Chapter Summaries

Captain Miller accepted the Obeid tribe’s hospitality and agreed to teach its youths how to make wheels. Meanwhile, Tita’s forces began boarding an alien space station, where Tarian Cassius prepared to defend it and offered his allies Battle Brew if their defenses failed.

• Captain Miller struggled through the tribe’s mutton, bread, and thick barley beer while learning that its children offered as sacrifices would not return to their families.
• Captain Miller shared the food with the children, then agreed to teach the Obeid youths how to make wheels.
• Tita led the Sisterhood onto the Space Station, breached an airtight door with a Thermobaric Bomb, and ordered her assault team to charge the aliens.
• Tarian Cassius identified the attackers as possibly coming from Planet C-53 and argued that they were not Ronan’s forces.
• Councilor Bonarian and the other investors insisted on staying on the bridge and joining the defense, so Tarian Cassius promised them Battle Brew if the defensive forces failed.

The Emperor prepared to establish an outpost using a doomed nomadic tribe as labor while accepting the risks of his long-term plan. At the same time, Tarian Cassius struggled to defend his station from human attackers as Aura’s Sisterhood secured a passage against Kree forces.

• The Emperor traveled in a caravan in his Shroud Robe, drawing dangers toward himself rather than leaving nearby mortals exposed.
• The Emperor resolved to turn the nomadic tribe into a workforce and build an unnamed outpost to support his future research and preparations.
• Tarian Cassius ordered the alliance investors to commit further support as invaders breached the station, but Councilor Bonarian refused to send his escort force into battle.
• Tarian Cassius warned the investors that their escort force might be needed if the bridge was captured, and they insisted it remain to protect them.
• Aura’s squad held a captured passage after repelling Kree counterattacks, while the Sisterhood waited for ammunition and reinforcements.

The Sisterhood and Human Army fought through the Kree Space Station in a costly boarding operation while the Kree commander used ambushes and guerrilla tactics to slow them. Tita ordered The Punisher to bombard corridors near the energy center, leaving the assault’s progress and the station’s fate uncertain.

• Tita’s assault squad breached and cleared another compartment, killing Kree defenders as Aura’s troops provided covering fire.
• The Kree defenders adopted a strategy of withdrawing into compartments and using Kree Headhunters to wear down the boarding forces, while Human reinforcements continued arriving.
• After the Sisterhood seized its fifth objective, Tita learned it was still several hundred meters from the energy center and ordered nearby squads to advance and support them.
• Tita ordered The Punisher to bombard corridor D-6-30 and directed Delta Squad and Gamma Squad to watch for decompression while proceeding to their next objectives.
• Tita learned that the orbital defense platform’s artillery could still target starfighters, then ordered a second, precise laser bombardment near the energy hub despite a staff officer’s warning about a possible explosion.

Captain Miller worried that teaching the Obeid people advanced technology would alter history, but Hammurabi said their civilization would disappear while its knowledge endured through later cultures. The Emperor revealed that humanity faced an eventual extinction-level threat, leaving Miller to confront the Emperor’s burden and ask what he truly was.

• Captain Miller realized he had taught the Obeid people about advanced wheels after accepting their hospitality, and asked Hammurabi whether he had caused a butterfly effect.
• Hammurabi said the Obeid people would perish, but explained that civilization survived through the inheritance and merging of knowledge, and urged Miller to study the data slate.
• Captain Miller reflected on the transience of the ancient world and asked how long he would live; Hammurabi promised he would see space again and described the Emperor’s need for humanity’s courage.
• The Emperor told Miller that he had seen humanity’s future and needed people willing to sacrifice for a peaceful world, while Miller recognized the threat of an evil dimension that could destroy reality and civilization.
• The Emperor said humanity was in a countdown to extinction and had eight thousand years to prepare, and Miller asked what the Emperor was.

