Chapter Summaries

Lin Fan explored a vast mechanical sphere and leaped into an abyss, while The Deceiver manipulated Amalaga, Cypher, and the Dark Angels as part of a scheme. Amalaga ended up imprisoned in crystal and was offered to Kelbor-Hal in exchange for a contract.

• Lin Fan heard a voice ask whether he was afraid, then explored a silver mechanical sphere and jumped into a black abyss.
• The Deceiver took Amalaga from Flayed Ones flesh, placed him in a soulless Aeldari shell, and used the ensuing ritual to draw Cypher and the Fallen Angels into a trap.
• Cypher led the Fallen Angels toward the ritual hall, but The Deceiver imprisoned them before the Dark Angels arrived and attacked them.
• Tzeentch forced Amalaga into a contract, sealed him in crystal, and sent him to the Dark Mechanicum's knowledge-mining site.
• Kelbor-Hal met Tzeentch's Lord of Change, who offered him Amalaga and his technology in exchange for a contract.

Lin Fan entered a battlefield during the Siege of Vraks and learned he had been transported to 814.M41. As Red Scorpions assault warriors attacked him, he subdued one while trying to make sense of how he could return.

• Lin Fan punched through a maze wall and emerged on a battlefield before Vraks Hive City.
• Imperial forces fired on Lin Fan, but he shrugged off their attacks and searched the commissar for information.
• Lin Fan found instructions for the 177th Assault on Vraks and asked the commissar what year it was; the commissar answered 814.M41.
• Three Red Scorpions assault warriors attacked Lin Fan, who knocked one aside and then pinned another to the ground.

Lin Fan attacked Vraks fortress and discovered that white threads appeared in the wounds of beings he killed, leading him to suspect the world was a projection of another timeline. After tearing through Vraks's defenses to search for the Chaos leader, he reached the Cathedral of the Ascension of the Emperor and began drawing a blasphemous formation.

• Lin Fan disarmed two Red Scorpions warriors, noticed white threads in their wounds, and hurled a nuclear bomb at Vraks fortress.
• Lin Fan broke into the fortress and fought through cultists, finding white threads in the wounds of those he killed but not in the corpses of cultists who had blown themselves up.
• Lin Fan questioned cultists for information about their leaders, then punched through a buried tunnel and caught a tracking round fired by a Krieg officer.
• Lin Fan tore apart Vraks's internal defenses in a day while searching for the Chaos leader.
• Lin Fan reached the Cathedral of the Ascension of the Emperor, struck the Bishop of Destruction, took his bucket of blood, and began drawing a blasphemous formation.

Lin Fan summoned a Bloodthirster, fought through the Grey Knights to wound it, and was transported through a white thread to the distant past. He encountered unusually sophisticated Orks who identified themselves as the Ork Empire, and the chapter left him trying to determine when he had arrived.

• Lin Fan completed a summoning ritual, opening a Warp rift that drew a Greater Daemon toward him.
• The Grey Knights arrived and attacked Lin Fan, but he fought past them and charged toward the rift.
• Lin Fan wounded the Bloodthirster with his bayonets, found a massive white thread inside its damaged body, and vanished from the timeline.
• The Grey Knights surrounded the injured Bloodthirster and closed the rift after killing it.
• Lin Fan arrived in a forest, met several well-dressed Orks, and learned they belonged to the Ork Empire.
• The Orks debated how to measure the year, leaving Lin Fan unable to understand their calculations.

Lin Fan learned that the Orks were fighting the Necrontyr across the Kejian Star Cluster and traveled with them to the Kemal Filament Belt. There, the Orks began repairing an expanding hollow and revealed that it had been deliberately created.

• Lin Fan asked the Orks about faster-than-light travel, the Necrontyr, and the state of the war, and they explained how FTL broke the ordinary sequence of events.
• An Ork mapped the conflict, describing Necrontyr void pyramids and extensive destruction across the Kejian Star Cluster and nearby regions.
• The Orks received an order to travel to the Kemal Filament Belt and repair an expanding hollow, and Lin Fan chose to accompany them.
• Lin Fan traveled aboard the Orks' light-operated ship and arrived with them at the hollow.
• An Ork explained that the hollow contained no stars, light, or heat and said it had been made by someone.

Lin Fan was swept through scenes from the War in Heaven, witnessing Bai Huan annihilate the ancient factions and later encountering terrified Necrontyr. He resisted the white lines carrying him between timelines and glimpsed the universe’s civilizations reaching their end.

