Chapter Summaries

Nolfor and Litosys’s troops defended the Bridge of Martyrs against Khorne’s daemons, while Sicarius and the Ultramarines fought a worsening battle elsewhere. The fighting continued through the night, with Sicarius sending First Squad to aid Lysander against three Soul Grinders.

• Nolfor ordered Litosys to take his men west as daemons approached the Bridge of Martyrs.
• Litosys killed a Bloodcrusher and its Steel Bull with his Power Sword, then returned to the fortifications and resumed firing.
• Sicarius fought off Flesh Hounds and Bloodthirsters while the Ultramarines endured mounting casualties.
• Sojeno was killed by a Bloodthirster, but his final shots pinned and crippled the daemon, and an Apothecary began recovering his Gene Seed.
• Lysander requested reinforcements after three Soul Grinders broke through on the east side of the plaza, and Sicarius sent First Squad to support him.

He Shenyan woke from meditation aboard the Vengeance and learned that the Lictor’s demon-killing power would eventually consume him. As the ship raced toward Terra, Ezekiel prepared the Crimson Blades for battle, while Insel reflected on the Iron Snakes’ duty to honor Sergeant Priad.

• After forty-one hours of meditation, He Shenyan woke and learned the Vengeance was 127 hours from Terra.
• He Shenyan recalled that the Lictor’s energized hands could truly kill demons, but the Psionic power would eventually assimilate his body and carry him into the Warp.
• Ezekiel gathered the Crimson Blades and told them they were returning to Terra because demons were attacking it, urging them to fight even if the Chapter learned of their deaths centuries later.
• At the Iron Snakes’ garrison, Insel read a Departmento Munitorum novel, then set it aside and vowed that the Chapter would make Sergeant Priad proud.

After an eight-hour battle, Seburus led refugees from the Hive City to the defenders’ position and warned that the daemons were coming again. At command, Guilliman learned Frank had gone far beyond his assigned mission, while Steve offered to join the ground battle.

• Nolfor and Litosys rested briefly after the daemons withdrew, then watched as Seburus arrived with refugees and a limping Adeptus Custodes soldier.
• The defenders examined the refugees for taint and mutation before sending them toward Mercy Plaza.
• Litosys tested Seburus’s loyalty to the Emperor, and Seburus affirmed humanity’s hatred of xenos and evil before warning that the daemons were returning.
• Guilliman learned Frank had reached the second port after stealing an Imperial Fists vehicle, and ordered that Frank’s communicator be called and a replacement vehicle sent.
• Steve told Guilliman that Frank would likely survive a descent into Hell and asked to be sent to the ground battlefield to command Astra Militarum soldiers.

Seburus slaughtered Khorne’s daemons while Steve joined Marneus Calgar’s mission to protect a Hive City power plant. Batman hunted down Inquisitor Hugh Dureca and emerged with his corpse, saying he had discovered the truth.

• Seburus killed Bloodletters and Flesh Hounds with his bare hands and Litosys’s Power Sword, inspiring the soldiers to fight with fervor.
• Marneus prepared to support Tor Garadon, and Steve explained that he would protect the power plant that could destroy the Hive City if it exploded.
• Steve and Marneus traveled to Terra with the Astartes, then arrived at Lion Gate Starport as the warriors prepared for combat.
• Hugh Dureca fled through the Inquisition headquarters as lights shattered behind him and an unseen presence pursued him.
• Batman emerged from the corridor carrying Hugh Dureca’s corpse and told someone over a comm channel that he had found out the truth.

Tor Garadon fought through a swarm of daemons until Steve Rogers arrived and brought Ultramarines reinforcements. Meanwhile, Batman revealed that an Inquisitorial group had been experimenting on latent psykers in Holy Terra, and Guilliman ordered him to determine whether the conspiracy involved one faction or the entire Inquisition.

• Tor Garadon and his brothers survived another daemon assault, but the fighting left seventy-three Astartes alive and their ammunition running low.
• Daemons collapsed the floors beneath Tor Garadon, who fought a Flesh Hound and dodged a Soul Grinder with help from an unfamiliar psychic voice.
• Steve Rogers killed the Soul Grinder, identified himself, and told Tor Garadon that Ultramarines led by Marneus Calgar had arrived to reinforce them.
• Batman told Guilliman that an Inquisitorial group had drugged and abducted latent psykers, using them as experimental subjects to create unstable Warp portals.
• Guilliman asked Batman to find out whether the experiments were the work of one Inquisition branch or represented the whole organization.

