Chapter Summaries

Sui Bian welcomed Angron and his captured Chaos counterpart to the Hollow Earth, where the Plague Doctor began examining the captive. Sui Bian revealed that he wanted to clone the traitor Primarchs and expand the Legions, since his nine sons would not be enough to oversee the many galaxies and universes awaiting conquest.

• Sui Bian updated the star map and ordered John, Corax, and Sanguinius to prepare battle plans while planning a trip to the Pious Sector.
• The White Queen told Sui Bian that Angron’s ship, the Krax, had arrived, and Sui Bian ordered the Plague Doctor and Artemis to prepare for the Chaos Primarch’s study.
• Angron brought his Chaos counterpart and a hundred-man escort to the Hollow Earth Research Center, where Sui Bian approved the Plague Doctor taking the captives into the laboratory.
• Artemis and the Grey Knights restrained Angron’s counterpart on the operating table, and the Plague Doctor began drawing his blood for examination.
• Angron asked why the Plague Doctor was experimenting on the captive, and Sui Bian explained that he wanted to clone the traitor Primarchs and expand the Legions to govern future conquests.

Angron agreed to help secure the Vortex Space Gate and chose to have his corrupted counterpart destroyed. Meanwhile, Corax sent Nova and her Ghost Operatives to scout Nostramo II, where Nova sensed fear and oppression alongside unexpected reassurance and happiness.

• Sui Bian told Angron that creating new Primarchs remained theoretical and said he planned to capture two fallen Primarchs and confront the traitor who had corrupted Lorgar Aurelian and Horus.
• Angron asked to join Sanguinius near the Vortex Space Gate after stabilizing the Nucia System, and Sui Bian approved.
• Angron decided his corrupted counterpart must be killed in body and soul, and Sui Bian agreed before Angron returned to the Nucia System.
• Corax brought his stealth flagship to Nostramo II and ordered Nova and her Ghost Operatives to scout the planet while his forces waited outside the system.
• Nova and the Ghost Operatives landed covertly near Nostramo II's capital, and Nova sensed fear and oppression as well as reassurance and happiness.

Nova infiltrated Nostramo II to investigate its unexpectedly peaceful population and search for Konrad Curze, but Curze ambushed her in the palace. After Nova’s psionic attack destroyed the palace, Corax arrived with two hundred Shadows, and Curze disarmed himself and stood before him with open arms.

• Nova investigated a Nostramo II family and found that the people seemed happy, knew nothing of Chaos, and lived under strict but orderly rule.
• Corax ordered Nova and her Ghost Operatives to infiltrate the capital palace and locate Konrad Curze.
• Nova sensed Curze nearby and called Corax for help, but Curze attacked and blasted her through a wall.
• Nova retaliated with a psionic arc that destroyed the palace, while her operatives withdrew safely.
• Corax arrived with two hundred Shadows, and Curze removed his Lightning Claws and presented himself to Corax without defending himself.

Corax captured Konrad Curze and took control of the Nostramo System, while Sui Bian postponed meeting Curze and ordered Angron’s counterpart killed. The next day, Sui Bian set course for the Punishment Sector to confront the forces there and assert his rule over the Galaxy.

• Curze surrendered to Corax, who ordered his forces to secure the Nostramo System; Nova warned Corax that Curze could not be trusted, but Corax chose to take him prisoner.
• The Plague Doctor asked Sui Bian to clone Angron, but Sui Bian told him to study the captured Chaos Astartes instead.
• White Queen reported Curze’s surrender and request to meet; Sui Bian told Corax to secure the Dark Sector before arranging a conversation with Curze.
• Sui Bian ordered White Queen to have Artemis end Angron’s counterpart, and Artemis killed him with a golden Psionic Arrow.
• Sui Bian ordered Roger to take the Never-Fall to the Punishment Sector so he could show the Galaxy and the Warp who ruled it.

Mortarion and the Death Guard arrived on Idylos to meet Lorgar and recover after their failed attack on the Main Universe expeditionary force. Mortarion urged Lorgar to strengthen the planet’s defenses, but a massive warship’s forced landing interrupted him.

• The Death Guard reached Idylos after their ambush failed, the World Eaters were wiped out, and Angron was captured.
• Mortarion landed with his corrupted Legion and dismissed the Word Bearers’ worshipful city as false and contemptible.
• Kor Phaeron greeted Mortarion and escorted him toward the Hall of the Pantheon, but Mortarion struck him aside when he tried to join the private meeting.
• Mortarion entered the temple, found Lorgar praying, and asked him to prepare Idylos’s defenses.
• Lorgar insisted that no enemy could penetrate the planet’s defenses, but a gigantic warship’s forced landing drowned out his claim.

