, as the battle continued across a planet and star system.

• Magnus and Sanguinius clashed in the planet's atmosphere, trading insults as their Psychic Power shook the world.
• Magnus showed Sanguinius real scenes of humans suffering under Chaos, prompting Sanguinius to attack with renewed fury.
• Magnus used Psychic Power to attack Sanguinius's Living Metal body, while Sanguinius pressed him to prevent him from casting sorcery.
• Burner and Mimic slaughtered daemons as Qin Mo focused on the Greater Demons led by the Khorne Daemon Prince.
• The C'tan unleashed catastrophic powers, and Magnus realized that even Greater Demons could not withstand their divine strength in the Real Universe.

The Scholar helped Sanguinius defeat Magnus and sealed the strange Rubik's Cube left by Magnus's shattered soul. Sanguinius returned to the battle, where Qin Mo rescued him from a pack of Bloodthirsters, and the demons eventually fled back to the Warp.

• The Scholar used the Psionic Matrix entity's power to draw Magnus to the southern polar summit and confront him.
• The Scholar disrupted Magnus with a psychic vision, allowing Sanguinius to stab him through the chest.
• Magnus briefly spoke to Sanguinius before turning savage again, and the Scholar shattered his soul, leaving behind a spiked Rubik's Cube.
• The Scholar identified the Cube as containing malice from the Warp and sealed it, while Sanguinius flew back to the battlefield.
• A Daemon Prince hurled Sanguinius into the Demon Army, where eight Bloodthirsters attacked him until Qin Mo and his allies intervened.
• After Magnus's disappearance, the demons abandoned the battle and returned to the Warp.

Huron and the Red Corsairs withdrew from Tyran as the defeated Chaos forces descended into confusion, betrayal, and slaughter. Aboard his flagship, Huron mocked the Four Gods’ promises while grieving over the Red Corsairs’ dead.

• Across Tyran Gate, defeated forces fled or continued fighting as communications collapsed and warbands and mortal legions turned on one another.
• Huron retaliated against warbands that plundered Red Corsair ships, seized ships from others, and negotiated for the return of captives in exchange for supplies.
• The Red Corsairs successfully withdrew toward the Maelstrom with just over eighteen thousand Space Marines remaining.
• Huron recalled the Four Gods’ claims about the war and laughed at their promises while looking at the armor of dead Red Corsairs.
• Huron’s laughter continued as tears ran down his face and into his mouth.

After the Tyran Gate’s victory ceremony, Qin Mo rewarded the forces that had helped defend the sector, including the people of Cadia, the Space Marines, and the Adepta Sororitas. As Arch-Dominus Vik and Warlord-Dominus Sevyn prepared to leave, Qin Mo stopped them to ask what promises they had made to recruit the Forge Worlds for the Pilgrim Expedition.

• Tyran Prime held a victory ceremony attended by armies, civilians, Space Marines, and leaders of the Adeptus Mechanicus and Tyran forces.
• Qin Mo dismissed the Ecclesiarchy bishop’s objections and promised to grant the victors what they asked for.
• Vik said the Adeptus Mechanicus needed no further reward for its losses, and Qin Mo agreed.
• Qin Mo promised Cadia’s Lord Commander enough Power Armor for ten regiments and revealed that the Cadian soldier commemorated alongside Charger Nai had been named Cely.
• Qin Mo confirmed rewards for the Space Marine Chapters, including Terminator equipment, replacement gear, and warships.
• After the ceremony, Qin Mo stopped Vik and Sevyn and asked how many empty promises they had made to the other Forge Worlds.

Qin Mo agreed to provide Vik and Sevyn with two STC templates to fulfill the promises that had helped organize the Pilgrim Expedition. The Forge Worlds’ shared beliefs might protect them from being branded heretics, though Vik would likely need to relocate to Talon.

• Vik explained that he had organized the Pilgrim Expedition by promising participating Forge Worlds a shareable STC template and improvement projects.
• Qin Mo agreed to create a template that could standardize Forge Worlds and another that could produce any human augmentation implant.
• Qin Mo told Vik and Sevyn to stay in Talon until he gave them the templates, then return to improve the Forge Worlds.
• Qin Mo warned Vik that the unauthorized expedition could bring condemnation from the Adeptus Mechanicus and force him to relocate to Talon.
• Vik said that many Forge Worlds sharing the same beliefs would make the Fabricator General and the Adeptus Mechanicus compromise rather than wipe them out.

After the War of Tyran, Sal told Qin Mo why he had abandoned the Harlequins and become a Knight of Aisha. He revealed that Usulan had caused his sister’s death and destroyed her body, leaving her soul bound to a Wraithknight.

• After the victory ceremony, Sanguinius’s body was taken to Baal, Cadia departed, and the Necrons left without asking for anything.
• Sal brought the leaders of the Aisha’s Prayer Ark and a Crystal Seer to the Research Facility, where Aisha reunited with her followers.
• Qin Mo found Sal alone and asked why he had stopped following Usulan.
• Sal explained that Usulan deliberately sent his sister to her death so their shared soul bond could make them a Harlequin Wraithknight.
• Sal said he left the Harlequins and joined the Aisha’s Prayer Ark after helping them fight off Orks.
• Sal told Qin Mo that his sister refused to inhabit another child’s body, and that Usulan’s curse had destroyed her body beyond recovery.

