Chapter Summaries

Fulgrim brought Konrad Curze a copy of My Little Pony Season Two and introduced him to Celestine, whose radiant wings brought Curze’s grief over Sanguinius to the surface. Curze broke down in Fulgrim’s arms as Fulgrim reaffirmed his love and vowed to atone for his past.

• Fulgrim visited Curze in his dark room and insisted on opening the windows despite Curze’s protests.
• Fulgrim showed Curze the My Little Pony Season Two tape and said he had brought a friend.
• Celestine entered, and Curze mocked her faith before she revealed her radiant white wings.
• Curze saw Celestine’s wings, recalled Sanguinius refusing to kill him, and reached toward her before retreating in fear.
• Curze struggled in Fulgrim’s embrace and accused him of betraying Ferrus Manus, while Fulgrim said he would spend his life atoning.

Konrad Curze watched My Little Pony while Celestine waited nearby, and he complained that The Emperor was biased. Months later, Uriel Ventris joined the Lamenters’ construction work on Biel-Tan and discovered the satisfaction of building alongside mortals and T’au.

• Fulgrim left Konrad Curze and Celestine together, and Curze let Celestine stay while he watched the second season of My Little Pony.
• Curze told Celestine to sit farther away, then muttered that The Emperor was biased as she settled in the corner.
• Months later, Uriel Ventris observed the rapid construction on Biel-Tan, where allied troops and the Big Canteen Diplomatic Support Group were stationed.
• Dexus, captain of the Lamenters’ 185th Engineering Company, invited Ventris and his Ultramarines to help build and handed him an impact drill.
• Ventris joined the Lamenters’ engineers, learned to mix plascrete cement, and experienced large-scale construction alongside mortals and T’au.

On the eve of the 13th Black Crusade, Abaddon asked Carlos what could make the campaign fail and learned that Roboute Guilliman was the chief threat. Abaddon rallied his forces and sent Khayon toward the heart of the Imperium, while Khayon prepared to speak with the Vengeful Spirit's machine spirit, his sister Izara.

• Abaddon asked Carlos what would cause the 13th Black Crusade to fail, and Carlos named Roboute Guilliman.
• Abaddon reviewed the assembled Black Legion and remembered how Khayon had fought beside him through earlier battles.
• Abaddon introduced the campaign's forces, noticed that Lucius, Khârn, and Warsmith Krom Gatt were absent, and ordered someone to check on Gatt.
• Khayon told Abaddon he would go to the heart of the Imperium and bring the enemy news of its defeat.
• Khayon entered the Vengeful Spirit's core and called to his sister Izara, who answered with steam and crackling electricity.

Khayon visited his sister Izara, now a memory core aboard the Vengeful Spirit, and tried to help her hold on to her memories and identity. Izara remembered the ghost wolf Gyre and missed her, while Khayon reflected on her loneliness and the brutal conditions aboard the ship.

• Khayon checked on Izara, whose body and consciousness had been altered to serve as the Vengeful Spirit’s memory core.
• Khayon asked Izara whether she remembered Gyre, Mekari, Jharek, and Nefertari, and Izara recalled Gyre as a curious ghost wolf.
• Izara said she missed Gyre, and Khayon recognized how isolated his sister had become after Carl Bohar separated her consciousness from the secondary brains.
• Khayon recalled the difficult journey through the Terranok to visit Izara and the ship’s decaying, disease-ridden slums.
• Khayon considered how the Warp’s harsh conditions created a rigid hierarchy aboard the Vengeful Spirit and how he would eventually raid for more laborers.

Khayon reflected on the losses and punishments that shaped his life before telling Izara that Gyre was gone and explaining what had become of Mekari and Jharek. He remembered Abaddon killing Horus’s clone and left with the knowledge that his Thousand Sons brothers survived only as dust-bound fragments of memory.

• Khayon told Izara that Gyre had been banished into the Warp and that he could no longer sense her, so he considered her lost for good.
• Izara asked about Mekari and Jharek, and Khayon recalled how the Rubric curse had reduced the Thousand Sons to dust within their armor.
• Khayon thought over the Thousand Sons’ choices, the Space Wolves’ attack on Prospero, and the punishments each had suffered.
• Khayon remembered Horus’s clone recognizing Abaddon as his son before Abaddon killed him and said, “I am not thy son.”
• Khayon recalled that Jharek’s memories repeated the white flames that erased the Legion, while Mekari responded only with a rigid stare.

