Chapter Summaries

Fulgrim rebuilt Chemos and took command of the nearly extinguished Emperor’s Children, whose Blight-ridden warriors included the Apothecary Fabius Bile. His pursuit of perfection grew alongside the Legion’s ambitions, and his bond with Ferrus deepened as their shared ideals drew them together.

• Fulgrim improved Chemos’s factories and living conditions, prompting the Emperor to appoint him commander of the Third Legion.
• Fulgrim could not cure the Emperor’s Children’s Blight and had to grant the sick warriors peace to protect future generations.
• Fabius Bile secretly altered geneseed to eliminate Blight, and Fulgrim warned him he would not protect him if the experiment was discovered.
• Fulgrim’s and his sons’ pursuit of perfection intensified, leading them to look down on other Legions.
• Fulgrim formed a profound bond with Ferrus, whose aspirations toward perfection complemented his own.

Fulgrim's perfectionism and growing corruption drove him toward Horus and Chaos, while the bond he once shared with Ferrus collapsed into a deadly duel. The chapter ended with Ferrus moving to kill the wounded Fulgrim, who drew the daemon-haunted Laer Blade.

• Fulgrim and Ferrus exchanged weapons and traded friendly insults, though Fulgrim's sensitivity concealed deep resentment.
• Fulgrim took up the Laer Blade, and his fear over the Blight spreading among his sons and Horus's rebellion pushed him toward Chaos.
• Fulgrim embraced the promise that humanity could achieve perfection through Chaos, and his revelry descended into slaughter as the first Noise Marines gathered at his side.
• During the civil war, Fulgrim urged Ferrus to join him, but Ferrus rejected him and attacked.
• Fulgrim and Ferrus fought with Forgebreaker and Fireblade until both were wounded, and Ferrus drove Fireblade toward Fulgrim's throat.
• Fulgrim drew the daemon-haunted Laer Blade.

Fulgrim relived the grief and madness that followed his killing Ferrus, while Fabius recounted his experiments and the creation of Clone Fulgrim. Clone Fulgrim rejected the original’s betrayal and vowed to remain loyal to his father, while the chapter ended by noting that some xenos could legally live and work in the Imperium.

• Fulgrim killed Ferrus under the Laer Blade’s influence, then sealed his soul away to escape his grief.
• After his soul was recovered, Fulgrim led the Emperor’s Children into Slaanesh’s corruption and repeatedly killed Fabius’s Ferrus clones before demanding more.
• Fabius reflected on the Heresy, his experiments, and his attempts to create new humanity and clone primarchs.
• Fabius created Clone Fulgrim, who declared he would not betray his father or kill his brothers as the original had.
• The chapter noted that xenos could legally conduct business in the Imperium if they had the required certificate, identity brand, and employer’s support.

Lin Fan forced Fulgrim to confront the Emperor’s Children’s corruption and the atrocities committed during the Siege of Terra. Fulgrim relived the moment he chose depravity over helping Perturabo, leaving him overwhelmed by the memory of what he had become.

• Fabius exchanged clone Fulgrim and the Emperor’s Children loyal to him for pure gene-seed from Trazyn.
• Fulgrim accepted the Emperor’s Children’s loyalty, and Lin Fan challenged him to decide what to do about his corrupted sons.
• Jaghatai and Yvraine recognized that Lin Fan was provoking Fulgrim, while Trazyn withdrew from sight to observe.
• Lin Fan reminded Fulgrim of his fallen sons and said that only a bolter round could bring them peace.
• Fulgrim saw the Emperor’s Children’s grotesque corruption and was crushed by regret over their countless victims.
• Fulgrim relived the Siege of Terra and heard himself order the legion to abandon Perturabo’s assault and continue tormenting their captives.

Lin Fan confronted Fulgrim with his responsibility for the Emperor’s Children’s corruption, forcing him to face the ways he resembled the fallen primarch in his memories. Fulgrim began to break down as he feared repeating that bloody path.