• The Orks contained the Hollow by bagging it, then vanished along with the surrounding universe and left Lin Fan alone in pure white.
• Lin Fan entered a timeline where the Necrontyr, Aeldari, Orks, and C'tan battled amid ruptures in the ancient Warp.
• Bai Huan appeared and transformed the combatants and their destruction into fireworks, while Lin Fan watched from afar.
• A voice asked Lin Fan whether he was afraid as white lines carried him into another timeline.
• Necrontyr warriors surrounded Lin Fan, and their phaeron panicked when Lin Fan asked how the War in Heaven had ended.
• Lin Fan clawed through the white lines and caught hold of others, stopping his drift long enough to see the universe and its dying civilizations.

Lin Fan witnessed the universe’s destruction and saw how the oldest Tyranids formed from the remains of the Aeldari, Necrontyr, C’tan, and Old Ones before consuming the Milky Way. The Aeldari's Laughing God interrupted his vision and told him to stop thinking as white light swept through the Black Library.

• A green laser destroyed the universe’s central white dot, and the universe contracted until only the Milky Way remained.
• Bai Huan declared that he had defeated the villain and disappeared after a click and a despairing echo.
• Aeldari war arks and Necrontyr pyramids carried the dead C’tan and Old Ones beyond the Milky Way, where their ships and corpses formed a ring that blocked the universe’s white fractures.
• The oldest Tyranids emerged from the remains, filled gaps in the ring, and later followed the light of the Milky Way toward it.
• The Hive Mind spread its tendrils and drew the Milky Way into its mouth.
• The Aeldari's Laughing God entered the damaged Black Library, told Lin Fan to stop thinking, and white light swept over him.

The Silent King ordered the Necrontyr dynasties to impose a new order on the Milky Way and eradicate the Orks, using gene bombs to strip away their dangerous abilities. As the Aeldari Phoenix King warned that the galaxy’s continued collapse would doom them all, Szeras reported that the Orks’ dimensional blockade had slowed the campaign.

• A despairing Phaeron questioned whether the Necrontyr’s vengeance against the C'tan had been worthwhile, and the Silent King ordered him taken away to rest in a grave.
• The Silent King declared that the Necrontyr had to survive, and the dynasties drafted the Universal Emergency Maintenance Pact to address the Ork threat.
• Necrontyr fleets shattered the strongest Ork empires, while technomancers monitored the resulting Milky Way Collapse Coefficient and Szeras developed targeted gene bombs.
• Szeras’s gene bombs stripped Orks of their genes and knowledge of rule-based weaponry, while Deathmarks killed intelligent Orks and the dynasties gathered more corpses for further experiments.
• The Phoenix King confronted Szarekh over the Ork extermination and threatened that the Aeldari would die alongside the Necrontyr if the Milky Way shrank further.
• Szeras told the Silent King that most Orks had lost knowledge of rule-based weapons, but a dimensional blockade was preventing Deathmarks from reaching them; he vowed to finish the task.

The Silent King and Szeras altered the Orks, creating a divided society and the rival gods Gork and Mork to prevent them from uniting. As the Orks degenerated, their final device was activated, but Necrontyr geneticists tampered with the knowledge-bearing spores, leaving them so disgusting that Snotlings were forced to eat them.

• The Silent King modified the gene bomb to divide Ork technology and shrink the Orks into new social forms, but he still considered them a threat.
• Szeras used a gem to create Gork and Mork, whose endless fighting kept the Orks from uniting.
• As their intelligence faded, the Orks activated the Negation Compensation Device and stored their knowledge in spores.
• Necrontyr chronomancers could not stop the device, so their geneticists altered the spores to make them revolting to eat.
• In the degenerated Ork society, a Gretchin whipped Snotlings into digging up the disgusting spores and forced them toward one until a Snotling ate some and passed out.

The Silent King turned the Necrontyr’s attention from the weakened Orks to the Aeldari and the Warp. An old battle report showed Phaeron Inamars’s first clash with the Aeldari, ending with Rotaros killing their last surviving warrior.

• The first Snotling gained knowledge from the spores but was whipped to death by a Gretchin, and the Silent King marked the Necrontyr’s success in weakening the Orks.
• The Silent King began the next contract task, dealing with the Aeldari and the Warp, and went to the Aeldari Pantheon with only his two attendants.
• The Silent King reviewed Phaeron Inamars’s battle against the Aeldari at the Soren Star Cluster, where the Aeldari showed off a powerful Silver Azure Dragon.
• Phaeron Inamars ordered a sudden Gauss bombardment that destroyed the Aeldari fleet and killed its warriors, leaving only the dragon’s master alive.
• The surviving Aeldari charged the Dynasty fleet seeking revenge, but Rotaros swiftly cut off his head on Inamars’s order.

