Recaps

Laster and Inquisitor Omar investigated the sleeping figure and discovered that the bloodstained icon and black disc held immense, conflicting powers. After Omar and Bishop Marian recognized the figure as the child foretold by Saint Lakuras, the bunker’s forces turned from hostility to reverence.

• Laster’s psychic vision showed that the disc around the sleeping figure’s neck swallowed psychic power and saved him from being overwhelmed by the figure’s blood mist.
• Laster warned Inquisitor Omar not to provoke the figure, while Omar noted that it carried no obvious taint of blasphemy.
• Omar touched the bloodstained icon and saw visions of the Golden Throne and a scarlet evil god before the black hole swallowed the illusions.
• Bishop Marian accused Omar of heresy and ordered the Battle Sisters and Crusaders to aim their weapons at him and his subordinates.
• Laster shared his psychic vision with Marian and the troops, and Omar recited Saint Lakuras’s prophecy with Marian.
• Marian recognized the sleeping figure as the foretold chosen one and celebrated, while Omar asked what they must do next.

Bishop Marian brought the prophesied Saint to the Landis Shrine World, where the bishops awakened him and hailed him as the Emperor’s savior. The confused man identified himself as Astra Militarum and ordered the bishops to send him to the Krieg 141st Regiment.

• Bishop Marian declared the sleeper the Child of Prophecy, while Inquisitor Omar doubted the claim but expected the Saint to return.
• Bishop Marian left with the sleeper as Colonel Hans’s unit prepared to march to the Scrap Plains as atonement.
• Two days later, Landis Shrine World’s bishops examined the sleeper and accepted him as Saint Lakuras’s prophesied redeemer.
• After waking, the man struggled between the bishops’ claims that he was a Saint and a woman’s voice telling him he was Soap and Astra Militarum.
• The man ordered the bishops to send him to the Krieg 141st Regiment and told them to join the penitential legion rather than interfere.

Little Yi tried to guide the witless Lin Fan back toward his former military life by taking him to the Krieg 141st Regiment. Colonel Hans assigned him to a grenadier unit bound for the central fortress complex of the Scrap Plains, after receiving orders to send him to the most difficult battlefield.

• Little Yi had Lin Fan repeat her words to the bishops and persuaded them to let him join the Krieg 141st Regiment.
• The church split into Saint-Adherent and Saint-Following factions, which began fighting after the Saint departed for the battlefield.
• Little Yi noticed that the Krieg soldiers remained eerily silent after the fighting stopped as Lin Fan reported to the regiment.
• Colonel Hans assigned Lin Fan to a grenadier unit tasked with breaking through the central fortress complex of the Scrap Plains.
• Colonel Hans reread an order on Lin Fan's documents that said to send him to the most difficult battlefield.

Grenadier 19 and a squad of Krieg veterans advanced through the trench network toward the Scrap Plains bunker complex, where they were assigned to help break the enemy defenses. As the commissar briefed the troops on the staged artillery assault, the Kriegers restrained their urge to charge out and die for the Emperor.

• Grenadier 19 rode with veteran grenadiers and a standard Krieg soldier toward the front, wondering why the unfamiliar soldier had been assigned to their unit.
• The squad left its Centaur Carrier at the third defensive line and moved through shell-battered tunnels toward the frontline.
• Grenadier 19 reflected on the wind and the danger of a damaged protective suit before catching up with the squad.
• The soldiers reached the trenches and saw the traitors' fortified bunker complex and its minefields across the Scrap Plains.
• The commissar ordered the troops to wait for the fourth creeping barrage before advancing, warning the eager Kriegers not to rush over the trench parapet.

Grenadier 19 watched the Krieg forces begin their assault on the Chaos-tainted bunker complex, where living fortifications and flesh shells devastated the first wave. The survivors breached the first defensive line and pressed toward the second as Colonel Hans and other commanders prepared the next barrage, while the commander of the 199th Regiment reflected on the Krieg soldiers’ pursuit of death.

• After a half-hour bombardment, Grenadier 19 stayed behind as the first echelon charged across the cratered battlefield.
• Chaos-tainted bunkers opened fire with flesh shells and heavy stubbers, destroying most of the Leman Russ tanks and turning them into monstrous weapons.
• Krieg soldiers and combat engineers fought into the trenches, breached the first line of defenses, and attacked the second line.
• The surviving troops destroyed the remaining mutated tanks while Colonel Hans and other Krieg commanders analyzed enemy positions and planned another artillery barrage.
• The commander of the 199th Regiment recalled the Krieg forces’ extreme casualty rates and concluded that they sought death, even killing a commissar who tried to stop a suicidal attack.