• Fulgrim emerged from a memory illusion and faced the kneeling Aiken Nykona and weeping Emperor’s Children.
• Lin Fan asked Jaghatai whether a repentant primarch could return to a Legion he had betrayed, and Jaghatai said betrayal left no road back.
• Lin Fan pressed Jaghatai with a hypothetical about a primarch embracing Chaos while his Legion rebelled, prompting Fulgrim to shout for him to stop.
• Lin Fan blamed Fulgrim for the Emperor’s Children’s corruption and accused him of imposing his pursuit of perfection on them.
• Fulgrim grabbed Lin Fan and demanded to know what he knew, but Lin Fan reminded him of his promises to Fabius and Lucius and his past decisions concerning the Phoenix Guard, his withered children, and the Laer.
• Fulgrim broke down as he recognized that his actions could lead him down the same bloody path as the primarch in his memories.

Fulgrim faced the choice of executing his corrupted Emperor's Children or accepting responsibility for them, and he chose to embrace Aiken Nykona instead. Afterward, Lin Fan and the primarchs discussed finding the original Fulgrim and where they would go once matters were settled.

• Lin Fan taunted Fulgrim about his pursuit of perfection and offered him a bolter to execute the Emperor's Children.
• Fulgrim aimed at Aiken Nykona but dropped the bolter and embraced him, refusing to abandon his sons again.
• Jaghatai welcomed Fulgrim back and left him alone with the sobbing Emperor's Children as Trazyn watched excitedly.
• Lin Fan discussed finding the original Fulgrim and transferring his soul into the clone's body, while Perturabo silently protested with his bolter.
• Jaghatai said he wanted to return to Chogoris, Perturabo insisted on visiting West Fomalhaut, and Fulgrim said he needed to find his sons a home.

Lin Fan led the combined fleet into a vast Necrontyr stronghold, where Perturabo and the others saw the scale of its weapons and military forces. The fleet reached the formations awaiting them, with Phaeron Inamars at their center.

• Lin Fan ordered Tyberos, Nethanev, Hope, and Celes not to fire as the fleet approached the pyramids.
• The fleet entered the concealed passage and traveled through the expanded space inside the pyramids, escorted by Canoptek Scarabs.
• Perturabo judged enormous spider-like Canoptek constructs nearly impossible to defeat with the weapons he knew.
• Lin Fan identified an Eternal Orb, a Great Monument, and an Obelisk, then said the Necrontyr forces they had fought were only militia units.
• Lin Fan vowed to dismantle the Necrontyr if they killed the others, and Trazyn stopped him from saying more.
• The fleet arrived before formations of stone spires, Doomsday Arks, and Night Scythe fighters, where Phaeron Inamars waited.

Lin Fan and his companions attended Phaeron Inamars’s disastrous welcoming banquet, where the Necrontyr’s technology and eccentricities bewildered them. The chapter ended with Lin Fan confronting Szeras and Trazyn about what they had done to the Biel-Tan and Iyanden Aeldari.

• Lin Fan and the others entered the teleportation beam and arrived at Phaeron Inamars’s Blackstone plaza.
• Phaeron Inamars had his Crypteks transport the guests and their fleet to a luxurious banquet, where the food and music bewildered the living visitors.
• Phaeron Inamars gave confused toasts and was surprised to learn that the War in Heaven had already been won.
• Szeras approached Yvraine and proposed an experiment, but Lin Fan suspected that Szeras and Trazyn had mistreated the Aeldari.
• Szeras showed Lin Fan the condition of the Biel-Tan and Iyanden craftworlds.

Lin Fan and Yvraine saw Biel-Tan and Iyanden released from a pocket dimension and confronted the Aeldari leaders about their lost history. At a banquet, Tyk Silver-Eye warned that a vengeful realm threatened everyone, while the chapter left the danger unexplained.

