Recaps

Lin Fan told Shadowsun and Farsight that the Terra government had been informed about their situation and that Imperium fleets would not immediately attack them. The T'au continued adapting to Imperium customs as Lin Fan considered the work of governing and rebuilding worlds.

• The Adeptus Custodes gained time to rest after killing many daemons, but found governing and paperwork exhausting.
• Lin Fan woke, ate a plant grown from his drool, and reviewed documents while shrine-shaped drone bees flew nearby.
• Lin Fan surveyed the T'au city and passed XV59 Combined Battlesuits guarding the hall.
• Shadowsun and Farsight dismissed the administrators to speak with Lin Fan, who told them the Terra government had been informed and Imperium fleets would not attack them on sight.
• Shadowsun welcomed the news, reflecting on the Imperium's power and its defenses against daemons.
• Colvin handed Lin Fan a drink.

Lin Fan left the T'au Empire with the 37th Regiment aboard the Flame to find a lost world marked on Trazyn's star chart. After reaching the coordinates in empty space, he took a shuttle to investigate, and it struck an unseen object.

• Shadowsun asked Lin Fan if he needed help before leaving, and he urged her to strengthen defenses against the Tyranids.
• Lin Fan boarded the Flame with the 37th Regiment after the Imperial fleet withdrew from T'au territory, while Captain Vomit Mitt commanded the ship.
• Lin Fan showed the navigator Trazyn's coordinates and insisted the Flame travel to the uncharted lost world.
• After two Warp jumps, the Flame reached the coordinates but found only darkness, so Lin Fan took Delia, Rebecca, and soldiers ahead in a shuttle.
• Rebecca detected a faint trace and slowed the shuttle, which then struck an unseen object with a metallic denting sound.

Lin Fan tore open a barrier that had concealed a star system, and the sudden expansion of space knocked out most of the crew. Delia persuaded Captain Mitter to bring Flame into the newly revealed system, where they found a human colony world and vast mechanical wreckage.

• Rebecca suspected the black plane was a barrier, and Lin Fan punched through and ripped it open while Rebecca sent her core nanite swarm into him.
• The rift opened and space expanded, hurling Flame and the shuttle several light-years away and leaving everyone aboard except Delia unconscious.
• Captain Mitter detected a newly appeared star system and brought the shuttle back aboard Flame while Delia tended to the unconscious crew.
• Delia told Captain Mitter that Rebecca's last transmission identified the system as a former human colony, and he ordered Flame to enter it.
• Flame's scans revealed five planets, one with oceans and basic life, and enormous mechanical wreckage scattered throughout the system.

Owen Hill ruled the isolated planet Accident, where his family and three ancient organizations preserved fragments of the Imperium’s forgotten legacy. After describing the city and its surviving industries, he laid out a plan to defeat the Chaos Gods.

• Owen Hill inherited rule after his father passed down a story about the Emperor, the Imperium, and STC that neither of them understood.
• Owen described the Ascension Church of the Emperor, the Knight Corps, and the Artisans' Guild, each of which preserved ancient customs and equipment.
• Owen surveyed Accident’s walled city, its military, farming, residential, and industrial districts, and the machines that still produced food and weapons.
• Owen proposed legalizing weed to defeat Khorne, adding betrayal reversals to Tzeentch’s plans, promoting universal health consciousness against Nurgle, and thinking unsexy thoughts against Slaanesh.

Owen led an expedition to investigate a fiery object that fell from the sky, hoping it might help his declining city survive its war with monsters. His soldiers reached the impact site and began investigating, while the chapter revealed that Tzeentch had caused the fall.

• Ai Weide reported that Owen's city had twenty-four million residents, about two million fewer than ten years earlier.
• Owen saw a red object fall through the atmosphere and set out with the Imperial Guard and Hughes's knights to investigate it.
• Owen's forces opened the gates and fought off monsters drawn by the alarm, then began their journey toward the impact site.
• Hughes advised Owen to avoid the monster-filled swamp, so the force chose a route through Danma Mine.
• After two days of travel, Owen reached the crater and sent a squad to investigate; the falling object was revealed to be Tzeentch's doing.

Lin Fan and Rebecca emerged from a deep pit and met Owen, lord of the Last City, whose soldiers mistook them for monsters and attacked. After seeing Lin Fan shrug off their weapons, Owen apologized and considered asking him to investigate ancient ruins by the coast, while Rebecca asked for more metal to eat.