The Silent King and Asuryan separated the Warp from the material universe with the Blackstone Arrays, slowing the Milky Way’s collapse. The Silent King then began the Weapon Lockdown Protocol, binding shattered timelines and ensuring that only the Necrontyr could master faster-than-light travel.

• The Silent King reviewed Aeldari war reports, visited the Pantheon, and asked Asuryan to stop Cain’s slaughter so they could discuss separating the Warp from the material universe.
• Asuryan halted Cain’s attack on the Aeldari and gathered the dead Aeldari souls from the battlefield.
• The Silent King activated the Blackstone Arrays across the Milky Way while Asuryan formed a barrier between the Warp and the material universe.
• The Silent King ordered the Phaerons to proceed to the next phase and announced the Weapon Lockdown Protocol.
• The Silent King directed Necrontyr technomancers to erase or fuse shattered timelines and restrict faster-than-light technology to the Necrontyr.

Lin Fan watched the Observer explain how the Silent King had shaped the past and converged timelines into the third fate line. After leaving the Observer, Lin Fan fell through a breach in White River and saw the Emperor with Malcador around a desert bonfire.

• The Silent King’s contract halted the Milky Way’s collapse, and he departed to keep vigil beyond the galaxy for sixty million years.
• The Observer showed Lin Fan several timelines the Silent King had reversed or converged, then said the present followed the third fate line and that the ninth ending’s prerequisites were complete.
• Lin Fan left the Observer and reflected on the danger of the Subjective One’s power as he drifted through White River.
• Lin Fan fell through a breach in White River and saw the Emperor and Malcador gathered around a bonfire in the desert.
• The Observer appeared again and confirmed that the man beside Malcador was the Emperor.

The Emperor outlined his plan to save humanity with Erda’s children leading a legion, while Malcador and Oerpeson balked at their proposed roles. Later, after the Thunder Warriors rebelled at Mount Ararat, the Emperor ordered their deaths and commemorated them with a flag.

• The Emperor told Erda, Malcador, and Oerpeson that he planned to build a legion led by his and Erda’s children to defend humanity from Chaos.
• Erda explained that ordinary female genomes could not produce viable clones with the Emperor, and Oerpeson’s questions revealed the Emperor’s ignorance of ordinary reproduction.
• The Emperor proposed that Malcador govern and Oerpeson serve as Warmaster, but Oerpeson rejected the title and Malcador said he wanted to enjoy life.
• Valdor explained that he had killed conspirators who prepared chemical-agent bombs, and the Emperor told him to avoid reacting so violently in future.
• A Tupolov Lancers commander warned the Emperor that the Thunder Warriors had rebelled, and the Emperor found them fighting the Old Hundred at Mount Ararat.
• The Emperor ordered Valdor to grant the out-of-control Thunder Warriors rest, then led the army that wiped them out and commemorated them with a flag he had sewn.

The Emperor reflected on Oerpeson and Erda’s departures, the Unification Wars, and the losses at Mount Ararat as he tried to prepare Terra for the Great Crusade. He summoned Malcador for a game of chess and admitted he feared for the Primarchs, wondering where they had landed and whether Chaos had claimed them.

• The Emperor recalled Oerpeson denouncing his methods and leaving, then remembered Erda stealing the Primarchs and disappearing in Africa.
• The Emperor reviewed the Unification Proclamation’s account of the Thunder Warriors’ last battle and studied the casualties at Mount Ararat.
• Valdor reported finding a surviving Thunder Warrior in Bavaria, and the Emperor ordered that he be left alone if he wished to live quietly.
• The Emperor summoned Malcador for chess and confessed that he feared the Primarchs had landed in places where the Four Gods could corrupt them.

The Emperor reunited with several Primarchs and weighed their strengths and risks while managing the Great Crusade. After learning that Magnus's followers were summoning Warp entities, he banned all Warp and psychic research, leaving Magnus resentful and Mortarion pleased.

• The Emperor entrusted the Dark Angels to Lion El'Jonson, considered killing Sanguinius over his wings before granting him authority over Baal, and accepted Roboute Guilliman's pledge and plans for Macragge.
• Perturabo pledged himself to the Emperor and was delighted when the Emperor commissioned a portrait of him, while the Emperor saved Mortarion from a xenos overlord and warned him about his poison-gas gear.
• Jaghatai told the Emperor that Magnus's followers were sealing Warp entities in stone slabs and releasing them in battle, alarming the Emperor.
• At the council, Magnus defended psychic research while Mortarion condemned it, and the Emperor ended their quarrel by forbidding all Warp and psychic research.
• The Emperor noted that Fulgrim was caring for Konrad Curze and dismissed the Primarchs' problems as minor before returning to his work.