• Lin Fan admired the Craftworlds' design, then described their origins as trading vessels and criticized the pre-Fall Aeldari Empire, embarrassing Yvraine.
• Phaeron Inamars ordered the Craftworlds released beside the Executioner Fleet, and the Craftworld leaders demanded to meet him.
• Phaeron Inamars teleported Tyk Silver-Eye and Maka into the banquet, where Lin Fan recognized Maka and watched her with amusement.
• Tyk Silver-Eye warned that a realm thirsting for revenge was rising and that its threat endangered the Aeldari, Necrontyr, and humans alike.

Emperor Inamars hosted Tyk Silver-Eye and Maka while Trazyn and Szeras concealed their true mission to deal with the Flayed Ones. Outside the banquet, the Alaitoc Craftworld faced Deathmarks targeting them and prepared to unleash the fiend sealed in the Flawless Cube as a possible means of rescuing their kin.

• Emperor Inamars cut off Tyk Silver-Eye, had him and Maka teleported to their seats, and resumed the banquet.
• Trazyn and Szeras told Lin Fan they had come to resolve the Flayed Ones problem, while Yvraine spoke with Tyk Silver-Eye and Maka.
• Rotaros suspected there were others outside the banquet and ordered the Deathmarks to mark their targets for death.
• The Alaitoc Craftworld's Seer Council decided to use their enemy's enemy and began unsealing the Flawless Cube.
• The Alaitoc Autarch ordered the Craftworld's forces to prepare to breach the Executioner Fleet's pyramids and rescue their kin.

Aeldari used the last Flawless Cube seal to unleash Slaanesh’s daemons, but Lin Fan’s presence made the daemons submit to him. The Executioner Dynasty crushed Alaitoc Craftworld’s resistance, and Pharaoh Inamars demanded to know where the seal had come from.

• An Aeldari Farseer sent the final Flawless Cube seal into the Executioner Dynasty fleet, prompting Pharaoh Inamars and the Necrons to react.
• As Slaanesh’s daemons approached, Jaghatai and Perturabo ate the unpleasant banquet meat while Fulgrim prepared the Emperor’s Children for battle.
• The daemons entered the banquet hall, recognized Lin Fan as their master, and bowed to him instead of attacking.
• Pharaoh Inamars ordered Rotaros to capture those responsible for tampering with the seals, while the Deathmarks attacked the Aeldari and the Executioners struck Alaitoc Craftworld with a Soul-Destroying Bomb.
• The Executioner Dynasty defeated Alaitoc’s forces and brought its leaders before Pharaoh Inamars, who seized the Farseer and demanded to know where the seal had come from.

The Seer's cracked crystal released a Flayer Virus that infected the Executioner Fleet, but Lin Fan swallowed its source and the Necrontyr contained the outbreak. After Phaeron Inamars ordered the fleet toward Drazak Tomb World, Lin Fan identified the Dark Watchers as guardians of seven seals created to imprison demons that had traveled into the past.

• The Seer's crystal cracked after she activated one of the seven seals, and its curse began infecting Phaeron Inamars and the ship's systems.
• The Seer was erased by Phaeron Inamars's technological rune, and Lin Fan swallowed the shred of flesh that had carried the virus's source.
• Rotaros attacked the rampaging Tomb Construct with C'tan-shell bayonets, and the Necrontyr exiled it before engineers contained the virus by moving hundreds of thousands of tomb chambers into a star.
• Phaeron Inamars dismissed Yvraine's anger, said the Seer had violated the Dark Covenant, and ordered the Executioner Fleet to advance toward Drazak Tomb World.
• Yvraine recalled Phaeron Hazpukete's warning about a seal rune, and Lin Fan explained that the Dark Watchers guarded seven seals made by the ancient Aeldari and Necrontyr.

Phaeron Inamars explained how the late War in Heaven left the Warp unstable and drove the Necrons and Aeldari to seal invading daemons. Valgull revived Drazak and transported it and the Executioner Fleet into a hidden dimension filled with C’tan remnants.