Khayon recalled Mekari's sacrifice and explained to Izara that Nefertari had been killed by Zarakynel but kept alive through his psychic power. He remembered Nefertari's devotion to him and the secret he had kept from her.

• Mekari had rammed Horus's clone and fired at him, saving Khayon at the cost of her life.
• Khayon told Izara that Mekari and the others had been freed, then confirmed that Nefertari had also died.
• Khayon explained that Nefertari had survived only because he continuously sustained her dying body with psychic power.
• Khayon remembered Abaddon warning that Nefertari had died long ago and that Khayon was refusing to let her rest.
• Khayon recalled how Nefertari had cared for him during his months of painful rituals, bringing him water and tending to his body.

Khayon remembered Nefertari’s place among his companions, her need to feed on souls, and the arguments and unlikely friendship she shared with the World Eater Leo. He recalled how she trained Leo’s sergeant Ulivan and how he once disguised her elaborate insults as an apology.

• Nefertari cared for the weakened Khayon, while Izara asked about Nefertari’s true Aeldari name and Khayon blamed her kin for her fading.
• Khayon recalled that Nefertari and Gyre fed on souls aboard ships, sometimes targeting Space Marines, and that Leo strongly disliked her.
• Khayon remembered Nefertari dueling Leo’s sergeant Ulivan, who questioned the line between enhancement and surrendering to the desire to kill.
• Nefertari and Leo argued, and she forced him onto his hands and knees before Khayon.
• When Leo asked what Nefertari had said in Aeldari, Khayon falsely told him she was sorry for hitting him and later claimed he had condensed her words.

Khayon told Izara how Nefertari was tortured and died after he found her in Commorragh, then explained why he joined Abaddon and what the Black Legion’s brotherhood and purpose meant to him. He left Izara with his account of the Legion’s past and its pursuit of a future beyond the legacy of their fathers.

• Izara asked Khayon about the people he had seen, and he admitted that his friends had seemed real.
• Khayon recalled how Abaddon helped him attack Commorragh to rescue Nefertari and described finding her mutilated in a collapsed spire.
• Khayon explained that Nefertari’s kin sent her to the Haemonculi, where she was tortured until she eventually died after her curse faded.
• Khayon told Izara that he followed Abaddon not out of debt, but because Abaddon gave them a goal and a chance to become brothers again.
• Khayon described how the Imperium and the traitor Legions forgot one another, while the Legions fought over survival in the Eye of Terror.

Khayon remembered the Black Legion’s beginnings and explained how the Traitor Legions’ old hopes had collapsed. He left Izara to travel to Terra, while Nefertari warned him that his loneliness would destroy him.

• Khayon recalled the early Black Legion and the devastation that had fractured the Traitor Legions.
• Khayon told Izara that Abaddon had sent him to Terra to proclaim the Imperium’s inevitable defeat.
• Izara angrily argued that Khayon could not succeed where Horus had failed, but Khayon insisted he had to follow his destiny.
• Khayon embraced Izara’s crate wall, exchanged farewells with her, and left without looking back.
• Nefertari called Khayon cruel and warned that his loneliness would leave him without meaning or hope for the future.

Khayon hallucinated Nefertari being taken from him and chased after her through the fortress, where he encountered Telemachon Lyr. Telemachon’s obsession with Nefertari provoked Khayon, who seized him with psychic power.

• Khayon denied being lonely, but Nefertari taunted him about losing his companions and then vanished as hooks dragged her away.
• Khayon ran after Nefertari through the fortress and accidentally crushed several people, losing her trail.
• Telemachon Lyr caught up with Khayon and realized he was seeing an illusion of Nefertari.
• Telemachon moved closer and told Khayon to let go, but Khayon seized him by the throat with telekinesis.
• Telemachon claimed Nefertari had desired him too, and Khayon called him an idiot.

Khayon subdued Taremarus, then left the Black Legion’s base to head for Terra, while Carlos reported that events were proceeding according to Tzeentch’s plan. The Chaos Gods discussed the war’s progress as Tzeentch’s subtle influence helped shape the Imperium’s failing bureaucracy and spread rebellion.

• Khayon unleashed his fury on Taremarus with psychic lightning, then withdrew his power after Abaddon ordered them to stop fighting.
• Khayon left for his ship and ordered it to depart the Black Legion’s base for Terra, while Carlos reported to Tzeentch that everything was proceeding according to plan.
• Tzeentch, Khorne, and Nurgle met in a hidden place and discussed their alliance and the war’s effects.
• Nurgle’s Plague Claw drew the Imperial Navy into a conflict with Typhus’s fleet, but Wodhaus’s warning prevented the planned ambush from causing devastating Imperial losses.
• Tzeentch used Imperial doctrine, bureaucratic failures, and widespread hardship to incite discontent and undermine the Imperium.