Grenadier 19 and the second echelon advanced behind a precisely coordinated artillery barrage, destroying rebel defenses and pushing into the next bunker line. After a smoke grenade enabled a rebel ambush, Grenadier 19 defeated the attackers and continued clearing the remaining enemies.

• The third artillery barrage precisely destroyed the enemy fire points and roaming infected Leman Russ tanks.
• Grenadier 19 and the second echelon charged behind the fourth barrage as engineers rebuilt trenches and established a forward command post.
• Grenadier 19 and the grenadiers threw fragmentation grenades into the enemy trenches, then used hellgun fire to suppress surviving rebels.
• A rebel squad leader threw a smoke grenade and attacked Grenadier 19 with a chainaxe while his men rushed in with bayonets.
• Grenadier 19 blocked the chainaxe, disarmed and injured the attackers, smashed the squad leader with his shovel, and resumed clearing rebel remnants.

Grenadier 19 and the Krieg soldiers advanced through the third bunker complex with little resistance, while Number 0 displayed an uncanny ability to read and evade battlefield threats. After his lasgun overheated, Number 0 joined the squad and entered a tunnel first, leaving Grenadier 19 suspicious of his origins.

• Krieg soldiers cleared the third bunker complex, and Grenadier 19 called nearby troops to gather at a discovered tunnel entrance.
• Grenadier 19 saw Number 0 arrive without a firearm and ordered him to enter the tunnel first while warning the other grenadiers to watch him.
• Number 0 recalled how a vision of bloody mist and attack trajectories had helped him evade enemies and slaughter grotesque monsters with an entrenching tool after his lasgun burned out.
• Number 0 followed Grenadier 19's order into the dark tunnel as the gathered grenadiers watched him.

Number 0 led Little Yi and the Krieg grenadiers through a tunnel while the suspicious soldiers prepared to turn on him. He saved Grenadier 19 from firing, then charged into a rebel ambush and deflected a storm of bullets as the battle escalated.

• Little Yi reflected on the Imperium's fanatical soldiers and continued analyzing the Webway while following Number 0.
• Grenadier 19 raised his weapon against Number 0, but Number 0 pinned him down and warned the grenadiers about an incoming rocket and a concealed heavy stubber.
• Number 0 charged the hidden rebels and used an entrenching shovel to deflect their gunfire, sending bullets back into several attackers.
• A rebel aimed an anti-tank rocket launcher at Number 0, who threw his shovel into its barrel and caused the rocket to explode at close range.

Zero led the grenadiers deeper into the tunnels after killing surviving rebels, while Commissar Charalad watched the costly assault outside and recalled advice from a retired commissar. Charalad struggled to decide whether his duty required him to halt the next attack.

• Zero killed the wounded rebels, warned the grenadiers about a tripwire mine, and showed them how he made an Aquila emblem with blood.
• Grenadier 19 ordered the squad to continue advancing and eliminate the traitors.
• Commissar Charalad observed that enemy platforms and turrets were inflicting severe losses on the Krieg assault corps.
• Charalad considered blowing his whistle to stop the attack but worried about the consequences of intervening too late.
• Charalad remembered asking a retired commissar why he felt useless among Krieg soldiers who needed no one to make them fight.

Charalad listened as the old commissar explained how he had come to protect Krieg soldiers from needless death after seeing the young faces beneath their masks. The old commissar urged Charalad to keep them from going too far, but left him to work out how to persuade them himself.

• Charalad learned from the old commissar that Krieg soldiers could execute commissars who ordered them to retreat, though the old commissar had once talked a regiment out of suicidal charges.
• The old commissar recalled seeing the young faces of dead Krieg soldiers while helping clear a battlefield.
• The old commissar described how Krieg soldiers on Mawvis III had hesitated to touch flowers and carried flowers or fruit in their pockets.
• The old commissar told Charalad that Krieg soldiers were children who deserved to be saved, then urged him to keep them from dying for nothing.
• The old commissar sent Charalad away without explaining how to talk the soldiers down, and Charalad left pondering their conversation.