• Phaeron Inamars condemned the Aeldari for mishandling the seals and explained that Necrons and Aeldari had worked together to contain daemons after the War in Heaven.
• Lin Fan asked about the late War in Heaven, and Inamars described how the damaged Warp allowed daemons to cross time and manifest across the universe.
• The Primarchs reflected on the deaths of the Old Ones and C’tan, and Fulgrim reconsidered his pursuit of perfection.
• Valgull discovered that the flesh imbued with the Flayed Ones’ god’s hatred had vanished and realized his plan had failed to trouble the Executioner Fleet.
• Valgull awakened Drazak, then sent the tomb world and the Executioner Fleet into a hidden dimension filled with dying suns and drifting C’tan remains.

Valgull used Amalaga as bait to draw the Executioner Dynasty’s attention and sent Fabius away with a sealed Chaos artifact. Amalaga arrived in Vect’s fleet and fought off the Incubi, while Valgull discovered a strange purple serpent in a sealed chamber.

• Valgull captured Amalaga and his degraded specimens, then asked Fabius to plant a sealed brass skull marked with Khorne’s symbol.
• Valgull opened a sealed laboratory chamber and found a purple serpent clinging to a living-metal statue resembling Ferrus; he dismissed it as trash and sealed the chamber again.
• Valgull teleported Amalaga and the degraded specimens into Vect’s fleet, where Vect recognized Amalaga as the thief who had caused him losses.
• The Incubi attacked Amalaga with psychic agony devices, but he reassembled the degraded specimens into a weapon-covered wall of flesh that fired on them.
• The Incubi charged through the bombardment, their damaged armor revealing shadow-like bodies that gathered fragments to repair themselves.

Amalaga and Vect faced a Necrontyr fleet led by Phaeron Inamars, while Vect chose to fight the Craftworld Aeldari rather than surrender. The Craftworlds counterattacked, and Inamars gave Yvraine one chance to resolve the conflict; Lin Fan and the others watched as the battle continued.

• Amalaga used his expanding flesh to overpower the Incubi and turn one of their armored bodies against them.
• Vect discovered the approaching Necrontyr fleet, and Amalaga joined him before Phaeron Inamars demanded their surrender.
• Vect rejected surrender, used the Black Muse to direct the Drukhari against the Executioner Fleet, and prepared to escape aboard the war ark.
• Yvraine pleaded for the Aeldari to resolve their own conflict, and Inamars granted her one chance.
• The Drukhari attacked the Craftworld Aeldari, who eventually returned fire, while Inamars surrounded the battle zone and blocked warp jumps.
• Lin Fan, Jaghatai, and Perturabo watched the fighting as Lin Fan kept the hungry Greater Daemons still with a game of Freeze.

Lin Fan explained his alliance with Slaanesh as the primarchs struggled with the Necrontyr’s power and the scale of the Tyranid threat. As the Necrontyr prepared to infiltrate a damaged battle ark, Yvraine sensed a connection to Rogal Dorn within the Wraithbone network.

• Lin Fan used Yilafren to keep the Slaaneshi daemons obedient, then told Fulgrim he had allied with Slaanesh because her needs were easier to satisfy than those of the other Chaos Gods.
• Fulgrim, Perturabo, and Jaghatai were shaken by the Necrontyr’s achievements and history, and Lin Fan told them the Necrontyr would enslave them while studying biotransference if he were absent.
• Lin Fan revealed that the Necrontyr were fighting Tyranids beyond the galaxy and that the swarms entering the Milky Way were only small detachments, deepening the primarchs’ despair.
• Inamars positioned the pyramids and secretly ordered Rotaros to prepare Deathmarks and Doomsday Arks to infiltrate the damaged battle ark once the Aeldari assault faltered.
• Yvraine sensed through the Wraithbone network that Rogal Dorn had disappeared after the rebellion ended, following the deaths or departures of his brothers.

Yvraine heard the ancestors’ account of the Necrontyr’s atrocities as the Aeldari and Necrontyr forces clashed. Vect and Rakarth unleashed The Deceiver, whose actions corrupted the war Craftworld’s Dream Tree and awakened its Phoenix Lord, who discovered the Necrontyr had allied with daemons.