Dr. Leslie Thompkins and Batman investigated Wraith, a young, seemingly alien killer targeting Gotham’s criminals, while Batman tried to learn his origins and decide how to stop him. After Leslie urged Batman to educate Wraith rather than simply turn him over to the police, Bruce encountered a hungry boy stealing parts from the Batmobile.

• Dr. Leslie Thompkins found Hunter’s mutilated corpse and told Gotham PD that she knew nothing about his enemies.
• Harvey Bullock told James Gordon that a violent vigilante called Wraith had left severed heads at a Falcone Family restaurant, and Batman identified Wraith as the likely killer.
• Batman reviewed evidence suggesting Wraith was a childlike being from the mysterious craft marked VIII, was injured, and was escalating his attacks on criminals.
• Wraith killed a rapist, left his mark, and sensed that Batman was tracking him, while remaining indifferent to the dying girl he had tried to save.
• Dr. Leslie Thompkins refused to give Batman information about Wraith and urged him to find and educate the injured child instead of handing him to the police.
• Bruce Wayne found a boy stealing the Batmobile’s front wheels in Crime Alley and asked him if he was hungry.

Captain Miller accompanied the Emperor’s convoy through Mesopotamia, recording children and teaching them to make clay tablets as the Emperor gathered people and resources. The convoy established its first stronghold in Eridu, where the Emperor accepted the city’s people as subjects and became their protector, while the Imperial Guard prepared to purge the city of threats from Behind the Curtain.

• Hammurabi instructed Miller to register the convoy’s growing population, and Miller recorded the returned children and assigned names to those who lacked them.
• Miller taught the children to shape clay tablets and press cuneiform into them, beginning a standardized writing system.
• The convoy stopped near Obeid villages, where the Emperor and Imperial Guard were welcomed by nearly four thousand settlers and escorted to Eridu’s temple.
• Eridu’s merchants and landowners offered their property and allegiance to the Emperor in exchange for protection, and the Emperor accepted them as subjects.
• Hammurabi explained that Eridu would become the convoy’s first stronghold, while the Imperial Guard prepared to purge the city of possible corruption from Behind the Curtain.

Hannibal and Constantine investigated a hidden cult in Eridu and uncovered evidence of a psychic plague linked to its sacrifices. The Emperor continued governing and researching until the Sorcerer Supreme warned that powerful beings were searching for him, and he asked her to help him strike back.

• Hannibal interrogated a suspected cultist, who insisted that he had inherited his family’s worship of the gods without knowing it was wrong.
• Constantine reviewed the investigation, which connected three Eridu households to secret worship, human sacrifices, and a suspected psychic plague.
• Hammurabi reported that examinations found no virus or animal carriers and confirmed that the plague was psychic.
• The Emperor organized Eridu’s administration while Dinah trained girls for temple service and the Sisterhood.
• The Sorcerer Supreme appeared to the Emperor, warned that the beings Behind the Curtain were searching for him, and cautioned that the cult cases might be bait.
• The Emperor asked the Sorcerer Supreme to help him prepare a counterattack against them.

Miller taught standardized cuneiform and mathematics in Eridu while the emperor discussed the old gods, his plans for humanity, and an approaching Kree research team with the Sorcerer Supreme. He decided to hunt the Kree experimental equipment and prepared a flower-strewn welcome for an important guest, hinting that the gesture might be for Dinah.

• Miller taught students cuneiform, Arabic numerals, and higher mathematics as part of the emperor's plan to spread knowledge in Eridu.
• The Sorcerer Supreme warned the emperor that old gods watched his schools and urged him to speak with a deity near the city, but he initially dismissed the idea.
• The emperor told the Sorcerer Supreme that Kree Headhunters were approaching Earth and planned to seize their experimental equipment rather than attack the Kree directly.
• The emperor told Dinah not to reveal his marriage ties to the girls serving as priestesses, then asked her to prepare gifts for an approaching guest.
• The emperor ordered Dinah to hire children to gather wildflowers and lay a flower road from the city gate to the temple, suggesting she might be the guest it was meant to honor.