Lorgar rejected Mortarion’s warnings as the Main Universe forces overwhelmed Idylos’s defenses. Roger’s Iron Fist Guard teleported aboard Mortarion’s flagship, where Roger confronted Mortarion and began fighting to capture him.

• Lorgar insisted the Chaos Gods would protect him, while Mortarion urged him to fight the invading forces and then left.
• The Never-Fall and Great Device 001 destroyed the Death Guard and Word Bearers fleets and disabled Idylos’s orbital defenses.
• Sui Bian ordered Roger to capture Mortarion and sent Constantine to eliminate two other enemies.
• Roger and his Iron Fist Guard teleported onto Mortarion’s flagship and fought through the Deathshroud.
• Roger taunted Mortarion, then suddenly attacked him with Stormfang and declared that he would take him prisoner.

Roger captured Mortarion after defeating him, while Sui Bian purged Idylos’s Chaos followers, killed Lorgar, and sent Constantine to deal with Kor Phaeron and Erebus. The chapter ended with Erebus burned to ash and Kor Phaeron pleading as Constantine approached.

• Roger defeated Mortarion, cut off his limbs with Stormfang, and ordered the Iron Fist Guard to restrain him.
• Sui Bian’s golden radiance burned the Chaos followers gathered in Idylos’s Central Plaza to ash, and the Praetorian Guard arrived with him.
• Sui Bian entered the Hall of the Pantheon and killed Lorgar with a single slap before having his body retrieved.
• Constantine led a hundred Praetorian Guard to a western pilgrimage district, where he burned Erebus to ash with the Spear of Cassius.
• Kor Phaeron, missing his lower body, dragged himself away from Constantine and begged for his life.

Constantine executed Erebus and Kor Phaeron with the Spear of Cassius before rejoining Sui Bian, who activated Great Device 001 to unleash its Cross-Phase Pulse Wave. The pulse wave began cleansing the Pious Sector, erasing every living thing on a corrupted Garden World and leaving its influence of Chaos greatly diminished.

• Constantine impaled and burned Erebus, then threw the Spear of Cassius through Kor Phaeron and destroyed him with golden flames.
• Constantine returned with the Praetorian Guard to the control room, where Roger reported that Mortarion had been handed over to the doctor.
• Sui Bian confirmed that personnel were ready and ordered the White Queen to activate Great Device 001 and record its first discharge.
• Great Device 001 released two Cross-Phase Pulse Waves that swept through Idylos's star system and the Pious Sector.
• The pulse wave disintegrated every living thing on a corrupted Garden World, reducing Chaos's influence there and leaving the planet ready for Umbrella's renovation.

The Expeditionary Force’s Great Device 001 wiped out all life in the Pious Sector, shocking Holy Terra and prompting Sui Bian to reassure Roger that the Primarchs and Legions still had wars to fight. Sui Bian secured Irenemil’s allegiance, arranged supplies for the continuing campaign, and considered the next target as John’s forces fought in the Phoenix Sector.

• Holy Terra lost contact with the Pious Sector and eventually accepted that the Main Universe’s Expeditionary Force had annihilated its population.
• White Queen reported that Great Device 001 had cleared Idylos of life, and Sui Bian declined to speed its recharge by devouring the system’s star.
• Roger worried that the Great Device would make the Primarchs and their forces obsolete, but Sui Bian reassured him that it was intended for Warp and Zerg threats.
• Sui Bian told Irenemil that the Great Device could target specific species, and she pledged the Marr people’s allegiance to humanity.
• Sui Bian ordered Robert to prepare vaccines, Planetary Transformation Devices, and personnel, then agreed with Roger to consider the Scholar Sector after the supplies arrived.
• John and his forces continued their campaign in the Phoenix Sector, where they were fighting Fulgrim and the Emperor’s Children.

John led an expeditionary fleet to attack Cherinos, the Emperor’s Children’s decadent capital, and began a devastating assault from orbit. The fleet broke through the defenses and descended toward the surface while a Spartan veteran captured a daemonic Skeleton Dragon.

• John led the Spartan 1st and 2nd Battalions, an Auxilia force, and three UNSC fleets to Cherinos aboard the Aspasia.
• The expeditionary fleet caught Cherinos’s defenses unprepared and destroyed about forty percent of its orbital forces and defenses with its opening volley.
• John ordered the fleet to advance in an inverted Λ formation and bombard Cherinos while its ships and aircraft fought back.
• Spartan forces deployed Centurion V mechs, and one veteran used his mech to tear the limbs from a Skeleton Dragon and carry it toward the 1st Battalion’s flagship.
• The Aspasia and the 1st and 2nd Battalions reached their designated orbit and began descending toward Cherinos’s surface.

Tess Byron led the 1st Assault Regiment in a drop-pod assault on the Emperor’s Children around Cherinos’s palace complex. After the regiment’s bombardment weakened the surviving defenders, Byron fought a mutated Emperor’s Child and cut it in half.