Tzeentch, Nurgle, and Khorne exploited the Imperium’s disorganized bureaucracy and the Plague of Unbelief to prepare for war. Inquisitor Vissi and Kaiser Whitefang met again on plague-ravaged Karkuo Agri World, where internal collapse had left the Imperium’s granary overrun by the dead.

• Tzeentch used the Imperium’s tangled institutions and contradictory orders to undermine its defenses, while his followers stirred unrest and helped Nurgle spread plague.
• The Imperium formed the Funerary Order to confront Nurgle’s outbreaks, but Nurgle insisted that the plague could not be broken.
• Tzeentch showed Khorne Abaddon’s war plan, and Khorne reviewed it without commenting on its strategy.
• Kaiser Whitefang welcomed Inquisitor Vissi, who had joined the Funerary Order, as they fought walking corpses on Karkuo Agri World.
• The chapter described how Karkuo Agri World’s expanded army, monoculture, and past internal sabotage left the densely populated planet vulnerable to the plague.

Inquisitor Viss, Kaiser Whitefang, and their allies fought through the plague zombie hordes to reach the Filth Brewing Pool, the source of Kakuo’s corruption. They found Plague Space Marines guarding it, and one began cursing Kaiser as the group faced the final obstacle.

• Viss reflected that stopping the ritual could let the Imperium restore Kakuo as an agricultural world, though it would likely be stripped bare afterward.
• Long Fangs held back the zombies while Kaiser detected millions closing in, and Kor'sarro Khan led the White Scars in strikes against the psychic corpse drivers.
• Wodhaus unleashed Fenris’s Winter, freezing the ground and zombies so the group could advance through the corrupted terrain.
• Kaiser’s group reached the Filth Brewing Pool and saw seven pillars of fused people pouring green liquid into it.
• A squad of Plague Space Marines guarded the pool, and a scythe-wielding Plague warrior cursed Kaiser Whitefang.

Wodhaus disrupted Gegula’s fly-summoning spell, but Gegula answered with a devastating sphere of filth that threatened the Space Wolves and Battle Sisters. Bennett injected Wodhaus with a vial of blood, leaving Wodhaus prepared to face the descending spell.

• Wodhaus sensed eggshells in the brewing pool and warned Kaiser Whitefang that Gegula’s forces might have Reflection Warriors.
• Gegula summoned a cloud of flies to shield his plague warriors, but Wodhaus froze the spell’s pathways and killed the summoned insects.
• The Long Fangs’ and Battle Sisters’ bolt fire struck two exposed plague warriors as Gegula questioned Wodhaus about his psychic skill.
• Gegula cast a powerful sphere of filth that began rusting nearby armor, while plague warriors drove Kaiser Whitefang and the Blood Claws back.
• Bennett struck a plague warrior with his hammer, then fired a blood vial into Wodhaus to restore his strength.

Wodhaus stripped the Nurgle spells from the Orb of Filth while enduring their corruption with the help of Bennett’s vial of blood, leaving Gegula’s force unable to win. Gegula ordered a retreat as the battle turned against him, and Kaiser Whitefang realized the sorcerer had been weakened while Wodhaus remained unharmed.

• Wodhaus endured the Orb of Filth’s diseases, using Bennett’s vial of blood to restore his body as he removed its spells.
• Gegula watched the Orb shrink and realized Wodhaus was unaffected, while the White Scars approached the battlefield.
• Gegula rang the coded retreat signal and ordered his warriors to continue toward the sacred number seven.
• Kaiser Whitefang fought a plague warrior, seized an opening when the warrior looked back, and narrowly avoided a counterattack.
• The plague warrior saw Gegula weakened and exhausted while Wodhaus stood in good condition, and understood why Gegula had ordered the retreat.

Gegula unleashed Degraded Ones from the brewing pool, turning the battle against the Space Wolves and Battle Sisters as Wodhaus drew on Nurgle’s power. Gegula remembered how Grandfather’s warriors had chosen him as a child, and his story ended with the villagers asking whether they would kill him.