• Soldiers found Lin Fan and Rebecca digging in a pit and summoned Lord Owen after learning they claimed to be from the Imperium's Astra Militarum.
• Owen introduced himself as lord of the Last City, and Lin Fan identified himself as Colonel Soap of the 37th Regiment, Kasare Legion.
• Owen ordered his guards to fire, but Lin Fan protected Rebecca and emerged unharmed from the bolts.
• Lin Fan broke a soldier's blade and endured another volley before threatening the guards, prompting Owen to order them to lower their weapons and apologize.
• Owen learned that Lin Fan had killed two waves of scribble-like monsters and considered sending him to investigate the ancient coastal ruins.
• Rebecca told Lin Fan she wanted to eat more metal, and he called her a fat pig.

Lin Fan and Rebecca fought their way through the swamp, where Rebecca’s cannon blast destroyed the graffiti monsters and transformed the terrain. Valkyrie Transports then arrived, exchanged fire with the defenders on the metal wall, and began unloading Imperial soldiers.

• Lin Fan rejected Owen’s suggestion to retreat and drew the swamp’s graffiti monsters toward himself while Rebecca speculated that the planet was an abandoned immersive amusement park.
• Lin Fan charged through the swamp and attracted the monsters, while Rebecca ate Owen’s bolt shells and then fired her hand cannon into the swarm surrounding Lin Fan.
• Rebecca’s blast vaporized the monsters and left a vast crater of dried, vitrified ground, from which Lin Fan emerged unharmed.
• Valkyrie Transports appeared overhead, and soldiers on the metal wall opened fire on them, denting their armored hulls.
• A Valkyrie pilot fired warning shots at the wall, forcing the defenders to take cover, while other transports landed and unloaded Imperial soldiers.

Lin Fan and the Imperium swiftly took control of the planet’s city and began improving its army, farms, and factories. While flying to the coast with Rebecca, Lin Fan encountered a colossal mechanical sea creature that dragged their Valkyrie into the ocean.

• Lin Fan calmed the 37th Regiment soldiers and discussed the Imperium’s rule of the city with Owen as Commissar Cain and Delia arrived.
• Delia forced the factory craftsmen to maintain their aging machines, while Cain took control of the planet’s knightly army.
• Lin Fan left the city with Rebecca, and they observed the changes brought by the Imperium’s soldiers and workers.
• Rebecca detected an enormous hostile presence in the ocean and identified it as a mechanical octopus wrapped in artificial flesh.
• The creature seized the Valkyrie with its tentacles and dragged Lin Fan and Rebecca into the deep sea.

Lin Fan and Rebecca explored a ruined underwater amusement park populated by decaying machines and reenacting fish residents, then followed a foul smell to the Krusty Krab. The chapter left them inside the restaurant after Mr. Krabs rejected Lin Fan’s supply voucher as payment.

• Lin Fan recognized the mechanical Squidward as an amusement-park attraction, and Rebecca explained how Golden Age visitors used breathable liquefied oxygen for underwater leisure.
• Squidward threw the Valkyrie Transport away, mistook Lin Fan and Rebecca for visitors, and retreated into his bloodstained house.
• Lin Fan and Rebecca decided to find the amusement park’s center and disable its malfunctioning program, then walked through the decaying streets of Bikini Bottom.
• Rebecca followed the stench to the Krusty Krab, where Mr. Krabs demanded payment for Lin Fan’s Krabby Patty.
• Lin Fan gave Mr. Krabs an Astra Militarum supply voucher, and Mr. Krabs fell silent before turning away amid crackling sounds.

Lin Fan and Rebecca investigated the kitchen and discovered that the amusement park was actually a prison filled with transformed corpses and hostile creatures. Lin Fan devoured a starfish-like monster that tried to drag him into a two-dimensional world, leaving Rebecca without a specimen to study.

• Rebecca led Lin Fan to the sealed kitchen, where Lin Fan tore open the door and found a regenerating yellow sponge-like creature.
• Rebecca reported that the park was a prison disguised as an amusement park, with the corpses and out-of-control service robots transformed by an unknown force.
• Mr. Krabs's voice prompted the sponge creature to make a Krabby Patty from the corpses, and a starfish-shaped monster appeared.
• The starfish monster attacked Lin Fan with a corrosive stomach sac and released strange lines that began flattening the kitchen into a drawn world.
• Lin Fan resisted the monster's attempt to pull him into another world and devoured it, frustrating Rebecca's effort to study it.

Lin Fan and Rebecca met Oedmeir, a woman rescued from the Two-Dimensional Prison, but Oedmeir immediately attacked them after mistaking them for enemies. She contained Rebecca in a bottle and questioned Lin Fan about whether he was a Finalizer.