Colonel Müller explained to Commissar Charalad why the Krieg soldiers would continue their assault despite overwhelming losses, then had Charalad sent away before leading his regiment back into battle. The third wave advanced as Müller and his soldiers prepared to keep sacrificing themselves for a victory they might never see.

• Charalad tried to stop the assault, but Colonel Müller restrained him and refused to retreat.
• Müller showed Charalad how the soldiers’ relentless attacks had weakened the enemy fortress, which the Krieg troops then destroyed.
• Müller spoke of the soldiers’ sacrifices as atonement, and a rifle butt knocked Charalad unconscious.
• Müller ordered Charalad sent to Colonel Hans’s regiment and learned the casualty rate had reached ninety-six percent.
• Müller addressed his soldiers by their chosen names, acknowledged Charalad’s worth, and led them toward the battlefield as the third assault wave advanced.

Number 0 led Grenadier 19’s squad through the tunnels and into a cultist mining camp, using a controlled blast to bring down stone cover. As the squad fought the cultists and their mining machine, Number 0 charged into a dense barrage and somehow dodged every bullet with his hands.

• Number 0 warned Grenadier 19’s squad about tunnel hazards and planned to use grenades to collapse the rock above the camp.
• Grenadier 19 detonated the grenades, and the blast sent a widening crack through the mine wall and ceiling.
• Number 0 led the squad around the corner, where they found fifty corrupted cultists and a massive flesh-and-machinery mining creature.
• The ceiling collapsed as Grenadier 19 took cover behind a falling slab, while Number 0 sprinted through the cultists’ fire.
• The cultists concentrated their rotary guns on Number 0, who stopped and moved his hands so quickly that every bullet missed him.

Number 0 and the Grenadiers defeated the cultists and their captain, who transformed into a flesh-and-steel tank. Afterward, Number 0 persuaded Grenadier 19 to bury a fallen comrade and showed the squad how to pry up stone slabs by following red lines he could see.

• Number 0 survived the cultists’ barrage and charged as their depleted fighters were swallowed by the overseer’s living robe.
• The overseer transformed into a flesh tank, but Number 0 deflected its cannon shell and tore open its turret, killing the captain.
• The Grenadiers regrouped and counted two dead, then Grenadier 19 stripped gear from a fallen comrade and Number 0 suggested digging a grave.
• Grenadier 19 agreed to bury the soldier, and Number 0 helped the Grenadiers dig two pits.
• Number 0 taught Grenadier 19 to find and pry up a stone slab, explaining that he could see red lines.

Grenadier 19’s squad rested deep in the tunnels while Number 0 stood watch, and Tzeentch brooded over how Subjective One had disrupted his plans. Tzeentch summoned Rokasna and assigned him a new task connected to Landis Shrine World, offering the disgraced daemon a chance to prove himself.

• Grenadier 19 and the other grenadiers rested and decided to keep advancing without contact from command.
• Number 0 saw no enemies nearby, kept watch, and felt that something was observing him.
• Tzeentch reviewed his failed attempt to keep Subjective One on Landis Shrine World and destroyed his time-reversal device.
• Tzeentch summoned Rokasna, reassured him about his poor record since graduation, and brought up Landis Shrine World.

Rokasna was sent by Principal Tzeentch to the world of Landes with a stack of proposals, while the Archbishop struggled to understand the rebellion and reconsidered his support for the Saint-Adherent Faction. Saint Lakuras appeared to him and began revealing why the Mercy Edict had sparked unrest.

• Principal Tzeentch sent Rokasna through a Warp rift to Landes and privately admitted he was using him to advance sleeper agents and plans.
• The Archbishop recalled discovering the brutal conditions endured by laborers in Meimeiriel Hive and drafting a Mercy Edict to improve their treatment.
• Troubled by the rebellion and the factions around him, the Archbishop began to question whether the Saint-Following Faction was right.
• The relic of Saint Lakuras glowed, and the saint appeared to promise the Archbishop a true revelation about the rebellion.
• Saint Lakuras asked why the rebellion had erupted after the Mercy Edict and beckoned the Archbishop to look, leaving him to realize that they were pieces on a table.

Saint Lakuras showed the Archbishop a vision of workers rising against the church and urged him to suppress them, but the Archbishop recognized the deception and attacked him. The Archbishop vowed to investigate the church’s abuses while confronting the false saint.