Roboute Guilliman struggled to find a way to hold Terra’s defenders for five days until He Shenyan’s reinforcements arrived, while Steve Rogers went alone to the power plant and confronted a Slaanesh demon. The chapter ended as a larger monster formed from severed limbs and threatened Steve, who declared that he had come to help.

• Roboute Guilliman reviewed Terra’s defenses and worried that its mortal soldiers could not hold out for the 120 hours until reinforcements arrived.
• Marneus Calgar told Guilliman that Tor Garadon had brought the Hive City Warp portal under basic control and that Steve had headed to the power plant alone.
• Steve crossed the power plant’s lower levels and found a square strewn with human corpses.
• Steve used golden Psionic flames to reveal and pin a Slaanesh demon with his flaming sword, but it transformed its pain into pleasure.
• A huge monster assembled itself from severed limbs and threatened Steve, who told it that he had come to help.

Fulgrim argued with Angron over diverting the Vengeance to Isstvan III to find Ancient Sage Rila, whose voice was calling him. After reflecting on the people who sustained the Empire, Fulgrim resolved to fight for humanity’s future rather than pursue perfection.

• Angron objected when Fulgrim proposed going to Isstvan III instead of heading straight to Terra, and He Shenyan asked Fulgrim about the voice calling him.
• Fulgrim explained that Ancient Sage Rila was calling him from Isstvan III, and Angron challenged his loyalty to the Empire and accused him of prioritizing his Scions.
• He Shenyan reassured Fulgrim, gave him Saul Tarvitz’s Power Sword, and urged him to think of Tarvitz when choosing what to do.
• Angron admitted to He Shenyan that he had provoked Fulgrim in hopes of making him feel better, and He Shenyan explained Fulgrim’s insecurity and praised his potential.
• As he walked through the First Bridge, Fulgrim reflected on ordinary people’s labor and recognized that the Empire depended on them.
• Fulgrim resolved to fight for humanity’s future rather than for perfection.

Roboute Guilliman dispatched reinforcements across Terra as the daemonic invasion strained Imperial forces. At the Bridge of Martyrs, Litosys and Seburus held their position until a wounded Sister of Battle arrived with a warning that reinforcements were coming to the Hive City.

• Guilliman sent Astra Militarum forces to guard a Hive City's exits and ordered House Taranis and Skitarii to reinforce Lion Gate Starport.
• After learning the Sisters of Battle had been attacked by a daemonic host, Guilliman deployed a Warlord-class Titan to support them.
• Litosys tended to the wounded Officer Nolfor while holding the Bridge of Martyrs with Seburus and the dwindling defenders.
• Seburus explained that Defilers were dangerous Daemon Engines after Litosys reported that Ultramarines had gone to the Fifth Hive City.
• A wounded Sister of Battle emerged from the darkness, warned of reinforcements in the Hive City, and collapsed.
• Litosys carried the Sister back to the position, where the medic began treating her and ordered him to help.

A wounded Sister of Battle revealed herself as a divine messenger and called Garviel Loken back from exile to protect millions on Terra. Elsewhere, He Shenyan sent psionic power toward Terra, while Steve and Canoness Andrea fought to defend a Hive City power plant from daemons.

• A wounded novice Sister of Battle awoke during surgery, revealed that she was speaking as a messenger, and summoned Garviel Loken to end his exile.
• Garviel Loken accepted the mission, remembered the Luna Wolves' last stand on Isstvan III, and received the Sister's blessing.
• He Shenyan sensed the events on Terra and sent psionic power there through the Astral Beacon, while Angron questioned him.
• Steve and Canoness Andrea defended the Hive City's power plant from Slaaneshi daemons to prevent them from opening a major rift.
• Steve lent Andrea his Flame Sword, and she used it to destroy a powerful daemon before collapsing from her wounds.

Steve killed the Daemonettes and used gentle Psionic power to heal Sister Superior Andrea. Garviel Loken crossed the devastated Hive City toward the power plant, where a Slaanesh daemon confronted him.

• Steve slaughtered the Daemonettes after they had wounded Sister Superior Andrea.
• Steve comforted the Hospitaller and used refined Psionic power to restore Andrea's injured hand.
• Garviel Loken set out in masterwork Power Armor to support the Sisters of Battle and protect the ancient power plant.
• Loken crossed a plaza filled with mutilated corpses and found no daemons, though he sensed their lingering musk.
• A Slaanesh daemon appeared from the darkness and challenged Loken to dance, and he raised his Chainsword and attacked.