• Lin Fan vomited up a two-dimensional outline that transformed into Oedmeir.
• Oedmeir remembered being trapped in the Two-Dimensional Prison and attacked Rebecca, reducing her to silver-gray dust.
• Lin Fan caught Oedmeir's fist, but she detached her arm and began assembling an energy cannon from the floor.
• Oedmeir lowered her weapon after hearing Lin Fan speak normally and explained that Finalizers communicated through distinctive substitutes.
• Oedmeir sucked Rebecca's dust into a bottle and questioned Lin Fan, who denied knowing about Finalizers or elite lunatics.

Lin Fan told Oedmeir that humanity was now in 972.M41, and she began explaining how the Golden Age ended. She traced humanity’s expansion through Warp travel and the STC system, leaving the account at the start of humanity’s encounters with alien empires.

• Lin Fan told Oedmeir about the long history from the Iron Men Rebellion to the Imperium, and she was relieved that the Finalizers had failed to ascend.
• Oedmeir corrected Lin Fan, saying the so-called Iron Men Rebellion had been a War of Ideals between the Finalizers’ corporate alliance and the Conservative Alliance.
• Oedmeir said she had belonged to the Federation Truth Science Department and was its last survivor.
• Oedmeir explained that Warp engines enabled rapid human expansion but also helped bring about the Human Federation’s collapse.
• Oedmeir described how Men of Stone first colonized worlds, then how Warp travel and STC templates let humanity spread and establish thriving planets.
• Oedmeir recounted humanity’s bloody encounters with alien empires, Orks, and Aeldari.

Oedmeir explained how the Finalizers corrupted the Human Federation and pursued godhood by tormenting and devouring life. Lin Fan realized their ritual could create a Warp god, but Oedmeir did not know whether the Finalizers had succeeded after she was imprisoned.

• Oedmeir described how the Finalizers seized power, enslaved other species, and drove the galaxy into war.
• Oedmeir said the Finalizers believed the universe was flawed and sought to ascend as gods through a ritual recorded on a Blackstone tablet.
• Lin Fan recognized the ritual as resembling the C'tan's Red Harvest and concluded that the Finalizers might instead have created a Warp god.
• Lin Fan asked what happened to the Finalizers, and Oedmeir said she had been banished into a two-dimensional prison before she learned their fate.
• Lin Fan told Oedmeir that Kadur was dead.

Lin Fan learned how the Finalizers rose to power and how Dukhaka may have allied with an ancient entity, while Oedmeir explained her escape from the Men of Iron. After Lin Fan ate the prison’s contained entity, the prison began self-destructing, leaving them to race for its control center.

• Lin Fan pieced together how scientists became the Human Federation’s rulers and transformed into the Finalizers, using technology and robots to pursue ascension rather than ordinary power.
• Lin Fan questioned Oedmeir about the Men of Iron’s division, and she recalled Dukhaka leading the refugees to Mars and making a contract with something that turned their pursuers into allies.
• Oedmeir said Dukhaka had insisted they seize the Ascension Throne to keep humanity from perishing in the transaction, but she did not know whether the entity was the Void Dragon.
• The prison began shaking after Lin Fan admitted he had eaten its contained entity, and Oedmeir realized the prison was self-destructing.
• Oedmeir led Lin Fan toward the control center to deactivate the disintegration device.

Oedmeir and Lin Fan reached the ancient sphere beneath the Bikini Bottom Theme Park, where Oedmeir stopped its dissolution protocol and ended the planet’s collapse. Oedmeir then explained that the Ascension Throne could create a god, leading Lin Fan to connect it to the Golden Throne and the God-Emperor.

• Oedmeir carried Lin Fan underground with Rebecca, who transformed into a drilling vehicle to take them through the metal layers beneath the park.
• Oedmeir wrote on a piece of her skin and placed it on the sphere, which recognized her as Chief Administrator and began a dissolution protocol.
• Oedmeir halted the protocol, causing the sealed creations beneath Holy Terra to vanish and the planet’s tremors and collapse to stop.
• Oedmeir destroyed the ruined amusement park and asked Lin Fan about the missing artificial servant constructs; he told her they had arrived five thousand years earlier.
• Oedmeir explained that the Ascension Throne aboard the Golden Ark could gather the souls of the tortured and help the Finalizers ascend to godhood.
• Lin Fan realized the Ascension Throne resembled the Golden Throne and considered how it might have shaped the God-Emperor’s ascension and humanity’s psychic awakening.

Lin Fan explained the history behind Malcador’s bargains and the Imperium’s founding to Oedmeir, then told her about the Imperium’s present condition. Oedmeir accepted that humanity had survived, though she remained devastated, as they traveled toward the Last City in Rebecca’s new Valkyrie form.