• Lakuras showed the Archbishop workers in Memeiriel Hive accusing overseers and priests of exploiting their labor and calling for a strike.
• Lakuras urged the Archbishop to reject the Mercy Edict and crush the workers with blood and fire.
• When the vision shifted to a frightened child, the Archbishop struck Lakuras instead of the child and declared that he was no true saint.
• The Archbishop promised to investigate Priest Lai, tore off his robe, and challenged Lakuras to repent as he prepared to fight.

Rokasna took over Archbishop Rokasna’s body, used the Saint’s scriptures to win the Penitent Legions’ trust, and secretly prepared a rebellion with Changeling demons. As the legions headed for battle, Rokasna planned to turn the fighting into a pincer attack against the Imperium’s forces.

• Lakuras froze the berserk bishop, consumed his soul, and left Rokasna in control of the archbishop’s body.
• Rokasna gathered the church’s senior officials, endorsed the Penitent Legions, and distributed scriptures bearing Saint Lakuras’s teachings.
• After the Saint-Following Faction and other leaders left, Rokasna met Changeling demons who had infiltrated the church and confirmed their readiness to rebel.
• Rokasna ordered the demons to wait for the scriptures to take effect, then attack alongside the Penitent Legions against the Imperium’s forces.
• Rokasna and the demons discussed Priest Lai’s troubles and the upheaval in the Warp, then mourned the closure of Loic the Bartender’s bar.

Number 0 and the grenadiers found Imperial loyalists in the Old Cannon Factory, but a dispute over Krieg protocol led Number 0 to knock his comrades unconscious. After learning how the Chaos-led factory operated, he asked Old John and Mas to help capture the group and get them into an initiation ceremony.

• Number 0 opened the sealed door and met Old John, who explained that the area was the workers' residential quarter of the Old Cannon Factory, controlled by cruel strange lunatics.
• Grenadier 19 tried to execute Old John for failing to resist the invasion, but Number 0 stopped him and knocked down the grenadiers when they attacked.
• Number 0 captured Mas, a young patrolman with an eight-pointed star scar, and learned that the factory's workers were starved, abused, and taken away for mysterious processing.
• Old John and Mas explained that an initiation ceremony—not the carved star—allowed people to join the black-robed group, and Number 0 told them to capture the soldiers as part of his plan.

A mutated black-robed church manager learned that Mas had captured six Krieg soldiers and arranged to recruit him, while his fellow believers brought the prisoners inside. The captors removed the soldiers’ masks and mocked them, including Grenadier 19, before being ordered to hand them over to the higher-ups.

• A black-robed man heard that Mas had captured six Krieg soldiers alive and went to inspect them.
• Mas claimed a star had helped him defeat the soldiers, and the black-robed man offered him church membership and a black robe.
• The black-robed man told the crowd to return to work and ordered his fellow believers to take the prisoners inside.
• The black-robed believers removed the Krieg soldiers’ masks and inspected their faces, then leered at Grenadier 19.
• The black-robed man reading in the room ordered the others to stop tormenting the prisoners and hand them over to the higher-ups.

Number 0 showed the Krieg grenadiers that the Emperor did not demand endless atonement for their ancestors’ betrayal, but wanted them to build a peaceful future after the war. The Emperor sent them back with new purpose, while he and the God-Emperor discussed the risks of changing their outlook and the humanity the Emperor still retained.

• Number 0 freed the grenadiers and challenged their belief that the people they had failed to kill deserved death as sinners.
• Number 0 placed the grenadiers’ hands on his bloodstained Aquila icon, transporting them to a vision of the Emperor.
• The Emperor affirmed that the grenadiers had always been his best soldiers, then told them their true atonement was to live well and build a peaceful world after the war.
• Grenadier 19 asked whether the war would ever end, and the Emperor said Number 0 would help make that possible before sending the grenadiers through a rift.
• The Emperor and the God-Emperor debated whether the revelation would affect the grenadiers in battle and discussed the Emperor’s remaining humanity.

Number 0 and the Grenadiers were taken toward the heretics’ transports after receiving hope and a golden flower from the Emperor. As they were separated for the masters’ plans, a black-robed worker began to realize that the final factory’s completion would consume every last laborer.