Garviel Loken fought a powerful demon but was rescued by a blue-armored warrior and brought to the middle levels of the Hive City for treatment. As he recovered from his wounds and a traumatic awakening, he began to recognize the man who had saved him.

• A demon disguised as a woman taunted Garviel Loken, then revealed its monstrous form and badly wounded him.
• Garviel Loken kept charging the demon until a warrior in blue armor arrived and attacked it with a flaming sword.
• Loken passed out, and the warrior and his companions tried to stop the toxins and bleeding in his wounds.
• Loken woke in the Hive City, panicked as memories of Isstvan III returned, then calmed when the warrior reassured him.
• The warrior told Loken to find him after Sister finished treating his arm, and Loken obeyed Sister's order to lie down.

Garviel Loken met Steve Rogers, who restored his missing arm and gave it the power to harm daemons. Meanwhile, Guilliman learned of a possible Living Saint sighting and faced mounting losses as he waited for reinforcements.

• Garviel Loken introduced himself to Steve Rogers and explained that a Living Saint had given him his mission to protect the power plant.
• Steve Rogers forged a new left arm for Garviel Loken from golden radiance, enduring the warrior’s pain and granting him the ability to hurt daemons.
• Guilliman received an eyewitness report of a winged Living Saint who had borrowed a novice Sister of Battle’s body and considered whether she was Saint Celestine.
• Guilliman ordered the exhausted Dossiris to rest and replaced him with the youngest son of the Marsis family.
• Guilliman learned that the Ultramarines had suffered heavy casualties, Cato Sicarius was unconscious, and Marius’s Scions had fought a Khorne Lord of War while forty-six hours and fifty-seven minutes remained until reinforcements arrived.

Schumiels visited the badly wounded Cato Sicarius in the Imperial Palace’s field hospital, where Sicarius questioned him about the battle before sending him away. Marius received orders to lead the Ultramarines into the Hive City to support a squad of Sisters of Battle and Lord Steve Rogers, while remaining concerned by the absence of Nurgle’s daemons.

• Schumiels passed through the refugee-filled Imperial Palace and the field hospital to reach Cato Sicarius.
• Schumiels told Sicarius that the enemy had died after Sicarius, Marius, and the Destroyer Squad attacked it.
• Sicarius scolded Schumiels for visiting without intelligence, then asked after Marius and dismissed him.
• A Librarian told Marius that the gene-father had ordered the Ultramarines to support a squad of Sisters of Battle and Lord Steve Rogers in the Hive City.
• Marius wondered why no daemons of Nurgle had appeared and ordered the Ultramarines to muster for the march into the Hive City.

Ultramarines and Sisters of Battle defended the power plant as Steve investigated its still-running core, but Nurgle's plague and a daemon assault overwhelmed the defenders. Steve vanished into an apparent illusion and prepared to face its horrors, while Marneus Calgar watched the power plant descend into catastrophe.

• Marius arrived with the depleted Ultramarines companies and told Steve that Sicarius had been wounded fighting a Khorne warlord.
• Steve showed Marius the power plant's active fuel intake, which neither of them knew how to stop; Marius disappeared as green mold began to spread around Steve.
• Steve burned a diseased corpse and, guided by He Shenyan, prepared to endure the Nurgle-infested vision or reality around him.
• Rogris Taro foresaw a plague storm, was infected by a daemon, and exploded, spreading disease among the Ultramarines and Sisters of Battle.
• Marneus Calgar realized Steve was gone, saw the plague outbreak claim defenders, and faced a tide of Slaanesh daemons emerging into the power plant.

Steve confronted a Great Unclean One, who revealed that Nurgle intended to turn Terra into a garden. Aboard Macragge's Honour, Guilliman discovered that a vast plague cloud was heading toward Terra and ordered an urgent response.

• Steve fought off Nurgle's creatures with his flames and sword as a Great Unclean One emerged from the darkness.
• The daemon explained that it planned to make the planet into another of Nurgle's gardens, then charged Steve.
• Guilliman learned that a Navigator had seen a deadly vision and ordered the Navigator killed to prevent a plague from spreading aboard Macragge's Honour.
• Tigurius failed to contact Steve's group, while Guilliman's auspex revealed a vast green cloud approaching Terra.
• Guilliman dispatched transports toward Terra and ordered the Departmento Munitorum and Adeptus Astra Telepathica to prepare and assess the threat.