• Lin Fan pieced together how Malcador’s deals with the Void Dragon and Tzeentch helped humanity survive, and how he later founded the Imperium with The Emperor.
• Oedmeir asked about Earth and her friends, and Lin Fan explained that Earth had become Holy Terra and described the Imperium’s terrible state.
• Oedmeir suppressed her anger, said the Imperium was still better than the Finalizers’ territory, and told Rebecca to drive.
• Rebecca revealed her new transformation ability and changed into a Valkyrie Transport with a duplicate of herself in the cockpit.
• Rebecca carried Lin Fan and Oedmeir toward the Last City past ground cracks, collapsed buildings, and Imperium soldiers aiding disaster victims.

Lin Fan and his forces rescued survivors after an earthquake, then began planning a new city and rebuilding the planet’s industry. The meeting ended with Delia and Oedmeir concealing their connection from Commissar Cain, who fell asleep before he could question them further.

• Lin Fan helped Krieg soldiers clear rubble and rescue residents while Oedmeir used a cube to make debris float and open air gaps around those trapped.
• The Imperium’s forces suppressed looters and rioters as the city was cleared over the following week.
• At a meeting with the planet’s administrators, Lin Fan announced plans to build a new city and said Oedmeir would create new production lines.
• Owen agreed to cooperate with the rebuilding, and the administrators left with their assignments.
• Commissar Cain questioned Delia about Oedmeir, but Delia knocked him unconscious and thanked her sister for drawing attention away from her.
• Delia and Oedmeir went to the industrial district to dismantle useful components.

Lin Fan and Oedmeir clashed over the Imperium’s use of servitors, so he brought her into the Warp to meet The Emperor. There, Oedmeir faced the God-Emperor amid a tense pause in his battle with Khorne.

• Lin Fan oversaw construction of a new city, while Delia introduced crude construction machines and Oedmeir helped improve Rebecca’s research efficiency.
• Oedmeir confronted Lin Fan over servitors, accusing the Imperium of acting like the criminal enterprises and demanding to know why he expected her help.
• Lin Fan admitted that they had already created a god and called The Emperor so Oedmeir could meet him.
• The Emperor brought Lin Fan and Oedmeir into the Warp, where Khorne’s attempted ambush was stopped by a shield and Slaanesh rebuked him.
• Khorne halted his attack, and the God-Emperor ordered the Legion of the Damned to prepare while Oedmeir stared at him.

The Emperor spoke with Oedmeir, who recognized him as a former student of her father, Professor Ers, and questioned his history and nature. Oedmeir began to reveal what her father had written about Sheldon, leaving The Emperor waiting to hear the rest.

• The God-Emperor focused on the name written on Oedmeir’s pen, and Oedmeir mocked his greeting as the Legion of the Damned reacted angrily.
• The Emperor took control and asked Oedmeir whether she was related to Ers, then recalled studying under her father at Federal Truth University.
• Oedmeir questioned why the Immortal Order had no record of The Emperor, and he explained that he had kept a low profile and might have disappeared before the Order formed.
• Lin Fan snickered at The Emperor’s claim of keeping a low profile, prompting The Emperor to threaten him with Tzeentch’s muttering.
• Oedmeir said her father’s diary had recorded one student by name, Sheldon, and The Emperor eagerly asked what her father had written about him.

Lin Fan explained the Emperor’s limited technological education to Oedmeir while the Emperor and Slaanesh fought Khorne. Tzeentch’s intervention awakened a message from Kadur in Oedmeir, directing her to seek the Golden Ark, and Khorne left to attack Tzeentch’s Crystal Labyrinth.

• Lin Fan explained that the Emperor had received only an early Human Federation education and could not reproduce the later era’s advanced technology.
• The Emperor told Oedmeir that Slaanesh had been born from devouring the Aeldari Empire and that Khorne came from ancient wars.
• Khorne charged the group, and Slaanesh fought him until the Emperor joined the battle with his Golden Fire Sword.
• Tzeentch appeared and directed his many eyes at Oedmeir, causing Kadur’s voice to tell her to honor the contract and seek the Golden Ark.
• Lin Fan shook and slapped Oedmeir until she awoke, and she concealed Kadur’s message while agreeing to accept their current path.
• Khorne threw an axe at Tzeentch’s domain, then left with his army to attack the Crystal Labyrinth.

Lin Fan learned that Oedmeir’s personal Gellar Field could shield her from the Warp, but it depended on scarce Blackstone and could harm ordinary humans at full power. He considered testing whether Gellar Fields could support more efficient Imperial production, and asked Oedmeir how long people could endure them.