The Emperor left the Webway interface after Malcador showed him reports about the Word Bearers’ religious preaching and costly conquests. He arrived to confront Lorgar, who stood beneath a towering ship projection, guilty but composed.

• Malcador warned the Emperor that his isolation at the Golden Throne’s interface was making him withdrawn, and Valdor struggled to answer how long he had been there.
• The Emperor reviewed Malcador’s intelligence and decided to travel after learning the reports about the Word Bearers were true.
• The Word Bearers, led by Lorgar, preached that the Emperor was a god and built temples among the worlds they conquered.
• Imperial officials grew angry that the Word Bearers conquered fewer worlds while demanding extensive supplies and spending resources on religious culture.
• The Emperor arrived in person, and Lorgar waited beneath the projection of a colossal ship.

The Emperor confronted Lorgar over the religious monuments and delays in Perfect City, then ordered Roboute Guilliman and the Ultramarines to destroy it. With the Word Bearers’ Great Crusade progress accelerating afterward, the Emperor looked forward to the nearly completed Webway project.

• The Emperor arrived in Perfect City, raged at Lorgar’s vast religious construction, and ordered him to kneel.
• The Emperor considered explaining the Warp to Lorgar but feared it would only deepen his worship and undermine the Imperial Truth.
• The Emperor ordered Roboute Guilliman and the Ultramarines to destroy Perfect City while forbidding Lorgar and the Word Bearers from resisting.
• Lorgar secretly kept a blue-green stone brick from the ruins, and the Emperor let him keep it.
• The Word Bearers’ Great Crusade advanced rapidly, and the Emperor read Malcador’s report that the Webway was nearly complete.

The Emperor and Malcador imagined a hopeful future while discussing the prophecy that half the Primarchs would betray their father. When Horus rebelled and Magnus shattered the Webway barrier, the Emperor’s forces were overwhelmed by daemons, and Drach'nyen pierced the Emperor before he sealed it inside Endymion.

• Malcador urged the Emperor to prepare for the prophecy, but the Emperor rejected it and described his hopes for humanity and his children.
• The Emperor joked that Malcador could watch their future travels from the throne, then defeated him at chess.
• Magnus shattered the Webway barrier and sent word that Horus had rebelled, leaving the defenders to fight through a flood of daemons.
• Tzeentch mocked the Emperor as the daemon assault overwhelmed Terra’s defenders, and Drach'nyen destroyed several Imperial forces and war machines.
• Drach'nyen pierced the Emperor, who tore it free and sealed it inside Endymion, a Shield-Captain of the Adeptus Custodes.

Lin Fan and the Observer watched Horus’s life as Tzeentch deceived him with visions of the Imperium’s future and persuaded him to rebel against the Emperor. The chapter left Horus on the eve of his assault on Terra, showing signs of madness as he promised his warriors victory.

• The Emperor sent Endymion deeper into the Webway and, after Vulkan installed the Seven Hammers Amulet, used his power to shield Terra from the daemons.
• The Emperor’s grief disrupted the Astronomican, and he struck Slaanesh aside when it taunted him about his tears.
• Lin Fan and the Observer watched Tzeentch convince Horus that the Emperor planned to betray him and purge the Primarchs.
• Tzeentch presented itself and the other Chaos Gods as benevolent gods, and Horus accepted their blessings to free humanity from his father.
• As Horus’s fleet surrounded Terra, Horus addressed his cheering warriors and promised to restore humanity’s glory, while his face showed madness to a Son of Horus.

Horus, suffering from Alzheimer's, mistook the battle on Terra for the Great Crusade and reminisced about his brothers while commanders tried to manage him. As Sanguinius fought Angron, Horus first praised the Angel and then urged Angron to kill him, ending with Angron dead after Sanguinius tore out the Butcher's Nails.

• Agnes told Horus that they were fighting on Holy Terra, and Horus briefly remembered where he was.
• Horus recalled his brothers and called for Remembrancer Oliton, while the commanders aboard his ship ignored Abaddon's request for support.
• Three Nurglings delivered a paper to Horus, who praised his brothers and said he would gladly have Sanguinius become Warmaster.
• Sanguinius seized the Butcher's Nails in Angron's head, and Horus shouted for Angron to kill him.
• Sanguinius tore out the Butcher's Nails, causing Angron's head to burst and killing him temporarily, while Horus remarked that it was a pity.