• Tess Byron and the 1st Assault Regiment launched from the Aspasia alongside Spartan forces and Titan Mechs bound for Cherinos.
• Byron rallied her troops and led them down to the planet, where wrecked warships crashed around the palace complex but an invisible field protected it.
• After landing outside the palace complex, Byron ordered the regiment to bombard estates and towns crowded with Daemons and Emperor’s Children.
• The regiment charged through the plasma blasts and fired on the surviving Emperor’s Children, including a mutated, exhausted warrior dubbed Half-Face.
• Byron’s Purity Seal gave off a golden glow as she struck through Half-Face’s psychic barrier and cut the Emperor’s Child in half.

Tess Byron killed a fallen Emperor’s Child in close combat, while the Spartan forces tightened their control of Cherinos and John advanced into Fulgrim’s palace. John confronted the corrupted Primarch, whose taunt was cut short when John threw Fear at him.

• Tess Byron killed the Half-Face Emperor’s Child with her Power Shortsword, and the 1st Assault Regiment celebrated before she ordered them onward.
• Spartan reinforcements secured orbital control over Cherinos, and the Isolation Fields weakened the Emperor’s Children’s connection to Chaos.
• John led the Warrior Guards through the palace corridor, where his blood-soaked Psionic Power shattered a Slaanesh singer’s attack.
• John entered the palace hall and faced the mutated Fulgrim, who began taunting him.
• John hurled Fear at Fulgrim, forcing him to dodge and interrupting his taunt.

John ambushed and defeated the daemon occupying Fulgrim, while the Warrior Guard wiped out the Emperor’s Children and a Warrior killed Lucius without triggering his possession. The chapter ended with the New Imperium having lost half its Primarchs and territory as Sui Bian and Roger prepared to advance toward the Scholar Sector.

• John attacked Fulgrim during his pre-battle speech and fought him beyond the hall while the Warrior Guard clashed with the Emperor’s Children.
• A Warrior killed Lucius, and the Master of Mankind’s system captured his soul without Lucius possessing the Warrior.
• John severed Fulgrim’s arms, impaled him with the Spear of Fear, and subdued the Phoenix Guard with a wave of Psionic Power.
• John spared the Phoenix Guard to recover their Gene-Seed and planned to take Fulgrim to the Plague Doctor in hopes of saving his soul.
• By 2182/09/17, Sui Bian’s expedition had captured Konrad Curze, Mortarion, and Fulgrim, while Lorgar Aurelian and Angron’s counterpart had been killed.
• Sui Bian and Roger prepared to head for the Scholar Sector as the Expeditionary Force regrouped in its occupied territories.

Sui Bian questioned Konrad Curze, who explained how the Emperor had ordered him to follow his visions while preserving his Legion and the Dark Sector. Curze sought death as redemption, but Sui Bian refused and put him to sleep, intending to have the Plague Doctor experiment on him so he could be saved.

• The Plague Doctor continued experimenting on the restrained Mortarion while the Grey Knights guarded him.
• Sui Bian visited the imprisoned Curze, who said he had preserved his Legion and wanted death as redemption.
• Curze recounted how the Emperor had known about the future rebellion and instructed him to join Horus while remaining true to his ideals and awaiting another human ruler.
• Curze described secretly sparing the Loyalists, building the Dark Sector, and handing it over to the arriving expeditionary force after foreseeing their arrival.
• Sui Bian refused Curze's request for death and made him fall asleep, then told Corax that the Plague Doctor would experiment on Curze with the G-Gland so they could save him.

Sui Bian extracted Fulgrim’s soul from his body and left the daemon possessing him to Artemis and the Grey Knights. Meanwhile, Alpharius and Omegon’s Alpha Legion fleet arrived at a habitable planet and began establishing a temporary base.

• Sui Bian transferred Konrad Curze to a private recovery room, then went with Corax and Constantine to Fulgrim’s cell.
• Sui Bian persuaded the daemon possessing Fulgrim to release Fulgrim’s soul, which he captured as a pale purple orb.
• Sui Bian ordered Artemis to let the Plague Doctor experiment on the daemon, and Artemis doused it with Full Moon Water before Ran Min silenced it.
• Corax recognized that Sui Bian had taken Fulgrim’s soul and guessed that he planned to use the souls of fallen Primarchs to create more brothers and Legiones Astartes.
• Corax declined Sui Bian’s offer of a Psionic Portal and said he would return to Nostramo II by Warp jump after Magnus’s counterpart was freed.
• Alpharius and Omegon’s Alpha Legion fleet arrived at a habitable planet with remnants of several traitor Legions, and their forces began building a temporary base on the surface.