• After Khorne departed, the God-Emperor returned to his throne, and Lin Fan and Oedmeir were sent back to the office.
• Lin Fan offered Oedmeir a holy relic, but she demonstrated that her personal Gellar Field could protect her from Warp interference.
• Oedmeir explained that Gellar Fields and Warp engines were developed using Blackstone, whose vibrations could either strengthen the barrier between reality and the Warp or open a breach.
• Lin Fan realized that activating Blackstone’s Spirit-Repelling Death Domain across the Imperium would cripple souls, psykers, communications, and Warp travel, leaving humanity vulnerable to other threats.
• Lin Fan considered improving Imperial production and administration with more efficient technology, then asked Oedmeir how long ordinary people could withstand a personal Gellar Field.

Lin Fan and Oedmeir tested how different people endured the output of Oedmeir’s personal Gellar Field, finding that a former Battle Sister resisted it better than the others. Lin Fan planned to use the field to protect production sites, then began investigating the Battle Sisters’ resistance and the Gellar Iron Plague.

• Oedmeir tested volunteers at 55% Gellar Field output, and the ordinary resident, Astra Militarum soldier, and servitor collapsed while the former Battle Sister remained conscious.
• At 75% output, the volunteers lost consciousness within three or four hours, while the former Battle Sister began showing discomfort.
• Oedmeir raised the field to maximum for fifteen seconds, leaving nearly everyone in the testing area incapacitated and the former Battle Sister barely able to remain conscious.
• Lin Fan concluded that Gellar Fields could protect rear-line factories, with Battle Sisters serving as security, but noted that full output could also kill workers who failed to evacuate.
• Lin Fan began explaining his theory about the Battle Sisters’ resistance to Oedmeir and raised the Imperium’s Gellar Iron Plague, which was controlled by Nurgle.

Lin Fan explained his theories about the Veil and faith to Oedmeir, who tested the Emperor’s protection and inspected the Imperium’s Warp engine. After altering the Mechanicus priests’ implants and erasing their memories of her work, Oedmeir left with Delia, though one priest noticed he could no longer hear the engine.

• Lin Fan explained that Gellar Fields and Blackstone obelisks repaired the Veil and suggested that faith could shield believers from the Warp.
• Oedmeir tested Battle Sisters and devout Astra Militarum troops, finding that the sisters endured Warp exposure longer.
• Delia brought Oedmeir to inspect the Warp engine aboard the Flame, where Oedmeir immobilized the Mechanicus priests and opened the engine’s casing.
• Oedmeir rearranged the engine’s cables, then used nanobots to replace the priests’ crude implants and erase their memories of the past hour.
• Oedmeir and Delia departed after the priests awoke, but one priest realized he could no longer hear the sacred engine’s voice.

Oedmeir repaired the Warp engine and inspected the ship’s Gellar Field, discovering that its unreliable design made Blackstone ore essential. She returned to Lin Fan and asked for help finding Blackstone and redesigning warships, while Lin Fan contacted Trazyn.

• Oedmeir secretly repaired the Warp engine with nanites, and the Adeptus Mechanicus priests celebrated its familiar hum as the machine spirit’s approval.
• Oedmeir asked Priest Delia to show her the Gellar Field and observed the sailors and religious halls aboard the ship.
• Oedmeir inspected the simplified Gellar Field and concluded that its unstable design could let demons infiltrate the new industrial zone unless they found Blackstone ore.
• Oedmeir told Lin Fan they needed Blackstone ore and redesigned warships, and he agreed to ask old friends for help while she sought Rebecca and Delia.
• Lin Fan contacted Trazyn using the metal disk around his neck.

Lin Fan asked Trazyn for Blackstone to build a Gellar Field for an advanced production line, and Trazyn arranged access to an Enko Dynasty mining site in exchange for three favors. Before Trazyn could leave, Lin Fan stopped him to ask about Doctor Odessus and two of his colleagues, Oedmeir and Ers.

• Lin Fan asked Trazyn to recommend a source of Blackstone, and Trazyn appeared beside him and explained that the barrier around the system likely came from a containment object on Terra.
• Trazyn grew tense when Lin Fan asked why he needed Blackstone, but learned that Lin Fan wanted to build a Gellar Field around a production line.
• The Silent King directed Trazyn to give Lin Fan coordinates to the Enko Dynasty's Blackstone mining site, and Trazyn required Lin Fan to help him find collectibles three times in return.
• Trazyn entered the mining site's coordinates into Lin Fan's Blackstone disk and prepared to leave through a hyperdimensional portal.
• Lin Fan closed Trazyn's portal, pressed him back into his chair, and asked whether he knew Oedmeir and Ers from his time as Doctor Odessus.