• Gegula smashed a lotus pod against a plague zombie, and venomous flies stirred the brewing pool’s images into a rusted corridor.
• Gegula entered the pool and awakened more than five hundred Degraded Ones, who emerged uncorrupted and opened fire on the Space Wolves and Battle Sisters.
• Wodhaus drew on Nurgle’s Warp energy to perform a powerful spell while Inquisitor Vissi watched, and Gegula looked to him with hope.
• Gegula recalled his childhood in a plague-stricken village, where he alone remained healthy while his family and neighbors fell ill.
• Six ancient warriors arrived and told the villagers that Grandfather had chosen Gegula, demanding the untouched child in return for their blessings.
• The villagers asked the warriors whether they intended to kill Gegula.

Wodhaus defeated Gegula and the degenerate forms, then cleansed the Brewing Pool and sealed its power inside a beast fang. The plague was temporarily lifted, but walking corpses remained on the planet for the Imperial forces to handle.

• Gegula mistook Wodhaus for someone chosen by Grandfather and urged him to become the seventh, but Wodhaus summoned burning avatars of fallen Space Wolves to attack the degenerate forms.
• Wodhaus crushed Gegula with telekinetic force, and Gegula and the Plague Warriors sank into the Brewing Pool and vanished.
• Wodhaus used a life potion to summon lightning and destroy the remaining degenerate forms, then purified the pool with a bloodied beast fang.
• Bennett sealed the green beast fang in a rune-engraved case, and Inquisitor Vissi planned to request Battle Sisters to guard the pool.
• Kor'sarro Khan and Kaiser Whitefang traded jokes about their stench as Kor'sarro left to gather the walking corpses for bombardment.

Kaiser Whitefang hosted Kor'sarro Khan and the other guests aboard the Frostheart while their fleet prepared to travel to its next mission. The banquet began with playful teasing between the Space Wolves and White Scars, and Kor'sarro Khan lifted the cover on his tray.

• The fleet finished its operations at Karkuo Agri World and waited for its Warp engines to charge before a short jump to the next mission site.
• The Dark Angels, led by Sammael, joined the Karkuo operation after deploying their drop pods, though Wodhaus suspected they had come searching for something.
• The Space Wolves, White Scars, Inquisitor Vissi, and Canoness Gevisiting gathered in the Frostheart's great hall for a banquet hosted by Kaiser Whitefang.
• Kor'sarro Khan noticed the Space Wolves' decorated Chapter serfs and reassured one who served him.
• Kaiser Whitefang teased Kor'sarro Khan about their previous meal together, and Kor'sarro Khan rose briefly to accept the Space Wolves' cheers.
• Wodhaus pressed Kaiser Whitefang back into his seat and announced the banquet's start, while Kor'sarro Khan accepted his apology and gripped the cover over his tray.

Kor'sarro Khan joined Kaiser Whitefang's feast, where Wodhaus discussed the Reflection Warriors and the threat they posed in the 13th Black Crusade. Afterward, Kor'sarro asked about the Dark Angels and revealed that their fortress-monastery had entered the Cadian Sector.

• Kor'sarro Khan examined and enjoyed the Space Wolves' meal, while Kaiser Whitefang prepared to address the gathered warriors before Wodhaus stopped him.
• Wodhaus warned that Typhus's forces had deployed Reflection Warriors and that more might appear in the 13th Black Crusade; Kaiser Whitefang and the Space Wolves vowed to defeat them.
• After the feast, Kor'sarro Khan privately asked Kaiser Whitefang, Wodhaus, and Inquisitor Vissi about the Dark Angels' movements.
• Inquisitor Vissi said the Inquisition knew little about the secretive Dark Angels, and Kaiser Whitefang recalled that they had once abandoned the Masaill Crusade fleet without explanation.
• Kor'sarro Khan revealed that the Dark Angels had brought their fortress-monastery into the Cadian Sector.

Sammael and Kor'sarro Khan rode to draw plague zombies away from the ritual site, but an encrypted message revealed that the Fallen Angels had fled. Sammael abandoned the charge to pursue them, leaving Kor'sarro Khan charging into the horde.

• Sammael confirmed that Ravenwing had secured Granary No. 15 and eliminated nearby corpse-driving sorcerers.
• Kor'sarro Khan questioned Sammael's role in the war, then received word from Wodhaus that the plague ritual's center had been found and needed its surrounding zombies drawn away.
• Kor'sarro Khan challenged Sammael to join the great hunt, and Sammael agreed to charge the zombie horde with him.
• Sammael ordered Ravenwing to attack at full speed, but an encrypted message told him the Fallen Angels had fled and had to be pursued.
• Sammael fell behind as Kor'sarro Khan and his warriors plunged into the horde, and Kor'sarro Khan turned back in confusion.