• The Grenadier who had argued with Number 0 abandoned death as atonement and chose to live for a new ideal, while Grenadier 19 hid the Emperor’s golden flower over her heart.
• Number 0 and the Grenadiers were chained back onto the cart, where a black-robed man seized Number 0 and raved about past mistreatment before another cultist stopped him.
• The cart passed crowds of laborers being driven toward cargo trucks, while armed giants guarded them and corpses and suffering captives lined the road.
• A superior in an eight-pointed-star robe praised the cultists for capturing the Krieg soldiers and ordered a ritual for the meritorious as the Grenadiers were taken away in iron cages.
• A black-robed worker learned that the final factory was nearly complete and grew terrified as he realized the last collection included men, women, and children; the superior corrected his pledge from “the great cause” to “the Dark Gods.”

Mas was forced to perform a cult ritual, but his compassion for Old John caused him to mutate into a nascent Chaos Spawn. Inquisitor Omar and Laster destroyed the cultists and, after learning the Inquisition headquarters was in danger, returned to the church.

• The black-robed figures returned to find Mas and Old John waiting, and they forced Mas to hold a dagger and prepare to kill Old John.
• Mas refused to stab Old John and transformed into a gigantic ball of flesh, while the dagger-wielding cultist turned on his companions and invoked the Dark Gods.
• Inquisitor Omar and Laster broke into the room, killed the mutated cultists, and Omar shot Mas and Old John to end their suffering.
• Omar and Laster discussed continuing to follow the Saint, but Laster reported that Taro had burned one of his books to warn of trouble at the Inquisition headquarters.
• Omar and Laster used Laster's teleportation coordinate to return to the church.

Taro and Dumb-Dumb were caught in a sudden uprising in Memeiriel Hive when the Ecclesiarchy's Penitent Legion attacked the Inquisition. After Rena's restaurant was destroyed and the loyal forces began to fall, Taro led Dumb-Dumb toward the fighting and tried to reach safety.

• Taro flirted with Rena at her eatery while Dumb-Dumb finished his meal, and Rena sent Dumb-Dumb away with Taro over his shoulder.
• A rocket struck Rena's restaurant, burying her in the ruins as Taro and Dumb-Dumb escaped the blast.
• Taro ordered Dumb-Dumb to fight the armed mob charging them, and Dumb-Dumb's ripper gun tore through the attackers.
• A Tempestus Scions captain told Taro that the Ecclesiarchy's Penitent Legion had rebelled and was attacking the Inquisition hall while communications were jammed.
• Taro ordered the captain to burn Laster's books, but Battle Sisters killed him before he could carry out the order.
• Taro cut his arm, drew the attackers toward himself and Dumb-Dumb, and raced into an alley with the promise of grilled ribs.

As fighting between the Penitent Legion and the Imperial Guard spread through the hive city, Taro and Dumb-Dumb headed through a sewer route toward the Inquisition hall to destroy Laster’s book. Taro reached an air purification station with Dumb-Dumb and prepared to use a krak grenade on its machinery.

• Taro left his hiding place with Dumb-Dumb and tried to lead him into a sewer, but Dumb-Dumb refused until Taro gave him food and later a headlamp.
• Taro disguised himself with an eight-pointed star and approached Penitent Legionnaires attacking a family’s home, but they called him a heretic and charged him.
• Taro killed the squad, gave the family’s twelve-year-old boy his laspistol, and told the mother the hive city had become a battlefield.
• Taro returned to Dumb-Dumb, used the headlamp to coax him into the sewer, and led him through the underground route for nearly an hour.
• Dumb-Dumb tore open a metal plate at the air purification station, and Taro tossed a krak grenade toward the spinning fan below.

Taro and Dumb-Dumb ambushed a Penitent Army transport, seized melta bombs, and blasted their way into the Inquisition fortress. They headed to find Laster, while the chapter ended with the Hive Mind’s impending arrival exposing the grim fate awaiting the Genestealer Cult.

• Taro and Dumb-Dumb escaped the air purification station and saw the Penitent Army purging residents as the Inquisition fortress remained under siege.
• Taro climbed a wall, observed the Penitent Army’s orderly killings, and questioned what drove their behavior.
• Taro used a jammer and an armor-piercing grenade to ambush a Rhino Transport with Dumb-Dumb, then subdued its Battle Sisters.
• Taro found melta bombs and a jump pack in the transport, used the bombs to blast open a firing slit, and flew into the fortress with Dumb-Dumb.
• Taro removed the overheated jump pack from Dumb-Dumb and led him toward Laster’s study for help investigating the unrest.
• The chapter revealed that the Hive Mind was nearing the world and would consume the Genestealer Cultists who had mistaken it for a liberator.