A daemon outbreak devastated the Departmento Munitorum while Marneus Calgar led the uninfected Ultramarines and Sisters of Battle toward a defensible position in the power plant. Thirty-one hours from Terra, He Shenyan sensed the Astral Beacon’s altered radiance, understood what was happening, and said the Vengeance would arrive soon.

• The communicator failed, and Kari Dossiris accused the Youngster of the Marsis family of incompetence before a Nurgle daemon emerged and killed him.
• The daemon infected the Youngster of the Marsis family and others, while Nurglings and another daemon blocked the corridor with fungal growth.
• Marneus Calgar executed an infected battle-brother and led forty-five uninfected Astartes and thirteen Sisters of Battle toward the power plant’s fuel feed port.
• Marneus rallied the Ultramarines and Sisters of Battle to fight to the death for the Emperor and Holy Terra, and Grand Sister Superior Andrea stirred.
• He Shenyan saw that the Astral Beacon had turned nearly white, swallowed a strand of its radiance, and said they would arrive soon.

Guilliman prepared the Ultramarines to reinforce Terra and rallied them to keep fighting despite his doubts about the Imperium. Aboard the Vengeance, He Shenyan asked the Astral Beacon’s dead souls to sacrifice themselves again to speed his ship’s aid to Terra, and their agreement left him weeping as Angron arrived.

• Guilliman ordered the Sixth Company to search for Marius and investigate the power plant, and directed the Imperial Fists to seek Adeptus Mechanicus support for Terra.
• Guilliman addressed the Ultramarines through a psychic link, admitted he was not omnipotent, and urged them to fight on.
• He Shenyan explained to the Astral Beacon’s trapped souls that he needed their fragments to power the ship and reinforce Terra.
• The souls cursed He Shenyan and rejected his appeal, but an old man, a woman, and others eventually agreed to sacrifice themselves again for the Empire.
• Angron rushed into the control room and found He Shenyan weeping as he repeated the souls’ words, “For the Empire.”

He Shenyan and Angron learned that Terra was on the brink of destruction after billions of souls accelerated the Vengeance toward the Astral Beacon. Inside the palace, Cato Sicarius fought a Nurgle daemon while Tor Garadon witnessed a spreading plague storm.

• Billions of mortal souls shattered to propel the Vengeance, allowing He Shenyan to connect it to the Astral Beacon and cut its arrival time at Terra to two hours.
• He Shenyan told Angron that Terra was on the brink of destruction.
• A Nurgle daemon attacked wounded soldiers in the Hall of Antiquities, and Cato Sicarius helped the Hospitallers repel it with a hurled hospital bed and improvised prayer-bead knuckle-dusters.
• Sicarius fought the daemon barehanded despite his injuries, as a trace of golden light appeared in his eyes.
• Tor Garadon and his battle-brothers took cover as green acid rain corroded the ground and mycelium spread toward them.

As Nurgle’s plague consumed Terra, He Shenyan used Varro Tigurius as a medium to summon the dead and call them back to fight. Guilliman watched a golden light rise from the infected Hive City, leaving the result of the spell unclear.

• Nurgle’s plague spread across Terra, infecting people, daemons, buildings, and machines.
• Tigurius received a vision of the ruined palace and Terra in the grasp of a giant hand, then agreed to serve as He Shenyan’s medium.
• He Shenyan took control of Tigurius and began casting a necromantic resurrection spell aboard the Thunderhawk.
• He Shenyan and Tigurius entered a great hall, where He Shenyan asked the gathered souls of the dead to return and fight for the Empire.
• The souls streamed through a golden gate, and Guilliman saw a golden light rise from the plague-covered Hive City.

Sicarius endured Rotigus’s assault until the Rain Father prepared to unleash a deadly plague storm, but a golden-armored warrior arrived, healed him, and drove the daemon back. As the dead shielded the city from acid rain, Guilliman learned that their force would reach Terra’s orbit in an hour and a half.

• Sicarius fought Rotigus while Nurglings carried him through the corpse-filled Hall of Antiquities to the Rain Father.
• Rotigus showed Sicarius the green storm clouds and acid rain gathering overhead, then prepared to reshape humanity in Nurgle’s name.
• A golden-armored warrior appeared, wounded Rotigus with a flaming Power Sword, and burned away Sicarius’s plague, restoring his health and lost leg.
• The warrior told Sicarius that the dead had come to help, while golden radiance spread across the sky and blocked the acid rain.
• Aboard a Thunderhawk, Tigurius briefly spoke through Guilliman before returning to himself and reported that the force would reach Terra’s orbit in an hour and a half.