Qin Mo received Aisha’s Eldar kin, who arranged her home in a protected Webway before departing. Scholar brought the Rubik’s Cube to Qin Mo and the Emperor, who identified it as an ancient device that could endlessly produce warriors.

• The Eldar apologized to Aisha for being unable to protect her and thanked Qin Mo for rescuing their mother goddess.
• The Eldar bowed to Qin Mo, thanked him for his aid during the Defense of Tyran, and furnished Aisha’s Webway residence.
• The Eldar explained that famine after the Greenskin invasion had forced their Ark world to sell most of its belongings, then left after settling Aisha in.
• A drone retrieved the spirit stone Aisha had cried before she returned to the Webway, and the gate closed behind her.
• Scholar arrived with the Rubik’s Cube after shattering Magnus’s soul, and Vanessa warned that the device was dangerous.
• The Emperor identified the Rubik’s Cube as an ancient barracks that could continuously produce warriors.

The Emperor explained that the corrupted Rubik's Cube endlessly created demons and could only be contained by sending people inside to fight them. Qin Mo saw that its surviving human defenders were trapped in an endless cycle of battle and death, and suspected Magnus had found a way to let demons escape.

• The Emperor told Qin Mo that the Rubik's Cube had once created psychic soldiers but now produced demons after Chaos corrupted it.
• The Emperor showed Qin Mo the Cube's eighteen worlds and explained that people inside had to hold back demons to seal it.
• The Emperor revealed that he had sent hundreds of thousands of people into the Cube, but most had lost their humanity or become demons.
• Qin Mo watched the remaining defenders repel a demon assault and recover among the bodies, including General Pu and a female wildling.
• Qin Mo realized the people inside could neither escape nor die permanently and suspected Magnus had manipulated the Cube to release demons into the Real Universe.

Qin Mo handed the daemon-spawning Rubik's Cube to Scholar, who claimed he had a solution, while Qin Mo showed the Emperor his new Star Gate technology. The Emperor and Qin Mo then considered throwing the cube into the Warp so the Emperor and the Iron Man entity could destroy the daemons emerging from it.

• The Emperor gave Qin Mo the Rubik's Cube and explained that burying or destroying the Old Ones artifact was not a reliable option.
• Scholar took the cube, said he had devised a solution, and left the research facility without explaining it.
• Qin Mo demonstrated a Star Gate that folded space and could provide faster-than-light travel without using the Warp.
• The Emperor warned that Warp corruption could turn the Star Gate into a Warp Rift, and Qin Mo showed him Blackstone to guard against corruption.
• When the Emperor asked whether they should send people inside the cube, Qin Mo refused to compromise the humans trapped there.
• Qin Mo proposed throwing the cube into the Warp so the Emperor and the Iron Man entity could destroy the daemons pouring out, and the Emperor agreed Scholar might be considering the same plan.

Scholar transformed the Rubik’s Cube’s demons into a massive automated Warp factory that produced Soul Crystals for Qin Mo. Qin Mo tasted the first crystal and saw that Scholar’s invention could supply him with the souls of demons without requiring him to hunt them.

• Scholar told Qin Mo that he had resolved the Rubik’s Cube’s malice and turned it into a gift.
• Scholar brought Qin Mo through a psychic portal to a factory formed from a gigantic Warp entity.
• The factory’s machines captured demons from the Rubik’s Cube, processed them into soul matter, and produced flavored Soul Crystals.
• Scholar gave Qin Mo the first jar of Soul Crystals, and Qin Mo ate one that tasted like apple and filled him with pure soul energy.
• Scholar explained that the automated factory could provide Qin Mo with souls equivalent to several major campaigns.

Qin Mo learned that Scholar could not free the humans trapped in the Rubik's Cube, though he had made them a protected world where they could live and reincarnate. Qin Mo then checked on Kaldor, authorized Scholar to deal with any Grey Knights interference, and rewarded Burner and Mimic with souls before confirming that eating them did not strengthen C'tan.

• Scholar explained that corruption had made the Rubik's Cube's safeguards target all living beings except daemons, and that he could not bring its humans out.
• Scholar described the sanctuary he had created inside the cube, where humans could reproduce, die at one hundred, and reincarnate without their memories.
• Qin Mo accepted that the sanctuary was best for its people and asked whether Kaldor was alive; Scholar said Kaldor was fighting daemons in the Warp.
• Scholar warned that the Grey Knights might interfere in the Tyran Gate sector, and Qin Mo permitted him and the Soulless One Custodian to act as they saw fit.
• Qin Mo summoned Burner and Mimic, gave each a can of souls and a detector, and confirmed from the readings that souls did not make C'tan stronger.