After twenty years of teaching in Eridu, Captain Miller learned that Kadmoz had been selected for a secret mission and feared losing another promising student. The Emperor prepared to meet Miller as Inanna demanded his attention for their annual day together.

• Captain Miller learned that Kadmoz’s marriage application had been approved and that the Sacred Guard had selected him for training, and he promised to speak with Constantine.
• Captain Miller recalled how the Emperor had made Inanna a guest of Eridu and how the city’s Venus Festival had grown around her.
• The Emperor continued his official work while Inanna demanded that he honor their agreement to spend the day together, and Dinah kept her in check.
• Dinah told the Emperor that Captain Miller wished to see him, and the Emperor agreed to receive him because Eridu no longer needed him for its educational work.

Captain Miller and Kadmoz led an army across the Sinai Peninsula toward Egypt to confront the Kree and their allies, while the Emperor prepared a separate expedition with Agamotto. The Emperor revealed that he also faced a hidden parasitic alien threat, and left for the Himalayas to help Agamotto seal three demons and establish a mystic stronghold.

• Captain Miller and Kadmoz marched with more than two thousand soldiers across the Sinai Peninsula toward their Egyptian destination, where they planned to investigate the Blue Angel and fight the Kree, their human allies, and Kree-altered Mutants.
• Captain Miller urged Kadmoz to return home to his newborn son after the expedition, but Kadmoz refused to avoid the danger facing the army.
• The Emperor recalled recruiting Miller into Sacred Shield, an organization meant to defend humanity, and explained that a separate spear organization would one day carry the fight to alien worlds.
• Inanna asked the Emperor why he had not told Miller about parasitic aliens that could pass as humans, and the Emperor said the threat was not yet spreading quickly enough to justify diverting attention from the current battle.
• The Emperor told Inanna that he planned to travel to the Himalayan Mountains, where Agamotto would help him establish contact across time and space if he helped seal three demons.
• The Emperor said Agamotto, a member of the Sacred Shield High Council, was near death, and Inanna was surprised that the ancient sorcerer was still alive.

Captain Miller reached Eridu’s Egypt station, where Apagni reported escalating attacks and learned the Emperor would arrive in a month. Meanwhile, the Emperor and Inanna met the dying Agamotto, who revealed that Salomon’s knowledge was an offering to a true god and asked how he had been cast down from the Seventh Throne.

• Captain Miller arrived at the Egypt station and learned that Muir had been killed, Apagni had taken charge, and the station had captured an alien slave.
• Captain Miller delivered a Sacred Guard order confirming that the Emperor would reach the front in one month, reassuring Apagni and the station personnel.
• The Emperor and Inanna prepared to meet Agamotto, and the Ancient One joined them in the mountain cave where Agamotto was dying.
• The Ancient One said Agamotto’s original plan had failed and that he would have to abandon his flesh and support the Emperor as part of the Vishanti.
• Agamotto explained that the planet had nourished the Emperor rather than created him, and that his innate knowledge had been an offering to the true god of the Seventh Throne.
• Agamotto asked Salomon how he had been dragged down from the Seventh Throne and how Agamotto could eliminate one of the universe’s destined enemies before he died.

Agamotto explained that the emperor was the material-plane nameplate of the Seventh Throne, whose summoned master existed in a quantum superposition, and warned that the Outer Dimensions were corrupting civilizations and targeting Earth. He revealed that the emperor needed to absorb Vishanti to preserve his power and fight the threat, leaving the group with less than ten thousand years to prepare.

• Agamotto described the Seventh Throne as an empty chair whose master could be summoned from a state of quantum superposition, and the emperor recognized that its arrival had caused no immediate change to the universe.
• Agamotto warned Inanna and the emperor that the Outer Dimensions corrupted civilizations in subtle ways and that their influence was already reaching Earth.
• The emperor provided chairs, tea, and food while Inanna asked whether the summoned master could fight the other throne-masters.
• Agamotto explained that the three Rings of the Celestial contained Vishanti's true name and were meant to help the emperor absorb Vishanti as nourishment.
• Agamotto said the emperor needed Vishanti's power to retain his strength and oppose the Outer Dimensions, then warned that they had less than ten thousand years.