The Alpha Legion betrayed the traitor fleet and helped trap it for the Main Universe expeditionary force, while Sanguinius ordered the Blood Angels to spare the Alpha Legion so they could capture Alpharius and Omegon. The chapter left Sanguinius heading to his collection to choose weapons before meeting them; an author’s note then requested two days off.

• A helmetless Word Bearer and his horned brother questioned their former allegiance as they patrolled the First Planet, then saw warships falling from the sky and rushed back toward their camp.
• The twenty overseer Alphas killed the Word Bearers and human workers at the clearing, destroyed their corrupted transports, and revealed their betrayal.
• The Alpha Legion attacked its former allies and disabled the traitor fleet’s navigation as the Main Universe expeditionary force arrived and engaged the scattered ships.
• Sanguinius ordered the Blood Angels to cease firing on the Alpha Legion and suggested to Angron that they capture it while minimizing casualties.
• Sanguinius left the City of Angels’ control room and entered his Hall of Collections to choose weapons before meeting Alpharius and Omegon.

Sanguinius confronted Alpharius and Omegon, who offered the Alpha Legion’s peaceful surrender if he defeated them in a duel. After Sanguinius won, the gathered Alphas raised their Bolters toward the fallen twin Primarchs.

• Sanguinius armed himself with the Hunting Bow and Spear of Bigo, then teleported with three hundred Sanguinary Guard to capture the enemy Primarch alive.
• Angron ordered the Clearers and Blood Angels to pursue the traitors on the planet and capture Alpha Legionnaires who cooperated, but to use force against those who refused.
• Alpharius and Omegon gathered more than three thousand veteran Alphas on a plain and released a powerful burst of harmless Psionic Power to draw Sanguinius to them.
• Alpharius and Omegon offered the Alpha Legion’s peaceful surrender if Sanguinius defeated them, and Sanguinius accepted their challenge.
• Sanguinius beat both twin Primarchs without taking a blow, but the watching Alphas raised their Bolters and aimed at their fallen leaders.

Alpharius and Omegon explained that the Alpha Legion had served the Emperor while pretending to aid the traitors, then died with their Legion to atone for their crimes. After Sanguinius took custody of the surrendered Alpha Legion, Sui Bian’s forces defeated the Thousand Sons on Prospero, and White Queen detected a high-energy Warp reaction.

• More than three thousand Alphas killed themselves, and Alpharius and Omegon told Sanguinius that their apparent treachery had followed the Emperor’s secret orders.
• Alpharius and Omegon died by poison, and Sanguinius ordered their bodies preserved and the Alpha Legion placed in custody.
• Sui Bian’s barrier severed the Fuzalei System from the Warp, allowing the Honor Fists and UNSC fleet to defeat the Thousand Sons and neutralize the threats on Prospero.
• Sui Bian recovered the soul of the Magnus counterpart and ordered Roger to retrieve the daemon-possessed body.
• White Queen reported that the fleet had detected a high-energy Warp reaction.

White Queen reported that a galaxy-wide Warp Storm was forming around Holy Terra, and Sui Bian ordered the Supervision Department to begin its raid early. As the expedition continued in Universe 03, a force assembled on Earth to enter the Warp.

• White Queen warned Sui Bian and Corax that a new Warp Storm would form in the Holy Terra system and spread across the Milky Way.
• Corax offered to lead his honor guard and veteran companies into the Warp, but Sui Bian refused and ordered White Queen to move up the raid operation.
• White Queen reported that Sanguinius and Angron had purged the remaining traitors except the Alpha Legion, whose Primarchs Alpharius and Omegon and 3,160 Legionnaires had committed suicide.
• Sui Bian reclaimed Alpharius and Omegon's intertwined souls from the Warp, while Corax suggested the Alpha Legion had been loyalists hiding among traitors.
• On Earth, Monster Hunters, Grey Knights, technicians, and A-1999 gathered at the Supervision Department as the Portal prepared to open and the combat personnel readied to enter the Warp.

A-1999 led the Grey Knights and Monster Hunters into the Warp, where he gleefully tore through demons while their assault disrupted the Chaos forces. As Sui Bian prepared the New Imperium for a final assault on Holy Terra, nearly 140,000 warships emerged from the Warp to surround the planet.

• A-1999, the Grey Knights, and the Monster Hunters entered the Warp through a portal opened by Magnus and began attacking the demons there.
• A-1999 reveled in being back among demons, slaughtering them with his weapons and bare hands as the surviving demons fled.
• White Queen told Sui Bian that the assault had begun and that Magnus would open a return portal in twelve hours.
• Roger reported that his forces had secured Prospero, and Sui Bian explained that the New Imperium was preparing to attack Holy Terra after securing the Scholar Sector.
• Sui Bian ordered White Queen to remind the commanders to consolidate their gains and prepare for the full-scale assault.
• Nearly 140,000 warships emerged from the Warp around Holy Terra, encircling the planet from every direction.