• Yvraine listened to the souls in the Infinity Circuit describe Szeras’s experiments and tried to contact the Drukhari, who cursed her and refused to cooperate.
• Yvraine accepted the Many-Faced’s plan to capture the Drukhari leader, while seers opened portals for warriors from Biel-Tan, Iyanden, and Alaitoc to join the battle.
• Vect burned the map in the Craftworld’s psychic core, marked Rakarth with a Black Muse rune, and sent the corrupted Haemonculi toward the Dream Tree.
• The Deceiver emerged from the map’s ashes, dragged Vect and Amalaga through a rift, redirected attacks onto Aeldari, and escaped after Rotaros was disabled.
• Rakarth’s rune corrupted the Dream Tree, awakening the war Phoenix Lord and his followers, who sensed that the Necrontyr fleet contained daemons and heard Rakarth warn that the pantheon had been destroyed.

The ancient Aeldari Warlord unleashed the war ark’s psychic power against the Necrontyr forces while Tzeentch manipulated the battlefield and sent a trace of despair into Nurgle’s Garden. Isha heard the Warlord’s call, and Nurgle dispatched his daemons to bring her company, spreading disease into the mortal realm as they went.

• The Warlord drew power and ancestral souls from the war ark, then destroyed Rotaros and pulled hidden Deathmarks from another dimension.
• Tzeentch maintained his lattice over the Ghoul Stars, blocked the war ark’s psychic surge, and diverted a trace of despair toward Nurgle’s Garden.
• Isha heard the call of an ancient Aeldari believer, and her tear healed countless living beings.
• Nurgle saw Isha’s grief and sent his children to bring her company, providing a rotten stick and a sauce-covered fruit for their journey.
• Nurgle’s daemons carried the fruit through the veil, spreading disease that afflicted the beings Isha’s tear had healed.

Inamars the Pharaoh sent Lin Fan and the others away from the Necrontyr pyramid while the Nurgle and Slaanesh daemons clashed over Isha’s child. Lin Fan’s group joined the warship, where Perturabo prepared the Space Marines for battle and Hope inspected the Lamenters’ reorganized medical units.

• Inamars the Pharaoh drained the war ark’s psychic energy, assessed the battlefield, and asked Lin Fan to handle the Nurgle daemons while the Necrons dealt with the Aeldari.
• Lin Fan agreed and sent Yilafren ahead as the Slaanesh daemons charged Nurgle’s rotten fruit, where the Plaguebearers fought them over Isha’s child.
• Lin Fan and the others teleported to the warship, and Perturabo called the Lamenters to prepare for battle.
• Hope inspected the Lamenters’ full-strength squads and heard the Apothecary list their many medical companies, including gynecology and pediatrics.
• Jaghatai commanded the Ashen Claws and Carcharodons, while Nethanev laughed at the Carcharodons’ medical establishment and Tyberos remained silent.

Phaeron Inamars isolated the Executioner Dynasty and the Phoenix Lord inside a dimensional mirror, leaving the other fleets and daemons outside. As the Phoenix Lord exhausted his psychic power, Inamars chose to wait and prepare for possible Flayed One and C'tan attacks.

• Phaeron Inamars ordered the battlefield divided so mortals and gods would fight separately, and directed the pyramid warships to reinforce their defenses.
• Necrontyr engineers activated a containment device that created dimensional mirrors around the battlefield, sealing the Executioner Dynasty and the Phoenix Lord inside while isolating the other forces outside.
• Phaeron Inamars recalled the device's use in the War in Heaven and reflected on the history of the Necrontyr, the Aeldari, and the Silent King's Great Sleep plan.
• The Phoenix Lord's psychic attacks continued to devastate the battlefield, but Phaeron Inamars ordered his forces to conserve their weapons and monitor the surrounding dimensions for the Flayed Ones and the C'tan.
• The exhausted Phoenix Lord could no longer reach the Pantheon or draw power from the polluted Warp.