Agamotto guided the Emperor through the Sea of Souls to witness the battle at the Solar System’s edge, while Tita fought Kree forces aboard the Space Station. The Emperor’s presence seemed to guide Tita through a decisive counterattack, and she told the other Artificial Humans that His Majesty was watching.

• Agamotto revealed that the Emperor’s soul had chosen Jezebel as his mother, and the Emperor set aside his anger to honor her sacrifice.
• Agamotto explained that the Obelisk imprisoned powerful Outer Dimensional Entities and prepared to guide the Emperor through the Sea of Souls to witness the Space Station battle.
• Tita’s boarding squad lost ground as Kree defenders used Battle Brew and the Kree noble’s armored guard charged her.
• The Emperor entered the Sea of Souls with Agamotto, who noted that Tita’s devotion made her an excellent anchor point.
• Tita survived the guard’s hammer strike, felt the Emperor guide her movements, and killed the guard with her sword and pistol.
• Tita told the other Artificial Humans that His Majesty was watching them.

Tita and Nikita fought the Kree while experiencing what they believed was the Emperor’s divine presence, and Salomon continued his plan with Agamotto and Inanna. Bayonetta woke from a dream in which she had seen Salomon through another person’s eyes, and she decided to seek help from Rosa, Wanda, and Victor von Doom.

• Tita felt the Emperor’s gaze strengthening her as she led the Sisterhood against the Kree.
• Nikita abandoned the planned wait for reinforcements and charged the Kree, while Joshua ordered his squad to support her despite warning that she would face a court-martial.
• Inanna watched Salomon emerge from the Sea of Souls, and he told her and Agamotto that he would continue the plan to create an Outer Dimension psychic entity.
• Bayonetta woke from a dream in which she had seen Salomon through another person’s eyes and sensed a loving gaze directed at him.
• Bayonetta asked Jeanne to contact Rosa and Wanda and bring Victor von Doom through the manor’s maze for help understanding the dream.

Bayonetta told Rosa about her prophetic dream of Salomon’s wars, while the Emperor prepared to invade Kree-held Egypt and seek out an unknown Eternal. The Emperor and Inanna left for Egypt ahead of the Sacred Guard’s assault, intending to confront the Eternal and obtain its technology.

• Bayonetta described her dream to Rosa, who asked whose eyes Bayonetta had seen the visions through.
• Bayonetta explained that Salomon had not returned as expected and that she lacked a genetic sample needed to locate him.
• The Emperor used intelligence from Agamotto to assess the Kree war and ordered Constantine to lead attacks on seven Egyptian research laboratories.
• The Assault Transport entered Egypt under concealment, and the Emperor explained that an Eternal might also oppose them there.
• The Emperor and Inanna prepared to visit the Eternal before the Sacred Guard began its attack, hoping to obtain the Eternals’ genetic technology.

Salomon and Inanna traveled through the Black Desert of the Levant and discussed his plans, their intertwined fates, and the growing spread of Psionics. They met Icarus, an Eternal, and Salomon revealed that the Celestials had created his people to protect humanity as part of a plan to exploit humanity’s psionic potential.

• Inanna enjoyed the journey with Salomon and Dinah, while cats spread from Natufian settlements and merchant ships to Egypt and Eridu.
• Salomon explained to Inanna that he had to preserve known history and discussed the rising number of Psionics and his experiments involving temple priests and Outer Dimension Entities.
• Salomon promised Inanna that they would travel the world together after the war and eventually reach the Himalayan Mountains.
• Salomon and Inanna met Icarus, who challenged Salomon’s account of the Eternals’ role and told him that A'lars was on the moon creating Titans.
• Salomon and Inanna told Icarus that the Celestials had come to Earth before the known descents to retrieve a fallen, corrupted Celestial, and that the Eternals were created to guard humanity for the Celestials’ purposes.
• Salomon told Icarus that humanity’s psionic potential was the Celestials’ true target and that the Eternals were merely guards protecting their crop.

The Emperor told Icarus that the Celestials planned to harvest humanity and urged the Eternals to join his resistance. Icarus refused to cooperate until he verified the claims, and the Emperor left him to seek answers from Kronos and the Earth Machine.

• The Emperor revealed that the Celestials treated Eternals, Deviants, and humans as crops to be harvested, and Icarus struggled to accept the truth.
• Icarus said he would verify the Emperor’s claims, while the Emperor named Azus and Kronos as Eternals who had kept the truth from their kin.
• The Emperor explained that the Kree sought Celestial research and that Earth’s Machine held valuable biological data; he asked Icarus to help him resist the Celestials.
• The Emperor described his plan to use Celestial knowledge to empower humanity, but Icarus denounced it and refused to cooperate without first consulting Kronos.
• Icarus ordered the Emperor to leave, promising to find him after he obtained answers.

Captain Miller and the Emperor planned an assault on the Kree outpost and debated whether they could free the enslaved Inhumans from Kree control. The chapter ended before the battle began, with Salomon urging Miller to take command responsibly and revealing how he once treated casualties after the Battle of New York.

• Eridu agents discovered that the Kree’s Badarian experimental population included people abducted from other regions, and the Emperor’s merchants quietly secured nearby villages as allies.
• Captain Miller’s forces attacked Kree outposts, but mutant slave soldiers inflicted heavy casualties and forced him to take command of the main force.
• Miller asked the Emperor whether the Inhumans could be freed from their control, and proposed a decapitation operation against their commander at a nearby outpost.
• The Emperor warned Miller that the Inhumans might still obey the Kree even without biochemical control, while the staff planned the march and assault.
• Salomon told Miller about treating victims after the Battle of New York and explained why Miller had to lead the Expeditionary Force without wasting its soldiers’ lives.

Hammurabi’s expeditionary force fought Kree-created Inhumans while hunting the Hydra parasite, whose presence was confirmed in abandoned villages. After the Emperor and Captain Miller chose a night assault, Hammurabi’s squad encountered Hydra and began a brutal battle, leaving the outcome unresolved.

• Hammurabi’s cavalry broke through Badari villagers and killed the Inhumans hidden in their village, then checked the corpses for Hydra parasites and found signs that Hydra had recently been there.
• Captain Miller and the Emperor reviewed intelligence narrowing Hydra’s likely location to four villages and chose a night attack after the support force could not arrive in time for a daytime assault.
• Hammurabi’s squad rested near the suspected village, then encircled it at dusk and began fire reconnaissance with mortars and illumination from the supporting force.
• Hammurabi’s assault team entered the village and encountered Hydra, whose invisible parasites killed and devoured soldiers and horses while the Inhumans attacked.
• Hammurabi hunted and killed several parasitized Inhumans, while his squad’s combat formation dwindled from sixty-five soldiers to twenty-seven within twenty-five minutes.

Hammurabi’s forces fought the Inhumans and located Hydra’s host as a powerful psionic reaction threatened to breach the veil between worlds. The Emperor led his cavalry against the Kree research base, while Hammurabi ordered his surviving mortal soldiers to withdraw before the coming supernatural threat.

• The Inhumans broke through the outer fire teams’ defenses, and Hammurabi fought them while a temple priestess warned him that a growing psionic reaction was weakening the veil.
• The priestess died after helping the expeditionary force defeat attackers at the fire support position, and Hammurabi continued searching for Hydra’s host.
• The Emperor led his cavalry down the slope, using the Sacred Sword’s power to destroy the Kree base’s electromagnetic shield and reveal a massive warship.
• Hammurabi found Hydra’s half-body beside a psionic manifestation in the mist, shot Hydra, and ordered its remains burned.
• Hammurabi ordered the surviving Mortal Soldiers, including Caspar, to retreat with the wounded, but Caspar reminded him they had survived the previous war.